History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 117

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 117

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the grave question of the rank and dignity of the sev- eral members of the seating committee.

Many of the young people were permitted to sit together in the galleries of the meeting-house. Con- sequently the town of Malden, following the general practice in New England, made careful provision to keep them in order. At one time the householders, or masters of families, were required to take turns in performing this police service. Afterwards a parish offieer was annually elected, who was called "the tithing-man," and one of whose duties it was to main- tain strict order in the house of God during the hours of publie worship; but he probably was never a very popular man among the more ardent and impul- sive youths of Malden.

Near to an old-fashioned meeting-house in New England would almost or quite invariably have been seen the horse-blocks and horse-sheds, or stables. The former were for the convenience of the women in mounting their horses; and the latter were for the sheltering of the horses during the long services of public worship. In Malden, December 9, 1689, it was voted in town-meeting, that six men, whose names are given, should have " the privilege of a peece of land of 24 foots long and 9 foots wide, . . . for to set a stable to shelter their horses on the Sabbath days." Similar votes were passed in subsequent years. On March 5, 1711, seventeen men were accorded the priv- ilege of erecting s tables on the town's land, near to the meeting-house, not exceeding "three foots and half in breadth for on hors." The narrowness of the stables indicates that the people did not ride to meet- ing in any kind of "wheel-carriage," but " on horse- back."

The second meeting-house, the building of which was begun in 1658, appears not to have been finished until after June, 1660. But it answered the needs of the people, as a house of worship, for more than forty years, or until 1702, when it was enlarged "by cut- ting it in two, and carrying off one end twenty-four feet." In 1721 the town raised forty pounds "for the further enlargement of the meeting-house." In 1727, sixty-seven years after the building of this second meeting-house, or twenty-five years after the first en- largement of it, it was found necessary to build again the house of God. The question of location was in- stantly raised, and a prolonged and bitter conflict en- sued, during which seeds of strife and division, of personal alienation and animosity were sown, which sprang up and bore bitter fruit through scores of years. Mr. Emerson had then been settled only five or six years. He was a wise man and a lover of peace, but he could not calmi the tempest. The people in the south part of the town contended for the old site near Bell Rock; the people in the north part for the site on which now stands the Universalist house of wor- ship. Other sites were proposed, but received little consideration. The painful details of the struggle need not be rehearsed. It is sufficient to say, that

the contest raged until the General Court interposed with the stern order that the new honse should be placed on the north location.

On August 28, 1729, the frame of the third meeting- house in Malden was raised. It "was built," says Dr. McClure, "with but one gallery; but afterwards another was built above the first. These were appro- priated to children and youth." According to Mr. Corey's vivid description :

The building "was unpainted, both inside and outside. The pulpit stood on the north side, opposite the great sonth door, which was the principal en- trance. Another door-way, on the easterly side, gave additional facilities for ingress and egress. In two corners stairways gave access to the gallery ; and the description quaintly adds: 'The east stair was for women and the west stair for men, and they could not get together in the gallery without getting over the railing.'" Rev. Thomas C. Thacher, son of the eighth minister of Malden, writing, in 1849, of this third honse of worship, in which, when a child, he listened to the eloquent preaching of his father, says : " There seems to rise again before me that ancient, weather-beaten ehnreh, the place of my earlier wor- ship, and where my venerated father taught and prayed. ... Some of my ancient friends may re- member that old meeting-house. It was one of the plainest and strictest of its seet. It looked the old Puritan all over. It had no tower nor belfry. Its little bell was hung ontside on a beam projecting from the gable-end of the building. Close by stood the old school-house, with its enormons fireplace and rude benches, where I learned my rudiments.11

In this plain meeting-house the people worshiped for about seventy-three years. It gave place, in 1803, to a brick church, which, though repeatedly remod- eled, has stood to the present time (1890), and is now used by the Universalist Society, or the First Parish. When this house was built, if we may judge from the laconic parish record, there was no long debate or confliet respecting the building of it or its location. Perhaps the people recalled sadly the traditions that had come down to them respecting the dissensions and confliets of the former time. The record is dated Dec. 7, 1801, and reads thus :

" Voted, to build a brick meeting-house. Voted, to purchase the bricks rather than make them. Voted, to pass over the 6th and 7th articles. Voted, to ad- journ." This house was dedicated January 19, 1803. The bell for this church was given by the eccentric Mr. Dexter, usually called " Lord Timothy Dexter.'' The two cupolas, which were at first placed npon the house, were taken down in 1824, and in the place of them was erected the present steeple.

