USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 31
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 31
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 31
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"Gentlemen, would any of you like a first-rate fiddle? My father says I may sell it, and I thought it only right to give you the first chance."
Unfortunately the story stops there and perhaps neither the local his- torian or the recording angel cared to set down the subsequent remarks.
The Francis Daniels referred to above was a deeply religious French- man from Normandy who came to Boston as a stowaway and was ad- vertised and sold for one hundred dollars to pay his passage. He was purchased by John Hewes, taken to Foxborough and allowed to work and redeem himself. His sabots, or wooden shoes, which he wore as a stowaway, are still in the possession of one of his numerous descend- ants.
All the Colonial churches used the "Old Bay Psalm Book." There was a chorister who started the tunes with a pitch pipe and the congrega- tion followed on or went ahead. All sang the same part but there was no telling which ones would reach terminal facilities in advance of others. The results were so painful to some of the congregations that they took action against the established order, usually with the results meted out to reformers.
Franklin, for instance, was set apart as a precinct of Wrentham in 1737, and June 26, 1738, it was the vote of the precinct "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 more conservative remonstrated against this new fangled idea, but the precinct refused, when the matter was brought up for revision in September "to ease those that were inclined to sing the old way."
At a later date one David Pond was accused of striking into a pitch of a tune in the public worship raised above what was set "after most of the congregation, as is thought, kept the pitch for three lines" and was
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judged to have been disorderly. He was suspended from the church and refused to acknowledge his error for thirteen years.
Some churches limited the number of tunes for a season. Only seven were permitted in the Franklin precinct for ten years and Benjamin Rockwood, Jr., was authorized to officially "tune the Psalm."
Typical Early Pastor's Long Service-How early churches were formed and the importance of the minister in the community can, per- haps, be illustrated fittingly by reference to one of the worthy leaders of religious affairs in present-day Norfolk County. According to early records :
"Rev. John Allin (so spelled by him) was the first settled pastor in Dedham. He came into the settlement in July, 1637, and immediately began to direct those proceedings which laid the foundation of the church, which was gathered in the fall of 1638, and over which he was ordained in 1639. He came here, as his records express it, in expecta- tion of employment in public work. He had received a liberal educa- tion in England, but had not been ordained. £ In forming the church, he required a strict scrutiny into the actions and religious affections of each candidate before admission, even in those cases where the candi- date was a member of another church. This work he accomplished in a peaceful manner, and governed his church with increased reputation for thirty-two years. Governor Winthrop says in his "Journal," that this church was gathered with good approbation. Mr. Allin was greatly es- teemed by his church and the inhabitants, and his influence in the civil and religious affairs of that day was very extensive. Cotton Mather says that "he was a man of sweet temper, of a genteel spirit, a diligent stu- dent, of competent learning, a humble man, and sincere Christian." Mather proposed his epitaph,
Vir sincerus, amans pacis, patiensque laborum, Perspicuus, simplex, doctrinae purus amator.
Mr. Allin died in 1671. During Mr. Allin's ministry of thirty-two years the records do not show any rate assessed for his support; he depended on voluntary contributions and on the liberal grants of land from the pro- prietors. All the successors of Mr. Allin had salaries voted them by the town, although the salary was paid voluntarily by the people, without a tax collector, many years.
The following appears to have been the recorded rule of proceeding on this subject. "In case any shall be at some time shortened in money, he shall put in for that time a paper, wherein his name, and his day's payment, as shall be due, is entered which paper he shall once within
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one month take out of the deacon's hands, and pay the debt. And every man shall put his money in a paper each Lord's day, and his name writ- ten therein, and so deliver it into the box.' "
The Episcopal Church in Dedham commenced in 1760. In the year 1768, it came under the direction of Rev. William Clark. A small church was then built by a few persons in Dedham and the neighboring towns. At the commencement of the Revolution, Mr. Clark was prosecuted be- fore the Revolutionary tribunal at Boston, for directing two loyalists to a place of safety who were in danger from the populace. Failing to con- vict him of any crime, he was about to be acquitted, when he was re- quired to swear allegiance to the commonwealth. This he refused to do, and in consequence was condemned to be transported to foreign parts, and was immediately confined in a prison ship in Boston Harbor. Through the influence of Dr. Ames, a decided Whig, he procured his lib- erty and a license to go out of the country. After he had obtained a small pension from the British government, he resided some time in New Brunswick; but he afterwards came to Quincy, where he spent the remainder of his days.
