USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 3
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CHAPTER II
dral on Tremont Street was bought; the cornerstone of the new church was laid by Bishop Griswold on 4 September 1819.35 The building committee disregarded Jarvis' suggestion to build in the Gothic style, and chose the neoclassic style of a Greek temple de- sign, planned and executed by Alexander Parris and Solomon Willard. The material of the structure was granite, but the façade with its six columns of the Ionic order was of Acquia Creek sand- stone.36 Governor Brooks signed the act of the General Court creating the Proprietors of St. Paul's Church in Boston 28 January 1820, and on 11 March the wardens and vestrymen met at Dudley Tyng's house. The completion of the church lacked but a few months. As wardens, Tyng and Sullivan wrote Jarvis advising him that 'We have a very great satisfaction ... in soliciting your accept- ance of the Rectorship of our new Church. It was with this object in view that it originated and the anticipation of this has given alacrity and speed to its construction.'37 Jarvis accepted this call, apparently on the basis of an annual salary of $2500, and moved his family to Boston, occupying a house 'next door to Mr. [William] Appleton' on Beacon Street.38 Bishop Griswold consecrated St. Paul's on 1 July 1820, and in the Boston newspapers, which gave but few lines to local affairs other than politics or commerce, a col- umn appeared describing the ceremony, in the Columbian Centinel, and a shorter account in the Boston Intelligencer and Evening Ga- zette. 39
This new Episcopal church became very shortly a kind of test case in the community : would the church succeed greatly where it depended upon some half-dozen families or scions of families who favored the Anglican Communion, and upon converts from the Congregational and Unitarian Churches? During his first year as its rector, Jarvis rapidly built St. Paul's to a point where it rivaled
35. Boston Intelligencer and Evening Ga- zette, 4 Sept. 1819.
36. Walter H. Kilham, Boston After Bul- finch (Cambridge, Mass., 1946), p. 21.
37. St. Paul's Vestry Records, I, 2.
38. [Jarvis,] A Narrative; Report of the
Proceedings .. . for a Divorce etc. (Hartford, Conn., 1839), pp. 62, 115.
39. Columbian Centinel, 1 July 1820; Boston Intelligencer and Evening Gazette, 1 July 1820.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Trinity and Christ Churches.4º His audiences also heard his ser- mons for the first year at least 'with very great satisfaction and de- light'.41 But Jarvis himself disliked his parish in Boston from the beginning. He was unaware that a congregational, or more accu- rately, a proprietary form of polity governed the business end of both Trinity and St. Paul's parishes. Resentfully he pointed out, in 1825, to the proprietors of St. Paul's, that in New York parishes, 'all business is done by the Vestry, never by the parish at large [and] the Rector is made so essential a part of the Vestry that no business can be done without him'.42 Another divisive factor in Jarvis' relations with the businessmen of his parish centered in the length of morning service. One member of the parish wished to shorten the Sunday morning service by ten minutes, 'which would have enabled him and others to get to the Post-Office in proper time for their letters-as soon as gentlemen of other congrega- tions'.43 Jarvis resisted abridging any word of the Book of Common Prayer on the grounds of his virtual oath of conformity given at his ordination. At the same time he implied his disapproval of Dr. John S. J. Gardiner, Trinity's rector, whose allegiance to the ritual of the prayer book and whose devotion to Episcopacy Jarvis strongly suspected.44 In this question of rubrical conformity to the prayer book, Jarvis advocated the High Church position, which grew into the issue of more ceremony versus less ceremony some thirty years later under Bishop Eastburn. A small non-vocal group favored Jarvis' view of the Episcopal Church and even succeeded in hurry- ing his successor from the rector's place in St. Paul's. The deciding grievance, however, that severed Jarvis from St. Paul's involved money. Dr. Gardiner for several years prior to 1820 had received $2500 yearly as rector of Trinity Church. In inviting Jarvis to be rector of St. Paul's, the proprietors authorized the wardens and vestry to fix the terms of his salary. The amount agreed upon was
40. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, p. 7; JM, 1821, 1822, pp. 153, 160, 187.
41. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, p. 6.
42. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, p. 27; it was only from the latter part of 1952 that the
rector of Trinity Church, Boston, could preside at a meeting of the vestry.
43. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, p. 78.
44. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, pp. 30-31.
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CHAPTER II
$2500 yearly.45 From the time of the consecration of the building, however, the society was in debt. The total cost of the church had been $96,859.31; not including the asset value of unsold pews after the church was opened, the debt of the parish was $69,807.31.46 The annual income from pew taxes left only some $2000 for Jarvis' salary. For two years Jarvis relinquished five or six hundred dollars a year of his salary, but as the society could not reduce the total annual expenses below $2000, the vestry in the spring of 1824 was obliged to lower his salary still more, to $1500.47 To this reduction Jarvis answered that . .. consistently with what is due to you and to myself, I shall not be able to reduce my annual expenses much below the sum of $2,500'.48 From this time on the differences be- tween Jarvis and the proprietors acting through the vestry could not be settled. The proprietors wished Jarvis to resign, but he would not do so until his full salary had been paid for the last two years. In July 1825 a specially convened council of the Diocese of Massachusetts, at which Bishop Griswold presided until called away, terminated Jarvis' rectorship of St. Paul's, with the provision that the society pay him $5000, 'as the terms upon which he re- linquish all his right and title to the Rectorship of that church'.49 The society did not have that sum of money to pay Jarvis, and gave him a note payable one half in August 1826, and the balance in August 1827.50 Technically this settlement left Jarvis still as rector of the parish, but in October 1825 Lucius M. Sargent paid Jarvis in cash the full amount of the note and closed the case. 51
This disagreement of the newly organized St. Paul's parish with its first rector indicates how narrow a base the Episcopal Church had in Boston in 1820.52 Jarvis, it is true, had built up a congrega-
45. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, pp. 8, 10.
46. St. Paul's Vestry Records, 1, 16-18.
47. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, pp. 15-17.
48. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, p. 18.
49. [Jarvis,] A Narrative, pp. 104-105.
50. Records of the Proprietors of St. Paul's 1, 58.
51. Ibid.
52. That residents of Massachusetts of social prominence and wealth were spon- soring St. Paul's induced Jarvis to write in
April 1825: 'The circumstances relating to the establishment of St. Paul's Church, have produced a deep interest in its wel- fare among the clergy and laity of our Church throughout the United States. It is no exaggeration to say that it has been for a while the most prominent object of atten- tion of all the churches in the Union. Its affairs, therefore, are generally known and canvassed.' [Jarvis,] A Narrative, p. 6.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
tion approximating Trinity's in numbers, but the pews had not sold satisfactorily, and when Jarvis left, the church languished and appeared to be on the market for purchase by some other denomi- nation. As Lucius M. Sargent had come forward to aid the society in freeing itself of Jarvis, so now John Collins Warren, M.D., took over as senior warden. 53 He had allied himself with St. Paul's be- cause of a reasoned determination 'to adopt the Orthodox or Trin- itarian form of worship'.54 Also, many of his friends, whom he knew socially and professionally, had joined the new parish.55 Fearing that St. Paul's 'would soon be sold for a Unitarian church, as Uni- tarianism was then making rapid advances', Dr. Warren agreed to run the affairs of the church along with William Appleton, who was then junior warden.56 Of this period at St. Paul's Dr. Warren wrote:
For about two years, I supplied the pulpit with such ministers as I could find; and sometimes we were obliged to resort to laymen to read the service. I superintended the Sunday School, the Missionary Society, and the church music. But the great object in view was to get a rector of real piety and de- cided talent. For a long time this was impracticable; but at last, through the Rev. Dr. Wayland, who was then a Baptist minister in the town, I was in- formed of Rev. Mr. [Alonzo] Potter, who had lately been chosen President of the new Episcopal College in Geneva, N. Y. It was a hard matter to pre- vail on Mr. Potter to come here; but still harder to obtain the consent of the Bishop of New York, who considered Mr. Potter's continuance in the col- lege to be very important. By letter, I introduced myself to the Bishop of New York, and, by a protracted correspondence, convinced him, that, if St. Paul's Church fell through, it would have a bad effect on Episcopalian- ism in this State, and perhaps in New England. Finally, the consent of all
53. Edward Warren, M.D., The Life of John Collins Warren, M.D., Compiled Chief- ly from his Autobiography and Journals (Boston, 1860, 2 vols.), I, 162.
