USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 18
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As St. Paul's, Brookline, was rural, though actually an extension of Boston Episcopalianism, so were two parishes in Hampshire and Worcester Counties, Grace Church, Amherst, and St. Mark's, Southborough. In September 1864 a group of Amherst men met to organize an Episcopal society in their town. The rector of Emman- uel, Boston, F. D. Huntington, attended this meeting. While a student at Amherst, he had been one of only two Unitarians in the college. 43 After his shift from the Unitarian to the Episcopal Church, he took a marked interest in establishing an Episcopal society in the town of Amherst. Not only was he present at the September 1864 meeting, but 'it was largely owing to his efforts that the parish was formed. Being invited to give a name to the parish, he selected that of "Grace Church." '44 Toward the salary of the first rector of Grace Church, the Rev. S. P. Parker, Huntington offered to pay $200 a year of the salary of $1200.45 Although forty-one members signed an agreement 'to become members of an Episcopal parish, should one be formed', the society at Amherst built its church by funds contributed by 'many friends of our Church in this and other Dioceses'.46 Bishop Eastburn 'performed the gratifying duty of
42. JM, 1853, p. 17.
43. DAB, IX, 413-414.
44. The History of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1731-1896, compiled and published by Carpenter and Morehouse
(Amherst, 1896), p. 246.
45. Ibid.
46. History of Amherst, p. 246; JM, 1866, p. 110. In the report of the rector, the Rev. S. P. Parker, D.D., for 1866, he mentions
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consecrating Grace Church, Amherst', on 17 July 1866.47 In one of the rare instances where a cleric's wife is mentioned by name, Parker spoke of 'an elegant crimson cloth for the Communion Table, ... the gift of the ladies of Trinity Church, Boston, through the kindness of Mrs. Eastburn'. 48 Grace Church, even as late as the year 1866, must be regarded as a pioneer effort by the Episcopal Church in a rural area, which endured. That it needed support be- yond the limits of the diocese was certain. Parker stated in his first report that the parish
. . . has compelled the respect, and, to a large extent, even the sympathy of a community, whose education and associations are alien. Its position, in the presence of two colleges, where it may reach the hearts and minds of the vast numbers of young men coming hither to be educated, in coming time, elevates it to a place of the foremost importance, among Church enterprises in our whole land.49
Into this 'alien community', which was Amherst, the lovely set- ting of the Connecticut valley and the railroad brought summer visitors.50 As Christ Church, Cambridge, had concerned the dio- cese as a recruiting ground for lay and clerical members of the Episcopal Church among Harvard students, so Grace Church, Amherst, with the support of Huntington and friends of the Church
an anonymous gift of $5000, a gift of $1800 by a New York family, and 'a subscription of $1000 from another friend, and numer- ous munificent offerings of other large- hearted Churchmen in Boston and else- where'. The rector stated that among the members of the parish itself . .. there are none rich . . . '. 'A valuable Communion Service', noted Parker, 'formerly belong- ing to Grace Church, Boston, has been presented by its late members.' Ibid.
47. JM, 1867, p. 21.
48. JM, 1866, p. 110. This Mrs. East- burn was Mary Jane Head, who married Bishop Eastburn in Trinity Church, Bos- ton, 30 Jan. 1856. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, XXVII, 111-112.
49. JM, 1866, pp. 110-111.
50. History of Amherst, p. 316. Amherst
was on a feeder line running north from Palmer. The first passenger train ran into Amherst in May 1853. Josiah G. Holland, History of Western Massachusetts (Spring- field, 1855, 2 vols.), I, pt. II, p. 426. An Amherst guide said in 1891, 'In all New England there are few regions offering more delightful opportunities for riding and driving than that portion of the Con- necticut Valley in which the town of Am- herst lies. . . . It is like a vast park, through which one may wander for months without exhausting the natural attractions, and be more deeply impressed each day by the wonderful variety. Not a few are the visitors who come to Amherst . . . '. The Handbook of Amherst, Massachusetts, prepared and published by Frederick H. Hitchcock (Amherst, Mass., 1891), p. 33.
