USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > North Adams > History of the North Adams Baptist Church from October 30, 1808 to October 30, 1878 > Part 7
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The minutes of the association show that during his pastorate Elder Witherell baptized twenty-one persons into the fellow- ship of the church, besides others that he baptized elsewhere. His labors were not confined to his home field. In 1810 he was appointed by the Shaftsbury Association to preach in Albany, N. Y., when it is stated: "The Baptist brethren have not acquired strength enough to arise and build them a house of worship, nor even sustain a regular minister, and hence the association appointed them supplies." The next year, 1811, the executive committee of the association report that they "had employed Elders George Witherell and Daniel Haskell to travel and preach in Western New York and Upper Canada for three months each," and that they had performed the serv- ice. Their labors are commended in the highest terms. They laid the foundations in what was then almost a wilderness, where many of the churches they founded or encouraged have since come to be among the most influential churches of the land. Thus from the very first North Adams was occupying the waste places, and stretching out to those that were beyond.
After leaving North Adams Elder Witherell was pastor sev- eral years at Coleraine, where his ministry was greatly blessed.
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In 1820 he became pastor at Hoosick. In 1823 he became pastor at Hartford, N. Y., where he remained until 1834. After that he labored for a time in Indiana, and then as pastor of the Cussewago church in Western Pennsylvania. Here, after a most fruitful ministry, he died, August 19, 1839, at the age of fifty-five years. He must, therefore, have been but twenty-four years of age when he became pastor at North Adams. A bio- graphical notice in Wright's History of Shaftsbury Association says: "He was an excellent preacher, sound in the faith, wise in council among his brethren." But to him, as to others of the Master's servants, trials evidently came.
It is easy to read between the lines of the rcords and see that even this first pastorate was closed under a cloud. A case of discipline had been for a long time pending. It occupied sev- eral meetings and had called forth from the church a severe "letter of admonition." At the meeting of December 17, 1812, the last at which Elder Witherell's name appears as pastor, we find the following entry :
"First. Chose Elder Witherell moderator.
"Second. Proceeded to business of reading over the charges "to Sister -, in her letter of admonition. "Third. Took up the above charges against Sister -- , "and labored upon the same, and voted satisfied."
In the records following the last sentence there have been inserted, in a different handwriting and with different ink, the following words : "But found Elder Witherell a liar." Then the word "liar" has been scratched over with a pen and the word "teller" written in. The aggressive work of the church appears to have stopped abruptly just there. There is no further entry in the records until January 12, 1814, a period of over two years. The next year the church sent neither mes- sengers nor a letter to the association, and for nearly three years the church was without a pastor. During the eight years
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that followed this unfortunate bitterness the church had two pastors, neither of whom remained a full year ; and during the seven years next following only sixteen persons were baptized. It is very evident that the church was not walking together in brotherly love.
August 2, 1823, eleven years afterward, the church "Voted to take up an error about Elder Witherell, which we find in our records, at our next meeting." At the next meeting, Septem- ber 6, 1823, the church
"Voted: We concieve the accusation contained in the ninth line, thirty-second page, against Elder Witherell, to have been inserted by some designing person and not by authority of the church ; and we believe it to be an error."
Thus reparation, so far as possible, was finally made. But the good elder had long been gone, and was successfully prose- cuting his work elsewhere.
ELIJAH F. WILLEY,
Pastor from December 1, 1815, to April 1, 1817.
The dates for the pastorate of Elder Willey, like those of the. first pastorate, are given from the Manual of 1872, and not from the records. His name nowhere appears in the records of this date. In the minutes of the session of the Shaftsbury Association, held at Sandisfield in June, 1816, Elder Willey is named as pastor at North Adams. In a very brief historical sketch of the church, sent to the association in the annual letter of 1831, we read: "In the fall of 1815 Elder Elijah F. Willey became pastor of the church, and continued his labors as such until the spring of 1817." At the session of the association, 1817, he appears as pastor at Lansingburg, N. Y. He was sub- sequently pastor of churches in Central New York, where he died not many years afterward. That he was a man of recog- nized character and influence is evident from the very promi-
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nent position that he took in the association. He was in the association but four years. Two of those years he was clerk ; one year he preached the opening sermon; for three years he was standing secretary of correspondence; twice wrote the circular letter, and once the corresponding letter of the associa- tion. Of the fruits of his pastorate in North Adams we only know that the minutes of the association report three baptized during the year in which his name appears. One of those bap- tized by him was Francis Wayland, afterward president of Brown University.
