History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 39

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 39

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Railroad and Winsor Street. On March 8, 1873, the Rev. John O'Brien was assigned to the parish from Concord, Massachusetts, and he at once set about erecting the new Church of the Sacred Heart at the corner of Sixth and Otis Streets. July 23, 1873, the site was secured; October 4, 1874, the corner stone was laid; November 12, 1876, divine service was first held, and January 28, 1883, the building was ded- icated. This is the largest and handsomest Catholic Church in the city, of 75 × 150 feet dimensions, built in the decorated Gothic style, of blue slate with granite trimmings. The nave is 65 feet high and the spire 180. It has seating capacity for 1800, and con- tains a beautiful and artistic Gothic altar, which was especially modeled and carved by eminent sculptors in London, England, of white Caen stone. It is fifty feet high, and contains four groups or representations from the life of our Saviour sculptured in nearly human size. Father O'Brien is still the pastor in charge of the parish, assisted by three curates. The parish has 7000 souls.

The old Church of St. John, on Fourth Street, has been abandoned for church services, the congregation being removed to the new Church of the Sacred Heart. The old building is, however, still owned and used by the parish for meetings, etc., and the parish still goes by the name of that of St. John.

THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH.2-In 1816 several young men in Harvard College became interested in the interpretation of the Bible contained in the works of Emanuel Swedenborg. The view of God as threefold in essential Divinity, Divine Humanity and Providential Grace, seemed to them more in accord with Scripture and reason than either the tri-personal or the humanitarian views then prevalent. To this were added the convictions that the Divine Word contained a spiritual as well as a historical meaning, that the judgment was the end of the first period of Christianity rather than a cosmical convul- sion, that there is a spiritual world related to the material world as the soul to the body, and that the promised Second Advent is to be understood of the Lord as the'spirit of Truth and of the opening of the Word to men.

These persons, including Thomas Worcester, The- ophilus Parsons, John H. Wilkins, Sampson Reed and others, joined with others in Boston in forming a society of the New Church in 1818, which then had twelve members and had, in 1888, 624 members. Several societies had been formed from it, in Roxbury Dorchester, Brookline, Newton and Waltham, but no movement was made in Cambridge in a direct way till 1888, when services were held in a hall in Har- vard Square, by Rev. James Reed, pastor of the Bos- ton Society. These services had continued to be held Sunday afternoons for some months when it was decided by the managers of the Theological School of

2 Communicated.

1 Communicated.

CAMBRIDGE.

the New Church to remove it to Cambridge from its temporary quarters in Boston. The estate at the corner of Quincy and Kirkland Streets was pur- chased, a chapel for temporary use was provided in the house standing upon the property and formerly the residence of President Sparks, and the services were transferred thither.

The officers of the school are as follows: Corpora- tion : Wm. Albert Mason, judge of Superior Court of Massachusetts, president ; Henry F. May, A.M., clerk ; E. A. Whiston, M.D., treasurer, and fourteen directors. Faculty : Rev. Johu Worcester, president and Professor of Theology; Rev. S. F. Dike, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History ; Rev. T. O. Paine, LL.D., and Rev. J. E. Warren, Professors of Bible Languages ; Rev. T. F. Wright, A.M., Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Care.

Mr. Wright (Harvard College, class of 1866) is the only member of the faculty in residence, as the school is small, having but seven students in attendance. He conducts service in the chapel on Sunday morn- ing and afternoon, and has a congregation of about 100 persons. A fund for building a chapel has been opened.

No formal society has yet been instituted, but the affairs are in the hands of a committee consisting of Charles Harris, Thaddeus W. Harris, Charles H. Taft, Ciarence H. Blake and Charles R. Shaw. A Sunday-school is held after morning service. A lending library of New Church books is in use, and a museum of Bible objects is in process of collection.

CAMBRIDGE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIA- TION.1-The Cambridge Young Men's Christian Association was organized Sept. 6, 1883, with eighty- four charter members. The object of the organization was to create a society of men, so organized as to seek in its work the development of young men morally, physically, intellectually and socially. The membership was opened to all men of good moral character, the voting and office-holding power being confined to the active membership, the conditions of this active membership being that all men so enrolled should he members of some evangelical church.

