USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 5
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until 1833, when it became Congregational. J. H. Temple, History of Framingham (Framingham, 1887), pp. 357, 368.
4. Wilby had been a member of the building committee of St. Paul's, Boston.
5. The Rev. Abijah P. Marvin, 'Leices- ter', History of Worcester County, Mass. (Boston, 1879, 2 vols.), 1, 624.
6. JM, 1835, pp. 24-25.
7. Marvin, 'Leicester', Worcester County, I, 624.
8. JM, 1825, p. 190; 1826, p. 206; 1829, p. 4.
9. Chenoweth, History, p. 172, and passim.
10. JM, 1836, p. 38; 1850, p. 91.
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CHAPTER IV
obtain a more permanent hold of their operatives, and bring about a more settled state of society'.11 Clapp had lost most of his fortune before his death in 1841.12 No one succeeded him as benefactor in the parish, and in 1851 it numbered but forty-two communicants. 13
Another small church founded without any diocesan help grew up in the township of Sutton, also in Worcester County. David Wilkinson, a Quaker from Rhode Island converted to the Episco- pal Church, bought a power site on the Blackstone River in 1823. He built a mill for spinning and weaving cotton; also he erected successively a tavern, a bank building, a parsonage, private dwel- lings, 'many tenements for the mill help', and finally, in 1828-29, St. John's Episcopal Church.14 The Sutton Royal Arch Chapter together with the Olive Branch Lodge of Sutton and neighboring lodgers laid the cornerstone of St. John's Church 'agreeably to an- cient Masonic usages'.15 David Wilkinson as 'proprietor' of this in- dustrial settlement in south Sutton gave it the name of Wilkinson- ville. The building of St. John's Church was the capstone of Wil- kinson's career at Sutton, as that very year (1829) 'the financial affairs of the proprietor of the village were such that the property [excluding the church and grounds] passed into the hands of Samuel Slater and sons'.16 The first rector of St. John's Church was the Rev. Daniel LeBaron Goodwin, who served for twenty- nine years in this one parish.17 The cost of the pews in St. John's ranged from $32 to $71, averaging about $50.18 In his first diocesan report, Goodwin described the status of his church as follows:
Although there was scarcely an Episcopalian in the place [Sutton] at the time of commencing our service, yet has a considerable congregation al-
11. JM, 1836, pp. 38-39.
12. A. A. Lawrence, 'Diary'.
13. JM, 1851, pp. 77-78.
14. Rev. William A. Benedict, A.M., and Rev. Hiram A. Tracy, History of the Town of Sutton, Massachusetts, from 1704 to 1876, etc. (Worcester, 1878), pp. 422-423; His- torical Notes Relating to St. John's Church, Wilkinsonville, Mass., compiled by the Reverend Samuel Hodgkiss, S.T.B., Rector (n.p., 1900), pp. 9, 41; JM, 1830, pp. 29-30.
15. Hodgkiss, Notes, quotes the Worces- ter Massachusetts Spy of 2 July 1828, p. 21. 16. Benedict and Tracy, Sutton, p. 536; Hodgkiss, Notes, p. 9.
17. Goodwin, a graduate of Brown in 1822, had three brothers in the Episcopal ministry, and one in the Congregational. He married a daughter of William Wilkin- son. Miss Sarah L. B. Goodwin. ‘Sketch of D. L. B. Goodwin', Sutton, p. 479. 18. Hodgkiss, Notes, p. 28.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
ways attended. And since the erection of the Church, almost all the families of the neighbourhood and of the manufacturing village have taken pews, and become favorable to our mode of worship.19
Next year, the migratory character of the mill operatives reduced the congregation, as it had in Clappville. The few settled parish- ioners were engaged in agriculture rather than factory work, or at least were not dependent upon daily wages for a living.20 Goodwin recognized the intrusive nature of the Episcopal Church in these small villages. His comment of 1832 referred to his own parish, but it applied equally well to all of Worcester County: "The Church is new to many of the people, and there is some reluctance to examine into its merits, but as many as have been willing to become acquaint- ed with its doctrine and mode of worship are manifestly increasing in attachment to it.'21 The mill parishes in central Massachusetts owed their existence to businessmen. These businessmen or pro- prietors were devoted to the Episcopal Church, but when they died, moved away, or lost their fortunes, the parishes shrank to a few loyal families, and were important to the diocese only in help- ing the Church to keep a toehold in their vicinity. 22
Another largely industrial parish was organized in 1833 in the Merrimack valley thirty miles seaward of Lowell at Amesbury. The Anglican Church, supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, had held church services in the Pond Hills or south- west section of Amesbury some twenty-five years after the establish- ment of St. Paul's, Newburyport. 23 Nothing permanent followed this first introduction of the Church. The prelude to the present parish occurred in 1812, when Ezra Worthen, Paul Moody, and