At the time of the first settlement of Dedham, the Indians were not as numerous there as in some other places, as those of that neighbor- hood had been, a year or two before, nearly all carried off by the small- pox, and most of those remaining alive had probably joined themselves to the tribes whose habitations were at some distance to the south or west. Numbers of them, it is supposed, united with the Naticks, a com- pany of Indians placed on Charles River, about ten miles west of the pres- ent village of Dedham (and then within the limits of the town), whom the Rev. John Eliot was endeavoring to civilize and convert to Christi- anity. The settlers of Dedham obtained a title to the soil by fair and honorable contract. Very soon after the arrival of Gov. Winthrop and his associates, the chieftain, Chicataubut, made a conveyance to the Eng- lish of the country around Boston, including the territory now occupied by Dedham (which was called Tist by the Indians). After the death of Chicataubut, in 1633, a committee was appointed to find out such Indians as remembered the bargain. This committee obtained a quitclaim from Wampatuck, grandson of Chicataubut, in which he states that forasmuch as he is informed by several ancient Indians ... that his grandfather did for a good and sufficient consideration convey to the English planters the tract of land now called Dedham; he, therefore, in consideration of that fact and of a reasonable sum of money, quitclaims to, etc. This deed, which is long and particular, is dated 1685.
End of Sectarian Domination-It has not been considered necessary or desirable in writing this history, either of Norfolk or any of the other
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counties in Southeastern Massachusetts, to take up the church annals of the various towns, with names, dates and other records of the pastors of all the denominations and spread them out at length. Changing the names, the experiences have been much the same in all the towns, and there are plenty of histories written earlier, on the shelves of the Public Libraries of the various towns, which will supply the information to those who need it. The plan is therefore, in these volumes, to give a sufficiently clear explanation of the early Pilgrim and Puritan churches, tell how the younger denominations challenged normal Calvinism and found places in the community, and give credit to the influence of the church movement in all its branches.
Massachusetts had her taste of sectarian domination. The earliest government was a church government. The church was the state in a figurative sense. By slow degrees the colonies rid themselves of religi- ous despotism. It took one hundred and fifty years to arrive at the will- ingness to draw up a constitution providing for the right of the individ- ual to worship as he pleased. Even this early constitution government was a Protestant government. The word occurs in Article 3 of the Old Constitution. Provision is made for the support and maintenance of "Public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality."
Eventually came the Eleventh Amendment which gave the right to all religious societies to elect their own leaders and forbade the subor- dination of any one sect or denomination to another. The same amend- ment carried a repeal of the constitutional clause which empowered the General Court to enforce attendance at church, and this was not very long ago.
When John Adams was writing his "Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law in Braintree" in 1765, he referred to a certain thing as being "as rare an appearance as a Roman Catholic,-that is, as rare as comet or an earthquake."
The fiat which was put forth that neither priest nor Jesuit was to be allowed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, under penalty of death, caused the Pilgrims at Plymouth to accede to the rule of compelling Dr. Francis Le Baron, "The Nameless Nobleman," who was of the Catholic Faith, to say mass in the sanctity of his chamber.
LeBaron, taken from a vessel shipwrecked in Buzzards Bay, was taken to Boston as a prisoner and it was with considerable reluctance that Lieutenant-Governor William Stoughton listened to the pleadings of the men of Plymouth to set him free, on condition that he practice medi- cine in the Plymouth Colony. Dr. Samuel Fuller, who came over in the "Mayflower" had been gathered to his fathers. The coming of LeBaron was in 1696.