HOSEA WHEELER,
Served the Church as a Licentiate from the Fall of 1817 to Summer of 1818.
Hosea Wheeler was born at Dunbarton, N. H., March 8, 1791. His advantages in an interior town were small, but he made such progress in learning that in 1807 he entered Dart- mouth College and attained there very respectable rank as a scholar. He studied theology in an institution then known as the Maine Charity School, and afterward at Bangor Theologi- cal Seminary. He was at that time a Congregationalist, and was studying for the Congregational ministry. He married a daughter of Professor Abijah Wines, of the Bangor Seminary, and had every possible prospect of advancement and great use- fulness. He became convinced that he had not been scripturally baptized. He applied for baptism and membership to the Bap- tist church at Salisbury, N. H., and October 25, 1817, he was baptized by Rev. Otis Robinson. The church at once gave him a license to preach. He very soon received an invitation to preach for the North Adams church. He came, and here, within a month of his baptism, be began his work as a Baptist minister. He was here but a few months when the church at Newburyport called him to become its pastor. He accepted the
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call and on December 9,1818, was there ordained. He remained there until 1822, when he became pastor at Eastport, Maine, where he died January 27, 1823. He wrote and published a treatise in defense of Gospel Baptism. A son of his, born in North Adams, is Rev. Francis B. Wheeler, D. D., for twenty-four years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Poughkeepsie, N. Y. A daughter, born after Mr. Wheeler left North Adams, is the wife of Rev. Samuel Baker, D. D., of Russellville, Ky.
Mr. Wheeler, not being ordained, baptized none into the North Adams church. But if we may judge by that which followed, he must have left a most salutary influence behind him. For two years after he left the church was without a pastor ; but those two years were the most fruitful the church enjoyed during the first thirty years of its history. Wright, (History of Shaftsbury Association, p. 161) says, with refer- ence to the reports for the year 1820:
"The church at North Adams had received in the course of two years about seventy by baptism, which enlarged them more than any previous work of grace that they had enjoyed, raising their number to 125. Although destitute of an under shepherd, the Great Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep was mindful of them in their destitution, and led them into green pastures and made them feed beside the still waters "
Of this revival Elder John Leland says, in his autobiography :
"In March, 1819, work began in the north part of Adams, which progressed several months. The people in that place had no settled minister, but were visited by ministers who lived around them. Of the seventy who united with the church I baptized twenty-seven."
GEORGE ROBINSON, Supply.
The Manual of 1872 names George Robinson as succeeding Mr. Wheeler, and as serving from the fall of 1819 to spring of
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1820. This is manifestly an error. Not only do the records of the church make no mention of him as pastor, but the official minutes of the association show the church to have been with- out a pastor. The association met with the North Adams church in June, 1820. The church is not only reported as having been without a pastor for the year, but is spoken of as having enjoyed a blessed revival with no under shepherd to lead them. Elder Robinson was pastor at Pownal, Vt., and preached the annual sermon before the association. Wright in his history, and Leland in his autobiography, both state that the church had no pastor during those two years. Leland, as we have seen, not only says: "The people had no settled minister during those two revival years," but adds that "they were visited by ministers who lived around them."
Elder Nathaniel Otis, pastor of the Second Canaan church, Elder Ira Hall, pastor of the First Canaan church, and Elder Calvin Keyes, pastor at Conway, baptized at North Adams and gave the hand of fellowship in behalf of the church during this revival. But it does not appear that Elder Robinson baptized any.
