History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 207

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 207

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Rev. Ebenezer Porter Dyer was the successor of Mr. McGinley. He was born at Abington, August 15, 1813, graduated at Brown University in the class of 1833, studied divinity at Andover and was first set- tled and ordained at Stowe, where he began preaching in 1835, and where he remained till 1846. Installed at Hingham in 1848, he remained there till 1864. He was again installed here November 7, 1867, and re- signed his pastorate June 19, 1877. Beginning at Stowe in his youth, afterwards at several other places, Boston, Winter Hill, Somerville and elsewhere, he performed missionary labor, founding, it is said, by his direct efforts, three churches, and indirectly caus- ing to be founded three others. He was author of several books, among others a metrical version of "Pilgrim's Progress," published by Lee & Shepard, Boston, in 1869, while he was in Shrewsbury. He died at Abington, August 22, 1883, aged seventy years.

Rev. John L. Scudder, who succeeded Mr. Dyer, was born in 1855, in India, where his father, Dr .- Scudder was a missionary of the American Board. He graduated at Yale College in 1874, and pursued his professional studies at Union Theological Semi- nary. Ordained here December 26, 1877, he remained till March, 1882, when he requested a dismissal and went to accept a call to Minneapolis. He is now set- tled at Jersey City.

The successor of Mr. Sendder was Rev. Frank H. Allen, a graduate of Amherst College in the class of 1874, and a classmate of his predecessor at Union Theological Seminary. He was ordained here Octo- ber 25, 1882, and resigned his office as pastor August 23, 1888, to accept a call to Milwaukee.

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CHAPTER CIV.

SHREWSBURY-(Continued.)

THE SECOND PARISH-THE BAPTIST, UNIVERSALIST AND METHODIST SOCIETIES-THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.

FROM December 17, 1742, to November 1, 1786, there were two parisbes in Shrewsbury, and the sep- arate history of both is part of the history of the town. Both were territorial, and included all the inhabitants,-nolentes volentes. The South or First Parish was identical with the present town of Shrews- bury. The North or Second Parish included most of Boylston and West Boylston and all of the original town not within the limits of the South. The church in the North Parish was organized October 6, 1743, Rev. Job Cushing and his deacons going over to " assist ye Bretheren in the north part to gather a church." A meeting-house was built, and Rev. Ebenezer Morse was ordained in the same month (October) of the same year. The house was of the rudest and cheapest pattern, and at the ordination had neither floor, door nor window. It was com- pleted later by voluntary contributions of labor and materials, and the interior being apportioned off into spaces for pews, each one built him a pew to suit himself. Mr. Morse was a man of varied learning and superior capacity, graduate of Harvard College 1737, and master of all the learned professions,-law and medicine as well as divinity. He was a native of Medfield, born March 2, 1718, and twenty-five years old at his settlement in Shrewsbury. The rela- tions of pastor and people appear to have been mu- tually satisfactory till the popular dissatisfaction about taxation of the Colonies, in which Mr. Morse did not participate, being a pronounced loyalist from first to last. The trouble between him and his par- ish began in 1770, and culminated in 1775. Of the action of the town in regard to Mr. Morse, an ac- count will be given elsewhere. The parish, June 12, 1775, voted (thirty-seven yeas to twelve nays) "to dissolve the pastoral office of Rev. Ebenezer Morse." November 10, 1775, six ministers, being present at- tending a day of fasting and prayer, recommended dismissal of Mr. Morse, and the parish voted to dis- miss him "agreeably to ye advice of the Council." Of course, these proceedings were irregular and revo- lutionary ; but they were sustained by au irresistible public opinion, and Mr. Morse submitted under pro- test. He continued to live in the Second Parish aud in the town of Boylston after it was incorporated as such to the end of his life, making a livelihood prac- ticing medicine and fitting boys for college. It has been said derisively of Mr. Morse that he continued to style himself "settled minister of God's word in Boylston" as long as he lived, and often so signed

marriage certificates. But nothing is clearer tlian that, according to law and congregational theory, he had a right to so style himself and so sign his name. In 1775 the parish appointed a committee "to notify Mr. Morse of his dismissal and to see that he do not enter the desk any more." He died at Boylston in 1802, aged eighty-three years.