19. JM, 1830, pp. 29-30.
20. When the Slater interests became proprietors of Wilkinsonville, they 'proved to be good friends of the Parish, making an annual contribution to the expenses, be- sides keeping the Church and Rectory painted and in repairs'. Hodgkiss, Notes, p. 9; JM, 1853, pp. 88, 85. Contemporary diocesan reports present a less favorable picture of the Slater aid to the Church.
21. JM, 1832, p. 30.
22. In 1835, a group in Webster, ten miles from Clappville, asked Mr. Blackal- ler to preach, which he did 'to a full and very attentive audience in the Baptist Church, which was kindly proffered for the occasion'. JM, 1835, p. 25.
23. Joseph Merrill, History of Amesbury (Haverhill, 1880), pp. 209-210.
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CHAPTER IV
others began the manufacture of woolen goods here.24 Then the little and winding Powow River was dammed where it flowed out of Lake Gardner, providing a descent of seventy feet in a mile before it joined the Merrimack. By 1822, there were woolen and cotton mills, a flannel manufacturing plant, and a nail factory.25 In 1833 the Rev. James Morss of St. Paul's, Newburyport, held services of the Episcopal Church near the mills, which led to the organization of St. James' Church in that year.26 Inability to find a minister for the infant parish, and other discouraging circumstances .. . cast a chill over the zeal of those who were best able to maintain it' and the parish appeared to be a failure.27 Then the operatives in the mills 'determined to contribute liberally to the building up of this decaying parish'.28 They could not have done this building up without some help from beyond the parish. To enlist the aid of the diocese in their behalf, Henry M. Davis, minister in 1836, and still in deacon's orders, reported the plight of the operatives in the Diocesan Journal as follows :
Surely, they who have left their native country and mother Church, in or- der to contribute by their skilful labors to the wealth of our native manu- facturers, should not plead in vain for the blessings of the Gospel and the ordinances of the Church in which they have been nurtured. A great por- tion (if not a great majority) of the supporters of the Church in this place, are from the old countries some of them brought from thence by the manu- facturing companies, with a view of introducing certain improvements in these establishments, and who can estimate the wealth that has been saved and rolled into the coffers of their employers through the introduction of these very improvements! When they then ask a small pittance to enable them and their children to enjoy the religious privileges and ordinances which they relinquished in their native land, in order to labor industriously to increase the riches of our country-of our fellow Christians-of our fel- low churchmen, shall they plead in vain?29
The next year, 1837, 'through the aid of friends abroad', the young
24. D. Hamilton Hurd, compiler, His- tory of Essex County Massachusetts (Phila- delphia, 1888 [1887], 2 vols.), II, 1517.
25. Merrill, Amesbury, pp. 338-339.
26. JM, 1836, p. 27.
27. JM, 1836, p. 28.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid. Davis had been ordained dea- con only in July 1835. Rt. Rev. George Burgess, List of ... Order of Deacons, etc. (Boston, 1875), no. 1072.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
deacon reported the parish more deeply rooted and nearer self- support. He also had come to realize 'like that of others in manu- facturing villages, [the parish] will continue to fluctuate with the times'.30 The statements by the rectors and ministers of the mill- town parishes indicated that the proprietors of the mills organized the parishes on the restricted base of their business enterprises alone. The appeal which the churches might have made to the whole community was limited by the close association of plant and parish.31 The nearness of the Episcopal Church to the Church of England also made the Church suspect in the smaller Massachusetts towns.
