USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Canton > History of the town of Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts > Part 16
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STOUGHTON, Sept. 25, 1738.
GENTLEMEN AND NEIGHBORS, - If you would be at ye pains to look back to my original contract with this town, when I accepted ye call you had given me to ye Pastoral office among you, you will find such an engagement as this to me, viz .: "That if God should increase me in a family, and this, - i. e., the hundred pounds you had granted me for my yearly salary, - I say if this should prove too little and nar- row, you will make such additions as shall support me comfortably." What you allow me from year to year is not sufficient for this end by reason of the low currency and little value of our money. It has for several years fallen short, as I have signified to many of you months, and I suppose I may with truth say, years ago. Therefore I signify this incompetency of what you vote and allow me yearly, for my family maintenance, to you all, now legally met together, that when you vote me my salary, you may do what is just, and according to our original covenant. Moreover, I would inform you that the meadow you allow me from year to year in lieu of hay and corn, or land fit for the pro- duction of them, is not sufficient to answer for them, according to the allowance you long since granted me.
Your loving and faithful pastor,
SAMUEL DUNBAR.
In order that the town may be satisfied, Mr. Dunbar ap- pends an account of his expenses for the maintenance of his family for the past year : ---
A true account of my expenses for the maintenance of my family from October 9th last past till this time.
To Mr. Baker for Shoes . . . £6- 7- 0
To Lieut. Will'm Billings, to Sundries 1-18- 0 To Mrs. Clap, to Sundries 1-18- 0
To Sam'l Cummins, to Sundries 0- 4- 0
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HISTORY OF CANTON.
To Mrs. Daniel, for her Powder £0-10- 0
To Mr. Dwelle for Sundries . . 0-18- 0
To Indians for Cranberries 0- 4- 6
To Mr. James Foster for Gravesstons 0-16- 0
To Mrs. Goodwin 0-10-0
To Mrs. Liscom for Butter I- 5- 0
To Elea'r May, Jun'r., to mending Shoes O
- 6 - 6
To Mr. Tilden, to mending Shoes 0- 6-0
To Mrs. Jones for Spinning . 0-8-0
To Jemima Pope, to cutting out a garment 0- 3- 0
To Dr. Thompson for medicines
0- 5- 0
To Mrs. Stebbins, for Washing and Spinning I- 7- 9
To Mary Stowe for washing, etc. .
1-8- 0
To Benj. Smith for Pidgeons 0- 8-6
To Mr. Savel for Tayloring . 4- 0-0 To Mr. Shubal Wintworth for Smithing
4- 3-6
To Mr. Endicott for Sundries 6-0-7
To John White for Partridges 0- 3-0
To Mr. Simpson for Sundries 22-10- 6 To Sundries from Boston & Dorchester. 68-11-1
To Roasting Pigs 0-10-0
To Beef .
6-15-0
To Tallow I-10- 0
To Pork . 24- 7-6 To 5 Barrels of Cyder . 3-15-0
To Rye, 8 Bushels, 12/2 p. Bush. . 4-16- 6
To Indian Corn, 35 Bush., 872 p. Bush. 14-0- 0
To Potatoes, 4 Bush., 872 p. Bush. I-12- 0
To Cloth for myself 10-12- 6
To Clothing for my Servants 4-15-0
To Thread . I- 5-0
£198- 8-11
S. DUNBAR.
The town, at the meeting on March 5, 1738-39, voted that the town shall make as good to the Rev. Samuel Dunbar his £100 as it was twelve years ago; namely, that it shall purchase as much of the necessaries of life as it would then; and that this shall not only be so in the future, but shall be retroactive for the two years last past, and a committee was chosen to decide what was a just and equitable reimburse- ment. The report of the committee is as follows : -
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SECOND MINISTER.
We, ye Subscribers, being a Committee chosen by ye Town to in- quire into ye Differance between ye prices of ye necessaries of Life Twelve years agoe & ye three Last years, Report as followeth. We finde that ye necessaries of Life have Risen so much betwixt ye years 1727 & 1738, that that which one hundered pounds would purches in 1727 would take in ye year 1738 one hundred eighty-nine pounds, fourteen shillings, & eleven pence ; and that in ye year 1739 it would take one hundred eighty-four pounds & thirteen shillings, and so Likewise in ye year 1740. Dated at Stoughton, May ye 17th, 1740. All which is humbly submitted by
WILLIAM CRANE, WILLIAM BILLINGS, - Committee.
