USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Watertown > History of St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church in Watertown, 1836-1936 > Part 3
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The first "Watch Meeting" or Watch Night service on the eve of a new year was held on December 31, 1868, with sixteen mem- bers present. It was so successful that forty came to the next service held December 31, 1869. Although it was a strictly religious service, it happens to be listed among several others of a different nature. There was, for instance, a "Tea Meeting" held by ladies of the congregation, with literary exercises, tea, and Christian sociality. In other words, a new era of using the Church for other sorts of rightful community life had begun.
Mr. Richards was returned by the Conference for the year of 1869, also, and he records for our benefit the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant, the appointment of his cabinet and the comple- tion of the Pacific railroad ("to the astonishment of buffaloes, Indians, and nations"). Other contemporary events which had the town talking were the distressing Erie Rail Road disaster (over one hundred burned to death); the Avondale Mine disaster (one hundred lives lost); the laying of the French cable, Brest to Dux- bury, Massachusetts ("We can whisper to Napoleon III under the waves"); and the completion of the Suez Canal. The year was remarkable in church history for the building of a new fence about the Church, and the painting of the exterior of the building. It is said that the painter, John Paige, Esquire, disregarded the laws of gravity, ascended the spire with temerity, without a staging, and brought down the venerable chanticleer (cock), now aged ninety years (from the old Parish Church at Common Street), and rebur- nishing his coat, returned him to his favorite place, where he now sits (1869) in lofty dignity, defying sun and storm and stone. "May his shadow never be less!" This work cost the Trustees about six hundred and fifty dollars, when insurance premiums were included, and the sum had to be borrowed while the Treasurer sought about for subscriptions to pay for it.
In the meanwhile the ladies of the Church did not condone
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the way in which the financial matters were handled. It worried them more, perhaps, than it did the men to have a large standing debt ($1,700 still on the church edifice), many unpaid bills, and an uncertain salary for the minister. They determined by some means to lift all outstanding bills so that the year 1870 might begin with no arrears from the old. These ladies, therefore, projected a "Fair," and after much working and planning, held a splendid "Fair" in the Town Hall. It was, Mr. Richards solicitously tells, a "Fair of Prayer, painstaking and honest business, no lottery features being allowed."
Providence smiled, and an interested village responded. The ladies themselves were amazed at their good fortune, for the "Fair Workers" proudly presented seven hundred dollars to the Stewards. As you can imagine, the Watch Night service of 1869 was a joyful occasion, and the year 1870 was approached with more courage and a better feeling than had been evident for a long time past.
The next pastor to come to the Watertown Church (1870-73) was the Rev. N. Fellows, a good pastor and a good executive (who afterwards was Principal of Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Massa- chusetts). He had the same feeling about Watertown in the begin- ning that Mr. Bailey and Mr. Richards had had, saying ... "I am impressed with the conviction that it needs a moral and spiritual breaking up - a kind of spiritual earthquake that shall startle and shock the people and command their attention. When, how, and by whom shall the explosion be initiated?"
Evidently the ministers of the town were more cordial towards Mr. Fellows than they had been to the Rev. Mr. Richards, or Mr. Fellows himself was a more forward personality, for we find the first record of a "Union Meeting" held in December (1870). The pastors of the three evangelical churches had union services of prayer on three evenings of Christmas week, one at each church.
Extra expense for the Trustees that year was the building of new chimneys, which were imperatively necessary, at a cost of $150. The still troubled financial situation made some better means of money collection the biggest problem of the Stewards. Having placed Leonard Whitney, Jr., Ezra Wing, and Brother Nutting on a committee to devise these new means of collection, the pastor and church awaited their report. It was that subscribers should be invited to pay monthly installments, deposited in envelopes furnished for the purpose. At first this plan either for monthly or
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WATER TOWER ON WHITNEY HILL, 1884
WATERTOWN SQUARE, LOOKING EAST, BEFORE 1860
weekly subscriptions was approved with reservations. On second thought, its effect on some members who had always paid various debts by pew assessments or lump-sum gifts was feared, and finances were in such a state that the Board dared offend no one. Eventually this new method was adopted (1877), although the practice of "pew renting" was retained for forty years more, as a source of regular income.