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in the Dioceses of Massachusetts and New York, enlisted the help of many persons outside of Amherst in bringing Amherst and the agricultural college students the opportunity of attending Episco- pal services. 51
Similarly cold toward the Episcopal Church was Williams Col- lege. An English-born student at Williams College in his freshman year led a service of morning prayer on Christmas in 1853, but the college itself was antagonistic to the Episcopal Church.52 To Pro- fessor Albert Hopkins of Williams College "there was little differ- ence between Episcopals and Roman Catholics'.58 It was only in 1870 that a diocesan mission of St. John's Church, North Adams, was established at Williamstown. Help and financial support from summer visitors, as in the instance of Grace Church, Amherst, fi- nally secured a church building for Williamstown in the early years of the episcopate of Bishop William Lawrence (1896).54
Worcester County had a notable, though small, rural Episcopal society at Southborough. A lay reader from St. Paul's Church, Hopkinton, led an Episcopal service in Southborough 'on a week- day summer evening in 1850', in the schoolhouse at Southville. 55 With financial help from outside the town, St. Mark's parish was organized on 26 December 1860. In July 1862 Joseph Burnett gave the society "a lot in the center of the township, with the stipulation that the church to be built thereon should be free to all, with no distinction as to wealth, color, race, or station'.56 The parish of
51. By 1868 Parker reported, 'Some twenty Students of Amherst College are regular worshippers and several are Com- municants. Of these, one is a Candidate for the Ministry. Thirty or forty are present at the Evening Service. Several of the Stu- dents are teachers in the Sunday School.' JM, 1868, pp. 116-117.
52. Robert R. R. Brooks, editor, Wil- liamstown, The First Two Hundred Years, 1753-1953 (Williamstown [Mass. ], 1953), pp. 183, 184. William Tatlock, Class of 1857, was the student. The place was Mrs. Starkweather's house on North Street.
53. Arthur Latham Perry, Williams- town and Williams College (published by
the author, 1899), p. 561.
54. Bishop Lawrence consecrated St. John's Church 6 Oct. 1896. JM, 1897, p. 127. Bishop Eastburn 'made for the first time an official visit to Williamstown' on 16 Sept. 1870, where he confirmed nine per- sons. JM, 1871, p. 23.
55. Southville was a village of the town- ship of Southborough. Hopkinton, in Middlesex County, is the next town due south of Southborough. Milford and South- borough are the two easternmost towns of Worcester County.
56. Albert Emerson Benson, History of St. Mark's School (privately printed, 1925), p. 5.
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St. Mark's soon built a stone church from plans designed by Alex- ander R. Esty; the cost of land and building was $6700, 'defrayed by Mr. Burnett . . Bishop Eastburn consecrated this small 7.57 church 'placed ... in the midst of a rural population' on 16 June 1863. Through the efforts of members of St. Mark's Church, the Church of the Holy Trinity, Marlborough, the town next to South- borough on the north, was organized a score of years later.58 Jo- seph Burnett was a vestryman of Holy Trinity, Marlborough, and also of St. Paul's, Hopkinton, and St. John's, Framingham.
From the time he was in his late twenties, Joseph Burnett took an active part in the support of Episcopal Churches in Massachu- setts, and also in affairs of the diocese. He was a vestryman of the Church of the Advent, Boston, from 1849 to 1862, besides being a member of the corporation from 1850 to 1871.59 He was a clerk for, and worked with, Theodore Metcalf in the latter's drug business in Boston from 1837 to 1850, when he established his own firm of manufacturing chemists under the name of the Joseph Burnett Company.60 He built his estate, 'Deerfoot', in Southborough in 1850. Also, 'He was a pioneer in high-bred stock and was among the first importers [of Jersey cows ] from the Channel Islands.'61 For many years Southborough was the home of Joseph Burnett and there he founded St. Mark's School. The reasons for Burnett's wishing to establish a church school are given in the History of St. Mark's School as follows :
Mr. Burnett had sent his eldest son, Edward, to St. Paul's [Concord, N. H.]; and Dr. Coit, the Headmaster, suggested to him when he was entering an- other son, Harry, that as he had four boys it would be a good thing to start a church school in Massachusetts. Thus, the words of Dr. Coit and the success of St. Paul's undoubtedly suggested to Joseph Burnett the possi-
