History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 116

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III > Part 116

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"July 1, 1707, the Town of Malden was presented by the Grand Jury to the Quarter Sessions Court for not having a minister settled according to statute, and ordered to obtain one forthwith, and was threat- ened with the severity of the law. September 9th the Selectmen made answer that they have applied theru- selves to Mr. Clap, and were waiting for his reply. The Selectmen were required to give further answer at the adjourned Court. September 30th the Select- men answer that Mr. Clap had replied in the nega- tive a few days before; they requested further time, which was granted. December 9th the Selectmen report, ' that they have had a general meeting of the town, and are in a hopeful way of being supplied, having applied themselves to Mr. Gookin. . March 9, 1708, Lieut. Henry Green, in behalf of the town, reports, that they have applied to Mr. Joseph Parsons, who has the matter under consideration.

. Sept. 14, 1708, Lieut. Henry Green and John Green, in behalf of Malden, inform the Court ' that they have had several meetings of the Church, and one of the Town, in order to the accommodating of that affair, referring to a minister, but can make noth- ing take effect, but yet are in a very unsettled and divided frame, and so like to continue, and leave themselves to the pleasure of the Court.'"'

In view of all these transactions, "The Court do unanimously agree and conclude as followeth: That Mr. Thomas Tufts is a suitable person, qualified as aforesaid for the work of the ministry in that town of Malden, and >ce cause to settle him there in that work ; and do order the town to pay him for his mainten- ance during his continuance in said work amongst them, after the rate of £70 money per annum." (" Bi-Centennial Book," pp. 158-159.)

In the mean time Mr. David Parsons, of Spring- field, was invited by the church to preach as a can- didate. It so happened that he and Mr. Tufts ap- peared in Malden at the same time, both desiring to

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preach on the same Sabbath. It was arranged that one should preach in the morning and the other in the afternoon. They did so. Promptly, on Monday, the church met and voted to give Mr. Parsons a call, twenty-six out of thirty-one, voting for him, and the others uot voting at all. Two days later, on Wednes- day, October 27, 1708, the town met, and by a vote of fifty-three approved of the action of the church. Twelve persons, however, signed a protest, to the effect that they conceive such action to be a con- tempt of authority, and do think that they are not able to maintain two ministers at onee. But a hum- ble petition was sent to the General Court, praying that the order of the Quarter Sessions Court, which had appointed Mr. Thomas Tufts to be the minister of Malden, might be revoked. In response the Court directed that the said order should be 'stayed until the result of the call to Mr. Parsons should be known. It would not be surprising if a clergyman, who ac- cepted a call given so hastily and under such peenliar and extreme pressure, did not find his ministry a pleasant one. He was ordained, probably, in the spring or summer of 1709. The town contracted to put the parsonage in repair, and to give him a salary of sixty pounds a year, the use of the parsonage and " all the naked money," that is, all the money dropped into the contribution box by strangers and the more liberal inhabitants.

On June 14, 1720, the town was presented to the Quarter Sessions for non-fulfilment of the contract with Mr. Parsons. The prosecution was directed by a committee of the church, and the defence was made by a committee of the town. The verdict of the jury sus- tained the complaint. After an examination of the parsonage by some of the justices, it was ordered that the selectmen pay a fine of ten pounds unless they speedily " repair the house and fences." The repairs were made and subsequently the case was dismissed. In 1721, Mr. Parsons, after a ministry of some twelve years, was dismissed, by advice of a council, and doubtless commended as a good and faithful minister, for he was settled again the same year (September 15, 1721), as the first minister in Leicester, where he la- bored in the ministry until March 6, 1735, at which date he was dismissed. He died at Leicester in 1737. When he came to Maken there were divisions in the church and town, and they seem to have continued through his ministry, but evidently were not all oc- casioned by himself. If he had strenuous enemies, he also had devoted friends, quite a number of whom, in the ardor of their personal attachment to their pastor, removed with him to Leicester.