In 1873 the ladies of the Methodist Society held a "Necktie Festival" on April 3. The exercises in the Church proper consisted of excellent singing conducted by Brother John Emerson, assisted by a number of young ladies of the society, and choice selections finely read by Miss Bessie Rogers and Miss Julia Emerson. In the vestry, neckties and refreshments were sold and much fun enjoyed. Cash proceeds - $80. Shades of John Wesley! But the ice was broken, and hereafter strawberry festivals and social meetings of all proper kinds began to center about the Methodist Church vestry.
The building was in great need of shingling at this time, and of additional gas pipes and fixtures in the audience room. The latter needs were voted upon and supplied, but the shingles, the pastor said, like procrastinating sinners, waited for a more favor- able season! It was Mr. Fellows' firm belief, also, that there would be no marked prosperity for the Watertown society until it some- how got the money, not to say the enterprise, with which to pay its debt and secure the deeding of the pews now owned by indi- viduals, to its Trustees. The latter would then have the full income from, and the whole responsibility of the pew rents, and the whole society would benefit.
Rev. F. G. Morris succeeded Mr. Fellows for the years 1873-76. The pastor's salary had risen to $1,500, but it could not always be promptly paid. The rather feeble organ was at this time repaired and was removed from the gallery at the back of the Church to a place near the pulpit - a very important and desirable change. In 1875 the ladies again made a substantial sum at their fair, this time four hundred dollars, which they gave to the Official Board to be used towards paying off some of the church debt. This was done. But current bills still overtopped income by four hundred dollars, and the Stewards despaired of even having a minister appointed to serve the Church the next year, if troubles continued. A pew assessment was declared unfair, and impractical, since so many pew holders had moved out of town and refused to pay.
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Thereupon Miss Nellie Williams and Mrs. S. Priest began to solicit subscriptions, and before the year ended, actually had made up the Stewards' deficit! Once again the ladies had scored.
In spite of all this financial trouble, it is soon after this, in 1876, that the first hopeful talk of "a new church" is started. The agitation began because the church building did not meet the needs of the increasingly active society. The membership had increased very little, but folks wanted and needed nevertheless a larger vestry and a kitchen. The matter of the safety of the church edifice was brought forward, and investigation begun as to the feasibility of extensive remodelling. Was the Church safe even as a place of worship in view of the strain of the slate roof (evidently put on in 1875 or 1876, no record of its cost), and the force of storm and wind? Could the building be raised up with safety and the vestry improved?
A committee was appointed to investigate these matters, and the report came back that there was no danger from the spire if it were only to be strengthened a little, and no danger from anything else except the ceiling in the church proper. It was recommended that it would be better, as far as the remodelling was concerned, to lower the church floor into the present vestry, and build an addition to the edifice to house a new vestry or chapel. A com- mittee was likewise working to see what could be procured in reasonably priced organs, and to start a subscription for a new instrument.
However, the various Stewards and Trustees meetings of 1877 have a different tale. The men realized that their ambitions for the time being had overreached their possibilities, and it was deemed best to postpone efforts on extensive repairs, "a new church," and even an organ, on account of the hard times, caused by the business depression. Some repairs had to be attended to, however, and these were notably the replacement of some timbers in the vestry, and the repairing of the ceiling in the audience room (church), where both sides and the space in the rear of the chande- lier were detached from the lathing. The whole ceiling had to be removed, plastered anew, and the furring stiffened by using more timbers wherever needed. Cost was $230.57, itemized as follows: bill of Thomas L. French for plastering, $156; bill of F. J. Berry for carpentering, $35.71; bill of Royal Gilkey for lumber, $14.89; bill of Royal Gilkey for coal, $7.50; bill of George Hollister for
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fresco color, $7.18; bill of J. F. Bryan for gas fitting, $4.50; bill of William Perkins for washing, $4.79.
Other financial demands of the year were for $82 and $29 for concrete sidewalks about the Church. As no pew assessments had been made for several years, and the Board now seemed to think it practical to make one, an assessment of ten per cent was levied on pew holders, to pay the following "extra " expenses, viz:
For repairs (as itemized above) $230
For sidewalks
III
For interest and insurances
414
Total
$755
The Board of Trustees, as this 1867-77 decade ends, was made up of the following men: Sylvester Priest, Leonard Whitney, Leonard Whitney, Jr., William Perkins (president), George E. Priest (secretary and treasurer), Charles H. Wilson, F. J. Berry, Wilbur Learned, Oliver Shaw, and John W. Coffin.
