USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Necrology, 1890-1900 (Andover Theological Seminary) > Part 51
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Rev. Albert E. Winship, of Somerville, Mass. (Class of 1875), who con- ducted Mr. Berry's funeral service (held in the Pelham church on his seventy-
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fifth birthday), happening to take with him a little volume of " Selections from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius" for reading on the way, was so struck with the words of the pagan philosopher written eighteen centuries ago, as accurately describing the character of the plain minister of Christ of today, that he read quotations from them as part of his eulogy. "There was in him the sanie simplicity, purity, fidelity to duty, devotion to the public weal, unaffected dignity, and - we may well believe - the same clear conscience in the hour of death. To these are to be added a gentleness, a sweet reasonableness, an in- definite but most potent personal charm, and a refined and sensitive intellectu- ality that were all his own. In every situation he was contented, cheery, thoughtful of the future, and careful about small matters. He had unwavering adherence to judgments formed after due deliberation ; indifference to honors so called; industry and assiduity; readiness to listen to any scheme for pro- moting the common good; an inflexible determination to render every man his due; tact to choose the proper time for severity and for leniency ; and a sense of fellowship with mankind. He was not fickle and capricious, but liked to continue in the same places and affairs. He was free from inconsiderateness in action, and insincerity and hypocrisy ; independent of what others may do or leave undone; accepting cheerfully whatever befalls or is appointed, and above all, waiting death with a serene mind."
Mr. Berry was married, November 24, 1853, to Dora Richardson Snow, of Dublin, N. H., daughter of Ezra Snow and Mary Ryder. She died March 15, 1873. He married, second, January 30, 1877, Mary Currier Richardson, of Pelham, N. H., daughter of Solomon Richardson and Hannah Currier, then a teacher in Bradford Academy. She survives him.
Mr. Berry died of heart failure, at Pelham, N. H., October 4, 1899, aged seventy-four years, eleven months, and twenty-seven days.
CLASS OF 1863.
George Arden Rockwood.
Son of Roswell Rockwood and Sarah Rounds ; born in Champion, N. Y., June 2, 1832 ; fitted for college at St. Lawrence Academy, Potsdam, N. Y. (where he afterwards taught for a time when in college) ; graduated at Middle- bury College, 1858; principal of Batavia (Ill.) Institute, 1858-60; studied in Chicago Theological Seminary, 1860-62, and in this Seminary, 1862-63; licensed to preach by the Essex South Association, at Salem, Mass., Febru- ary 3, 1863. The spirit of his graduating address, August 5, 1863, on " Patriotism a Christian Duty," was shown by his previous service in the U. S. Christian Commission, in the Army of the Potomac, from February to May, and by his subsequent service as army chaplain. After supplying the church at Bridgewater, Vt., from August to December, he was ordained there, December 16, 1863, as chaplain of the 8th U. S. Colored Troops (afterwards commanded by Col. Samuel C. Armstrong), serving in South Carolina, Florida, and Virginia until the close of the war, then in Texas till December, 1865. He was then acting pastor of the churches at Carthage, N. Y., 1866-69, Deer River, N. Y., 1866-68, and Champion, N. Y., 1866-69; at Rensselaer Falls, N. Y., 1869-83 (installed pastor, December 6, 1871) ; pastor, Oregon City, Ore., 1883-88; State Superintendent for Congregational Sunday School and Pub-
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lishing Society, residing at Willsburg, Ore., 1888-89; established a Sunday School in Willsburg, which resulted in the organization of a church in 1892, of which he was acting pastor until his death.
Rev. Jesse H. Jones, of Halifax, Mass. (Class of 1861), who was a pastoral neighbor in New York, sends the following tribute : "Rev. George A. Rock- wood faithfully fulfilled the duties of a country pastor. He visited among the people, he preached the Gospel, he fed the flock, he cultivated the field, he improved the material conditions of the churches which he served. He was a true, Christian, family man - a tenderly loving husband, a father who sought the best for his children, and they rise up and call him blessed. His life was closely associated with certain of the deepest experiences of my own, and he was a helpful and consideraté friend, a cheering and assuaging presence. I think he ran his course to the full, and accomplished all there was in him to do. His end was most desirable; from active life, in a moment, in the twin- kling of an eye, he passed over the river, this mortal put on immortality, and he was gone to be forever with the Lord."
