USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 14
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27. Ibid.
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tions of the worshippers'.28 In order to make the parish of the Ad- vent an immediate success, careful planning was vital.
At the outset, the corporation, which corresponded to the pro- prietors of other parishes, but without any ownership of pews, counted on a large enough number of parishioners to help support the Church consistently. The services were designed, in conformity to the Book of Common Prayer, to emphasize traditional doctrines and ancient usages of the Anglican Church, by means of ceremoni- alism. These doctrines and usages were not new in the American branch of the Anglican Communion, but at the time of the found- ing of the Advent they were colored and enhanced by the Trac- tarian or Oxford Movement in England.29 In Boston there always had been either a small group of High Church individuals, or at least a tolerance of individuals holding High Church views, under both Griswold and Eastburn.30 The first report of Croswell to the convention of 1845 showed that the founders of the parish could rely on some forty families as regular members.31 The number of communicants increased gradually but steadily under Croswell from 'about 70' in his first diocesan report to 189 in 1851, the year of the rector's death. 32 The constantly growing numbers assured also an increase in the voluntary offerings.
The original organization of the parish of the Advent centered about the persons of Richard H. Dana, Jr., George C. Shattuck, Jr., and the Rev. William Croswell. In his wish to minister to the poor of Boston, Croswell had indicated that he would be rector of the new parish for $1000 for the year, 'besides the offertory'.33 Shat- tuck believed that Croswell's 'tact and discretion' would prevent antagonism on Bishop Eastburn's part. 34 Apart from the rector,
28. Sketch of Advent, pp. 17-18.
29. The Oxford Movement and its in- evitable successor, the controversy over ritualism, properly do not belong to a his- tory of the Diocese of Massachusetts. The effects of the Oxford Movement shook the diocese, especially in the case of the Ad- vent. That incident has been published in its entirety. What is told here may simplify, and possibly indicate the significance of, the incident.
30. The standing committee took no official action to punish the parish at Nan- tucket, offensive to both bishops though it was.
31. JM, 1845, p. 59.
32. JM, years cited.
33. Letter to R. H. Dana, Jr., Boston, to, R. H. Dana, Sr., 7 Sept. 1844, in Dana MSS.
34. Ibid.
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however, the wardens and vestry also would have to be carefully selected in order to have the bishop's approval for induction into office. On 30 September 1844 Dana wrote to his father in Beverly, and said 'I have obtained the Bishop's consent to our doings and to Mr. Croswell. Every one seems pleased with our choice. We have engaged a hall ... to hold 300 people, and to be furnished as we choose inside. In the meantime, determined to begin with 1st Sunday in Advent [for the sake of the name and associations ] even if it be in a parlor.'35 He went on to inform his father that the corporation 'chose Mr. Metcalf and yourself wardens, with the express under- standing that you should have no duty to perform, but for the pur- pose of having two good names to the bishop . . . you can resign after that if you choose'.36 To insure the continuing financial suc- cess of the new parish, Dana told his father that 'I am willing to give up the pew at St. Paul's [Boston], and give my share of its rent toward the support of the service. Others will do the same.'37 At this time Dana, Jr., was but twenty-nine years old.
His contemporary, Dr. George C. Shattuck, Jr., was thirty-one years old and one of the incorporators of the Advent. He became a warden in 1855 and served in that office until two years before his death in 1893.38 Like Amos Adams Lawrence, religion 'pursued' him, at least in his fragmentary diary.39 From the time of his boy- hood at Round Hill School, Dr. Shattuck had been acquainted
35. Dana, Sr., was definitely on the side of Trinitarian as distinguished from Uni- tarian religious views at this time, but not a member of any Episcopal society. Letter of R. H. Dana, Boston, to Miss Anne Marsh, Wethersfield, Conn., 13 Feb. 1844, in Dana MSS. In this letter Dana said, 'If there ever was a thing misunderstood by those without, and mis-conceived and ill- presented by those within, it has been this church [Episcopal] for the last 50 years in N. England.'