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CHAPTER VI
RECORDS FROM 1877 TO 1887
IT is not irrelevant to say that the records of 1877 really seem to show that that "earthquake that shall startle or shock the people and command their attention!" requested by Rev. Mr. Fellows, had occurred. Whether this "earthquake" was the personality of the new minister, Mr. T. W. Bishop (1876-79), whether the result of good work preceding him, or whether the cycle of better times, it is difficult to say. The struggle was as hard as ever, but results were proud. The new weekly offering scheme was tried out from April to June, and so gratifying were its results that no opposition to its introduction as a permanent part of the morning service was made.
The Sunday School also felt the general quickening, the mem- bership increasing to one hundred and forty-eight - a record unequalled for twenty years past. Prayer meeting and Class Meeting attendance increased to fifty and sixty, and a new young people's society was organized under the supervision of Messrs. Henry Learned and Brownell, the very first of its sort in church history.
In the midst of all this progress, however, the Official Board found itself in a strange position. It appears that the Church had been able to pay Mr. Bishop but one thousand dollars for his 1876-77 services. And very valuable services they had been. When he returned from Conference (having been asked to serve our Church again), he demanded a salary of fifteen hundred dollars -- a salary he had just been offered by two other churches. This was the Board's first experience, it seems, with any but a most self- effacing pastor, and they were aghast. Mr. Bishop was indeed an "earthquake," even though a valuable one. They did not wish to be forced into paying him, and they dared not let him go! In great and bitter excitement it is recorded: "In preparing his claims, he wholly disregarded the ability, or the lack of ability, of the Society,
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--- ----
GEORGE E. PRIEST EARLY TRUSTEE
C
LEONARD WHITNEY, JR. EARLY TRUSTEE
to pay this large and suddenly increased salary. Besides this, he accompanied his demand with an attack upon the society and the stewards, an attack uncalled for, unkind, unchristian and unfounded, made up largely of misrepresentations and false asser- tions, which had been communicated to the pastor by some one to us unknown."
Excitement continued to run high all that year, and by February, 1878, the treasurer could see no hope whatever of mak- ing up an estimated deficiency of $614. For the first time a printed sheet was prepared and given out to the entire church member- ship, stating all expenses, all receipts, and the deficiency - the first printed Methodist budget sheet. "Enclosed herewith will be found a subscription card and an envelope, which will be collected on Sunday, March 10. ... Let everyone make an unusual effort. The smallest payment will be gratefully received - the largest will not be refused.
Your servants,
B. F. Nutting, H. J. Learned, George E. Priest, Finance Committee."
When the treasurer of the Stewards came to make his report in June, he could fortunately say that all liabilities for the past year had been successfully discharged! Mr. Bishop then remitted to the Church three hundred dollars of his salary, and the unpleas- ant part of the "earthquake" was over. Even previous to his gen- erous act, however, he had been asked to return for a third year of service, because his pastoral work, sermons, and organizing ability were far above the average. His salary for 1878-79 was guaranteed for twelve hundred dollars.
A terrific storm in the late winter of 1877 alarmed the people concerning the condition of the church spire. Before any repair work was done, Rev. Brother Bishop suggested that the church site be offered to the town for a new public library, and a report was asked from the Trustees for their valuation of the land (Mr. Oliver Shaw, chairman of land investigation). Mr. Leonard Whitney, Jr., was to be approached to see what he would feel he could give towards a new church site and building. At a later Trustees meeting, it was decided to make even further investiga- tions, and a committee went to Somerville to examine the new Prospect Hill Congregational Church, built there for $10,000, and
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also to Billerica. Mr. Whitney, in the meantime, did not care to make a positive statement about his future contributions, but they knew he could be depended upon when he felt the rest of the church contributors could be depended upon. An architect, called into consultation, said a church could be built without a spire for $10,000, for $12,000 with one. Mr. Oliver Shaw then presented his report, showing that the value of church land, averaged from the valuation of adjoining property, was seventy cents a square foot. Thereupon, Mr. Priest and Mr. Coffin were appointed to confer with a committee of the town about a possible sale, but nothing ever came of the negotiations at this time, and the steeple was repaired.