REV. JJOSEPH EMERSON, THE SEVENTH MINISTER OF MALDEN,- Mr. Emerson's faithful and successful ministry extended over a period of forty-five and one-half years. He was born in Chelmsford, April 20, 1700, and was the son of Edward, "some time dencon of Newbury," and Rebecca, daughter of Cor- nelius Wałdo, "from whom," says one of her de-

scendants, " came that beloved name into the family." (" Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson," by James Elliot Cabot, vol. i. p. 8.) Deacon Edward Emerson was the son of Rev. Joseph Emerson, " the pioneer minis- ter of Mendon, who barely escaped with his life when the village was destroyed by the Indians," and of Eliz- abeth Buckley, granddaughter of Rev. Peter Buckley, who, "being silenced by Laud for non-conformity, crossed the sea, in 1634, to New England, and pushed ont through the woods to Concord, and there spent most of his fortune as a pioneer of civilization." He was a famous minister in his day, greatly honored " by his people, and by all the ministers in the eoun- try." Rev. Joseph Emerson, the Malden minister, who could boast of such a distinguished ancestry, is represented to have been a precocious child ; was able to pray in the family, in the absence of his father, before he was eight years of age, " to the edification, and astonishment " of those present ; was admitted to Harvard College in 1713, when he had but recently finished his thirteenth year, and was graduated in 1717. "He began to preach to general acceptance when he was eighteen." He was engaged in teaching and preached occasionally, during the next two or three years. In March, 1721, the church and town of Malden, hohling separate meetings on the same day, voted to call Mr. Emerson to be their minister. At that time he was not far from twenty-one years of age. Ile was ordained October 31, 1721. On De- cember 27, 1721, he married Miss Mary Moody, of York, Maine, daughter of Rev. Samuel Moody and Hannah Sewall, who was " the only daughter of John Sewall, of Newbury, and the first cousin of the Rev. Dr. Sewall, minister of the Old South Church, Bos- ton." "Father Moody," though distinguished for his eecentricity, was a man of prodigious mental force of unimpeachable integrity and sincerity. His min- istry was uncommonly successful. He "was a zealous friend of revivals of religion." Whitefield " visited him and preached to his people." He has been spoken of as "a man of transcendent zeal in doctrine and practice." " When the offended par- ishioners, wounded by his pointed preaching, would rise to go out of church, he cried ont, 'Come back, you graceless sinner, come back!' And when they began to fall into ill enstoms and ventured into the ale-house on a Saturday night, the valiant pastor went in after them, collared the sinners, dragged them forth, and sent them forth with rousing admonitions." ("Memoirs of Ralph W. Emerson," vol. i. p. 10.)

The children of Rev. Joseph Emerson and Mary Moody numbered nine sons and four daughters. Seven sons and three daughters lived to grow up. Three of his sons were ministers, viz. : Joseph, who was born Aug. 25, 1724, graduated at Harvard in 1743, ordained at Pepperell, February 26, 1747, and died October 29, 1775; William, who was born May 21, 1743, graduated at Harvard in 1761, and was ordained at Concord, January 1, 1766, and died October 20,

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1776 ; and John, who was born November 25, 1745, graduated at Harvard in 1764, was ordained the first minister of Conway, December 21, 1769, and died June 26, 1826, at the age of eighty-one. Rev. Wil- liam Emerson was " the patriot minister of Concord." Hle preached to the minute-men, and was a leader in the Revolutionary movements of the day. He was distinguished for his eloquence as a preacher, and es- pecially "noted for his beautiful reading of the hymns." Ile was also a man of literary tastes, but had little opportunity to cultivate them. He volun- teered to serve as the chaplain of a regiment, and when, in 1776, a reinforcement was sent from Massa- chusetts to the army at Ticonderoga, he weut with the troops as chaplain. But the unaccustomed expo- sure brought on a severe attack of bilious fever, and he died at Rutland, Vt., at the age of thirty-three.

" His wife was Phebe Bliss (his 'Phebe-bird' he calls her in one of his letters), daughter of the Rev. Daniel Bliss, his predecessor in the Concord pulpit." Two children were given them, William and Mary Moody. This William Emerson, Jr., was born in Concord, May 6, 1769, graduated at Harvard in 1789, was ordained at the age of twenty-three at Harvard (a town some twelve miles from Concord), May 23, 1792, and was called to the First Church in Boston in 1799. He married, October 25, 1796, Ruth Haskins, fifth daughter of Mr. John Haskins, of Boston, The fourth child and third son of Rev. William Emerson, Jr., and Ruth ( Haskins), was Ralph Waldo Em- erson, who was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. This celebrated author, therefore, was the great-grandson of Rev. Joseph Emerson, of Malden. Mary Moody Emerson, the sister of Rev. William Emerson, Jr., was a remarkable woman, and her unique char- aeter is vividly set forth by her nephew, Ralph Waldo Emerson, in an article published in the Atlantic Monthly of 1883.

