USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > History of the town of Pittsfield, in Berkshire County, Mass., with a map of the county > Part 4
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In 1762 an ineffectual effort was made to settle Mr. Amos Thompson, and in 1763 to settle the Rev. Daniel Collins, the late well-known and venerable pastor of the church in Lanesborough.
In the course of 1763 Mr. Thomas Allen, the first pastor of the church came to this town. On the 7th of February, 1764, the church was organized by Dr. Hopkins, then of Great Barrington, Dr. West, of Stockbridge, and Mr. Eben- ezer Martin, of Becket, " on the basis of the present confes- sion and covenant; which were subscribed" by eight male members, viz. : Stephen Crofoot, Ephraim Stiles, Daniel Hubbard, Aaron Baker, Jacob Ensign, and William, Lem- uel and Elnathan Phelps ; after which Dr. Hopkins preach- ed from 2 Cor. viii. 5. These members had probably been members before of other churches. On the 5th of March, the church in the first place, and then the people at large, unanimously invited Mr. Allen to become their pastor. He accepted the invitation, and was ordained on the 18th of April, the day after the ordination of Mr. Collins. The Rev. Mr. Hooker, of Northampton, his theological instruct- or, preached on the occasion. During this year, thirty one members were added to the church, a large part of them probably by letter.
While these measures were prosecuted for the settlement of a minister, the erection of a meeting-house was not for- gotten, though the work was not prosecuted apparently with equal zeal. In February, 1760, it was voted to raise money to build a meeting-house, to be paid one half that year, and
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one half the year following, forty-five feet by thirty-five ; and in December, that on condition the non-resident propri- etors would pay 80, and take four pews, to build it fifty-five feet by forty-five. The latter are supposed to have been the dimentions of the house. It seems to have been raised (and it may have been occupied,) in 1761, though it was not regarded as finished until the close of 1770. There are many votes on the town records respecting this building. It required an expense which the inhabitants were not then well able to bear. It stood a little south of the present Con- gregational church, which was built in 1792, eighty feet by fifty, with a porch.
The Rev. THOMAS ALLEN, the first minister of Pittsfield, was a native of Northampton, where his ancestors had re- sided from the first settlement of that town, and had held a respectable rank in society and in the church. He was born Jan. 7, 1743. A brother of his, the Rev. Moses Allen, was settled in the ministry at Midway, in the state of Geor- gia : another, Major Solomon 'Allen, after having served his country faithfully in the Revolutionary War, and taken a conspicuous part in quelling the insurrection of Shays, entered the ministry late in life, and labored in several towns in the western district of New York. Through the bequest of a great uncle, Mr. Allen was educated at Har- vard College, where he was graduated in 1762, with a high reputation as a classical scholar. His ordination as Pastor of the Congregational church in this town, in 1764, has been mentioned. At this time, the town was nearly a wil- derness, there being in it but half a dozen houses not made with logs. His religious doctrines were Calvinistic, and he believed Congregationalism in the church to be most con- sistent with Republican institutions. He labored with zeal among his people. " Besides his stated labors on the Sab- bath, he frequently delivered lectures, and in the course of his ministry preached six or seven hundred funeral sermons. In the early part of his ministry he also occasionally preach- ed in the neighboring towns, not then supplied with settled ministers." Warm in his temperament and inflexible in purpose, he engaged earnestly in support of the rights of
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his country against the aggressions of Great Britain, both before the commencement of the war and during the long continued struggle for independence. On the 30th of June, 1774, he was placed at the head of a standing committee of safety and correspondence for the town, to correspond with the committees of this and other provinces. His let- ters at this time were characteristic, exhibiting great vigilance and zeal in the cause of liberty,* and at the same time a high trust in the God of battles. In 1776 he acted for a short period as Chaplain to the American Army under Washington, at White Plains, and in June and July, 1777, he officiated in the same capacity at Ticonderoga. The month following he went with the volunteer company of militia, many of them his own parishioners, from Pittsfield to meet Burgoyne's troops at Bennington, and took an ac- tive part in the exertions and triumphs of the memorable battle that ensued. Reporting himself to Gen. Stark, he was forthwith appointed a Chaplain, and there are those who yet express their belief in the efficacy of a prayer be- fore the army on the morning of the action, which ascended from the fervent lips of Mr. Allen. "Among the reinforce- ments from Berkshire County," says Edward Everett, in his life of Stark, " came a clergyman, with a portion of his flock, resolved to make bare the arm of flesh against the enemies of the country. Before daylight on the morning of the 16th, he addressed the commander as follows : ' We, the people of Berkshire, have been frequently called upon to fight, but have never been led against the enemy. We have now resolved, if you will not let us fight, never to turn out again.' General Stark asked him 'if he wished to march then when it was dark and rainy ?' 'No,' was the answer. 'Then' continued Stark, ' if the Lord should once more give us sunshine, and I do not give you fighting enough, I will never ask you to come again." The weath- er cleared up in the course of the day, and the men of Berk- shire followed their spiritual guide into action."+
*See Appendix. Note D.