Before incorporation of the Second P'arish as the town of Boylston, two other ministers were called in that parish, - Rev. Jesse Reed and Rev. Eleazer Fairbank, and the latter was settled there March 27, 1777. He was born in Preston, Conn., graduated at Brown University, and was dismissed at Boylston at his own request, April 22, 1793; afterwards settled at Wilmington, Vt., and again dismissed. He re- moved to Palmyra, N. Y., where he died in 1821.

The founder of the Baptist Society in Shrewsbury was Luther Goddard, grandson of Edward, the pro- prietor. Simon Goddard, who so troubled the peace of good Mr. Cushing about ruling elders, was a brother of Edward and so great-uncle of Luther. The latter, called captain from his rank in the militia, later in life called also Elder Goddard, from his powerful gift as a Baptist exhorter, was by trade a watchmaker and carried on his trade with thrift and profit, first at Shrewsbury and later at Worcester. I mention his kinship to Simou on account of his marked resem- blance to him. What with speaking in meeting and endless letter-writing, Simon had kept church and pastor in hot water upwards of ten years, and now fifty years afterwards Mr. Cushing's successor hath a like trouble. Captain Luther also can speak in meet- ing, likewise he can write letters, and he did both. He could not find in the blessed Scriptures either precept or example for baptism of iufants, and he talked about it in meeting and out of meeting, and wrote long letters to the church and pastor about it, subscribing himself "your poor unworthy Brother, L. Goddard." This began before, and reached a climax in 1808, when Capt. Goddard was baptized by immer- sion and organized himself into a Baptist Church. He even requested by letter Dr. Sumner to allow him the use of his meeting-house for such organizing, &c. Mild Dr. Sumner's reply, lately printed,1 is the most remarkable instance of mildness on record, aud is witty as well as inild. He could not see the neces- sity or propriety in the use of the meeting-house when there was no place within two miles where baptism by immersion could be administered.

After his baptism Capt. Goddard wrote another let- ter to Joseph Sumner, pastor, wishing him " to pointe out some way for him to leave the church in this town and joyn to another of a different denomina- tion." And shortly afterwards he wrote another let- ter of great length to the church, to which the church by a committee replied that Mr. Goddard's connec-

1 Memorials of Rev. Joseph Sumner, D.D., printed for private distribu- tion by his grandson, George Sumner, of Worcester.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

tion with it was dissolved by his own act. From this time Elder Goddard preached in Shrewsbury and elsewhere as occasion offered. In 1813 a society of thirty-three members, called the Shrewsbury and Boylston Baptist Society, was formally organized, and the next year built a house of God. And there Elder Goddard often exercised his gifts, but no regular preacher was employed till 1818, when Rev. Elias MeGregory was ordained over the church and society, and remained its minister till 1821, after which no other was ever regularly settled over it. Rev. Samuel W. Vilas was hired to supply the Baptist pulpit, and did so for about two years, when July 15, 1823, he died. About this time Elder Goddard removed to Worcester, and the Boylston Baptists withdrew and organized a society of their own.

The Shrewsbury Baptists, however, kept up their organization and continued to hold services at their house for several years with more or less regu-' larity, but had no regular minister. The Baptist clergy of the vicinity, who regarded the church here as a sort of missionary ontpost in the midst of the Gentiles, frequently came here and preached. This continued till 1835, when the church and society were formally dissolved. The Baptist house of worship is still standing, though so altered as to be no longer recognizable. It stands where it was built, on the Worcester Road, and is now owned and occupied by Mr. George G. Dowe as a dwelling-house.

I have before referred to the ordination of Rev. Samuel B. Ingersoll as a milestone in the history of the Congregational schism. And now we run against this stone again. April 11, 1821, a religious society was formed in Shrewsbury under the name of the First Restoration Society. One of the main factors that contributed to the formation of this society was the avowal of extreme Calvinistic opinions hy Mr. Inger- soll, and his refusal to exchange with the neighboring clergy of more liberal views. Among the solid men who formed this society were the Knowltons, Dr. Seth and his brothers, Asa and Joseph Hastings, who were sons of Deacon William, and grandsons of Deacon Ezekiel Knowlton, and had been brought up on the Westminster Catechism. Dr. Knowlton was chairman of most committees and boards of officers of the new society during his life. Full one-half of the members of this society were re-idents of other towns. The Universalist Society in Worcester was not formed till twenty years later, and the Shrewsbury society had among its members several strong men from Worcester, among others Mr. Joseph Pratt and Mr. David Sar- gent, the latter of whom was one of the deacons of the Restoration Church. The other deacon was Joseph H. Knowlton, before named. There were also several members who lived in Sutton, more still who lived in Grafton, and a few who lived in Boylston. The first business committee of the society were Dr. Seth Knowl- ton, Captain Thomas Harrington, Sr., Gershom Flagg, of Boylston, Abner Stowe, Jr., of Grafton, Captain Silas

Allen, Jr., Lyman Howe and John Richardson. The church building was located at the junction of the Grafton Road with the Worcester Turnpike, as a central point of a rather scattered parish.

