USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Church of Our Savior, Protestant Episcopal, in Longwood, Massachusetts > Part 4
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President Hopkins, in a long discourse given at the request of his students, referred especially to Mr. Law- rence's insistence upon being the administrator of his own estate, the personal attention and sympathy with which he distributed his wealth and his sense of religious obligation. He looked the great doctrine of stewardship full in the face, prayed earnestly over it, and responded to it practically, as few had done up to his day. No man on this continent, said Dr. Hopkins, had approximated him in the amount given in benevolence.
The Williams president, himself one of the greatest educators and philosophers of his century, further said of Mr. Lawrence, that "in high moral qualities, in decision, in energy, in intuitive perception and sound practical judgment and imagination he was great. His trust in God and his hope of salvation through Christ were the basis of his character. He believed he could trust God for what he could not see. Family religion he esteemed above all price. During his frequent illnesses he was
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very restless and once said that the only way he could get quieted was by getting near to God. He often went to sleep repeating a prayer. He viewed death with tran- quillity and preparation for it was habitual with him. In his charity he had the nicest appreciation of the feelings of others and an intuitive perception of delicacy and propriety. These characteristics gave him a hold upon the hearts of many, and made his death felt as that of few other men in Boston could have done. Only such sympathy can establish right relations between rich and poor, neutralize aggressive tendencies of classes and make society a brotherhood where the various inequalities shall work out moral good and where acts of mutual kindness and helpfulness may pass and repass, as upon a golden chain, during our brief pilgrimage of pro- bation."
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CHAPTER IV
AMOS ADAMS LAWRENCE
JOINT GIVER OF THE CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR GREAT MERCHANT AND LOVER OF MEN
IT is not always possible to prove the old adage-"Like father, like son." Many sons do not follow in the foot- steps of their fathers, often much to the displeasure of such fathers. It is impossible, however, to peruse the life and letters of Amos Lawrence, as edited and published by his son, Dr. William R. Lawrence, and to follow this with a reading of the life of Amos Adams Lawrence, writ- ten by the latter's son, Bishop William Lawrence, with- out coming to the conclusion that in this case the old adage is reasonably well confirmed. Here one finds the same early development of a strong character rising above all the temptations and allurements of youth; the same sturdy filial love and loyalty to parents; the same deep and undeviating family affection; the same early plan- ning of a career based upon principles of integrity, and the zealous pursuing of the same throughout the years; the same insistence upon honesty and faithfulness from associates and employees; the same fatherly and humane consideration for employees; the same devout and ever growing religious sentiment which took him while yet a young man, from a broad Unitarianism into the Protestant Episcopal Church; the same profound belief
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(Photo by the Alfred Brown Studio, Brookline) AMOS ADAMS LAWRENCE From portrait in the Robing Room
AMOS ADAMS LAWRENCE
and trust in Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of men; the same broad tolerance for other faiths as manifested in his requesting, from a Roman Catholic Bishop, a priest to minister to the spiritual needs of Irish girl employees of his Salmon Falls Mills, and his later turning over of the college he had founded in Appleton, Wisconsin, to the Methodist Episcopal Church, partly because that church body was already established in the state and partly because he deemed their ideas and methods more suitable and better adapted to the life of the frontier, which Wisconsin then was, than the ideas and methods of his own Church body. In these and numerous other ways Amos A. Lawrence followed in the footsteps of his father and emulated him in the management of great in- terests and in his many benevolences.
It is not the object of this chapter to detail Mr. Law- rence's wide business affairs, but rather to reveal his religious interests and his broad Christian faith and character, which naturally resulted in the building of this memorial church. A brief summary of his extensive manufacturing and merchandising affairs is needed, how- ever, to reveal the sources of the wealth which enabled him to accomplish his widespread philanthropy.