RICHARD HIXSON,
The deacons, as well as the pastor, were sometimes sub- ject to annoyance. Deacon Stearns in 1739 was not pleased with an observation which fell from the lips of John Upham. The latter told the former that he was "an old, one-eyed hypocrite and a lying old sinner." But being brought before the church, he asked the forgiveness of the deacon and the church. Deacon Stearns's house was situated in what is now Stoughton, on the west side of a cross-road that leads from French and Ward's factory toward Dry Pond. On the top of a hill, commanding a fine prospect, is still to be seen the cellar-hole of a house which he erected as early as 1716, - one of the earliest in modern Stoughton. He died April 5, 1741.
On April 1I, 1739, at a church meeting, the following query was propounded, "Whether married persons, who cannot live together peaceably, but are always in broils and conten- tions, may not, by consent, live separately, and be no whit concerned with one another?" It passed unanimously that it was not agreeable to the laws of Christ in the gospel, Matt. xix. 9.
Mr. Dunbar sums up the year 1744 in these words : -
" Through the patience and goodness of God, I have finished the seventeenth year of my ministry. It has been a year of very uncom- mon trial to me, but I desire with all thankfulness and humility to set up my Ebenezer, for hitherto the Lord has helped me."
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HISTORY OF CANTON.
In 1746 "there was a terrible fever and mortality among us."
Mr. Dunbar received three letters inviting him to accept the office of chaplain in the army at Louisburg. One was from the Committee of War, one from "the Honorable Secretary," and the third from Brother Taylor, of Milton, rep- resenting the Ministerial Association, of which Mr. Dunbar was a most distinguished member. Mr. Dunbar was willing and anxious to go, and laid the letters before the church, and asked that the church would grant him leave of absence for a while, to go into the service of his country; but only one hand was raised in the affirmative, and the pastor ex- pressed the hope that if it was their desire that he should remain, the Lord would reward them by graciously giving success to his ministry among them.
Nov. 14, 1747, twenty years had rolled away since Mr. Dunbar began his ministry in the Stoughton First Precinct; and he tells us that during all these years he was never un- able to perform his duties on account of ill health or any other cause. He exclaims, "I desire, with Samuel of old, to set up my Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto the Lord has helped me."
On Feb. 5, 1749, Mr. Dunbar preached a sermon on "The Melancholy Occasion of the Premature Deaths of Several Young Persons." From it we learn that a child of Mr. James Andrews and one of Mr. Samuel May were suddenly choked to death within the year; that four persons, Elisha Tailor, Abigail Liscom, Mary Haughton, and Mary Clapp were re- moved by a terrible fever within a month.
We find the following record this year. The initial letters of the name are only given. A knowledge of the dead lan- guages was then confined to a select minority ; and the confes- sion is in such a tongue that it was undoubtedly unintelligible to any in the church except the pastor: "L. P. Coram eccle- siâ, propter vini excessum, sponte suâ confessionem habuit pænitentialem."
On the 28th of May, 1760, Mr. Dunbar preached the an- nual election sermon, "The presence of God with his people, their only safety and happiness."
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SECOND MINISTER.
On Feb. 18, 1762, Theodore May, a little lad, offered him- self as a communicant to the church.
The same year Isaiah Tolman left Mr. Dunbar's church and joined the Episcopal Church in the town, called Trinity Church.
In 1769 Elijah Dunbar and Lieut. Benjamin Gill were chosen deacons of the church. Rev. Mr. Dunbar preached the Con- vention sermon this year at Boston.
It is related of Mr. Dunbar that on Feb. II, 1769, he was called to attend the funeral of one who had not been an attendant at church, but who was called in those days "a scoffer." Mr. Dunbar stood at the head of the coffin, and with characteristic frankness remarked to the surviving rela- tives of the deceased "that his body was before them, but his soul was in hell." We may well credit this story when we read the following selection from Mr. Dunbar's sermon on " the Premature Deaths of Several Young Persons :" -
"And will you, can you, dare you, delay any longer in settling about the one Thing needful, -the Care and Salvation of your Souls? Tho' you are in your youthful Days, yet are you not old in Sin? May it not be said truly of many of you, The Sin of the Young Men and Women is very great before the Lord? Are you not ripe for the Scythe of divine Justice to cut you down? And may not the Day of God's Patience, for aught you know, be just at an End with you? And because you have been often called upon, both by the Voice of God's Word and the Voice of his Providence, and have been often reproved, and all to no good Purpose, may not a holy God be pro- voked to destroy you suddenly and without Remedy? Oh, it is to be fear'd that your Judgment now of a long Time slumbereth not ! Where- fore, Oh, ye young People, who are now in a Christless Estate, and condemned already, because you believe not, and liable every Day, every Hour, every Moment, to be cut off by the Stroke of Death, and be sent down to the tremendous, intolerable, and endless Miseries and Torments of the Damned, make haste, escape for your Lives, Linger not ! Should you neglect to improve the present Time to prepare for Death, you may never be favoured with another Opportunity ; you may be taken away with a sudden Stroke. And the same Blow that sends your Bodies to the Grave, may send your Souls to Hell. Oh, therefore, my dear young People, be wise for yourselves, be wise for Eternity ! Beg of God to bestow this Wisdom upon you."
