History of the town of Bellingham, Massachusetts, 1719-1919, Part 6

Author: Partridge, George Fairbanks, 1863-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Bellingham] Pub. by the town
Number of Pages: 296


USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Bellingham > History of the town of Bellingham, Massachusetts, 1719-1919 > Part 6


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one condition, that the new town itself should practically become an "orthodox church."


ANSWER


Ordered that the Prayer of the Petitioners be Granted & That a Township be Erected & Constituted according thereunto & the Platt above: Provided They Procure and Settle a Learned orthodox Minister within the Space of three years now coming.


And That John Darling, John Thompson & John Marsh be Impowered to call a Town Meeting any time in March next to choose Town Officers & manage ye other prudentiall affairs of ye Town. The name of the Town to be called Bellingham.


So the town was formed for the sake of the church, and the main story of the town is the story of the church for over forty years. The first town meeting was held to choose officers, and at the second in 1720 a committee was chosen to build the meeting house.


When it was finished in May, 1722, a committee was chosen to get preaching, and the next year Rev. Thomas Smith, 1702-1795, was asked to settle here. with a salary of sixty pounds and eighty pounds paid as a settlement. He was born in Boston, graduated at Harvard at eighteen years of age, and was licensed to preach at twenty. His diary has been printed and it says: "1723 Jan 6 I preached at Bellingham. Jan 7 The committee of Bellingham was with me to acquaint me of their call. Mar 21 I gave Bellingham an answer." He declined the invitation on account of his youth and inexperience, but continued to preach in different places till he found a chance to start a new church in Portland, Maine, where he was ordained after four years' preaching


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in 1727. He was the pastor there for sixty years, taking his turn in preaching with an assistant during the last twenty of them, and his church grew into three or four others.


The Bellingham men kept on trying to get a preacher and in 1724 it was voted that "Oliver Hayward have Eleven Pounds and 17 shillings for keeping Ministers and their horses." In 1725 Mr. Robert Sturgeon supplied the pulpit, and he agreed to settle here, but was later willingly released. He is both the author and the subject of a quaint pamphlet published in 1725: "A Trespass Offering humbly presented unto the churches of New England by Robert Sturgeon." "With a true sense of my sins I now acknowledge them . . . I bewail my disorders, for which a council of churches has rebuked me: receiving a private and very irregular ordination, and joining a party in Watertown who cast contempt on the General Court, and I helped publish a pamphlet slandering the churches and Dr. Mather, and this party sent a remon- strance to the King." "Boston Apr 17 1725. A council called this day considers that he has offered such satis- faction as may be required. Cotton Mather, Moderator."


The town of Watertown grew very fast in the earliest years of the colony, and soon had two churches. A committee of the General Court advised the town to move both the meeting houses farther apart within a definite time to accommodate the enlarging settlement better, and the town voted to do it. Most of those who supported the second church there objected to the removal of their building, which had stood there for twenty-five years, and in January, 1722, sixty-three citizens agreed to pay Mr. Sturgeon eighty-four pounds a year to preach to them there. They were warned by the Selectmen against him, a stranger from Ireland who had come to


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town only a month before from Woburn. They per- sisted in defying the Selectmen, the vote of the town and the committee of the General Court, till Mr. Sturgeon was fined in court for preaching as a "pastor of a pre- tended church and disturbing this and other towns." After this interesting experience Bellingham voted his installation here for October, 1725, but in March the town agreed with the church in dismissing him, with pay for his firewood, which they had promised, and twenty-six shillings to Oliver Hayward for boarding him.


In November, 1726, Rev. Jonathan Mills, 1703-1773, was called and he accepted. He was born in Braintree, graduated at Harvard at twenty years of age, and preached here for twelve years, the only settled Congregational minister the town ever had. The salary offered him was seventy-five pounds and four voluntary contribu- tions a year, besides a first settlement of eighty pounds, with a salary increase of ten pounds when ten more families came, and twenty pounds for twenty new families.


The next year Dr. Corbet in his will left the church five pounds to buy vessels for the Lord's Supper, and the year after that the town voted that Mr. Mills shall have the west pew for his family's use, and that he may cut a place for a casement in said pew. So after seven years' efforts the town seemed happy with its settled minister, but the satisfaction did not last long.


