History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 30

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 30

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Prout does demand thirteen pounds more due to him." Another record shows that Mr. Prout's claim was satisfied : " Disbursed for Mr. Oakes' transportation from Old England with his family 73l." Mr. Oakes was ordained to the ministry here, November 8, 1671. The expenses of the ordination are worth mentioning for the light they throw on the customs of the times:

£ s. d.

It. 3 busbels of wheate . 0 15 0

It. 2 bushels 12 of malt 0 10 0

It. 4 gallons of wine . 0 18 0

It. for beefe 1 10 0

] It. for mutton 4

It. for 301 of butter 0 15

It. for foules 14

It. for sugar, spice and fruite and other siuall things 0

It. for labour

It. for washing tbo table lining

6 0

It. for woode 7s 0 7

It. suit 716, 3d .; bread 64. 090

9 17 3

£ s. d.

Gathered by contribution of the church the Saboth before the ordination for the sayde occasion 4 7 1 And the remainder of the charge was defrayed out of the week-

ly contributions 5 10 2

9 17 3

In 1673, Mr. Oakes preached the annual election sermon, in which he declared himself heartily "for all due moderation." "Many a man hath a good heart and affections uuder the bad conduct and ill steeridge of a very weak head. Nevertheless I must adde (as I have great reason) that I look upon an unbounded toleration as the first born of all abominations." He reminded his hearers that New England "is originally a plantation not for trade but for religion." Mr. Oakes was elected a fellow of the college soon after his ordination. After the death of Mr. Chauncy, Leonard Hoar, a clergyman and physician, was chosen president of the college, He was the first graduate to be placed in this exalted position, which has since always been filled by a graduate. President Hoar had not been in office long before trouble came to him. The account of them does not belong in this narration. But the man "who was last year highly courted to accept the place, was now by some wished out of it again." There soon came to be "uncomfortable notices and debates." The students took a strong dislike to the president, and did what they could to annoy and injure him. Cotton Mather says, they "turned cudweeds and set themselves to travestie whatever he did and said." "I can scarcely tell how," but he fell " under the displeasure of some that made a figure in the neighborhood. In a day of temptation which was now upon them, several very good men did unhappily countenance the ungoverned youths in their ungovernableness." Mr. Oakes was closely connected with college affairs, but his relations to the president are not clearly defined. In 1673, with Thomas Shepard and two others, he resigned his seat in the corporation. He was re-elected, but did not

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

accept the appointment till March 15, 1675, the day on which President Hoar resigned. Mr. Oakes suffered much at the time of these difficulties in the college. "Mr. Oakes hath had a distemper hang upon him, which hath much weakened him, the greatest occasion of which is, I think, some exercise of mind." Governor Lovett adds that Mr. Oakes "thinks it is the remayne of his sickness long agoe in England. I have been afraid lest he may be of noe long continuance with us, but a graine of hopes that he may get over it." Mr. Oakes was asked to accept the presidency of the college. This he declined to do. He was asked to accept the office pro tempore. " In answer thereto he declared a deep sense of his unfitness for the work; yet, considering the present exigency the society was now in and con- fiding in the overseers seasonably to endeavor the settling a fit person for that work, manifesting his willingness to accept of that place for a time, God enabling by health and strength, and so far as his church consented." The Legislature "ordered an allowance of one hundred pounds in money by the year." In October, 1675, the General Court thanked him for his care and pains, and desired him "to con- tinue his labors as President of the said College, which hath been, by the blessing of God, of so great advantage." "He did the services of a President even as he did all other services, faithfully, learnedly, in- defatigably." In February, 1679-80, he was again unanimously chosen president by the fellows, and the House of Representatives voted that "for the better encouragement of himself and also of the church for providing help for carrying on that work. which hereby he may be in part diverted from, or need assistance, this Court doth order that fifty pounds per annum, in country pay, be allowed the Reverend Mr. Oakes, in the considerations aforesaid, over and above the hundred pounds in money already settled, provided he accept the presidentship." He finally consented to this persistent appeal and was inaugurated on Commencement Day, 1680. He was not to serve the college much longer. He had been long subject to a quartan ague, and "was at last seized with a malignant fever." " When he had lain sick about a day or two, his church coming together with ex- pectation to have the Lord's Supper on the Lord's Day administered unto them, to their horror found the pangs of death seizing their pastor, that should have broken to them the bread of life." The end came on the 25th of July, 1681, in the tenth year of his ministry here and in the fiftieth year of his age. He was borne to his grave in the ancient God's Acre. The memorial slab which marked the grave has been taken away for some ignoble use, but another stone, with an elaborate inscription in Latin, has supplied its place. There is one memento of his burial in an entry in the college books, where are "charges of £16 16s. 6d. for scarfs and gloves, and