I86
HISTORY OF CANTON.
Mr. Dunbar was a temperate man, and wonderfully so, con- sidering the customs of the time in which he lived. Although he took a little wine for the stomach's sake, he was fond of preaching against "that cursed rum bottle." It was a favor- ite expression of his, and well known to all his parishioners. One day a neighbor of his was going to Boston, and Mr. Dun- bar intrusted him with an empty jug, with instructions as to the "particular vanity" with which it was to be filled. The neighbor did not return until it was dark, and the parson appeared at the front door with the candle in his hand, in order to expedite the unloading of the jug. No progress being made, the parson became impatient, and exclaimed, " What are you looking for?" . There was silence for an in- stant; then the reply rang out sharp and clear on the night air, "That cussed rum bottle!"
The church, during the latter years of Mr. Dunbar's minis- try, received several gifts. Mr. Ebenezer Maudsley (Mosely), who died in 1739, gave by his will £20 to the church. The aged Widow Tolman gave £5 in old tenor bills to purchase vessels for the table. Deacon Benjamin Blackman, a little be- fore his death, presented to the church two handsome pewter tankards; and on May 30, 1765, John Wentworth gave £50, old tenor, equal to £6 13s. 4d., lawful money, for the use of the church. John Boylston, a young blacksmith who died Sept. 8, 1775, by his will gave a legacy to the church. The year following, a committee, appointed for the purpose, re- ported that the Widow Anna (Payson) Boylston, whom he had married Jan. 6, 1774, "ought to receive £8 12s., and that Brother Nathaniel Fisher, executor of the will of her deceased husband, remit the same to her; and that this church expects that the executor will execute the will of John Boylston faith- fully according to the tenor of it, and hereby enjoin upon him so to do, as he will be answerable to this church." It was voted that the land given by Boylston be let out, and Dea- cons Dunbar and Gill ordered to take care of the rent for the benefit of the church. This land was called the church land; it consisted of six and one half acres on Chapman Street.
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SECOND MINISTER.
In the Canton Cemetery stands a portion of a stone with these letters : "d Sep * * the 32ª year of his age." From the footstone marked "I. B.," its nearness to the grave of the infant son of John Boylston, who died about a month after his father, and from the fact that gravestones were provided and paid for by the executor, we judge it to be the grave- stone of John Boylston.
During the latter years of Mr. Dunbar's ministry his record is mostly taken up with an account of the various ecclesiasti- cal councils in which he participated; and the events of the home parish are not recorded as fully as in his earlier years. But the genealogist who desires to find the birth, baptism, marriage, or death of any person connected with the church while he was its pastor will have reason to bless him, for he was a model recorder; and were all pastors as faithful in this respect as he, the history of our towns and families, and so of our State and country, would be more easily ascertained and perpetuated.
Thus we come to the close of Mr. Dunbar's long ministry. From his sermons, his records, and from the traditions that have been handed down to us from his time, we are able to form an estimate of his life and character. Possessing the same bold, enterprising spirit which was the distinguishing characteristic of the men under whose care he had been edu- cated, and accustomed from his youth to contend with diffi- culties and hardships, he was well fitted for the trying epoch in which he was called to act. The people over whom he was invited to settle were not remarkable at this time for courtesy or urbanity. Estrangements existed among fami- lies, disagreements among neighbors; and the church itself had lately been distracted by intestine feuds. This state of affairs had culminated in the ejectment of the former pastor, who, being a man of mild disposition, had neither the will to command nor the strength to maintain his pastoral authority. Consequently, discipline had been neglected, church rules disobeyed, and a spirit of insubordination and defiance pre- vailed. To restore peace, to bring into harmony discordant natures, to heal the wounds of the past, and to curb the spirit
188
HISTORY OF CANTON.
of the unruly and rebellious, was the earnest endeavor which the second minister of this parish had continually to bear in mind. But it was a difficult task. It required a man of no ordinary prudence, fortitude, and perseverance. For the work Mr. Dunbar was eminently qualified. "The fear of man which bringeth a snare," was no part of his character. The existing disorders he resolved to correct; and in spite of slander and falsehood he persevered with undeviating firmness in the rigid system he had adopted, nor could cal- umny or opposition divert him from the path of duty. Mr. Dunbar was not only a true representative of the early New England divine; he was more, - he was a leader; and upon his office the strongly marked individuality of his character was stamped.