This society was organized under the statute of 1811, which guaranteed most of the advantages of iocorpo- ration to societies so organized, and made them, as was afterwards held by the Supreme Court, quasi corporations. The house of worship, begun in 1822, was completed and publicly dedicated to " Our Father which is in Heaven," June 17, 1823, at which time also was installed Rev. Jacob Wood, who served as minister of this society till 1829. For the next ten years there was no settled mioister. Rev. Thomas J. Greenwood, who was settled in Marlborough, for about three years supplied the pulpit here on alternate Sundays, preaching also in his own pulpit in a similar way. During this period, 1829-39, several other min- isters, for longer or shorter terms, were employed, but I have not been able to ascertain even their names. In the spring of 1839 Rev. Jacob Baker was ordained over this society, and preached regularly for three years. After 1843 the society had no settled minister nor regular preaching. There were, however, occa- sional services in the church till about 1864. In 1868 the few surviving members met and voted to sell their house and dissolve the society.

If organization of the First Restoration Society had been delayed till after the death of Mr. Ingersoll, it probably would never have been organized at all, and if Dr. Knowlton and others, who withdrew from the Congregational Society, had remained in it, there can be little doubt that that society would have taken the Unitarian instead of Trinitarian side of the schism that was then taking place. The fate of the First Resto- ration Society in Shrewsbury is substantially the same as that of all the other Universalist Societies of the smaller towns. The one idea of the Universalist-, seemingly an inadequate foundation for a separate denomination, has unquestionably permeated and leavened the whole lump of religious thought of the present age, and though in Shrewsbury and elsewhere the dogma of wretched doom for all but an elect few of our race may still linger in creeds, not even heathen congregations will tolerate its preaching. When the American missionary for whose ontfit Shrewsbury Christians have contributed, goes to far India's coral strand to bear the lamp of life to men benighted, he has to graft the infernal tenet of his written creed with the scion of future probation-a version of resto- ration heresy taken from Buddha himself. And straightway all Andover takes up the cndgels to champion the Light of Asia. Shade of John Calvin! methinks the smell of a burning Andover professor would be scarcely less grateful to thy nostrils than was that of Servetus himself.

In the spring of 1845 a Methodist preacher and temperance lecturer, held some religious meetings, interspersed with a temperance lecture or two, at

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School-house No. 5, in the western part of Shrews- bury, which were attended by Alonzo Stiles and Amasa Hyde, both members of the Congregational Church in Shrewsbury. Mr. Hyde, who lived to be known to the younger as well as the older of the three generations of living men, has recently died, at an advanced age. He was an excellent man and a leading member of the Methodist Church for many years. Mr. Stiles died nearly forty years ago while crossing the Isthmus of Panama on his way to California. He had formerly been an intemperate man and was at variance with the church of which he was a member on the score of temperance. He objected to and remonstrated against the use of intoxi- cating liquors in the communion service because it excited his appetite and tempted him to return to his former habit of intemperance. It was a common zeal for temperance that first brought Mr. Stiles in con- tact with the preacher and lecturer aforesaid-whose name I am unable to give-which contact resulted in the school-house meetings, where a Methodist class was formed, of which Mr. Stiles and Mr. Hyde were both members. Then and there was planted the grain of mustard seed out of which grew the fair tree of Methodism in Shrewsbury.

In the fall of the same year came from Holliston Rev. Gardner Rice, a Methodist clergyman, to teach a high school in Shrewsbury. He was a graduate of Wesleyan University, and taught school in Shrewsbury for many years, and more than one generation of children bless the memory of Master Rice. Directly on coming to town Mr. Rice took charge of the Methodist movement, which before had lacked guid- ing and organizing leadership, and preached Sundays in a hall in the Haven tavern, which stood where the Town House now stands; in the spring of 1846 the Methodist Society was formally organized and con- nected with the Worcester Conference, and Rev. John WV. Wheeler came to Shrewsbury under a regular assignment to duty here according to Methodist usage, and held services Sundays at the tavern hall till completion of the Methodist house of worship. The building of this house was said by an irreverent jester to have been the greatest instance of some- thing made out of nothing since the Creator made the world. Neither jester nor laughers at his jest knew the history of the Methodist Church. True it was, none of the original Methodists in Shrewsbury were rich men, nor bad a single one of them any visible treasure laid up where moth and rust doth corrupt. But what the Methodists did in Shrewsbury is only a single instance of what the denomination has done all over the United States. Everywhere it has organized its churches and built its houses of worship in very literal imitation of the way the Creator is commonly supposed to have made the world.