Ever since its organization the association has proved itself to be a valuable addition to the benevo- lent societies of the city. Its work has been of in- estimable value as an economic safeguard to the young men of Cambridge.

At the end of its first year the public-spirited business men, recognizing the value of the work, pledged money sufficient to purchase the beautiful and well-located building at Central Square ; $50,- 000 has been expended on the property.

The following gentlemen have filled the important offices of the association : Presidents, Warren Sauger, E. D. Leavitt, O. H. Durrell; General Secretaries, L. W. Messer, W. A. Magee and A. H. Whitford.

The present membership is 600. A junior depart- ment of 225 members and a woman's auxiliary of 700. gives a total membership of 1525 in all branches of work.

The association is a public institution. The build- ing, open every day in the year, welcomes young men to helpful influences. The work has proved itself of peculiar value as an auxiliary to the churches of the city.

THE EAST END MISSION has been incorporated by the State, and is now conducting a Union Sunday- school in the Lower Port. It is proposed to purchase or erect a building in that part of the city, where religious services may be held, and a general work maintained by means of a reading-room, a library and other social appointments. The work will, in many respects, resemble that of the Social Union in Old Cambridge.

CHAPTER IV.

CAMBRIDGE-(Continued).

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.2

BY WILLIAM R. THAYER.

I. CORPORATE AND MATERIAL GROWTH.

ON Thursday, September 8, 1636, the General Court first assembled which, in the Course of its pro- ceedings on October 28th, passed the following resolution :- " The court agree to give Four Hundred . Pounds toward a School or College, whereof Two Hundred Pounds shall be paid the next year, and Two Hundred Pounds when the work is finished, and the next Court to appoint where and what build- ing." The next year it appointed twelve of the most eminent meu in the Colony "to take order for a college at Newtown ; " among these are the names of Winthrop, the Governor; Shepard, Cotton and Wil- son, among the clergy ; aud Stoughton and Dudley, among the laymen. The name of Newtown was soon changed to Cambridge, as a mark of affection for the English town at whose university many of the colonists had been educated. This was the official beginning of the College, but little had yet been done when, in 1638, the Reverend John Harvard, a young dissenting minister, who having taken his degree at Emanuel College, Cambridge, in 1637, came to the Colony and settled at Charlestown,3 died, and

2 In compiling this sketch 1 have been under great obligation to Quincy's History of Harvard University, 2 vols., 1840; to The Harvard Book, 2 vols., 1874 ; to College Words and Customs, 1850; and to a valu- able series of articles by the late Prof. Jacquinot in the Revue interna- tionale de l'Enseignement, Paris, 1881-84.

3 In 1828 a monnment was erected by the alumni over John Harvard's grave at Charlestown. Iu 1883 a bronze statue, by French, was given to the College by S. J. Bridge, and erected in the Delta, west of Memo- rial Hall.

1 Communicated.

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

bequeathed one-half of his property and his entire library to the School at Newtown. His estate amounted to £779 17s. 2d., of which the College received nearly £400; his library contained 260 vol- umes, chiefly theological and classical. Out of grati- tude for this munificence, the Court, in March, 1639, bestowed Harvard's name on the seminary. The example of the young founder stirred the generosity of the colonists ; the magistrates gave to the library books to the value of £200; individual gifts of £20 or £30 followed; and persons of smaller means, but of equal public spirit, contributed accord- ing to their substance. "We read," says Peirce, " of a number of sheep bequeathed by one man, of a quantity of cotton worth nine shillings presented by another, of a pewter flagon worth ten shillings.by a third, of a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver-tipt jug, one great salt, and one small trencher-salt by others ; and of presents or legacies, amounting severally to five shillings, one pound, two pounds, etc." 1

The choice of Cambridge as the site of the College has had a deep effect upon its character. In early times, when access to Boston could be had only through Charlestown and theuce by ferry, or by a roundabout way through Roxbury, the isolation of the College was almost complete: in our own day, when Boston can be reached in twenty minutes from Harvard Square, the College has the advantage of being near a large city, while at the same time Cambridge has retained many of the desirable features of a university town.

