USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 24
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 24
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 24
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Infant Damnation Doctrine Preached-Terrible doctrines thundered from the colonial pulpits included, in some instances, announcements that unbaptized infants who had died were eternally lost, as well as all others who had sinned and died without repentance. The congrega- tions, if they believed the utterances, could not but feel that this world and the next alike were cheerless and hopeless, with most of their be- loved ones who had passed on tortured in the fires of hell. There was bound to be a reaction from such doctrines and more liberal churches came into being.
Rev. Michael Wigglesworth was author of a poem entitled "The Day of Judgment," which included a discourse about Eternity. In it he gave the information that mothers of babies are not allowed to distress themselves in Heaven about their offspring suffering in hell where
God's vengeance feeds the flame With piles of wood, and brimstone flood, That none can quench the same.
According to the poem the babies who died in infancy appear before the judgment bar and plead that they should not be made to suffer for the guilt of Adam, but the judge informs them
But what you call old Adam's fall, And only his Trespass, You call amiss to call it his; Both his and your's it was. He was designed of all mankind To be a public head, A common root whence all should shoot, . And stood in all their stead.
Rev. Cotton Mather said this poem would become immortal. It is an indication of the doctrine which experienced no rectification in the filter of love or mercy, in coming down from John Calvin.
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Notwithstanding the utterances from the pulpits were accepted by the majority of the people making up the congregations as Gospel truth, without question, the minister seems to have been a most unapprecia- ted individual, patient, long-suffering, but either too poverty-stricken to assume the expense of a removal to a more desirable location or unable to escape from a place where he had been ordained. Public opinion would hardly accept a minister in one place if he had left another in which the matter of compensation had been a determining factor. There is the record of Rev. John Robinson of Duxbury, rewarded, after thirty- six years of faithful service, by a vote of the town, passed August 7, 1738, which read :
ยท Voted that ther meting hous shuld be shot up so that no parson should open the same to that Mr. John Robrson of Duxborrough may not get into said meeting- hous to preach anay more without orders from the towne.
At a previous meeting of the town a committee was appointed to make up accounts with him "from the beginning of the world to the present day." The parson was ordained at Duxbury with all the pomp and ceremony befitting the occasion in 1702. He had spent much time and efforts going about his parish "gathering his own rates," and re- ceived more promises than firewood or grain. Cold and undernour- ished, he brought suit against the town to force it to pay attention to the long standing arrears in his salary account and his dire necessity. The parish had a spokesman at the town meeting, called in indignation that the minister should ask what was due. According to a story told in that fascinating book written by William Root Bliss, entitled "Side Glimpses from the Colonial Meeting House," the following dialogue took place :
"Well! what do you want now?" said the spokesman of the parish to him; "If we haven't paid up, we gave you the improvement of the island and about thirty acres of upland besides. Isn't that enough without asking for your salary?"
"Ah! yes;" said Mr. Robinson, "you did give me the island. I've mowed it and I don't want a better fence around my cornfield than one windrow of the fodder it cuts. If you should mow that upland you speak of with a razor and rake it with a comb, you wouldn't get enough from it to winter a grasshopper."
CHAPTER XV TOWN MEETINGS, TOWN CRIERS AND CURFEWS.
Meeting-house Door the Official Bulletin Board for Legal Notices and a Repository for Heads of Wolves and Other Noxious Animals For The Extinction of Which Bounties Were Offered-Customs on the Way to Assemblies of All Sorts-Man Who Was Publicly Whipped For "Common Sleeping"-Church-Going Provincetown Dogs Faced Death Penalty-One Quakeress Whose Simple Garb Elec- trified a Congregation-Man's Status in Society Denoted By Seat He Had in Church-Curfew Ringer's Reply to Personal Question From An Early Evangelist.
The great door of the meeting-house was that upon which public no- tices were tacked or pasted, as it was the official bulletin board for all public events. The warrants for town meetings were posted in several places in the town for convenience of the residents but the posting which was done on the great door of the meeting-house was that which made the call legal, and in accordance with the custom of the times. There were some in most towns who were unable to read and they were warned "by word of mouth," constables stopping at a corner of streets or elsewhere to give notice to people. It was for such a reason that the town crier became a leading citizen, his popularity based on service.
