History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 41

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 41

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During Wadsworth's term the discipline of the College seems to have given a part, at least, of the Overseers grounds for finding fault. But, as the com- mon device of the malcontents was to circulate re- ports that the worship of God was scandalously neglected in the Hall, we may doubt whether there was unusual laxity at this period. A Committee of visitation was appointed, however, and, after investi- gating, it proposed a revision and more stringent en- forcement of the laws, to which I shall refer later. The recognition of the College Faculty was formally

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made in 1725, although as early as December 14, 1708, its existence in fact is attested by the record that a student had been expelled by "the President and resi- dent Fellows, with the advice and consent of the non- resident Fellows of this House." In the course of time, experience must have made it necessary that the President and Tutors (or resident Fellows, as they had come to call themselves) should decide matters of daily discipline and government, without consult- ing the Overseers, who met only occasionally ; thus the Faculty came to be recognized as a distinct body, whose records date from September, 1725. Two other events of Wadsworth's administration deserve notice. Longloissorie, a Frenchman, instructor in the French language, was charged with dissemina- ting doctrines " not consistent with the safety of the College." He asserted, the charge ran, that he saw visions, and that revelations were made to him, such as the " unlawfulness of magistracy among Christians, and consequently of any temporal punishments for evil-doers from man; [and] that punishment from God in the future state would be sure not to be eternal, nor any other, nor perhaps, more, even for a time, than what wicked men now suffer in this world, by being abandoned to the outrage of their own and others' passions." "These extraordinary things Mon- sieur did not broach all at onee," but as soon as the authorities heard of them, they dismissed him and forbade all students from attending his lectures (1735).

The second incident illustrates how often at that epoch the relations between the Corporation and Over- seers were strained. In June, 1736, a student named Hartshorn applied for the Master's degree. He had never received the Bachelor's, and the Corporation deemed him unqualified. Thereupon the Overseers voted him his degree, although the College law de- clared that " no academic degree shall be given but by the Corporation with the consent of the Overseers." At Commencement three of the Corporation rose and opposed Hartshorn's being graduated, and the Presi- dent pronounced it to be illegal. Thereupon the Governor rose and declared that Hartshorn was en- titled to the degree; there was a long debate, and then the Governor quitted the assembly. The Corporation won this time, but the next year they came to terms with the Overseers, and granted the degree.

In 1727, Thomas Hollis endowed a second professor- ship, that of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and his benefactions to the College ceased only with his death, after which his nephews and descendants continued their patronage for more than fifty years. No other family has furnished so many members to whom the College is indebted, as the Hollis family; and their assistance came at a time when it was rel- atively far more precious than much larger bequests later. .

In spite of the untoward conditions the College grew steadily during the terms of Leverett and Wads- worth. In the thirty years, 1707-36, there were 719

Bachelors graduated, an average of nearly 24 to a class ; the smallest class, that of 1713, numbered 5; the largest, that of 1725, numbered 45. The average under Leverett (1707-24) was 20; under Wadsworth it was nearly 34. In 1732 the estate of the College produced an income of £728 7s. (not including the in- come on property hequeathed for special purposes), an increase of about £100 per annum during the previous decade. President Wadsworth died in March, 1737.

Two months later the Rev. Edward Holyoke was elected to the Presidency, in which he served longer -thirty-two years-than any of his predecessors or successors. He had been minister at Marblehead, but had served in the Corporation. The Corporation and Overseers before voting joined in prayer, in order to be guided aright. Their choice first fell on the Rev. William Cooper, who immediately declined. Then they elected Holyoke unanimously, an event hitherto unprecedented. Moreover, although they deemed it necessary to catechise a candidate for the professorship of Mathematics as to his orthodoxy, they subjected the President-elect to no such test. The General Court granted him a salary of £200, in addition to the rents of Massachusetts Hall, and soothed the parish of Marblehead by a grant of £140 to his successor there. Holyoke was inaugurated Sept. 28, 1737. The ceremonies on that occasion are thus described by Quincy : "The Governor, Overseers and Corporation met in the library. At the hour appointed the Governor led the President from the library down to the Hall, preceded by the Librarian, carrying the books, charter, laws and College seal, and by the Butler, bearing the Keys ; and followed by the Over- seers, Corporation, students and attending gentlemen. After prayer by Dr. Sewall, a speech in Latin was made by the Governor, in the course of which he delivered to the President the charter, keys, etc. The President replied in Latin. A congratulatory oration, by Mr. Barnard, Master of Arts, succeeded, and the ceremonies were concluded by singing a part of the seventy-eighth Psalm, and a prayer by the Rev. Thomas Prince. After which there was a dinner in the Hall, and in the evening the Colleges were brilliantly illuminated." 1