The first building devoted to the uses of the "School" was put up by Nathaniel Eaton in 1637, somewhere near the present site of Wadsworth House. Eaton enclosed about an acre ofland with a high paling, set out thirty apple-trees, and, according to Governor Winthrop, had " many scholars, the sons of gentlemen and others of best note in the country." Nathaniel Briscoe, "a gentleman born," assisted Eaton as usher ; but the "School" did not long thrive. Briscoe complained of having received "two hundred stripes about the head," the scholars complained of had food and harsh treatment, and in September, 1639, Eaton was dismissed and fined by the General Court. Mr. Samuel Shepard was next designated to superintend the building and funds, which he did until the arrival in the Colony of the Rev. Henry Dunster, a man whose reputation for learning had preceded him, and who was immediately offered the position of Presi- dent of Harvard Co lege. With Dunster's appointment, in 1640, the unbroken history of Harvard begins. The following carly description of the institution is from a work published in London in 1643: "The edifice is very fair and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall, where they daily meet at the Commons, Lectures, Exercises, and a large library with some books to it, the gifts of divers of

our friends ; their chambers and studies also fitted for and possessed by the students, and all other rooms of office necessary and convenient ; and by the side of the College a fair Grammar School for the training up of young scholars and fitting them for academical learning, that still as they are judged ripe they may be received into the College." 2

Under Dunster, "a learned, conscionable and industrious man," the College prospered so rapidly, that, in 1642, it held its first Commencement, and that same year (Sept. 8) the General Court passed an " Act Establishing the Overseers of Harvard Col- lege." This Act, the first relating to the goverment of the institution, deserves to be quoted, as showing the theocratical ideal of the Colonists. It runs as follows :

" Whereas, through the good hand of God upon us, there is a College founded in Cambridge, in the County of Middlesex, called HARVARD COLLEGE, for the encouragement whereof this Court has.given the sum of four hundred pounds, and also the revenue of the ferry betwixt Charlestown and Boston, and that the well ordering and managing of the said College is of great concernment,-

" It is therefore ordered by this Court and the Authority thereof that the Governor aud Deputy-Governor for the time being, and all the mag- istrates of this jurisdiction, together with the teaching elders of the six next adjoining towne, viz .: Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Bos- ton, Roxbury and Dorchester, and the President of the said College for the time being shall, from time to time, have full power and authority to make and establish all such orders, statutes and constitutions as they shall see necessary for the instituting, guiding and furthering of the said College and the several members thereof, from time to time, in piety, morality and learning ; as also to dispose, order and manage to the use and behoof of the said College and the members thereof all gifts, legacies, bequeatbs, revenues, lands and donations, as either have heen, are or shall be conferred, bestowed, or any waye shall fall or come to the said College.

"And whereas it may come to pass that many of the said magistrates and elders may be absent, or otherwise employed in other weighty af- fairs, when the said College may need their present help and couosel, it is therefore ordered that the greater number of magistrates and elders which shall be present, with the President, shall havo the power of the whole. Provided, that if any constitution, order or ordere by them made shall be found hurtful unto the said College, or the members thereof, or to the weal public, then, upon appeal of the party or parties grieved unto the company of Overseers first mentioned, they shall repeal the said order or orders, if they shall see cause, at their next meeting, or stand accountable thereof to the next General Court." 3

This Act provided amply for the general oversight of the College, allotting that oversight to the State, on the one hand, and to the clergy on the other; but it was soon found necessary to define more exactly the duties and qualifications of its immediate officers. Accordingly, on May 31, 1650, the "Charter of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, under the Seal of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay " was grant- ed. By this Charter the Corporation was established, to consist of "a President, five Fellows, and a Treas- urer or Bursar," to be, in name and fact, "one body corporate in law, to al intents and purposes." The Corporation had the power to elect persons to fill va-

2 Harvard Book, i, 26.

3 The first College seal, adopted December 27, 1643, consists of a shield with three open books (presumably Bibles), on which is the motto Ver- itus. Soon afterwards the motto was changed to In Christi Gloriam. About 1694 the motto Christo et Ecclesie was adopted.