Rev. Wm. Emersou, Sr., the eminent patriot and eloquent preacher of Concord, was doubtless a man of sincere and earnest evangelical faith. But Rev. John Pierce, D.D., affirms that Rev. William Emer- son, Jr., minister of the First Church in Boston, "in his theological views, perhaps weut farther on the liberal side, than most of his brethren with whom he was associated." And he significantly adds, " I kuow not to what extent he preached his peculiar views, but I am not aware that he has ever definitely express- ed them in any of his publications." Dr. Charles Lowell, says of him: "He was, to say the least, far from having auy sympathy with Calvinism." (Sprague's Annals, vol. viii. Unitarian.)

Mary Moody Emerson spent most of her childhood and youth in Malden, first with her grandmother Emerson until the latter died, and then with her aunt, a sister of her father. She was a woman of keen intel- lect, and appears to have accepted, with satisfaction, the religious faith of her fathers. There was nothing negative in her nature, and she could not endure a

religion made up chiefly of negations. Iler idea seemed to have been that all men of earnestnees and power must believe in Calvinism when they know what it is. Duplicity was no part of her character, and she could have had no patience with any con- cealment or compromising of religious faith.

Rev. Joseph Emerson, of Malden, was a stanch Puritan in faith and character. He heartily accepted the Calvinistic interpretation of the Scriptures, and preached faithfully what he believed. His heart was full of kindness and his nature was sympathetie, yet in his preaching he was never negative, indefinite or compromising. His own son, the Rev. Joseph Emer- son, of Pepperell, in a sermon preached in Malden in memory of his deceased father, said of him: "He was a Boanerges, a son of thunder to the workers of iniquity ; a Barnabas, a son of consolation to the mourners in Zion." He preached and prayed and labored for the conversion of his people, and not in vain. He believed in the new birth, and in revivals of religion. He and Samuel Moody, his father-in-law and Daniel Bliss, the predecessor of his son William in the ministry at Concord, it is said, " were prominent supporters of Whitefield, and invited him into their pulpits." Daniel Bliss, " a flame of fire," as his suc- cessor aud son-in-law called him, was " the introducer of a new style of preaching, bold, ' zealous, impassioned, enthusiastic,' which brought him into trouble with the lukewarm Arminianism of the day." ("Memoir of Ralph W. Emerson," vol. i. p. 12). The Malden minister is believed to have been in profound sym- pathy with this style of preaching. At the same time he had a reputation as a high seholar, and delighted in scholarly studies. Mr. Cabot spoke of him as "a heroic scholar." His own granddaughter, Mary Moody Emerson, calls him " the greatest student in the country," and remarks, that " He was a reader of the Iliad, and said he would be sorry to think that the men and cities he read of never existed." He "left a library considerable for those days." Withal he seems to have been an eminently prudent man, wise in speech and action. During his ministry a prolonged and fierce conflict raged in the town, respecting the location of a new meeting-house, which resulted in a division of the people, and the organization of the South Church in Malden, yet he " was not reproached by any as the cause." He was a positive man, and did not remain silent in those troublesome times in his parish. He spoke openly and preached faithfully against the contentions and alienations, but appears to have retained the respect of both parties. He must have been a man of vigorous health, as during his long ministry of more than forty-five years he lost but two Sabbaths by sickness. He died suddenly. The quaint language of the town record is : He " deceased in the evening of the 13 day of July, 1767, very soon after lying down to sleep who was cheirly and in health before " All his living children, ten in number, were present at the funeral of their father, and followed

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him as his form was borne to the grave. He was greatly beloved by his people, and long after his death his name was familar and his memory fragrant in Malden.

REV. PETER THACHER, D.D .- Mr. Thacher was the eighth minister of the First Church in Malden. He was born in Milton, March 21, 1752, and was the son of Oxenbridge Thacher, " a very eminent lawyer, and a coadjutor of the early patriots of the Revolu- tion." He was the grandson of Rev. Peter Thacher, who married a daughter of Rev. John Oxenbridge, the latter a pastor of the First Church in Boston. He was the great grandson of Rev. Thomas Thacher, the first pastor of the Old South Church, in Boston. The grandfather of our Mr. Thacher was pastor of the church in Milton for forty-six years ; and his father, Rev. Thomas Thacher, was pastor of the Old South Church for about nine and two-thirds years, having been installed the first pastor of that church, Febru- ary 16, 1669, and dying in the pastorate, October 15, 1678. His father was Rev. Peter Thacher, minister at Salisbury, in England. He did not come to this country.

