USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > Memorial of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Gloucester, Mass. August, 1892 > Part 11
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28
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drawn the canopy of night; men of dark device betrayed the fine conception of the leaders and treacherously overthrew them; disease and death consumed the fair and strong when each face and heart counted more than one in the desperate but unrelenting struggle ; yet the high purpose, leaping clear above all mercenary considerations, itself made sacred by baptism at the shrine of faith, presents through all, the unbroken spirit of contentment with the lonely lot. No adven- turers they ; or if adventurers, adventurers with great moral convictions, whose roots ran down into eternity and whose blossoms were as fair as the flowers of the Paradise of God.
When Capt. John Smith wrote of the uninviting coast of New England, he said : " I am not so simple as to suppose that any other motive than money will ever erect there a Commonwealth or draw company from their ease and humours at home to stay in New Eng- land." But here are the men who are moved by another considera- tion, and they are happy and resolute in their choice. Their rugged spirits were ethereal in their quality also, and could hear a music in the forest primeval which was sung only to their ears. It may be a bit of poetic fancy that, -
" They shook the depths of the desert gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer ";
but to them it was no play of fancy, but truth as sacred as the Gospel that God's bright, swift angels of contentment would brood with rever- ent wings above the lowly cabins, and sing them to their sleep or to their work, with strains as restful and as inspiring as those the shepherds heard in the Orient of old.
The lords of New England do not appear in our humble records. We have no Winthrop, or Dudley, or Pynchon, or Endicott, or Salton- stall, or Johnson. It is a group of lowlier names, not famous in the annals of the Bay, which has given to us our modest history. The men of 1623 have Conant in their number. The men of 1642 have none as eminent as he. But our founders were not less resolute because they were of more common blood. Indeed, we may claim that it takes men of fine mettle to re-establish a community. To brave the solitude and the haggard shore at a point from which others had been driven, and here to defy the elements and to say, " We will build a town neverthe- less,"- this indicates that the beginners had in them the vital fibre out of which commonwealths are made. But the real truth is that the scattered hamlets had a community of interest. Their isolation devel- oped independence, but it was also the soil out of which alliance grew ;
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so that whatever power in men or means had centred in one village, radiated into all the adjoining towns. Gloucester was in a large sense alone. Pitched on the rocky headland of Cape Ann, no neighbor could encamp beyond her, and the great thoroughfare of colonial life ran from Boston through Lynn and Salem and Ipswich and Newbury and Strawberry Bank into Maine, and left the little town alone by the solitary sea. But the commanding men of Salem and Ipswich and Haverhill belonged to us by stress of necessity. The old county of Essex, born in 1643, made common cause with all her children. It is struggle which makes companionship precious. No bugle note can be as loud as the cry of human weakness.
The views of truth held and maintained by the fathers, however much they may have been modified or rejected, had a pronounced influence for good in the day when they were the predominant tenets of the faith. A rugged age needs stern conceptions. Soft Bœotia cradles no heroes. The bolder aspects of religious thought give stiff- ness to a life which is beset by hardship or exposed to the long drain of poverty. The spirit of man must be braced by exalted ideas when his surroundings are of a depressing character. However little in our time we may need the exhilarating tonic of those overshadowing views of Deity and religion which were the staple of the primitive New Eng- lander, there can be no doubt that the founders had in them the only manna the wilderness supplied. To think of these truths on the week day and to wrestle with them in high discussion on the Sabbath was a constituent part of their spiritual liberty. Had they not been free to think on such things, they would have been in bondage still. And if they forced their personal convictions a little too strongly, we can con- done the act in view of the great work they were doing. Unfortunate as may be the spirit of bigotry, the spirit of religious dilettanteism is more unfortunate still. To think with emphasis is far better than not to think at all. Ecclesiastical exclusiveness is bad, but ecclesiastical millinery is worse. If the one thing be too hard, the other is as much too soft. It is, without doubt, a grievous blunder to burn or to brand a man for his religious opinions, but it is a mistake no less censurable so to treat the important verities of religion that the tender and deli- cate instinct of worship which is an essential factor in all noble natures is crushed out of men. The heroic element grows out of rude convic- tions. The more refinement we have, the fewer heroes we number. Luxury enervates power. It is the lion mind which makes the lion heart.
