USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume I > Part 13
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The Methodists in Boston-The first missionaries sent by Wesley to this country were the Reverends Boardman and Pillmore; Boardman coming to Boston in 1772. A church of the denomination was established but ceased to exist a few years later. In 1787, the Reverend Freeman Garretson, "fresh from the founding of Methodism in Halifax, N. S., passed through Boston." Finding members of the former church, he planned to return and reorganize it as a society. But his work else- where so engrossed his attention, that it was not until 1790 that he did return but failed to stay long enough to found a church. He did meet and send later, Reverend Jesse Lee, a worthy successor to Whitefield, who, in 1792, established the first permanent Methodist Episcopal Church in New England. A Methodist class was formed in Boston, July 13, 1792, meeting in a school house in the North End, with Asbury, later bishop, preaching. In 1793, Amos G. Thompson was the minister; in 1794,
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Christopher Spry ; in 1795, John Harper. On August 28, 1795, the corner- stone of the First Methodist Episcopal Church was laid by the Reverend Jesse Lee, the edifice being dedicated May 16, 1796. This early church was a small plain building on what is now Hanover Avenue, and was only thirty-six feet by forty-six in size. The membership numbered forty, poor so that the building was heavily in debt, and not finished until 1800.
The depressed financial condition of Boston held the Methodist Church in check more, probably, than it did others, but once the War of 1812 was settled and the town began to wend its way back to commercial prosperity, the spread of Methodism was prompt and remarkable. It was one of the few churches whose percentage of increase in membership kept pace with that of the population. Some have explained the rise of this denomination as due to the eloquence of its early ministers. But it would seem that it was owing largely to the adaptation of the religious views that they represented to the minds and interests of their hearers. Said one eminent Congregational divine :
"There was evidently an aptitude in the public mind to receive the Methodist faith and form of worship. Nor is it difficult to show how this came about. Old Orthodoxy, tinctured with Arminianism, and cooled down to a luke-warm temperature in its delivery from the desk, had become the characteristic of the Sabbath-day instructions in many pul- pits, as it had been prior to the Great Awakening in 1740; and nothing could have been more favorable to the success of an earnest loud-spoken ministry. In his doctrinal teaching, Jesse Lee, the pioneer of the denom- ination in these parts, suited such as were of Arminian tendencies ; in his fervent style of address he was acceptable to many warm hearted Calvinists tired of dull preaching. What with both of these adaptations to the wants of the people, no wonder Methodism had a rapid growth. Something of the kind was inevitable. The wild enthusiasm of the Quakers had long since disappeared, and their numbers were diminishing. The Martyr spirit which animated the first generation of Baptists had subsided with the removal of their civil disabilities, and their religious zeal suffered a proportional decline. If Jesse Lee had not come to Massachusetts, some one else, pressed in spirit, Like Paul at Athens, 'when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry', would have found utterance, and would have found followers."
The Religious Situation at the End of the Eighteenth Century-But we must bring to a close the story of the first two periods of the religious history of Boston. It covered nearly half of the time the city has been settled. Twenty-three churches are the total of those established, the most of which were Congregational, there being only seven of other
REVIEW OF EARLY RELIGIOUS HISTORY 109
faiths and these were all relatively weak. The population had increased from a family or two to 22,000, or a church to every thousand inhabitants. There has been a remarkable multiplication of religious societies since, but the proportion today is only about one church to two thousand resi- dents. There are now more denominations than there were individual churches at the half way mark in 1780. This increase in denominations is the principal characteristic of the last one hundred and fifty years, for so feeble were the beginnings of other than Puritan sects during the first century and a half, that the part they played in religious history was exceedingly small except as they influence the growth of the original church.