The eighth minister of the First Church in Malden, therefore, belonged to an eminently ministerial family. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1769. After the death of Mr. Emerson the old animosities among the people of Maklen seemed to have revived, and there was much division and conflict over the ques- tion of electing a new minister. At this critical juncture, Mr. Thacher, by invitation from a single man, preached one Sabbath morning in the Malden church. "His youthful and engaging mien," says Dr. McClure, " his silvery voice and golden eloquence so charmed the disturbed elements, that during the intermission it was decided by acclamation that this was the man to heal the dissensions." IIe was or- dlained September 19, 1770, when he was only eighteen years of age. He was a magnetic and brilliant preacher, yet perhaps more eloquent than profound. He had sincere evangelistie fervor, especially in the earlier part of his ministry. It is said of him that,-

" Jis ruling passion, from his earliest years, seems to have been to proclaim the Gospel of the grace of God to his fellow-men ; and to this everything else was rendered subordinate, and, so far as possible, subser. vient. With the studies belonging appropriately to his College course, be connected the study of Theology ; and at the time of his graduation he was well-nigh prepared, according to the usage of the time, to enter on hin professional career. . His first efforts in the pulpit awak- +ned an uncommon interest, The multitudes crowded Nter him, and hung upon his lips almost as if he lud been a representative from some brighter world !. Whitefield, in referenco particularly to the fervour of his prayers, called him ' the Young Elijah ;' and the strictness of his arthurloxy, not less than the depth and warmth of his devotion, gave lum great favour, especially with the more zealous portion of the con- mininty." (Sprague's " Annals," vol. i. p. 720.)

The lon. Harrison Gray Otis, who sat under Mr. Thacher's preaching during his later ministry in Boston, speaking of his settlement in Malden, says :-

" He then hecame endeared to his people by his affectionate deport- mont, and, being gifted with a good person, melodious voice, fine de- Hvery und Tervid oloquence, he soon came to be regarded as a model of

the pulpit orator, and to be rated higher than some of his contemporaries who were at least his equals in erudition, but without the advantage of his brilliant endowments." (Sprague's " Annals, " vol. i. p. 719.)

Mr. Thacher's ministry in Malden covered the ex- eiting period of the great Revolutionary struggle, and the abundant opportunity given him to sway the people by his impassioned eloquence was well improved. By both pen and speech he gave utter- ance to words by which the patriotic passions of the population were wrought up to white heat. Some of those words, as we read them now, seem still hot with the old fire that burned in them when they came fresh from his pen and lips. During those stirring years the town of Malden repeatedly gave " instructions " to her representative in the Gen- eral Court. These "instructions " were drawn up by Mr. Thacher and adopted by the town. One of those documents closes with these words :

" The people in the province are a free and brave people ; and we are determined, in the strength of our God, that we will, in spite of open force and private treachery, live and die as becomes the descendants of such aucestors as ours, who sacrificed their all that they aud their posterity might be free." Another of these papers, dated May 27, 1776, ends thus :- " And we now instruct you, Sir, to give them [members of the Continental Congress] the strongest assurance, that if they should declare America to be a Free and Independent Republic, your constituents will support and defend the measure to the LAST DROP OF THEIR BLOOD AND THE LAST FARTHING OF THEIR TREAS URES." (" Bi-Centennial Book," pp. 210, 212.)

It is said that Mr. Thacher even, " on one occasion, joined a military corps, but, having put himself under command of the military officer of the town, he was ordered to remain at home, that he might serve the cause of humanity in the discharge of the appropriate duties of his office." (Sprague's " An- nals," vol. i. p. 720.)

After a ministry of some fourteen years in Malden, Mr. Thacher was called to the pastorate of the Brat- tle Street Church in Boston. Such a proceeding was unusual in those times, the union of pastor and peo- ple being then regarded, not only as sacred, but inviolable except for the most imperative reasons. The complaints of his people in Malden "were loud and bitter." But the prospect of a larger service in a wider field prevailed with their pastor, and the peo- ple yielded. While they refused to the end to sanction the action of the Boston Church, they gave to their pastor a letter of affectionate commendation. "Ile was dismissed Dec. 8, 1784, and was installed in the Brattle Street Church, Jan. 12, 1785, where he continued in office seventeen years, or until his last illness."

" His religious character is represented to have shone most brightly in tho earlier and later periods of his life. During the period when he was brought into contact with the world, politically and socially, at so many points, the fervour of his religious feelings is said to have considerably sbuted, and las public ministration to have become, if not less popular,

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at least less spiritual and less effective. But towards the close of his ministry, especially when the evil days of adversity came, his mind re- covered the tone of deep evangelical feeling which he had early exhib- ited, and Christianity, hy her most serene and heavenly influences, illu- minated his path to the grave." (Sprague's " Annals," vol. i. p. 722.)