The records of the town of Plymouth in 1694 include this: "The town declared themselves to be against Warning town meetings by papers set up for that end, but do Expect warning from the Cun- stables by word of mouth when Ever there shall be occasion." The constable was the community radio broadcasting station in that day for all who "tuned in."
The town of Ipswich, although many miles from Plymouth, was as- sociated with it in many ways in early colonial history. It was a cus- tom required by the town government, to use the great door of the meeting-house as a place whereon to prove the killing of wolves for bounties. The hunter was to receive ten shillings as a bounty for each wolf killed, providing the heads were taken to the meeting-house and he was required to there "nayle them and give notis to the constable." Other towns made the same requirement, but in one town, for obvious reasons, it was ordered that the wolves' heeads were not to be nailed to the door but "to a little read oke tree at the northeast end of the meet- ing-house."
The meeting-house was the repository for the town gunpowder, and many times it was stored under the pulpit. Before the Battle of Lex-
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ington, Captain Parker said to his company: "Every man of you who is equipped, follow me! And those who are not equipped, go into the meeting-house and furnish yourselves from the magazine and imme- diately join the company." This command was obeyed and, when all were assembled, Captain Parker looked them over, took account of the stock of gunpowder, guns and bullets, and give other direct advice, in- cluding his famous instruction : "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have war, let it begin here."
It was the custom to open all town meetings with prayer, the same as the Congress of the United States or the General Court, and this brings to mind the story of the small boy who was taken by his father to a session of Congress and had pointed out to him the chaplain of the Senate. "Does that man pray for the Senate?" asked the son. "No, he takes a look at the Senate and prays for the country," responded the wise parent.
After the prayer and reading the warrant of the town meeting, the men of the town, sitting with their hats on, had an opportunity to be heard and many "town meeting orators" developed. There were town laws which required "every man shall speak by turn, rising and putting off his hat and when he has said his say he shall signify it by putting on his hat and sitting down." The moderator was a man of importance in town meetings, then as now, and there was a law against the unruly citizen who, if he "presume to speak without liberty of the moderator," was to be fined twenty shillings. Even this was not always a sufficient deterrent, and
The constable to every prater Bawl'd out-"Pray hear the Moderator!" Some call'd the vote, and some in turn Were screaming high-"Adjourn! Adjourn!"
Battle of Lexington Bell Disappeared-The first bell to be hung in a meeting-house tower in New England was set up in Cambridge in 1632. The town was called Newtowne at that time and much pride was taken in the bell, but it was small and its tone was harsh. After four years, the town voted to let the bell remain silent and summon people to divine worship by beating a drum, as was done in other towns. Where a drum was used, it was usually beaten by a drummer who paraded back and forth on the highway from the meeting-house to the end of the vil- lage.
The first bell for the church at Ipswich was hung on a tree at the northeast of the meeting-house, the same tree on which wolves' heads were to be nailed by hunters who claimed a bounty for killing the beasts of destruction. The first bell in Hingham was small and unsatisfactory. When the second house was built, which is still standing, the oldest church edifice in New England, the town voted to request the select-
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men to get a new bell "as big againe as the old one was, if it may be had."
The most historic of all the bells connected with all the meeting houses of New England was the bell hung in a tower near the meeting- house at Lexington. It had summoned people to church since 1702. It sounded the first national alarm, for the protest with fire, the "shot heard round the world." This bell deserves equal fame with the famous Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Captain Parker's squad of resistance answered the call, and so did the patriots for miles around. It was heard in Woburn by Sylvanus Wood, who testified, when sev- enty-four years old : "about an hour before the break of day I heard the Lexington bell ring, and, fearing there was difficulty, I immediately arose, took my gun, and, with Robert Douglass, went in Haste to Lex- ington, which was about three miles distant."
The old meeting-house at Lexington and the bell tower were torn down in 1794 and the bell which sounded the alarm of the Revolution- ary War disappeared.
