USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 4
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As important as the seaboard had been in the earlier days of the diocese, the inland city or town combined with the port of Boston was to be even more influential. With the rise of manufacturing in Massachusetts coincident with the War of 1812, a need for the power available at the fall line (or even west of it), became apparent.
30. Perry, JGC, II, 24; JED, 1833, p. 10. 32. JM, 1823, p. 179. The population of 31. Stone, Griswold, p. 282; Perry, JGC, Massachusetts was 520,000 in 1820. II, 25-26.
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At the very time that manufacturing was getting its foothold in the state, the small, predominantly agricultural towns were suffering from the effects of the tide of emigration ... continually and strongly setting [out] to the West and South . . . ' from the state. 33 The Episcopal Church had no enduring plan for bringing the gos- pel to rural areas, but it did urge upon candidates for holy orders the specific task of ministering to the 'large number of English fam- ilies, most of whom were educated in the principles of our common faith, and are attached, from habit at least, if not from higher mo- tives, to the externals of our worship .. . [and who were ] scattered over the whole state'.34 The Church was not notably successful in gathering in English immigrants drawn to Massachusetts by the development of manufactures, but one Church of England mill agent did help to establish the now venerable parish of St. Anne's, in Lowell.
In February 1824, Kirk Boott, agent of the recently formed Mer- rimack Manufacturing Company, organized the Merrimack Reli- gious Society.35 The Merrimack Company's early history reveals how closely associated with some of the leaders of the Diocese of Massachusetts was a group of Boston businessmen. Once the site at the falls in the Merrimack River had been chosen, the next step was to buy the company, The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on the Merrimack River, which owned the Pawtucket Canal. 36 As noted above, Dudley Atkins Tyng initiated the idea of the Paw- tucket Canal, though he never realized any great profit from it. The Merrimack Company as an operating company under The Proprie- tors of Locks and Canals on the Merrimack River, among whose five original subscribers was Kirk Boott, bought the canal, and at once set to work to build a dam and mills. Persons who were to be 'permitted to subscribe' to Merrimack Company stock were, among others, Tyng and William Appleton, both leaders in St. Paul's,
33. JED, 1835, p. 15. 1885), III, 309.
34. Perry, JGC, II, 25-26.
36. Nathan Appleton, Introduction of the
35. Charles Hovey, 'History of St. Power Loom and Origin of Lowell (Lowell, Anne's Church', Contributions of the Old 1858), p. 23. Residents' Historical Association (Lowell,
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Boston, at this time.37 Through his friendship with Patrick Tracy Jackson, Kirk Boott became agent of Merrimack mills, and as such he 'was personally responsible for the erection of St. Ann's Church which bore the name of his wife'.38 That St. Anne's was to be an Episcopal Church was determined by Kirk Boott, who 'being him- self an Episcopalian, was desirous of trying the experiment whether that service could be sustained'.39 To William Appleton, also, went some credit for promoting the Episcopal Church in Lowell, as he aided Boott in securing 'a young clergyman, then in Deacon's Or- ders, named Mr. Edson, about taking charge of this new missionary work'.40 Edson noted in his diary under date of 6 March 1824, " "Saturday. Came up to Chelmsford the first time for the purpose of supplying the people in the Merrimack Manufacturing Corpora- tion with preaching and divine service. Rode up with Mr. Boott and was hospitably entertained at his house. Sunday-preached. Monday-Returned to Boston in stage." The next Sunday he came again and was invited to remain.'41 A month after Theodore Edson took over the religious society, the directors voted to build a stone
37. Appleton, Introduction and Origin, character, wishing to found one Parish in a p. 22. The directors chosen on 27 Feb. 1822 were Warren Dutton, Patrick T. Jackson, N. Appleton, William Appleton, Israel Thorndike, Jr., and John W. Boott. Bishop William Lawrence noted in his 75th anniversary sermon at St. Anne's that 'a majority of the Directors of the Merri- mack Company were Unitarian'.