Mr. Rockwood was married, May 11, 1869, to Ellen Maria Murdock, of Philadelphia, N. Y., daughter of Hiram Murdock, M. D., and Hannah Sabin. She survives him, with two sons and one daughter. The sons are both gradu- ates of Amherst College ; one is a business man at Portland, Ore., the other, Rev. Arden M. Rockwood, graduated from this Seminary in 1899, and was installed as pastor of the church at Lyndeborough, N. H. The daughter is a student at Bryn Mawr College. A daughter died in infancy.
Mr. Rockwood died of heart failure, at Willsburg, Ore., September 18, 1899, aged sixty-seven years, three months, and sixteen days.
OLASS OF 1864.
Edward Griffin Porter.
Son of Royal Loomis Porter and Sarah Ann Pratt; born in Boston, Janu- ary 24, 1837 ; when he was seven years old, his father, who was editor and proprietor of the American Traveler, died, and his mother subsequently removed to Dorchester, in whose public schools he received his early training ; prepared for college at Phillips Academy, 1851-54; began his course at Williams College, and graduated at Harvard College, 1858; spent three years in Europe, for travel and study, 1858-61, attending the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg and studying Greek one winter in Athens ; on his return took the full course in this Seminary, 1861-64, graduating August 3, 1864, with " Luther at the Wartburg " as the theme of his Commencement address. He was licensed to preach by the Norfolk Association, at Braintree, meeting with Rev. Dr. Richard Salter Storrs, Sen. (Class of 1810), January 26, 1864. His health being seriously impaired by a fever contracted in Virginia, during his service for the Sanitary Commission in '1863, he only preached occasionally, and in 1866-67, took another foreign tour, visiting Switzerland, Italy, Syria, Palestine, and Greece. He began service in Lexington, Mass., in the summer of 1868, and was ordained pastor of the Hancock Congregational Church, which he had organized, Octo- ber 1, 1868, Rev. James H. Means, D. D., of Dorchester (Class of 1847), preaching the sermon. He resigned this pastorate in 1891, and though retain-
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ing his legal residence in Lexington, has resided since with his mother, Mrs. Nathan Carruth, at Ashmont, Dorchester.
Mr. Porter's intense love of historical research, his absorbing interest in educational and philanthropic movements, his skill, almost amounting to genius, in the leadership of affairs, and his tremendous energy and industry in these various lines of public service, are indicated by the societies and institutions which he served, and the books and papers he published. He was chairman of the School Committee and trustee of the Public Library at Lexington, and the chairman of the Lexington Centennial Committee, 1875. He represented Massachusetts in the Historical Department of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. He was chairman of the Committee of Arrangements at the Centennial of Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1878. From 1878 to the time of his death he was a trustee of Abbot Academy, Andover, and of Law- rence Academy, Groton. He served on the Overseers' Committee to visit Harvard College, and on the Boards of Visitors of Wellesley College and Bradford Academy, on the latter for fifteen years. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of the American Antiquarian Society, of the American Historical Association, of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and vice-president of the Prince Society. He had been for thirty years a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, of which, at the time of his death, he had just been reelected president. During a tour around the world in 1887, he visited many missionary stations in Turkey, India, China, and Japan, and acquired a thorough acquaintance with missionary movements, which he turned to good account, after his return, by frequent lectures before institutions and churches, becoming also president of the Board of Trustees of the Central Turkey College at Aintab. These lectures, as well as others upon historical subjects (often delivered in small and remote places), were exceed- ingly useful. His service at the time of the Turkish massacres, by addresses upon the subject and as chairman of the Armenian Relief Commission, was specially valuable.
He published a historical sketch of the Battle of Lexington, and the volume of Proceedings of the Lexington Centennial, 1875. His Rambles in Old Boston, New England, 1887, has become a classic in local history. Other addresses and papers of special value have been reprinted from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and from magazines, including : Concerning President Garfield's Ancestry, 1881; At Bradford Academy, On Occasion of Presentation of Portrait of Ann Hasseltine Judson, 1884; On Life and Char- acter of Samuel Adams, 1884; Memoir of John C. Phillips, 1888 ; sketches of the English towns of Dorchester, Ipswich, Billerica, and Bedford; The Aborigines of Australia, 1890; The Beginning of the Revolution (first chapter in Vol. III. of Memorial History of Boston) ; The Ship " Columbia " and the Columbia River, 1892; The Andover Band in Maine, 1893; The Cubot Celebration at Halifax, 1897; Sermon at the 150th Anniversary of First Church of Lincoln, ISOS; Address at 160th Anniversary of Manomet Church, Plymouth, Sketch of Life of Rev. Ivory Hovey, 1898.