54. Warren, Warren, I, 161.
55. Dr. Warren describes the first pa- rishioners of St. Paul's as consisting of 'some of the members of Trinity Church, and many gentlemen of the town not Churchmen, among whom were Hon. Mr. Webster, George Sullivan, H. G. Otis, David Sears, and a large division of Mr.
Mason's family, some of whom afterwards became members of the church, and others not. About half a dozen families left Brattle Street [Church], not by concert, but by a simultaneous movement.' Dr. Warren mar- ried Susan Powell Mason, daughter of Jon- athan Mason who became associated with the Episcopal Church after he moved from New Hampshire to Boston. Warren, War- ren, 1, 63, 161.
56. Warren, Warren, I, 162.
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CHAPTER II
parties was obtained; and Mr. Potter was inducted into office on the twenty- ninth day of August, 1826. This was the opening of a new era for St. Paul's, and the Episcopal Church generally in this part of the country.57
The debt of the parish had been liquidated by building and selling tombs under the church, and by the sale of pews on a tax-exempt basis. This work was accomplished by the judicious management of Mr. William Appleton, Mr. Stephen Codman, and others .. . '.58 Headed by David Sears, who gave the proprietors $1000 for six pews exempt from taxes and assessments, a number of men inter- ested in the success of St. Paul's gave some $9000 in the same way.59 Withdrawal of income-yielding pews lessened, of course, the annual income of the church, but the further sale of pews under a new rector promised well for the future.
57. Warren, Warren, I, 162-163. That the lasting tenure of St. Paul's Church by an Episcopal society was by no means a foregone conclusion even in 1821 was shown by the terms of a gift of church sil- ver-terms to which the vestry agreed- whereby the silver was to belong to St. Paul's 'only so long as the [society] shall continue to worship according to the forms of the Church .. . '. Were the church used for any other than an Episcopal form of
worship, the gift was to revert to some other Episcopal church designated by the bishop of the diocese. Vestry Records, 1, 35- 37, 103.
58. Warren, Warren, I, 161.
59. Record of Deeds and Gifts of David. Sears, of Boston, Establishing the Sears Fund. of St. Paul's Church (printed from the: original documents. Cambridge [Mass.], 1867), p. 37; [Jarvis,] A Narrative, p. 14 n.
CHAPTER III
UTSIDE of Boston in the eastern part of the diocese, the Church slowly revived. Members of the various parishes learned that they alone, without the benefit and help of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, must finance and support the Church. St. Paul's, Newburyport, had built a new church, which was com- pleted in October 1800. Masonic ceremonies marked the laying of the cornerstone the previous May.1 Laymen from this parish, in- cluding Tristram Dalton, Dudley A. Tyng, Lewis Jenkins, and Tristram Coffin, served as deputies to the annual diocesan conven- tion, or served on the standing committee or as delegates to Gen- eral Convention.2 Although the parish numbered less than fifty communicants in the early years of the century,3 the congregation was doubly blessed in its two great rectors of the period: Edward Bass, who served the parish as rector from 1753 to 1803 (the last six years of which period he was also Bishop of Massachusetts), and James Morss, who held the office of rector from 1803 to 1842. On a visit to St. Paul's in 1822, Bishop Griswold cited a Sunday evening service as a model for all churches in the Eastern Diocese. 4 Of the other two churches in Essex County, St. Peter's, Salem, quickly revived once it reopened in 1782, but St. Michael's, Marblehead, 'seemed to be almost extinct'.5 South and west of Boston, St. An- drew's, Hanover, had built a new church, which Bishop Griswold consecrated 13 June 1811, as first of his several consecrations in
1. John J. Currier, History of Newbury- ander Viets Griswold (Philadelphia, 1844), port, Mass., 1764-1905 (Newburyport, p. 282. 1906, 2 vols.), 1, 261.
