USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > History of Milton > Part 12
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22. For some unknown reason Milton's Henry Vose, grandson of the first Robert, went to Bos- ton in May 1686 to be married to Elizabethi Badcock by Edmund Randolph's Anglican cliaplain, the Rev. Robert Ratcliffe. This was certainly the first Church of England marriage in the Bay Colony, and one of the very first executed by a clergyman. Hitherto only a magistrate had the legal right to perform marriages.
23. There were apparently Church of England communicants in Braintree as early as 1689, and by 1704 Christ Church was formally organized. It never was very large and had no church build- ing until 1727, in which year the Rev. Ebenezer Miller became pastor. The son of Samuel Miller of Milton, he had prepared for Harvard under Peter Thacher, for Milton then had no grammar school, and graduated from Harvard in the class of 1722. The Anglican community in Braintree sent him to England where he received an M.A. at Oxford and was ordained. He then returned to Braintree and was the Anglican minister there for thirty-six years. Oxford awarded him a D.D. in 1747.
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The Church
It has been stated that even before the Revolution some of the Boston ministers were, practically speaking, Unitarians and were preaching that doctrine freely in their churches. No great harm was done and no great stir would have been raised because any of the congregation who did not like what was going on was free to leave and join some other Boston church that suited him better. Anywhere else the matter was very different, for there was but one church and nowhere else to go. Thus in the country churches there was no safety valve and the pressure would build up until it burst.
While it was the Anglican King's Chapel that first cut free from the Trini- tarian doctrine, it strangely enough was the church of the Pilgrims at Ply- mouth, the oldest in New England, that was the first of the country churches to come out openly for the new faith.
Just as Puritanism was a reform movement originating within the Church of England, so was Unitarianism a liberal reform movement within the Con- gregational Church. The appeal of this new doctrine was very great, partly because people were thinking more for themselves, the spirit of change was in the air, and the excesses of the "New Light" revivalists had disgusted many.
In the early 1800's the spark caught and soon the forest fire of Unitarian- ism was sweeping through Christ's churches of the Bay. Church after church split asunder in angry dissension, accompanied by bickerings and backbit- ings over who should have the church property. This last was finally decid- ed by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts by judges, who were mostly Uni- tarians, in a ruling which, generally speaking, favored the new and more lib- eral faith. The Connecticut River churches had had their troubles earlier when the "New" and the "Old Lights" split, but such troubles were some- thing new to the Bay. The Unitarian movement was narrowly localized over an area covered by an arc of some thirty miles drawn around the State House, and so remained for a long time. Harvard was taken over between 1803 and 1818, the older faith falling back upon Andover Theological Semi- nary for its stronghold. It has been estimated that about one-quarter of the members of all the congregations where the split took place joined the liber - al wing and retained possession of practically all of the property. It is no
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History of Milton
wonder that the bitterness engendered was very great, and was felt for many a year to come. Today it is forgotten, but two generations ago my grandfa- ther used to say, "Well, of course there are some nice people among the Unitarians", and I imagine that the Unitarians had their remarks about the old mossbacks who blindly followed a hidebound Calvinism.
The Milton Church had enjoyed many years of placid existence, but change finally caught up with it, although the final break came later than in most towns. The first inkling of trouble appeared in Town Meeting, in De- cember 1814, when a committee noted with deep regret a disposition of Mil- ton citizens to leave the local Church and join the Third Religious Society in Dorchester, a Unitarian offshoot of Dr. Codman's Church. The commit- tee stated that it was "the first breach that has been made upon us since the settlement of the town and the establishment of religious order therein".