It was in 1877, also, that the church building was materially improved by the addition of a fine new organ, purchased by the Stewards' committee for $1,200. It was built by Mr. George H. Ryder, and valued by him at $1,800, but, by a fortunate combina- tion of circumstances, was able to be purchased by the Watertown Methodist Church for the smaller sum. Mr. Leonard Whitney, Jr., besides making a handsome gift, loaned the society the deficiency in the whole sum so that they might profit from the discount given a cash sale. The organ was exhibited on November 21, and netted $60 towards the organ fund. Six hundred dollars cash (raised by subscription) was paid by the Stewards for the organ, and the $600 balance also was paid - by Mr. Whitney's loaning them the money. This loan was repaid Mr. Whitney by the Trustees at the rate of $100 a year, with interest. The organist at this time was Mr. Frederick A. Whitney (son of the Church's benefactor), who received $150 yearly for his services.
In 1878 the Estimating Committee again attempted to place the pastor's salary at $1,000, but he naturally objected, and it was finally put back again to $1,200. The Sunday School library was increased by one hundred and nine volumes in one quarter of the 1878-79 pastoral year, and class meetings, prayer meetings, Sunday morning services, and combined meetings with the other Protestant churches in town for temperance rallies were so fine that anyone could hardly object to the results Mr. Bishop attained. It is interesting to note, too, that Mr. Bishop held two Children's Sundays a year - one in June and one in December. He could point to an increase of sixty-two in church membership (17 by letter, 45 on profession of faith), a total of one hundred and fifteen
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members, a new organ, a new piano for the vestry, and progress in every church department, when he moved on to a larger church than the Watertown one in the spring of 1879. Perhaps the most remarkable feat of this period, though, was the sudden vision the Trustees and Stewards had of the possibility of "raising" the church debt, which had never been below $1,000, and was now up to $2,000 because of the new organ, and repairs to the spire. Before Mr. Bishop left Watertown, he had the satisfaction of seeing the whole amount privately subscribed, and the Church on its way out of debt at last.
Rev. Henry Lummis was pastor of the Watertown Church from 1879 to 1882, serving also as superintendent of the Sunday School, following the custom of many years. Mr. Lummis was a very conscientious pastor, and made over two hundred and fifty calls upon his parishioners from May to September in his first year of service. He generously recorded the very excellent condition in which his predecessor had left the society, which allowed him to spend ample time on sermons and spiritual duties. Church activities centered around the Framingham Camp Meeting, which twenty- five members attended; the Sunday School, now numbering one hundred and seventy; and the "Missionary Concerts" once a month, at which the missionary collections were taken. The other principal benevolences supported by the Church were "The Freed- man's Aid Fund" (to help negroes), and "Church Extension."
Brother Lummis's pastorate was uneventful but prosperous. In 1880 the Trustees even had two hundred dollars extra on hand, and so made it over to the Stewards to use for current expenses.
The Church was saddened in January, 1880, by the death of Mr. Sylvester Priest, affectionately called "Father Priest" by many of the congregation. Mr. Priest was eighty-seven years and seven months old, and was the last surviving member of the founders. During his last years he had been largely excluded from church privileges and public work, but up to the last of his life he was a devoted and eager Christian. In the same year Mr. Hiram W. Learned died, and Mr. Henry Chase moved away, so the Methodist Society lost several beloved members all at once. Brother Leonard Whitney (called Leonard Whitney, Jr., during the greater part of his life) died in 1881 after a long illness, and the Church mourned a generous friend. Mr. Lummis was away at the time, but Mr. Bishop was secured to conduct the funeral services.
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Material improvements undertaken during the pastorate of Mr. Lummis were several. He had the satisfaction of seeing the exterior of the Church completely refinished and painted during his first summer in town. The next year, under the personal effort of Mr. Fred Whitney, a very tasteful chancel was put up, furnished with handsome lights, curtains, and seats for the singers. In 1881, the Trustees had other interior repairs done, with the woodwork of the audience room and its pews painted, and the walls frescoed, the gas fixtures bronzed, the shades replaced, and the floor newly carpeted. As a unit, the Church was now in as neat and attractive a state as it had been since its first years. If only, the people felt, if only it had a large vestry, better Sunday School accommodations, a ladies parlor. If only -. But the time was not yet quite ripe for a new church, and the Trustees contented themselves with paying off in a year's time the $700 note, incurred to make the above repairs, by a ten per cent pew assessment.