57. Benson, St. Mark's, p. 5; JM, 1864, p. 16.
58. Benson, St. Mark's, p. 5.
59. Parish of the Advent in the City of Boston, A History of One Hundred Years, 1844-1944 (Boston, 1944), pp. 191, 187.
60. N.E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., XLIX (1895), 79. Theodore Metcalf was one of the 'origi- nal members' of the corporation of the
Church of the Advent. Advent History, pp. 187, 8, 12. Burnett was the maker of a well- known vanilla extract. See [anon., ] About Vanilla, 1850-1900 Anniversary (pub- lished by the Joseph Burnett Company, Boston, 1900).
61. N.E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., XLIX (1895), 79.
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bility of another school on the same plan; and his own large family of boys nearing the school age brought him to serious consideration of the matter as had been the case of Dr. Shattuck and St. Paul's. 62
St. Mark's was primarily a private school. The Diocese of Massach- setts had no direct voice or responsibility in its management. The code of by-laws drawn up under the charter of the school, however, provided that the school's trustees must be communicants of the Episcopal Church, that the headmaster 'shall always be a Presbyter of the Church', and that the bishop of the diocese was 'ex-officio visitor of St. Mark's School', and he was to have recommendatory powers. 63 The diocese was to be kept informed about St. Mark's by the provision that 'An annual report of the state of the Institution was also to be sent to the Bishop to be laid by him before the Church.'64 Like the relation of minister to congregation in most young Episcopal societies in the diocese, the relation of headmas- ter to trustees and school was shifting. There were five headmasters until the death of Burnett in 1894, two of whom were not presby- ters of the diocese. The trustees recognized, however, that in giv- ing the deed of property of St. Mark's School to them, Burnett had set a ... rare example of true Christian generosity'. The trustees rightly judged the effect of Burnett's gift by stating " "that this Board of Trustees appreciates this magnanimous donation as of great importance to the Church, and through her teachings to the youth of the country." '65 Joseph Burnett's service to the diocese also included his acting as a substitute deputy to General Conven- tion for the years 1868 to 1870, and his representing St. Mark's
62. Benson, St. Mark's, p. 11. Burnett had twelve children, of whom seven were boys. His son, Waldo Burnett, became a priest in the Episcopal Church. A daugh- ter, Ruth, became a Sister in the Roman Catholic Convent of the Sacred Heart, Albany. Burnett thus became allied with the group of the corporation members of the Church of the Advent who either joined the Roman Church, such as Theo- dore Metcalf and Dr. Salter, or had close relatives join as did R. H. Dana, Jr.
N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., XLIX (1895), 79.
63. Benson, St. Mark's, p. 17. The com- mittee which framed the bylaws had four members: two clerics, the Revs. John B. Kerfoot, and G. M. Randall, and two law- yers, Isaac Fletcher Redfield (1804-76), and Josiah Gardner Abbott (1814-91). 64. Ibid.
65. Benson, St. Mark's, pp. 16-17. The bylaw stating that the headmaster shall be a presbyter has been dropped and re- enacted several times.