Forty-eight families were taxed in 1726 when he came, but that was the whole strength of the town. January 24, 1727, Jacob Bartlett, David Cook, Josiah Cook and Joseph Scott in jail in Boston petitioned the General Court for release "because their consciences do not allow them to pay the town tax for the support of the minister." They were released to appear in court the next May, but no further record of the case can be found.


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In 1728 a law was passed that Anabaptists and Quakers should not be taxed to support the town churches, provided they attend their own church and live within five miles of it. In 1734 five men were named in the town records under this law: "Quakers exempt from ministerial taxes and meeting houses and their names is as follows." Many other such lists are given. The minister's salary was hard to raise, and the town peti- tioned the General Court for help towards it. But in 1732 they voted not to pay Mr. Mills' back salary. The next year it was voted to give Mr. Mills "the money due the town from the man that was cared to prison by Francis Inman, if he can get it." This generous offer was followed a week later by a different vote, to ask the General Court to pay Mr. Mills what is due him. In 1734 the town refused to add five pounds to his salary of seventy-five pounds. Even if there were ten new families in town, which is probable, it appears that only twenty- eight families actually paid towards his support this year, and the Quakers and Baptists happened to be just the ones who generally had the largest estates. There must have been much hard feeling now, for a committee of three was chosen "to regulate the disturbances in the town among us."


In 1735 it was voted that he should have eighty pounds, but when this dispute was ended, it was followed by another one as bad, over ruling elders. These officers are mentioned in the Bible as chosen by a local church to have authority over it, and they are the characteristic feature of the Presbyterian Church to this day. They have no duties that cannot be performed by the minister, deacons or united members of the church as well, and their authority sometimes became a source of dispute and trouble. The churches here never all agreed to choose


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them, and the office was called obsolete even in 1680. Still the nearest Congregational Church to this one, at West Medway, chose elders from 1753 to 1768. Mr. Mills opposed them as not required by Scripture and as an interference with his authority. His church chose them against his will and called a council of churches to confirm their action, while he and his friends called another, to meet on the same day. After several unsuc- cessful attempts to unite the two councils, they made separate reports, one in favor of Mr. Mills, the other that the church rescind its action and try to persuade him to join them in choosing elders, but if he again refused to disregard him again. Thus no agreement came, each party was confirmed in its position, and in 1738 the town and church united in calling a council to dismiss Mr. Mills. This council gave the advice which was desired, but it was very small. He denied its authority over him and continued to preach. The town chose a committee to get another minister, and "to prevent any disorders in the meeting house on the Sabbath Day." Four men protested against this vote, and declared that only seven men voted for it. He then preached in his own house. Finally the majority of the church voted him out of their membership, and he moved away to Boston.


In 1739 Mr. Mills sold his homestead with fifty acres reserved for the first town minister for six hundred and seventy-five pounds, no small sum for that time; and the same property was sold for seven hundred pounds the next year.


In 1738 John Metcalf, the first of that family at Caryville, brought this letter from the Dedham church: "To the Chh of Christ in Bellingham the first Chh of Ct in Dedham wisheth Grace Mercy and Peace from God


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the Father, & from our Lord Jesus Christ - Brethren - The Glorious God who Appointeth ye Bounds of all our Habitations, having disposed of our Beloved Brother John Metcalf Jr among yourselves - We do upon His Desire, & pursuant to our Ecclesiastical Con- stitution, & the Laudable Custom of these Chhs, in order to His Incorporating with yourselves, recommend him to your holy Fellowship Care & Watch, as One who was received into full Communion with Us, & according to a judgement of Charity behaved as became ye Gospel while with Us, praying you to Receive Him in ye Ld as becometh Saints.


We Commend our Dear Brother to God, & the Word of his Grace, who is able to build Him up, & to give Him an Inheritance among them that are Sanctified . We Commend our Sister Ch in Bellingham to ye Pastoral Care & Conduct of the Great Shepheard & Bishop of Souls, who leadeth Joseph as a Flock . . . and so Asking a Remembrance in your prayers We Subscribe


Your Brethren in ye Faith and Fellowship of ye Gospell.


Saml Dexter Pastor In ye Name & with the Con- currence of ye Fraternity Dedham Sep 11 1738."