He was the second son of Amos Lawrence and Sarah (Richards) Lawrence and was born July 31, 1814. He was named Amos Adams after his maternal grand- father. At the age of four, he, a brother and a sister, were left motherless and were sent from Boston, where they were born, to the old paternal homestead in Groton where for three years he was cared for by his grandmother and aunt. As a boy he was charmed by the beauty of the surroundings in Groton, especially its mountain and river scenery, acquired a deep love for nature and, in after
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years, visited Groton frequently, and often, in his letters, referred to its natural attractions.
On his father's second marriage in 1821 he returned to Boston, received his early schooling in that city, and at Franklin Academy in North Andover, entered Harvard and graduated with the Class of 1835 when only twenty- one years of age. Being motherless, he developed an un- usually strong affection for his father and while the lat- ter's frequent moral admonitions sometimes chafed him, there is no doubt that those admonitions made a lasting impression upon his character. Orthodoxy and Liberalism were in constant conflict during his student days, and, like his father, he early manifested a sense of disgust at such controversies. This was shown when a new church was planned in the town of Bedford where he was being tutored for a period. He wrote that when completed, the town of only 690 inhabitants, of whom 670 were obliged to labor hard to secure life's necessities, would have three churches where only one was needed, while sixteen could not convert all of the 120 voters, nearly half of whom were tipplers, heathen, etc. While at school in Andover he wrote his father that truth in Cambridge became a lie in Andover and vice versa. Bishop Lawrence, in his life of his father, says that while in Andover he repudiated Unitarianism and bought and made a study of the Book of Common Prayer. Thus was settled his religious in- clination which was ever accompanied by great liberality and tolerance.
Immediately after his graduation from Harvard he went to Lowell where his father and uncles were inter- ested in manufacturing, made a study of the mills and soon, connecting himself with a dry-goods commission house, familiarized himself with that business. Then
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followed a business trip through the West and South, three years as a commission merchant in Boston, a journey to Europe following the 1837 panic, and, on his return, his marriage in 1842 to Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of William Appleton, settlement in Pemberton Square where he lived for nine years until his removal to Long- wood, and in 1843 his partnership with Robert Mason under the firm name of Mason & Lawrence and his se- curing the selling agency for the output of the Cocheco Mills. His partnership with Mr. Mason continued for fifteen years when Mr. Mason, because of his wife's health, was obliged to withdraw. Other partners were secured and the business continued quite successfully. The Salmon Falls Mills were soon taken on and en- larged. The firm retained the agency of these two mill properties for over forty years during which the output of both concerns was trebled. Mr. Lawrence became a director in both corporations, treasurer of the Salmon Falls and president of the Cocheco. In 1860, he bought a knitting mill in Ipswich, and spent $80,000 and twenty years of time trying to educate the American people to buy and wear American made stockings, finally succeed- ing in that enterprise. Later he purchased the Knitgoods Mills in Ashland and Gilmanton, New Hampshire, and became the largest knit goods manufacturer in the United States. In 1870, he took the selling agency of the Arling- ton Mills in Lawrence, and in 1882, his firm, Lawrence & Company, took over the selling agency of the great Pacific Mills of Lawrence, once held by his father's firm which had been liquidated. It is probable that by this step this firm became the largest distributor in America of cotton goods as well as knitted fabrics.
Mr. Lawrence inherited from his father the latter's
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devotion to perfect system in business, accurate and quick judgment, courage in making decisions and lack of timidity in facing losses which, he said, were more fre- quent in business than profits. He early became a director in the Suffolk bank and a member of the corporation of the Provident Institutions for Savings and, later in life, helped organize and became president of the Boston and New Orleans Steamship Company. He was the first pres- ident of the New England Trust Company, a director in the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, and a member of nearly a dozen mercantile, manufac- turing and philanthropic corporations. He was an officer and active in the management of the Massachusetts So- ciety of the Cincinnati, the Bunker Hill Monument As- sociation, the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agri- culture, and the Boston Home for Aged Men. Quite early in his business career the management of his father's estate devolved upon him, also that of his uncle Luther, whose sudden death by accident in Lowell has been previously mentioned in this book. These with other trusts which kept coming and membership in numerous societies monopolized much of his time. As though all this was not enough he carried from 1852 to 1860 the burden of the Harvard College treasurership and later, for fifteen years, the treasurership of the Episcopal The- ological School in Cambridge, besides several minor ac- counts.