It was during building of the Methodist Church (1847-48) or immediately afterwards that Rev. Jeffer- son Hascall, presiding elder of the Worcester Con-

ference, whose discerning eye saw a field here white for the harvest, moved into town and thrust in his sickle. Under his labors there was a great revival of religion, and over one hundred persons professed conversion. Mr. Hascall was born in Thompson, Ct., November 6, 1807, and died at Medford November 6, 1887. He graduated at Wilbraham Academy about 1829, and immediately entered upon the ministry. He lived in Shrewsbury about twenty years in all, and most of the time was in the presiding eldership. He was a man of great ability, energy and influence, a powerful preacher of his faith and a public-spirited citizen of the town. Interested in and favoring edu- cation and all public improvements, and an earnest advocate of a vigorous prosecution of the war to sup- press the slaveholders' rebellion, he was universally respected and beloved by the people of the town. I should be glad to add here some brief separate men- tion of each of the Methodist pastors who have min- istered to the church in Shrewsbury, and regret my inability to do so. According to the itinerant usage of the denomination, only ministering here for two years or less each, they have come and gone, and after considerable unsatisfactory inquiry [ reluctantly abandon my purpose to notice them separately and merely subjoin a list of their names with times ot service :

Rev. D. K. Banister.

1848-49, '57-58

Rev. Edwin Chase 1872

Rev. Wm. R. Bagnall .1852-53

Rev. S. H. Noun. 1875

Rev. Wm. Gordon .1854-56

Rev. W. M. Hubbard 1876-78

Rev. H. P. Satchwell. 1859-60

Rev. A. W. Adams. 1879

Rev. Wm. W. Colburn ... 1861-62

Rev. W. Wigoall .. .1880-81

Rev. Joseph W. Lewis. 1863-64

Rev. W. S. Jaggar ... .1882-84

Rev. Chas. T. Johnson ...... 1865-66

Rev. F. T. George. 1885-86

Rev. John Peterson ... 1867-68

Rev. F. B. Graves 1887

Rev. Win. Merrill ..... 1869-70

Rev. O. C. Poland ... 1888

January 16, 1872, the Catholics of Shrewsbury bought three-eighths of an acre of land for three hundred and fifty dollars and built a church thereon. The deed of this parcel of land runs "to Patrick T. O'Reilly, of Springfield, To Have and To Hold the same to him, the said O'Reilly, his heirs and assigns, to their own use and behoof forever." 1 Patrick T. O'Reilly, of Springfield, is a Right Reverend Bishop of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and his diocese includes the town of Shrewsbury. Nor does his ten- ure of the church property in this town differ at all from that of all other property of the Catholic Church in his diocese. He is tenant in fee simple of it all. The local (?) pastor of the Catholic flock here, as well as the Right Reverend Bishop, is a non-resi- dent of this town.

If the reader be not content with this history of the Catholic Church in Shrewsbury, and shall attempt to pursue it farther, I hope he may be more successful in his inquiries than I have been.

1 Worcester's Registry of Deeds, Book 892, page 266.

Rev. Jefferson Hascall 1871

Rev. David Shuman. 1850-51

Rev. A. Caldwell. 1873-74

796

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

CHAPTER CV.

SHREWSBURY-(Continued.)

THE FRENCH WARS, THE REVOLUTION, THE WAR OF ISI2 AND THE MEXICAN WAR.