One of Holyoke's first duties was to preside at the removal of Isaac Greenwood, Hollis Professor of Mathematics. He had been graduated in the class of 1721, had gone to London and preached there with some success ; had become acquainted with Mr. Hollis, and persuaded him to found immediately a Professorship of Mathematics, instead of leaving a bequest for that purpose, as had been his intention. Hollis was at first pleased with Greenwood, and in- clined to recommend him to the new chair. But even before Greenwood quitted England, Hollis's doubts were excited. Greenwood had left his lodgings with-

1 Quincy, il, 11.

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

out paying his bill, had run iuto other debts, had spent in a short time £300 in conviviality, and, among other extravagances, had bought "three pair of pearl- colored silk stockings." Hollis communicated his doubts to the Corporation, sounded them to know whether a friend of his, a Baptist, would be accepted ; but, finding sectarian prejudice stiil high-(although, as he asked, what had the dispute of Baptism to do with teaching mathematics ?)-he consented to Green- wood's appointment. The latter was a man of keen intellect, but habitually intemperate, and after frequent relapses, admouitions from the Corporation, promises to reform, and renewed backsliding, he was removed in 1738. Three years later similar charges were preferred against Nathan Prince, Tutor and member of the Corporation. The Overseers began pro- ceedings for his dismissal, although they therein overstepped their legal prerogatives, "their juris- diction being appellate and not original;" but the Corporation waived the technical illegality and con- curred in the examination of Prince. Among the charges proved against him were, " speaking with contempt of the President and Tutors as to learn- ing ;" "charging the President with making false records with design ; " calling one Tutor a "puppy," another a "liar; " "accustoming himself to rude and ridiculous gestures; " "speaking out in time of public worship so as to excite laughter ;" "negligence of his pupils ; " and " intemperance in strong drink." On Feb. 18, 1741-42, it was voted to remove him, and although he appealed to the General Court, he was not reinstated. These unpleasant experiences led to two permanent results: the custom of appointing Tutors for only three years, instead of without limit, became fixed; and the custom of admitting, almost as a matter of course, the two Senior Tutors to mem- bership in the Corporation was dropped.

Another wave of religious excitement swept at this time over the Colony, and broke npon the College. As early as 1736, Jonathan Edwards, pastor of the church at Northampton, had begun to inflame the imagination, not only of his parishioners, but of all New England, by his vivid presentation of Calvin's doctrines. In intellectual ability he surpassed any theologian who had yet been born in this country ; and his intense, but narrow mind, seizing hold of the Calvinistic doctrines of original sin, predestination and similar articles of the brimstone creed, infused into them his own fire and made them terribly lifelike to his hearers. Let it suffice to quote his de- scription of hell, as illustrative of the vehemence and vividness of his imagination : " The world," he says, " will be probably converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire; a vast ocean of fire, iu which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night; vast waves or billows of fire continually rolling over their heads." " They shall eternally be full of the most quick and

lively sense to feel the torment not for one minute, nor for one day, nor for one year, nor for one age, nor for two ages, nor for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousand or millions of ages, one after another, but for ever and ever, without auy end at all, and never, never be delivered." By such language as this, Edwards frightened New Englanders into that state of panic terror which was supposed to be equivalent to Christlike devoutness and charity ; and religion was in this condition when, in Sept., 1740, George Whitefield, an English itinerant preacher, began his remarkable " revivals" in New England.