38. Charles Cowley, Illustrated History of Lowell (Boston, 1868, rev. ed.), p. 45; Kirk Boott, 'Address', Proceedings . . . at the Centennial Observance . . . of Lowell (n.p., 1926), p. 31. Kirk Boott married Ann Haden of Derbyshire, England, in 1818; the church in Lowell was incorpo- rated as St. Anne's. Alfred Gilman, 'Kirk Boott', Contributions of the O. R. H. A., II, 7.
new city for all the people, founded a Church of the Prayer Book. They knew that in the Prayer Book were the order, reverence and spiritual instruction which would command the respect of the people. They appreciated that a Church of the Prayer Book could not be turned by the whim or eccentricity of any Pastor or Ves- try from its sober or reverent ways. They were confident that the rights of the laity and their part in the Common Prayer would be respected.' Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Sermon, Memorial of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Laying of the Corner Stone of St. Anne's Church, Lowell, Mass., May 21, 22, 23, 1899 (n.p., 1899), p. 18.
39. Appleton, Introduction and Origin, 40. Lawrence, Sermon, p. 15. p. 24. In a sermon preached at the 75th 41. Quotation from Edson's diary in Rev. Wilson Waters, History of Chelms- anniversary of St. Anne's, Bishop William Lawrence said in part, 'Men of high intelli- ford, Massachusetts (Lowell, 1917), p. 711. gence, of worldly wisdom and religious
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church, 'not to exceed a cost of nine thousand dollars'. 42 The rec- tor received his salary of $800 annually from the Merrimack Com- pany; the Company in turn taxed each operator $1.50 a year 'as required by the constitution and laws' of the Commonwealth. This situation endured until 23 November 1827, when the Company leased, without rent, the church and parsonage to the society, which paid the rector from then on. 43 At the consecration of St. Anne's by Bishop Griswold, 16 March 1825, Kirk Boott 'was pres- ent during the whole ceremony, and delivered to the bishop the keys of the church', who then placed them upon the altar.44 The 'experiment' thus initiated by Kirk Boott was a success because of the fitness of Edson for the post of rector. He entered into the civic life of the mill town, which caused a break between him and Boott over the former's advocacy of building two public schools in Lowell at a total cost of $20,000. Boott threatened to withdraw his mem- bership in, and support of, St. Anne's were the appropriation voted. It was voted, and true to his word, Boott allied himself, though only temporarily, with the Unitarian parish, 'but his doing so did not ruin or even sensibly injure the [Episcopal] parish'. 45 Edson's ministry at St. Anne's was lifelong, a period of nearly sixty years. In 1824, the year he took charge at Lowell, Edson had mar- ried Rebecca Jane Parker, daughter of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Parker. 46 Lowell was then an outpost of the Episcopal Church in addition to being wholly rural. Strongly under the influence of S. F. Jarvis, then St. Paul's rector, Edson developed into a firm churchman,
42. Appleton, Introduction and Origin, (Boston, 1892), p. 54; Frederick W. Co- p. 24.
43. Hovey, Contributions of the O. R. H. A., III, 312. In collecting 'church rates' from its employees, as well as in building a church, the Merrimack Company acted as a town incorporated by the Common- wealth, but the employees had no voice in 'townmeeting', and the 'greater number of the workers were not Church of England people'. Boott, Lowell Centennial, p. 12.
44. Hovey, Contributions of the O. R. H. A., III, 163, 311.
45. [Benjamin F. Butler,] Butler's Book
burn, History of Lowell and Its People (New York, 1920, 3 vols.), II, 192; Coburn, 'Kirk Boott', D. A. B.
