USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > History of Milton > Part 11
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14. The use of y in yt, ye, etc., is simply as an abbreviation for "th". Ye was always pronounced "the".
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and this was quite apt to be by unanimous vote, a delegation was appointed to treat with him on the matter of salary and other considerations. It became usual to "settle" a lump sum upon the minister in order to enable him to move, and sometimes to acquire a house. Milton possessed a "ministerial" house, or parsonage, which was furnished in addition to the salary, but we find Peter Thacher eventually preferring to leave this and build a house of his own. Once the salary and settlement were arranged, invitations would be sent to the congregations of various, but not necessarily neighboring, towns to send delegations to the ordination of the new and presumably per- manent minister.
A non-settled and thus temporary minister might after trial move on to some other church or churches until he at last found a suitable place, but if he did not find it while still fairly young, he probably fell back on school- teaching for his livelihood. In some cases older ministers gave up a settled pulpit and moved on, perhaps to a famous Boston church, as did Jeremy Belknap, who had started as a Milton schoolteacher, was minister in Dover, New Hampshire, for many years, and then moved to the Federal Street Church in Boston. Usually, however, a minister once settled expected to re- main.
Various attempts were made to settle Mr. Mighill, and the desire was evi- dent on both sides, yet it came to naught. Rev. Peter Thacher, Harvard 1671, thus secured the honor of becoming the first settled minister of the Milton Church. His father was Thomas Thacher, pastor of the Boston church later known as the "Old South". After taking his A.M. at college in 1674, he traveled and studied abroad, and then preached at Barnstable for about a year before being invited to Milton. He arrived here in 1680, and after a nine-month trial period was ordained, Mr. Mather of the Dorchester Church and Mr. Torrey, who had once held the Milton pulpit, being among the clergymen assisting.
In 1681 he administered the sacrament for the first time that the ceremo- ny ever took place in Milton. This is further evidence of the previously ir- regular procedure of the Church in Milton. It may well mean that none of the preceding ministers had ever been formally ordained (as they could not
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have been in the absence of an organized Church) and they really acted only as ruling elders, as had the layman Stephen Kinsley.
Peter Thacher is the first minister about whom we really know something other than names and dates. He left a journal,15 for one thing, and was so well known outside of the town that many references to him exist. He was to become one of the leading ministers of the Bay area. His diary shows him to have been mortal, he apparently liked to go hunting, went on an expedition with his wife after strawberries (and was violently ill that evening), and pic- nicked with friends in the Blue Hills. He bowled at ninepins, he beat his Indian slave over the head when she dropped his daughter, he smoked a pipe, and speculated a bit, sending horses to the West Indies for sale, as well as importing merchandise from England. A newspaper notice of his death said that he was of a lively nature, very engaging in ordinary conversation, and easy and pleasant in any company. I also found a statement that he was a practical Christian and not a blind follower of doctrine. Have we not here a pretty fair description of a modern clergyman, and one far removed from the dour puritanical tyrant that is often pictured? As a clergyman he had his official and religious side, but he also was a human being and made no pretense of being anything else. I think that (except perhaps for the length of his sermons) Peter Thacher would have been a success today in any one of the Milton pulpits.
He moved into the Milton rectory in 1680, but left it in 1689 for a new house which he had built on what became known as Thacher's Plain. The site today is covered by 15 and 19 Audubon Road. He served Milton for almost 50 years until his death in 1727. Besides his diary there exists a small record book in which he noted various items concerning the Milton Church. It is our earliest such record, and is mostly a bare list of births, marriages and deaths, but there is one interesting entry which shows that witches may have existed even in Milton, at least in the minds of some.
"Oct. 24, 1718, Mr. George Sumner had his sister Mrs. Elizabeth Sum-
15. See "The Diary of A Colonial Clergyman, Peter Thacher of Milton", Edward P. Hamilton, in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1955. The original manuscript is now in the possession of the Mass. Hist. Soc. A typewritten copy of the journal is in the Milton Public Library.