On May 29, 1842, when only twenty-eight years old, Mr. Lawrence and his wife with his brother William and the latter's wife, with many others, received the rite of confirmation from Bishop Griswold, in St. Paul's Church, Boston, of which Reverend Doctor A. H. Vinton was rector. He continued as a communicant in that church,
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and much of the time a teacher in the Church School, until long after he had moved from Boston to Longwood, but finally, desiring to accompany his children to church, he transferred his allegiance to St. Paul's Church in Brookline where he became a vestryman and church school teacher. The bishops and older clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church were intimate friends and often were entertained in his home, but like his father, he detested the waste of spiritual effort in sectarianism. He once expressed his feelings in this matter to one who sought the influence of his name in a sectarian project, writing: "The church consists of all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ and obey his precepts. And of all the denominations into which through human weakness and ignorance it has become divided, I believe the Protestant Episcopal Church is the best. On that account I joined it nearly forty years ago, and my love for it has increased ever since. But this does not prevent my loving Christians of other denominations and acting with them, and es- pecially it does not prevent my living and acting with those of my own denomination who entertain opinions in which there are shades of difference."
In 1845, Reverend Eleazer Williams, a Protestant Episcopal Missionary among the Oneida Indians near Green Bay, Wisconsin, came to Boston to borrow money ; giving as security a lien on 5000 acres of land in that locality. Reverend Doctor Lothrop, who was Mr. Law- rence's father's pastor, interested him in the project which resulted eventually in Mr. Lawrence owning that land and in the establishment on the Fox River of a new town, named Appleton after Samuel Appleton, its founder, and also the founding, by Mr. Lawrence of a college which was chartered under the name Lawrence
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University. Mr. Lawrence contributed over $20,000 to start this institution and here was illustrated, in one instance, his tolerance and liberality in religious matters. When he found the Methodist denomination well es- tablished in that territory he entrusted to those people the funds and the management of the new institution, providing, however, that a large minority of the trustees should belong to other denominations. In this connection he wrote: "I trust it will be conducted so as to do the most good, to diffuse the greatest amount of learning and religion without reference to the propagating of the tenets of any sect." In order to ensure this result he had secured provision in the articles of incorporation that, while under Methodist control, a large minority of the trustees should be members of other denominations.
His liberality in matters of religion was shown again in connection with the founding of a seminary in Law- rence, Kansas, a place named after him in spite of his protest, because of appreciation of his leadership in pro- moting the New England Emigrant Aid Society and other enterprises which resulted in Kansas being saved to the Union as a free state and thereby redeeming the nation from the curse of slavery. Having contributed $10,000 towards the State's educational project, Mr. Lawrence stated, in considering the question of a name: "Although a pretty rigid Episcopalian I have no prejudice against any body of men who love the Lord Jesus Christ and only hope that such men will control the seminary. The older we grow the more we value simple piety, wherever we find it, and the less importance we attach to sects."
The same liberal, tolerant spirit was shown all through life, says his biographer, Bishop Lawrence. Whenever he
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visited a village or a summer resort where there was only one Church he always worshipped in that. When pre- vented by storm from attending his own Church in Lynn, St. Stephen's, in the summer, while residing in Nahant, he would attend service in the Methodist Church nearby. For a time he taught in the Church School in Sears Chapel in Longwood. He would never allow himself to be classified with a party within the Church and always favored movements towards "Church Unity" and opposed movements towards schism. He strongly supported the church at Nahant where preachers of different denomina- tions officiate and where the worshippers conform to the manner of worship of the denomination represented by the preacher. He regarded that Church as an outpost of Christian unity and it was in that Church that he wor- shipped on the last day of his life.