1 Quoted by Quincy, i, 12.

CAMBRIDGE.

cancies in its own body ; to appoint or remove officers or servants of the College; and to administer its finances: but in all cases the concurrence of the Over- seers was necessary. The General Court further or- dered " that all the lands, tenements, or hereditaments, houses, or revenues, within this jurisdiction, to the aforesaid President or College appertaining, not ex- ceeding the value of five hundred pounds per annum, shall from henceforth be freed from civil impositions, taxes, and rates, all goods to the said Corporation, or to any scholars thereof appertaining, shall be exempted from all manner of toll, customs, and excise whatso- ever ; and that the said President, Fellows, and schol- ars, together with the servants, and other necessary offi- cers to the said President or College appertaining, not exceeding ten, viz. : three to the President and seveu to the College belonging,-shall be exempted from all civil offices, military exercises or services, watchings and wardings; and such of their e-tates, not exceed- ing one hundred pounds a man, shall be free from all country taxes or rates whatsoever, and none others."

By an appendix to the College Charter, under date of October 14, 1657, a somewhat larger liberty was al- lowed to the Corporation in " carrying on the work of the College, as they shall see cause, without depend- ence upon the consent of the Overseers : provided al- ways, that the Corporation shall be responsible unto, and these orders and by-laws shall be alterable by, the Overseers, according to their discretion."

Thus constituted, the Government of the College has existed down to the present day. The Corpora- tion may be regarded as a sort of Senate, which shapes and executes the general policy, and administers the funds of the institution ; the Overseers are a repre- sentative and consultative body, which approves or re- jects the acts of the Corporation, and deals more di- rectly with the affairs of the students. The Corpora- tion still consists of the President and Treasurer ex officio, and of five Fellows, and has authority to fill vacancies in its membership ; the composition of the Board of Overseers, on the contrary, has changed, and these changes, as we shall see, have marked the liber- ation of the College, first from clerical, and after- wards from political control.

Under President Dunster the. College grew, in spite of difficulties. He urged the Court to provide more generously for the maintenance and repair of the buildings, and suggested that each family in the Col- ony should contribute annually one shilling for the support of the seminary. An attempt was also made to discourage graduates from returning to England- a very common practice ; they ought, it was justly ob- served, to "improve their parts and abilities in the service of the Colonies." But the intense theologi- cal temper of that age was at last excited against Dun- ster's open opposition to the baptism of infants: he was indicted by the grand jury, convicted by the court, sentenced to a public admonition on Lecturc Day, and required to give bonds for good behavior.

Even these stern measures did not appease the wrath of the Pædobaptists, and in October, 1654, he was compelled to resign his office. The venerable Presi- dent pleaded that the time was unseasouable-that his wife and youngest child were sick and could not be removed without danger- that he had exhausted his means in behoof of the College. The General Court heard his plea and reluctantly allowed him to remain in the President's house until the following March, when he removed to Scituate, and died soon after- wards.

His successor was the Rev. Charles Chauncy, for- merly Professor of Greek and Hebrew at Trinity Col- lege, Cambridge. Having incurred the charge of her- esy through his opposition to certain Anglican forms, he recanted. Coming to the Colony, he declared him- self in'favor of total immersion in baptism, and of celebrating the Lord's Supper in the evening-doc- trines which clashed with Plymouth orthodoxy. But his was a yielding character, aud when the Presidency of Harvard was offered to him, he accepted it, on con- dition of " forbearing to disseminate or publish any- thing on either of those tenets, and promising not to op- pose the received tenets therein." He soon complained that the grant aliowed by the General Court for his subsistence was insufficient: "his country pay, in Indian corn," he said, " could not be turned into food and clothing without great loss." He seems not to have got relief, for again, in 1663, he presented a pe- tition, in which he declared that he had been brought into debt, and " that the provision for the President ·was not suitable, being without land to keep either a horse or a cow upon, or habitation to be dry or warm in ; whereas, in English Universities, the President is allowed diet, as well as stipend, and other necessary provisions, according to his wants." The Court, in reply, asserted that "the country have done honor- ahly towards the petitioner, and that his parity with English Colleges is not pertinent." Notwithstanding his personal straits, President Chauncy did not desert his charge, although the College also was suffering at that time from the embarrassments incident on the restoration of the Stuarts in England, which caused the colonists to fear that their liberties would be taken from them. This uncertainty so affected the prosperity of the College, that, since the General Court did not come to its rescue, the outlook was in- deed black. But then, as so often since, private lib- erality supplied the wants due to official neglect. "The loud groans of the sinking College" came to the ears of the good people of Portsmouth, N. H., who pledged themselves to pay "sixty pounds sterling a year for seven years ensuing (May, 1659)." Sub- scriptions were added from all parts of the Colony, and amounted to more than £2600. Iu 1672 a new build- ing was begun, but, so slow was the payment of sub- scriptions, ten years elapsed before the new College could be completed.