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Dec. 26.1716. Brother Samuel Anderos of Dorchester Villa Ro Brother Peter sion before me at my house (Deacon Juifs, Deacon"Jucker Jeni. Deacon Jucker Juni ? Dencon Walworth Seiutenant boje being present) after Being with prayer we gave Bro. Andros liberty to declare his offences then we gave tero. Peter sion liberty to make his defence; Then we received & Evidence Anderes produced to prove his offence; After a full de: bate we found sever sion Legally guilty & fo Brought him to make a confession &
Bri- Anders &y brethren profant Express of indiffaction & fo he was for given sithen we clopes with prayer & praise. June. 2.1717. m Elizabeth & m Sarah Gul: liver being propounded to y thh & Congre= gation in milton as defireing to owne o. Covenant & come under y warth & discipline of y Chh & to have Graphisme & tin voted y Affirmative:
Octo. 24 1718. in George Sumner Rad his lifter m Elizabeth Sumner before me for Ican- Talizing his owne mother & represented her as a witch & & har y prefence of Deacon. Tucker Jeni! & Deacon Jucker Junis &Lea: cong. Warfworth & Secutenant boje to Be present UmJohn Badcock & witnesses & we found m. Elizabeth funner guilt of bread of the fifth fix, & ninth commandm &the confessed Ret fault & cranes forgiveness of god & of all whome ffic fa offense & mg. Jumper ty ref- received fatifaction & fo for gave her &g was to signify to y langren with that latifaction was given tak en.
PAGE OF RECORDS OF MILTON CHURCHI The handwriting is that of Rev. Peter Thacher.
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ner before me for scandalizing his own mother and presented [?] her for a witch, and I had the presence of Deacon Tucker, Jr. [?] and Dea- con Tucker and Deacon J. Wadsworth and Lieut. Vose to be present, and Mr. John Badcock and witnesses and we found Mrs. Elizabeth Sumner guilt of break of the 5th, 6th and 9th commandments and she confessed her faults and craved foregiveness of God and of all whom she had offended and Mr. George Sumner and the rest received satis- faction and so forgave her and I was to signify to the Church that satis- faction was given and taken."
The Milton Historical Society possesses, as the gift of the Bostonian So- ciety, Peter Thacher's silver watch which was passed on to two other Rev. Peters, his son and grandson, then on to Deacon Peter, and finally to Mr. Peter Thacher of Cleveland, who gave it to the Bostonian Society. I recently had the pleasure of cleaning and oiling this watch, and found that it runs to- day as well as when it was first made in London over 250 years ago.
Peter Thacher died in 1727 in the 77th year of his age, and the 47th of his pastorate. Samuel Sewall, his classmate, came to the funeral, and could not get nearer the Meeting House on Vose's Lane than the burying place on ac- count of the many horses. He would almost certainly have come out Adams Street, and down Churchill's Lane to the burying place, and that means that tethered horses filled the sides of the road all the way along the present Cen- tre Street from the cemetery to Vose's Lane. Evidently Peter Thacher had many friends.
Rev. John Taylor, Harvard 1721, was ordained by the Milton Church in November 1728, and died there 21 years later. We do not know very much about Mr. Taylor, but contemporary writers reported him to have been an agreeable and pleasant companion and friend, modest and somewhat diffi- dent. He appears to have been much loved by his parishioners. It is interest- ing to note that the salary arrangement made with him provided for a cost- of-living adjustment. He built a house on the site of the present Town Hall, which finally burned down in 1864. His ministry began in the new third Meeting House which was built in 1728. The Town voted that the "Provi- sion" to be served at the raising of the frame of the building should consist of bread, cheese, beer, cider, and rum. The new structure stood near Can-
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ton Avenue in front of the present Unitarian Church and was fifty feet by forty feet in size with a 350-pound bell in its belfry.16
Town meeting of 15 December 1729 provided that the people should be seated in the new Meeting House in accordance with the amount of taxes they paid. There were separate benches for men and women, but families might build pews, provided, however, that they had first paid their share of the meeting house rate. A committee of five was appointed to the ticklish job of assigning the seats and pews. A later report made by this body ap- pears in the Town Records and lists the pew holders by name. Pews had to be built at floor level and could not have a raised inner flooring. There were two galleries, a men's and a women's, with the boys seated on the two back benches on the men's side, where a suitable person was to be provided by the Selectmen to "enspect" them.
