USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Framingham > Memorial of the bi-centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, June, 1900 > Part 2
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Winthrop E. Harding,
Joseph W. Tuttle.
Thomas F. Hastings,
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TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
BALL.
WILLARD HOWE, Chairman.
Harry A. Bent,
Dr. Walter I. Brigham,
William E. Chenery,
John B. Lombard,
Joseph C. Cloyes,
Alfred E. Martin,
Frank W. Eastman,
Edward E. Reardon,
Frank H. Fales,
Frank P. Shannon,
William H. Walsh,
PRINTING.
EDWARD J. SLATTERY, Chairman.
Christopher T. Byrnes,
George E. Fowler,
Orville W. Collins, M.D.
Isaac A. Lombard,
John M. Curry,
Francis B. Sprague.
Peter N. Everett,
PRESS. PETER N. EVERETT, Chairman.
George L. Clapp,
William D. McPherson,
Ora O. Davis,
Walter W. Pease,
Walter E. Mathews,
D. Murray Travis.
Charles J. McPherson,
DECORATIONS AND ILLUMINATIONS. CHARLES H. FULLER, Chairman.
Mark F. Annis,
Arthur V. Harrington,
George F. Butterfield,
Dr. Ezra A. Hobbs,
John T. Butterworth,
John P. Kyte,
Alphonso E. Capen,
Frank B. Newton,
George L. Clapp,
William Nicholson,
George W. Cockell,
William O'Callahan,
Richard L. Everit,
Henry L. Sawyer,
George H. Fitts, James P. Shea,
Edward A. Forbush,
James J. Valentine,
Wallace H. Frankland, Nathaniel C. Videto,
David O. Frost, Harry W. Weeks,
Chauncey U. Fuller,
Charles A. Williams,
Edward L. Hearn,
Charles A. Hemenway,
Alexander Hoyt,
Alfred M. Eames, Hospitality
Willard Howe, Ball Patrick Hayes, Athletics Chairmen of Sub-Committees
Charles W. Coolidge, Historical Exhibit
THE ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE
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FIREWORKS.
JAMES H. ENTWISTLE, Chairman.
Harry E. Bacon,
Augustus M. Lang,
Herbert C. Ellms,
William H. Trowbridge,
Richard L. Everit,
George H. Waterman.
HISTORICAL EXHIBIT.
CHARLES W. COOLIDGE, Chairman.
Zabdiel B. Adams,
Thomas F. McNamara,
Comer A. Belknap,
Oscar Ordway,
William W. Crouch,
Edgar Potter,
Charles A. Eames,
Frank G. Stearns,
George H. Eames,
Timothy J. Sullivan,
H. Gardner Eames,
Horatio F. Twombly,
Luther F. Fuller,
James J. Valentine,
Cyrus N. Gibbs,
John F. Videto.
Charles D. Lewis,
SALUTE. JOSEPH C. CLOYES, Chairman.
George O. Bent,
Luke R. Landy,
Frank E. Hemenway, William B. Wallace.
GROUNDS AND TENT. RICHARD L. EVERIT, Chairman.
Comer A. Belknap,
Oliver P. Glazier,
Moses Ellis, Jr.,
William H. Hastings,
Henry T. Fales,
Augustus M. Lang,
Charles H. Fuller,
Phineas G. Rice.
HISTORIC PLACES. COMER A. BELKNAP, Chairman.
Horatio W. Badger,
Francis Hosmer,
Walter T. Bent,
Marcellus Nixon,
Henry C. Bowers,
Frederick J. Stevens,
Charles W. Coolidge,
Edward Underwood,
David Fiske,
J. Avery White,
Charles J. Frost,
Henry S. Whittemore,
Edgar Hemenway,
Josiah S. Williams.
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TWO HUNDRETH ANNIVERSARY
TRANSPORTATION.
FREDERICK M. ESTY, Chairman.
Alvah T. Bridges,
Charles A. Williams,
Daniel J. Cooney,
Sands S. Woodbury.