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It is said that Dr. LeBaron always slept with the crucifix upon his breast. He was highly regarded by the Pilgrims and, so far as recorded, they made no attempt to make it uncomfortable for him because of a dif- ference in faith, but thankfully received his medical and friendly minis- trations. The rule concerning his observance of the mass was on ac- count of the conditions under which he was received by them from the Puritans of Boston.
Dr. LeBaron married Mary Wilder of Plymouth. He died August, 1704, in his thirty-sixth year.
The Roman Catholic Church-The first Roman Catholic in the Plym -. outh Colony was presumably Dr. Francis LeBaron, as stated. It has been claimed that Captain Myles Standish was a Catholic. He was not of the communion of the Plymouth Church but whether he had any other religious affiliation has never been proven.
One hundred and fifty years after the landing of the Pilgrims and Pur- itans there were about one hundred Catholics in the Plymouth and Mas- sachusetts Bay colonies, combined. They were French, Irish or Spanish. They had no organization or church. The occasional ministrations of transient priests brought them consolation but none of them made any considerable stay, even in Boston. In fact it was a native of Boston, Rev. John Thayer, who became the first settled missionary in this vicin- ity. He had been a Congregational minister, became a convert of the Catholic Church while traveling in Europe in 1781-83, completed his studies in Paris and was ordained as a priest. Dr. Carroll of Baltimore was the superior of the missions in the United States. He assigned Fr. Thayer to the Boston mission. He arrived January 4, 1790. He leased a small chapel on School Street. This may be said to be the first reg- ularly organized church society of Roman Catholics in Boston. Rev. Dr. Carroll paid an official visit to the Boston mission in 1791. Fr. Taylor devoted his chief attention to the few Catholics outside of Boston after Dr. Carroll sent Rev. Francis A. Matignon and Rev. John de Cheverus, two exiled French priests, to assist him at the Boston mis- sion.
When the Catholics in this vicinity numbered 1200 or more a church was built. At the head of the subscription list for a building fund was the name of John Adams of Quincy, President of the United States. The total sum collected was $16,153. Of this amount Protestants friendly to the enterprise gave $3,433. It was for many years the only Catholic church in Boston or vicinity.
St. Joseph's Church, Roxbury, was dedicated December 6, 1846.
In 1853 four acres of land were purchased in Roxbury, on the Ded- ham turnpike, for the site of a convent for the Sisters of Notre Dame. It
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was used as a novitiate of the order and an academy for young ladies. On March 26, 1855, a committee of the General Court, accompanied by several other citizens of the Commonwealth, made an official inspection of the academy and convent. As soon as the committee was admitted, the members scattered all over the building, entered every room, chapel and dormitory, and looked into cellar, garret and even into the closets. They insisted upon conversing with every inmate to ascertain, as they explained, whether anyone was being detained there against their will.
This intrusion was resented by the Catholic community, especially the conduct of one member, and so pronounced was the indignation that the General Court, after investigation, expelled him by a vote of the House, May 12, 1855.
A large brick church, St. Gregory's, was dedicated April 7, 1864, in Dorchester.
The Dearborn estate in Roxbury was purchased by the mission fathers of the Society of the Holy Redeemer and the church was dedi- cated April 7, 1878.
These were beginnings of the Roman Catholic Church in this general community. The Catholic population constitutes a large percentage of the inhabitants of all the towns and, according to Gaillard Lapsley in "The America of Today" (1919), "In the state of Massachusetts more than half the population is Roman Catholic."
Always Some Liberal Minded Exponents-There were no heraldings of a refuge for the oppressed of all lands or any idea of universal phil- anthropy on the part of the Pilgrims when they left Leyden. Their great desire was for religious liberty for themselves. They sought no increase except from friends of their own communion. It became true, however, that "a wide experience had emancipated them from bigotry, and they were never betrayed into the excesses of religious persecution." Historical fidelity demands a better recognition of the distinction be- tween the Separatists at Plymouth known as the Pilgrims of the Plym- outh Colony and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay.