+Everett's Life of Gen. Stark-Spark's Library of Am. Biog. p. 97.
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Before the attack was commenced, being posted opposite to that wing of the enemy which was principally composed of refugees, who had joined the invaders, Mr. Allen advan- ced in front of our militia, and in a voice distintly heard by them, exhorted the enemy to lay down their arms, assuring them of good quarters, and warning them of the consequen- ces of refusal. Having performed what he considered a re- ligious duty, and being fired upon, he resumed his place in the ranks, and when the signal was given, was among the foremost in attacking the enemy.
There is a tradition that Mr. Allen was recognized by some of these refugees ; for there were a very few men of this description from Pittsfield and other parts of Berkshire, and that they said, " there is Parson Allen, let us pop him !" There is also a tradition, that when he was fired upon, and the bullets of the enemy were whistling about him, he jumped down from the rock or stump on which he had stood, and cried out, " Now, boys, let us give it to them ;" and immediately said to his brother Joseph by his side : " You load, and I will fire !" After the battle was over, he found a Hessian surgeon's horse, loaded with panniers of bot- tles of wine. The wine he administered to the wounded and weary ; but two large square bottles he carried home with him as trophies of his campaign of three or four days. Being asked whether he killed a man, he replied, " he did not know; but that observing a flash often repeated in a bush near by, which seemed to be succeeded each time by a fall of some one of our men, he levelled his musket, and firing in that direction, he put out that flash !"
During Shays' rebellion, Mr. Allen supported the author- ity of the government of Massachusetts, and was threatened by the insurgents. But in his intrepidity he was not to be shaken from his purpose or duty, and he held himself in readiness, sleeping with arms in his bedroom, to defend himself against the violence of lawless men.
In 1779, he journeyed on horseback to Savannah in Geor- gia, to rescue a widowed sister and her child from peril, and made a voyage to London in 1799, to bring home an orphan
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grandchild. While in London, seeing the King pass from St. James to the Parliament House, in a coach drawn by six cream colored horses, he recorded the following reflection, among others, in his journal :- " This is he, who desolated my country ; who ravaged the American coasts ; annihila- ted our trade ; burned our towns ; plundered our cities ; sent forth his Indian allies to scalp our wives and children ; starved our youth in his prison ships; and caused the ex- penditure of a hundred millions of money, and a hundred thousand of precious lives. Instead of being the father of his people, he has been their destroyer. May God forgive him so great guilt !"
The union early formed between Mr. Allen and his peo- ple was cemented by mutual kindnesses and continued with- out any material interruption about 40 years. Some of the early settlers were from his native town and a large portion of them were about his age. But in 1808, " in consequence of a very unhappy difficulty, originating in the political ar- dor of that period, and over which all parties now wish to cast the veil of oblivion, a considerable number of the church and parish withdrew from his ministry, and were incorpo- rated soon after, as a separate parish." They erected the house in South street as their place of worship, the interior of which has been altered, and which is now occupied, one part as a school-room, and the other as a lecture room. "On the 22d of August, 1809, a new church was organized upon the doctrinal basis of that from which they had withdrawn, and on the 26th of October" following, Mr. Thomas Pun- derson, a native of New Haven, and graduate of Yale Col- lege, was ordained their Pastor.
Notwithstanding this separation, Mr. Allen continued in the ministry with the original church until his death, which took place, after a short but severe illness, on the Lord's day, Feb. 11, 1810, at the age of 67, in the hope of a bless- ed immortality. His worthy consort, Mrs. Elizabeth Allen, daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Lee, first minister of Salis- bury, Ct., survived him until March 31, 1830, when she died at the age of 82.