In 1751 the two "hindermost" seats in each side gallery were reserved for negro men and women in the "uppermost" gallery. Twenty years later the men who were appointed to take care of the boys in church were directed to keep the boys seated after the blessing was given, until the men had gotten out of their seats. It is not hard to imagine the juvenile stampede which had necessitated this order.
I shall say but a word of the "Great Awakening" of the 1740's which was initiated by Rev. Jonathan Edwards at the Northampton Church, since it in no way affected the placid progress of the Milton congregation. In many an- other town this religious revival got beyond control and caused churches to split into "Old Lights" and "New Lights". Northampton finally had enough of Jonathan Edwards, who most certainly did not look with favor on the ex- cesses of the "New Lights", and dismissed him from his pulpit, a most un- usual action, in 1750. At this time Milton had recently lost Mr. Taylor, and Jonathan Edwards was suggested as a candidate. Town Meeting in Septem- ber 1750 voted decisively not to consider him. Apparently the Town was
16. For a number of years after 1742 there was great argument as to whether this bell should or should not be rung at 9:00 P.M. One year Town Meeting voted to ring it and another year the vote would be reversed. Some two hundred years later there was an equally hot argument as to whether the chocolate mill's whistle should or should not do its stuff. The cause of silence won, and another bit of old Milton passed into limbo.
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content with the old orthodox way, and had no desire for newfangled reviv- als. Edwards was relegated to an Indian mission for several years, and then was chosen President of Princeton in 1757, but died shortly after assuming office.
George Whitefield was one of the early revivalists. A graduate of Pem- broke College, Oxford, he was originally Anglican, then fell under the influ- ence of Wesley, and finally split with him on some points of doctrine. As a revivalist he preached to all sects with very great success. He first came to this country in 1740 and greatly encouraged the spread of the Great Awakening. He made later trips to America and finally in his last visit in 1770 he preached in Milton. Rev. Mr. Robbins refused him the use of the Meeting House and he spoke from a platform built in front of one of the windows of the old Foye house which stood on the site of the present 320 Adams Street. This is said to have been the largest religious assembly ever held in Milton, but it ap- pears to have had no lasting effect upon the local Church.
At this period and for many years to follow the practice continued of rais- ing the minister's salary by a tax or "rate" assessed against all the property owners of the Town, and the cost of repairs to the Meeting House was also so allocated. The Church had its own finances as well, run by the deacons, who were the business managers. They took charge of the Church's com- munion silver as well as certain funds which had been donated. At times ex- cess funds were loaned out at interest.17 The deacons were responsible for providing the bread and wine for the communion service, and for this pur- pose a special collection was taken each communion Sunday. A record book of the Milton deacons which runs from 1734-1834, lists each collection, as well as the amount spent for wine and "bricks". The collections often did not quite cover the expense, so there usually was a small deficit to worry about. New deacons coming into office would receipt to the old for the com- munion silver and the Church funds. In the early 1800's the Church con- tributed toward the support of certain of its impoverished parishioners, but there is no record to show if this custom was one of long standing.
17. The Milton Church's possession and use of such funds was most unusual, and may have been a unique example of a Church with money out on loan.
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In 1751 young Mr. Nathaniel Robbins, twenty-four years old and four years out of Harvard, took over the pulpit which he was to hold for forty- four years. For a parsonage he built the "Home Farm", still standing at 730 Canton Avenue. He married a cousin of Governor Hutchinson. No church records remain to tell us of his doings, but he appears to have been much loved by all. His eldest son, Edward Hutchinson Robbins, became a well- known lawyer and was Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, 1802-07, and then Judge of Probate for Norfolk County. He was most active in estab- lishing Milton Academy. Edward's son, James Murray Robbins, in turn be- came a prominent citizen of Milton, most influential in all affairs of the Town until his death in 1885. Previous ministers had come and gone, but the Rev. Mr. Robbins left a heritage to the Town. In the closing years of his pastor- ate, in 1787, the fourth and final Meeting House was built, now the present Unitarian Church, which at first stood at right angles to its present position.