Mr. Lummis made his last report to the Quarterly Conference group in March, 1882, and said that it had been the most pleasant appointment he had ever fulfilled. The compliments he had for the society were many, and surely the feeling throughout the Church, and between Church and minister, seems to have been admirable indeed! Bitterness everywhere had died out, more spiritual meetings took place in every department, church member- ship was being assumed more and more conscientiously, and, best of all, the young people were becoming interested in supporting every aspect of church work. Mr. Lummis concludes his pastoral message: "The church beautifully repaired and improved, the Society united, earnest, diligent, have everything to anticipate. There would be a lack of faith to doubt under the promise of God and the hopefulness of the outlook, a prosperous future.
May the blessing of God rest unceasingly upon the vine of his planting, the M. E. Church in Watertown."
Mr. Lummis was followed in the pastorate by the Rev. T. B. Smith, 1882-85 (salary $1,300), under whom the great progress made in those past few years was retained. It happened that Mr. Smith did not have charge of the Sunday School, because the able and popular Mr. George Priest had taken over this responsibility in 1881. The Sunday School continued to be second only to the Sabbath services themselves in community interest and community influence. The two years of Mr. Smith's pastorate went by happily,
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INTERIOR OF OLD CHURCH ON MAIN STREET, 1885, WITH NEW ORGAN AND LIGHTING FIXTURES
-
--
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and he, as well as Mr. Lummis, found the charge one of the most pleasant appointments he had ever had. The Church had at last seemed to find its "Christian stride," and there was no unhappy spirit making discomfort among his neighbors. Greater things were coming for the Church, Mr. Smith felt sure, and he often wrote, "If those who have the ability would all join with those who are now working for increase and prosperity, the prosperity that would result would, by the blessing of God, gladden all our hearts."
During 1882 and 1883 the Trustees considered the plan of buying a house or building a new house for a Methodist parsonage. A location on Chestnut Street was at one time contemplated, with a house to be built upon it for $2,900, the house to contain ten rooms, to be twenty-two by thirty feet with a kitchen ell, and to have a cistern and pump, fence, and lawn. All were enthusiastic about the proposed parsonage for a while, but eventually the motion to build it was tabled at a Trustees' meeting, and we hear no more about it. In the meantime, the new Watertown Public Library was built, and the Methodist Church fence was quite out of line with the new library's fence. The church people at this time favored replacing the old wooden fence with a more pretentious stone and iron one, but when the estimates for the latter were found to be $220 for the front alone, they naturally replaced the old fence with another wooden one. After all, a wooden fence matched the Church and supported climbing flowers nicely. At the same time, a group of old sheds at the rear of the church land were torn down. Water was piped into the Church for the first time, now, with a sink and one faucet provided in the vestry, and toilets in another part of the basement.
In 1885, members of the family of Mr. Leonard Whitney asked the Trustees' permission to present a baptismal font to the Church. In order to get this located in the meetinghouse, the front pew and one side pew at the northwesterly corner of the audience room were removed. Mr. Frederick Whitney also replaced the wing pews in this section with three new black walnut pews, and supplied a new altar rail. Trustees themselves saw to the recovering of the pew cushions, and to having the rear wall of the church lot, bordering on the brook, put in thorough repair.
In May, 1885, Rev. Brother Smith was succeeded by Rev. J. H. Twombly, D.D., an excellent pastor, who afterwards became president of the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Twombly was most
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hospitably received and he found the people in harmonious spirit and full of the energy that makes for effective work. The long "becalmed " period of the mid-century was certainly over and done with! Almost as soon as the pastor arrived in town, he found a very important Sabbath was about to be celebrated - the dedication of the baptismal font, given by Mr. Frederick Whitney in memory of his sister, Mrs. Emily L. Brownell, who died on the twenty-sixth of February. The font was of purest white marble, beautifully wrought, a rich memorial worthy of its donor and of the family concerned. This is the font so well placed in the southwest corner of our present church, and so separated by the arrangement of pillars as to form a handsome little baptistry. After the address of dedication, a child of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Whitney and a child of Mr. and Mrs. Richard H. Paine were baptized.
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