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They had 12 children, nine sons and three daughters, all of whom, with the exception of two sons, lived to adult years, though they are all now in their graves, excepting the Hon. Jonathan Allen, of this town, and the Rev. William Allen, D. D., who was ordained the successor of his father on the 10th of October after his father's death.
One of their sons was a captain in service, during the war of 1812 ; another officiated as surgeon in the same war, both on the New York frontier; another acted as assistant Quar- termaster General, and one of his daughters, a beautiful and fascinating woman, who married Gen. Ripley, was at the bedside of her husband, when he was suffering from the ultimately fatal wound he received at the sortie of Fort Erie. Three of their sons received collegiate education, one of whom, Solomon Metcalf Allen, Professor in Middlebury College, will be noticed hereafter. Their grandchildren now living, number twenty, and their great-grandchildren ten.
In addition to several sermons which have been publish- ed, Mr. Allen left extant at his death twenty-seven hundred sermons of his own production, written in short hand, which no one has been able to decipher.
The two churches placed under the care of Mr. Punder- son and Mr. William Allen, remained separate and distinct- about eight years. " But as the spirit in which the separa- tion commenced gradually subsided on both sides, the inconveniences and burdens of so unnatural a state of things were more and more felt, and in the latter part of 1816, many began to think and talk seriously of a re-union. It was soon found that a majority of both societies were deci- dedly in favor of the measure, and as the pastors coincided in the general opinion, that an union would promote the best interests of the town, though it must separate them from their beloved charges, it was not difficult to agree upon the conditions on which it should take place. Accordingly, to prepare the way for the churches and congregations again to become one, Mr. Allen was dismissed Feb. 5, 1817, and
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Mr. Punderson on the 5th of May following. The parishes were re-united by an act of the General Court, in the early part of the same year, and the Churches by a mutual Coun- cil, on the 7th of July. Both the pastors were highly es- teemed, and much beloved by their people, who would gladly have retained them, had it been practicable under the new organization." Dr. Allen hassince been President of Bowdoin College, in the State of Maine, and Mr. Punder- son is Pastor of the Church in Huntington, Ct.
After the union of the churches, Rev. Heman Humphrey, (now Dr. Humphrey) a native of Burlington, Ct. and graduate of Yale College, who had been pastor about ten years of the Congregational church in Fairfield, in that State, was invited to take the oversight of them in the Lord. He was installed Nov. 27th, 1817, and remained with them until Sept. 23, 1823, when he was dismissed, that he might enter upon the duties of the Presidency of Amherst College, where he was inaugurated on the 15th of October, in the same year; and where he was installed Pastor of the College Church, Feb. 28, 1827.
Dr. Humphrey was succeeded by Rev. Rufus William Bailey, a native of North Yarmouth, Me., graduate and tutor of Dartmouth College, April 15, 1824. Previously to coming to this place, Mr. Bailey was pastor for a time of a church in Norwich, Vt., and a professor in the Military Academy then existing in that town. He was dismissed on account of ill health, the 27th of Sept. 1827. After his dismission, he removed to South Carolina, and became principal of an academy at Rice Creek, near Columbia. He now preaches in that State.
Rev. Henry Philip Tappan became pastor of this church, Sept. 17, 1828, and was dismissed also on account of ill health, Nov, 1, 1831. He has since been professor, for a time, of intellectual and moral philosophy and belles-lettres in the University of the city of New York; and is now the principal of a large boarding and day school for young ladies, in the same city. Mr. Tappan is a native of Pough- keepsie, N. Y. and a graduate of Union College.
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ยท Rev. John William Yeomans, a native of Hinsdale, grad- uate and tutor of Williams College, who had been pastor of the church in North Adams, from Nov. 12, 1828, to Feb. 16, 1832, was installed here March 7, 1832, and dismissed Sept. 9, 1834. On the 7th of Oct. he was installed pastor of the Presbyterian church in the city of Trenton, and is now president of Lafayette College, at Easton, Penn.
