History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 12

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 12

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Our church has supplied for the service of the country in wars early and late, seventy men, and it is believed that in the French and Indian Wars there were soldiers whose names have been lost.

Twenty two ministers have gone out from us, seventeen ministers' wives, and one young woman unmarried, as a missionary. Twenty-five descend- ants of these ministers and ministers' wives have been ministers, and twenty-one ministers' wives. No doubt the number is greater than this, but these have been counted. Two of the ministers stayed forty years each in one place, one forty-six years, one forty- seven, two fifty, one fifty-three, one fifty-five, and the husband of one of the wives sixty years. We have then a total of eighty-six persons who have been engaged in ministerial or missionary service,- namely, forty-seven ministers, of whom five were missionaries, thirty-eight wives of ministers, of whom three were missionaries, and one missionary unmarried.

A large number of eminent men have either been members of this church or descendants of members. First of all should be mentioned our own deacon, Isaac Williams, ancestor of a long line of distinguish- ed men. His son William, of Hatfield ; his grandsons, Solomon, of Lebanon, Conn., Elisha, President of Yale College, Colonel Ephraim, founder of [Williams Col- lege; and his great-grandsons, Eliphalet, of East Hart- ford, Conn., and William, of Lebanon, Conn., a member of Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, are conspicuous representatives of this notable family. Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster ; his son, Rev. Joseph Stephens Buckminster; Judge Theodore Sedgwick ; his daughter, Catharine Maria Sedgwick ; President Mark Hopkins, Professor Al- bert Hopkins, and Mrs. E. S. Mead, president of Mount Holyoke Seminary and College, are descend- ants still further down the line.

Jonas Clark, of Lexington, minister, patriot, states- man, and his grandson, Henry Ware, Jr., professor in IIarvard Divinity School, were eminent men.

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Joseph Park, of Westerly, R. I., had a Sunday- through the lives of men who, like Joshua, when the life of the nation was threatened, could go out and fight against her enemies. It is simply amazing to see in how many directions the influence of a single local church may go out, and how its agencies for do- school in his church thirty years before the time of Robert Raikes. Thomas Park, LL.D., was professor in Columbia College, South Carolina. Rev. Calvin Park, D.D., was professor in Brown University. IIis son, Edwards A. Park, D.D., LL.D., has been editor - ing good may extend and multiply in successive gen- of the Bibliotheca Sucra forty years, professor in Andover Theological Seminary forty- five years, a preacher and author sixty years, and is still preparing works for the press.

From John Eliot, Jr., the first minister of our church, descended his son, Judge John Eliot, and from him Henry C. Bowen, Esq. From his widow by a second marriage was descended Josiah Quiney, LL.D., President of Harvard College.

From Mr. Hobart, the second minister of our church, have descended Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs, of Brain- tree ; his son, Rer. R. S. Storrs, D.D., LL. D., of Brook- lyn, N. Y. ; Dr. Joseph Torrey, president of the Uni- versity of Vermont, and Judge Robert R. Bishop, of this place.

From Mr. Cotton, our third minister, were de- scended Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Thayer and his son by the same name, patron of Harvard College.

Other descendants of members of this church are Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, Rev. Dr. William Hayes Ward and Professor William G. T. Shedd, D.D., LL.D., of New York, a prolific author and the greatest master of the Augustinian theology in our land.

William Jackson, pioneer in temperance and anti- slavery, father of railroads, member of Congress as an anti-Mason, a pillar in the church, zealous in all good works, was a member of this church from 1814 to 1845.

Included in this enumeration are three judges, two members of Congress, several authors, three college professors, three professors in theological seminaries and five college presidents. What opportunities for usefulness do such positions as these afford, and what sense of security we have when the right men fill them! Those who are called to instruct and guide the young in the forming period of their lives are sitting at the very fountains of influence. They direct the thinking of the time, for they teach those who are to be the thinkers. If all our colleges and schools were provided with such teachers as those whose names have just been mentioned, we might almost say that society would be safe in their hands. John Wesley, when a young man, declined a curaey that he might spend ten years at Oxford. If he had taken a pulpit, he felt that he should purify only one particular stream ; therefore he went to the Uni- versity, that he might " sweeten the fountain."

