History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 35

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1534

USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 35

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The settlement increased so steadily that in 1718 it was divided into four school districts, cach with a

1 Compiled from " Blake's History of Franklin" and other sources, by Mrs. E. L. Morse. Copyright reserved.

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three months' school. These afterwards became sub- stantially the shoots of three substantial towns, the chief of which was Franklin, the others Norfolk and Bellingham. The next year (1719) the first precinct was set off and called Bellingham.

After many petitions and refusals, Wrentham reluc- tantly gave her consent, and, on the 23d of December, 1737, Governor Belcher with his signature cut off a second precinct, which in forty years grew into the town of Franklin.

The New Precinct .- The first warrant to organ- ize the new precinct was issued by Jonathan Ware, justice of the peace, and was addressed to Robert Pond, Daniel Hawes, David Jones, Daniel Thurston, and John Adams, five of the freeholders. The other petitioners were --

David Pond,

Nathaniel Fairbanks,

John Failes,

Jonathan Wright,

Samuel Morse,

Benjamin Rockwood,

Michael Wilson, John Richardson,

Ezra Pond,

Job Partridge,

Samuel Metcalf,

Thomas Rockwood,

Ebenr. Sheckelworth,

Robert Blake,

Ebenr. Partridge,

John Fisher,

Thomas Man, Sr.,

David Lawrence, Jr.,

John Smith,

Eleazer Ware,

Eleazer Metcalf,

Eleazer Metcalf, Jr.,

Josiah Haws,

Ebenezer Lawrence,

Joseph Whiting,

Michael Metcalf,

Eleazer Fisher, Ebenezer Hunting,

Simon Slocum,

James New,

Edward Gay, Nathaniel Haws, Ebenr. Clark,

Uriah Wilson,

Edward Hall,

David Darling,

Nathaniel Fisher,

Ichabod Pond,

Samuel Partridge, Daniel Maccane,

Lineard Fisher,

Baruch Pond,

David Lawrence. In all, 48.

The first meeting was held on the 16th of Janu- ary, 1737-38, at twelve o'clock. The needful officers were chosen, and four days later, at a second meeting, they went to work with a will. First, they voted eighty pounds for preaching, and appointed a com- mittee to secure it; another committee was chosen to provide materials for a meeting-house in place of the small building heretofore provided, to be forty feet long, thirty-one wide, and twenty-feet posts. They also sent a request to Wrentham for the fulfillment of a promise made them ten years before, that money paid by them, amounting to one hundred and thirty pounds eleven shillings, towards its meeting-house should be repaid to them. At first Wrentham re- fused, but after four months' delay the request was granted.

First Church and Minister .- Meantime, a church must be organized to occupy the new meeting-house 11

when built and listen to a minister yet to be called. Some twenty brethren, having secured letters from the mother-church at Wrentham, kept the 16th of February, 1738, "as a day of solemn fasting and prayer to implore the blessing of God and His direc- tion in the settling of a church, and in order to the calling and settling of a gospel minister in said place." And on that day in a large assembly the covenant was read and accepted, and Rev. Mr. Baxter, of Med- field, moderator, pronounced them a duly-organized church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without any lis- tening to miscellaneous candidates, they united upon their first selected preacher. On Nov. 8, 1738, Rev. Elias Haven was installed as the first pastor of the new church. The audience assembled, not in the meeting-house, as it was not yet built, but in a valley near its future site. After sixteen years of ministerial work, performed in physical weariness and pain, Rev. Mr. Haven died of consumption, and God gave him rest from his labors, Aug. 10, 1754, in his fortieth year. The stones placed by a remembering town over his grave in the old cemetery still stand, and the inscription thereon may be legible for years to come.

The Meeting-House .- The precinct having an organized church, a settled minister and his salary provided, and materials ready for a church building, its next duty was to select a site whereon to build. This, as in the first settlement of all New England towns, must be at the centre of its territory ; for in those early days no house was permitted to be built above half a mile from the meeting-house without | leave of the Court. At a meeting of the settlers, held the 7th of April, 1738, five men were sent into a corner " to Debate and Consider and Perfix upon a place for Building a Meeting-House on and bring it to the Precinct in one hour." Meanwhile, the rest spent that hour in voting and unvoting until they reached an apparent finality,-to set the house " at the most convenientest place on that acre of Land That was laid out By Thomas Man for the use of the West Inhabitants in said Precinct." But who shall decide where this "most convenientest place" is ? Mr. Plimpton, " survair" of Medfield, is selected to bring his implements to bear on the solution, who reports for the west corner of Man's lot " as near as they conveniently can." But next year, May 9, 1739, a new question arises, whether this be in the exact centre of the precinct, and a new surveyor is called to this problem. He and his two chainmen are put under oath to honestly "survey the ground where the meeting-house shall shortly lie." May 23d he reports in writing as follows :

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" To the Inhabitants of Wrentham Westerly Precinct.

