USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 19
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86. The boundary between Massachu- setts and Rhode Island at the northwestern portion of Bristol County, Massachusetts, was settled only in 1861, when Massachu- setts ceded the portion of the town of Paw- tucket east of the Blackstone River to Rhode Island. Before 1861 Pawtucket had
existed as a town only from 28 Feb. 1828. Prior to 1828 the portion of Pawtucket west of the Blackstone was regarded as in Rhode Island, and was named in the dioc- esan journals of Rhode Island as 'Paw- tucket' or 'North Providence'. St. Paul's Church, founded in 1815, was located west of the Blackstone. Trinity Church, built on the east bank of the Blackstone, and hence in the area claimed by Massachusetts, naturally was admitted into union with the diocese where it remained until 1861. Rev. Massena Goodrich, Historical Sketch of the Town of Pawtucket (Pawtucket, 1876), pp. 13-15, 166 (St. Paul's Church), 179 (Trin- ity Church); Randall, St. Paul's Church, Pawtucket, passim; JRI, 1836, pp. 3, 4, 32; 1835, p. 35; JM, 1854, p. 11. See also H. F. Walling, 'Map of the County of Bristol, Massachusetts, 1858'.
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sustained interest in, and financial help to, the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Massachusetts owed the foundation and growth of member parishes in the Blackstone valley region, and other parishes in Worcester County, such as Webster. With the blessing of St. Paul's, a group of its parishioners organized Trinity parish, and built and paid for a church in the then Massachusetts area of Paw- tucket. The cost of land and building totaled 'about $7500 of which $1100 were contributed in Boston and other places, and the rest by the parishioners themselves'. Eastburn mentioned the consecration as attended by 'many clergymen from the neighboring Diocese of Rhode Island', as was the case with many church services in Bristol County. 87
Again on the Massachusetts-Rhode Island boundary, at the vil- lage of Millville, located on a water-power site in the town of Black- stone-itself established as an incorporated town from part of Men- don in 1845-Bishop Eastburn consecrated St. John's Church, 7 December 1854, the only consecration in the diocesan year 1854-55. Millville had water-power and mill privileges 'among the best' in the state, but its manufacturing prosperity did not match its power resources because of 'failures and fires'. 88 One mill owner, however, Edward S. Hall, contributed some $6000 in 1854 toward liquidating a $10,000 debt of St. John's, thus enabling the church to be consecrated. Bishop Eastburn cited Hall's gift specifically, because of his belief in 'the beneficial effect of such examples upon others'.89 It is also possible that Eastburn wished to point up the fact that five years went by between the organization (14 May 1849) of St. John's parish and the consecration of its church; while in the case of St. Paul's Roman Catholic society, founded in 1850, Bishop Fitzpatrick dedicated its church in 1852. Eastburn, naturally, did not mention the fact that E. S. and C. E. Hall became mill owners following a failure of a prior owner in 1854. In 1871 the Hall privi- lege itself was taken over by A. T. Stewart of New York, through foreclosure of a mortgage.90 The Rt. Rev. John Williams, Bishop-
87. Randall, St. Paul's Church, Paw- tucket, p. 11; JM, 1854, p. 11.
88. JM, 1855, pp. 15-16; Worcester County, I, 286.
89. JM, 1855, pp. 15-16.
90. Worcester County, I, 283-286. A Ro- man Catholic Mass was offered in Millville as early as 1834.
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Coadjutor of Connecticut, and clergy from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts at this service of consecration brought 'great gratification' and 'great joy' to the heart of Bishop Eastburn. The bishop's pleasure was topped by the fact that Upjohn had been the architect for the 'beautiful and substantial stone edifice', and that the church contained 'an organ of superior quality of Mr. Hook's manufacture'.91
More restrained was Bishop Eastburn's gratitude, and simpler the building which he consecrated as Trinity Church, Milford, on 21 March 1871. A seven-year period of attempts to raise money for a church ended successfully under the rector, the Rev. Reginald Heber Howe, in 1871. Howe himself had transferred from the Dio- cese of Rhode Island. As in the instance of Millville and Pawtucket, clergy from the neighboring Diocese of Rhode Island attended the consecration held 21 March 1871.92 The name of no single bene- factor appeared in the early history of Trinity. About half the debt of $3000 paid up by Howe's efforts came from Boston. Parishioners and residents of Milford contributed some $7500 in all toward the cost of land and building. Although Milford, primarily a boot and shoe manufacturing town, had a population of 9102 in 1865, and 9890 in 1870,93 an Episcopal society was organized after the Metho- dists, Universalists, and Roman Catholics. That an Episcopal so- ciety would succeed at all was due, perhaps, to its very weakness. Milford's original Congregational Church was financially strong in 1864, as an unsigned report to the annual diocesan convention of 1864 showed :
This new Parish [Trinity] appeals strongly to the benevolent, as it so hap- pens that the mass of the wealth of the town is collected together into the original congregation, and the rest are more or less feeble-and yet doubt- less the Episcopal Church will be well sustained, as soon as it can get a foothold and get the appliances of the Church.94