Rev. Horatio N. Brinsmade, D.D. a native of New-Hart- ford, graduate of Yale in 1822, who had been a teacher in the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in Hartford, and then pastor of the church in Collinsville, in the same State, was settled as pastor of this church, Feb. 11, 1835, and was dismissed in the autumn of 1841, having received a call from the 3d Presbyterian church in Newark, N. J. of which he is now pastor.
The Rev. John Todd, a classmate of Mr. Brinsmade, was installed his successor Feb. 16, 1842. He had been pastor some years of Union Church in Groton, Mass., of the Ed- wards Church in Northampton, and of a church in the city of Philadelphia.
The people of this town have been favored with several seasons of special divine influence. In 1820, particularly, and more extensively in 1821, (when Dr. Humphrey was assisted by Rev. Asahel Nettleton) a revival spread amongst the inhabitants. This was a precious revival, and greatly promoted the religious character of the town, the influence of which is still felt. There was another revival during the ministry of Mr. Bailey, in 1827, the more remarkable, as he was then confined by sickness. Mr. Phelps, however, at that time principal of the Female Seminary, labored faith- fully among the people. Seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, have occurred under the ministry of the succeeding pastors, and some of them of great interest.
The following table will show the number of persons admitted to the church by each, (from the world and by letter;) the number of baptisms administered, and marriages solemnized by most of them.
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Admissions.
Baptisms.
Marriages.
T. Allen,
341
710
406
W. Allen,
57
70
35
T. Punderson,
56
97
28
H. Humphrey,
214
180
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R. W. Bailey,
99
82
24
H. P. Tappan,
88
55
19
J. W. Yeomans,
141
-
H. N. Brinsmade,
247
40
112
J. Todd,
122
8
86
If to the foregoing admissions we add the eight admitted to the church at its formation, we have a total of professors among the Congregationalists from the beginning of 1373. There may have been some admissions to the church in the vacancies between the settlement of the pastors, and if so, the total must be greater. The church is now very large.
Baptists .- As early as 1768, Mr. Valentine Rathbun, a Baptist in sentiment, came to this town from Stonington, Ct. Mention has been made of him in a previous page as having erected a clothier's works on the outlet of Rich- mond pond. He set up meetings in his own house, and soon gained over some of his neighbors, by the name of Deming, Kingsley, Narramore, Phelps, &c. to his own views respecting the mode and subjects of baptism. In 1772 a small Baptist church was formed among them, which may have received some addition afterwards. But in the early part of 1780, when the attention of numbers in Han- cock and New Lebanon was turned to the principles and worship of the Shakers, Elder Rathbun, and some of his followers, united themselves with that class of people. Hav- ing remained with them about three months he renounced their sentiments, and published a pamphlet against them, entitled " Rathbun's Hints." He now resumed his former meetings ; but his union with the Shakers, transient as it was, greatly injured the Baptist Society. Some who joined the Shakers never returned. He however continued his
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meetings until about 1790, when he removed to Pompey N. Y., where he died. For a part of the time he held his meetings in an unfinished building designed for a meeting- house, which stood very near the site of the present west Methodist meeting-house. After his removal, the church gradually diminished, and finally became extinct.
Notwithstanding the apparent fickleness of Elder Rath- bun in changing his sentiments so hastily, he is said to have been a man of good sense and piety, and to have pos- sessed a respectable share of information. He was as zeal- ous in politics as in religion. In Dec. 1775, he was placed on the committee of inspection and correspondence for the town, and in two instances in the time of the Rev- olutionary war, was elected a representative to the General Court.
In March 1801, a new Baptist church was organized in the west part of the town with sixteen members, which re- mained destitute of a stated pastor until 1806, when Elder John Francis an inhabitant of the town, was ordained its pastor. He had the spiritual oversight of the church until his death, Sept. 21, 1813, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and was regarded as a pious and worthy man. For the greater part of the time Elder Francis preached in the school-house in the North Woods ; for two or three years in the school house near the Methodist meeting-house.
Thus deprived of their pastor, the church remained va- cant until 1822, when Elder Augustus Beach, a native of New Ashford, became pastor of the church here and of the church in Lanesborough. In June 1827, when all the Baptists in town repaired to the new house of worship in the village, he gave up the latter charge. From that time un- til May 1834, (when he was dismissed,) he was pastor of the Pittsfield church only.