30. JM, 1837, p. 21.
31. Historians of the Church have point- ed out that Bishop Hobart of New York founded strong parishes in central and western New York State as the parishes grew up with the towns. The great wealth of Trinity Church in New York City pro- vided Hobart with the funds to establish churches in the frontier region. Massachu- setts churchmen had the funds, but the Diocese did not have the means of enlist-
ing these funds in its behalf. Lay control of the diocese rather than clerical control, or congregational polity rather than diocesan direction guided the Church in Massachu- setts. Cf. JED, 1837, pp. 9, 10; JED, 1839, p. 10; Charles C. Tiffany, D.D., A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Unit- ed States of America (New York, 1916 [1895]), pp. 386-387, which applies espe- cially to Massachusetts.
CHAPTER V
HILE the woolen and cotton industries were indirectly accomplishing missionary work for the diocese in central and eastern Massachusetts, a group of men, headed by Edward Au- gustus Newton, was organizing the parish of St. Stephen's, Pittsfield. Henry Van Schaack, a native of Kinderhook, New York, and a Loyal- ist who bought property and settled in Pittsfield during the Revolu- tionary War, had objected to paying the tax for a new meeting- house in 1790. Educated in the Dutch Reformed Church, he had turned to the Episcopal Church. As an Episcopalian he had led the dissenters, including importantly the Baptists, in their suit to re- cover taxes collected for this new meetinghouse. The suit was suc- cessful, and Episcopalians, Shakers, Baptists, and a few other in- dividuals, were declared exempt as 'Dissenters from Congrega- tionalism' and free from 'paying a Ministers tax'.1 Lenox was the seat of Episcopal worship, but Van Schaack and Tertullus Hubby, both of Pittsfield, were in 1815 incorporators of The Episcopal Religious Society of Lenox, Pittsfield, Lee, and Stockbridge'.2 This
1. J. E. A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the Year 1734 to the Year 1800 (Boston, 1869), pp. 421-422, 450-465.
2. Smith, Pittsfield, 1734-1800, p. 458. The struggle over paying 'rates' did not enter significantly into the history of the Diocese of Massachusetts, except in in- stances, like Pittsfield, where a 'dissenting' religious group did not have a church or minister resident in the town. Large towns such as Boston, Salem, and eventually Newburyport, supported the churches by renting pews, and thus were not subject to church rates. Although the Baptists and
Episcopalians were one in their wish to be exemptfrom the usual church rates, socially and politically they were not allied. Bap- tists in general favored the politics of the Jeffersonian Republicans and were anti- English; while the Episcopalians were usu- ally Federalist and pro-English. The Bap- tists belonged more to the wage earner or small farmer class; the Episcopalians were oftener in business and were comparatively large landowners. See Susan Martha Reed, Church and State in Massachusetts, 1691- 1740 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1914), pp. 160-166, 179-180, 189; Jacob C. Meyer, Church and State in Massachu-
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
society apparently ceased when Van Schaack returned to Kinder- hook. The impetus for an Episcopal Church remained in Pittsfield, however, in the person of Edward Augustus Newton, who, in 1815, had married the daughter of John Chandler Williams, a lawyer and owner of a store in Pittsfield.3
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 1 May 1785, Edward A. Newton was the son of Henry Newton, a Loyalist who left Boston with Gen- eral Gage in 1776, and his wife, Ann Stuart, a sister of the painter, Gilbert Stuart. 4 Henry Newton died at Halifax in 1802; the follow- ing year, Ann Stuart Newton brought her family to Boston, where Edward went to work for Stephen Higginson & Co., in the East India trade. He spent some months in Madras, 'handling thirty thousand dollars entrusted to him', and learned much of the India trade.5 After a voyage to St. Domingo, he returned to Boston in 1808 and found himself worth fifteen thousand dollars . . . before he was 24 years old'.6 After more voyages to the East Indies, he set up a commission business in Boston in 1815, and married Lucretia Tileston Williams of Pittsfield that same year. Having lost in the commission business most of his accumulated property, he sailed for Calcutta in 1816, where he became 'a partner in an agency house ... '.7 It was in Calcutta that 'Mr. Newton's commercial suc- cess secured a fortune, which enabled him to retire from business in 1825, affording him ample means of support, enabling him at the same time, to enjoy the luxury of a large philanthropy'.8 It was in Calcutta, too, that he met the Rev. Mr. Thomason, Church of England, through whose influence 'he was led to devote himself to the service of God, in an open profession of his faith in the Saviour'.9
setts, from 1740 to 1833 (Cleveland: West- ern Reserve University, 1930), passim, but especially p. 195.