91. JM, 1855, pp. 15-16.
92. JM, 1871, p. 32.
93. Manual for . .. the General Court, [Mass., ] 1866, p. 120; 1871, p. 168.
94. Odin Ballou, History of the Town of Milford, etc. (Boston, 1882), pp. 348-350, 230-260 (religious history); JM, 1864, p.
122. Ballou gives the cost of Trinity as $9000 in History of Milford, p. 255, and as $12,000 in his 'History of Milford' in Wor- cester County, II, 76; the first figure was fur- nished him by Trinity's senior warden, Mr. Charles Dove.
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Ballou, himself a Universalist minister and founder of Hopedale Community, spoke of the founders of Trinity Church as 'pillars [who] are persons of weight, culture, and taste, and their less dis- tinguished associates are people of reputable moral worth'.95 Such a statement could also be made of most church societies. He went on to state that 'Permanence and prosperity are the probable des- tiny of this [Trinity ] society'.96 The parish was destined to endure, but not to prosper. The pattern of success, not mere survival, rest- ed upon several elements or combination of elements illustrated in some of the parishes, the brief histories of which have been related above. A benefactor who could pay for a stone (or brick) church and whose descendants maintained an interest in the parish; a first, or at least an early, rector whose service lasted upwards of a generation; a large city whose population elements usually includ- ed a few influential Protestant individuals; a town which became a resort for wealthy city dwellers, or which had a well-known educa- tional establishment; a mill or factory site of which the owners or managers favored the Episcopal form of worship, or where the labor supply was not strange to the Episcopal Church-these major fac- tors, and, of course, other minor factors, often resulted in a 'per- manent and prosperous' Episcopal Church and parish.
No matter how small Episcopal societies may have been in small towns, their ministers were often active, though not always suc- cessful, in demonstrating the Episcopal form of worship in places where it was not known. Thus to Milford from Framingham had gone the Rev. Reese F. Alsop, rector of St. John's Church in the latter town as early as 17 May 1863.97 St. John's, Framingham, had been duly organized' in December 1860. The wardens were James W. Brown and Alexander R. Esty. 98 Esty was the architect of the
95. Ballou, 'Milford', Worcester County, II, 76.
96. Ibid.
97. Ballou, Milford, p. 255. Ballou states that Episcopal services 'were first held here [Milford ] in Irving Hall', on this date. However, for Episcopalians and Roman Catholics, 'where two or three are gathered
together' there may well have been a 'first' service never recorded, or forgotten.
98. James W. Brown (1813-92), a na- tive of Framingham, was a teacher, super- intendent of schools, lawyer, and judge. Alexander Rice Esty (1826-81) was the son of a Framingham carpenter, Dexter Esty. A. R. Esty studied architecture un-
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church which Bishop Eastburn consecrated on 18 June 1864.99 In fact, a large number of churches consecrated by Eastburn were built from plans drawn by the firms of A. R. Esty, or Richard Upjohn of New York. Framingham revealed the slow but steady growth of a community, after the War of 1812, unlike the sudden rise of towns such as Lowell. At the time of the War of 1812, wrote Temple, 'Extensive manufacturing establishments were started for almost every sort of merchandise.'100 The population increased only some 3000 in the years 1810 to 1865, during which years the cotton and woolen mills began operation in Saxonville, and the carpet factory and paper mills developed, the former near Saxon- ville, the latter in the then (1817) southwestern corner of Fram- ingham, now (since 1846), a part of Ashland.101 Six or seven reli- gious societies, including a Roman Catholic group organized in 1845, ministered to the town of Framingham. The Saxonville Re- ligious Society, established near the mills in 1827, served the re- ligious needs of the mill workers, as mentioned above (p. 73). At Framingham Center a village had grown up around the activities connected with the half-way stopping place on the Worcester turn- pike during its quarter-century of existence.102 On Bare Hill at Framingham Center a group of local men decided to build an Epis- copal church. In the original group were Brown and Esty. Also there were two lawyers, Charles R. Train (1817-85) and Theodore C. Hurd (1837-1911), and George Eastwood (ca. 1809-1886).103
der Richard Bond and Gridley J. F. Bry- ant. Esty designed many public buildings, superintended construction of the new (1876) Boston Post Office, and planned several Episcopal churches. J. H. Temple, History of Framingham, Massachusetts ... 1640-1880, With a Genealogical Record (published by the Town, 1887), pp. 487, 542.