In the records of the town of Plymouth for the year 1679 there is an entry : "The constable is ordered by the Towne to take Course for the sweeping of the meeting-house and the Ringing of the bell and to pay an Indian for the killing A woulfe."
Seven families of the town of Bridgewater petitioned the court at Plymouth in 1685: "God, by his providence, hath placed the bounds of our habitation in Bridgewater, and on the eastward side of the town, and about two miles from the meeting-house and the mill, and some of us have had no way into the town but upon sufferance through men's lands. We think it is very hard that living in a wilderness we cannot have convenient room for highways." "Without doubt, to borrow a phrase used at the present day, "public convenience and necessity" called for "a way" to church and the mill, without trespassing on pri- vate property.
Those who rode to the meeting-house on Sundays usually hitched the horse when completing half the distance and other members of the family who had started on foot would untie the horse and continue by that means of transportation. A farmer carried his wife on a pillion be- hind him and a child on the saddle in front of him, if he had a child. Those who walked carried their shoes in their hand, until they came within sight of the meeting-house, sitting down beside the road to put on their footwear before entering the edifice. Those who had horses and preferred to rent them to others and walk to the meeting-house, to gain the extra income, supplied the means of transportation for those well-to-do. An entry in an old account book, made in 1737, read: "Ebenezer Bates Dr for my mare for your wife to ride to meeting 2 shil- lings 6 pence."
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Duties of Inspectors of Youth-It was the custom in the early meet- ing-houses to have an officer appointed to keep people awake as well as to discipline unruly boys and girls. Then, as now, the people in the country looked to Boston for the style in some things. In that city the churches had a man, armed with a long staff, with a solid ball at one end and a fox's tail at the other. His duty was to watch out for people sleeping during divine service, especially if they were such sound sleep- ers that the sound could be heard. In that event, he arose in all his dig- nity, marched with his respected weapon to his shoulder as a marshal with his mace, tapped the offender on his head, if the offender was a man. If the sleeper was a woman, he brushed the end of her nose with the fox's tail, since there was presumably a bonnet on her head and the solid ball would not have the required effect.
There is a record of one Robert Scott who took a nap in the Lynn meeting-house and was rudely awakened by the man with the staff and ball. Scott was a man of quick action and, before becoming fairly awake, he struck his assailant, and the meeting-house official fell to the meeting-house floor with a dull thud, if they had them in those days. For this offense, Scott was condemned by the court to be publicly whipped for "common sleeping."
These officers were not called "sluggard wakers," as was the case in old England, and were not properly called tithing men, although by the latter name they have frequently been mentioned in stories which have come down of colonial meeting-house discipline. They were usually called "Inspectors of Youth" and sometimes their duties included keep- ing the boys and girls from unseemly actions, the congregation from becoming dead to the world and the dogs from swelling the congrega- tion undesirably.
The tithing men were officers of distinction whose duties were well defined in a report of a Committee of the General Court, read March 26, 1697, as follows: "Yr Duty in presenting to the Justices the names of all such as Continue Tipling in Inns, & other publicque houses of enter- tainment especially on the Lords Day; and such as they find Drunke together with those that entertaine them ; all profane swears, and Curs- ers and the Number as nere as they Can of their oaths; All such as are quilty of extortion ; All such as Keep houses where unlawful gains are used & such as sell Drinke without Lycence; the names of such as live Idley without estates, Suspicious persons, Whores, night Walkers, mothers of Bastard Children; Such as Commit Common Nuisances."
Lest it appear to the reader that the order in old colonial meeting houses was something scandalous beyond the power of the present gen- eration to conceive, possibly that "total depravity" of which much has been said in time past, the following are presented from a note book of a Justice of the Peace in 1750, giving the court record of one offender:
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A Rude and Idel Behaver in the meting hows Such as Smiling and Larfing and Intiseing others to the Same Evil
Such as whispering and Larfing in the meting house between meetings
Such as Larfing or Smiling and puling the heir of his nayber benoni Simkins in the time of publick Worship
Such as playing with her Hand and fingers at her hair
Such as throwing Sister penticost perkins on the Ice it being Saboth day or Lord's day between the metinghous and his place of Abode.