On the death of President Chauncy, Leonard Hoar, a

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

minister and physician and a graduate of Harvard, in the class of 1650, although of English birth, was chosen to succeed him (July, 1672.) He enjoyed a brief pop- ularity, and was then, in 1675, dismissed by the Court " without further hearing." The cause of his dismissal is uncertain : it appears that, " some that made a fig- ure " in Cambridge excited the students against him, and that others, stirred by envy and ambition, en- couraged his enemies. The students strove "to make him odious," and four members of the Corporation resigned, among whom was the Rev. Urian Oakes, who, we remark, when importuned to take the presidency, refused, but served with the title of superintendent for four years. Then, being again elected President, he accepted, and died after a brief term in 1681. The post was evidently shunned, because we find that four persons to whom it was offered, declined it within as many years. The Rev. John Rogers served but one year, 1683-84; then, after another interregnum, the Rev. Increase Mather, was, on June 11, 1685, re- quested "to take special care of the government of the College, and for that end to act as President until a further settlement be made." Mather was one of the most conspicuous men in the Colony, and it was hoped that his name would strengthen the College: but, although he was sincerely interested in its welfare, he was equally interested in the political and religious disputes of the Colony, and he refused to reside in Cambridge, except for a few weeks, during all the six- teen years of his presidency. He was pastor of the North Church in Boston, which, he said, he would not give up for the sake of "forty or fifty children," and so he used to ride to and fro, the charge of shoe- ing or baiting his horse, or of mending his saddle, being defrayed by the College. He was among the persecutors of the witches at Salem, and when the book of one Calef condemning this persecution reached Cambridge, it was burnt in the College Yard.

In 1692 the English sovereigns, William and Mary, granted a new charter to the Colony, and Mather used ' his influence to such purpose, that the General Court gave a new charter to the College, whose privileges were considerably increased thereby. Mather at once pro- ceeded to re-organize the Corporation and the affairs of the College in the interests of the Calvinist sect of which he was the leader, not waiting for the charter to receive the royal signature. But, in 1696, the decisive news came that the King had withheld his consent. There was continual difficulty among the President, the Corporation and the Legislature for sev- eral years ; another charter was drafted, so distasteful to Mather in many particulars, that he proposed to go again to England and apply to the King in person ; the religious dissensions already rife throughout the Colony, broke out among the Overseers and officers of the College. The struggle, briefly stated, was between the old Presbyterians and Congregationalists on one side, and those who were both more liberal in their own views, and tolerant of the views of other sects. At last,

in 1701, Mather was dismissed from the Presidency, on the ground that he had persistently refused to live at Cambridge. The Rev. Samuel Willard, who had pre- viously been appointed Vice-President, served in that capacity until his death, in 1707. He was "quiet, retiring, phlegmatic and unpretending ;" well-fitted, therefore, to allay the angry passions which Mather's excitable and restless character and domineering manner had only exasperated. Thomas and William Brattle, who had been among Mather's strongest opponents, were reinstated in the Corporation, which was thenceforward composed of liberals, whereas the old orthodox party had the majority in the Board of Overseers. The charter of 1650 was revived in 1707, largely through the efforts of Governor Dudley, who, says Quincy, "of all the statesmen who have been instrumental in promoting the interests of Harvard Col- lege, was most influential in giving its constitution a permanent character."

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 39

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