99. JM, 1865, p. 15.
100. History of Middlesex County (1890), III, 645.
101. Middlesex County, III, 645-646. The Rev. Josiah H. Temple's 'Framingham', in Middlesex County is more complete than his
longer work on Framingham, though the latter has a genealogy.
102. Temple, Framingham, p. 353.
103. Eastwood was born in England. He lived in the Saxonville area of Framingham. He died 26 Dec. 1886. Train's father and brother were Baptist ministers; his part in organizing an Episcopal society appears to have been the result of a deliberate deci- sion. Hurd's father, William, was probably a member of St. Mary's parish at Newton Lower Falls. Brown, a lawyer and physician, and Esty, an architect, seem to have in- clined toward the Episcopal Church be- cause of their business and professional
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The parish organized by this group had built and paid the debt on a church building by June 1863. A. R. Esty was, naturally, the architect. When Bishop Eastburn consecrated 'to the service of God St. John's Church', on 14 June 1864, there were sixty-six communicants.104 There also had been 'removals', and were to be more removals as Brown, Train, and Esty all removed to Boston. From the neighboring town west of Framingham, Southborough, came the guidance of Joseph Burnett, who served as a vestryman on St. John's vestry.105 The parish reported for 1872-73 only sixty communicants.106 St. John's, Framingham, was an illustration of an Episcopal society that had no real hold on the community in which it was located.
In still another mill town, Haverhill, a few miles above Ames- bury and below Lawrence, on the Merrimack, an Episcopal society appeared. As in the case of many towns in Essex County a definite awareness of the services of the Episcopal Church was, in Haver- hill, an inheritance from pre-Revolutionary times. This semi- familiarity came by way of the three venerable churches in Marble- head, Salem, and Newbury (now Newburyport), and from itinerant missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.107 It was not until October 1855, however, that a parish was organized.108 The Rev. George Packard, rector of Grace Church, Lawrence, led three services in one day at the Unitarian Church, borrowed for the Episcopal society, at Haverhill. Packard stirred up a lively interest, which the Board of Missions matched by paying the salary of a mis- sionary, the Rev. W. Colvin Brown. This society, known as Trinity
associates. Temple, Framingham, pp. 424- 430, 536, 605 (Hurd), 725, 759; Vital Rec- ords of Newton, Massachusetts, to the year 1850 (Boston, 1905), pp. 105, 314.
104. JM, 1865, pp. 15, 101.
105. Benson, St. Mark's, p. 10.
106. JM, 1873, p. 119.
107. The Rev. William S. Perry, M.A., An Historical Sketch of the Church Mission- ary Association of the Eastern District of the Diocese of Massachusetts (Boston, 1859), pp. 29-33; George Wingate Chase, The
History of Haverhill, Massachusetts, From its First Settlement, in 1640, to the Year 1860 (Haverhill, published by the author, 1861), pp. 608-609.
108. Charles Wingate (1815-89) and B. R. Downes of Bradford arranged Pack- ard's visit to Haverhill. Chase, Haverhill, pp. 609-610. The diocesan Board of Mis- sions contributed $1000 for the mission- ary, the Rev. W. Colvin Brown. JM, 1856, pp. 30-31; 1857, pp. 33-34; 1858, p. 38; 1890, pp. 95-96.
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parish, built a church costing some $6500. Of this amount about $5000 came from persons in Haverhill, while the remainder was given by friends in Boston, Lowell, Waltham, Andover, and Law- rence within the diocese, and by persons residing in Philadel- phia'.109 Taking part in the consecration ceremonies performed by Bishop Eastburn on 7 January 1857 was a considerable number of the clergy, constituting the Eastern District Church Missionary Association'.110 To this association, rather than to any one indi- vidual, goes the credit for the establishment of Trinity parish, Haverhill. From the diary of the Rev. George Leeds of St. Peter's Church, Salem, comes another rare reference to the bishop's wife. Wrote Leeds on 6 January 1857, the eve of the consecration: 'In the evening preached in Trinity Ch, Haverhill. ... Am guest of Mrs. Merrill in H [averhill] at whose hospitable quarters the Bishop & Mrs. Eastburn are also entertained.'111