William T. Neal,
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HOSPITALITY. ALFRED M. EAMES, Chairman.
Charles A. Brown,
Harry P. Hastings,
James Connor,
Frank A. Kendall,
Charles L. Curtis,
Bernard F. Merriam,
Charles E. Daniels,
John L. O'Neil,
Harry L. Davenport,
Robert F. Perkins,
Franklin E. Gregory,
George Rice,
Charles E. Haberstroh,
Joshua Smith.
MEMORIAL VOLUME. JOHN H. TEMPLE, Chairman.
Constantine C. Esty, John M. Merriam,
Rev. Franklin Hutchinson, James E. McGrath.
INVITED GUESTS. NATIONAL OFFICERS.
William Mckinley, President of the United States.
John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy.
George F. Hoar, United States Senator.
Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator.
George W. Weymouth, Member of Congress. Gen. Leonard Wood, Governor of Cuba.
Admiral William T. Sampson, Charlestown Navy Yard.
Capt. Charles J. Train, Battleship Massachusetts.
George H. Lyman, Collector Port of Boston.
Col. Charles K. Darling, U. S. Marshal.
STATE OFFICERS.
Winthrop Murray Crane, Governor of Massachusetts. John L. Bates, Lieut. Governor of Massachusetts. William M. Olin, Secretary of State.
James R. Entwistle, Fireworks Frederick M. Esty, Transportation
Charles H. Fuller, Decoration
Clarence T. Boynton, Children's Entertainment Richard L. Everit, Grounds and Tents
Chairmen of Sub-Committees
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INVITED GUESTS
Hosea M. Knowlton, Attorney General.
Edward S. Bradford, State Treasurer.
John W. Kimball, State Auditor.
John W. Hammond, Justice of Supreme Court.
Robert R. Bishop, Justice of Superior Court.
William B. Stevens, Justice of Superior Court.
George E. Smith, President Massachusetts Senate.
James J. Myers, Speaker House of Representatives.
Samuel Dalton, Adjutant General.
S. Herbert Howe, Henry D. Yerxa, Col. H. S. Dewey,
Members of Executive Council.
Col. W. H. Brigham,
Maj. P. E. Hawkins,
Members of Governor's Staff.
Maj. J. E. Lancaster,
Edmund Dowse, D.D., Chaplain Massachusetts Senate.
Albert H. Ray, Senator First Middlesex District.
MIDDLESEX COUNTY OFFICERS.
Charles J. McIntire, Judge of Probate Court.
George F. Lawton, Judge of Probate Court.
Levi S. Gould, County Commissioner.
Samuel O. Upham, County Commissioner.
Francis Bigelow, County Commissioner.
John R. Fairbairn, Sheriff.
Samuel H. Folsom, Register of Probate.
Edwin O. Childs, Register of Deeds.
Theodore C. Hurd, Clerk of Courts.
Joseph O. Hayden, Treasurer.
Fred. N. Weir, District Attorney.
OFFICERS OF NEIGHBORING TOWNS.
J. E. Woods,
Granville C. Fiske,
Selectmen of Ashland.
Albert H. Eames, 2d,
George N. Cobb,
F. Dana Muzzey,
Selectmen of Natick.
Frank N. Shattuck,
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TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
Charles H. Dowse,
Henry A. Dearth,
Selectmen of Sherborn.
Frederick W. Cushing,
Frank W. Goodnow,
George A. Haynes,
Selectmen of Sudbury.
Waldo L. Stone,
Ex-Governor William Claflin, Newton, Mass.
Hon. Charles Q. Tirrell, Natick, Mass.
Hon. George A. Marden, Lowell, Mass.
Rev. J. Holmes Pilkington, Framlingham, Suffolk Co., Eng.
Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., New York City.
Rev. Addison Ballard, D.D., New York City.
Rev. Frederick L. Hosmer, D.D., Berkeley, Cal.
Rev. Samuel W. Eaton, D.D., Roscoe, Il1.