Two years before Mr. Mills was sent away, some of the leading men of Bellingham had joined another church thirty miles away. The Baptist Church of Swansea has these records: "This is to certfie that the following persons were baptized upon profession of their faith, viz William Hayward Nicholas Cook John Thomp- son Eleazer Hayward Samuell Hayward Ebenezer Hay- ward Joseph Partridge, all inhabitants of Bellingbam. The last of these persons was baptized Septm 21 1736 and all the others some time before, and have had the advice of the old church in Swansea, to assemble together on


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the Lord's Day and do come Down to Swansey as often as they can attend it to communicate with the church, and as often as they can procure a minister to preach to them, they are careful to do it. Attested by me Samuel Maxwell Minister Jonathan Kingsley Deacon Swansea Jan 13 1736-7."


"Oct 6 1737 Att a church meeting of the old church in Swansey the Desire of the Brethren Dwelling in Bell- ingham to form themselves into a Church State was communicated to the Church by their Elder which motion of theirs was approved of: Witness my hand Samuel Maxwell."


When this "Desire of the Brethren Dwelling in Bellingham" was realized a month later, there was no hope left for the town church. In 1739 a Mr. Hunt was offered a salary of one hundred pounds, but he declined it. Occasional preaching was obtained, but no minister was settled. "June 24 1743 We the ante- pedoBaptist Church in Bellingham upon the Desier of the pedobaptist Church in the same Town concerning your settelling a minister you say you are not able to maintain a minister yourselves without wee will Come in and Joine with you. Wee are willing to joine with you so far that is by subscription." On Mr. Mills' complaint, in 1743, the town was fined for this neglect. For three or four years beginning in 1739 the town voted repeatedly on the question of moving the meeting house to the north side of Charles River, probably to secure its use by the Baptists, but without effect.


Both the church and its building grew feeble together. "1747 Put to vote whether Walsingham Chilson be employed in mending the Glass windows of the meeting house naling Bords over the glass as much as he shall think is needful. Passed." Finally in 1747 the town


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petitioned the General Court to be freed from the duties of a religious parish "on account of the great & uncom- mon difficulties attending their religious affairs & espe- cially the support of the ministry by reason of the many Sectaries among them and small number & poverty of the remainder." The northeast part of the town was included in the West Parish of Medway, incorporated the next year, and this petition was now granted. All support of worship in Bellingham since this time has been voluntary.


The inhabitants of Bellingham who petitioned the General Court in January, 1747, to be set off to other precincts in ecclesiastical affairs were these:


To Mendon I Precinct Thomas Baxter Samuel Darling Seth Hall John Holbrook Peter Holbrook Caleb Phillips Ebenezer Thomson John Thomson


To Mendon II Precinct John Corbet Benjamin Partridge Ebenezer Thayer


To Medway, West Parish Obadiah Adams jr Enoch Hill Joseph Holbrook jr John Metcalf Daniel Penniman Robert Smith


To Wrentham, West Precinct (Franklin)


Joseph Blood Joseph Chilson Walsingham Chilson Elizabeth Hayward, widdow Asahel Holbrook Joseph Holbrook John Jones Caleb Phillips jr Cornelias Thayer Isaac Thayer


"Mar 2 1747 In Council. Ordered that these persons be annexed as desired."


The petition for the new West Parish in Medway was in part as follows:


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"Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England.


"To His Excellency William Shirley Esq Captain General and Governor &c The Hon. Council and House of Representatives in General Court Assembled at Boston Feb 28 1747-8.


"The Petition of the Subscribers a Committee in behalf of themselves & the others whose Names are afterwritten to the Number of Forty nine all inhabitants of the Adjoining Towns of Medway Holliston Bellingham & the westerly precinct of Wrentham.


"Humbly Showeth That Your Petitioners have for a long time conflicted with great hardships and difficulties in attending on the Public Worship of God by reason of the extraordinary Distances our habitations are from the meeting houses in our respective Towns and precinct: That it is almost impossible for us with our large Families that we are able by the Blessing of heaven to settle and support the Gospel among ourselves; . . . That we have applied to the Towns and precinct to which we respec- tively belong to be made a Distinct Precinct by Ourselves unsuccessfully except in Bellingham, That Town having petitioned the General Court that the Inhabitants might be annexed to the Towns they severally congregate with, and an Act was passed for this purpose; That the Inhabitants of the West precinct of Wrentham are an able people . . . of about 100 families, and we ask for only 9; That the Inhabitants of Holliston are about 90 families; That the Inhabitants of Medway are good livers and more families than any of the other towns have. The Bounds to contain 49 families; in Medway 31, in Bellingham 10, in Wrentham 9, in Holliston 9. The center of which is 5 miles from any meeting, and very few families above 2 miles from ours proposed."