From boyhood until past seventy Mr. Lawrence en- gaged in vigorous exercise, such as sparring, sword exer- cise, skating of which he was very fond, horseback riding, the use of dumbbells, etc., which developed him from a rather weak boy into a man of strength above the av- erage. Five years after his marriage he bought a cottage in Lynn on the Shore looking towards Nahant where for several years he spent his summers. He supplemented the care of his Longwood Estate, and the frequent trans- fer of building lots therein, by the purchase and manage- ment of a large farm in the Waban Section of Newton, a portion of which is now covered by the westerly section of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.
In politics he was a Whig and twice was a candidate of that party for the Governorship of the State. Upon the breaking out of the Civil War he became a vigorous sup- porter of President Lincoln and of the maintenance of the
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Union which as a Whig he had always strongly advocated. He offered his services to Governor Andrew as a Cavalry officer, for which he had fitted himself by drill and sword practice. Being considered past the age for effective service of that kind he became a leader in the organiza- tion of drill clubs, including clubs of Harvard students, he being at that time treasurer of the College. He even drilled his own children in the use of arms. By authority of Governor Andrew he led in the organization of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Cavalry under com- mand of Colonel Charles H. Lowell, and was one of a committee of eight appointed by Governor Andrew to organize and recruit the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of colored troops under the command of Colonel Rob- ert G. Shaw. It is worth noting here that both Colonel Lowell and Colonel Shaw were killed in action. Mr. Lawrence did yeoman's work all through the war in drilling, recruiting and raising funds for special purposes, but the grief and distress of those years as friend after friend was bereaved by the loss of a son, often an only son, in the carnage of battle, wore upon his nerves. During the remainder of his life he was tortured by fre- quent attacks of neuralgia. All these influences aggra- vated a tendency towards a depression of spirits, which however, were buoyed up by the deep love he entertained for his wife and children and the joys of family life. Not only were family devotions strictly observed in his Long- wood home, but he also joined the children in their sports and entertainments, especially on the Thanks- giving and Christmas holidays, and never seemed happier than when the house was filled on such occasions with joyous young people.
Mr. Lawrence's philanthropies were too numerous to
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record. Besides giving the colleges in Wisconsin and Kansas as previously mentioned, he was Chairman of the finance committee in the building of Memorial Hall in Cambridge in honor of Harvard men who fell in the war and gave $5000 towards that project. Memorial Hall having been built on the Delta, the student playground, he gave financial help in securing a far better playground for the students in Jarvis Field. Besides his service as treasurer of Harvard College from 1852 to 1860, he was long a member of the Board of Overseers. He gave $1000 towards the founding of the Agassiz Museum in Cam- bridge and helped raise a fund for Dr. W. J. Morton as a thank offering for the "inestimable blessing of ether." He also was active and helpful in the building of the Harvard Gymnasium. He worked for and gave liberally to the Boston City Mission. Being a close friend of Dr. E. M. P. Wells, he gave much advice and financial aid to that gentleman in the building and conduct of Wells Institute in Boston's South End. In addition to his half share in the construction of the main edifice of The Church of Our Saviour he gave a brick residence on Monmouth Court to the corporation of this Church, the income to be used for the Church's expenses and charities.
One of five trustees, selected by Benjamin T. Reed who had given $100,000 towards the foundation of an Episcopal Theological School, Mr. Lawrence urged Cam- bridge as the site of the School, despite much opposition, because, among other things, of the influence it might have upon Harvard and the advantage of proximity to a great University. The school being founded in Cam- bridge in 1869 he was its treasurer for fifteen years and built and gave to the trustees the dormitory, Lawrence Hall, besides numerous money contributions. The lo-
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cation of the school in Cambridge was furthered by the offer of Mr. Lawrence's old partner, Robert M. Mason, to build St. John's Memorial Chapel. The gift of Lawrence Hall was a thank offering for the many blessings he and his family had received in some thirty years of happy married and home life. This sentiment he expressed in the inscription in Latin cut in stone over the entrance: "In Memoriam Summae Dei Benevolentiae."