46. The arguments in favor of a Boston society girl marrying a clergyman with a living in rural New England appear in a letter from S. D. Parker to Rebecca at Bed- ford St., Boston, dated 30 March 1824. The writer notes that Edson's salary of $600 at Chelmsford is equal to $1200 in Boston. He also notes that Edson's pro- spects and talents are good.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
and regarded the outcome of Kirk Boott's ecclesiastical experiment as of great significance under the circumstances which surrounded its origin. For this reason he refused to have his name considered, in 1828, for the post of Dr. Gardiner's assistant on the Greene Foundation; he also turned down calls to churches in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and in Middlebury, Vermont, and would not con- sent to be a candidate for president of Burlington College, Ver- mont. 47 Edson clearly felt a diocesan responsibility. He served the diocese many years in various capacities including that of one of the examiners of General Theological Seminary in New York City. 48 He was named to the standing committee of the diocese nine times in the years from 1826 to 1863. He represented the Diocese of Massachusetts in General Convention thirteen times from 1826 to 1864.49 His great capacity for friendship which even exceeded his churchmanship appeared in an incident related by a fellow clergy- man :
I have myself seen, on a Christmas Day, the Rev. Dr. Blanchard, Congre- gationalist, the Rev. G. F. Cox, Methodist, and the Rev. Dr. Miles, Unitar- ian, kneeling at St. Anne's chancel and receiving from Dr. Edson's hands the bread and wine of the Holy Communion. For many years, to my per- sonal knowledge, it was Dr. Edson's practice ... to invite 'all persons pres- ent, members of other churches, of whatsoever denomination, to remain and partake with us of this holy sacrament'.50
Edson was graduated from Harvard in 1822, when the College was predominantly Unitarian. He naturally inclined to the Episcopal Church as his grandfather and great-grandfather had given time and money to the Church at Bridgewater, first through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and later through the diocese. 51 Both Jarvis and Gardiner influenced Edson in his life's work, while
47. Rev. Edward Cowley, D.D., 'Rev. delegate to General Convention in 1826, Theodore Edson, s.T.D.', Contributions of 1827, 1829, 1832, 1838, 1843, 1844, 1847- the O.R.H.A., v, 269-270; Miss E. M. Edson, 49, 1862-64. See journals of these years. "Memoir of Rev. Theodore Edson, S.T.D.', 50. Cowley, 'Edson', Contributions of the O. R. H. A., V, 274. Contributions of the O. R. H. A., IV, 209.
48. Edson, 'Edson', Contributions of the O. R. H. A., IV, 214.
49. JM, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, 1832, 1840, 1861, 1862, 1863. Edson served as a
51. Nahum Mitchell, M.H.S., History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater, etc. (Boston, 1840), p. 51.
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the latter 'introduced him to the daughter of Bishop Parker, and afterwards married him to her'. 52
Few Harvard students in the early days of the diocese, however, had any such inherited tradition of the Church of England as had Edson. Harvard, however, numbered among its pre-Revolutionary alumni the first two bishops of the Diocese of Massachusetts, Bass and Parker. The third Harvard graduate to become a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was Theodore Dehon, Class of 1796. Dehon was the son of a French emigrant who settled in Boston, and who brought his family up in Trinity Church. The younger Dehon was the first scholar in his class' at Harvard, but spent the first years of his ministry in Rhode Island. 53 St. Michael's, Charleston, South Carolina, called him as rector in 1809, and in 1812 that diocese named him as its diocesan. He died there in 1817. Harvard admitted his scholarly ability de- spite his religious persuasion and he gave the Phi Beta Kappa an- nual oration at Cambridge in 1807.54 An intimate friend of Dr. Parker, Dehon knew how little regarded was the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts during the years following Parker's death in 1804. He acted as lay reader at minister-less Christ Church, Cam- bridge, immediately after his graduation in 1796.55 Another out- standing scholar at Harvard, Class of 1817, was Stephen Higgin- son Tyng, son of Dudley Atkins Tyng. He studied for the ministry at first under Jarvis at Boston, then later at Bristol, Rhode Island, with Bishop Griswold. Immediately after his ordination in 1821, Tyng accepted a call to St. John's Church, Georgetown, in the Dis- trict of Columbia, and never afterward served a parish in New Eng- land. 56 When Tyng left New England in 1821, Bishop Griswold had already begun to complain of the lack of ministers in the East- ern Diocese. Bishop Hobart of New York refused to receive Tyng on account of his New England type of Episcopalianism, 'and very
52. Cowley, 'Edson', Contributions of the O. R. H. A., v, 269.
53. C. E. Gadsden, D.D., An Essay on the Life of the Right Reverend Theodore Dehon, D.D. (Charleston, 1833), pp. 41-48, 71.