36. Letter of R. H. Dana, Jr., Boston, to R. H. Dana, Sr., Beverly, 30 Sept. 1844, in Dana MSS.
37. Letter of R. H. Dana, Jr., Boston, to R. H. Dana, Sr., 7 Sept. 1844, in Dana
MSS.
38. Parish of the Advent in the City of Bos- ton, A History of One Hundred Years, 1844- 1944 (Boston, 1944), pp. 8, 189. Dr. Shat- tuck's father belonged to no one set or denomination of Christians'. He left por- tions of his estate-in shares ($500 each) of Cocheco Co. stock-to Trinitarian, Un- itarian, and Roman Catholic charities. C. A. Bartol, Discourse . .. on Death of Dr. Shattuck (Boston, 1854), p. 23; Edward Jarvis, M.D., Memoir of Shattuck (Boston 1854), pp. 3-4.
39. 'Diary' of George C. Shattuck, Jr., entry for 23 Sept. 1839. Mass. Medical Library.
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with the Episcopal Church. At Round Hill he met Frederick Wil- liam Brune, Jr., from Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Shattuck married, in 1840, Anne Henrietta Brune, a sister of his classmate. Both men kept a continuing interest in the affairs of their respective dioceses during their lifetime.40 With the young men, Shattuck and Dana, and the backing of their unusually able fathers, the Advent pre- sented a strong front from its beginnings.
Financially the position of the Advent was secure. Croswell re- ported in 1851 that the experiment ... of a free Church for the daily worship of God, entirely depending upon the voluntary of- ferings of the worshippers, has been signally successful'. 41 To meet the cost of buying and altering its first church building, on Green Street, $17,000 out of $25,000 was raised 'at once ... not from the Episcopal community generally, but ... by the members of the congregation themselves .. . '.42 One exception to this otherwise wholly parochial undertaking proved to be a gift of $2500 from a few parishioners of Bishop Eastburn's at Trinity. This unequivocal endorsement of the Church of the Advent by 'a few generous friends in Trinity Church' revealed an awareness of the potential strength and inspiration that the Advent might become in the diocese.
Before the friends of the Advent in Trinity had given to the building fund, Bishop Eastburn had made his first visitation to the congregation of the Church of the Advent, on the evening of 23 November 1845. He had administered the rite of confirmation to seventeen persons at that time. Not until eleven years later, 14 De- cember 1856, did Eastburn again make an episcopal visitation to the Advent. 43 The years between these dates were marked by dif- ferences of viewpoint between the bishop on the one side, and the rector and corporation of the Advent on the other. A new canon on
40. For a sketch of Brune see The Bio- graphical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Maryland and District of Columbia (Bal- timore, 1879 [1878]), p. 10. For Shattuck, see Caleb Davis Bradlee, A Brief Sketch of . .. Prof. George Cheyne Shattuck (Boston, 1894). Bradlee states (p. 5) that Shattuck
"changed his church relations as a Unitar- ian, and became an ardent Episcopalian', shortly after his marriage.