In 1659 Dorchester had set apart four hundred acres of land, the income from which was to be used to help maintain the minister. When Milton was set off, the land was divided in half, our Town receiving that portion which lay along and to the north of Canton Avenue, between Thatcher Street and Pine Tree Brook. There are various Town Meeting records referring to the improvement and utilization of this land. In 1818 at the request of the Town the General Court established the Milton Parish as a separate corporation, which assumed all the rights and duties with respect to the maintenance of the minister and the Meeting House that had hitherto belonged to the Town. This meant that the Parish took title to the ministerial lands, but the Act provided that their use must never be diverted from the initial purpose- that of assisting in the support of the minister.24
The first Unitarian Society was formed in September 1826, but after a short time it rejoined the old parish. I can find no other reference to this temporary break, and Dr. Gile's record book makes no mention of it. The February 1829 Town Meeting voted to sue the parish for the return to the Town of the ministerial lands, but no further report of this matter is to be
24. Despite the provision of the Act all of the land apparently was taken over by the Unitarian Church at the break-up, and in the 1830's we find the Town paying rent to the Church for the use of a part of it as a school lot.
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The Church
found. Presumably the action of the Supreme Court in the Dedham case quashed the Town's case. The record book of the old Church closes in 1828 and then follow two blank pages. It reopens in 1834 as the record book of the First Congregational Parish (Unitarian) and continues on down into our time. Thus we know little of the details of the change, but everything to be found, both scanty records and traditions, agrees that it took place in Milton with much less bitterness than was usual in other towns. Dr. Mori- son, long the Unitarian minister, in 1862 preached two bicentennial ser- mons in one of which he said "there was as little ill feeling as there ever is in such a separation". He also made another interesting statement: "The most remarkable feature in the history of the parish has been the harmony be- tween the ministers and their people." Whereas in most towns the Unitari- ans were in a minority, on the whole it would appear that if anything, they may have been a majority here in Milton at that time, although the Church itself was almost unanimously Trinitarian. We find one most unusual ges- ture on the part of the new Unitarian congregation, an offer made in Febru- ary 1835 to share the Communion silver between the two groups, but the old Church refused to have anything to do with such a thing. Presumably they preferred the cloak of martydom (or of Yankee cussedness, which may be much the same after all) .25
Dr. Gile and his Trinitarian group built the Meeting House which now stands just north of the Town Hall, and before too many years the two con- gregations were on friendly, if perhaps cautious, terms. Rev. Benjamin Hun- toon had come to fill the Unitarian pulpit in 1834, and married a Milton girl, Lydia Baker, granddaughter of Daniel Vose.
Formal disestablishment took place in 1834 through the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment to the Massachusetts State Constitution, and from this time on there was no connection between Church and State. Each con- nected himself with the church of his choice and assisted in supporting it.
In 1826 the "Old Stone" Church had been built in East Milton by a Uni-
25. Contrast this with what took place in Dedham when that parish split in two. Someone, pre- sumably of the old congregation, broke into the meeting house one night and carried away the Church silver, which was kept in hiding for over a century. Finally, one morning some thirty years ago, it was found deposited on the doorstep of the Dedham Historical Society.
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History of Milton
tarian group, who broke away from the Quincy Unitarian Church, but they did not long occupy it. In 1829 the Second Congregational Parish was or- ganized in East Milton and it met at this meeting house. In 1834 Dr. Gile and his orthodox group worshipped there previous to building their own church at the Center, and it was used at times by various congregations, but fell into disrepair. The latest record that I find of its existence was in 1861, when there was a fire bell in its tower. Not too long after this date it was tak- en down.
In 1843 a new Congregational parish was formed in East Milton. It first met in the hall over Babcock's store, but by 1846 constructed the building on Adams Street now used for secular purposes. Then known as the Second Evangelical Church, it today is the East Congregational Church.
The Roman Catholic Church came to this vicinity in the person of Father Pendergast, who first said Mass in Quincy in 1826, but it was not until 1841 that a parish was formally established. This was St. Mary's in West Quincy, which then covered all the South Shore towns from the Neponset to Ply- mouth. The parish was organized in East Milton's "Old Stone" Church where the first services appear to have been held, by Father Terence Fitz- simmons. It initially was a mission of the South Boston parish. The first church building, a simple one of wood, was dedicated in 1842, and two years later the Rev. Patrick O'Beirne became the first resident pastor.