£8 14s. for twelve rings at Mr. Oakes' funeral." Increase Mather's testimony may stand for many which could be given: " It may, without reflection upon any, be truly said, that he was one of the greatest lights that ever shone in this part of the world, or that is ever like to arise in this horizon."

Mr. Oakes' ministry fell in disturbed times. Not only was the college iu a disorganized state, but the Colony itself was in peril. The reading of Dr. Palfrey's " History of New England " will recall the continuous events which kept the whole community excited and alarmed. It was a day when every man who loved New England and believed in its liberty and loyalty was forced to do his best thinking. The men of Cambridge were not lacking in this. It is a part of the civil history, but it is a part of the ecclesiastical history also. The encroachments of the British government upon the privileges of the charter were unceasing A few months after Oakes' death the King declared his resolution to have the charter, with all its powers, " legally evicted and made void." In 1684 a decree was passed vacating the charter. "Massachusetts, as a body politic was no more. The elaborate fabric, that had been fifty- four years in building, was leveled with the dust." We have only to read of these things to know what ministers and people were saying and doing in those days which tried their souls.

There was much excitement, too, through the re- newed activity of the Anabaptists and Quakers. Rev. Samuel Danforth, in a letter to his brother Thomas, in 1670, writes : "The truth is, matters are so circum- stanced that a man can hardly come into any company and enter into any discourse, but before he is aware he finds himself in the like fan and sieve as that wherein Satan winnowed Peter in the high priest's hall." The views and teachings of Mr. Oakes on the limits of toleration have been already given. In June, 1671, just before the arrival of Mr. Oakes from England, the freemen of Cambridge presented to the General Court a long memorial, in which they recited their afflictions because of Quakers, Anabaptists and Familists, and petitioned "that the laws here estab- lished against the wicked practices of these obstinate offenders may be fully executed, all discontentments that may tend to give any discouragements thereto notwithstanding."

The witchicraft delusion, which had its centre in Salem and thence spread widely, was at a period later than that we are reviewing. There was trouble from this cause here, as in other places. A woman "crazed, distracted and broken in mind " was imprisoned on suspicion, but was acquitted when tried. A woman named Kendal was accused and put to death through false witness. But as early as 1659 there had been trouble here. The widow Winifred Holman and her daughter, Mary, who lived where the Botanic Garden now is, were accused by her opposite neighbor, John Gibson, and his wife and son and daughter. A war-

CAMBRIDGE.

rant was issued for the arrest of the Holmans, but there is no account of their trial, and it is probable that no indictment could be found against them. But they were not content with this termination of the matter, and they brought suit against their accusers for defamation and slander. The church came to their help. Deacons John Bridge and Gregory Stone and others certified that Winifred Holman was well known to them, and that she "is diligent in her call- ing, and frequents public preaching and gives diligent attention thereunto." Judgment was given against the mother, but the daughter sustained her case against John Gibson, Jr., and he was required to ac- knowledge that he had "wronged and scandalously slandered her," or else to pay her five pounds. He chose to make the acknowledgment and to have her forgiveness of his trespass. Those who wish to read the mass of wearisome testimony are referred to Dr. Paige's " History of Cambridge."

As we pass from the third minister of the church we may set at the line of transition a portion of the elegy which he composed in memory of one whom he describes as "that reverent, learned, eminently pious, and singularly accomplished divine, my ever- honored brother, Mr. Thomas Shepard, the late faith- ful and worthy teacher of the Church of Christ, at Charlestown, in New England :

"Oh ! that I were a poet now in grain ! How would I invocate the muses all To deign their presence, lend their flowing vein, And help to grace dear Shepard's funeral ! How would I paint our griefs, and succors borrow From art and fancy, to limn out our sorrow !