Joel Fosket, still living at the age of eighty-four in Essex, Iowa, came to North Adams in 1818, while Wheeler was preaching as a licentiate. He was converted in the revival the following year and baptized June 13, 1819. In a letter, dated June 21, 1880, he says that he distinctly remembers an Elder Robinson, who preached occasionally for the church after Wheeler left, but thinks he was never pastor of the church. The error evidently arose from a misunderstanding of a sentence in the historical sketch in the letter to the association in 1831. That letter says: "This fall (1819) Elder George Robinson came and preached with the church until the next spring." This has been taken to mean that Mr. Robinson was pastor. Inter- preted, however, by the statement of Wright and of Leland,
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that the church during that year and the next had no pastor, and the statement of Leland, that neighboring ministers sup- plied the church, and the fact that Robinson was at this time pastor at Pownal, it can only mean that he preached for the church as temporary supply in addition to the work at his own proper field at Pownal. For these reasons we drop the name of George Robinson from the list of pastors.
SAMUEL SAVORY,
Pastor from January 5, 1821, to February 3, 1826.
Samuel Savory came to North Adams from the church for- merly known as the Hadley Baptist church, afterward known as the Corinth church. He became a member of the North Adams church by letter from the Hadley church on January 5, 1821. For two years previous he had been reported by that church as a licentiate. He came, therefore, as a licensed preacher, but whether upon invitation of the church in order to become pastor does not appear. From the fact that the church renewed and confirmed his license the next month after he was received, and on June 2 voted "To call Samuel Savory to the ministry," it may be inferred that he acted as pastor from the time that he came, and that he came for that purpose. He was ordained as pastor of the church in July, 1821. There is no account of the ordination in the records. The fact of the ordi- nation is, however, subsequently referred to.
His pastorate continued without any incident of special note until February 3, 1826, when a Letter of Dismission was granted to him. The historical sketch before referred to says, "Many things of an unpleasant nature transpired in the time of the last mentioned person. The effects of some of these things are yet in existence." What those things were can only be inferred from the cases of discipline constantly disturbing the
REV. C. B. KEYES.
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peace of the church, by reason of the defection of some of those brought in during the preceding revival.
There is nowhere an intimation that the pastor's labors were not faithful, efficient and acceptable. In such a state of unrest,
however, there could be no great ingathering. There were but seventeen persons baptized during the five years of this pastor- ate. Upon leaving North Adams Mr. Savory became pastor of the Fourth Church of Shaftsbury, Vermont.
CHARLES B. KEYES,
Pastor from July 1, 1827, to April 1, 1834.
In the minutes of the Shaftsbury Association for 1827, Charles B. Keyes appears as a licentiate of the Baptist Church of Bennington, Vt. In the summer of that year he began to serve the church at North Adams as a temporary supply. On the 18th of August, at a special meeting of the church, he was requested to preach for the church one year, the engagement to date back from the first of the preceding July. The invitation was accepted and he continued to preach for the church. On February 28, 1828, he became a member of the church upon a Letter of Dismission from the church at Bennington. On October 3 of the same year he closed his relation as pastor, and asked for a letter of dismission, and on November 7 a com- mittee was appointed to procure a pastor. On November 18 the church requested Mr. Keyes to resume the pastoral relation for one year and to receive ordination. A committee was ap- pointed to confer with him. The committee withdrew and afterward returned and reported at the same meeting that he acceded to the wish of the church. The Letter of Dismission from the church which he had received was returned and he was again received as a member of the church. It was then
"Voted : That we send to the following churches to sit with us in council to examine the Christian experience and qualifications
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of Brother Keyes, and to assist in setting him apart by ordina- tion as a minister of the New Testament, if it shall be thought advisable, viz .: The First and Second Churches in Shaftsbury, the church in Bennington, Vt., the church in Hoosick, N. Y., the church in Savoy, the First and Second Churches in Ches- hire, the church in Williamstown, the Second Church in Adams and the church in Florida, Mass .; and also that we send to Elder B. T. Welch, of Albany, Elder Z. Howard, of Troy, Elder E. D. Hubbell, of Clifton Park, N. Y., and A. Beach, of Pittsfield, Mass."
The council was requested to meet November 27, 1828. Brethren Blackinton, Putnam, Mixer, Cumming, Brown, Browning, Richmond and Whitman were appointed to repre- sent the church in the council. The council met in accordance with the call. In the minutes a full account is given of the proceedings at the ordination, the second ordination of a pastor in the history of the church.