"GENT !:- These may Inform you that I the Subscriber Have Been and Measured to find the Center of sd Precinct, Messs. Decon Barber and Benj. Rockwood being chainman, and ac- cording to what we find by Measuring on the Ground from the Northerly End to the Southerly End and from the Westerly Side to the Easterly Side of the Same I find the Center of sd Measur- ing to be South westerly from the Present Meeting-house a little Beter than an Hundred Rods, where we Pitched a Stake and Made an heap of Stones.

" ELEAZER FISHER, Surveyor."

The deed of one acre of land from Thomas Man was accepted Sept. 11, 1739, and was put for safe- keeping into the care of Simeon Slocum. In the same month of September, another committee put seats in the barn-like building according to the tim- ber provided, and " one lock and key and bolts and latches for the doors, and cants" for the gallery stairs, and also a foundation for the pulpit and pul- pit stairs, and rails round the galleries, and made five " pillows,"-a small number for a modern audience. The bills, presented March 3, 1740, show that the committees had been reasonably expeditious. The final cost of the meeting-house was £338 13s. 6d., as reported in October, 1741. The boys, too, were promptly at work, for in July, 1740, Capt. Fairbanks is directed to get the windows mended, and to prose- cute the depredators.

Pari passu with the meeting-house arose the " horse-houses," whose long strings of successors afterwards made the Franklin Common so famous. They were all planted and grew on Thomas Man's acre. Among them were Richard Puffer's "small diner-house," and Isaac Heton and Dr. Jones had a " small noon-house."

Of this oldest real meeting-house no picture or description is in existence. Some of the sashes, two feet square with five-inch panes of glass set diagonally in lead, were visible in an old house not many years ago, but of their present whereabouts, if they exist at all, no man now knoweth.

The building stood on the slight hill north of the present Catholic Church, in a surrounding girth of dwarfish pitch-pines. It was guarded by platoons of horse-sheds and some small dinner-houses, where the forefathers of the hamlet shared their lunch and ex- changed opinions, and the mothers nursed their in- fants and compared news during the hour's noon in- termission of the Sabbath service.

This first house was used-subjected to occasional internal modifications as the congregation increased and the taste changed-until Oct. 12, 1789, forty- eight years from its completion. A committee was then chosen to sell the outgrown and aged building within twenty days, or to pull it down at their dis-

cretion. As there is no record of its sale, it was probably taken down. Next to the house and its minister comes

The Church Music of "ye Olden Time."-The " Old Bay Psalm-Book" was used at first in all the colonial churches. A chorister started the tunes with a pitch-pipe, and the congregation, each in his own good time,-which might be faster or slower than the leader's, -- followed on or hastened ahead. All sang the same part, and with an energy begotten of facing northeasters, felling forest-trees, and shout- ing to tardy oxen winding among their stumps. No two sang alike, and the sounds were so grievous to the ears of the people that their distress found voice in a vote of the precinct, June 26, 1738, " To sing no other tunes than are Pricked Down in our former Psalm-Books which were Printed between Thirty and forty years Agoe, and To Sing Them as They are Prickt down in them as Near as they can." The older people remonstrated against this invasion of their liberties, but the precinct refused, in September, " to ease those that were inclined to sing the old way." Six months later, March 8, 1738-39, the church " voted to sing by rule, according to note," and chose Joseph Whiting to set the tunes in the church.

Later in the same meeting some curious soul stirred up the brethren by the query, " What notice will the church take of one of the brethren's stricking into a pitch of the tune unusually raised February 18th ?" For answer, another vote was recorded :

"WHEREAS, our brother, David Pond, as several of our brethren, viz., David Jones, Ebenezer Hunting, Benj. Rock- wood, Jr., Aaron Haws, and Michael Metcalf, apprehend, struck into a pitch of the tune on February 18th, in the public worship in the forenoon raised above what was set ; after most of the congregation, as is thought, kept the pitch for three lines, and after our pastor had desired them that had raised it to fall to the pitch that was set to be suitable, decent or to that purpose; the question was put, whether the church ap- prehends this our brother David Pond's so doing to be disor- derly ; and it passed in the affirmative, and David Pond is suspended until satisfaction is given."