In 1863 St. Gregory's, on the Dorchester side of the Village, was formed, and for many years Milton was within its parish. The Rev. Thomas McNul- ty was the first pastor. He was succeeded by Father "Fitz", as the Rev. W. H. Fitzpatrick was lovingly known to many Miltonians. St. Agatha's in East Milton was started as a mission of St. Gregory's early in the century. At the time of the First World War a basement chapel was built, and the parish was established in 1922, with Father Eugene A. Carney as pastor.
The Baptists first organized as a mission in 1880, becoming a church two years later, with Nathan Hunt of Scotch Woods as the pastor. They first met in the Associates Building in the Village, but shortly thereafter built their church in Dorchester. Another group was formed in East Milton in 1886, and two years later they used as their first home one of the buildings
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The Church
of the Forbes private school on Adams Street, in which the new Milton Academy started. The other little school building became the Children's Church established by Dr. Pomeroy at the Unitarian Church. The present building of the First Baptist Church was erected in 1893. At the other end of town we find the Mattapan Baptist Church commencing in 1894, build- ing its church in 1901, and completely remodeling it in later years.
The Parkway Church (Methodist) was started in 1844 at the Boston side of Mattapan and in 1926 it moved to Milton.
St. Michael's Episcopal Church first assembled in a hall in the Village in 1895, and two years later a mission was started in East Milton. In the closing years of the century the present church and rectory were built. The mission became The Church of Our Saviour in 1923. Its building dates from 1914.
Milton Churches
139
Town Meeting
A town meeting is a single gathering of the voters of the Town, called for the purpose of considering only those subjects distinctly set forth in the warrant by which the citizens are summoned. . . . It is ... a pure de- mocracy, where the citizens as to matters within their jurisdiction, ad- minister the affairs of the town in person. It exercises both legislative and executive functions. The freest discussion prevails, yet in some respects its proceedings are inherently somewhat summary. ... The ample powers possessed by moderators, recognized from earliest times and growing out of the imperative needs of the office, are inconsistent with many incidents of ordinary parliamentary law.
Justice Rugg in Wood vs. Milton, 197 Mass. 533. T HE study of the gradual growth of New England town government has attracted the attention of many scholars, and many theories have been advanced as to its ancestry and derivation. Toward the end of the last century a school arose which believed that the New England town meeting was a direct inheritance from the Germans, while others questioned this and many learned papers were written. I think that the best statement of the ques- tion of origins is that of the late Prof. Edward Channing: "[The towns ] grew by the exercise of English common-sense and political experience, combined with the circumstances of the place."1 Fortunately the Dorchester, and later the Milton, records are complete enough to allow us to study this growth in these two towns, both of which we can claim as our own, the one up until 1662, the other since that time. Dorchester was apparently the first town to adopt several of the basic offices and procedures of New England town gov- 1. Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2nd Series, Vol. VII, p. 262.
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History of Milton
ernment. The entire growth of local government can be followed in detail in the records of these two towns, and one may watch the initial concept shift, change, and adapt itself to new conditions and new requirements.
The Dorchester settlers had come over as an organized company, and probably continued to operate as a joint stock company for the first two or three years. In the "Dorchester Records"2 the first entry concerning local government is one made in October of 1633 which decreed that a general Town Meeting was to be held each month, and at the same time twelve men were chosen to represent the voters. The record is not entirely clear, but within a year we find these men, now ten in number, meeting monthly and carrying on the affairs of the Town. Here we clearly have the first Select- men.3 In the year 1634 the townspeople also elected a Bailiff, whose duties were to collect fines and taxes. In Old England the Bailiff had been the exec- utive officer of the Sheriff; here he was agent for the Selectmen, who as yet were not so known, but were called "the ten men". After 1644 they were usually referred to by their present name. At one period the Dorchester Se- lectmen were required to report their actions to a monthly Town Meeting for approval, but this practice seems to have been short-lived.