Rev. Edward D. Eaton, D.D., Beloit, Il1.
Rev. John K. McLean, D.D., Oakland, Cal.
Rev. Minot J. Savage, D.D., New York City.
Rev. Henry G. Spaulding, D.D., Boston, Mass.
Rev. John S. Cullen, Watertown, Mass.
Rev. Charles A. Humphreys, Watertown, Mass.
Rev. George J. Sanger, Danvers, Mass.
Rev. Joseph C. Bodwell, Lyndonville, Vt.
Miss Edna Dean Proctor, South Framingham, Mass.
Mrs. Frances A. Morton, South Framingham, Mass.
Mrs. David Nevins, Methuen, Mass.
Hon. James W. McDonald, Marlboro, Mass.
Hon. William N. Davenport, Marlboro, Mass.
Hon. Wellington E. Parkhurst, Clinton, Mass.
Byron B. Johnson, Esq., Waltham, Mass. John S. Keyes, Esq., Concord, Mass.
Samuel J. Elder, Esq., Boston, Mass.
William B. Buckminster, Esq., Malden, Mass. Alfred E. Cox, Esq., Malden, Mass.
Alphonso A. Rice, Esq., Washington, D. C. John Edmunds, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.
Charles F. Cutler, Esq., New York City.
John P. Brophy, L.L.D., New York City. Joseph P. Warren, Ph.D., Boston, Mass.
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ge A. Reed, Children's Procession
Maj. Isaac N. Marshall, Commanding Military Charles J. McPherson, Representative 1900 Chairmen of Sub-Committees
Edward J. Slattery, Printing
PROGRAM
SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 1900
10.30 A.M. COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES AT THE SEVERAL CHURCHES.
3.00 P.M. UNION SERVICE IN PLYMOUTH CHURCH, FRAM- INGHAM.
UNION SERVICE OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOLS OF SOUTH FRAMINGHAM IN GRACE CHURCH.
7.00 P.M. UNION SERVICE OF THE CHURCHES OF SOUTH FRAMINGHAM IN GRACE CHURCH.
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CHAPTER II. EXERCISES OF SUNDAY.
As the first important combined action of the settlers of the " Plantation " was to raise their " Meeting house" in 1698, and as their prescribed action under the "Order " of the General Court for the establishment of the Town was to convene in such " Meeting house " to organize by the selection of their first Town Officers, so it was eminently fitting that the first assemblies and exercises of the Bi-Centennial week should be in the "Meeting houses " of the present day, in which as well as in the churches of the Town generally, appro- priate references were made to the coming events.
Programs of the exercises are now presented, with various sermons and addresses.
FIRST PARISH.
REV. CALVIN STEBBINS, Pastor.
FORE-WORD.
At a meeting of the members of the First Parish Church in Framingham held on April 8th, 1900, in consideration of the fact that the efforts for the incorporation of the town and the organization of the church were simulta- neous movements, it was voted to celebrate in some appro- priate manner the inception of the latter. A committee was appointed consisting of S. B. Bird, Franklin E. Gregory, William F. Gregory, Sidney A. Phillips, Joseph C. Cloyes, S. S. Woodbury, W. I. Brigham and Edward W. Kingsbury to make suitable arrangements. The committee invited the Rev. Calvin Stebbins to prepare an address for the occasion. The invitation was accepted and the address was spoken at the church on Sunday, June 10th.
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TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
ORDER OF SERVICE.
I. ORGAN VOLUNTARY.
II. EXHORTATION.
We are gathered here today in the fullness of the Summer, and on an occasion crowded with memories of the past, to praise and worship the God of our fathers and our God. His voice was heard in the morning of the world from afar, and in the evening He speaketh at the door ; He saw the end from the beginning and wove the ages as upon a loom; He remembered the low estate of His children and bent to them His testimonies from of old ; He made a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters for our fathers and brought them in a way they knew not, and led them in paths they did not know.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad. Let us sing unto the Lord a new song, and make known his deeds among all the people. Let us talk of all his wondrous works, and sing of the glories of his kingdom, which is an everlasting king- dom, which makes the darkness light and the night to shine as the day, and us able to say with the men of old :- "Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be igno- rant of us and Israel acknowledge us not; Thou art our Father, our Redeemer ; Thy name is from everlasting."