But David Pond froze over at this cold blast of reproof and suspension, and his musical thermometer went below zero, where it stayed for thirteen years. At last, Jan. 12, 1751-52, he melted into confession of error, and all discord was drowned in harmony.

Another vote of the church on this subject is sig- nificant. May 18, 1739, it was voted " that the man that tunes the Psalm in the congregation be limited till further direction to some particular tunes, and the tunes limited are Canterbury, London, Windsor, St. David's, Cambridge, Short One Hundredth, and One Hundredth and Forty-eighth Psalm tunes ; and Benj.

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Rockwood, Jr., to tune the psalm." Ten years' practice so wore upon these seven permitted tunes that, April 5, 1749, the church removed the limita- tion and the hymns thereafter flowed smoothly on in many separate streams like the voice of many waters. All went musically, as between the tunes, for a time ; but on April 15, 1760, sprang up a war of rival hymn-books which lasted for five years, until the 4th of July, 1765, when it was decided by the victory of Dr. Watts' version of the psalms over the Old Bay Psalm-Book, and Tate and Brady's version of psalms and hymns. Dr. Watts remained in possession of the field for nearly ninety years, until the Puritan hymn- and tune-book, born in Mendon Association in 1858, raised him also onto the shelf of antiques.

The Precinct Ministers .- Rev. Elias Haven, the first minister of the young church, after sixteen years of pastoral labor in failing health, through which he was tenderly helped by a loving people, died of con- sumption in 1744, and was buried in the central cemetery of the town, where a stone still stands to his memory. Then came the trying experiences of hear- ing candidates and selecting his successor. But they sat down patiently to scrutinize whomsoever came be- fore them ; and the sitting, if not the patience, lasted for six years. One after another preached in review before them. Aaron Putnam, Joseph Haven, Stephen Holmes, Thomas Brooks, a Mr. Norton, Joseph Manning, to whom they said, "Stay with us," but he declined; Messrs. Parsons, Goodhue, Phillips, Payson, who also declined their call; Jesse Root and Nathan Holt, who refused to stay ; John Eals, Mr. Gregory, and at last came Caleb Barnum, of Danbury, Conn. He, the fourteenth candidate, was urged to stay by one hundred and two votes, and was offered seventy pounds salary per annum, and one hundred and thirty-three pounds settlement as an additional motive. After several months of consideration, he finally accepted, and was settled June 4, 1760, and six years after the death of Mr. Haven.

was attacked by both. His resignation was caused by these dissensions, and being made final, despite their reluctance to grant it, he was dismissed March 6, 1768.

The next February he was installed over the First Congregational Church in Taunton. In 1775 he joined the army of the Revolution, and became chap- lain of the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, Col. John Greaton, then near Boston, Feb. 10, 1776. On the return of his regiment from Montreal he was taken sick at Ticonderoga, and discharged July 24, dying at Pittsfield, Aug. 23, 1776, aged thirty-nine.

Once more the pulpit was empty, and again a pro- cession of candidates appeared. One and another was called upon to stop, but each declined, and they all moved on. Then the people looked each upon his neighbor, and asked, " Why will no one stay with us ?"

The meeting-house, now thirty years old, and too small as well as growing old-fashioned (for there was even then a fashion for meeting-houses), was pondered upon as a possible obstacle. Therefore, in 1772, they chose five men to " consult upon the conveniences and inconveniences of enlarging and repairing their meeting-house, and to draw a plan thereof and report."

Meanwhile, the committee of supply had in some way heard of a young. graduate of Yale College who had preached in New York State, and was now among the New Hampshire hills. He was small in stature, with a thin, small voice, and he hesitated about appearing before a church containing two such vigorous and bellicose parties. But he came, Oc- tober, 1769, and essayed to fill the vacant pulpit. So well did he supply their needs, and so thoroughly did they test him, that on Nov. 30, 1772, the church, by a vote of thirty-two out of thirty-four, invited him to become their pastor. Two weeks later the precinct heartily seconded their invitation, and April 21, 1773, NATHANAEL EMMONS was settled as the third precinct minister. The service was held out of doors, like that of both of his predecessors, in the valley west of the present Catholic Church.