Rev. Edward T. Fairbanks, D. D., of St. Johnsbury, Vt. (Class of 1863), an early and constant friend of Mr. Porter, sends the following tribute : " I have a bright remembrance of Edward G. Porter, as we first met in 1853, boys together in Phillips Academy. He was strikingly attractive, fresh, and straight-
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forward. In native refinement, dignity, scholarship, and various facility, he took leading rank in the class. After college we were students again on Andover Hill. Porter, meantime, had seen much of the world, and his pres- ence brought a welcome waft of cosmopolitan ideas into our little community. It was apparent that his training, tastes, and experience were fitting him for special lines of usefulness. He took the pastoral office with a deep sense of its supreme and sacred requirements, with ardent devotion to every detail of its duties. Organizing the new church at Lexington gave scope for his energy, tact, spiritual gifts, and conscientiousness. But his parish was of necessity wider than any church. His value as a citizen was quickly recognized and increasingly appreciated. Lexington, Boston, Massachusetts, had reason to honor him for his enthusiasnı in patriotic and historical interests. His expert- ness in public functions of various sorts occasioned many demands for his graceful and effective services. His ready speech, his wide acquaintance with men and things, his courtesy and genial helpfulness, made him a most enter- taining companion. One could not be very long by his side without a quicken- ing interest in some phase of history, art, archæology, current life, literature, missions, practical church work, education, neighborhood improvements, or whatever else. With a soul of sincerity and a richly cultivated mind, he adorned whatever he touched. Everybody wanted something of him, and his abounding activities were given unsparingly in all directions. Suddenly, in the midst of the brimming fullness of his buoyant life, he vanished from our sight. Except that now he is ' somewhat far advanced,' I cannot think of him as being other than he always was among us - breezy, cordial, versatile; simple-hearted and generous; distributing cheer and stimulus, and always abounding in some work of the Lord."
Rev. Henry A. Hazen, D. D., of Auburndale (Class of 1857), adds a few words in appreciation of Mr. Porter's connection with the Genealogical Society : " Mr. Porter was elected president of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in January, 1899, and brought to its service character, tastes, and literary and archæological ability which were almost ideal. He had a rare tact in winning men and enlisting them in his work, whatever that work was, and he made the Society's work and interests his own, with a singleness of heart which left nothing to be desired. Wherever he went, his enthusiasm was con- tagious, and new friends of the Society appeared in many and distant places. His sudden death, after a single year of service, is a great loss to the Society, and will be keenly felt."
Mr. Porter died of heart failure, following pneumonia, at Ashmont, Dor- chester, February 5, 1900, aged sixty-three years, and twelve days. He was never married.
OLASS OF 1867.
Charles Myron Palmer.
Son of Asa Palmer and Pamelia Rugg; born in Orford, N. H., Janu- ary 16, 1837; fitted at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, N. H .; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1862 ; principal of Hitchcock Free Grammar School, Brimfield, Mass., 1862-64 ; studied in Union Theological Seminary, 1864-65, and in this Seminary, 1865-67, his graduating address, August 1, 1867, being
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upon "The Doctrine of the Supernatural." He was licensed to preach by the Essex North Association, meeting with Rev. D. T. Fiske, D. D., at New- buryport, December 19, 1866. He began to supply the church at Harrisville, N. H., in September, 1867, and was ordained as its pastor, December 8, 1868, continuing there until 1871. He was then acting pastor at Cornish, N. H., 1871-73; pastor, Meriden, N. H., 1873-81 ; acting pastor, Saratoga, Cal., 1881- 82; at Westminster, Mass., 1883-91 ; without charge, Paxton, Mass., 1891-93; at Sharon, Vt., 1893-97 ; at Stoddard, N. H., from 1897 till his death.