Cambridge groans under this so heavy cross, And sympathizes with her sister dear- Renews her grief afresh for her old loss Of her own Shepard, and drops many a tear- Cambridge and Charlestown now joint mourners are, And this tremendous loss between them share."

It has seemed best to make this narrative of the early history of Cambridge somewhat full, because it is the beginning of a long course of events, and the remoteness of the time gives a special interest to all which is connected with it. From this point the record must be more general. But for nearly eighty years longer the ecclesiastical history of Cambridge is the history of one church and is, therefore, in good measure, the property of all the churches which have gathered around it.

In the old church-book good Deacon Cooper places this among "severall providencis of God to the church of Cambrigd :" "Mr. Oakes, our pastor, being chosen to be president of the college about a year before his death, it pleased the Lord to guide our church to give Mr. Nathaniel Gookin a call to be helpful in the ministry in order to call him to office in time convenient, which some time after our pastor's death our church did give him a call to the office of pastor which call he did accept of and was ordained pastor of our church November 15, 1682. Also, there were ordained the same day two Ruling Elders of our

church, namely, Deacon John Stone and Mr. Jonas Clarke, to the office of Ruling Elders."

The account of the ordination expenses resembles that which has been given in the case of a former minister. It includes: "Provision for 80 persons. For burnt wine, sugar, brandy before dinner. Wine for the messengers in the morning; for cakes and rosewater, loaf sugar and spice, butter and pork." The total cost was £13 14s. 2d. The Rev. Nathaniel Gookin was a son of Major-General Daniel Gookin, the associate of the Apostle Eliot in his labors for the Indians, and a man distinguished for his integrity and benevolence. The son was born in Cambridge, October 22, 1656. He graduated in 1675. He was, therefore, twenty-six years old when he was ordained. Less is known of him than of the other ministers of the church. The records of his time are very incom- plete. It is strong testimony to his ability and char- acter that he was called to be the associate of Presi- dent Oakes, and was afterwards placed over the church. Judge Sewall gives an account of the ordi- nation : "Mr. Sherman ordains Mr. Nath. Gookin pastor of Camb. Church. Mr. Eliot gives the right hand of fellowship, first reading the Scripture that warrants it. Mr. Sherman, Eliot and Mather laid on hands. Then Mr. Gookin ordained Deac. Stone and Mr. Clarke Ruling Elders. The presence of God seemed to be with his people. Mr. Jona. Danforth, the Deputy Governor's only son, lay by the wall, having departed on Monday morning (13th) of a consumption."

Mr. Gookin married Hannah, the daughter of Ha- bijah Savage, who was the grandson of the noted Ann Hutchinson. Mr. Gookin was a fellow of Har- vard College. His son and grandson were succes- sively ministers of Hampton, N. H., and were highly commended for their worth and work. Of the latter it is said that he was " both ways descended from those who have been stars of the first magnitude."

There are not many traces of the ministry of our Mr. Gookin. There is an account of the money paid him from time to time for his services. The amounts vary, being sometimes less than a pound, at other times ten pounds or more. There is a record of the contributions on the Sabbath. The sum collected in this way was usually about one pound. Of the pas- tor's salary about fifty pounds appears to have been collected in the church. It is interesting to notice the care which was taken of the poor. Contributions for their relief-and frequently for a single person- were made on the Sabbath. We have the careful record of the sums raised and the uses to which they were applied. There were collections occasionally for the redemption of captives. At one period "the scholars" made their contribution, which was en- tered by itself and appropriated, according to their wish, for the benefit of the minister. The students' contribution is only found, however, in the interval after Mr. Gookin's death. These items are signifi-

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

cant. Contributions were taken in 1683 for Joseph Green, in 1684 for Moses Eyers, in 1685 for Thomas Gould, who were in " Turkey slavery." In 1686 there was a collection for poor Frenchmen who had come here for shelter, and in 1692 for "York captives with the Indians." In 1686 seven pounds were given to John Parker, at the " Village," whose house had been burned. Another contribution was for the relief of Widow Crackbone and her son, "her being dis- tracted." In 1689 Widow Arrington and her family, "they being under the afflicting hand of God, her sons were taken away by death, and her daughter and a grandchild." The sum in cash was £6 18s. The sum in common pay was £1 2s. 6d.