It is not a broad spirit which condemns the past because it did
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not have the features of to-day. I do not know but the age of bigotry was as essential a step toward the broad charity of to-day as the " dragons of the prime " were necessary in the development of man. One phase of thought has its hour and moves on and passes out of sight. So truth itself enforces its lesson, leaves its emphasis, and makes way for its successor, like the onward movement of the wheel of history, which elevates some truths and depresses others. But each must have its time and come into the horizon. Because we live on one side of the globe, the sun appears and disappears. Because we live on one side of the globe of thought, truths vanish for a time and then come into sight again on the next swing of their wide orbits. Truth is a sphere with zones. Let not those who live in one circle censure those whose fortune or misfortune it is to live in another. Yesterday is not to-day. Truth has its present and its past tenses, and the form of the one is not the form of the other, but each is cor- rect in its place and time.
Why did not the farmer-thinkers of our Revolutionary period go through such a season of nonsense and fanatic idealism as the wild Frenchmen did, of a century ago, and enact, before the mobs of Paris had a chance, the crude, short-lived, and fatal drama of a Republic without Republicans, and a Commonwealth without common intelli- gence and a common regard for order and for law? Our fathers were not in less earnest than the rhapsodical pamphleteers who wanted bricks without straw. They were kindled to a heat as intense and their passions ran as high.
The firm balance of the leaders and of the people, swinging clear of all dreams of doctrinaires, was partly due to the hold reason had taken through their discussion of profound religious questions. No matter if the debates were not practical or on practical themes, - so much the more valuable were they in toughening the mind and giving it poise. What was lost in immediate benefit was laid up for future resource. Those men became accustomed thus to look at things with calmness because the issue was not urgent, and when an urgent issue came, their cold and remote reasonings having given them power to examine with tranquillity, now were on hand to provide just the stability wanted. True rationalists those men were, for they reasoned out the methods of their deliberative no less than their military campaigns, and having adopted rational ends they pursued them in orderly ways.
If they took faith as one of their forces also, they still showed themselves rational men, for faith in God and in goodness is as reason- able as confidence in things more material than they.
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If faith be set aside, religion is dethroned ; and if religion be dethroned, reason loses its power ; for not only is religion built up out of rational conviction and emotions, but reason itself is kept true to its needle by the magnetic power of a vital faith. Faith is the wings with which religion soars, but reason is the feet by which it walks. By insisting on each in its sphere and place did the old thinkers keep New England balanced.
Their logic was hard and dry and their discussions remote, but they gave stability to the mind and made emotion and passion the servants of the judgment.
The early New Englander believed in man. He had a downright conviction that God was first, but all his acts prove that man was a very significant element in the Puritan's conception of the Universe. He had faith in man's thought and in man's work. Whom did he believe in if not in himself? He was lowly, when he spoke of God, but touch him on the matter of his rights, and see how he bristled ! The human idea was intertwined with the Divine. He went to church on Sunday because he believed in God. He sent his children to school on Monday, because he believed in man. It was this faith in man which made him believe that man was superior to institutions. A throne stood for tyranny, because under its rule man had no rights. To re-invest him with these was the foundation idea of every colony that was planted, of every town that was organized. Hence the New Englander has travelled across the continent, and wherever he has gone, we find the church for his worship and the school for his educa- tion. Because he would be free, the spirit of freedom is everywhere. The waters of the bay have surged on the shores of the lakes and on the cliffs of the Pacific. Liberty is a sentiment which has been canon- ized in the suffering of the colonial settler. The early poverty of the people made it sacred. The pangs of hunger were welcome if freedom stood an angel at the household gates, and the tears these early men and women shed over the frail pilgrim whose feet had scarcely touched the land she longed for before they became part of its dust, was the baptism of this daughter of the gods. To build a nation, to found a church, - these were colonial intentions. Let it not be forgotten that the pioneers were building manhood too.