" Praise God, our Maker and our Friend ; Praise him through time, till time shall end ; Till psalm and song his name adore Through Heaven's great day of evermore."
III. CHOIR.
IV. THE 84TH PSALM.
V. PRAYER. By the Rev. Henry G. Spaulding.
VI. RESPONSE.
VII. HYMN. By Samuel Longfellow. " O Life that maketh all things new."
VIII. SERMON. By the Rev. Calvin Stebbins.
IX. PRAYER.
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FIRST PARISH
X. HYMN. By Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Read by the Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D.D. of San Francisco, California.
We love the venerable house Our fathers built to God ; In heaven are kept their grateful vows, Their dust endears the sod.
Here holy thoughts a light have shed From many a radiant face, And prayers of humble virtue made The perfume of the place.
And anxious hearts have pondered here The mystery of life, And prayed the eternal Light to clear Their doubts, and aid their strife.
From humble tenements around Came up the pensive train, And in the church a blessing found That filled their homes again ;
They live with God; their homes are dust ; Yet here their children pray, And in this fleeting lifetime trust To find the narrow way.
XI. BENEDICTION.
XII. ORGAN.
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TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
SERMON BY THE PASTOR.
I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance.
2 Peter iii, I.
But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers.
The Acts xxiv, 14.
It has been suggested that there are two kinds of memory. One belongs to the individual and has to do with his life only ; it connects his today with his yesterdays, and gives continuity to his existence in time. The other takes him out of himself and brings him in contact with immortal principles as illustrated in the lives of others, and associates his life with exalted feelings and heroic deeds. When his pure mind is stirred by way of this remembrance, he is taken out of his personal experience and made partaker of another and a higher spirit. In response to its suggestions, he sets apart days in which to commemorate the announcement of great principles in politics, morals and religion. He keeps the birthdays of men he has never seen, decorates public halls, squares and gardens with the representations of heroic and civic virtues ; he keeps the centennial of the state, of the incorporation of the town and of the formation of the church. This is the principle that brings us together today that our pure minds may be stirred by way of remembrance.
The incorporation of this town took place in the last year of the seventeenth century and about the same time the people went about the organization of a church. It was a period of great financial depression, accompanied with spirit- ual dejection throughout all New England, and especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The old century went out in gloom, and the new came in with a joyless morn. The period has been rightly called "The dark days of New England." The first generation, the sturdy men who laid the foundations and built the basement story of our great structure of nationality, had gone, and the great generation which achieved our national independence was yet to come.
In the meantime there was little, apparently, before the people but a hard struggle for life. The witchcraft mania had left a baleful trail behind it. The disastrous failure of
First Parish Meeting House. Erected 1847
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FIRST PARISH
Sir William Phipp's expedition against Quebec had broken the spirit of the people, carried mourning into hundreds of homes, left the borders open to the hostile incursions of French and Indians, had loaded the colony with debt, and an attempt to create money out of the public credit had resulted in great financial distress. Disasters on sea and land came thick and fast : hurricanes, hail-storms, floods whose violence changed the channels of rivers, ministers' houses struck by lightning, and great loss of cattle ;-
To Horses, Swine, Net-Cattle, Sheep and Deer, Ninety and seven proved a mortal year,
a scarcity of food, high prices, the coldest weather in winter since the country was settled, all this did not fail to have its impression upon the minds of the people. The tone of social and moral life had deteriorated, and there was a marked change in manners for the worse, but theology was triumph- ant. It was under these circumstances that the people of the new town laid another burden upon themselves and went about to build a church.
Two hundred years is not a very long period in the history of English-speaking men in their old home, but it is a long period in the New World. It measures one half the time since Columbus discovered America, and about all the time that his great discovery has been a blessing to mankind.