Rev. Caleb Barnum was the son of Thomas and Deborah, born in Danbury, June 30, 1737; gradu- ated at Princeton, 1757, and received an A.M. in 1768 from both Princeton and Harvard. His brief The memory of Dr. Emmons' life and ministry is still bright in the town where he lived and labored for more than fifty years. His namesakes are found in many a family, and many a town and State, while anecdotes of him and his pithy apothegms are still current, and still bright as new coins, and more valu- able for use. pastorate of eight years was full of divers disturb- ances, not the least of which was the hymn-book conflict already mentioned. Some differed also from his opinions and beliefs as preached from the pulpit, and some left to attend Separatists' meetings, but the majority vindicated the pastor. The differences seemed to be more between the precinct and the In one aspect Dr. Emmons has been and still is misrepresented. He was not curt, dogmatic, and church than in the church itself; but the minister stood as a central figure between the two parties, and | repellent. He was not unsocial and austere to his

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people, nor a bugbear to the young. He was affable, | It was removed some years ago, and it now does duty genial, and witty, and enjoyed a good joke as keenly as any. In the pulpit his clear-cut and logical sen- tences sharpened the intellects of his hearers and made them alert, discriminating, and clear-headed thinkers, having settled opinions of their own. He | ruled, therefore, only by always moving in the line of his people's intelligent convictions. They knew him to be simply following truth, and they had to follow his guidance because he justified to them every step of his way.

Dr. Emmons' active ministry continued about fifty- four years, from April 21, 1773, to May 28, 1827. Twice during this time, in 1781 and again in 1784, he became discouraged in his work and asked for a dis- mission ; but his people unanimously refused to grant it. Before the close of 1784 a powerful revival added | seventy to his church, quickened his weary spirit, and ended his discouragements. During his fifty-four years of work three hundred and eight were gathered into the church. But his slender physique could not forever second the strong spirit within, and in his eighty-third year he fainted in the pulpit while preaching a sermon from Acts ii. 37 (see " Emmons' Works," vol. vi., p. 688). He then knew that his earthly work was done, and a quiet waiting for the Master's call to " come up higher" was all that re- mained to him here. His letter of resignation to his people is worthy of a place in this history for its loving simplicity :

" FRANKLIN, May 28, 1827.

" To the members of the Church, and to the members of the Religious Society in this place.

" BRETHREN AND FRIENDS : I have sustained the pastoral relation to you for more than fifty years, which is a long min- isterial life. The decays of nature, and increasing infirmities of old age and my present feeble state of health, convince me that it is my duty to retire from the field of labor which I am no longer able to occupy to my own satisfaction nor to your benefit. I therefore take the liberty to inform you that I can no longer supply your pulpit and perform any ministerial labor among you ; and, at the same time, that I renounce all claims upon you for any future ministerial support, relying entirely on your wisdom and goodness to grant or not to grant any gra- tuity to your aged servant during the residue of his life. " NATHANAEL EMMONS."

After thirteen years of patient waiting, he died Sept. 23, 1849, at nearly ninety-six. Dr. Emmons' funeral, Monday, September 28th, was attended by ministers and people from far and wide. It was the last service held in the old church which his voice had dedicated fifty-two years before. The next day the carpenters began their alterations.

as a tenement-house, as historic buildings are wont to do in our hurrying age. June 17, 1846, a granite monument, paid by a public subscription, was erected with public services near the centre of the Common, across which the venerable pastor had traveled to and from his church for more than half a century. An address was given in the church by Rev. M. Blake, and then the large company adjourned to the Common, where the dedicatory address was made by the then pastor, Rev. T. D. Southworth. These addresses were printed.

A few years ago this monument was moved into a new part of the cemetery, out of public sight and contrary to the unalterable provision of the society which procured, located, and erected it on the Common.

The ecclesiastical history of the precinct, which in those early years was practically identical with its civil record, here practically ends.

Precinct Civic History .- In 1740-42 move- ments were made in the precinct to petition Wren- tham for leave to become a town by themselves ; but lack of maternal sympathy quieted them till March 4, 1754, when a petition was actually presented to and refused by Wrentham. Discouraged by this rebuff, and absorbed in the political events which preceded the Revolution, the people postponed fur- ther action, and continued to journey to Wrentham to vote or stayed at home. But the question soon came up again in earnest. War meetings became more frequent and important, and the ride of five to eight miles to Wrentham so often was wearisome for man and horse. The population of the precinct had also increased, and was fully large enough to justify a separation. Therefore, Dec. 29, 1777, another petition was addressed to Wrentham "for liberty to be set off into a district township, according to grant of court that they were at first incorporated into a precinct, with a part of said town's money and stocks. Deacon Jabez Fisher, Esq., Jonathan Metcalf, Samuel Lethbridge, Asa Whiting, Dr. John Metcalf, Joseph Hawes, and Capt. John Boyd, chief men of the precinct, are put in charge of the matter." In re- sponse to this petition, Wrentham sent nine men as a joint committee to consider the matter. February 21st they reported that " said inhabitants be set off as a separate township by themselves." The process of division was speedily begun. It involved many and complicated matters of importance. The men already raised as the whole town's quota for the Continental army were proportionately accredited to each section.