2. JM, 1784-1828, pp. 7, 26, 85.
3. JM, 1784-1828, p. 116.
4. John Seely Stone, Memoir of Alex-
5. William F. Gavet, Historical Sketch of St. Peter's Church, Salem, Massachusetts (n.p., [1908]), p. 13; JED, 1832, p. 8.
[25]
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Massachusetts. 6 This new building, costing about $5000, represent- ed the efforts of the parish of St. Andrew's in Scituate with help from dissatisfied members of the First Parish of Hanover.7 This newly expanded parish had a small endowment, which in 1817 was invested in shares of the State Bank in Boston.8 The senior warden was Horatio Cushing, of the notable Cushing family of Scituate. 9
A few months after Bishop Griswold had consecrated St. An- drew's, a new Episcopal society was gathered in the village of New- ton Lower Falls, 'situated at the extreme limits of Newton, Need- ham, and Weston'.10 Geographical remoteness from any other re- ligious society dictated the site of this parish in the growing mill village; while a desire to commute their church rates' and have them paid to a mutually acceptable and constituted leader of the House of God induced the members of the parish to prefer the Episcopal form of worship to that of the older established churches in their precincts.11 Typical of newly formed Episcopal parishes were the first services held in the district schoolhouse, and the decade of lay readers which marked the time before the parish, named St. Mary's, could afford a rector. The ‘ardent zeal of Shu- bael Bell, Esq., Senior Warden of Christ Church, Boston', and other
6. Samuel Cutler, Rector, The Origin, Progress, and Present Condition of St. An- drew's Church, Hanover, M[as]s (Boston, 1848), p. 14. JM, 1813, p. 120. Among other men who kept the Anglican tradition alive in the Bridgewater, Hanover, Scit- uate, and Marshfield districts was Dr. Charles Stockbridge (1734-1806), son of Dr. Benjamin Stockbridge, who was one of the outstanding physicians in eastern Mas- sachusetts. Dr. Charles Stockbridge in- herited the Stockbridge Mansion at Scitu- ate; he attended many state-diocesan con- ventions and served on the standing com- mittee in 1794. JM, pp. 7, 20, 37, 45; Samuel Deane, History of Scituate, Massa- chusetts, from its first settlement to 1831 (Boston, 1831), p. 344.
ton, 1853), p. 79.
8. Cutler, Origin, p. 6. The amount was $463.37.
9. Horatio Cushing (1776-1836) was a first cousin once removed of Chief Justice (Mass.) William Cushing, later Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. Deane, Scituate, pp. 255-256; Barry, Hanover, pp. 289-290.
10. Alfred L. Baury, Rector, A Sermon Preached in St. Mary's Church, Newton Lower Falls, Easter, 1847 (Boston, 1847), p. 10.
11. Baury, Sermon, p. 10. Baury stated that Elbridge Ware had come under the influence of the Episcopal liturgy while on a visit to Morristown, New Jersey, and wanted to have a similar form of worship in
7. John S. Barry, A Historical Sketch of his home town of Newton Lower Falls. the Town of Hanover, Massachusetts (Bos-
Sermon, pp. 10-11.