The Town voted to build the Meeting House in October 1785. It was to be paid for out of three sources, of which the most productive was the auc- tioning off of the pews. This sale realized £1191 for the sixty-two pews on the main floor, and £208 for twenty-four in the gallery. A chance like this to establish one's social standing by bidding in a choice pew over one's compet- ing neighbors did not occur very often, although pews were transferred like any other kind of real estate from time to time, as death or other cause made one available. The old Meeting House was to be sold for what it would bring, and finally any further sum needed was to be put on the tax rate.
For over two years after the death of Nathaniel Robbins there was no reg- ular minister, but in November 1797 the Rev. Joseph Mckean was ordained. He had graduated from Harvard, where he founded the Porcellian Club in 1794, and then taught school for three years, at the same time continuing his studies for the ministry. He was only twenty-one when he came to Mil- ton. He was a pronounced Federalist, and appears to have taken more inter- est in politics than was wise for a clergyman. Moreover, his health was not of the best. A parsonage was built for him on Canton Avenue nearly opposite the present "Home Farm". After a few years in Milton he was forced to take a trip south for his health, and finally left the church in 1804, partly because
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of poor health, but also-and probably to a large extent-because the Town did not treat him well in the matter of pay or in maintenance of the parson- age.
At this particular period national politics were taken very seriously and there were bitter feelings between the Federalists (conservatives) and the Anti-Federalists (Jeffersonian Democrats). Oddly enough in New England it was often at the Meeting House that the two sides came nearest to blows. The Federalists rejoiced in wearing a black cockade on their hats, a round rosette of ribbon some four inches in diameter, while the "Anti- Feds" sport- ed a tricolor rosette. One Sunday afternoon in September 1798, Elisha Gould, probably the eighteen-year-old Milton lad of that name, Joe Phin- ney, and one by the name of Pitcher strode into Milton's Meeting House flaunting red, white and blue cockades. All was peaceful until the service was over, whereupon the young men were taken in hand by Federalists in the congregation and they finally left the scene in a sad state of disrepair.
Hard feelings between the two political parties were carried into the af- fairs of everyday life in a way which we can hardly understand today, and people refused to trade in stores owned by one of the opposite party or to patronize their taverns. Milton at this time was predominantly18 Anti-Fed- eralist in the town as a whole, although the Church was probably largely Federalist. It certainly was most unwise of Mr. Mckean to espouse Federal- ism so vigorously in the face of an Anti-Federalist parish, and this action on his part may well explain the trouble he soon ran into with the parish and his ultimate dismissal from the pulpit.
I have devoted considerable attention to the Milton Church up to this point, because, practically speaking, the Church has been, although to a gradually decreasing extent, a part of the civil town government. Parish and Town were one, and Town Meeting voted in certain, but not all, Church matters. We are now approaching the period of separation between the Town and its Church, and the commencement of complete religious freedom in Massachusetts. Initially there was complete intolerance of any dissenting opinion. Anne Hutchinson was banished because of what we would consid- 18. The 1799 State election produced 83 Jeffersonian to 55 Federalist votes.
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er a petty heresy, and Quakers and Anabaptists found hard sledding in the Bay.19 Only Church members held the right to vote, but all were taxed to support the authorized minister.20 As time went on the proportion of Church members to population decreased, and before the last quarter of the seven- teenth century full franchise was granted to non-communicants.21 All, of course, members as well as non-members, were supposed to attend meeting twice on Sundays. This may be thought to have been a most unreasonable requirement, but in Virginia the Church of England made a similar church attendance mandatory, and was just as bigoted in its treatment of dissenters.
Gradually but steadily the ratio between Church members and church at- tendants lessened, until by 1800 the Church in Milton consisted of only about thirty members. It had long been customary in selecting a new minis- ter for the Church to make a choice and then refer it to the Town for con- currence, and this was usually given. In 1796, however, the Church had voted to call the Rev. John Pierce, but the Town did not concur, and he went to the Brookline pulpit, while Joseph Mckean became the second choice upon whom both parties agreed. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 had given the parish, in this case the Town, the right to select the min- ister, but the old custom of the Church taking the lead was still followed at this time for some reason unknown to me.