Signed by a committee of four and forty-five others.


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A few months later Samuel Darling, Caleb Phillips, Jr., and John Corbet with Benjamin Partridge and Hugh Boyd petitioned the General Court that the new precinct should not be granted, hoping for a minister of their own. "We are in hope that in time we shall be able to settle and support a minister in our said Town by reason yt we have Considerable of Land which is not Improved which is likely to be settled in a little time by our Children or others Coming and settling among us." But in view of the town church's hard struggle for life for nearly thirty years, the cheerful confidence of these men was not shared by the General Court; the new West Parish of Medway was incorporated, and the town of Bellingham was no longer obliged to support a church of its own.


The West Parish Church was actually organized in 1750 with thirty-four male members, and our town has had a share in its history ever since. Its first pastor came in 1752, Rev. David Thurston, a graduate of Princeton College, who remained nearly seventeen years. On account of poor health and some disagreement in regard to revivals he then resigned and bought a farm. Seventy-nine persons joined the church in his time. His successor was Rev. David Sanford, a graduate of Yale. After beginning to study theology he gave it up and settled down as a farmer, but as a result of a quarrel with his brother-in-law, a minister who showed a truly Christian spirit under Mr. Sanford's aggravations, he began his studies again and became a preacher. He served the West Parish from 1773 to 1807. When some of the church members disliked certain of his theological views and began to neglect church attendance, they received a vote of censure, and then asked to have the censure removed in order to request letters of dismissal to another


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church. When this was refused, they applied to the First Church of Medway, now at Millis, for admission there, and were accepted. For this unfriendly act the Second Church refused fellowship with the First, and they remained estranged for thirty-two years. After the death of the persons concerned, Mr. Sanford saw the division healed. He was an army chaplain in the Revolutionary War, a leader in public affairs in the exciting years that followed it, a man of fine appearance with sharp eyes and a strong, clear voice and eminent as a preacher.


The third and most notable pastor was Jacob Ide, of Brown University. He was ordained here when the present church was built, in 1814, a young man in delicate health, but filled his position for fifty-one years. He had eight sons and three daughters, and lived to be ninety-five years old. His ninetieth birthday celebration in 1875 was a memorable occasion. Great simplicity of character and sound common sense were his character- istics. He was a leader in his profession, and trained forty-three young ministers in his own house. He edited the "Christian Magazine," and published the life and works of his father-in-law, Nathaniel Emmons of Frank- lin, the most eminent theologian of New England in his day.


Dr. Emmons was born in Haddam, Conn., the last of twelve children. He graduated at Yale, and was ordained at Franklin, in 1773, where he preached for fifty-four years, till he was eighty-two years old. After a sudden sickness he at once resigned his office, and though he seemed to recover all his strength, he refused to take up his work again, saying that he meant to retire while he had sense enough to do it. He lived to the age of ninety-six. He was an early leader in anti-slavery and


WEST PARISH CHURCH, BUILT IN 1814


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temperance reform, and advocated foreign missions ten years before they were begun. He founded the Massachusetts Home Missionary Society, and was its president for twelve years. He published seven volumes of sermons, and trained eighty-six ministers. When he made a parish call, which happened in every house about once a year, it was no small event, and all the family were summoned to hear him. Both he and Dr. Ide had an influence and an authority in all this region that can hardly be realized today, in our divided town as well as its neighbors.


Since Dr. Ide the pastors have been:


1865-1872 Stephen Knowlton


1886-1889 Augustus H. Fuller


1873-1875 S. W. Segur


1889-1894 William Carr


- 1876-1885 J. M. Bell


1894-1898 John F. Crosby


1899-1901 George E. Sweet


1902-1914


George R. Hewitt


1914- Henry F. Burdon


The church of the West Parish was the Second Church of Medway. The Third Congregational Church, composed of disaffected members of the Second, was organized as a result of disagreement on the discipline of C. H. Deans, a lawyer, in 1886. It held its meetings in the old Parish House, now the building of the Medway Historical Society, till 1891, when the two churches united again.