109. Chase, Haverhill, p. 610; JM, 1857, p. 22.
110. JM, 1857, p. 21.
111. The Rev. George Leeds, 'Diary', Essex Institute Historical Collections, XC (Apr., 1954), p. 161. In an entry for the following day, 7 Jan., Leeds wrote: ‘A no- ble band of intellig [en ]t young men con- stit [ut ]e the vestry, headed by Mr. Ch [arles ] Wingate as Senior Warden .. . '. The pop- ulation of Haverhill in 1855 was nearly
8000, while in 1860 it was about 10,000. Manual for . . . General Court [Mass. ], 1861, p. 115; 1862, p. 115. The organiza- tion of Trinity parish followed the gather- ing of two Baptist societies, a Universalist society, a Methodist Episcopal society, and of a Roman Catholic society which built and, on 4 July 1852, dedicated a church. Chase, Haverhill, pp. 584-586, 594, 595, 601, 607-608.
CHAPTER XV
'N outright gift of money by one or two individuals for a church building, including the price of the land on which it stood, re- ceived the attention which was its due by Bishop Eastburn in his annual reports to the diocese and by local historians who generally include an 'ecclesiastical history' in their work. To cite one or two names, lay or clerical, or both, makes for simplicity and memora- bility in recording the origin of a parish or the consecration of a church. The furnishing of a church, that is, the vessels used for the sacrament of Holy Communion, candlesticks, a font, a lectern and Bible, even an organ, came usually from other individuals or other parishes which contributed these furnishings by way of their wom- en's organizations within those parishes. As the furnishings, out- side of an organ, were only a fraction of the cost of the building, the names of the individual givers were not reported on the diocesan level, but were usually known to the parish itself. Gifts of vestments of any kind or altar cloths of different colors came from the women of other parishes, as the members of a newly established Episcopal society were rarely aware of the need or use of such articles. Less dramatic and memorable to report, but of no less importance, was the work of the Board of Missions in furthering the organization of new parishes, and of aiding missions and older needy parishes. Haverhill and Framingham represent but two in an annual list of a score or more parishes or missions which received amounts varying from $50 to $400. The Board of Missions appropriated in three typical years, 1844, 1854, and 1864, funds to missions or parishes in thirteen out of fourteen counties of Massachusetts. 1
1. The one county which contained no mission or parish to be helped by the work of the board was Dukes County. Wood's
Hole (Falmouth), Church of the Messiah, was mentioned in the board's report for 1854, but payment of money was not re-
[197 ]
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The work of the Board of Missions was thus apparently wide- spread. Yet many clergymen in the diocese felt that it was too local in its ideas and interests, that it was too selective in its choice of Episcopal societies which it helped. The Rev. William Stevens Perry wrote in 1859 that "The Board [had] thus degenerated into an outward mechanism, holding indeed the purse strings of the Church's alms, but with neither the heart to feel the wants of the more distant stations, nor the power to awaken or sustain in others the interest so needed for successful missionary effort.'2 Perry pleaded for home rule for diocesan missions. The case for a cen- tralized missionary agency, as was the Board of Missions, with its headquarters at Boston, was a strong one. No one could deny that the financial strength and resources of the diocese centered in Bos- ton. The board stated that its main reasons for existence were 'for the sake of imparting greater unity to the operations of the Board, as well as of securing more accurate knowledge of whatever is tran- spiring in this [the diocesan] department of the missionary field. . . '.3 The home rule advocates in the convention of 1859 gained a point which became the Canon of 1859. This canon gave parochial representation on the board to one layman from every parish in the diocese, said parish 'having within the year preceding contributed at least fifty dollars to the funds of the Board .. . '.4 Neither com- plete home rule nor absolute diocesan centralization emerged from the discussions in the annual conventions; rather was it a compro- mise for both parties.
Bishop Eastburn's forthright gratitude, expressed in his annual addresses to the diocese, for the large financial gifts of Joseph Bur-
corded until the next year. JM, 1844, p. 37; 1854, P. 35; 1855, p. 28; 1864, pp. 44- 45.
2. The Rev. William S. Perry, An His- torical Sketch of the Church Missionary As- sociation of the Eastern District of the Dio- cese of Massachusetts (Boston, 1859), p. 21.