Dr. Emmons' dwelling-house stood on the north corner of the present Main and Emmons Streets. Firearms and military stores were also similarly

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divided. The salt allowed by the General Court and all other properties were duly adjusted. Even of the five solitary paupers dependent upon the whole town, two were assigned to the forthcoming town. All preliminaries being thus arranged, another com- mittee was elected to present their petition to the General Court. The charter of incorporation, granted in answer to this petition, appears among the acts of 1778, and is dated in the House of Representatives, February 27th, and in the Council, March 2d. It is as follows :

" Be it Therefore Enacted By the Council & House of Rep- resentatives in General Court Assembled & by the Authority of the same, That the Westerly part of said Town of Wrentham separated by a line, as follows, viz., Beginning at Charles River, where Medfield line comes to said river ; thence running rod East of ye Dwelling-House of William Man; thence a strait line to the eastwardly corner of Asa Whiting's barn; thence a strait line to sixty rods due south of the old cellar where the Dwelling-House of Ebenezer Healy formerly stood ; thence a Due West Cource by the Needle to Bellingham line, said Bellingham line to be the West Bounds and Charles River the Northerly Bounds, Be and hereby is incorporated into a Distinct and separate Town by the name of FRANKLIN, and invested with all the powers, Privileges, and immunities that Towns in this State do or may enjoy. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That the inhabitants of said Town of Franklin shall pay their proportion of all State, County, and Town charges already granted to be raised in the Town of Wrentham and also their proportion of the pay of the Representatives for the present year ; and the said Town of Wrentham and Town of Franklin shall be severally held punc- tually to stand by & perform to each other the Terms & proposals Contained and Expressed in a vote of the Town of Wrentham passed at Publick Town-meeting the sixteenth Day of Feb- ruary, 1778, according to ye plain and obvious meaning there- of; and Be it also Enacted by ye authority aforesaid, That Jabez Fisher, Esq., Be & he hereby is authorized & required to issue his warrant to one of the principal inhabitants of said Town of Franklin, authorizing & requiring him to Notifie and warn the Freeholders & other inhabitants of said Town to meet together at such time and place as shall be expressed in said warrant, To choose such officers as Towns are authorized by Law to Choose, and Transact other such Lawfull matters as shall be expressed in said warrant. And be it further enacted, That the inhabitants living within ye Bounds aforesaid who in the Late Tax in the Town of Wrentham were rated one-half part so much for their Estates and Faculties as for one single Poll shall be taken and Holden to be Qualified and be allowed to Vote in their first Meeting for the Choice of officers and such

other meetings as may be Called in said Town of Franklin untill a valuation of Estates shall be made by Assessors there.

" IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

" Feb. 27, 1778.

" This Bill having been read three several times, passed to be engrossed. Sent up for Concurrence.

" J. WARREN SYKE.

".IN COUNCIL.

" March 2d, 1778.

" This Bill, having had two several Readings, passed a Con- currence, to be engrossed.

" JNO. AVERY, Dpy. Secy."

In the original draft of the charter, as preserved in the State archives, the name of the new town is " STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. written as Exeter. Why its name was first written " In the year of our Lord 1778. Exeter is a conundrum, whose answer is inaudible " AN ACT incorporating the Westerly Part of the Town of Wrentham in the County of Suffolk into a Town by the name of Franklin. among the echoes of the past. Why it was changed to Franklin is apparent. After the Declaration of "WHEREAS, the Inhabitants of the Westerly part of the town of Wrentham in the County of Suffolk have Represented to this Court the Difficulties they Labor under in their present situation, and apprehending themselves of sufficient Numbers & Ability, request that they may be incorporated into a sepa- rate Town. Independence in 1776, Benjamin Franklin with two others was sent forthwith to France, to arrange for a treaty of alliance with Louis XVI. The king dallied with the ambassadors until the close of 1777, when the capture of Burgoyne settled his doubts, and a treaty of amity and commerce was formed with them in January, 1778. News of their success reached this country while the petition of the new town was waiting decision. The charter was doubtless amended south seventeen degrees and an half West until it comes to one | in honor of that event, and Exeter was changed for the honored name of FRANKLIN, the first of the twenty-nine towns in our States who have since fol- lowed her example in calling themselves by the same name.

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History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 35

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1534