Having gone to Savannah for the benefit of his health, he died there December 16, 1802.

Soon after he was settled in Malden, on October 8, 1770, he married Mrs. Elizabeth Poole. Ten children were born to them; two of them becoming distin- guished clergymen, and one an eminent lawyer. Many honors were conferred upon him, and among them the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the Univer- sity of Edinburgh, in 1791.

THE ANCIENT MEETING-HOUSES IN MALDEN .- The meeting-house in which the scholarly Mathews preached, and, during the early part of his ministry, the gifted Wigglesworth also, was located, as Mr. Corey informs ns, " a little to the westward of Bell Rock." It was probably a small and plain building, designed to be used only temporarily as a place of worship. Bell Rock-an historical locality in Mal- den, and well known to all the older inhabitants-is about a third of a mile south of the present city hall, on the west side of Main Street, a few rods from the old parsonage house, which is on the opposite side of the street, and at the present time (1890) is owned by George H. Wilson, Esq. This rocky elevation re- ceived its name, according to tradition, from the cir- cumstance that in the early time a bell was placed upon it to call the people together on the Sabbath for worship, and on other occasions. This bell, it is said, was rung at first by being struck with a hammer, and afterwards by being swung in a frame from which it was suspended. Not till 1693 did the town vote " that the bell shall be hanged on the top of the meet- ing-house."

On November 9, 1658, the selectmen, by written contract, engaged one Job Lane to build a new meet- ing-house, for which they were to pay him "the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds in corn, cord wood, sound and merchantable at prices current, and fat cattle." This second house of worship was also locat- ed near Bell Rock ; probably a little to the south of it. The contract required that it should be "a good, strong, Artificial meeting Honse, of Thirty-three foot Square." "All the sells, girts, mayne posts, plates, Beams and all other principal Timbers shall be of good and sound white or Black oake." Among other things, there were to be " a territt on the topp about six foot squr, to hang the bell in with rayles about it," " thre dores . . . east, west and south," a "pull- pitt and cover to be of wainscott to conteyne [five or six persons," a "deacon's seat allso of wainscott with door, and a table joyned to it to fall downe, for the Lord's Supper," and " seats throughout, made with good planks, with rayles on the topps, boards at the Backs, and timbers at the ends." " The windows," says Dr. McClure, " were few and small, on account

of the great expense of them, and were constructed with diamond panes in leaden sashes, according to the fashion of the times."

"A Seating Committee," elected by the town, an- nually assigned to each member of the congregation his seat in the house of worship, arranging the people "in an order corresponding to their share of the min- ister's rate,-age, deafness and dignity being taken into account." The work of this committee was called "dignifying the seats," and must have been, for both the committee and the people, a serious busi- ness. It was an out-cropping, in an uncongenial clime, of the old English aristocratic temper. More- over, it was thought necessary to good order, to seat the men on one side of the house and the women on the other side. A few of the most wealthy and nota- ble persons in the community were sometimes, by special vote of the town, permitted to build for them- selves, at their own cost, square pews separated from the common seats.

March 14, 1692, the town of Malden voted, that "Corronal page hath liberty to build a pew." Colo- nel Nicholas Page was a wealthy merchant and a prominent military officer, whose favorite residence was on a fine farm in Chelsea. When living there he worshiped with the people of Malden and generously aided them in supporting the minister. Ile presented to the First Church in Malden two elegant silver chalices, which bear this inscription : "The gift of Col. Nicholas Page to the Church in Malden, 1701." They are still used by the church at every communion service. Colonel Page appears to have been the first man who received permission from the town of Mal- den to build for himself and family a square pew; subsequently a few others were accorded the same privilege. These persons, of course, were exempted from coming under the orders of the committee ap- pointed to "dignify the seats." The deacons also ob- tained a similar exemption, as they occupied "the deacons' pew," which was always located immediately under the front of the pulpit, and was elevated some- what above the level of the other pews. A pew was also set apart for the deacons' wives, and probably another for the minister's family. The remainder of the congregation were seated by the seating commit- tee. But who should seat that committee? It is easy to see that this might become a momentous question, especially if the committee should be inclined to dignify themselves unduly by appropriating some of the most honorable seats. A single record shows how the town of Malden, in one instance at least, solved this difficult problem. On January 2, 1695, at a town- meeting it was "Voted, that Two deakens shall seate those commitis that is acointed [appointed] to Seate ye meeting-hous." It was doubtless thought that the deacons, as they could not have been offended by any official and unfair assignment of their own seats, would be under no temptation to take revenge, but would exercise an impartial judgment in deciding

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 116

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1278