In 1680 statistical returns were made by a commit- tee in response to an order of the General Court,-121 families were reported, and 169 ratable polls, or males sixteen years of age. The annual allowance to the pastor is given as £51 in money ; in goods and provisions £78 13s .; "Sum is £129 13s. Od., with his dwelling in the house built for the ministry, with four acres of land adjoining thereunto; also about twenty loads of wood annually carried to his house." That was for Mr. Oakes. In June, 1680, it was voted to give Mr. Gookin £100 for that year and to pay the remainder to Mr. Oakes. June 28, 1680, it was "Voted and agreed that five hundred acres of the remote lands, lying between Oburne, Concord and our head-line, shall be laid out for the use and benefit of the minis- try of this town and place, and to remain to that use forever." In 1682 the "Farmers" who were living in what is now Lexington complained that they were. too far from the church, the nearest of them being five miles distant, and petitioned the General Court that they might be set off as a'separate parish. Cam- bridge made opposition and the petition was refused. It was made again in 1684, and yet again in 1691, when it was granted, and the " Farmers " were allowed " to provide for themselves a person that may be meet and able to dispense unto them the word of God." A separate service was soon established, but it was not till 1696 that a church was formed and a minister ordained.

Nothing of marked importance seems to have been done in the town during Mr. Gookin's pastorate. Mr. Mitchel was still kindly remembered, for in 1687 a grant of ten pounds was made to " Mistress Mitchel." The corporation of the college in 1691 appropriated five pounds toward the repairing of the meeting- house, "provided that this present allowance shall not be drawn into a precedent for the future, and that the selectmen shall renounce all expectation of such a thing for the future." But if things werequiet in the town there was enough abroad to engross the minds of the people, for in this time James II. ascended the throne and entered on his troubled and bloody reign, to be thrust down and driven out when William and Mary assumed the crown at the hands of the people, and brought in a new cra, with new liberties

for these Colonies. The "Glorious Revolution " must have stirred the subjects of the English throne who were 3000 miles away, and must have entered into the thanksgiving and the preaching and talking along the streets, and in the church and the home. In 1689 the new sovereigns were proclaimed in Boston with much ceremony. Doubtless Cambridge was there, bearing its part in all which was done. Then fol- lowed the war with the French and Indians, in which the Cambridge people shared the common burden and peril. In Massachusetts, in connection with the expedition against Canada, in 1690, the first paper money was issued by the Colonies. It was a curi- osity which the students and towns-people must have seen and talked about.

Meanwhile the minister's work went on. In a small, oblong, leather-covered book, now the property of the Shepard Historical Society, and having in it the names of Joseph Baxter, of the class of 1693, and Benjamin Collman, of the class of 1692, afterwards the first min- ister of the Brattle Street Church in Boston, are re- ports of sermons preached by Mr. Gookin in 1690, when these young men were in college. Occasionally there is the report of a sermon by some other preacher. The sermons were on thoughtful, vigorous themes, and we may believe were worthy of the preacher and his hearers. In doctrine they were in accord with the faith of the churches. Mr. Gookin seems to have attended closely to his personal work, and not to have been diverted from it by public affairs.

At length we come upon this entry in the old book : " Mr. Nathaniel Gookin, our pastor, departed this life 7th day of August, 1692, being the Sabbath day at night, about nine or ten o'clock at night." It must, however, have been the 14th of August that the end came. The record was made some time after the event, and continues : "Elder Clark departed this life 14th January, 1699 or 1700, being the Sabbath day. Our pastor Mr. Nathaniel Gookin's wife, Hannah, died 14th day of May, 1702, and was buried 16th day of May at the town's charge." Her grave is in the old burying-ground and is plainly marked ; the grave of Mr. Gookin is not now marked, but a monument by the side of his wife's, from which the inscription has crumbled away, is supposed to cover the spot where the fourth minister of the Cambridge Church was buried. In the November after his death, at a public meeting of the inhabitants of the town, it was voted that "the selectmen should make a money-rate to pay the expenses and defray the charges, which amounted to about £18 in money, of our Pastor Gookin's funeral charges."

We close the record of this brief life with entries in Judge Sewall's diary-" Monday, August 15, Mr. Joseph Eliot comes in and tells me the amazing news of the Revd. Mr. Nathaniel Gookin's being dead ; 'tis even as sudden to me as Mr. Oakes' death. He was one of our best Ministers, and one of the best friends I had left.