This period of two hundred years has been a field for the action of occult and powerful forces, and through their agency amazing changes have been wrought in every de- partment of human life. It seems impossible that the present should be the legitimate child of the past. Yet the men of old were the makers of today, but were unconscious of what they were doing. There are few more striking illustrations of the presence of a divine hand guiding in the affairs of men than the fact that men are not allowed to be frightened by foreseeing the results of their labors. If the founders of this church could have foreseen the results of these two hundred years, they would have dismissed at once the thought of building a church for such an end. And this is true in regard to every church in christendom.
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TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
The Puritans brought with them to this country two institutions which were almost co-eval with the origin of man. Both had the same object in view-the realization of the moral law in human conduct. One speaks in a command, and says to all for the good of all: "Thou shalt"; the other is voluntary, and speaks in a vow ; " We will." The one is society in state, the other society in church.
A great experiment was to be tried here with both these forms of society. The experiment in state was no other than to see whether the social pyramid would stand more steadily on its base than as heretofore on its apex. The experiment in the church was equally bold; it was no other than an attempt to organize a voluntary body, without priest and without ritual, which should be self-governing and be able to meet the moral and religious wants of human nature.
We are here today to rejoice in the fact that the First Church in Framingham has weathered the storms and vicis- itudes of two centuries; that it has adjusted itself to the changed conditions and wants that have occurred in that time; that it has today no quarrel with civilization, science or reason, and that it brings to us the lesson, ever old and forever new, that is folded up in those four words of amazing import and exhaustless significance,- God, immortality, duty and liberty.
It has been wittily said that ;-
Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
The tree and truth have this in common-they both grow, and truth grows forever; it has perennial youth, and an institution that embodies it and grows with it, that can adjust itself to a fuller life and afford its tenant larger accom- modations as the generations come and go, is here to stay while truth has need of it.
It might seem pleasant to look in upon the fathers as they gather for the first time in the new meeting house on the hill in yonder cemetery. We should without doubt, find
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FIRST PARISH
them all there, for, as John Adams said, -" Man is a church- going animal "; at least he was in those days. But only the most tolerant, and the most gifted spirits of today, could enter into those services two hundred years ago and rejoice with them that do rejoice.
The fathers of New England, as was natural, brought with them many old-world habits of thought and feeling and planted them here, but it is strange that the survival of the spirit of caste should have been fostered in the services of the church. "It is somewhat noticeable," says one of our historians, "that equality in the worship of a common Creator has been as little observed in democratic New Eng- land as in any country classed as civilized, if, indeed, it has not been less observed." (Adams' Three Epochs, II, 739.)
The assignment of the pews and sittings in the meeting house was a very important subject and one that had to be handled with great caution. This little church in the wild- erness was keenly alive to social distinctions, especially in worship. In the town meeting all men were equal. The ballot-box swept away all distinctions.
The spirit of caste took refuge in the Church in a form that had already an unenviable reputation on account of the fierce imprecations called down upon the heads of those who sought the chief seats in the synagogues. But our fathers were Old Testament Christians.
In this church at first the most highly esteemed situations for worship were under the galleries, and the representatives of social position and wealth secured these, and with the permission of the town built pews for themselves and their families, and without permission cut doors and windows of all shapes and sizes in the walls. Our fathers had some strange notions on this subject of pews. At Braintree, the town gave William Rawson the privilege of building a pew, between or upon the two beams over the pulpit, but in such a way as not to obstruct the light. (Braintree, Town Records 36.)
The body of the church was filled with benches. The half of the floor and galleries to the left of the minister was assigned to the women and the right to the men, and the
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TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
boys were put by themselves, and the tythingman was in- structed to see to it that they did not neglect the means of grace. The town records show how the dignity of the sit- tings was adjusted. It was voted: "That in dignity the seats shall rank as follows :- the table (the deacon's seat) and the foreseats are the two highest ; the front gallery equals in dignity the second and third seats in the body of the house ; the side galleries equal in dignity the fourth and fifth seats in the body of the house." The worshipers here were very jealous of their rights, and the deacons were requested to take special notice "that all persons do keep to their own seats appointed to them and keep out of the seats of others whereby the Sabbath is profaned."