This congregation has been favored with several seasons of special attention to religion, and at one time the church had more than 200 members.
Since Mr. Beach's dismission, they have had as regular
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pastors, Rev. Edwin Sands and Rev. Arnold Kingsbury, the present pastor, who began his labors here May 1st, 1843. The present number of communicants is 112.
Their new meeting-house is of brick, fifty-seven feet by thirty-eight, and cost about $3000, towards which "the church acknowledge the liberal aid of their brethren of other denominations." This is now usually well filled on the Sabbath.
Methodists .- The Episcopal Methodists arose in the west part of the town about 1788, under the preaching and la- bors of Rev. Messrs. Lemuel Smith and Thomas Everett, and erected their meeting-house, forty-two and a half feet by thirty-four and a half, about 1798. They have become numerous. In 1829, they built a brick meeting-house in the east part of the village, sixty feet by forty, where they have a full congregation. Besides these two meeting- houses, they have preaching places at Stearnsville, Pontoo- suc, and in the east part of the town. The professors at all these places, amounting to about 270, are considered as con- stituting one church. About one half of them now live in and near the village, where a branch was formed June 19, 1829, with only six members. For about fifteen years the town of Pittsfield alone has constituted a station, and of course has been entitled to the entire services of an itiner- ant preacher. The people have enjoyed the labors of the Rev. Cyrus Prindle, Jarvis G. Nichols, Timothy Benedict, Henry Smith, Luman A. Sanford, John Pegg, Peter M. Hitchcock and Daniel D. Whedon. There are also several local preachers in town, who perform a part of the public services. Elder Robert Green, from Maryland, who had been a circuit preacher, and assisted in the formation of most of the Methodist churches in the County, was located in this place in 1800, and preached frequently until near or quite the time of his death in 1838, at the age of 73.
A secession from the Methodists in the west part of the town took place about 1813. The seceders, styled Reform-
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ed Methodists, built themselves a small house for worship, and were supplied with circuit preaching for some years, but are now extinct as a society.
Episcopalians .-- The Episcopal Society in this town was organized according to law in the summer of 1830, under the name of St. Stephen's Church. About fifty families connected themselves with it in that and the fol- lowing year, and their number has since increased. The services of the church were held during that time and the succeeding year in the old Town House, and in the Lecture Room. Several clergymen officiated for the society during this period, and among them the Rev. George T. Chapman, D. D., late of Lexington, Ky., afterwards of Portland, Maine, now of Worcester, Mass., who was principally instrumental in gathering the society. In Oct. 1831, the Parish determin- ed upon building their present place of worship, and then invited the Rev. Edward Ballard, at that time preaching at North Charlestown and Drewsville, N. Hampshire, to be their permanent Rector. The church, which is a very hand- some edifice after the Gothic order, is built of blue lime stone," (obtained from Luce's quary,) "with a tower, and occupies the site of the old Town House. Its dimensions are sixty-seven feet by forty-three: height of tower eighty feet. It was finished in Dec. 1832, and then consecrated to the service of Almighty God, to be a place of worship for- ever, according to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church. At the same time Mr. Bal- lard, A. M. was instituted Rector of the Parish. He is a native of Hopkinton, N. Hampshire, and received his 'The- ological education at the General Seminary of the Church in New York. The Rector is supported from the income of a fund, (contributed for the purpose, which now amounts to nearly $5000,) and by a tax on pews, which have been sold outright, and are the property of purchasers and their descendants forever, on the condition of paying said tax.
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The church owns a commodious parsonage, conveniently situated on North Street.
Connected with this church is a scholarship in the Gener- al Theological Seminary at New York, founded by mem- bers of the Parish at an expense of $2100. It is a perma- nent fund, and the income is devoted to the support of a student of divinity. After the death of the founders, the right of presentation to its benefits vests in the Rector of the Parish. Several persons have received its benefits, and it is intended to apply them to persons born and educated in this County, in preference to others, if there are such per- sons needing them. Three years is the usual and required term of incumbency.
The Church is furnished with a very fine organ, built by Goodrich at Boston, which cost about $600, and is a gift to the Parish from Madam Chandler Williams.
The society has thus far been prospered, and great har- mony has prevailed among the members thereof since its formation. There are now belonging to the church about seventy communicants.
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