41. JM, 1851, p. 48.
42. JM, 1848, p. 54.
43. JM, 1846, p. 16; 1857, p. 20.
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episcopal visitations, enacted in October 1856 at the twenty-fifth general convention of the Church, immediately influenced East- burn to include the Advent in his diocesan visits. The Advent's candidates for confirmation no longer had either to 'team up' with candidates of other Boston parishes for, or to go without, the lay- ing on of hands. The differences, however, between the bishop and the Advent were not, and could not be, composed. 44
The diocese outside of Boston took little notice of the Church of the Advent. In 1845 Vinton declined to serve on the standing com- mittee, and the convention elected Croswell, rector of the Advent, in his place. 45 During the one year that Croswell was on the stand- ing committee the Washburn incident occurred at St. Paul's, New- buryport. Edward A. Washburn, who as a student at Harvard and at Andover Theological Seminary revealed himself a careful reader and a thorough scholar', had left the ministry of the Congregational Church for that of the Episcopal Church. 46 Clark characterized his churchmanship as 'at once evangelical and catholic ... anchored securely to the old creeds and the Bible, but with sufficient play of the rope to allow for the rising tide and the occasional surging of the elements'.47 A week before his scheduled advancement to the priesthood by Bishop Eastburn in the summer of 1845, word of Andrew Jackson's death reached Newburyport. To signal this close of an epoch, Washburn, who was yet in deacon's orders, asked one of St. Paul's parishioners if there were a Collect appro-
44. From Bishop Eastburn's viewpoint at the Advent certain arrangements in the Church ... and a certain mode of conduct- ing Divine service [were] ... at variance with theProtestant character of our Church, and tending to the inculcation of unsound doctrine'. On the Advent's side the organ- ization of the parish had made reasonable allowance for the well-known opinions of the bishop, but a slight departure from the usual formal manner of conducting the services, a half-step toward what was later to be termed ritualism or ceremonialism, was the primary cause of its organization and a cornerstone of its existence. Both bishop and parish argued not on grounds
of doctrine, but from usage, and the rub- rics of the Book of Common Prayer. These points of usage or tradition, and of rub- rics, could be used for negative as well as positive evidence. See annual diocesan re- ports and the addresses of Bishop East- burn for 1845-56.
45. JM, 1845, p. 34.
46. Thomas M. Clark, Reminiscences (New York, 1895), pp. 110-111.
47. Clark, Reminiscences, p. 111. Clark said of Washburn, 'We have never had a man in our ranks who, in dealing with the great problems of thought which pertain to our time, struck nearer the heart of things than he' (p. 113).
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priate for use in one of his Sunday services. The result was Wash- burn's reading ". . . at the appropriate time ... [of] the commenda- tory prayer in the office of the Visitation of the Sick'.48 Word of a prayer for the dead being uttered by Mr. Washburn reached the standing committee immediately. Bishop Eastburn, too, learned of it but planned for Washburn's ordination at St. Paul's along with two other candidates. The standing committee voted an interdic- tion of Washburn's ordination, to which the bishop, the sixteen visiting clergymen, the parishioners of St. Paul's, and even the two other candidates reluctantly submitted.49 By October 1845 the "surging of the elements had quieted; the alleged Romish tenden- cies of Washburn, and the late President Jackson, no longer alarmed the standing committee. Bishop Eastburn ordained Washburn to the priesthood on 9 October, not in his own parish church, but in Grace Church, Boston.50 Croswell had suggested that the standing committee confer both with the bishop and with Washburn prior to its forbidding the ordination, but the standing committee 'over- ruled' him by five to one. When the standing committee had acted, its ban threw the parish 'into prodigious excitement', and the pro- prietors of St. Paul's drew up and signed a petition 'urging the bish- op to make an appointment for the ordination at an early day'.51 After its rector had been ordained, St. Paul's parish again settled down 'to move quietly in the grooves worn by the fathers'. 52 Cros- well was not elected to the standing committee in 1846, and in- deed, the Church of the Advent had no representation on the com- mittee until 1862.53
After the Washburn case, the standing committee did not again restrain the bishop. After the death of Croswell in 1851, the Ad-
48. Clark, Reminiscences, p. 112.
49. The other two candidates were E. F. Slafter and D. G. Estes. The standing committee for 1845-46 was the Revs. John Woart, G. M. Randall, William Croswell, and Messrs. G. M. Dexter, E. S. Rand, Jr., and Otis Daniell. Woart and Rand, both natives of Newburyport, served as presi- dent and secretary of the standing com- mittee. JM, 1846, pp. 11, 31; [Rev. Henry
Croswell, ] A Memoir of the late Rev. William Croswell, D.D. (New York, 1853), p. 348.