Wealth has wiped out most of these distinctions in the church, but one was especially tenacious of life and many of you may recollect it. Behind the men's seats, or up in the corner of their gallery, was the place of dignity for the colored population both slave and free, for the slave was here in early times. The Rev. John Swift, the first minister of the church, owned five of his fellowmen. The parson does not seem to have been a hard master. After the first seces- sion from the church, about the year 1735, Nero, one of his slaves followed those who left and joined the church in Hopkinton on the same conditions as the others. The rights of his mind at least were respected by his master. Mr. Swift however showed that he had a will of his own. He refused to give the seceders letters of dismissal from this church. They were however received into the church at Hopkinton and years of controversy made the case very celebrated in the history of ecclesiastical polity in New England.
There is something like irony in the fate that lifts one of the humblest worshippers in a church to fame and leaves his betters to be forgotten. Just before the Revolution a slave belonging to Major Lawson Buckminster joined this church under the "half-way covenant," which indicates to us that he was a very sensible man. He joined the " Minutemen" also and when the first alarm came he went to Lexington, Concord and Cambridge. He enlisted at once for three
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FIRST PARISH
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months, and, as his master was a patriotic man, he received without any doubt his liberty. He then enlisted for eight months, then for three years and at the expiration of the time enlisted again for three years and was honorably dis- charged at the close of the war. This man, Peter Salem, as he was called, was at Bunker Hill and Saratoga, as his tomb- stone in the cemetery testifies.
In the Trumbull Gallery at New Haven, hangs a picture of the Battle of Bunker Hill by our great historical painter, John Trumbull. The thousands from all parts of this wide land who look in admiration at the noble work of the artist, will not fail to notice the colored man in the foreground be- hind the retreating Americans adjusting his firelock as for one more shot in defense of the half finished redoubt.
One of the greatest orators of our country, and indeed of our century, said on Bunker Hill, as he pointed to the noble shaft :- " It is the monument of the day, of the event, of the battle of Bunker Hill; of all the brave men who shared its perils,-alike Prescott and Putnam and Warren,-the chiefs of the day and the colored man Salem, who is reported to have shot the gallant Pitcairn as he mounted the parapet."
Whatever our fathers may have done and whatever we may do, it is well to bear in mind this one fact: that there is a church of the living God on earth, the great church of his- tory. In this church where the immortals are gathered no questions are asked about a man's social position, wealth, color, orthodoxy, or heterodoxy. The brave heart loyal to truth and liberty gives a man a place in the ranks of the just, and humanity is satisfied, for no one is ashamed to stand beside Peter Salem at Bunker Hill.
Important as the meeting house of our fathers was in a religious point of view, as the meeting place with God, it was also the meeting place with men, and was the centre of their social and political life. They never allowed any superstitions to grow up around it. They had no such feel- ings towards it as the Catholic or the Episcopalian cherish for their places of worship, nor even the milder reverence that has grown up in the minds of their children in this irreverent generation.
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TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
There was no sacred enclosure; the ground in front of it was usually the training field, the stocks were in close proximity to the door, and the whipping post was not far off. The ammunition and arms were stored in the loft over the auditorium, and the minister was allowed to store his corn there, but not in such quantities as to endanger the building ; in one case the poor man was limited to two hundred and fifty bushels. In the auditorium the town meetings were held, and they were of frequent occurrence.
The church and the town were virtually one until the charter of William and Mary, when a property qualification took the place of a theological. But the two continued to act together until the constitution in 1820 which completed the separation of church and state. When the first minister of this church was settled, the town acted in its corporate capac- ity in calling him, and all the inhabitants were assessed to build the church, pay his salary and the running expenses.
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