When the Puritans, following the lead of Anne Pollard, first to leap ashore at Shawmut Point, landed in the Massachusetts Colony and dis- tributed themselves at Trimountain, Mattapani, Dorchester, up the Charles River, at Roxbury, Cambridge, Watertown and Medford, they organized a "congregation." John Wilson, a graduate of King's Col- lege, Cambridge, was ordained as their pastor by the laying on of hands. Elders and deacons were installed and Massachusetts easily became a colony of Congregational churches. The assistants met as a court for the transaction of a great variety of business frequently.
The Puritan Colony exercised its right "to possess its soil exclusively Plym-60
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and to keep it clear of nuisances." One of the first to get his walking ticket was Thomas Gray who. "for divers reasons objected against him" was ordered "to remove himself out of the limits of the patent." "To the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men" it was ordered and agreed that "for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same." The franchise was held by virtue of church membership and that was controlled by the clergy.
It was not long before this aristocracy of righteousness was ques- tioned and disturbed. Roger Williams and his newly-wedded wife were among twenty passengers on the "Lion" which arrived February 5, 1631.
Of Roger Williams, it has been written :
And when religious sects ran mad He held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad, It will not be improved by burning.
Later, the holding of opinions that did not square with those of John Cotton and Richard Mather was not only heterodoxy, but was also suf- ficient ground for punishment by the civil authorities. According to the record of "A Quarter Court held at Boston on the First Day of the 10th Mo.," 1640, "the iury found Hugh Buets to bee gilty of heresy, that his person & errors are dangerous for infection of others. It was ordered that the said Hugh Buet should bee gone out of our jurisdiction by the 24th present upon paine of death, & not to returne, upon paine of being hanged."
William Pynchon had been treasurer of the colony and given other honors and distinctions, but when he wrote a book with teachings on the subject of the atonement which disturbed the orthodox he was de- nounced as a heretic and his book was to be publicly burned in the Boston market place. In 1652 Pynchon returned to England.
The Plymouth Colony in 1643 entered into confederation with Massa- chusetts, Connecticut and New Haven and this league lasted until the coming of Andros about forty years later. Goodwin says of this loose- jointed league that it was "a stronghold of bigotry and did much to re- duce liberally-inclined Plymouth to the level of her stern associates. John Quincy Adams wrote of its "record of incessant discord and of encroachments by the most powerful upon the weaker members."
The Massachusetts General Court in 1636 agreed to give four hundred pounds for a public school, "the next court to appoint where and what building." This assembly was "the first body in which the people, by
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their representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of ed- ucation. Two years later, a "sometimes minister of God's word" dying, left his library and half his fortune to this school. It took his name and became Harvard College.
In 1642 it became a law that "none of the brethren shall suffer so much barbarism in their families as not to teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue." In 1647 in all the Puritan colonies, it was ordered "that every township, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall appoint one to teach all children to read and write; and when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred famil- ies they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university."
"Encylopedia Britannica" says that the Massachusetts law of 1647 was epoch-making. That Massachusetts statute of 1647 recited that its purpose was "that learning may not be buried in the grave of" the fathers, and also to circumvent "that ould deluder, Satan."
The first modern compulsory attendance law in the United States was passed in Massachusetts in 1852. By 1914 all but six States had similar laws. The common school is peculiarly New England in its origin. In 1691 the Pilgrim colony was merged in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Social distinctions were almost wanting in Plymouth but were marked in Massachusetts Bay. The Puritan colonies were theocracies in which there flourished the spirit of intolerance in religion and of opposition to the separation of church and state. This was natural enough. The Puritans were from England and had not left the Established Church but endeavored to reform it. England had never had any other system but a union of church and state. The Catholic church was the state church in England until Henry VIII established the Episcopal church. Then that church became the established or state church and proscribed all others.