50. JM, 1846, p. 13. Washburn was rec- tor at St. Paul's from 1845 to 1851. John J. Currier, 'Ould Newbury' Historical and Biographical Sketches (Boston, 1896), p. 418.
51. [Croswell, ] Memoir, pp. 347-348.
52. Clark, Reminiscences, p. 112.
53. JM, 1862, p. 147.
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vent had a one-time missionary bishop, the Rt. Rev. Horatio Southgate, for its rector. Southgate had no more success in secur- ing an episcopal visitation at the Advent than Croswell, but the standing committee took no action, either for or against Bishop Eastburn. William Appleton, a member of the standing committee from 1855 to 1861, noted in 1856 that the bishop 'has had his own way with much opposition . . . [he] is not wise, but I think we should make the best of him'.54 Though without a pleader on the standing committee the Advent had friends in the diocese. With- out a hint of any personal rebuke to Bishop Eastburn, general con- vention heard the prayer of the Church of the Advent in 1856, which resulted in the episcopal visitation of that year.
In contrast to the Church of the Advent, and to the other Boston societies started by a few individuals of moderate means for the benefit of the many in Boston's South End, was the gathering of St. Paul's, Brookline. Brookline was a residential section for some Boston families. It differed from Boston in that it 'rejoiced in a sense of spaciousness, in the beauty of sweeping lawns and spread- ing elms, in rural charm at its most gracious .. . '.55 In this scene dwelt, among some older native families, a group of Boston mer- chants, 'who had recently built summer residences and permanent homes in Brookline .. . '.56 The Episcopalianism of both the old and new residents was best set forth by two former rectors of St. Paul's, Boston, Stone and Vinton, and, of course, by Bishop Eastburn. The rural nature of Brookline and the influence of the 'Standing Order' determined the origin and early years of the parish.57 Five years after its organization, St. Paul's ranked thirty-seventh in number of communicants, but it placed fourth in the amount of
54. Appleton, Diaries, 19 Apr. 1856, p. 183. A. A. Lawrence noted in 1854 that "The Episcopal Convention passed off well. The "Advent" people tried hard to get St. Mary's church for sailors' into the diocese, but without success. B. F. Hal- et [t] used Rich'd Dana, Jr. all up in the argument.' 'A. A. Lawrence Letter Books', vol. II, p. 334. Letter to Wm. R. Lawrence, 23 May 1854.
55. John G. Curtis, History of the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts (Boston and New York, 1933), p. 188.
56. Robert Payne Bigelow, 'Movements and Men in the Early History of St. Paul's Church in Brookline' (MS dated May 1951), p. 12.
57. JM, 1853, pp. 16-17. For a more de- tailed account of the early days of St. Paul's, see below, pp. 178-180.
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voluntary money contributions in the list of parishes in Massachu- setts. 58 As was true of most rural towns in the diocese, the Episco- pal society in Brookline followed the organization of a Baptist Church, a second Congregational society, but preceded the organi- zation of the Roman Church.59 As Brookline became more of a year-round residential area, and before the building of so many apartments that a newspaper could print an article on 'Brookline as a Bedroom', another Episcopal society sprang from a decision of the sons of Amos Lawrence to have a church 'where the gospel shall be preached after the good old fashion of Trinity and St. Paul's in Boston'.60 This later society belongs, however, to the post-Civil-War period.
Like Brookline, the North Shore of Boston, including Nahant, Lynn, and Swampscott, also provided summer residences for some Boston families. Nahant and Swampscott were little more than fishing villages when Bishop Eastburn came to Massachusetts; Lynn, however, became a city in 1850.61 Here in this city of shoe manufactories, as early as 27 January 1819, a 'few persons were organized as a Church', and worshipped 'in the Academy about
58. JM, 1854, p. 94. Trinity Church, Church of the Advent, and St. Paul's, all of Boston, were the three churches that bettered St. Paul's, Brookline, offerings.