Whipping Dogs Out of the Sanctuary-In these days, following the restoration of the schoolhouse in which Mary's little lamb went to school, by Henry Ford, there are those who aver that there never was a Mary, never a lamb and neither one nor the other ever followed one another to school or any other place of public entertainment or instruc- tion. There may be a crass iconoclast who will appear to deny that there ever were officers specially appointed in the old colonial meeting-house to exclude the dogs, but the town records of the towns in counties here- about will rise up to cry out against such sacrilege. Many dogs there were in Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, speaking in terms of present definition, who attended divine services with such regularity that real money was appropriated and paid for their suppression. Even a death penalty was imposed in Provincetown, in 1775, and an officer was appointed to "kill every dog that comes into the meeting-house on the Sabbath day." As a matter of mercy the dog had the right of ap- peal and if a sufficiently good appeal was made to his master to have that worthy pay a fine of fifty cents, the dog's life was spared.
Many years earlier, about 1662, in the town of Reading, England, the law was: "Every dog that comes to the meeting either on Lord's day or lecture day, except it be their dogs that pays for a dog-whipper, the cwner of those dogs shall pay sixpence for every time they come to the meeting that doth not pay the dog-whipper." It appears from the rec- ords that there were twenty-six men of Reading who made it possible for their dogs to receive religious instruction as well as other members of their families. It took an officer of discrimination to recognize the orthodox dogs and heterodox dogs in those lively moments when dogs were yelping and running about, persuaded by the whiplash of the dog- whipper; and refrain from lashing the sheep while he belabored the goats, as a manner of speaking. Having once attended to the dog prob- lem it would not be strange if the officer found employment in that other branch of his profession, "keeping the boys in order," even preventing them from "smiling and Larfing and Intising others to the Same Evil," as present-day boys might easily be led astray by such scenes.
In the town of Abington in 1793, those who suffered their dogs to enter the meeting-house on the Lord's day were required to pay "the same fine as for a breach of the Sabbath." There were similar local laws in other towns.
Plym -- 15
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Services Disturbed By Quakers-There were still other disturbers of divine worship in the meeting-houses, at times. The Quakers were not excused from attendance at the meeting-house because they had a different faith. They were dissenters but their unorthodoxy was no excuse. They became unwilling attendants and at times allowed their ordinary calm to forsake them and "railed" at the minister. In one meeting-house a Quaker arose in the midst of the service, broke a glass bottle and shouted to the minister: "Thus will the Lord break you in pieces."
The drab atmosphere of a service in Newbury was rudely electrified on one Lord's day when Lydia Wardwell, a Quakeress, walked in, clad only in a look of indignation, presenting the appearance of Lady Godiva without her horse. This was to "show to the people the spiritual naked- ness of their rulers."
The General Court dealt severely with Quakers, whether their alleged offenses were committed inside or outside a meeting-house. Some were imprisoned, branded with a hot iron, publicly whipped and banished from the colony but the treatment of Quakers in the Plymouth colony was better than in some other parts of New England. Some were hanged on Boston Common including Mary Dyer, whose husband plead- ed with Governor Endicott in a tear-stained letter that he would spare her life, but in vain. The letter is still in existence.
Arbitrary Seating Regulations-Considerable levity has been oc- casioned by the fact that it was a rule in the colonial meeting- houses for the men and women, even husbands and wives, to be sep- arated. There were "men's seats" and there were "women's seats." There were also seats for Indians and seats for "black people." Another division in the meeting-house was for boys and girls. The seating car- ried with it recognitions of honor and distinction, with much insistence upon the social code occasioned by ranks of official prominence, age and wealth.