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CHAPTER III
devoted laymen enabled the society to build a church.12 The cor- nerstone was laid by the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, and seven months later, 29 April 1814, Bishop Griswold dedicated the structure to the service of Almighty God.13 As soon as it could provide a salary, the parish called Alfred Louis Baury as its first rector, in 1822. As in the case of St. Paul's, Newburyport, St. Mary's enjoyed a long rectorship of nearly thirty years under Baury.14 St. Mary's parish and the manufacturing of paper grew up together at Newton Lower Falls. The paper industry commenced about 1790; it held chief place among other industries in Newton for nearly a century. Directing this industry were the Curtises, Crehores, and Rices. Some of these families were mem- bers of St. Mary's parish.15
During the very time that St. Mary's was organized, a parish was being formed in the western part of Massachusetts. In Greenfield, at the confluence of the Green and Deerfield Rivers with the Con- necticut, five persons gathered together to establish an Episcopal church on 24 September 1812.16 With easy access from Connecti- cut by river, the western portion of Massachusetts had felt the in- fluence of the Episcopal Church from that state, rather than from the vicinity of Boston. Portions of Berkshire County, indeed, had earlier been under the jurisdiction of Connecticut's Bishop Sea- bury.17 The Reverend (later Bishop) Philander Chase, rector of Christ Church, Hartford, presided at the laying of the cornerstone of the small wooden edifice in Greenfield, which was named St. James' Church.18 Bishop Griswold consecrated the completed church 31 August 1814, and in the following year, on 26 May, he
12. Baury, Sermon, p. 14.
13. Francis Jackson, History of Newton (Boston 1854), p. 163; S. F. Smith, D.D., History of Newton (Boston, 1880), p. 478.
14. Baury also held the position of Sec- retary of the diocesan conventions for ten years, 1833-42. See JM for those years.
15. Smith, Newton, pp. 271-272; Baury, Sermon, p. 18.
16. Francis M. Thompson, History of Greenfield (Greenfield, Mass., 1904, 2
vols.), 1, 488.
17. William B. Sprague, D.D., Annals of the American Pulpit: Episcopalian (New York, 1859), v, 274-275. The Episcopal form of worship followed the Connecticut valley north, as West Claremont, N. H., has the oldest Episcopal church building in that diocese. Otis F. R. Waite, History of Claremont, N. H. (Manchester, N. H., 1895), pp. 99-100; JNH, 1950, p. 59.
18. Thompson, Greenfield, 1, 468, 493.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
ordained Titus Strong to the priesthood and at the same time in- ducted him as rector of St. James'.19 Strong, a candidate for holy orders in 1813, 'came to officiate at the exercises of the infant church . .. [and ] officiated as a lay reader at services in a room fitted up in the house of John E. Hall ... for the use of the small congre- gation'.20 Strong assumed charge of the young parish with trepida- tion, but his humility was only one phase of his many strengths of character, and he served the parish of St. James' ably for forty years.21 At the same time he acted as rector in two other small par- ishes : at Trinity in Montague, south of Greenfield on the east bank of the Connecticut, and site of the Montague Canal, and at St. John's in Ashfield, some fifteen miles west of Greenfield. The mem- bers of Trinity and St. John's Churches numbered together only a score of families. In 1822 the parish at Montague practically merged with St. James', but Ashfield kept its separate organization. 22
In Berkshire County, there were three parishes in 1811 : Lenox, Lanesborough, and Great Barrington. These three parishes owed much to a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- pel, the Rev. Gideon Bostwick. He carried on his priestly duties after this society withdrew its support, and it was said of him, 'that wherever he hitched his horse, there a church sprang up'.23 The societies of Great Barrington and Lanesborough were organized before the Revolution, but Lenox did not form a parish until 1793. Its first minister was Daniel Burhans, who was presented to Bishop
19. [David] Willard, History of Greenfield at Greenfield in 1818. Thompson, Green- (Greenfield, 1838), p. 117. Titus Strong, field, 1, 489; II, 1194-1195; Smith, Newton, born in Brighton, Mass., in 1787, descend- p. 479. ed from John Strong, 'first ruling elder in the church at Northampton', Mass.
20. Thompson, Greenfield, I, 488. St. James' was the second religious society in Greenfield. Prior to its organization, in 1812, parish meetings and town meetings were virtually the same thing, as in many small New England towns.