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parish, Southborough, in the annual diocesan conventions as a lay delegate. 66
Somewhat different from the rural parishes of Amherst and Southborough were the parishes established at water-power sites and mill towns where the Episcopal Church was established during Eastburn's last years as bishop, continuing a movement which started under Bishop Griswold. At Oxford in Worcester County, George Hodges and his first wife, Sarah Elizabeth Clark, demon- strated their interest in the Church as had Burnett in the Church at Southborough. Hodges' father had trained him in the textile in- dustry, especially in the manufacture of flannels, at the latter's mill in North Andover. 67 In 1846 the younger Hodges bought the mills of the Oxford Woolen Company. 68 Hodges manufactured flannel here until his death in 1881. Grace Episcopal Church 'was built under his supervision and mainly at his expense'.69 Bishop East- burn consecrated Grace Church on 16 November 1865 and cited the 'noble liberality [of] ... George Hodges, Esq.', who contribut- ed nearly all of the $20,000 which the land and church cost.70 Grace Church prospered only for a few years. Because of its loca- tion in a small town, the church building, which was of stone, and of a pseudo-Gothic architecture, won the praise of Worcester County through its press. Bishop Eastburn foretold that Grace Church would bring results of blessing through future genera- tions, and through the ages of eternity ... in the days of self-will, irreverence, and casting off of God's word'.71 Mrs. George Hodges died in October 1872, a 'valued helper and friend' of the parish.
66. JM, 1868, p. 170; 1869, p. 191; 1870, p. 203.
67. George F. Daniels, History of the Town of Oxford, Massachusetts with Geneal- ogies, etc. (Oxford, 1892), records the facts of Hodges' life (p. 542).
68. The Oxford Woolen Company was organized in 1826; its plant located on "the southerly branch of Mill Brook', tribu- tary of the French and Quinbaug Rivers, inaugurated power weaving at this site; it also convinced Samuel Slater of the prac- ticability of power weaving in contrast to
hand looms. Daniels, Oxford, p. 198. 69. Daniels, Oxford, p. 542.
70. JM, 1866, pp. 24-25. Episcopal services were held as early as July 1863 in Sanford's Hall. Bishop Eastburn visited this mission, then known as St. John's Church, on 7 April 1864. At that time there were 2 communicants and $45 'subscribed towards [the ] church edifice .. . '. Daniels, Oxford, p. 81; JM, 1864, pp. 24-25, 121.
71. Daniels, Oxford, p. 94, quotes the Worcester Spy, of 17 Nov. 1865; JM, 1866, p. 25.
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The report by the Rev. B. F. Cooley to the annual convention of 1873 announced the discontinuance of services due, in part, to the death of Mrs. Hodges.72 It should also be noted that Grace Church was the sixth religious society to have a church in Oxford, a town of only 2669 inhabitants in 1870.73 Unlike Burnett's part in found- ing St. Mark's Church, Southborough, Hodges' personal contribu- tion to the Episcopal Church in Oxford was occasional rather than sustained.
In 1832 the town of Webster had been set off from the southern limits of Oxford, known as 'Oxford South Gore'. In this former district of Oxford, Samuel Slater, and later his sons, had built and managed woolen and cotton mills from 1812, using as power mill- sites along the French River.74 In 1870 the population of Webster numbered 4763, nearly 2100 more than its parent town of Oxford. 75 The Rev. William Henry Brooks, D.D., rector of Grace Church, Oxford, had held Episcopal services in Webster as early as July 1869. An Episcopal society grew up by the name of the Church of the Reconciliation; the Rev. Mr. Brooks laid the cornerstone for the church on 18 July 1870, on a site 'given to it by William S. Slater, Esq.'.76 Bishop Eastburn consecrated the Church of the Rec- onciliation on 3 January 1871.77 All but $500 of the more than
72. JM, 1873, pp. 156-157. George Hodges, who lived until 1881, gave of his time, apart from his mills, largely to poli- tics, both local and national, in the latter respect serving the Democratic party. Daniels, Oxford, p. 542.
73. The other five societies in order of establishment were Congregational, Uni- versalist, Baptist, Methodist, Roman Cath- olic. Roman Catholic services were held regularly from 1858. Daniels, Oxford, pp. 47-49 (population figures are on p. 269).