It has been thought that the early history here was dry, lacking in poetic charm, and cold and formal in its details. But viewed in the light of the endeavor these settlers were making. it would be difficult to find anything more romantic. Principle is always cold. Truth in its naked forms never has a summer atmosphere about it. But when
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the ruddy human heart takes principle and bathes it in its blood, or when a great life, or a small one, lifts truth into its arms and breathes its inspiring heat into it, the whole scene burns with color. Judge thesc men by the houses they lived in, by the clothes they wore, by the tools they handled, by their rude usages of speech, by their poor roads and crude forms of social co-operation, and we shall find nothing out of which to make an anniversary ode. But ask what they were in their homely way doing, what words were oftenest on their tongues, what books lay on their tables, what truths were pushing them on, what outlook they had, and what their expectations were, and we shall discover in these things the highest themes of song. Achilles eating his breakfast is no more than any other man. But Achilles on the plains of Troy, clothed in the armor of the gods, their divine light flashing in his eye, his face aflame as he fights for his altars - this conception makes Homer the poet of all the ages and gives him his immortal leadership in the world of epic verse. So the rude events of the lonely life here, its strange surroundings, its hard fare, its bitter storms, the sterile soil, the grim and treacherous sea, the forest with the sullen tribes, are common things, to be met with in any new country, and yield no precious flavor; but the noble emotions that had their fount and their throne within, the great throbs of power which made these men feel that they were equal to any emergency, the modest but dignified consciousness that they were in the hands of God, whose vast purposes of love and grace they were fulfilling, the sober but bracing air with which they went up to the Lord's house on the Sabbath, and the provision they made out of their penury " to the end that learning might not be buried in the graves " of their fathers, the songs they sang, the contentions they had for freedom at home, the battles they fought abroad, the sweet pure altars of domestic joy, the brotherhood which made every man a helper, the sisterly affection which turned every woman into a nurse for the whole neigh- borhood of suffering, their festivals and Thanksgivings, their visits through the far woods to gentle kinsfolk to tell over the scenes of life and love - these all have in them the essential elements of poetry and give us the picturesque phase of our New England life. The artist, if he knows these shores, will find bewitching realms of color among our rocks and hills, and the true poet will not fail to secure a congenial theme amid the harsher outlines of colonial life.
If the first century shows a gratifying development in the incor- porate life of the town, the second century is equally pleasing in its phases of growth. We detect the same note of hardship, and poverty
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still waits on the land, while death lurks on the sea. But neither heart nor hope abates. The past is too precious to justify any backward step, and the future is promising. There is but one word which tallies with the life of Gloucester. It is the old brave word, " Forward."
King George's war and the French and Indian war depress the spirits of our maritime people and drain the population. But voyages are made to the West Indies, to Spain, and to Portugal, with fish as the chief export, while our vessels return with sugar and molasses, with fruits and coffee, with salt and with liquors. The trips are disturbed by the encroachments of the enemy, and even the fishing boats are insecure. But the uncertainties of the sea have their compensation, for if men are not wanted there, they are needed at Louisburg, at Crown Point, and on the Plains of Abraham. Captain Giddings and his company are at Louisburg. At Crown Point we are represented by one whole company, besides soldiers who are members of other bodies of troops, and if tradition be correct, some of the Gloucester fisher- men were at Fort William Henry, and some fought and fell under the walls of Quebec. The home garrison defends the old fort, which has been put into a state of war by eight mounted twelve-pounders. The men who go forth march under the benediction of psalm and prayer, for religious services are held in their behalf in the First Parish Church, and while they are away they are not uncared for, for Rev. Mr. Chan- dler is chaplain of one of the regiments at Crown Point. Valiant in war, our people are not lacking in mercy toward those who are in trouble, for some of the unfortunate Acadians find in our homes a refuge amidst the sad tragedy of their history, and are for a time sup- ported at the expense of the town.