59. Charles Knowles Bolton, Brookline, The History of a Favored Town (Brookline, Mass., 1897), pp. 130-140, 146. By the 1840s the town's first church had become Unitarian; the Baptist society 'was publicly recognized in 1828, the (Harvard) Con- gregational Society in 1844, the Episcopal in 1849, and the Roman Church, 1853- 1854'.
60. Curtis, Brookline, p. 316, which men- tions an article in The Chronicle (Brook- line), 'in the 'eighties'; Letter of William R. Lawrence, Boston, to Bishop Eastburn 28 March 1867, 'Lawrence MSS' (Massachu- setts Historical Society).
61. Alonzo Newhall and James R. New- hall, History of Lynn, p. 424. A. A. Law- rence bought a cottage in Nahant in 1847.
Nahant was a part of Lynn until 1853, and Swampscott a part of Lynn until 1852. Wm. Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence, with Extracts from his Diary and Correspondence (Boston and New York, 1888), p. 66; Cook, Historical Data, pp. 47, 65. Led by William H. Eliot in 1831, a group of fifteen 'found- ers' secured by subscription some $2000 for building 'a chapel where different religious sects might assemble, and ... "unite in the worship of God." ' The fifteen 'founders' were F. Tudor, T. H. Perkins, William H. Prescott, William H. Eliot, Jonathan Phil- lips, M. P. Russell, Charles Bradbury, Wil- liam Appleton, S. A. Eliot, Samuel Ham- mond, David Sears, P. C. Brooks, Cornel- ius Coolidge, and Edward Robbins. This society became the Nahant Church. An- drew P. Peabody, A Sermon [on] ... the Founders of the Nahant Church, 22 July 1877 (Cambridge, 1892), pp. 7, 22-24.
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four years'.62 After its failure, a second parish was organized, fol- lowing the holding of occasional services by the Rev. William H. Lewis of St. Michael's, Marblehead, and by the Rev. John A. Vaughan of Salem. This society built a church which Bishop Gris- wold consecrated on 20 July 1837, Christ Church. 63 Christ Church remained a missionary station of the diocese until 1841. In that year, the mortgage on the church building was foreclosed, and services were given up.64 In 1845 Bishop Eastburn reported to the diocesan convention that a member of our Church in this city generously undertook . .. the task of endeavoring, by subscriptions in Boston, to recover the building. .. . The church is once more our own; and, having been put into a state of complete repair, is now open for the worship of God, and the ministry of the word and or- dinances.'65 Having in mind the group of Boston families who saved the church in Lynn from extinction, the bishop noted that "from the proximity of the Church to Nahant, it will afford to the Episcopal summer residents at that watering-place spiritual bless- ings, of which they have hitherto been deprived'.66 The paying off of the mortgage on the church building erected by Christ Church parish was accomplished by 'the untiring exertions of a devoted and liberal gentleman of Boston', and the members of a number of Episcopal families spending the summer season in Lynn [who were] ... chiefly non-residents'.67 The steps this group took fol- lowed the procedure for organizing a new parish. Eleven sub- scribers petitioned a justice of the peace for organization under the law, " "as a religious society for the maintenance of public worship in the town of Lynn, according to the rites and usages of the Prot- estant Episcopal Church of the United States of America .. . . " ' 68
62. Newhall, Lynn, p. 381. This society called itself St. John's Church. JM, 1819, p. 143.
63. JED, 1835, p. 11; 1837, p. 8.
64. The holder of the mortgage, 'not a member of the Church', leased the build- ing 'for various religious and secular pur- poses', from 1840 to 1844. JM, 1845, p. 65. 65. JM, 1845, pp. 25, 65. This person was Benjamin Tyler Reed. James Arthur Muller, The Episcopal Theological School
1867-1943 (Cambridge, 1943), p. 10. 66. JM, 1845, p. 25.