Unitarianism, as a distinct belief and church, did not come to the fore until well on into the nineteenth century; the American Unitarian Asso- ciation was not formed until 1825. The period of the first marked growth in the Methodist Church was from 1834 to 1853 when fourteen churches were added to the original three in Boston. Baptist societies multiplied a bit earlier than the Methodist. To the five churches organized before 1820, five were added during the next decade, five during the next, and eleven within the next eleven years. Just after the War of 1812, the Episcopal churches numbered two with a total membership of two hun- dred communicants. Within the next twelve years St. Matthew's and St. Paul's churches were founded. By 1843, in the region that is now Boston there were seven Episcopal parishes; there were only two more added until well after the Civil War.
Meanwhile other denominations entered the religious life of the city. Universalism as a dissent to the Unitarian drift which had led to the establishment of Methodism and to the Trinitarian belief which had brought Unitarianism into being, had interested men since Doctor George de Benneville's time (1741) but can hardly be said to have a representation among the churches of Boston until 1785 when the small Mather Church on Hanover Street was purchased and a small society of Universalists formed. A Second Society of Universalists was incorporated in 1816; the Third was formed in 1823; a Fourth in Roxbury, 1824; and a Fifth in South Boston in 1830; the Shawmut dates from 1836. Other congregations were formed during the middle period of the nineteenth century, until there were twelve societies of the Universalist faith in the area which is now Boston. The present churches number six, and while fewer in number than formerly, Boston still retains its position as the center of Universalism in this country.
The Catholic Church-A century and a half ago, what is now the strongest of the churches in Boston, had no single edifice in the town. The number of Catholics in Boston were estimated as less than 100 in
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1790, and were, for the most part, either French, Irish, or Spanish, hav- ing neither church organizations, places of worship, nor established priests. Reverend John Thayer, a native of the town, who had been a Congrega- tional minister but had become a convert to the Catholic faith, was sent to Boston to establish a mission, and have charge of the few Catholics in the place. This was January 4, 1790, and he founded what may be called the first regular church society of Roman Catholics in Boston. The growth of the church was slow until the middle of the century, when the influx of Irish emigrants made it necessary to create many organiza- tions, and build many edifices to care for this new increase in the popula- tion. Shortly after the Civil War the Roman Catholic denomination progressed by leaps and bounds until it became the principal church in Boston, a position it still holds. The Catholic population in 1880 was estimated at 150,000. These worshipped "in 30 churches, attended by 90 priests, under the guidance of their arch-bishop. There were 10 Paro- chial schools, chiefly conducted by the Sisters of Notre Dame. They had 3 colleges and academies in the city, 5 orphan asylums, 3 hospitals, and a home for their aged poor."
Most of the additional denominations in Boston founded during the latter half of the nineteenth century were the result of the coming of peoples from other lands whose form of religion they brought with them. The Jews had synagogues, two at least by 1860, and other Mediterranean folk were enjoying services in their native tongue. Probably every major country, and many of the smaller nations, had churches of their own faith in Boston by 1875.
Christian Science Church-Of purely American religions, only one of the several which have risen in Boston within the last hundred years has thrived, and this single exception has become world wide. Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, of New England birth and parentage, started the movement that culminated in the Christian Science Church, whose "Mother Church," The First Church of Christ, Scientist, is one of the most splendid of the many church edifices of Boston. The first Scientist organization was formed on July 4, 1876, in Charlestown, with seven persons including Mrs. Eddy. In 1878, she began the giving of public lectures in rented halls, and, in 1883, secured the Hawthorne Rooms at 3 Park Street. After meeting in various rented places, the First Church built the orig- inal unit of their present meeting house, in 1895, on Falmouth, Norway and St. Paul streets. The new auditorium seating five thousand, was added in 1906.
CHAPTER IV. REVIEW OF EARLY MILITARY HISTORY.