74. History of Worcester County, Mass. (Boston, 1879, 2 vols.), II, 470-471.
75. Manual for ... the General Court (Mass., 1880), p. 178.
76. JM, 1871, pp. 147-148. The lot was valued at $1200. The 'free-will offering' to- ward the church building fund totaled $4619.10. William S. Slater had married
Katherine Cradock Hodges, a daughter of George Hodges of Oxford.
77. JM, 1871, pp. 31, 147-148. The rec- tor of the Church of the Reconciliation was the Rev. William H. Brooks, recently rector of Grace Church, Oxford. Brooks reported a gift of a 'Holy Table' to the church by Mrs. Horatio Belson Slater, a daughter-in-law of Samuel Slater. Various members of the Slater family, in towns where it had mills, were closely identified with the Episcopal Church, from the time of Samuel Slater (1768-1835) who was senior warden of St. Paul's Church, Paw- tucket, R. I., from 1815 until 1832. See Rev. Edward D. Randall, Associate Rector, A Discourse Commemorative of the Fiftieth Anniversary of . .. St. Paul's Church, Paw- tucket, R. I. ... 1867 (Pawtucket, 1868), passim, esp. pp. 19-20.
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$10,000 cost of the building and furnishings was raised within the parish.78 As the Church of the Reconciliation grew, so Grace Church declined. Finally, the rector at Webster, where he held regular services, held occasional services at Oxford, where the church was open but seldom.
In the instance of the parishes at Oxford and Webster, the in- troduction of Episcopal societies followed a definite pattern. The basis of the pattern was a reasonable certainty of year-round water power in a relatively poor agricultural district which would supply labor both for mills and for hand operations at home on the farms. At these sites manufacturers started woolen and cotton mills, or both. The owners or managers of the mills were often either emi- grants from England, or descendants of emigrants, or persons who had a marked preference for the Episcopal Church often influenced by marriage or close association with Episcopalians. Finally, the mill hands, especially in the years before the Civil War, might pre- fer the partially familiar Episcopal form of worship. The Roman Catholic Church, which came to include the majority of mill work- ers, usually followed the Episcopal societies by a few years, in es- tablishing parishes before the Civil War, but preceded them after the Civil War, as in the case of Oxford and Webster. 79
Other mill or factory centers where Episcopal societies were organized and were financially strong enough to build and pay for a place of worship were at Lawrence, Worcester, Cabotville, Paw- tucket, Millville, Milford, Framingham, and Haverhill. Bishop Eastburn consecrated churches in each of these towns.
At a site on the Merrimack River with water-power potential, the Essex Corporation bought the power rights and developed a town from about equal areas of Methuen and Andover. The town was
78. The cost of the church, 'including furniture, gas fixtures, carpet, furnace, etc. was $10,073.23'. JM, 1871, p. 148.
79. Where there was any considerable number of Roman Catholic laborers em- ployed, as in the digging of a canal, a dam, or a railroad, or in any kind of construc- tion, such laborers being migratory, Ro- man Catholic services were probably held
at millsites before those of any other Church. Such services, however, did not result in the organizing of Roman Catholic parishes until a more permanent group of laborers settled near the mill or factory. Webster had a Roman Catholic parish as early as 1844, and a church building by 1853. Worcester County, II, 462.