3. Smith, Pittsfield, 1734-1800, pp. 448- 449; George M. Randall, D.D., 'A Man of God', A Commemorative Discourse on the Death of the late Hon. Edward A. Newton, etc. (Boston, 1862); New England Historical and Genealogical Register, XVII (1863), 185.
4. N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., XVII, 185; J. E. A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield ... 1800
to 1876 (Springfield, 1876), pp. 407-408.
5. Randall, Newton, p. 19.
6. Randall, Newton, p. 20.
7. Randall, Newton, p. 22. 8. Ibid.
9. 'Open profession' refers here to New- ton's baptism. Randall, Newton, pp. 23-24. Newton probably made some trips to Bos- ton from Calcutta as he was on the com- mittee of subscribers and a vestryman of St. Paul's, Boston, in 1821. Records of the Vestry of St. Paul's Church, pp. 19-20.
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CHAPTER V
Newton always maintained strict observance of the Sabbath, 'both at sea and on the land'; he had an abiding interest, also, in the Anglican missionary work, and in the missionaries sent to Bombay and elsewhere in India by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions and the American Baptist Mission. 10
Newton settled in Pittsfield in 1825, where he took a lively in- terest in both the First and Second Congregational Churches. 11 Within a few years, however, knowing many persons who would unite for the support of an Episcopal Church, Newton together with Henry Hubbard and Benjamin Luce organized the parish of St. Stephen's in June 1830. Reminiscent of Kirk Boott's action at Lowell was the naming of the parish by Newton, 'after the Rev. Stephen Higginson Tyng, a zealous young clergyman and a close friend of Mr. Newton'.12 St. Stephen's Church was built at a cost, exclusive of the land, of $4700. Bishop Griswold consecrated the church on 7 December 1832.13 The first Mrs. Newton's parents had become churchmen in 1830, and her mother, Mrs. Lucretia Wil- liams, gave an organ to the new church, 'built by Goodrich of Bos- ton, and costing five hundred and seventy-five dollars'.14 The Rev. Edward Ballard, a graduate of General Theological Seminary, be- came the first rector in 1831. Mr. Newton then established a fund "for the support of public worship', of $5000, of which he gave $4500, and secured another $500 from 'an East India gentleman, whose sons were educated in Pittsfield .. . '.15 Newton's benefac- tions to the church, including a parsonage, exceeded $20,000; gifts of other persons did not exceed 'some hundreds' of dollars.16 St. Stephen's parish did not alone claim Newton's interest in the Church. In 1825 he had represented Trinity Church, Lenox, in the diocesan convention, and from that date he served on many impor-
10. Randall, Newton, pp. 25-27.
11. Smith, Pittsfield, 1800 to 1876, p. 450; Kate M. Schutt, The First Century of St. Stephen's Parish, 1830-1930 (Pittsfield, 1930), p. 17.
12. Schutt, St. Stephen's, p. 15. Mrs. Lucretia Tileston Newton died in 1836 at Rouen, France; in 1838 Newton married Miss Susan Cleveland Tyng, daughter of
Dudley Atkins Tyng, and sister of the Rev. Stephen Higginson Tyng. N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg. XVII, 185.
13. Schutt, St. Stephen's, p. 30.
14. Smith, Pittsfield, 1800 to 1876, p. 456.
15. Ibid.
16. Randall, Newton, p. 30.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
tant diocesan committees of the Eastern Diocese, and General Convention committees.17 Newton and his wife established the "Thomason Scholarship' of $2000 at General Theological Seminary in 1835, in memory of the Anglican cleric whom Newton had met in Calcutta. 18
The prominent part Newton took in diocesan affairs followed directly after the work done by Dudley Atkins Tyng, whose daugh- ter Newton married in 1837. Tyng, whose personal fortune did not at all compare with Newton's, had a grasp of the problems of the Church in nearly forty years of service to the diocese, which no other layman equalled. His devotion to the episcopacy made him a trusted friend of the clergy. His clear knowledge of how the Church, as a newly created diocese in Massachusetts, could survive and grow, gave him first rank as a layman of the Church. Thus he brought clergy and laymen together into a diocesan group which made the Church possible in Massachusetts and in the Eastern Diocese as well. Once the Church was solidly established in Boston and its vicinity, inland parishes would be founded as towns grew up west of Boston.