The settlement of Boston seems to have been effected without any colli- sion with the Indians, or the necessity of satisfying any claims of ownership made by the aborigine. The great plague, the nature of which is not even now known surely, had well nigh extirpated the natives of eastern Massa- chusetts some dozen or so years before the arrival of the Plymouth settlers. The peninsula upon which Winthrop and the Puritans located was a deserted place save for the farm of Mr. Blackstone, and the whites felt free to take possession without bothering to consider the rights of any former native owners. Nor does there appear in the early records evi- dence of any claim being made to the area by the Indians during the first half century. Of the later negotiations by which a deed was secured from Chickataubut and others little is known beyond the fact that such a deed was secured and put on file in 1708. It is strange that the many refer- ences to Chickataubut in the diary of Winthrop did not include mention of a sale to the inhabitants of Boston by the chief if such a sale had been made. Chickataubut lived at Neponset. He failed to make any early claim to the ownership of the peninsula, or if he did, never formally con- veyed the land to the English. He evidently welcomed the visitors and placed himself under their patronage.
The Indians Deed Boston to the Puritans-There is an ancient Indian deed of Boston, the first and only one, bearing the date 1685. In a town meeting of June 18, 1685, a committee was appointed to purchase any claim, "legal or pretended," which the Indians might advance to "Deare Island, the Necke of Boston, or any parte thereof." The Indian chief consulted in the matter was a grandson of Chickataubut, one Wampa- tuck, or as he was known by the settlers, Charles Josias. The deed declares Chickataubut "upon the first coming of the English, for the encouragement thereof, did grant, sell, alienate, and confirm unto them and their assigns forever, all that Neck of land, in order to their settling and building a Town there, now known by the name of Boston, as is environed by the Sea, and the line of Roxbury, and the island called Deer Island, about two leagues easterly from Boston, &c.,-which have been quietly possessed by the said English for the space of about five and fifty years last past." The deed was signed with the marks of the chief and some of his Indian counselors, witnessed and acknowledged before magistrates. The document records the passing of a large sum of money, but curiously enough the amount is not mentioned.
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This whole belated recording of a sale is hard to understand, unless it is considered a clever scheme of the Bostonians to have some apparent legal right to the peninsula if King James persisted in his determination to take from the Massachusetts Bay Colony their rights under the char- ter. A comparison of dates brings out that, in 1684, the original charter had been withdrawn, and late in 1686 Sir Edmund Andros arrived bear- ing a commission as Governor of New England. One of his first acts was to declare the landholders of the colony to be mere tenants of the King's land, and that title to the lands upon which they lived had been forfeited when the charter had been withdrawn. James the Second yielded up his throne to William of Orange and Mary, with the change the reign of Andros in New England ended, but the colony never had returned to it the charter rights under which it had been settled, so that it was quite natural that any failure to have secured their lands from the Indians was now repaired. The title, henceforth, to Boston Necke rested upon purchase from the aborigine, hence the belated bill of sale dated 1685-86, and recorded in the county of Suffolk in 1708.
It is doubtful whether the early purchases of land from the Indians. meant any more to the Puritans than it did to the Indian. Certainly the aborigine did not know what he was doing. The Indians had no idea of ownership corresponding to that of the English. He was a nomad, he never remained in one region or upon one bit of land to establish what the English recognized as the right to land by possession and use. Only the Five Nations, or the Iroquois of central New York, had as far as is known, held to a region for any long period, and even they had driven from the territory the tribes who had preceded them.
Indian Ideas of Land Ownership-Tribal warfare was common, but even this seems to have been carried on as a means of getting possession of members of the other tribe, or to revenge an indignity, rather than to have control over a region. The Indian wandered where he listed; he was dependent upon a wide range of territory to supply him with sub- sistence. The forests and the prairies must be left in their primeval state if they were to continue to yield the game, the pelts, the roots and other food. There must be no thrusting of roads into their depths, nor must the odor of the habitation of man remain anywhere long enough to drive away the wild creatures. The streams were the Indian's highway ; they were also the home of the spawning fish, the most reliable source of food for both himself and the maize which he planted. These streams must be kept free from dams and unpolluted, or they would fail in their supplies.