He preached to the College students in the First Church at Cambridge, and was courteously received by President Holyoke. He was shocked at the lack of true godliness in the institution, declaring Harvard to be almost as corrupt as the English Universities. " Tutors," he wrote, " neglect to pray with, and ex- amine the hearts of, their pupils. Discipline is at too low an ebb. Bad books are become fashionable amongst them. Tillotson aud Clarke are read instead of Shepard and Stoddard, and such like evangelical writers." Whitefield's denunciations and eloquence "wrought wonderfully " upon the hearts of many of the students. The visiting committee of the Over- seers reported, in June, 1741, "that they find of late extraordinary and happy impressions of a religious nature have been made, . . . by which means the College is in better order than usual." Tutor Flynt, who estimated Whitefield very justly as a " zealous man," " but over censorious, over rash, and over con - fident," says that at their revival meetings some of the students "told of their visions, some of their convic- tions, some of their assurances, some of their consola- tions. One pretended to see the Devil in the shape of a bear coming to his bedside. Others burst into a laugh when telling of the day of judgment; another did so in prayer, which they imputed to the Devil's temptation ; some were under great terrors; some had a succession of clouds and comforts ; some spoke of prayer and amendment of life as a poor foundation of trust, advising to look only to the merits and right- eousness of Christ ; some talked about the free grace of God in election, and of the decrees. . . Many, if not all, mean well. Some have extravagan- cies and errors of a weak and warm imagination."

The enthusiasm, or frenzy, could not last long ; within two years the reaction came; but before this the College authorities deemed it their duty to reply to the aspersions cast by Whitefield ou "the school of the prophets." President Holyoke declared in a ser- mon that never within his memory, extending back nearly five and thirty years, had the condition of Har- vard been so favorable as then. In December, 1744, " the President, Professors, Tutors and Hebrew In- structor " published a pamphlet containing testimony " against the Rev. George Whitefield and his Con- duct; " aud when Whitefield replied, Dr. Wiggles- worth (April, 1745) answered him in an open letter.

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It is our duty, he said, to examine our own heart, but it is not so clear that we ought to examine the hearts of others. Christ has said, "I am he who searches the reins and hearts ; " " would you have Tutors in- vade His prerogative? or would you introduce the Popish practice of auricular confession ?" Holyoke closed the controversy in an appendix to Wiggles- worth's Letter,, telling Whitefield that "whatever good was done, hath been prodigiously overbalanced by the evil ; and the furious zeal with which you had so fired the passions of the people hath, in many places, burnt up the very vitals of religion ; and a censorious, unpeaceable, uncharitable disposition hath, in multitudes, usurped the place of a godly jeal- ousy."

Jonathan Edwards, too, zealot that he was, had early perceived the excesses caused by the revival, and while he endeavored "to deaden and direct the flame he had assisted to kindle," his own vehement and ter- rible doctrines were attacked by two liberal clergy- men of Boston, Charles Chauncy and Jonathan May- hew, who deserve to be gratefully remembered not only for their more humane and charitable tenets, but also for the courage with which they announced them. In the history of Harvard this religious controversy is important, because the Government of the College then squarely took its place on the liberal side, and at no time was there more danger lest it should relapse into the control of the more bigoted sectarians. As a result, the latter concentrated their hopes on Yale Col- lege, and strove to make it the vessel of undefiled Calvinism. And whilst these dissensions perturbed the orthodox, the Society for Propagating the doc- trines of the Church of England renewed its efforts, and made many converts. It opened a Church in Cambridge, where students who were Anglicans might worship, and it proposed that a bishop should be sent over from England to take charge of the grow- ing parishes. These indications of growth, although they must have been distasteful to the orthodox, no longer filled them with consternation; and we may say that, about the year 1760, the various sects in Boston and its neighborhood were so well established, that no one conld openly persecute all the others, and that they had begun to live together in tolerance. The College, which drew its scholars from all quarters and classes, was naturally disposed to mitigate its prejudices ; but for a long time to come, the dominant influence was Presbyterian, and Presbyterian of a type which would now be called extreme.