54. Sprague, Annals, v, 425-433; Gads- den, Dehon.
55. Sprague, Annals, V, 426.
56. Tyng, Tyng, pp. 33, 43, 57.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
frankly ... advised [him] to go farther to the South'.57 Outside of urban parishes such as Boston, Salem, and Newburyport in Massa- chusetts, and Bristol and Newport in Rhode Island, the Eastern Diocese offered no living to a man of education, of social standing, and even of moderate wealth such as Tyng possessed. The only alternative for service lay in outposts such as Greenfield, Lowell, and Portland, Maine.
To provide an Episcopal Church for the forty-odd Harvard stu- dents of that belief while in college (thus excusing them from at- tending the College Chapel), and to stimulate interest in the Epis- copal Church among other students, Dudley Atkins Tyng present- ed a resolution at the annual diocesan convention in 1824. The plan called for the adequate repair of Christ Church building in Cam- bridge. The purpose of the plan was twofold. First, a restoration of the building would benefit the few but staunch parishioners in Cambridge. Second, a flourishing Episcopal Church would place Episcopal students at no disadvantage while at Harvard. Leaders of the diocese realized that it was 'a matter of general concern to the Episcopalians in this Commonwealth, and elsewhere in the United States, that their sons should enjoy equal advantages at the University with the sons of those of other denominations of pro- fessing Christians'.58 Christ Church had closed at the beginning of the Revolution, and Nicholas Hoppin, a much later rector, noted, "Perhaps no Church in the country was more broken up.'59 Partial repairs enabled a small congregation to use the church building beginning in 1790, but the group could not afford an ordained minister. Occasional services were led by lay readers; the very in- frequent sacraments were rightly and duly administered only by visiting clerics, usually from Boston.60 In their extremity to provide a rector for Christ Church, 'friends of the Church, in and about Boston', had Dudley A. Tyng write to Bishop Griswold in the
57. Tyng, Tyng, p. 51. Tyng married sixteen-year-old Anne De Wolfe Griswold, a daughter of the bishop, 5 Aug. 1821. Ibid., pp. 59-61.
58. JM, 1824, p. 184.
59. The Rev. Nicholas Hoppin, Rector, A Sermon on the Reopening of Christ Church . . . with a Historical Notice of the Church (Boston, 1858), p. 46.
60. Hoppin, Sermon, pp. 54, 58-60.
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spring of 1816 to prepare him for a call from the vestry. The vestry called him to be rector, but after thinking over the offer for a year, the Bishop refused.61 Finally, in 1822, church services ceased en- tirely. 62
In the convention of 1825, the plan consequent upon Tyng's resolution of 1824 was adopted. Financial aid to restore the church was sought by a plea 'to be published in the Gospel Advocate, as well as to be circulated separately in connection with a subscription paper'. 63 A general appeal was made to all members of the Episco- pal Church. Specific appeals were made to 'the President and Fel- lows of Harvard University', and to our 'brethren of other denomi- nations, who may be disposed to contribute towards this benevo- lent object'.64 The request for funds from Harvard and other de- nominations rested on the finding that Episcopal students totaled "one-seventh of the whole number .. . a large proportion of which were from the southern and middle states'. The report stressed the point that 'as a literary institution Harvard University is most highly valued in the southern states'. 65 The attainments of Bishop Dehon provided a notable instance of what Harvard could do for Episcopal students, but actually his literary abilities and brilliance of oratory characterized him more than his religious profession. 66 The appeal asked for $3000 as 'the least sum which will be required to put the building in good repair'. The fund-raising committee included two clergymen, Jarvis and Asa Eaton, rectors respectively of St. Paul's and Christ Churches, Boston. 67 Among other gifts, the
61. The bishop as rector of Christ Church would have built up the parish. At the same time he would have been nearer to the center of the Eastern Diocese than was his church at Bristol, R. I. His yearly sal- ary was to have been $1500, at least two- thirds of which would have been paid by the Diocese of Massachusetts. Stone, Gris- wold, pp. 231-236; S. Francis Batchelder, Christ Church, Cambridge, Some Account of its History and Present Condition (Cam- bridge, 1893), pp. 57, 59.