From the organization of the church it had been customary for a layman to preside at all business meetings. Soon after the ordination of Mr. Keyes it was ordered by vote that the pastor serve as Moderator at all meetings when present. From that time to the present the pastor, for the time being, has been deemed Moderator, ex-officio.
On October 30, 1831, Mr. Keyes was granted a Letter of Dismission. He, however, either did not receive the letter or returned it, and continued as pastor without intermission for another year. October 28, 1832, he again asked and was granted a Letter of Dismission. But he still continued his pastorate, and on May 25, 1833, returned this letter to the church.
There is no entry in the records which fixes the exact time at which his pastorate finally closed. There is an entry under date of March 8, 1834, that alludes to him as pastor. An entry on April 12, 1834, names A. H. Palmer as pastor. It is evi-
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dent therefrom that his pastorate closed on or about April 1, 1834. On June 1, 1834, he was dismissed to the church at Lansingburg, N. Y., of which church he had assumed the pas- torate. During the term of his pastorate here he baptized forty persons.
From the fact that Mr. Keyes asked for and received a Let- ter of Dismission four times during a pastorate of six years and seven months most unfavorable impressions might be drawn. In fact, the unsettled and unstable tenure of office of the pastor resulted from the pernicious usage which then obtained of making engagements with the pastor for but one year. If for any reason, the neglect or oversight of the church, or the inten- tional obstruction of even one or two persons, the call was not renewed at the expiration of the year, a conscientious pastor had no alternative but to consider his engagement closed, and his office as pastor vacated. Under such circumstances he could but ask for his formal dismission that he might seek ser- vice elsewhere. The church would thereupon awaken to its neglect or its folly, and renew the call for another year.
It is no wonder that under such a system many churches in New England became disrupted and greatly weakened or actu- ally extinct. A church that sets its pastor up every year to be openly opposed by all who have itching ears, by all whom he has reproved and rebuked for sin, or if he be a peculiarly devout and godly man, by all who may be worldly-minded in the church, cannot possibly for any long time do an aggressive work for the Master. If such a church remains in harmony that results from the dominating of some one or more persons whose wishes have to be recognized as supreme in the church, or it is the harmony that results from spiritual stagnation.
From the time Mr. Keyes assumed the pastorate, July 1, 1827, to the close of his service, April 1, 1834, seventy-three persons united with the church. Thirty-nine of these were
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baptized; twenty-seven united by letter from other churches. The records are imperfect with regard to seven, not showing whether they became members by baptism or from other churches.
While not a large number was baptized during these seven years, it is evident that a vigorous Christian activity was main- tained by the church. The pastor by instruction of the church drew up a series of resolutions in regard to increased consecra- tion and activity in missionary operations, and a monthly mis- sionary concert for prayer was appointed. The church was also led to organize itself into a Bible Society, auxiliary to the American and Foreign Bible Society, liberal contributions were made to the Burmese Mission, especially for printing Judson's translation of the Burmese Bible, and for the Massachusetts Baptist State Convention. Appropriations of money were made from the church treasury for the support of the Sunday school. Strenuous efforts were made to introduce suitable reading into families, and on one occasion after a canvass it was reported to the church that nine different religious periodi- cals were taken. Great care was taken to maintain integrity of character and godliness of life among the members. To this end an elaborate paper with reference to the better administra- tion of discipline was drawn up by a committee, of which Dea- con Blackinton was chairman, and adopted by the church. Thus while the numbers were not greatly enlarged, the church made substantial progress in various lines of Christian life and activity.
THOMAS S. ROGERS, Pastor from April, 1838, to April, 1840.
Mr. Rogers was born in Greenwich, N. Y., March 9, 1810. His early life was upon a farm, with the advantages of a dis- trict school. From the age of nineteen he taught in the public
REV. THOS. S. ROGERS.
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schools for five years. At the age of twenty-one he was con- verted and baptized into the fellowship of the Bottskill Baptist church at Greenwich, N. Y. He at once began to hold reli- gious meetings in private houses and in school houses where he was teaching, and to unfold the scriptures and preach the gos- pel.