With such ideas in his mind, and unable to conceive of a race that could think and live differently, it is not surprising that the Indian sold for a few gifts the equal rights with himself to the land, and when he
OLD STREET VIEW OF BOSTON
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found that the whites acted as though they had the sole right to the land, the aborigine became hostile. The Indian thought of the earth and all there is therein as belonging to a God, the privileges of living in and by it, being loaned to all until they were called to an even greater and better "hunting ground." When the white man, just a few of him, came to hunt and live awhile in the God-owned territory, he was welcomed. The beneficence of the whites in giving them as presents some of the things they needed most, and were the hardest to secure, was highly appreciated. The very odd custom of these same visitors of producing a "talking leaf" upon which were many curious marks and upon which they insisted that the Indian make also each one a mark meant little. If it pleased the visitors, all was well. Even the fact that the newcomers built themselves substantial tepees, as though they intended to stay long in one place, stirred only contempt, for the savage had learned through long and hard experience that this could not be done with safety. Not only did that manner of living drive away the animals upon which life depended, but it made sick both land and people. The plague that had almost wiped them out had taught them this; the fields that were cultivated too long had given them many a lesson. They looked with a kindly contempt upon a people whose habits doomed them to destruction, but whom, for a time they aided as the expected sickness overtook them, and the natural food supplies driven away by their settlement became too distant for any but the Indians to secure.
White Man's Ideas of Land Tenure-Whatever may be the later his- tory of the Indians, there is no doubt that their first greeting to the whites was friendly, and that they were very liberal in sharing their hunting grounds and often their possessions. But the white man was in no sense kin to the copper race in ideas, habits or affections. And what made for trouble, the white man was intolerant of any who had different ideas, habits and religion. He had notions of land tenure which did not admit of any sharing of it with anybody. He fenced the Indian from much of the best, dammed the streams, spoiled the game country, and set up a code of association with the Indians that too soon amounted to oppression. The complete dissimilarity of the two races in almost every respect made it utterly impossible that the two could live in amity in the same region. One only could survive, and the repeated wars that racked the colony for a century were inevitable. It was a war of races, a strug- gle where the fittest would be the victor.
Plans for the Conversion of the Aborigines-It cannot be questioned that the Puritans were sincere in their stated intention of "converting the savage" when they came to this country. Cradock, in a letter to Endi-
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cott, March, 1629, bade him "be not unmindful of the main end of our plantation, by endeavoring to bring the Indians to the knowledge of the Gospel" and to keep a watchful eye upon the colonists that "they may be just and courteous to the Indians," winning their love and respect and persuading some of the children to be trained in learning and religion. The charter emphasized the duty of the settlers to the Indian, and those who availed themselves of the privileges it gave them, professed with many reiterations, that they considered themselves missionaries of the Christian religion, and heralds of civilization to the heathen.
It was because they considered the aborigine heathen that there could be no peace. The Spanish came to America with the cry, "Be saved or die." If they chose to be saved, they were made servants. The French were fanatic in their zeal for the cross. But they could live as the savage lived, intermarry, were martial in their activities, drawing closer to the heart of the Indian than did any other race. Although but few, and living in a harsher part of the continent than the English of New England, they all but drove the latter from a place in the north. Then, too, the Catholic religion seems to have been more suited to the Indian taste, more adapted to their understanding, or appreciation.
The Calvinism of the Puritan was a hard, hard thing to impose upon the aborigine. It was, for that matter, rather difficult to sustain among the whites, and the leaders were kept too busy repairing their home fences to have much time to be troubled about the savage at his gate. Whatever the intentions of the Puritans, once in conflict with the Indians, they were forgotten or laid aside. .