Thus within five years of the first settlement in Boston Bay we find Dor- chester governed by a town meeting which elected Selectmen to whom it delegated the powers of government and a Bailiff to execute their orders. The Town held the power of recall firmly in its hands by normally electing to office for six months only, but before many years had passed elections were for a year. The Selectmen appear from the very first to have used their powers to appoint minor officials and small groups of citizens who were the genesis of the town committee, that tool so long and so successfully used in New England town government. In 1636 we find "cunstbles" and an Audi- tor to verify their accounts. At about this same time there appear Fence Viewers, officials whose duty it was to see that all land was fenced as direct- ed, and that the fences were properly maintained, quite a different duty
2. 4th Report of Record Commissioners of Boston, 1880 and 1883.
3. The first selectmen have been claimed for other towns, such as Charlestown in 1635, but the Dorchester Records were not easily available for study at the time when these claims were first made. Watertown also makes the claim, giving a date of 1634 for their selectmen.
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Town Meeting
from that of today when they merely arbitrate boundary disputes. There is no record of the election of these last officials, and I assume them to have been appointed by the Selectmen. There is no way of telling the relation- ship between the Constables and the Bailiff, but the latter shortly drops out, while the Constables become very important town officials for many years to come. They carried, as a badge of office, a black staff some five and a half feet long, tipped with five inches of brass at the top.
"The Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England", to give them the full and formal title, in 1658 outlined the duties of the Constable :
"To whip and punish-to convey persons on to another constable4- to speed hue and cries and to execute them in the absense of a magis- trate-to arrest without warrant for drunkeness, swearing, etc.,-to search-to order bystanders to assist-to carry his black staff, that none may plead ignorance-to levy fines-to collect taxes-to report those who refuse to watch and ward (or to provide a substitute)-to provide standard weights and measures-to serve attachments in civil suits-to arrest with warrant in criminal cases-to warn freemen to vote-to report name of deputies elected-to call coroner's jury for unnatural deaths-to report unlicensed newcomers-to pay £5 fine for refusing to serve if elected constable."
In the early days before there was a Town Collector or Treasurer the Con- stables also paid out funds as directed by the Selectmen.
These were important officers; only a scant few of their duties have been handed down to the Constables of today. It was a far from popular office, as it involved much work, particularly in the collection of taxes, which, nor- mally being about two-thirds in produce, required much physical labor. Moreover and much worse, once a tax warrant had been turned over to a Constable for collection, he was responsible for producing all the taxes called for, and any shortages were to be assessed against his personal estate. In practice Milton does not seem to have enforced this requirement of making
4. When, for example, a Quaker was banished from Massachusetts Bay, he was escorted through a town by the Constable, who passed him on to the Constable of the next town, and so on until he had passed out of the jurisdiction of the Bay.
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History of Milton
good a deficiency. If a Constable could convince the Town Meeting that he had really attempted to collect from someone who could not pay, the Town apparently forgave him the amount.
The Province was not so forgiving, at least in later years. Elijah Wads- worth had been elected Constable for the east end of the town in 1760, and in 1761, 1764, and 1765 had been hired as a substitute by those duly elected. Something went wrong in his last year of service and he either failed to col- lect the tax warrant delivered to him by the Province or to turn in the pro- ceeds of the collection. Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf of Suffolk County, acting under a warrant of the Provincial Treasurer, Harrison Gray, seized Wads- worth's house and land and sold them at auction.
In 1645 Dorchester provided that notice of a Town Meeting could be giv- en to the congregation in the Meeting House, or by a messenger going from door to door and notifying the householders. Absence at that time called for a fine of sixpence unless one had been excused from attendance. The Select- men were to propose the various actions to the meeting, "avoydinge all janglings". Everyone was allowed a chance to speak, but confusion was to be avoided. One of the Selectmen was to be appointed moderator to run the meeting and all speakers were directed to address themselves to him.
The Selectmen, with the powers delegated to them by the Town, and with the Constables to carry out their orders, collect taxes, disburse funds, and maintain the peace, would appear to have required little further help, but they had to make their own living and could not be expected to devote all their time to the good of the Town, particularly since, as far as I have been able to determine, all these officers at this period served without pay. By 1640 we find Supervisors of Highways elected to build and maintain the roads, assessing labor and costs upon the townsmen.