62. JM, 1824, p. 184.
63. JM, 1825, p. 193.
64. JM, 1825, pp. 198-199, 201.
65. The report added, "The students are not allowed to come to Boston to attend divine service; and the Episcopalians, their own Church being closed, are required to attend constantly at the College Chapel.' This fact was an 'impediment' preventing citizens of other states from feeling the "veneration which is cherished here' to- ward Harvard. JM, 1825, pp. 201, 202. 66. JM, 1825, p. 200.
67. JM, 1825, p. 203. Other members were Thomas Perkins, S. D. Parker (Trin- ity, Boston), Tyng, Francis Wilby, and
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Harvard Corporation gave $300, Jarvis $200, and Asa Eaton $100. The amounts subscribed exceeded the goal. A year later, 30 July 1826, the church reopened with the Rev. George Otis, 'College Professor of Latin' at Harvard, as minister.68 Christ Church then named Otis for the rectorship, as Bishop Griswold had finally ad- vanced him to the priesthood after a deaconate of eight years. The Corporation of Harvard, however, forbade Otis to accept the posi- tion of rector. He died early in 1828.69 Thomas Winthrop Coit was instituted rector in 1829, but the parish did not really take root until the thirty-five-year ministry of Nicholas Hoppin, 1839 to 1874, thirty-two years of which he was its rector.70
The Diocese of Massachusetts made its first great effort in the reopening of Christ Church, Cambridge. This effort revealed that the financial resources of the diocese could be relied upon when a diocesan issue had to be met. It also showed that the laymen of the diocese recognized a problem and took the lead in solving it. Yet in the early decades of the nineteenth century the problems were al- most wholly parochial. Had the clergy had the deciding voice in diocesan affairs, a minister would have been trained in an Episcopal school, and then sent out to form a parish wherever there appeared any promising material for such a society. The laymen, however, had a largely parochial outlook. They promoted the interests of a new parish only when two or three had already gathered together
James Merrill (all of St. Paul's, Boston), and James Bowdoin, Treasurer. Ibid., p. 204.
68. Hoppin, Sermon, p. 61; JM, 1826, p. 209; Josiah Quincy, L.L.D., The History of Harvard University (Cambridge, 1840, 2 vols.), II, 389.
69. Rt. Rev. George Burgess, List of . . . Order of Deacons, etc. (Boston, 1875), p. 10 (number 411); JM, 1827, p. 211; Hoppin, Sermon, p. 62. Contemporary comments at Otis' death stated that the Clergy have been deprived of an active fellow-laborer, and the Church over which he was placed, of an affectionate and faithful pastor', and that 'the University [lamented] a lover of generous learning, and the community a
zealous defender of virtue and religion'. JM, 1828, p. 225; Hoppin, Sermon, p. 63. Otis was a nephew of the Hon. Harrison Gray Otis. The first Harvard graduate to serve as rector of Christ Church was Pres- cott Evarts, rector from 1900 to 1929. Har- vard College, Class of 1881, Fiftieth Anni- versary (Cambridge, 1931), p. 118.
70. Gardiner M. Day, The Biography of a Church (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), p. 49. Coit graduated from Yale in 1821. Cata- logue of the Officers and Graduates of Yale University (New Haven, 1924), p. 154. Hoppin was a Brown University graduate. The Historical Catalogue of Brown Univer- sity, 1764-1934 (Providence, R. I., 1936), p. 144.
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as an Episcopal society. Although the Book of Common Prayer set the form of worship, and although the bishop made his annual visi- tations, the polity of the Church in Massachusetts was predomi- nantly congregational or a kind of home rule. In securing aid for Christ Church outside the membership of the diocese, the Harvard Corporation was 'disposed to concur in the measure, and give aid as far as in their power'.71 This response rested on the belief that to the extent the Church was good for the community, it was good for Harvard and vice versa.