THE PARSONAGE LAND AND HOUSES .- On Deeem - ber 22, 1651, the town, by vote, gave and granted to the then "present preaching elder (Mr. Mathews),

] " Bi-Centennial Book," p. 181.

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and his next successor, and so, from time to time, to his successors, four acres of ground purchased of James Green for that end, and the house built there- upon, at the charge of all the inhabitants." This land was the parsonage land, now owned by George H. Wilson, Esq. This house was probably located a few rods south of the dwelling-house now owned by Mr. Wilson, and was occupied by the successive min- isters of Malden for about seventy-three years. On August 1, 1724-Mr. Emerson then being the minis- ter-this parsonage-house, with nearly all its con- tents, was consumed by fire. Within a few months a new house, located a few rods north of the site of the burned house, was completed, and Mr. Emerson with his family moved into it, January 5, 1725. Dr. Mc- Clure affirms that "the frame of this house-the rest of it having long since been pretty much renovated- is still standing." It was sold to Mr. Wilson by the First Parish in 1845, and at the present time (1890) is still standing, and still owned by Mr. Wilson. This is the house in which the celebrated missionary, Rev. Adoniram Judson, was born, on August 9, 1788, his father, Rev. Adoniram Judson, being at that time the pastor of the First Church in Malden. The pres- ent age of this ancient house is one hundred and six- ty-five years.

THE MALDEN SOUTH CHURCH .- The action of the General Court, in arbitrarily deciding the question of the location of the third meeting-house, did not terminate the contentions and alienations that had vexed the town. The southern people were grievously offended by the order of the Court. On the 9th of August, 1730, Rev. Mr. Emerson preached the farewell sermon in the old meeting- house near Bell Rock, from the text: "Remem- ber how thou hast received and heard." The next Sabbath the congregation worshiped for the first time in the new meeting-house. But the day was not a joyful one to all the people. A divi- sion of the parish was impending. The old aliena- tions continned. At length the malcontents decided to withdraw and establish public worship in the southern part of the town. On Sept. 13, 1730, they held their first separate meeting, and some time in the next year began to erect a house of worship on "Nelson's hill." The location was on or near the pres- ent corner of Hancock Street and Broadway, in Everett. "The meeting-house," says Mr. Corey, "was never fully completed, and it is said to have been in a very dilapidated condition in 1787." "It was reached by a way twenty-six feet wide, which led from the highway." Dr. McClure speaks of it as standing, " on that black and lonely hill," "in the midst of lots," and remarks, that " those who resorted to it never enjoyed the convenience of a public road." The separate meeting first established was main- tained for three years. " A Council of three churches" was then called to organize a church. It seems to have taken two or three days to effect the 32-iii

organization, for the council met April 16, 173-4, and on April 18th, " embodied what for fifty-eight years was known as the Malden South Church." The number of male members at first was sixteen. No officers were chosen until the 4th of September in that year, when John Mudge was elected deacon, and Jonathan Sargeant and Ebenezer Upham were elected ruling elders. On Sept. 24, 1735, Rev. Joseph Stimpson was chosen pastor, who, on account of his ill health, was dismissed in 1744. The next pastor, Rev. Aaron Cleveland, was installed in 1747, and in two or three years was dismissed. He was an intimate friend of Dr. Benjamin Franklin ; was the great grand- father of the Hon. William E. Dodge, of New York city, and of the Rt. Rev. A. Cleveland Cox, Bishop of the diocese of Western New York ; and he was the great-great-grandfather of Grover Cleveland, Ex- President of the United States. He died in Phila- delphia, at the house of his friend Benjamin Frank- lin, August 11, 1757. The third and last pastor of the South Church was Rev. Eliakim Willis, who was ordain- ed Oct. 25, 1752. The existence of this church from its beginning seems to have been little more than a lin- gering death. "In the course of thirty or forty years," says Dr. McClure, "their interests so far de- cayed that they barely maintained the forms of pub- lic worship. Mr. Willis was obliged to take the par- sonage to satisfy his claims for salary. He then preached for some time, for a little pittance, which was raised from Sabbath to Sabbath," depending mainly " upon his labor as a farmer for a livelihood." . In 1787 a brief spasm of life was given to this dying church, by the addition to it of a score of disaffected members of the First Church. Their first work was to repair the long-neglected meeting-house. "They found the windows badly shattered, the clap-boards hanging down by the end, and the whole edifice pre- senting a most cheerless and desolate aspect." Five years later this house, which should never have been built, was abandoned forever as a house of worship. The South Church decided to terminate its separate existence, and to return to the mother church. On March 25, 1792, the two churches assembled in the " North Meeting-House," and there " voted to be in- corporated, with their officers, into one body."