At this same time the first Pound Keeper appears in Dorchester, and committees are now being used to lay out lots of land and for similar duties. The record is not clear enough to show how often Town Meeting was held; it most certainly was several times a year as important matters came up. In 1645 "raters" (Assessors) appear, as well as a School Committee, but this last Committee was soon to drop out and hand its duties over to the Select-
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Town Meeting
men for almost two centuries. Three more officials came on the scene within a very few years, the Clerk of the Market,5 the Hog Reeve, who saw that pigs were restrained as ordered or correctly yoked and ringed, and that most im- portant person, the "Recorder" or Town Clerk. Just before Milton was set off from Dorchester a Sealer of Weights and Measures took over that duty from the Constables, and three "commissioners to end small causes" were elected to act as a local court for minor cases. Thus at the time that Milton started its separate existence almost three hundred years ago the mother town had the following elected officers and officials :
5 Selectmen
3 Assessors
1 Bailiff and 2 Constables
1 Town Clerk
4 Supervisors of Ways
1 Sealer of Weights and Measures
1 Clerk of the Market
3 Justices for minor cases
We know practically nothing about the actual operation of Town Meeting in those days. There does not appear to have been a moderator elected as in later times, but by 1644 the "seven men" of Dorchester had a "moderator", or chairman of the Selectmen, and it is evident from the record that he con- ducted the meeting, and later gave his name to the officer who presides to- day.6 One important and interesting innovation was introduced in Dorches- ter in 1642, and it has continued in effect down to this very day. It was found that there was so much confusion and disorder in Town Meeting that something had to be done to improve conditions and get the Town's busi- ness accomplished. In this year the Selectmen ordered, and the Town did
5. The duty of this office, when it was first decreed by the General Court, was to establish the regulated price to be charged for bread. In later years the Clerk had the duty of visiting all bak- ers at least weekly, and of making certain that their loaves were up to standard weight.
6. The terin "moderator" as referring to Town Meeting, first appeared in the Boston records in 1659. Watertown in 1667 "ordered that when the selectmen call the towne together: they shall apoynte one of themselves as moderator to carry on the worke and business of the day". The of- fice is first mentioned in the Milton Records in 1706, and in 1714 in Brookline. The General Court in 1715 reported that ". .. by reason of the disorderly carriage of some persons in said meetings the . . . business is very much retarded and obstructed:" and ordered that every town should elect a moderator to control town meeting and granted to this officer very ample powers. The number of selectmen elected in Dorchester varied throughout the early years. They were called the "ten men" or the "seven men" at this period.
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History of Milton
not gainsay them, that all matters and questions to be acted upon in Town Meeting must first be brought to "the seven men" (Selectmen) who would consider them and present them to the Town. Here is the introduction of the Warrant, that useful instrument which today still ensures that Town Meeting will keep its nose to the grindstone, consider only what it should, and not go baying off the track on false scents. For many years to come, and in fact down almost to our times, this basic requirement was sufficient, and the Selectmen were able to consider and recommend action to the Town for its pleasure. The greater complications and added duties of today's broad- ened town activities ultimately resulted in the development of a separate Warrant Committee which took over this particular duty from the Select- men.
The Colony's "Body of Liberties" in 1641 had made all men free to attend Town Meeting, and in 1647 a new law provided that all men might vote on all Town affairs and might be elected to all Town offices. It was only the right to elect deputies to the General Court that was now restricted to "freemen" or members of an established Congregational Church. Many members of a church cared little about the franchise and did not wish to become freemen, for the Bay Colony Record for 11 November 1647 says: "There being ... many members of churches who exemp ymselves from all publicke service . . . will not come in to be made freemen .... " In 1664 the Colony law was modified to allow all those who wished it to become freemen, regardless of church membership, provided that they were orthodox in their beliefs. This was the result of pressure brought on Massachusetts Bay by King Charles II. At this period there was a property qualification of a taxable estate of at least £20 required of all voters.
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