Boston Free from Indian Invasions-Boston and its immediate neigh- borhood never were the scenes of any Indian fighting. The terrain was not one which invited hostilities, the narrow neck connecting it with the mainland lending itself too readily to fortification. The settlement also grew so rapidly with its constant accessions from across the sea, that it was too powerful to invite attack. Only on the frontiers were the savages dangerous, but it is to be remembered that the "frontiers of that day were only a dozen miles or so from the shore of Massachusetts Bay." Before the peninsula was occupied by Winthrop, it had been explored carefully, but never an Indian was found in the area, only a tumbled-down wigwam here and there showing that it had ever been occupied by the aborigine. For some reason the rocky and swampy headland had never become a favorite abiding-place of the tribes. Hence it was that Boston held none of the dangers that troubled other settlements, and needed no elaborate stockade or other protective measures to make it safe. Such small contacts as were had with the Indians within the bounds of the town were of a friendly nature or consisted only of the imposing of jus-
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tice in minor wrongs, a justice that was measured out to white and copper races with equal severity.
The Bostonians had to go to a distance to take a hand in the conflicts of the day, a duty which devolved upon them because of their numbers and prominence in the colony. Unfortunately, these contacts aroused a hatred and contempt of the savage that grew with the years and pushed far in the background any hope for the "salvation of the original race that once occupied New England." Before the end of the first half century the Indian had ceased to be considered as more than a harmless farm or house servant, and despised even as such for his laziness and lack of ability.
The Indian Menace Productive of a Martial Spirit-There was one great benefit, an indirect one to be sure, that the Indian brought to the Puritan. Because the savage was an ever-present menace in some part of the colony and because of his later union with the French martial spirit of the pioneers, he led them into forming military units. The Eng- lish country-side from which the Puritans came was not one noted for its warriors, although Cromwell found them capable fighters when he called to arms. It is quite conceivable that had the Puritans in this coun- try not become involved in almost continuous warfare with the Indian, there might never have been a people in Massachusetts so ready to fight for its rights, one so trained in military affairs as to be thoroughly capable of effective defense once a conflict had been precipitated. Skirm- ishes with the Indians, battles with the French and their savage allies, the founding of military units and the almost continuous training and use of them, all made the folk along the Bay ready for the greater warfare of the Revolution. A review of the military affairs of the colony and prov- ince is worthy of careful notice if only to see the development of an unmartial people to the stage where they were prepared to resist the oppression of a great and militant nation. The brave gesture of a small colony in defying a truly great country to enforce its law would have been ludicrous, had there not been behind the gesture a genuine fighting heart and some modicum of military genius and experience. The Indian turned the minds of a religious people towards war; from organizing churches to forming a militia. In facing savagery they became savage, and by overcoming a minor race they were bold to contend with the French in the north and the English in their own town when the time came.
Early Boston Military Organizations-The two oldest surviving mili- tary units in the United States were organized through a fear of the hostility of the Indians upon whose land the colonists were constantly encroaching. On March 22, 1631, the Court of Assistants ordered all
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towns to be placed under military supervision, and to have by April 5 companies and arms. These units were established in "Charlestowne, Newtowne (now Cambridge), Watertowne, Concord & Deddam." On December 7, 1636, the General Court ordered three regiments formed "from all military men in this jurisdiction." The order specified that all the companies already mentioned "be one regiment whereof John Haynes Esqr. shalbee colonell & Rogr Herlakenden Esqr, Leiftenant colonell." The regiment was named the "North," and when in 1643 the Massachu- setts Bay Colony was divided into shires, the North Regiment became the Middlesex Regiment, functioning as such for thirty-seven years. As towns sprang up, their quota of military men were added to the regiment until it included "Sudberry, Woodburne, Meadford, and Linn Village (Reding)." Without going further into the interesting history of this military body-it will be noted at length later-it is enough for our pur- pose to state that evidence placed before the War Department late in December, 1926, traced without a break its line of succession down to the 182d Infantry, Massachusetts National Guard, of the present day. The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, Boston's pride, and, until very recent years, considered the oldest military organization in the country, was chartered in March, 1638, as "The Military Company of Boston." Robert Keayne, one of the chief promoters of the new unit, was its first captain. It was recognized as an artillery company in 1657 by the General Court; the title "Honorable" being assumed in 1700 because many of its members had been associated in a like-named organ- ization in London. Its history is summarized elsewhere in this work, for it has always played a prominent part in the Boston affairs both mili- tary, municipal and social.
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