The church of which he was a member, knowing of his ac- tivity, unasked, and without his knowledge of the proposed action, voted, and sent to him, a license to preach. He then entered the Bennington Academy, and entered upon a course of study for the Christian ministry. After leaving the Academy, he studied theology two years under the private instruction of pastors; first under Dr. Nathaniel Culver, pastor at Green- wich, and then under Rev. William Arthur, father of President Arthur, and then under Dr. Isaac Wescott, pastor at Stillwater.
In 1837 he was called to the pastorate at Pownal, Vt., and was there ordained. After a few months there he was called to the pastorate of the North Adams church, which he entered upon on April 1, 1838. His ministry in North Adams was for two years. He subsequently served as pastor at West Troy, N. Y., Lansingburg, N. Y., Pawtucket, R. I., Harlem, N. Y., Newtown, Ohio, Schuylerville, N. Y., Elizabeth, N. J., Clifton Park, N. Y., Hoosick, N. Y., and West Greenwich, N. Y. He served as a pastor for fifty years, in six States. And in all those fifty years there was not a week when he was not pastor of a church.
He was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost; and though his pastorates were not lengthy, they were everywhere blessed to the strengthening of the churches and the upbuilding of the kingdom.
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MILES SANFORD, D. D.,
Pastor from July, 1853, to March, 1871.
The following is his letter of acceptance of the pastorate. The spirit that breathes in this letter, manifested in the daily, godly life, and in the devoted self-sacrificing service, was the spirit that gave him the longest pastorate in the history of the church, and the most fruitful ministry :
GLOUCESTER, Mass., April 12, 1853. To the First Baptist Church, North Adams, Mass.
Dear Brethren: Your call voted to me to become your pastor in church meeting July 7, 1853, and communicated to me by Deacon S. Ingalls, your clerk, was received on yesterday.
In answer to the letter of your clerk permit me to say, that I accept the call that you have tendered me and on the conditions named therein. And in thus formally accepting it I can declare of a truth that I do it with much trembling and fear. The assumption in any place and at any time of the heavy responsi- bilities of the Christian pastor is a matter of the greatest moment. The office of an ambassador of Christ requires the exhibition of truths whose acceptance shall make men happy eternally, and whose rejection shall make them miserable for- ever. Hence it involves obligations, and imposes duties, compared with which those of the mere earthly ambassadors are as nothing. It was this view which in its survey took in two worlds and comprehended the bearing the gospel dispensation was to have upon the blessedness or the woe of man forever-it was such a view that led Paul to exclaim, "and who is sufficient for these things?" Ah, who indeed, is worthy of employment in such a work as this? And who has the ability for the dis- charge of its duties? Certain it is, that no unsanctified man possesses either. Indeed, the man of sanctified soul feels that he is shut up to this single and absorbing conclusion-"our sufficiency is of God."
This view which may well cause trembling and fear to the minister of the Gospel has urged itself upon my attention with a power which has taken hold upon my whole soul. To me it is clear, and to you it must be equally so, that my success as
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REV. JOHN ALDEN.
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your pastor, and your success as a church, in carrying forward the interests of the cause of Christ, will depend entirely upon our practical recognition of the sovereignty of God's power in the conversion of men to the truth as it is in Jesus, and in the upbuilding of His people in the belief and practice of this truth. Paul may plant, Apollos may water ; but all will be vain unless God shall give the increase.
Praying and hoping that the relation now formed may be promotive of great good to the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ, and mutually profitable and pleasant to both pastor and people, I remain, .
Your servant in the Gospel, MILES SANFORD.
P. S .- I shall, divine Providence permitting, be at North Adams next week so as to commence my labors on Lord's Day, the 24th inst.
The North Adams church has had fourteen pastors, in the following order: George Witherell, Elisha F. Willey, Hosea Wheeler, George Robinson, Samuel Savory, George B. Keyes, Asa H. Palmer, Lemuel Covel, Thomas S. Rogers, John Alden, Horace T. Love, Miles Sanford, Courtland W. Anable, A. C. Osborn. In the seventy years of its history the church has been but a very small portion of the time without a pastor. Without counting these brief intervals the average time of the fourteen pastorates has been exactly five years. The briefest pastorates were those of Horace Wheeler, one year, and George Robinson, one-half year ; the longest that of Miles Sanford, eighteen years.
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