71. JM, 1825, p. 199.
CHAPTER IV
HILE the Diocese of Massachusetts was securing a place of worship for Episcopalians at Cambridge, the spread of manufacturing by water power was transforming the sites of colonial gristmills and sawmills into comparatively large manufacturing set- tlements. A year before the organization of St. Anne's, Lowell, an Episcopal church was founded in the township of Leicester. Oc- cupying the hilly plateau country forming the watershed between the coast and the Connecticut valley, Leicester contained a number of shallow ponds, connected by small streams. By damming the ponds and flooding meadow lands, an all-year-round water supply was made available. The gradient of the streams flowing through these ponds is some three hundred feet in just a few miles. This circumstance meant a continuous and adequate supply of water power.1 This water power was put to work operating a woolen mill in 1821, by James Anderton, a woolen manufacturer from Lanca- shire, England.2 Located on the French River in the southern part of Leicester, this mill was bought about 1825 by Joshua Clapp, and became one unit of the Leicester Manufacturing Company.3 The
1. Emory Washburn, Historical Sketches of the Town of Leicester, Massachusetts (Bos- ton, 1860), pp. 20-25, 29-38. The U. S. Geological Survey maps, 'Leicester, Mas- sachusetts Quadrangle' especially, show the terrain clearly.
2. Washburn, Leicester, pp. 31-32.
3. Joshua Clapp had been brought up' by Amos Lawrence, was an active business- man and bank director in Boston; he built at Leicester the then 'handsomest country house in the County'. He married Lucia (Lucy) Denny, daughter of the Hon. Na- thaniel Paine (Thomas) Denny, the sec-
ond president of the Leicester Bank. Amos A. Lawrence, 'Diary' (entry for 15 Nov. 1841) at the Massachusetts Historical So- ciety; Washburn, Leicester, p. 32; The Bos- ton Directory, 1826, p. 325; Caroline Van D. Chenoweth, History of the Second Congre- gational Church and Society in Leicester, Mass. (Worcester, 1908), p. 41; Vital Rec- ords of Leicester, Mass., pp. 135, 248. The other units of the Leicester Mfg. Co. were at the village of Saxonville, on the Sudbury River, in Framingham. The Saxonville Re- ligious Society, which was the mill church, was Unitarian from its organization in 1827
[ 41 ]
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
settlement which grew up about the mill received the name of Clappville, known today as Rochdale. To provide religious services for this community, Anderton, Hezekiah Stone, Samuel Hartwell, and Francis Wilby organized Christ Church, Clappville, in 1823.4 Stone gave the land. The church was built, and consecrated in May 1824, and became the first Episcopal church in Worcester County.5 During the early 1830s, Clapp gave generously for the beautifying of the grounds about the church, for alterations making a 'neat and handsome appearance' of the church in the inside, and for the church library.6 The founders of Christ Church were Eng- lish, 'and attached to the national church'." They furthered the in- terests of Christ Church not only as a parish, but also as a member church of the diocese. Hence the names of Anderton, Wilby, and Hartwell appeared as delegates to the Massachusetts diocesan con- ventions in the first decade of the parish.8 Clapp, although the larg- est benefactor, once the church was built, owned a pew in the re- cently organized Second Congregational Church (Unitarian), and spent much time with its young minister, Samuel May.9 Clapp's regard for Christ Church was purely parochial. At the same time, the Diocese of Massachusetts viewed the welfare of Christ Church as resting with the parish itself. As the mills operated successfully or expanded, the parish throve, but when business declined or fire consumed a manufacturing plant, labor moved away, and the parish languished.10 Christ Church thus offered no stable parochial career for a rector, but rather a challenge as a missionary post. To over- come the transitory character of the parishioners, Henry Blackal- ler, rector of Christ Church in 1836, suggested hopefully, ‘that manufacturers will by and by find it necessary to come to some maximum of labor, for all their departments, by which they would
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