Mr. Palmer served in the U. S. Christian Commission in the spring of 1865, and on the school boards of nearly every town where he was pastor. Rev. E. E. P. Abbott, of Chula Vista, Cal., his Seminary classmate, sends the following tribute : " Mr. Palmer once quoted a remark of Dr. William Adams, ' If I were to live my life over, I would not study less but I would pray more.' He was himself always a good student, but he especially impressed us all as a spiritual man. He was possessed very early with a high estimate of the min- isterial office, and none were more faithful and conscientious in their work. Although never robust in health, he excused himself from no duty, and such was his careful regimen, he was not kept from his place in the pulpit for a single Sunday. The few sermons which I heard from him stand out very distinctly as clear and forcible presentations of practical gospel truth. He was greatly esteemed by his college and Seminary classmates, and especially by the parishioners in his various charges. I cannot conceive how he could have had an enemy. A graduate of Kimball Union Academy, and for eight years pastor of the Meriden church, he was a devoted friend of that school, especially in its darker days. He was a staunch adherent of the temperance reform, and always greatly interested in missions. Modest in his estimate of himself, he was always generous in the praise of others. These were the concluding words of a letter written to his classmates in 1882, ' We shall know each other after the strife is over and we rest in the Lord. O that we might be found faithful !' Others have been more ambitious and occupied more conspicuous fields of labor, but of him the Master will surely say, ' Well done, good and faithful servant.' "
Mr. Palmer was married, August 26, 1868, to Marion Woods Powers, of Cornish, N. H., daughter of Obed Powers and Cynthia Comings, who sur- vives him.
He died of Bright's disease, at Stoddard, N. H., September 4, 1899, aged sixty-two years, seven months, and nineteen days.
CLASS OF 1868.
John Wesley Churchill, D. D.
Son of Capt. John Emery Churchill and Eliza Ann Coburn; born in Fair- lee, Vt., May 26, 1839; the family removing to Nashua, N. H., when he was seven years old, he received his early training in the public schools of that city, and at Appleton Academy, New Ipswich, N. H. At the age of seventeen he went to Iowa, and was engaged for two years in civil engineering, in connection with the building of the bridge over the Mississippi at Davenport. Returning East, he began his preparation for college in Ballston Spa (N. Y.) Academy for Boys, at the same time teaching elocution and mathematics, 1858-59; com-
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pleted his preparation at Phillips Academy, 1859-61 ; graduated at Harvard College, 1865; took the full course in this Seminary, 1865-68, graduating August 6, 1868, with "The True Ideal of Pulpit Delivery " as the subject of his Com- mencement address. He was licensed to preach by the Andover Association, meeting with Rev. Owen Street in the lecture-room of the High Street Church, Lowell, December 10, 1867, and was ordained in the Olive Street Church, Nashua, N. H. (Rev. Hiram Mead, Class of 1857, pastor), April 30, 1869, Professor Park preaching the sermon, Prof. E. C. Smyth giving the right hand of fellowship, and Rev. William J. Tucker offering the concluding prayer. On the day of his graduation in 1868, he was appointed Jones professor of Elocu- tion in the Seminary, and in 1896 Bartlet professor of Sacred Rhetoric, filling both chairs until his death. He was also lecturer on Sacred Literature, 1894-96.
Professor Churchill became instructor in Elocution at Phillips Academy in 1866, and held that position to the close of his life. He began instruction at Abbot Academy in the same year, and continued it for twenty-five years. As lecturer or instructor in the same department, he was connected with Mt. Holyoke Seminary (now Mt. Holyoke College), 1875-82, with Smith College, 1876-80, with Wellesley College, 1877-78 (and Visitor to the department of English and Elocution, 1894-99), with the School of Oratory, Boston Univer- sity, 1873-79, with Johns Hopkins University in 1880, and with Harvard Divinity School, 1890-96. For longer or shorter periods he also gave instruc- tion in public speaking at Amherst, Brown, Dartmouth, and other colleges. The number of students whom he trained individually at the three Andover schools, and at many other institutions, especially in connection with public debates, prize speaking and Commencement parts, was very large. He was one of the Board of Preachers at Cornell University, 1882-83, and at Dart- mouth College, 1893-99, besides preaching in turn as one of the pastors of the Seminary Church at Andover, and officiating frequently at Amherst and Har- vard, and in the pulpits of nearly every New England city. Until recent years he fulfilled almost numberless appointments as a public reader, not only in prominent courses of literary entertainments, but often in small towns and for the aid of feeble churches. He was one of the editors of the Andover Review during the period of its publication, 1884-93. He was a trustee of Abbot Acad- emy from 1879. Dartmouth College conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him in 1896.