CAMBRIDGE.

" August 16, 1692. I went to the Fast at Roxbury and from thence to the Funeral of Mr. Gookin. Mr. Mather, Allen, Morton, Willard, Bayly, Hobart, Bearers. Has left a Widow, a Son and Daughter."

After the death of Mr. Gookin the pulpit was filled by various preachers. We have a long list of their names, with the amount paid to each. Among the names are Mr. Mather and Mr. Brattle. The amount paid for a single sermon was ten shillings ; for a whole day's service one pound was the regular stipend. The gifts of the students seem to have been added to the amount granted by the people. There is a pleasant record which tells us that during this interval Mr. Increase Mather preached much, and gave his pay to Mrs. Hannah Gookin, widow. She was also paid for entertaining the ministers who preached at this time. The Rev. Increase Mather was unanimously invited to assume the pastoral care of the church; but the people among whom he had labored for thirty-six years were not willing to release him, and this, with other obstacles to his removal, led him to decline the proposal. But it is a sign of the importance and standing of the church, that it dared look so high for a minister, and call a man of Mr. Mather's promi- nence.

After the office had been vacant for four years, the Rev. William Brattle was invited to become the min- ister of the church, and he accepted the call. He had supplied the pulpit after Mr. Gookin's death and he was ordained as the minister November 25, 1696. He was thirty-four years old and came of a wealthy and prominent family. He graduated in 1680, and was afterwards tutor and fellow in the college. He was one of the first to be made Bachelors of Divinity. In 1688-89, he was in Europe with his friend Samuel Sewall, who wished to be with Mr. Mather, who was seeking to advance the interests of the Colony, which was without a charter or a settled government. Judge Sewall's diary has records of the visit : " February 7th. Mr. Brattle showed me Gresham College, by Mr. Dubois his kindness and cost.

" February 11th. Mr. Brattle and I went to Covent Garden and heard a Consort of Musick.

" July 8th. Went with Mr. Brattle and swam in the Thames, went off from the Temple Stairs, and had a wherry to wait on us. I think it hath been healthful and refreshing to me."

The church records are complete from the time of Mr. Brattle's accession. He made an entry of the day when he " succeeded the Rev. Mr. Nathaniel Gookin, and was ordained a minister of Jesus Christ and a pastor to the flock at Cambridge, November 25, 1696, per the Rev. Mr. Inc. Mather. The Rev. Mr. Morton, Mr. Allen and Mr. Willard laid on hands. The Rev. Mr. Sam1 Willard gave the right hand of fellow- ship. Deus sit gloria, Amen." He preached his own ordination sermon from the words, "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." A sermon was preached on the same occasion by Mr.

Mather from Revelation i. 16: "And he had in his right hand seven stars." Mr. Brattle's independence was shown in his refusal to have an elder, who was a layman, join in the laying on of hands. The charges of the ordination are entered as about £20. There was "laid out about the repairing of the ministerial house for Mr. Brattle £10 188 8ª." The salary of the minister had been fixed after Mr. Gookin's death, when the town voted " to give to the next minister that the church and town shall settle among them ninety pounds per annum, in money, so long as he shall carry on the work of the ministry in Cambridge." In 1712-13 it was " voted, that the sum of ten pounds per annum be added to the salary of the ministry in this part of the town, instead of the annual custom of carting of wood; so that the said salary is an hundred pound per annum." But the custom of carting wood to the parsonage was not entirely abandoned at that time. There are long lists of the donors of wood. In 1697 Mr. Brattle received twenty-two loads, and he usually received more than that till the custom was changed. There are also accounts of wood for which he paid. There is in 1697 a long list of donations headed : "Sent in since November 3d, the day that I was married." The list extended through more than a year, and is composed of articles for his table, with the names of the givers and the value of their gifts. The beginning is in this way :

"Goody Gove, 1 pd. Fresh Butter, Sd .; Mrs. Bord- man, I pd. Fr. Butter, 8ª .; Doct. Oliver a live Pork, 23 .; Sarah Ferguson, I pig, I8. 9ª." The Cutter Gene- alogy has a list of gifts to Mr. Brattle, in '97, in- cluding from Mrs. Amsdel a " rib-spair of pork."

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 30

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034