OF the two wars between England and France for possession of Canada (1744-63) the first was called by our fathers the Old War and the second the Last War. Only very meagre materials exist for showing the part taken by the people of Shrewsbury in these wars. That Artemas Ward, as lieutenant-colonel, Marshall Newton, as lieutenant, Nathan Howe, as ensign, and Dr. Edward Flint, as surgeon, all of Shrewsbury, served in expeditions to Canada in the last war is well known, but this implies much more. If there were officers to command there were soldiers to fol- low and obey. Doubtless from Shrewsbury there accompanied these officers the number of non-commis- sioned officers and privates appropriate to their rank. Colonel William Williams, whose diary and letters are qnoted by Parkman, was commander of the regi- ment in which Lieutenant-Colonel Ward and Lien- tenant Newton served. This regiment was in the dis- astrous campaign of the incompetent Abercrombie against Ticonderoga. Published extracts of a journal kept by Lieutenant-Colonel Ward fully bear out all that has ever been said or written of the disorder of the march, the lack of discipline of the army, the confusion of the battle and the folly of the retreat.

Dr. Edward Flint was chief chirurgeon of the regi- ment of Colonel Timothy Ruggles, which served in the expedition of 1758 against Crown Point. Ensign Nathan Howe, who was a brother-in-law of Dr. Flint, served in the campaign of 1756 at Lake George, and with his regiment assisted in building the ill-fated Fort William Henry, which the brave Lieutenant- Colonel Monro, a Scotch veteran, was forced to sur- render to the French, who, after the surrender, aban- doned their prisoners to be pillaged, tortured, mur- dered and eaten by their Indian allies. John Wheeler, of Shrewsbury, who was one of the prisoners, sur- vived the massacre and returned home. Ensign Howe had been sent home before the siege and capture with a detachment of sick and wounded men. The town records of Shrewsbury show that the town granted him £5 168. 93d. on account of his sickness. At the same time, and for like cause, to William Howe, brother of Ensign Nathan, an allowance was made by the town of £6 6d .; also to Epbraim Smith, on account of the sickness of his son Aaron, £3 4s. d., and to widow Sarah Smith for medical attendance of her late husband, Joshua Smith, upon sundry sick soldiers, £1 148. 8d. Caleb Parker, a youthful soldier from this town, of only sixteen years, was killed in this campaign.

One soldier at least from Shrewsbury went on the

romantic expedition in the old war against the Fort- ress of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island, built by the grand monarch of France to commemorate his grandeur in America, as well as to guard one of the avennes to New France, besieged and taken in forty- nine days by raw levies of New England fishermen and farmers, under command of General William Pepperell, a Piscataqua trader, who had never had before the least experience in war-one of the most amazing exploits in all the annals of time. From the volunteering of the soldiers to surrender of the fortress the campaign has all " the cloud and glamour of ro- mance," and was called a crusade. While Governor Shirley was mnstering his battalions like another Peter the Hermit, the eloquent Whitefield went up and down the land preaching the Holy War.

Nil desperandum, Christo duce.

The heart of New England took fire and sent the flower of its youth, only sons not excepted, to assault the Dunkirk of America, garrisoned by the veterans of France. Away with the crusaders went Jonah Taylor, of Shrewsbury, only son of his father, Wil- liam, and his mother, Elizabeth, only brother of nine sisters, and fell mortally wounded in the first assanlt upon the King's Bastion. He died on Cape Breton September 23, 1745.

The first overt act of Shrewsbury in the Revolu- tionary War was to send delegates to the first Provin- cial Congress, holden at Concord October 11, 1774. Artemas Ward had been chosen Representative from Shrewsbury to the General Court, which Governor Gage had ordered to meet at Salem October 5th. The Governor countermanded his order, but the Representatives met at Salem all the same and ad- jonrned to Concord. Phineas Hey wood was chosen by Shrewsbury as a delegate to go with the Representa- tive-elect to the Congress at Concord. The recom- mendations of this Congress to the towns were forth- with carried into effect by the inhabitants of Shrews- bury. 1. They organized three companies of militia, one in the North Parish, Captain Asa Beaman, and two in the South Parish, Captain Job Cushing and Captain Asa Brigham. 2. They voted not to pay taxes to Mr. Treasurer Harrison Gray, but to Henry Gardner, of Stow, whom Congress had designated as its new Receiver-General. 3. They adopted the non- consumption agreement as to India teas and appointed an inspection committee of fifteen, five to be a quorum, whose duty it was to be to find out all such persons as sell or consume so extravagant and unnecessary an article of Inxury and post their names in some public place. The town also chose a committee of five to examine Rev. Ebenezer Morse, minister of the Second Parish, William Crawford and three others, all members of that parish, "as being suspected of Toryism." At an adjourned meeting the committee reported favorably as to the three others, but as to Rev. Ebenezer Morse, they said it appeared to them that he was not so friendly to the common cause as

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 207

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1576

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576