REV. ADONIRAM JUDSON, NINTH PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH .- He was the youngest son of El- nathan and Mary Judson, was born in Woodbury, Conn., in June, 1752, and graduated at Yale College in 1775. He married, November 23, 1786, Abigail Brown, who was born December 14, 1759, in Tiverton, R. I., and was the eldest daughter of Abraham and Abigail Brown.

The First Church, on December 8, 1784, had reluc- tantly parted with its popular minister, Rev. Peter Thacher. On July 3, 1786, it voted to call to the pas- torate Rev. Adoniram Judson. His settlement, how- ever, was strenuously opposed by some of the people. The church found great difficulty in agreeing upon

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the composition of the council that should be called to ordain the pastor-elect. The majority voted from time to time to call an ordaining council, specifying each time the churches which should be invited to send delegates, until no less than four such votes had been passed. Letter missives were issned for three of these councils. One was prevented from assembling by a great storm. Of the other two, the first met November 15, 1786; but after an examination of the circumstances attending the call, its members were not able to agree upon a result. Mr. Judson, after understanding that " the difficulties," which caused a difference of opinion in the council, " did not imme- diately relate to him," requested a dissolution of that body." "And upon his desire the council dissolved."

The last council summoned by letters missive as- sembled January 23, 1787; "and notwithstanding there were found some objections against the ordina- tion, they deemed it their duty to proceed to the ex- amination of the pastor-elect." Having carefully ex- amined him, "the Council were unanimously satisfied with his qualifications for the Gospel Ministry," and accordingly "ordained him to the pastoral office." (Church Records.)

The "objections," which probably came for the most part from persons who were not members of the church, but of the parish only, appear to have been made, not against Mr. Judson personally, but against his theological beliefs. These opponents, however, were extremely earnest and persistent. They pleaded also that the settlement of Mr. Judson would prove " an effectual barrier in preventing the mutually wished-for union of the two parishes in this town, hoth of which have severely felt their separation and thus remaining will probably terminate in the ruin of both." Twenty-one men, under the lead of Capt. John Dexter, presented to the council an earnest pro- test against the ordination of Mr. Judson, which, however, proved of no avail. The signers of this pro- test are reported to have been men of prominence and influence, and most of them soon seceded and united with the people of the South Precinct. Probably various considerations influenced those who set them- selves so strenuously against the settlement of Mr. Judson. Indeed, it looks as if a serious attempt was made at this time by a minority, to change the doctrinal faith, if not the ecclesiastical polity, of the church. It is quite significant that the vote of the church to call Mr. Judson (as well as that to call a previous candidate, Rev. David Avery) was preceded by another vote, which was worded as follows :

"For the information of the Gentlemen that wo May Invite to Settle among" ux. . . . Yoted, that we Ponslder ourselves a Congregational Church in Copiaunion and Fellowship with the Churches of that order in this and Neighboring States, and Expect the Pastor that may be Sett over us in the Lord to be Instated and to Conform in all Ecclesiastical Matters to the General Practice and Usages of this and other Churcheg of that Donominatiou agreeable to ibe word of God." (Church Records.)