21. A link between the parishes of St. Mary's and St. James' is established by the fact that Baury, rector at the former par- ish, studied for the ministry under Strong
22. JM, pp. 146, 155, 161. Bishop Gris- wold hailed the promise of St. James', Greenfield, in his report to the convention in these words, 'Mr. Strong is settled in Greenfield over a Church, which, tho but recently organized, is remarkably prosper- ous and flourishing, and for zeal and prompt attention to every duty, entitled to much praise.' JED, 1816, p. 29.
23. JM, 1851, pp. 87-88; History of Berkshire County (New York, 1885, 2 vols.), II, 193-196, 113-117, 13-17.
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CHAPTER III
Seabury at Middletown, Connecticut, for ordination in June 1793, as the churches in Berkshire County were then considered as part of the Diocese of Connecticut.24 The smallness of the towns com- bined with the lack of any adequate financial aid, once the churches were built, kept the parishes relatively unimportant in the Diocese of Massachusetts. The short tenure of ministers and rectors injured these parishes.25 The climate and comparative isolation of the towns, especially in the 'mud season', discouraged the hardiest minister in his attempts to serve a church nearly empty except in the summer season.
The over-all view of the condition of the Diocese of Massachusetts as it existed within the Eastern Diocese in 1816 appeared to Bishop Griswold to be in good order. He reported that the standing com- mittees of the various dioceses cared for the occasional problems arising within their limits, which left 'but little of ordinary business to be done at our Conventions'. 26 Bishop Griswold never wearied of stressing the enduring need of every diocese, but especially that of Massachusetts, for ministers.27 There were always more parishes than clergymen with which to staff them. To keep the vacant par- ishes alive, he recommended that a congregation which had a set- tled minister should encourage this minister to preach 'in the small vacant parishes', while the congregation should accept, during the absence of their ministers, the service of candidates; or that divine service be performed, and an approved sermon read, by some pious member of the Church; or even, if necessary, that a Church be shut for Sunday'. 28 Lay preaching was the order of the day in the early years of the nineteenth century. This fact was due not alone to the scarcity of ministers, but to parishioners whose 'object being to make choice of a man to be "set over them in the Lord," ... wished to test not only his ability to read the sermons of others, but his ability to write sermons for himself'.29 In this ministering of lay-
24. JM, 1851, pp. 87-88; Sprague, An- nals, v, 274, 411.
25. Lenox had eight different ministers during the years 1793-1841. History of Berkshire County, II, 195.
26. Griswold, 'Address', JED, 1816, p. 9. 27. JED, 1816, p. 13; 1831, p. 19; 1832, pp. 7-8.
28. JED, 1816, p. 13.
29. Stone, Griswold, p. 66.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
men, or candidates for holy orders, appeared the compromise with the basic desire of small and new religious societies to build their worship about the Book of Common Prayer on the one hand, and their unwillingness or inability to maintain a settled minister on the other. In its geographical position, which placed Massachusetts east and north of the comparatively strong, wealthy, and well- organized Dioceses of New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and south of the sparsely settled and weak Dioceses of New Hamp- shire and Vermont, the diocese could hardly have survived without compromises in its early years. Where there had been no Episcopal society prior to the Revolution, as was the case in Greenfield and Newton Lower Falls and as was to be the case in Lowell, the Church was more vigorous and unified than in the instances of churches founded through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, as were the parishes of St. Michael's, Marblehead, Christ Church, Boston, and St. Paul's, Dedham.30 Although the clergy and some laymen of the diocese were alert to the competition for the un- churched by the Congregational, Unitarian, and the growing Bap- tist and Methodist groups, Bishop Griswold was aware that gainful occupations by the men of the community offered the most compe- tition in recruiting the ministry. In comparing the country and city parishes in 1822, he noted that 'If "one goes his way to his farm, rather than his Saviour, still more frequently does another to his merchandize." '31 In 1823, nineteen of the twenty-three parishes in the diocese reported the number of communicants at 1056. The churches in Boston or within fifteen miles of it provided for seventy per cent of the number. 32 The comparative weakness of the churches beyond Boston and the seaboard area was obvious.
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