Of this life, so widely known, so crowded with strenuous work, so benefi- cent in its influence over thousands of youth in the schools, and other thousands of men and women in various congregations and audiences, praise comes from every hand, unstinted and sincere. From many hundreds of letters received, three short extracts are given as typical of all. President William J. Tucker, of Dartmouth College (Class of 1866), writes : " Apart from all personal feel- ing, I cannot express the loss which we have sustained at Dartmouth in the death of Professor Churchill. He at once made himself one of us, and he grew to be more and more a vital part of the College with each year. I doubt if any man has touched so many hearts here by his death." President L. Clark Seelye, of Smith College (Class of 1860), writes : "His teaching was of the highest order, and he was greatly beloved by all who knew him. His death is an unspeakable loss, not only to the Seminary, but to all who are interested in
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education, and to all who knew him as a friend." A home missionary on the frontier writes : "I have lost a very dear, sympathizing, whole-souled friend and guide."
Rev. DeWitt S. Clark, D. D., of Salem, a Seminary classmate and close friend, sends the following tribute : "How can we think of the world, without our dear Professor Churchill in it? Life was so full, so radiant, so blessed, as it dwelt in him, that we never imagined he would pass out of our earthly com- panionship, till its full limit had been reached. But it was complete, if we regard God's measure, though to us it seems sadly interrupted in its useful mission. He was ' every inch ' a man-in body, mind, and soul. He was the real Christian gentleman. Classmates and fellow-students, somehow, each thought they knew him a little better than others, so patent and genuine was his friendliness to all. An abounding geniality drew to him even comparative strangers. Virtue went out of him to not a few whom he never knew. He first came into prominence as a public reader. With a voice of wide range and exceptional volume and quality, with a sense of humor which every feature expressed, with the tenderness of a child and a spirit easily sharing the most tragic or pathetic experiences, he readily passed from the entertainer of an hour to the teacher, helper, and comforter of the ignorant, the perplexed, and the sorrowing. The many who only casually saw or heard him gave him first rank as a professionalist. He made them laugh, and they went on their way the cheerier for it. He brought tears to their eyes, and they felt the better for it. But merely to play on the heart-strings, for a little while, grew more and more irksome to him. He was not content to be simply an elocutionist, worthy as such a calling is. He would be something more than a caterer to the ever pressing demand for amusement. If he could lift the art of public speaking out of the commonplace and make it the medium of effective appeal and per- suasion - the interpreter of eternal truths -that was his holier ambition. His appointment, after years of distinguished service in voice-culture and oratorical methods, to the professorship in the Theological Seminary he counted his greatest honor. It gave him - what he was specially fitted for - the chance to direct the preachers of the future in the science of public address. His love of proportion and harmony in homiletic composition, his keen sense of propri- ety, his instant recognition of pertinent or alien thought, his choice of the hap- piest word or phrase made him invaluable as a critic. Scripture, prayer, hymn were, in his view, quite as important as the sermon, and he made them quite as much a study. With him the wedding of perfect intonation with the fit word, which seemed so simple, was the result of patient and careful discipline. It was his joy to preach, not by way of example to learners, but because he had something to say. How acceptably and grandly, yet without display, he did it ! Then you saw the man behind the message, though he never preached himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and himself a servant for Jesus' sake. Congrega- tional worship, he thought, should be made as stately and inspiring as that which depends on ritual or outward symbol for effect. Reverence was a controlling passion with him. His voice and bearing in the pulpit always made the impression that the preacher had solemn business in hand. In the few years of his service in his conspicuous position, he showed increasing ability and fitness for the trust committed to him, and worthily maintained its high traditions. His intellectual mintage was from choice materials; his literary
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touch was delicate; his analysis of the elements of strength in popular writers and speakers was suggestive and true.
" Above and beyond all these characteristics of his professional life was his eminent helpfulness. To whom was he not a friend? I do not recall a single sentiment or word I could wish he had not uttered. Of pure imagination and pure speech, it was always healthful to be in his company. His correspond- ence was simply boundless, since he not only 'cared for all the churches,' but for multitudes without their pale as well. With a memory which never failed to retain both name and circumstance of the humblest, no less than the famous, with a manner which said to one and all, ' command me,' he kept widening and strengthening the bonds which attached multitudes to him, till he staggered under the load of their loving expectations. A vacation was an almost unknown experience, while the calls for all kinds of service kept ever coming to him. The rest which his active spirit could not find here, the all-wise Father has given him above - the rest of the people of God. And so we are glad, though lonely without sight of him whose ' leaf ' seems to have 'perished in the green.' Confidently, we can still say to him there, as here we were wont :
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