Dr. McKean did one very good deed for the Town. He bought a new rec- ord book and copied into it all the scraps of the tattered old Church records that he could find, and then he commenced to make regular entry of all meetings and actions of the Church members. His first entry notes that in September of 1797 the twenty-seven members of the Church present at the
19. Too many of the early Quakers were religious fanatics desirous more of creating disturb- ances than of practicing their faith in quiet decency. One of their favorite proceedings was for a naked woman, her face painted black, to rush into a Congregational meeting house during ser- vices, shouting and ranting. The laws against dissenting sects were more stringent than was their execution, which sometimes was effected only after the victims had repeatedly dared the Colony to punish them.
20. Boston was the exception to the rule, the churches there were on a purely voluntary basis, and one attended and helped support the particular congregation which he favored.
21. After 1647 non-members were allowed to vote in all local matters, and in 1664 the church membership requirement was removed entirely.
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meeting then held chose him as minister and appointed a committee to noti- fy the Town and request its concurrence. One custom of the early New Eng- land church was to require public acknowledgement of various sins in front of the whole congregation, and what early Milton records we have contain many such entries. This practice apparently died hard, for we find an inter- esting vote of the Church in September 1798. A committee reported that it was not expedient in future to make public confessions of breaches of the Seventh Commandment "because hereby the baptism of several children is very probably prevented". Another entry of about the same date states that "it was expedient that -'s children should be baptised in private".
In 1804 the Milton Church called an ecclesiastical council to approve the separation of Dr. McKean, a most solemn and unusual matter. The visiting churches came, met, and approved, and Joseph Mckean left for greener fields and happier pastures which eventually led to a professorship at Har- vard and an early death. The Town should have felt a little guilty about the way it had treated him. Caught in the toils of inflation and rising living costs he pled with the Town for help, but his cries fell on stony ears. The Church members wished to help him, but Town Meeting held the purse strings.
There was now a vacancy for some two years, probably filled by temporary ministers, but in 1807 Rev. Samuel Gile came from Plaistow, New Hamp- shire, to become the last minister of the old Church of Christ in Milton. He broke the Harvard tradition, for he graduated at Dartmouth in 1804. For a century and a quarter Milton had enjoyed a peaceful religious atmosphere, and one free from any of the disturbances which had plagued many of the sister churches, but the misery and bitterness of a religious quarrel were about to burst upon the town.
I mentioned earlier the requirement that only Church members could vote, yet all must support and attend the one established Church. In 1638 the General Court decreed that all must share in the support of the minis- ter, and as late as 1692 a similar law was continued. By the latter half of the seventeenth century the original emigrants were fast disappearing and there was a marked decrease in the amount of intolerance being exercised. Not that the new generation as a whole necessarily favored tolerance, but they
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feared appeals to England. The loss of the original charter and the various maneuverings to secure the new one all resulted in a general easing of con- trols. In 1686 Joseph Dudley, the first Royalist governor, introduced the Anglican service to Boston, a dreadful thing to many Bostonians, because this was the religion to avoid which their fathers had left the old country.22 Shortly after this time it became possible for a well-behaved Boston congre- gation to worship much as it pleased, so long as it was discreet, but the country was more conservative, and the established church maintained its sway in the towns. Our neighbor Braintree, as Quincy then was known, had an Anglican church in the early 1700's.23
Throughout Massachusetts Bay every town had its independent Congre- gational Church, each separate and owing allegiance directly to Christ alone. There was of course a loose control through ecclesiastical councils and tra- ditions, but the common training the ministers once got at Harvard was now being changed by the coming of other colleges. Thus it became increas- ingly possible for a minister to have views of his own and to preach them. This is no place to enter into theological discussions and definitions of dogma, but a brief word is necessary. The concept of the established church was Trinitarian, and all doubts and deviating doctrines had once been fiercely suppressed. There had long been a growing opposition to the strict and conservative orthodoxy of the Congregational Church, and as old traditions and trammels were gradually being sloughed off, this newer and more liber- al belief began to gain, somewhat under cover at first, for it was heresy by the old standards.
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