Like his father Mr. Lawrence distributed money in small sums in countless ways, both to individuals and to charities. He headed many a subscription paper and solicited money from others for many good causes. As a citizen of Brookline he took much interest in town im- provements, especially in playgrounds for boys, a skating pond on the Aspinwall Meadow and a floating bath house on the Charles River. He once offered a prize of $10,000 to anyone who would invent a signal system which would do away with locomotive whistling in villages. He mailed to officials of many cities and towns in the state copies of the laws against defacive posters, and urged their en- forcement.
Mr. Lawrence was keenly affected by sorrows which came to him early in life and continued with undue fre- quency. His own mother died when he was four years old. In 1844, two years after his marriage, his only sister, Mrs. Charles Mason, died, and a year later his half-brother, Robert. In 1852 came the passing of his father, suddenly. His diary for that year contains a most affecting record of that event and a pathetic prayer that his own life might be as useful as was his father's and that he might die as well prepared and as free from pain.
As his contemporaries in business and church life
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dropped away he became more firmly attached to his only brother, William, and the latter's frequent illnesses caused him much anxiety. They often communed over past experiences and associations, for their mutual affection had steadily increased for thirty years or since the death of their father. While they had bought the Longwood farm together William did not become a resident of that section until 1867 when he built a home next to that of his brother whose record of the fact closes with a plea that God would bless their declining years and in the great beyond unite them with those they so much loved.
In his biography of his father, Bishop Lawrence speaks of the sight, more common in England than in this coun- try, of the two venerable brothers with their families joining the group of neighbors and walking to the door of this Memorial Church, then all worshipping together like one large family.
After his brother William had become a resident of Longwood and a next door neighbor he formed the habit of calling upon his brother Amos in the morning while the latter would return the call at sunset. When William's health failed to the extent that he was no longer able to call upon his brother the latter continued his evening visits. Suffering from failing eyesight he would wend his way slowly to William's house and then the two would revive old scenes and family recollections, recount their blessings and strengthen each other's faith. As Wil- liam spent his summers in Swampscott, Amos would drive over from Nahant and continue the succession of calls. There in a feeble voice the invalid would murmur that he felt the Angel of the Lord around about him and de- livering him. On September 20, 1885, William passed peacefully away and three days later was buried in Mount
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Auburn Cemetery after a funeral service in this Memorial Church which he had helped to build. On the evening of that day the surviving brother wrote in his diary: "Farewell dear brother until we meet again in the presence of God and His Angels and of those whom we have loved and who have gone before."
As one by one his children married and set up their own homes Mr. Lawrence felt an increasing loneliness and depression of spirits. As a consequence he spent much of his time during the last few years of his life in calling upon old friends, or surviving members of their fam- ilies, together with other elderly and lonely people, offer- ing sympathy and comfort to the sorrowing and suffering and administering as he saw opportunity to their needs. He passed many days of depression followed by sleepless nights. After his brother William's death sad thoughts, which he tried to conceal, marred somewhat his enjoy- ment of the customary family gatherings at Thanks- giving and Christmas. On January 19, 1886, one eye was successfully operated upon for cataract. During the following summer his eyesight improved and he enjoyed visits with his children in their several homes and a final summer in Nahant although sharp chest pains and in- ability to walk much caused decreasing activity. On his seventy-second birthday, July 31, he wrote in his diary an earnest plea that God would sustain him during what remained of life, that he might still be useful, have courage to live cheerfully, do his duty and be helpful to his dear wife and children and grandchildren. On August 22, after a Sunday service at Church, he spent a sad afternoon and evening thinking of the misfortunes of a friend and of others who were afflicted. Lighting a candle he went up stairs to his chamber. Those below heard him
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fall to the floor. Hurrying to his room they found his lifeless body. Like Enoch of old, he had walked with God, and like Enoch, he was not, for God had taken him. His prayer that the end might come quickly and easily as it did to his father, had been answered.
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