67. James R. Newhall, 'Historical Ad- dress', Memorial of St. Stephen's Parish, Lynn, Mass. (Lynn, 1882), p. 29.
68. Ibid. The signers were Edward S. Davis, William H. Hubbard, Robert Far- ley, George M. Dexter, Edward D. Peters, Benjamin T. Read, Edward S. Rand, Wil- liam F. Otis, Edward Codman, Robert Ap- pleton, and J. C. Brodhead.
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The first meeting took place 20 September 1844 at the home of Edward S. Davis. The proprietors of this new parish named it St. Stephen's Church. In the figure of Edward S. Davis, however, there is a continuity with the 'extinct' parish of Christ Church, as he was senior warden of the latter church.69 St. Stephen's Church was tied in with the churchmen of Boston, at least in its organizers. This connection with parishioners of St. Paul's Church, Boston, eventually resulted in the building of a new St. Stephen's Church by Enoch Redington Mudge as a memorial for his son and daugh- ter.70 Lynn remained an industrial city. Nahant and Swampscott provided their own meeting places for the worship of summer resi- dents who were also Episcopalians. Yet today, St. Stephen's Church is one of the great parishes of the diocese and of New England.
Lacking the proximity to the watering-places of Swampscott and Nahant that saved the Episcopal Church in Lynn, St. Luke's parish in Lowell provided an example of the frustration which occasionally faced a small or young Episcopal society, and which the diocese failed to avert. St. Anne's, Lowell, had prospered without help from the mill owners at Lowell. St. Luke's, organized in 1841 by a group about half of which were members of St. Anne's, had started on a church building to accommodate 'a congregation of a thou- sand people, and a Sunday school-room for more than six hundred pupils'.71 This program was to cost about $18,000, of which $11,500 had been paid out by 1843. Six thousand dollars was needed to complete the building and pay off the debts. Some members of the St. Luke's vestry applied to the diocese for help through the Church Extension Committee, of which Edson of St. Anne's, Low- ell, was secretary.72 The parishioners and proprietors of St. Luke's were unable to raise the money to complete the church, which was
69. JM, 1840, p. 32.
70. Robert Means Lawrence, M.D., The Descendants of Major Samuel Lawrence (Cambridge, 1904), pp. 237-238; New England Historical and Genealogical Regis- ter, XXXVI (Jan. 1882), 90.
71. JM, 1842, p. 43; 1845, p. 43.
72. This committee was set up to super- vise the financing and architecture of new church buildings. JM, 1843, p. 52; 1844, pp. 41, 43, 44, 55-56. The committee in cluded the Revs. Vinton, Edson, and Ma- son, and Messrs. William Appleton, Dr. Shattuck, Jr., and G. M. Dexter.
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sold to a Congregational society in Lowell. Edson's report on St. Luke's, together with the statement of the wardens, brought out some significant facts, not only relevant to the Episcopal Church in Boston, but pertaining to any religious societies in industrial and urban areas, at this time (1846).
The wardens pointed out that, 'Of the vast amount of capital connected with the manufacturing establishments of our city [Lowell], but a very small proportion is possessed by persons resi- dent among us.'73 They then went on to assert that the taxes on the mill property are spent only for city purposes, public schools, etc.', and this property of the mill owners 'is exempted by law from taxation for sustaining the institution of public worship, upon which its security and productiveness, in a manifest degree, de- pends'.74 This argument was a reversion to the theory of a state establishment of religion, which ran counter to the current of thought of the Episcopal Church. On the question of expediency the wardens had a point, but 'sustaining the institution of public worship' in the rapidly growing mill centers would have meant the erection of more Roman churches than Episcopal churches. The plea of two vestrymen of St. Luke's to the diocesan committee took a much broader ground, and appealed to the diocese as a whole, and even beyond the limits of the diocese. The wardens said:
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