The only specific theological objection, which was

put on record, to the settlement of Mr. Judson, was that of Capt. John Dexter, who entered a protest against " Settling a Minister of Bade Hopkintonian Principels," referring evidently to the principles of " Consistent Calvinism." But what Capt. Dexter and his party called " Bade" principles were the Christian beliefs which, at a later day, made the son of that pastor-elect a self-sacrificing and apostolic missionary -" The apostle of Burmah," as he was called, whose name is immortal. What that objector and his party found fault with were those interpretations of the Scriptures which inspired the men who founded the Andover Theological Seminary, who organized the American Board for Foreign Missions, and nearly all our great missionary and benevolent societies ; which inspired in the churches that evangelistic spirit that, under God, has brought on the great revivals of relig- ion, for which New England has been distinguished during the present century. It was a sad day for the First Church in Malden when it had on its roll, or on its parish-roll, the names of men who were opposed to such " Principels," and called them "Bade." This factious spirit was unanimous. Indeed, it proved to be the beginning of a sad history. Mr. Judson was an able and godly man, but helabored in vain to unite the divided people. After struggling at the task for about four and a half years, at his own request, an ecclesiastical council was called, which sanctioned the dissolution of the pastoral relation. He was dismissed August 21, 1791, with emphatic commendations from the council, and also from the people to whom he had ministered. He was installed in December, 1792, pastor of the Congregational Church in Wenham, Mass., and, after a pastorate of seven years, was dismissed at his own request, in 1799. In 1802 he was installed pastor of a Congregational Church in Plymouth, Mass., and remained there fifteen years, or until 1817, when he resigned on account of a change in his views respecting the mode and the subjects of Christian baptism. He died in Scituate, Mass., November 25, 1826, aged seventy six years. Although he at last followed his distinguished son into the Baptist denomination, he was buried, at his own re- quest, from a church dedicated to the service of his earlier faith.

To the questiou which has repeatedly been asked, " What was the relation of the Judson family, when residing in Malden, to the First Baptist Church in that town ? the answer must be, none whatever, for the simple reason that there was no Baptist Church in Malden at that time. The pastorate of Rev. Mr. Judson, with the First (or Congregational) Church in that town, as we have seen, commenced January 23, 1787, and terminated August 21, 1791; but the First Baptist Church in Malden was not organized until 1803, or until twelve years after Mr. Jndson had left the town. His distinguished son, the missionary, was born in Malden, August 9, 1788, and doubtless in his infancy received in baptism the seal

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of that ancient covenant which Paul teaches is not disannulled in the Christian era. Ile was only three years of age when his family left Malden, and was twenty-four years old before he became a Baptist. Twenty-one years, therefore, had passed after he left Malden before he embraced the distinctive views of the Baptists ; and his father did not embrace them until twenty-six years after he had left this town. It is difficult to see, therefore, what special relation any of the Judson family had to the First Baptist Church in Malden. But in God's Providence it is an honor to the town, and all the Christian Churches in it may well rejoice and give thanks that such a noble missionary as Dr. Adoniram Judson, "the apostle of Burmah," was born in Malden.

REV. ELIAKIM WILLIS, THE TENTH PASTOR OF THE FIRST 'CHURCH .- When the First and South Churches in Malden met in the North meeting- house, March 25, 1792, and "voted to be incorporated, with their officers, into one body," that vote made the Rev. Eliakim Willis the minister of the First Church Previous to that vote the First Church had no pastor, but was provided with deacons. The South Church probably had no deacons, but was provided with a pastor. When, therefore, the two churches "with their officers," were merged into one church, the latter was fully officered. There does not appear to have been any formal installation of Mr. Willis into his office. No council was called, either for an install- ation service or to advise, or even to recognize the union of the two churches. There was, doubtless, a reason for this. Any examination of the beliefs of Mr. Willis, or of those held by his former church, might have made trouble.