During the French War (1756-63) the number of students feli off a little, but in 1765 the graduating class had fifty-four members. On the accession of George III (1760), Governor Bernard suggested that it would be fitting for the College to congratulate the new monarch. Accordingly six prizes of a guinea each were offered for the best oration, poem, elegy on the late King and ode in Latin, and for an English poem and ode. Graduates and undergraduates com-

peted, and a volume containing thirty-one pieces and entitled Pietas et Gratulatio Collegii Cantabrigiensis apud Novanglos was sent to England to be presented to the King. To this work Governor Bernard him- self contributed five effusions, and President Holyoke an ode said to be "truly Horatian." So far as we can learn, George III took no notice of this, the last address the English sovereign ever received from the Corporation and students of Harvard as his subjects. In 1762 a petition reached the Legislature to grant a charter to a college to be founded in Hampshire County. The petitioners belonged to the strict ortho- dox sect, which regarded Harvard as too liberal. The petition passed the Legislature, and Governor Ber- nard had signed a bill for the incorporation of the new institution, when the Harvard Overseers in alarm drew up a long list of objections. They pointed out that there was no need of another college; that it would injure Harvard, to whose support the Colony had been pledged for nearly 130 years ; that it was desirable to maintain a high standard of learning, and that this would be impossible were another institu- tion permitted to confer degrees, because were the means now devoted to one divided between two, the standard of both would be lowered; that jealous- ies and dissensions prejudicial to the peace and edu- cation of the Colony would be fomented. The Gov- ernor declared that he would do nothing harmful to the interests of Harvard, but that he would refer the matter to the British ministry. To them, therefore, a strong remonstrance was sent, with the effect of de- feating the grant of a charter.

Almost immediately afterwards a calamity at Har- vard "turned the current of sympathy and patronage into its ancient channel." Early in 1764 small-pox broke out in Boston, and the Legislature, removing to Cambridge, held its sessions in Harvard Hall, where the Governor and Council occupied the library and the Representatives the apartment below. On the night of January 24 the Hall was burned. The fol- lowing account of the " most ruinous loss the College ever met with since its foundation " is from the Massa- chusetts Gazette of Thursday, February 2, 1764: " In the middle of a very tempestuous night, a severe cold storm of snow, we were awakened by the alarm of fire. Harvard Hall, the only one of our ancient buildings which still remained, and the repository of our most valuable treasures, the public library and philosophi- cal apparatus, was seen in flames. As it was a time of vacation, in which the students were all dispersed, not a single person was left in any of the Colleges, except two or three in that part of Massachusetts most distant from Harvard, where the fire could not be perceived till the whole surrounding air began to be illuminated by it. When it was discovered from the town it had risen to a degree of violence that de- fied all opposition. It is conjectured to have begun in a beam under the hearth in the library, where a fire had been kept for the use of the General .Court,

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

now residing and sitting here by reason of the small- pox in Boston ; from thence it burst out into the Library. The books easily submitted to the fury of the flames, which, with a rapid and irresistible prog- ress, made its way to the Apparatus Chamber and spread through the whole building. In a very short time this venerable monument of the piety of our an- cestors was turned into a heap of ruins. The other Colleges, Stoughton Hall and Massachusetts Hall were in the utmost hazard of sharing the same fate. The wind driving the flaming cinders directly upon their roofs, they blazed out several times in different places ; nor could they have been saved by all the help the town could afford had it not been for the as- sistance of the gentlemen of the General Court, among whom his Excellency the Governor was very active; who, notwithstanding the extreme rigor of the season, exerted themselves in supplying the town engine with water, which they were obliged to fetch at last from a distance, two of the College pumps being then rendered useless. Even the new and beautiful Hollis Hall-though it was on the windward side-hardly escaped. It stood so near to Harvard that the flames actually seized it, and if they had not been immediately suppressed must have carried it."