3. JM, 1861, p. 40.
4. JM, 1859, p. 118. This Canon of 1859 was amended in 1860; it was set aside by the Canon of 1866, which was in turn re-
pealed by the Canon of 1869. This Canon of 1869 stood at the time of Bishop East- burn's death. Under this last canon the work of the Board of Missions (itself re- placed by the Missionary Executive Com- mittee at the annual convention in 1866) was turned over to the Massachusetts Church Missionary Society, and all Dis- trict and other associations for the further- ance of the Missionary work of the Dio- cese .. . '. JM, 1869, p. 173; for the other canons see JM, years cited.
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nett, Henry Clapp, Edward S. Hall, George Hodges and others for new church buildings, might indicate his preference for a unified missionary agency such as the Board of Missions. Yet in February 1864 the bishop 'staggered' the board by announcing 'that he could no longer recommend the Board to the sympathy and pecu- niary support of the people and Parishes, even for the payment of the salaries of the present Missionaries, for the reason that his per- sonal preference is now given to another and extra-Conventional Missionary Organization'." The bishop's real allegiance was not with either a centralized or a home-rule missionary organization. Rather did he adhere to missionaries who were 'tied down, in our prescribed services, to that simple truth of Christ Crucified, which is the one way of salvation, and the only source of abiding peace and joy'.6 Any missionary or any mission the congregation of which did not insist on the preaching of evangelical doctrine 'as distin- guished from mere ceremonialism', would have received no help or encouragement from the bishop.7 The assertion of his personal feelings and the narrowness of his viewpoint prevented the bishop from composing the many difficulties in the mission affairs within the diocese.
Historically considered, the complicated and tangled subject of diocesan missions in regard to helping old parishes or organizing new ones brought into the open, at least, some basic facts. First there was the obvious and blunt statement of the Board of Missions itself: "There are many points in this Diocese in which our Church would meet a cordial reception, if only the men and the means were forthcoming. There are scattered families belonging to our Communion in many of the larger towns of the Commonwealth, in which, as yet, no Episcopal services have been held.'8 Then the chronic, though healthy, shortage of funds made necessary a selec-
5. JM, 1864, pp. 45-46. Compare East- burn's remark in 1850: 'Our existing es- tablishment of a Board of Missions . . . has commended itself as a good and happy system.' JM, 1850, p. 31.
6. JM, 1860, p. 26.
7. JM, 1860, p. 27. Eastburn went on to
say that everything formed in the heart 'as the means of grace and the hope of glory', save Our Lord, was but 'sand'. To some churchmen this statement would deny a belief in the 'Holy Catholic Church'.
8. JM, 1859, p. 33.
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tion of what missions and what parishes were to receive help and what new geographical areas were to be searched out. Selection resulted oftentimes in a difference of opinion between the advo- cates of a station selected and the advocates of one rejected. That these differences of opinion rested on varying conceptions of the Church (except in the case of the bishop and a few clergymen), that is, evangelical or ritualistic, Low or High Church, was of no account. The differences originated from a clash of personalities, from personal prejudices, from a divergence of social groups. This clash and divergence had existed in the diocese at least from the early days of St. Paul's, Boston; it was becoming more marked un- der Bishop Eastburn, and burst into the open under the labels of Low and High Church at the time of the election of Eastburn's suc- cessor. Another fact which the disagreements over missionary problems underscored was the parochial aspect of the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts. When a dozen or so persons in a com- munity showed a preference for an Episcopal society, or when an individual paid for the building of a church for an Episcopal con- gregation, then the diocese might provide a missionary to serve the parish. Also Episcopal churches in and near Boston might severally help to furnish a new church with cloths for the Holy Table, a reading desk, or pulpit. Rarely did a diocesan missionary go into a community, small or large, without some previous expression of interest in the Church, and attempt to build up a strong Episcopal society. The work of diocesan missions with new and old parishes centered in trying to provide church services for those who favored the Episcopal form of worship. The 'unchurched' or those who were not happy in the religious societies to which they belonged, received little attention from diocesan missions. The value and ac- complishments of the missions within the diocese in regard to new and old parishes lay in what information the missionary work dis- covered. On the basis of the facts revealed, individual benefactors, were they men or corporations, could determine what was needed and where.9 Obviously the city of Boston showed the greatest need
9. These conclusions are those of the writer; like all generalities, they are sub-
ject to conspicuous, but minor, exceptions. Other missionary work went on in the dio-
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for missionary work both for the 'unchurched' and for persons who might have joined an Episcopal society had they had the means to pay for a pew. For this group William Appleton gave $10,000 for a chapel in which the Episcopal City Mission could provide services. From entries in Appleton's diaries for the period 10 May 1843 to 31 December 1846, emerge some pertinent comments on diocesan missions.
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