Little is known of the early life of Mr. Willis. He was born in Dartmouth, Mass., June 9, 1714. Dart- month at that time included the territory now com- prised in the city of New Bedford. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1735 ; was called to the pastor- ate of the South Church in Malden, October 16, 1751, and was ordained October 25, 1752. He had been the minister of the South Church about forty years, when he was called to be the tenth pastor of the First Church. And when he entered upon the latter pas- torate he was nearly four-score years of age. He was then for several years the sole settled minister in Malden. He died in the pastorate, March 14, 1801, at the age of eighty-seven years. The funeral services were held on the 18th of March. Six neighboring ministers were invited to serve " as pall-holders," viz .: "Revd. Messrs. Roby, Prentiss, Osgood, Morse, Thacher and Lathrop. Doct. Morse being on a journey, Doct. Eliot was applyª to in his room." The services were conducted with "great solemnity." The meeting- house was " shrouded in black." The members of the church wore badges of mourning. "Doct. Lathrop made the first prayer. Doct. Thatcher preached from 2 Tim., 4 Ch., 6, 7, 8 verses. Mr. Prentiss made ye last prayer." An imposing procession followed the body

of the venerable minister to the grave. Although his prolonged ministry in Malden appears not to have been in spiritual results a successful one, yet iu his death he was highly honored.

September 27th, " a letter left by Mr. Willis, and delivered by his executors," was read to the church, " wherein he begs the church to accept from his ex- ecutors a bible, and exhorts that the scriptures may be read in public every Lord's day; whereon the church voted that the scriptures be read in public, forenoon and afternoon, every Lord's day, except in severe cold weather." Mr. Willis also " left a number of theological works as the basis of a parish library."

In his theological beliefs Mr. Willis was evidently an Arminian. The Arminianism of his day, however, must not be confounded with that of the Wesleys. It was, indeed, in several respects, the extreme op- posite of the Wesleyan Arminianism. The latter was " warm, vital and evangelical ;" the former " was cold, formal, unreligious, sceptical, tending to scepticism and infidelity." ("Sketches of the Theological History of New England," by Enoch Pond, D.D., p. 28.) It would more properly have been called Pelagianism, or Semi-Pelagianism. Prof. Moses Stuart affirmed that the Arminianism that troubled some of the churches of New England in the last century, and in the beginning of the present, was not the theology of Arminius, but " was Semi-Pelagianism in some re- spects, and Semi-Rationalism in some others ; a com- pound of latitudinarian sentiments." " Arminianism now is, one might almost say, everything or anything that is opposed to orthodoxy. It exists in all forms and all gradations." (" Biblical Repository," 1831, p. 304.) Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of the so-called Arminians was their violent opposition to about every doctrine that is distinctively Calvinistic. Yet they generally claimed that they were standing only for a broad, liberal and tolerant theology ; that it was really of no consequence what a man believed ; that a good character and a respectable life were the main things ; and that these can be attained apart from any experimental religion or change of heart. " They discouraged warmth and engagedness in religion as things of a bad tendency," and were afraid of noth- ing so much as what they called enthusiasm. Innova- tions in point of doctrine were considered of small importance. If people attended public worship on the Sabbath, and paid their taxes, and made no pre- tensions to any unusual seriousness, but sneered and scoffed at those who did, they might expect to be re- garded as very good men." ("Sketches of the Theo- logical History of New England," by Dr. Enoch l'ond. pp. 29, 30.)

The Arminian ministers wholly disregarded, in their preaching, the Scriptural distinction between saints and sinners, between the regenerate and the un- generate. They abominated all evangelistic fervor, and especially revivals of religion. The advent of Whitefield and the power of his preaching aroused

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their anger, and he was excluded from their pulpits. They ceased to make a credible evidence of conver- sion a condition of admission to the church, and in- vited all persons of decent character and respectable lives to come into full communion. The consequence was that few became church-members, and in many instances even the congregations sadly diminished. The undeniable historic fact is, that this so-called Arminianism was the common, broad highway to Unitarianism and to Universalism.

In less than a year after, Mr. Willis was ordained as the minister of the South Church in Malden, or on December 28, 1752, that church adopted a new Con- fession of Faith and Covenant which were written undoubtedly by the pastor. As a confession of faith it was extremely meagre and vapid, having in its original form only three articles of belief. As a creed it was also indefinite, superficial and equivocal. In one part it was unintelligible, and in some of its state- ments glaringly defective and misleading. Any Ar- minian of that day could have subscribed to this creed without hesitation. Evidently it was intended to be an Arminian confession of faith, At a later date the Universalists in Malden made it the basis of their creed and covenant.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 117

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