The peace of Paris (1763) opens the sea once more to our domestic merchantmen, and soon nineteen schooners sail for the Grand Bank, and at the date of the Revolution, our fishing tonnage is supposed to be forty-five hundred tons ; nearly one thousand more are in foreign commerce, while the population has increased from twenty- eight hundred in 1755 to five thousand twenty years later.
The schools keep pace with the expanding life of the scattered community, whose wealth is never more than meagre. In 1758, the grammar school is located at the Harbor, and Samuel Whittemore is its first teacher. At a later date an association of citizens builds and opens a house, which is known as the Proprietors' School (1790), in order that better facilities may be enjoyed by the studious of the town ; and in the same year, impelled thereto, no doubt, by this spontaneous and public-spirited action, Rev. Mr. Forbes - foremost in all good
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work - on behalf of the school committee, urges improved methods in the line of education, and especially larger opportunities for the girls. As a result, in 1795, a new school-house is built at a cost of three hundred pounds, and is dedicated by appropriate religious services. Ten years afterward two thousand dollars are raised for education, and eleven districts have their individual school-houses and teachers. The town grammar school becomes a movable institution and, like the ancient ark of Israel, blesses now this part of the community and now that, until after various phases of form and life, it disappears altogether, and the century closes with the district system in the ascendant, and twenty-three schools with their ungraded and tangled methods are doing what they can to keep to the front the invaluable ministry of education.
The second century opened with the division of the original parish of Gloucester. Not without regret did the families " up in town," see the financial centre change. But commerce knows no logic and does not respect the muse of history. The power is at the Harbor, and when some of the abler men build a meeting house, and secure from the General Court, under protest, the name of the First Parish, it is evident that the people at the Green must be afterward known as the Fourth Parish. The Rev. John Rogers is its first and only minister, and the house in which for many years he lived and from which he was buried is still standing. The people of Sandy Bay, few in number, and representing now (1754) but one twenty-fourth of the total valua- tion of the town, had kept their own lights burning for some years on the headland of our Cape. It pleases them to have a meeting house of their own, and they are organized into the Fifth Parish of Gloucester (1754).
Inasmuch as in the old New England town, the church is the true centre of all its life, it is fair to suppose that it was this feature in the history of our neighbor which solidified her interests and helped to give impetus to her future. For she soon assumes a new and surprising growth. Mr. Babson says that she surpassed all the other parishes in percentage of increase. Her thirty-seven tax-payers of 1753 have become a population of seven hundred and ten, fifty years later, -and in 1840, they have multiplied fourfold. Both here and at Sandy Bay the Methodists and the Baptists locate, and Congregational churches are founded at the Harbor, at Lanesville, and at West Gloucester.
The most significant ecclesiastical event of our second century is the arrival here of the Rev. John Murray, through whose influence is established in this town the first Universalist church of our country. Neither the sincerity of his motives nor the uprightness of his life
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nor the essential character of his Christianity is called in question to-day. But it was his fortune, as it is that of every pioneer in the realm of religion, to be confronted and opposed by good people, who mean no wrong, but are mistaken in believing that no divine fruit can grow except in their own orchards. It is simply a matter of fact that the meek but manly attitude of Mr. Murray was a chapter in the history of that wide movement which guarantees religious liberty to all the people. The men who adopted the views of this new leader entered, with some unfortunate but in the end useless opposition, into compact and were incorporated as an Independent Christian Church. Mr. Murray was their first minister, and something of their devotion to him and of their regard for his Christian demeanor may be inferred from the fact that they call him, "their dear brother in God."
As one reads the faithful transcripts which have been made of our local records, no feeling of shame comes over him as respects the action of the town of Gloucester during the Revolution. The provincial taxes had been met with as much faithfulness as could be expected. The income of the people was generally small and always precarious. The local expenses were large, the appropriations for poverty were never meagre, and the schools were having a fair support.