The new Episcopal Church in Pittsfield, 150 miles from Boston, sprang from the association of its founder, E. A. Newton, with a group of Episcopalians in Boston, and from his experiences in Cal- cutta. Newton, with his large fortune, devoted his time and money to the Church as a philanthropist and a backer of Christian missions. Tyng, closer to the Anglican communion than Newton, worked for the more institutional and doctrinal aspects of the Church, while Newton supported the Church as more of an agent of charity and teaching Christianity in general. Politically, both men were Fed- eralists, and Newton later agreed with 'the views and measures of the whig party .. . '.19 Above political and social ties, however, was the bond between them of their devotion to the Book of Common Prayer.
Although Newton took up his permanent residence in Pittsfield
17. JGC for 1838-56, and 1862, p. 185; Perry, JGC, II, 113, 225, 350, 557, 612; JM, 1828-62, passim; JED, 1836, p. 16.
18. Perry, JGC, II, 680. 19. Smith, Pittsfield, 1800 to 1876, p. 408.
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CHAPTER V
in the year that the Pontoosuc Woolen Mfg. Co. was incorporated there, he had nothing to do with its organization; he took the course of 'wisely investing his capital', and 'resisted the temptation to make more, thereby often losing all and having to start over'.20 The Rev. Edward Ballard, rector of St. Stephen's, served there till 1847, when the 'unfortunate termination' of his rectorship 'excited great feeling in the parish . . . '.21 By then, however, the parish had taken root in Pittsfield. 22
20. Randall, Newton, pp. 40-41.
21. Smith, Pittsfield, 1800 to 1876, p. 458.
22. Pittsfield in the 1840s appeared to a new resident as 'a small mountain town . . . a farming and manufacturing community
. . . an active and restless people . . . a keen intellectual atmosphere ... the rigors of an almost Canadian winter'. John E. Todd, compiler and editor, John Todd, The Story of his Life Told Mainly by Himself (New York, 1876 [1875]), p. 314.
CHAPTER VI
EFORE 1840 some dozen other parishes were organized. In one-half of these parishes, the Massachusetts Clerical Convoca- tion gave some help in the form of providing missionary ministers to conduct the services. Bishop Griswold had urged the banding to- gether of the clergy of eastern Massachusetts about 1830 to form an association not alone for aid to new and struggling parishes, but for the welfare of the Church in Massachusetts as a whole.1 In 1833 a group of clergymen formed a purely voluntary association, with the foregoing name. It was short-lived, but it provided the all-needed sustenance for the young parishes of New Bedford, Roxbury, Fall River, Springfield, Andover, and Lynn.2 The revival of the Episco- pal tradition in Taunton in 1820 was due in part to the traditional religious tolerance of Rhode Island. This open-mindedness toward all Christian sects spread north and east to the small towns in Bris- tol County, Massachusetts, where the dwellers had to be convinced that 'a Churchman is not a monarchist-a Bishop a would-be Pope, and the whole Episcopal Church a secret worker for foreign domi- nation. And [even] where the intention is not charged, the tend- ency is alleged ... '.3 It was noteworthy that the Roman Catholic parish of St. Mary's, New Bedford, preceded the Episcopal society there by sixteen years, while in Fall River the two societies were established the same year, 1836.4 In the suburbs of Boston, at Lynn
1. An association of the Episcopal cler- gy of Rhode Island had organized, for mis- sionary purposes, 'The Rhode Island Convocation', about 1830. This group helped to strengthen the Church within the Diocese of Rhode Island. John Seely Stone, Memoir of Alexander Viets Griswold (Philadelphia, 1844), p. 378.