The Legislature, at the instigation of Governor Bernard, resolved to rebuild Harvard Hall at the ex- pense of £2000, granted £100 for a fire-engine for the College and indemnified students whose books and furniture had been destroyed. Donations of money, books and apparatus flowed in from all parts of the American Colonies, and from the mother coun- try. From the list of gifts I quote two among many items : From John Greenwood, Great Britain, " two curious Egyptian mummies for the museum ;" from the Hon. John Hancock, Esq., " a set of the most elegant carpets to cover the floors of the Library, the Appara- tus and the Philosophy Chambers; he also covered the walls of the latter with arich paper." The losses were, indeed, more than made good. A finer Hall rose on the ruins of old Harvard, and was completed in June, 1766, having cost $23,000 ; and its equipment was better than the old ; but the loss which we to-day most regret, and which could not be repaired, was the destruction of John Harvard's books, whereby all personal relations, so to speak, between the founder and posterity, were swept away.

During President Holyoke's term two other build- ings were added to the College. In 1741 Mrs. Holden, widow of Samuel Holden, late Governor of the Bank of England, gave £400 to build a chapel, which was erected in 1744. In 1762 the Legislature, taking into consideration the large number of students who could not be lodged in the then existing buildings, appro- priated £2000 "towards building a new College at Cambridge, of the dimensions of Massachusetts Hall." This edifice was dedicated in January, 1764, just before the burning of Harvard, and was fitly named Hollis, after that family to which the College owed so much.

In 1765, by the will of Thomas Hancock, the Col- lege received a legacy of £1000 sterling, to found a professorship of Hebrew and other Oriental Lan- guages, the first chair founded by an American. Other gifts enriched the institution and helped to make its work, under Holyoke's direction, more effi- cient. Of measures adopted to raise the standard of scholarship, and to improve the discipline of the students, I shall speak later.

Holyoke died in June, 1769. John Winthrop, Hollis Professor of Mathematics, and a man of un- usual scientific attainments, was offered the Presi- dency; but he declined, as did two other members of the Corporation. Then the Rev. Samuel Locke, pas- tor at Sherburne, was chosen, and he accepted. He seems to have had little force and he left no impres- sion on the development of the College. One of his contemporaries describes him as being "of an excel- lent spirit, and generous catholic sentiments ; a friend to liberty ; his greatest defect, a want of knowledge of the world, having lived in retirement, and perhaps not a general acquaintance with books." That he was a "friend to liberty," was probably one of the chief reasons for electing him ; because by that time patri- otic enthusiasm had already kindled the students and governors at Harvard. In 1768, the members of the Senior Class signified their hatred of British taxation, by unanimously voting "to take their degrees in the manufactures of this country;" and they appeared at commencement clad in "untaxed," home-manu- factured garments, In 1778 Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson prorogued the General Court to meet at Harvard College on March 15th. It accordingly met, but when a second session was called in the month of May, the Corporation remonstrated that "Harvard College had been instituted for the sole purpose of the education of youth," and that it regarded this precedent with deep concern. But when a formal application was made for the use of the Halls on election day, it was granted, and when Hutchinson was appointed Governor (March, 1771) the Corpora- tion presented him with a complimentary address, and gave him a flattering reception at the College. Nevertheless, sentiment at Harvard was largely with the popular cause, and for the first time the Triennial Catalogue-was printed with the students' names ar- ranged alphabetically, instead of according to the rank of their families, as had theretofore been the custom. This is but one indication of the prevailing republican feelings. In 1773, John Hancock was chosen Treasurer-an unfortunate choice, as was af- terwards shown; but his popularity was so great that but little thought was given to his qualifications as a financier. Two years previous the Corporation, to show its admiration for him, had invited him to a public dinner in the Hall, "to sit with the Governors of the College,"-an honor conferred on no other private person, and all the more significant then be- cause his avowed patriotism had made him obnoxious

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to Governor Hutchinson and the Royalists. One other event, during Locke's brief term, may be men- tioned. In November, 1773, the Corporation, in order to perpetuate the memory of the benefactors of the College, resolved "to enter fairly in a book" their names and gifts; "to write their names in letters of gold, and place them over the windows and on the walls of the Chapel;" to commemorate them by an oration at each Commencement; and to place on a tablet over the Hall door, the following distich from Martial :-

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 41

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