It was clearly seen that any long struggle between the Mother Country and the Colonies must affect commerce far more than it did agriculture. Still there is never a word of hesitancy as the people of this maritime town march up to the impending conflict. In a full town meeting with no dissenting breath it is voted that the "stamp act is disagreeable," and that no concessions are to be made "whereby our liberties which we have as Englishmen under Magna Charta " are to be given up or lessened. Four years later when the men of Boston called a convention to decide what action should be taken with respect of the governor's decision not to summons the General Court, Glouces- ter is represented, and in the following year the representative to the General Court is instructed to act in harmony with the spirit of Boston. In 1772, the town meeting votes that the town of Boston deserves the thanks of all the English Colonies in America, and that the people of Gloucester are ready to join with them and all others in every legal way to oppose tyranny in all its forms. A Committee of Correspondence is chosen to act in concert with similar committees in other towns. In 1773, the people vote that "with the greatest satis- faction we see the town of Boston and other towns gloriously opposing this pernicious innovation " - referring to the attempt to force tea on the colony. They pass a boycotting act and declare that " we will have
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no commerce with any person or persons that have or shall have any concern in buying or selling that detestable herb." They join hands with the merchants of Newburyport in voting not to trade with Great Britain. When Boston is oppressed by the Port Bill, Gloucester sends one hundred and twenty sheep for food and follows it with a contribution of above £117. The Representatives are ordered to vote for any measure which recognizes the authority of the Continental Congress. The men who are in the General Court in 1776 are the ablest of the town, - Peter Coffin, Samuel Whittemore, William Ellery, Daniel Rog- ers, and John Low.
Meantime the fort or battery house is fitted to receive a stock of powder and ammunition. Train bands are summoned to meet on the parade ground, armed and equipped as the law directs. Six com- panies belonging to Gloucester are enrolled in the Sixth Essex Regi- ment, and in April, 1775, active military preparations are begun in the town. The minute-men are organized and Captain Nathaniel Warner takes command. After Concord and Lexington, the regular enlist- ments begin. The town votes arms and blankets for the soldiers and aid to their families. Two companies are at Bunker Hill. Defences are set up all along our shore. Privateers are equipped. Corn is pro- vided for the distressed households. The clergymen are an inspiration to the people. No pulpit gives an uncertain sound. Days of fasting and prayer are held. The Declaration of Independence is read in all the churches and the town votes to maintain and defend its principles. Salt works are built at Norman's Woe, at the Cut, and at Annisquam. In one year the town votes to borrow $70,000 to defray the military expenses, and so on through the sad yet inspiring days until peace is declared.
These facts and others of like import give but an unfaithful picture of the struggle through which our townsmen went as they shared the fortunes of their defiant and determined brethren. There was a gen- eral shadow on the community. Commerce was ruined. Seven hun- dred tons of our shipping were captured by the enemy in a single year, and other vessels rotted at the decaying wharves. The local mills stopped running. Three hundred and fifty-seven men, out of a small population, offered their lives on land or sea, or yielded them up in glad sacrifice on the holy altar of colonial liberty. One of the pri- vateers - the "Gloucester " - sank at sea with all on board, and sixty families were made mourners and were left poor. One sixth of the whole population were supported by the town or subsisted on the charity of their more fortunate neighbors. The General Court was
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invited to send a committee to see how impoverished the people had become. The small-pox spread into every village of the town (1778-79). The winters seemed severely cold, and in one of them (1779-80) the harbor froze from Black Bess to Dolliver's Neck. Paper money depre- ciated until a dollar was worth but three cents. The ratable polls decreased from ten hundred and fifty-three in 1775 to six hundred and ninety-six in 1779. So slowly did the town rally from the exhaustiug events of the period that the population, which in 1775 was supposed to be about five thousand, had increased only to five thousand three hundred and seventeen in 1790.
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