It is exceedingly gratifying to us to find in how many ways the church that we love has been of ser- vice to the interests of mankind, through ministers and missionaries and teachers, and gifts of money ; through the lives of men and women who, like Moses on the mount, had power with God in prayer, and

erations, when the children of ministers, their grand- children, and great-grandchildren, and descendants still more remote, are found perpetuating the work of their ancestors and keeping alive the fragrance of their name. This is a kind of fruit which it is the peculiar privilege of an ancient church like ours to gather up. Is it not also the privilege of a country church in distinction from a city church ? Churches which are remote from the excitements, the diver- sions and the frivolities which are incident to city life furnish by far the larger proportion of the men who stand in the pulpits of the land, and exert a con- trolling influence upon society, as well as of those who carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. Es- tablish a local church where one is needed, either in country or city, and you open a fountain of living waters which may flow on to the end of time. Its work goes on quietly, but constantly, like the flowing of a gentle river, in sermons, and prayer-meetings, and Sunday-Schools, in pastoral visitation, and in benevolent contributions, and sometimes we are cast down in spirit because there are no more visible results. But God has said, " My word shall not re- turn to me void; it shall prosper in the thing whereto Isent it." This is always true, and when we look through long periods of time we see it. " Every- thing lives whithersoever the river cometh."

An ancient church is often a mother of churches. As the banyan tree in the East sends down shoots from its branches to take root in the earth and be- come the stems and trunks of new trees, so this church sent down a shoot into the soil of the West Parish in 178I, and a new tree sprang up there. In 1845 it sentone down on the spot where Eliot Church now stand», and what a banyan tree is there! Another was dropped at Newtonville in 1858, and another at Newton Highlands in 1872, and the trees all flourish, and their pro-perity is cur joy. The work of the scores of ministers who have gone out into the world, tracing their roots back to this hallowed spot, sends back its benediction upon us and fills us with thanks- giving. For "so is the kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed upon the earth and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow he knoweth not how. The earth beareth fruit of herself" under the smile of God, and so does a lo- cal church. It is an institution filled with unspeak- able blessing to all within its reach. Continualiy, in one way and another, often in ways that we do not observe, and in ways that we never shall know in this world. it is bringing forth fruit unto God.

If this church through its long history has been a blessing to others, it has been a blessing to this partic-

NEWTON.

ular locality. Sound doctrine and true religion bring with them everything that is desirable in human society. Welove the city where we dwell, we enjoy its good name and its fair fame among the cities and towns of our Commonwealth. If society among us is established upon right principles, and if the chiar- acter and conduct of the people are such as to adorn those principles ; if all this is true in an eminent de- gree, as we think it is, we are largely indebted for it to those who have gone before us, and especially to the early ministers. Their faithful preaching and godly living were the foundation on which society was built. They formed the channel which shaped the direction of the stream that has been flowing ever since. Their spirit is in the air, and it has been breathed by every successive generation, and it is in great measure because of this that the lines have fallen to us in such pleasant places and that we have so goodly a heritage.

CHAPTER III.

NEWTON -(Continued).

EDUCATIONAL.

BY MRS. ELECTA N. L. WALTON.

BEFORE NEWTON BECAME A TOWNSHIP .- Pre- vious to the separation of Cambridge Village (New- ton) from Cambridge ber school interests were identi- cal with those of Cambridge, in which place there was established, in 1636, "A public school, or col- ledge," and soon after, by the side of the college, "A faire Grammar Schoole for the training up of young schollars, and fitting them for Academicall learning, that still as they were judged ripe, they might be re- ceived into the colledge." It is not definitely known when this grammar school was established. but it must have been previous to 1643, as the record quoted above was published in that year.

The inhabitants of both Cambridge and Cambridge Village were taxed for this school, and Cambridge Village had an equal right to its advantages, though how far the people availed themselves of the right is not known. Its distance was certainly too great for general daily attendance. It was a good school, for the record further states : "Of this schoole Master Corlet is the Mr., who has very well approved him- selfe for his abilities, dexterity au painfulnesse in teaching and education of the youth under him." But the school was poorly attended. As late as 1680 a report sent to the County Court states of Mr. Corlet, " his scholars are in number, nine, at present." For the encouragement of Mr. Corlet to continue teach- ing, various sums were voted by the town from time to time to be added to the fees received from his patrons. The following action is of interest to New- 4-iii

ton : In 1648 it was voted to sell land off the Com- mon to raise ten pounds for Mr. Corlet, "provided it should not prejudice the Cow-common." For this purpose, forty acres "on the south side," in or near what is now Newtonville, were sold to Mr. Edward Jackson.