2. Stone, Griswold, pp. 378-389.
3. Rev. N. T. Bent, A Discourse Histori- cal of St. Thomas' Church, Taunton, Mass. (Taunton, 1844), pp. 18-19.
4. [Jesse Fillmore Kelley and Adam Mackie,] History of the Churches of New Bedford, etc. (New Bedford, 1869), pp. 8, 102, 109; Arthur Sherman Phillips, The Phillips History of Fall River (Fall River, 1945, 3 vols.), II, 25, 30.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
and Roxbury, two Episcopal societies were founded, in 1836 and in 1833, respectively. Christ Church, Lynn, received the special at- tention of Bishop Griswold and the Massachusetts Clerical Con- vention, but it took hold firmly only after the St. Paul's, Boston, group of Episcopalians began summering in Lynn and Nahant.5 St. James', Roxbury, in the first report of its first rector, the Rev. M. A. DeW. Howe, noted ‘about 60 children of German immi- grants' in the Sunday school.6 Then a country parish, St. James' today is in a densely populated section of Boston.
Springfield and Northampton, both in the Connecticut valley, had earlier been indifferent, if not hostile, to the establishment of Episcopal societies, but Bishop Griswold consecrated St. John's, Northampton, in 1830, and Christ Church, Springfield, in 1840.7 Titus Strong of Greenfield had led services in Springfield during his first years at Greenfield, but not until the rectorship of John Cotton Brooks in 1878 did the parish attain its great rank. North- ampton saw Episcopal services first in 1826, led by the bishop's son, the Rev. George Griswold. Especial interest centered in these early efforts of the Church, as the congregation was made up "principally of a portion of the students connected with the Round Hill School, and a few Episcopalians from other States .. . '.8 The Rev. Mr. Chaderton, minister at St. John's in 1836, went up the Connecticut valley to Amherst in search of converts, but found there only a father and his two daughters who were 'anxious to be confirmed and to join our communion in this place'.9 Amherst was to wait another thirty years for an Episcopal church. Finally, two parishes founded before 1840, St. Paul's, Otis, Berkshire County, in 1828, and Grace Church, Boston, never took permanent root. St. Paul's parish has historical value only in the physical survival of
5. JED, 1835, p. 11; 1837, p. 8; 1838, p. 18. JM, 1837, p. 23; 1838, pp. 28-29; 1839, pp. 32-33. Lynn had organized a self-styled 'Episcopal Society' (St. John's Church) in 1819, which Bishop Griswold believed to be a 'lively branch of the True Vine', but it became Unitarian in a few months. Memorial of St. Stephen's Parish,
Lynn (Lynn, 1882); JM, 1819, p. 143. 6. JM, 1833, pp. 30-31.
7. James C. Strong, John Cotton Brooks (Cambridge, Mass., 1909), p. 46. JM, 1830, p. 29.
8. JM, 1830, p. 29.
9. JM, 1836, pp. 31-32.
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CHAPTER VI
its church building. 10 Grace Church, Boston, now extinct, was out- standing in its thirty years of existence for its two great rectors, Thomas March Clark, later Bishop of Rhode Island, and Charles Mason, son of Jeremiah Mason and son-in-law of Amos Lawrence. The origin of Grace Church centered in the conversion of the Rev. Mr. Sabine, a Congregationalist with a church in Piedmont Square, Boston, to the Episcopal Church; part of his former parish followed him. The early years of the parish were marked by its struggle for survival.11 In 1832 services were held in Bedford Street, but no set- tled pastor was in charge. Benjamin Howard and Stephen A. Dix, wardens, represented the parish at the diocesan convention that year.12 The fact that lack of a building and of a rector, not of funds, hindered a successful parish showed that would-be Episcopalians were moving into Boston, and desired to join a parish other than St. Paul's or Trinity. A new corporation took over the society in 1836, and elected Alonzo Potter, formerly of St. Paul's, as rector. Potter declined, as did also Stephen H. Tyng, but through the rec- ommendation of Bishop Griswold, Thomas March Clark, a candi- date for holy orders, took over the position.13 The new building for Grace Church on the west side of Temple Street was consecrated by Bishop Griswold on 14 June 1836.14 Two years later, Clark
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