The ideals of separation of church and state existed in the Plymouth Pilgrim colony, and when the Puritan colony absorbed the Pilgrim colony it did not obliterate the Pilgrim convictions of law and govern- ment. According to S. E. Forman in "Our Republic, "They permeated the life of the American people and embodied themselves in the institu- tional and legal system of the United States." As the New Englander migrated westward in the covered wagon, wherever he settled he built a log home and then a schoolhouse.
There is on the Court House grounds on School Street in Boston a memorial marking the site of the Public Latin School, the oldest school in the United States of continuous existence, dating back to one
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year before the establishment of Harvard College. This memorial reads :
On This Site Stood the First House Erected for the Use of the Boston Public Latin School. This School has been Constantly Maintained Since it was Established By the Following Vote of the Town- At a General Meeting Upon Public Notice It Was Agreed Upon That Our Brother Philemon Permort Shall Be Entreated to Become Schoolmaster for the Teaching And Nurturing of Children with us April 13, 1635
Before there was a common school founded by the Puritans, they founded Harvard College, to keep up the supply of orthodox ministers, largely. It was an institution to furnish higher education for those already on the road to knowledge. The first brick building, however, was built for educating Indians, but the advantages of a Harvard course did not appeal to the red skins. Ineffectual attempts were made to fill the Aboriginal department but the rank and file of them had a poor opinion of the braves who associated with "foreigners," especially collegiates. Accordingly the printing press which arrived very early in colonial life was used, in that building, to print the Indian Bible translated by John Eliot, and other religious books. It seems fair to call these efforts the beginning of university extension service in America.
Among other books printed at Harvard College was the "Bay Psalm Book."
The sponsors and officers of Harvard College aspired to civilize and educate the Indians and make regular Harvard men out of them but the records show only one Indian graduate in those early years. Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck was graduated as a member of the class of 1665. Three other Indians, Joel Jacobs, a classmate of Caleb Cheeshahtea- umuck; Eleazer of the class of 1679, and Benjamin Larnel of the class of 1716, studied at Harvard but did not graduate. Larnel died while an undergraduate.
The printing press on which the Indian Bible and other early books were printed, as well as the fonts of type, came from Holland.
CHAPTER L "THE THREE LEARNED PROFESSIONS."
All Three Closely Associated and Enthusiastic in Witchcraft Cases- Decided Prejudice Against Lawyers in Puritan Days-Witches per- secuted With No Law of Colony or Province Behind the Court- Mather Dynasty Powerful and Long Standing-Octogenarian Crushed to Death Because He Wanted to Leave Property to His Daughters- Rule of the United States Passed From Ministers to Lawyers- World-wide Interest in Recent Trial at Dedham-Lynching At- tempts Against First Physiciaan to Vaccinate for Smallpox - Town Voted Forbidding Anyone, Except Two Named, Having Smallpox in Houses Mentioned.
The three learned professions, so called, theology, law and medicine, became transplanted in the colonies and, for a time, had much the same place in popular regard as in the old country. Breathing freer air, the colonists had a disposition to simplify and popularize all three to make them less of a mystery and bring them more within the reach of the average citizen.
Massachusetts was born in revolt. Pilgrims and Puritians left Eng- land to be rid of many of Britain's institutions, not to transplant them on American soil. There was a disposition, however, to stand more or less in awe of ministers, lawyers and doctors, and regard them as groups apart from business men or those of other professions or vocations. There is a remnant of this tendency extant, so tenacious is that which is bred in the bone.
The Puritan settlers held lawyers in slight esteem and we have sev- eral instances recorded in early records of Norfolk County towns. They insisted upon every town having a minister, however, and towns were not established until a church had been gathered with an orthodox min- ister and visible means for his support. As for the physicians, Dr. Sam- uel Fuller came over in the "Mayflower," did heroic service for many years, was loaned to the Puritans when they were in distress from much sickness the first winter in the New England climate. When he was gathered to his fathers, the Puritans deigned to spare the life of Dr. Francis LeBaron and allow him to became a physician in the Plymouth Colony, even though he were a Roman Catholic and had been captured as one of the survivors from a shipwrecked French privateer.
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