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named Lawrence and incorporated in April 1847.80 Here in this manufacturing place of 'sudden rise', seaward of Lowell some eight miles, Bishop Eastburn consecrated Grace Church, 19 November 1846. 'Samuel Lawrence, Esq., of Lowell ... contributed nearly all [$1000 of a total of $1400] that was needed for the structure', while the parishes of St. Anne's, Lowell, and St. Paul's, Grace, and Trin- ity, Boston, furnished the interior of the church. 81 Five and a half years later, on 5 May 1852, Eastburn consecrated a 'new and sub- stantial stone edifice', for Grace Church, costing some $9000.82 As the Rev. Theodore Edson had been the great strength and chief figure in the early days of St. Anne's, Lowell, so the Rev. George Packard, rector of Grace Church from its founding until his death in 1876, a period of thirty years, was the force which made Grace Church a notable parish in the diocese. Bishop Eastburn visited (not for consecration) another Episcopal society in Lawrence, St. John's, on 27 May 1866. In reporting his first visit, he noted that this group included 'numerous families from England who had been reared in our Communion'. 83
In the industrial centers of Worcester and Cabotville, parishes had fulfilled their financial obligation of paying in full for church buildings. Thus Bishop Eastburn consecrated All Saints', Worces- ter, on 1 October 1847, which Bishop Griswold had said, after his visit to Worcester in 1834, was one of the sites 'where we ought long since to have had a Church well established'. Bishop Eastburn noted that the 'long delayed' consecration, was at last made possi-
80. The group which purchased the water-power rights included three Law- rences : Abbott, William, and Samuel. The first directors of the Essex Corp. were Ab- bott Lawrence (also president), Nathan Appleton, Patrick T. Jackson, John A. Lowell, Ignatius Sargent, William Sturgis, and Charles S. Storrow. D. Hamilton Hurd, compiler, History of Essex County Massachusetts (Philadelphia, 1888 [1887], 2 vols.), I, 861, 866-867; Historical Data Relating to Counties, Cities and Towns in Massachusetts, prepared by Frederic W. Cook ([Boston,] 1948), p. 38. See supra,
pp. 151-153.
81. JM, 1847, pp. 11, 75; Rev. A. H. Amory, Anniversary Sermon . . . October 11, 1896 (Cambridge, 1896), p. 5.
82. The Essex Corp. had given a lot of land to Grace Church parish with the con- dition that the parish should build a brick or stone church upon it within five years. The condition was met, half by parishion- ers, half with the help of outsiders. The population of Lawrence was 3577 in 1847, and was 10,500 in 1852. Hurd, Essex Coun- ty, I, 905, 876; JM, 1852, pp. 23-24.
83. JM, 1867, pp. 17-18.
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ble 'partly by the exertions of several individuals [in the parish ] . . . and partly by assistance from Boston'.84 Cabotville, a village of North Springfield, which became the town of Chicopee in April 1848, received the Episcopal Church from the missionary efforts of Henry W. Lee, rector of Christ Church, Springfield. Grace Church, Cabotville, was consecrated by Bishop Eastburn on 24 May 1848. Its rector, the Rev. M. A. Johnson, reported thirty-four communi- cants in 1867; this was the last report from Chicopee received by the annual convention during the episcopacy of Eastburn. 85
Still other industrial centers where Episcopal societies were able to request a visit of the diocesan for the form of consecration were at Pawtucket, Millville, and Milford. These three villages grew up on water-power sites in the Blackstone River valley, and its tribu- tary rivers, especially the Mill River at Milford.
Pawtucket is, of course, now in the Diocese of Rhode Island. 86 Important, however, was Bishop Eastburn's visit for the consecra- tion of Trinity Church, 12 July 1853, as Trinity's parish was an offshoot of St. Paul's Church on the west bank of the Blackstone River. St. Paul's Church and parish had Samuel Slater and David Wilkinson as its principal benefactors. From the combination of their ability and accomplishments in the textile industry with their
84. JM, 1848, p. 14; JED, 1836, p. 11.
85. JM, 1846, pp. 97-98; 1848, pp. 22- 23; 1868, p. 111. Grace Church could not support itself financially or in attendance at its services and consequently was closed for several years at a time. This failure, ac- cording to its occasional rectors and min- isters, was because of other previously es- tablished denominations, combined with the effects of 'the blasting mildew of Arian- ism, Pantheism and Infidelity', and of mi- gratory parishioners. JM, 1850, pp. 93-94; 1855, pp. 81-82.
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