The town church of Bellingham continued a feeble life without support by law till 1756, when it disbanded. Even after that sermons were preached occasionally in the old building till 1774, when it was sold at auction. One of the last preachers was Rev. Solomon Prentice, who was the first settled minister at Grafton in 1731. He invited the great preacher, Whitefield, to his pulpit, and after some disagreement, he left that church in 1747.


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In 1764 a petition of the inhabitants of Bellingham, ignoring the Baptist Church there, stated that they had had no minister for twenty years, when some families had been set off to the West Parish, leaving about forty fam- ilies destitute, who were unable to support a minister; and prayed that these families now be restored. The clerk of the West Parish was ordered served with a notice to reply to this petition at the next session of the court. The Parish chose a committee to make their reply, of whom Stephen Metcalf was one, and it was successful, for the petition was refused.


The following letter describes the end of the town church in Bellingham; an attempted revival of it from 1824 to 1826 will be related later in Chapter VIII.


"To Mr Caleb Phillips for the Church of Christ in Bellingham, met Dec 10 1755. Beloved Brethren it is with Grief that I am necessarily absent from you but hereby send my mind viz. That I don't think it proper to dissolve until we have disposed of the church utensils and I think it would be proper to divide them, (there now remaining but 8 male members) at least into two equal parts if not into four, and deliver my part to Brother John Holbrook and all the rest as you may agree.


"As soon as that is done I should think proper by vote to dismiss & recommend each to the neighboring churches they desire in the usual manner, and me to the ch. in the Precinct in which I live, called the 2nd Precinct in Medway.


Your unworthy brother,


JOHN METCALF MODERATOR."


The utensils were divided January 6, 1756.


CHAPTER VII TOWN AFFAIRS 1719-1747


THE oldest record book of the town belonged to the proprietors of the land itself, and it extends from 1714 to 1813. The clerks who kept it were Thomas Sanford for eleven years, John Marsh, three, Joseph Holbrook, twenty-two, Joseph Chilson, twenty-eight, to 1750, and others. In 1812 it was voted to sell the remaining com- mon land and divide the proceeds.


The first of the eight volumes of records of the town's business begins with eighteen pages of such entries as these: "1724 The marks natural and artificial of a mare colt of James Smith coming three years old of a redish Roan Coller with a white face and four white feet Branded thus B-I." "1733 Taken up in Bellingham Damage feasant (doing) and strayed by Jonathan Thayer a lite bay hors Branded with figure 9 with two white feet behinde a Belt and Bell about his necke." "1742 Joseph Chilson Ear- mark for His Criters is 'a ( out of the top of the left ear.'"


Besides the lists of officers chosen, the records of meetings contain these votes most frequently: Settling with the town treasurer, debtors and creditors. To choose committees "to reckon with the treasurer." To instruct the assessors. "They may have 10s for making rats" (rates or taxes). To "sink" certain men's taxes. "Swine to go at large this year." Laying out roads. Perambulating the town's boundary lines. Warning people out of town who were liable to become paupers.


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Notices of newcomers "in comfortable state of wealth." Anabaptists exempt from the tax for the minister. "For going after ministers."


The first town meeting was held March 2, 1720 at the house of "Ensign John Thompson." Pelatiah Smith was moderator, and was chosen town clerk, and John Holbrook treasurer. The first selectmen were "Lt. John Darlin, " Pelatiah Smith, John Thompson, Nathaniel Jillson and John Corbett. They chose also constables, surveyors, tithing men, fence viewers and field drivers for the cattle. It was voted to choose officers annually on the first Wednesday in March, and a committee was chosen to consider a place for the meeting house. At another meeting in the same month a committee to build the house was chosen, and a narrow ax man was to have two shillings, six pence and a broad ax man, three shillings a day. There were five meetings this first year.


Next year the town voted to build two pounds for stray cattle, to cost forty shillings each. A meeting was held the same year to choose a "Deputy" (for the General Court) "but not judging ourselves qualified, desired to be excused." This vote was repeated for many years. The town sometimes paid the smallest state tax in the county.


1721 "It passed by a voat that ye Meeting House should be larthed and plastered with white lime there should be an alley of four feet wide through the body and between the ends of the Seats and the outside." This house, near the corner of Blackstone and South Main Streets, stood till 1774. It was the center and the dividing point of the town, for one constable notified all inhabitants south of the meeting house of the town meetings, and another those who lived north of it. 1723 Voted to give the minister a day's work a man to get his firewood. 1726 "Voted that John Holbrook be Impowered to take




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