Master Corlet taught nearly half a century, till his deatlı, Feb. 25, 1687, aged seventy eight years.

There is no record of any public or private school for elementary instruction available to the village before 1698, if we except those named in a report sent from Cambridge to the County Court in 1680, which states that "For English, our school dame is Goodwife Healy, at present but nine scholars," and "Edward Hall, English Schoolmaster, at present but three scholars," which schools Cambridge Village children could hardly have attended. But that an attempt was made to see that all the children were instructed in some way is shown by the following ex- tract taken from the Cambridge records of 1642 :

"According to an order of the last General Court it is ordered that the townsmen see to the educating of children, and that the town be di- vided into six parts and a person appointed for each division to take care of all families it contains."

The order of the General Court referred to, re- quired of the selectmen of every town to "have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see first that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or others, their children and appren- i tices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and [obtain a] knowledge of the capital laws, upon penalty of twenty sbillings for each neglect therein." Again, in 1647, a law was passed requiring every town containing fifty house- holders to appoint a teacher "to teach all such cbil- dren as shall resort to him to write and read;" and every town containing one hundred families or house- holders was required "to set up a grammar school, whose master should be able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University." The pen- alty for non-compliance was five pounds per annum. With such a law and such a penalty there can scarce be a doubt that some provision was directly made for the elementary education of the youth of the entire township of Cambridge, including Newton, even if no records of the same have been preserved. How far the early settlers availed themselves of the oppor- tunities given can never be known; it would not be strange if, in their struggles for existence, many set- tlers should have neglected them altogether.

AFTER THE SEPARATION OF NEWTON FROM CAM- BRIDGE .- For some years after the separation of New- ton from Cambridge no school building was provided, but the children, if taught collectively, were accom- modated in some room furnished by a citizen. The first movement towards building a school-house, of which we have any record, was made in 1696. Rev. Jonathan Homer, in his historical sketch of Newton written in 1798, says :

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

" In this year (16)6) the town agreed to build a school-house (since multiplied to six) and choose a committee to treat with and persuade John Staples (afterwards a worthy dearou of the church) to keep the school To him they gave, agreeably to their day of stuall things, une shilling and sixpence per day. "

But it seems that the school-house was not then built; indeed, the people had much trouble about its erection, and that they were not able to overcome all the obstacles to their enterprise is shown by the fol- lowing curious extracts from their town records:

May 7, 1698 .-- " Then voted that the town shall build a school-house as soon as they can."

March 6, 1699 .- " Voted that the town will build a school-house the dimensions sixteen foot long and fourteen foot wide, and that it shall be finished by the last of November, 1699."

Jun 1, 1700,-" At n town-meeting upon due warning given January ye 1, 1700, the selectmen und Inhabitants did hiere and agree with John Staples to continue the keeping of the school four days in a week until March, and to have two shillings per day."

March 4, 1700. - " Voted that the school-house be set in the highway, neer to Joseph Bartlet's, and that it be finished by the 1 of October, 1700."

[NOTE. Joseph Bartlet's house was just north of Institution Hill, in Newtou Centre. ]

At a town-meeting November 25, 1700, "the Select- men and Inhabitants did agree with Jolin Staples to keep school one month 4 days in a week for one pound fore shillings, and allso voted that the Selectmen shall hire a roome or place to keep school in, and shall agree with John Staples or some other to keep and continue the school till the town-meeting of election in March."