In Rehoboth those arriving at the meeting-house in 1718 were sorted out, "firstly to have regard to dignity of person, and secondly to age, and thirdly what charge they have been at in building the meeting- house, or to have respect to age, office and estate, negroes excepted." In some other places those who paid the highest taxes were given the best seats. In one town there was a rule which forbade men and their wives "to be placed in the same pews unless they incline to sit to- gether." Even if they were so inclined it was evidently not always an easy matter to arrange in Boston, as there is a fragment of a diary kept by the respected Judge Sewall in which appear entries for three weeks in succession as follows: "Lord's Day April 1. Sat with my wife in her Pue. April 8 introduced her into my Pue and sat with her there.
TOWN MEETINGS, TOWN CRIERS AND CURFEWS 227
April 15, conducted my wife to the Fore Seat." The Fore Seat was the seat of honor and just why the learned and most excellent judge was not allowed to sit there the middle of April while his wife was given the honor, does not appear in the record.
These rules for seating the congregation were neither Puritan nor Pilgrim. They were inherited from England. There is a record of an old church in Hawstead that "Richard Pead, Reg'rar'ras," directed an in- strument to the Church Wardens charging and commanding them to place the inhabitants in such seats in the church as they should think proper, according to their estates, degrees and callings. Returns were to be made of those that were refractory. This rule was dated Decem- ber 1st, 1623.
In 1717 it was a vote of Rochester, Massachusetts, that old people be provided for: "Voted that three Short Seats be built nye the pulpit Stairs for Antiant parsons to set in."
A real problem presented itself in seating the boys and girls in the meeting-houses and, not only in seating them, but in keeping them seated and in good behavior, within the meaning of good behavior in those good old days. The town of Duxbury, in solemn conclave in the meeting-house in 1760, voted to choose a committee to take care of "the wretched boys on the Lord's Day." In Harwich the three hindmost benches in the meeting-house were reserved for boys under twelve years of age, and three benches in the gallery for older boys. Two stout- hearted old mariners were chosen to "look after these boys, that they sit in their seats and be kept from playing" and still we wonder why Cape Cod boys ran away to sea. A little later in Harwich the girls came in for distinction when a vote was passed "that the same course be pursued with the girls" as with the boys.
There is a record that John King was appointed by one Cape Cod town to keep boys "from playing and prophaning the Sabbath day" and, for his encouragement the town went on record that it would "stand by the said John King" if he found it expedient to chastise an offender after the custom of those days when strap oil was plentiful as whale oil. John King, even with the moral support of the town behind him, had to ask assistance, as the town later appointed four men "to take care of the boys on Lord's day and whip them if found playing."
At Truro, where the Pilgrims first set foot upon New England sand, three men were appointed "to whip boys that are disorderly on Sabbath days at or about the meeting-house."
Stories Rang Out From Belfries-There was a custom in many of the towns in Plymouth County, which continued up to the beginning of the present generation, of ringing the bell in the meeting-house to inform the town of the passing away of a resident. The bell was tolled for a
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time and, after a pause, the age of the person was struck slowly on the bell. Some towns had a special signal, by vote at the town meeting, to signify the sex as well as the age of the person who had passed away. In the small towns, "where everybody knew everybody," they usually knew every person who was infirm by reason of age or illness, and were able to make a fairly good guess who had passed away when the bell was tolled. Many sextons had a hammer which was used to strike the edge of the bell, instead of using the tongue of the bell, when the time came to "strike the age." This gave a slightly different sound and pre- vented any mistakes.
Several of the towns had the bells sounded at nine o'clock in the even- ing or at some other "seemly hour" as a warning of bedtime. It is related that when the spire of the old First Church in Plymouth burned many years ago, the townspeople watched closely for the time when the flames should consume the belfry, as they were anxious about the fate of the ancient bell. According to the story the flames reached the bell and burned away the supporting cradle so that it fell at precisely nine o'clock, sounding its own curfew, without aid of human hands.
One of the curfew ringers, an elderly man who had performed that office for many years, was, on one evening, ringing the curfew, when he was visited by a clergyman who was doing evangelistic labor in the town. The evangelist watched the aged man skillfully handling the bell rope and, when the impressive office had been performed, and the curfew ringer stood with the keys to the belfry in his hand, ready to depart, the evangelist said: "You are an aged m'an, approaching the end of mortal life. Have you made your peace with God?"
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