He was a fine scholar, possessing a critical knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. A ready composer and rapid thinker, he invented a stenography of his own, which les- sened the manual labor of the pen. His sermons were in the fashion of the day,- polemical, bristling with texts from the Scriptures, and ornamented with quotations from the original text, which were none the less effective because his simple parishioners could not comprehend them. He was a man of robust health; and he boasts that for more than half a century he was not absent from his pulpit on account of sickness. He took a deep interest in municipal and provin- cial, as well as ecclesiastical matters, and had large influence by reason of his education, intelligence, and force of charac- ter. Nor could the narrow limits of his own town contain his reputation. His usefulness and influence were acknowl- edged far beyond the bounds of his own parish. His bold and persuasive eloquence obtained for him a high rank among his contemporaries; and his printed sermons on special occasions, still extant, are replete with vigor and sound learning.
One of his sermons bears the number 8,059. The Rev. George F. Piper, in a discourse preached at the meeting-house in Canton in 1867, upon the one hundred and fiftieth anni- versary of the organization of the church, thus speaks of this sermon : -
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SECOND MINISTER.
" It is numbered 8,059, and as it was written in the forty-ninth year of his ministry, he must have composed, on an average, no less than one hundred and sixty-four sermons a year, or a little more than three a week. He must have gone into the pulpit twice every Sunday, every Lecture Day, on every Thanksgiving, on every Fast, and not infre- quently on funeral occasions, during all these years, with a freshly written sermon.
" If there is no mistake in the number, the second minister of this parish may be said, almost without hesitation, to have written more sermons than any other man that ever lived. Five thousand sermons, or one hundred a year for half a century, has sometimes been men- tioned as a prodigious number ; but in the case before us we have eight thousand and fifty-nine, and are to remember that their author continued to preach, and probably to write, for seven years more. There is reason to question whether the transcriber did not mistake the number."
For my own part, I do not believe there was any error in the count. We must remember that Priest Dunbar was a pupil of Cotton Mather, and that Cotton Mather considered his father, Increase Mather, " a princely preacher." Of him it is related that in addition to preaching twice on Sunday, and holding his ordinary lecture every Thursday, he preached thrice a week beside, - on Wednesday and Thursday, early in the morning, and on Saturday afternoon. He also held a daily lecture in his house; and occasions frequently occurred when he would spend six hours "in the word and in prayer." On his voyage to this country, in company with three other clergymen, they generally had three sermons a day. In Cot- ton Mather's diary it is recorded that in one year he preached seventy-two sermons, kept sixty fasts and twenty vigils, and wrote fourteen books; his publications in all amounted to three hundred and eighty-two, some of them of huge dimen- sions. Samuel Hidden, of Tamworth, N. H., preached two hundred and sixty sermons each year for forty-five years, and one thousand funeral sermons, making twelve thousand seven hundred in all.
But the writing of sermons was not the only duty of the minister of those days. There were parochial duties depend-
190
HISTORY OF CANTON.
ent on him: families must be visited; the sick must be called upon ; confession must be made, and a time set apart for spe- cial intercession, meditation, and prayer. Again, if any diffi- culty arose in a neighboring parish, Mr. Dunbar's counsel was immediately sought; and it is affirmed that he was usually successful in promoting reconciliations. He sat as a member of fifty-three ecclesiastical councils, in most of which he took an active and distinguished part. A prodigious amount of labor, truly, the early divines of this country performed. During Mr. Dunbar's long ministry he baptized 1,703, mar- ried 690 couples, and attended 682 funerals; and as it was the custom of our ministers for more than a century after the first settlement to have discourses preached at marriages as well as funerals, we can well see on what occasions the 8,059 sermons were delivered.