" March 10, 1701, voted that those that send achollers to shool chall pay 3 pence per werk for those that lern to read, and 4 peoce per week for those that lern to Sy pher and write, and that they may send scholers to either school. "

" Tofed, at the same time that Capt. Prentice, Lieut. Spring and John llydr he joined with the selectmen for a committee to build said school-

There is no record of that date or of any carlier date concerning "said school-houses," but reference is probably made to plans given in the following entry, dated a month later, the discrepancy in dates being accounted for on the supposition (borne out by the appearance of the records) that the town clerk made his entries some time after the town-meetings occurred, and in almost any convenient and vacant space in his book :

"At n town-meeting upon warning given April 15, 1701, the inhabit- ants generally assembled, and upon mature consideration had, did unani- mously agree to build two school.honses-one ta be set at the meeting- house and the dimensjous 17 foot square besides chimney roome. and the other in the southerly puit of the town neer Oke Hill, 16 foot square besides chimney roome ; und farther, there shall be one schoolmaster whoe shall truch two-thirds of the time at the school at the Meeting-House, and one-third of the time at the school nt Oke Hill ; and further, the town granted twenty five pounds towards the building of said school- houses, to be equally divided between both honses, and what is wanting to be made up by those who will freely countrybute towards the building of the same."

This arrangement was carried out and the two school-houses were built; the school-house "at the meeting-house" being north of Joseph Bartlet's, and that " at Oke Hill" being south, thus accommodating the scattered settlers better than before.

It is gratifying to find that the differences concern- ing sites for the school-houses were thus happily set- tled. The first "contrybution," as recorded for the purpose, was a gift by Abraham Jackson of one acre of land adjoining an acre previously given to the town by his father. The record under date of May 14, 1701, states that

" Abraham Jackson added and gave for the setting of the school-house upon and enlarging of the burying-place and the convenience of the training place, one acre more, which said two acres of land was theo laid aut and bounded."

The town immediately commenced to build at least one of the school-houses, for we find the following in the town treasurer's account :

" Delivered to Abraham Jackson, May 28. 1701, ye suoi of one pound thirteen shillings to by bords aod uailes for ye school-house."

The gift of Abraham Jackson's was followed the next February by a similar gift by Jonathan Hyde of "a half-acre near Oak Hill, for the use and benefit of the school at the south part of the town." Gifts of money are also recorded as received and various sums as paid out for the buildings :

"Paid Jobn Hide, one of the commity for the school-house, September yo 25, 1702, two pounds, three shillings and fore pence ; " also

" Paid to Abraham [Jackson], Que uf the Commity for the school-house, September ye 26, 1702, one pound, sixteen shillings and eleven pence, being iu full of the twenty-five pounds alowed by the town to ye build- ing both school-honses."

[NOTE, -- The " meeting-bouse " stood in what is now old cemetery on Centre Street. ]

It is hoped that the site of the Oak Hill school- house was more happily chosen than the site given by Mr. Jackson, at which latter location the child must have imbibed very conflicting impressions from his daily surroundings reminded on the one hand, by his vicinity to the meeting-house, of his obligations to the Prince of Peace, and taught by the near train- ing-place, with all the attractions of music and ginger- bread, the enforcement of that semi-barbarous law, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," while the exhilaration of " tag" and " I spy " must have been too often hindered by the funeral train by day or tem- pered by fears of possible hobgoblins at night.

A CHANGE IN SCHOOLMASTERS .- It is possible that about this time John Staples began to tire of school-keeping, for we read, "Voted, allso, Novem- her 21, 1701, that Ephraim Wheeler, John Hide, Na- thaniel Healy, Edward Jackson be joined with the selectmen to treat with and persuade John Staples to keep the school, and if they cannot, to use their best discretion to agree with and hier some other person."

This committee probably procured the services of Mr. Edward Godard, for a record of the treasurer, un- der date of March 31, 1702, reads, "Paid to Mr. Ed- ward Godard, schoolmaster, fourteen shillings," and there is no record of any money paid later to Mr. Staples for teaching.

It further appears, by the treasurer's account, that Mr. Godard taught till November, 1705, when he was succeeded by John Wilson, Daniel Baker, Caleb Trow-

NEWTON.

bridge and Mr. Webb, then by Caleb Trowbridge a second time, who taught till 1714, after which John Brown became. knight of the ferule. The names of nine other masters occur up to 1739, making, in twenty-seven years, fifteen different teachers, enongh, with no regular system, to ensure but little progress. Of all these schoolmasters John Staples appears to have been most acceptable, and to have taught the greatest length of time. He was a person of note in the town, of which he was an inhabitant from 1688 till the time of his death, November 4, 1740, at the age of eighty-two. Besides being a schoolmaster for some years, he held the office of deacon of the church, was selectman from 1701 to 1709 and town clerk from 1714 to 1734.

CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS .- Up to this time and for years after, the schools were not free in the sense in which our present schools are free. They were open to all children, but those who attended paid tuition, the amount being generally decided upon by the town, aud any deficiency in the master's pay being made up by drafts upon the treasurer. There was little system in the management of the schools, the people from year to year voting in town-meeting how and where the schools should be taught. The duties of School Committees were limited at first simply to hiring a schoolmaster, and at times they shared even that duty with the selectmen. They were chosen for but one year at a time, and the board was often entirely changed. But the aim of the peo- ple was always to secure greater facilities for better teaching; and from these small beginnings, as experi- ence dictated, has steadily grown a common-school system of which we are justly proud.

The following record is one of the earliest pre- served which shows any additional power delegated to the School Committee :

" May 9, 1712, at a public town-meeting, the inhabitants of this town did pass a vote that the committy chosen at the laet town-meeting to take care of the school, shall agree with a schoolmaster as to his sallery fer the present year."

FURTHER SCHOOL PRIVILEGES DEMANDED .- It was not long before the school at the north, "by the meeting-house" and that at the south, "near Oke Hill," proved insufficient for the needs of the people at the west, who petitioned for further school privi- leges, and on March 10, 1718, the citizens voted ten pounds to the northiwesterly, west and southwesterly inhabitants for the promoting of "Larning " among them "in such plaices as a committy hereafter chosen shall appoint ; and to be paid to [such] schoolmaster or schoolmasters as shall teach." About the year 1720 there seems to have been some disagreement in regard to the location of schools and many exciting sessions were held, ---

" May 11, 1720. At a towne meeting, appointed hy ye selectmen, for to hear the petition of eundry of ye inhabitanc on the westerly side of yo towne for to have three echoole-houeies in ye towoe, and to have theire proportion of scooling, es also to hear ye request of enodrey of ye inhab- itanc to have but one school-house to keep ye gramar echoole in ; as

also to hear the propesision of sundrey persous, yt if ye gramar echoole be kept io but one place, yt there should be a consideration granted to ye remoat parts of ye towne for schooling among themselves. The in- habitanc, being lawfully warned by Mr. Ephraim Williams, constabil, to meet att ye meeting house on said eleventh day of May, and beiog as- sembled on said day, did first trye a voat for three schoole housies and was negatived.

" 2. Did trye a voate for to have ye gramar schoole to be kept but in one place, and it was voated to bave but one schoole-house to keep gramar schoole in for the towoe.

"3 Voated to grant the remoat parts of ye Townea consideration for schooling among themselves.

"4. Voated to choose a Commity to consider whear said one schoole- house should be erected for to keep the gramer schoole in ; as also to con- sider who ye remoat parts of ye towne are yt cannot have ye benefit of but one schoole, and what alowanc they shall have for schooling among themselves ; aod to make theire repoart of what they do agree upon at ye next publick towo meeting for confirmation or non-confirmation. And then did choose Lient. Jeremiah Fuller, Mr. Joseph Ward, Mr. Nathaniel Langley, Mr. Richard Ward and Insine Samnel Hide to be the said commitey.

" Recorded per me, JOHN STAPLES, Town Clerk." Then follows a remonstrance of the same date, signed by twenty-five citizeus :

" Whe, whose names are underwritten, do enter our decents aginst thie voate of having bnt one schoole-house in this towne."

On December 7, 1720, the "Commity " chosen re- ported a site for the school-house ; also recommenda- tion to allow twelve pounds a year to the remote parts of the town for schooling, and thirdly, “ did suppose yt there is about sixty fammilyes yt are two miles and a halfe from ye meeting-house, and about forty fammilyes yt are about three miles from ye meeting-house," which reports were accepted, and votes were passed in accordance with the report. But in three months a different counsel prevailed, and the inhabitants on March 13, 1721,-

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. III, Part 12

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