Aside from the arduous duties which ecclesiastical matters imposed upon him, Mr. Dunbar, like most of the clergymen of his time, was a patriot. In provincial times he was a Loy- alist, stanch and firm. He considered obedience to his king as a portion of his religion; and he expounded the duties of patriotism with zeal and fervor. Nor was his the cheap patriot- ism of words. In 1745 he asked for leave of absence from his pulpit to become chaplain in a regiment about to be sent with his Majesty's army to Louisburg. For some reason his re- quest was denied ; and he was obliged to content himself with remaining at home. But during this time his firm and steady attachment to his king, and his resolute and indefatigable en- deavors for the prosperity and honor of his country, attracted the notice of the government; and in 1755 he went to the field as chaplain in one of his Majesty's regiments, com- manded by Colonel Brown, of Sudbury, then going on an expedition against the French at Crown Point. And on November 18 of the same year we find him encamped on the shore of Lake Champlain, at the time " the great earth- quake " visited that place.
At a later period, when the oppressive acts of the British Parliament had forfeited all claims to loyalty, we read that Parson Dunbar, by his zeal and firmness in the cause of free-
191
SECOND MINISTER.
dom, and his unwavering confidence in the Divine assistance and blessing, even in the darkest hours and under the most forbidding aspects of the war, contributed much to support the hopes and sustain the sinking spirits of those who were contending in so unequal a contest.
He lived to see the war close triumphantly, and the return of peace. At the celebration held in Stoughton in honor of that event, on the 2d of June, 1783, he was present and offered a public prayer. This was his last public service. How fitting that his long and useful life should have such a glorious conclusion; that in that sanctuary where he had ministered for over half a century, he should for the last time lift his voice in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the return of peace and the establishment of na- tional freedom !
In less than two weeks, those who rejoiced with him in the priceless gift of liberty had their joy turned to sorrow to learn that he who had ministered to them in spiritual things for fifty-six years was no more. His strong faith in God, his patient resignation to the divine will under the pains of an excruciating disorder, proved that faith in the religion of Christ, which all his life he had recommended to others, was to him a sheet-anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, a solace in the hour of death, surpassing the treasures and pleasures of this fleeting world.
At the close of a Sabbath day in the month of June, Mr. Dunbar's relatives and friends assembled around his death- bed. As the shades of evening approached, his pulse became slower and his breath shorter; he was in the utmost distress, panting for breath, tossing from one side of the bed to the other. In answer to an inquiry by an affectionate friend, his reply was, in the words of Polycarp, " I have served a good Master, and he has not forsaken me." Thus passed from earth the second minister of this town. He was buried on the 18th day of June. Certain of his contemporaries and friends as- sembled at the old parsonage and from its portals bore, with reverent sorrow, his body to the grave. His friends, Adams of Stoughton, Curtis of Sharon, Robbins of Milton, Taft of
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HISTORY OF CANTON.
Randolph, Wild of Braintree, Chickering, Thacher, and Haven of Dedham, acted as pall-bearers. The day succeeding his death, the precinct voted that they would bear all the ex- pense and make the necessary provision for his funeral. For this he had himself provided, " except the Parish will for my long and constant and, I hope, faithful ministry and labors among them be so generous as to do it." The Rev. Jason Haven, pastor of the First Church in Dedham, delivered an appropriate and just funeral sermon. From a copy before me I select the following estimate of Mr. Dunbar's character as given by his friend and contemporary. The reverend gen- tleman took his text from Num. xxiii. 10, - " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."
"Though I am not fond of funeral eulogia, yet silence on the re- moval of one eminently pious and useful in the church of Christ might be censurable. I wish I was better able to do justice to his character and memory.
" The great Author of Nature was pleased to endow him with very good mental powers. These being brightened and improved by a learned education, united to a firm and happy constitution of body, and sanctified by God's grace, fitted him to discharge with dignity and usefulness the duties of the Christian and ministerial character. He shone with distinguished lustre in the orb in which He who holdeth the stars in His right hand was pleased to fix him. Not only this society and this town, but the neighboring ones, have seen and felt the radiance and influence of this 'burning and shining light.' He was a zealous defender of what he took to be ' the faith once deliv- ered to the saints.' He treated much on what have been called the peculiar doctrines of grace; these he considered as doctrines ac- cording to godliness. And he constantly maintained it as a faithful saying that they who believe in Jesus should be careful to perform good works. He knew the great design of preaching too well, and pursued it with too much fidelity, to give in to the practice of which some are so fond, - the practice of entertaining people with the subtleties of metaphysics, which tend rather to amuse or perplex than to impress the conscience, mend the heart, and reform the life. As he meant always to be understood, he used great plainness of speech. A more courageous and faithful reprover of vice, both in public and private, perhaps hath never been known among us. He complied
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