USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > One hundred years of Mount Vernon Church, 1842-1942 > Part 6
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We now go off to the meeting, on a tolerably bright summer morning. But you will be in September when this reaches you. We shall probably bring our next letters ourselves.
Greet all the household; may our God be your portion.
Your affectionate and grateful child,
EDWARD.
"On the occasion of the Return of the Delegation from the Meeting of the Christian Alliance, in London," a special service was held at Mount Vernon Church on Sunday, September 20, 1846. The program of order of services17 is a choice possession of the church.
17 See centenary exhibit collection.
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOUNT VERNON CHURCH
THE PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Oliver A. Hanscome joined the church on July 4, 1852, at the age of twenty-two. With a small group of New England men he left Boston for Kansas18 in 1854, to settle in the new territory and help to "win it for freedom." Before leaving the Boston station they sang Whittier's Song of the Kansas Emigrant, beginning,
We cross the prairies as of old The fathers crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East The homestead of the Free.
They reached Lawrence, 19 Kansas, on September 9, 1854, and on Octo- ber 22, 1854, they organized with ten charter members, the Plymouth Congregational Church, the first church of any denomination in Kansas. Mr. Hanscome took with him the Manual of Mount Vernon Church prepared by Dr. Kirk and with this guide they drew up the rules and covenant of the new church. Samuel C. Pomeroy, afterwards United States Senator, acted as scribe, using the crown of his beaver hat as a desk. Joseph Savage held the candle and Oliver Hanscome held the inkstand.20
Another young man who "went west" was Caleb S. Pratt, who at one time was president of the Mount Vernon Association of Young Men. He returned to Boston in 1857. The secretary of the Association recorded on July 21, 1857:
WHEREAS, We have learned with pleasure of the safe arival [sic] in the City, from Kansas of our worthy friend and former President Caleb S. Pratt, Esqr.
Therefore Resolved, That we as an Association extend to him a cordial greet- ing, & pledge to him our renewed sympathies & hearty co-operation in the glo- rious work in which he & his copatriots are engaged, & we would hereby ex- press the earnest hope that the day is not far distant when Kansas shall take her place among the Free States of the Union.
Caleb S. Pratt, at the beginning of the Civil War, was first lieutenant of the First Kansas regiment. He fell in the battle of Wilson Creek on
18 Kansas did not become a state until January 29, 1861.
19 See William Lawrence, Fifty Years, published by Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, 1923. Bishop Lawrence recorded: "My father was a successful merchant and manufac- turer, but was at heart and in deed a farmer. He financed the emigrants to make Kansas a free State-hence 'Lawrence,' Kansas."
20 See the Congregationalist of December 4, 1919, and also an article by Alice M. Hawes in the Mount Vernon Messenger of January, 1920.
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MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES AND ORGANIZATIONS
August 10, 1861, while "he was heroically leading his men on to the conflict and nobly contending for rights as sacred as any man that ever nerved the arm or fired the soul of a Christian patriot." The secretary of the Mount Vernon Association of Young Men recorded the following resolution on September 2, 1861 :
Therefore Resolved, That while we would ever bow meekly to the inscrutable ways of Providence, we believe that in the death of Caleb S. Pratt, our Country has lost a brave and efficient officer, his adopted State a good and valuable citizen, the Church an earnest and faithful laborer. Further resolved; That while we deeply sympathize with his afflicted relatives in this sudden dispen- sation of Providence, we rejoice also with them for the evidence we have that while his earnest patriotism led him with characteristic promptness to rush to arms to defend his country's honor, we also have reason to believe that his fervent piety enabled him . . . to endure hardships as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
CITY MISSIONARY SOCIETY
The Boston Society for the Religious and Moral Instruction of the Poor (name change in 1841 to the Boston City Missionary Society) was founded in 1816 by the Reverend Joshua Huntington, minister of the Old South Church.
The ministers and members of Mount Vernon Church have always been actively interested in the Society and in its various camps. From 1844 to 1856, the church contributed over sixteen thousand dollars to City Mission.
Deacon Daniel Safford, one of the original members of the church, was president of the Society from 1850 until his death in 1856. Another original member, Deacon Julius A. Palmer, was also a president of the Society. Deacon Andrew Cushing, also an original member, and his daughter, Miss Chastine Lincoln Cushing, were for many years active in the work of the Society.
The Reverend Samuel E. Herrick bore a leading part in the life of the Society, and was secretary from 1876 to 1882. The subsequent ministers and many of the members of the church have continued this active interest and financial support. Deacon Albert Murdoch, who left the Society a legacy, served on the executive committee and was a member of the staff at Camp Andover.
Mount Vernon Church honors several of its members, Miss Harriet I. Alexander, Miss Mary A. Ballou, Miss Lucy Hammett Brown, and Miss Harriette Carter, who worked for the City Missionary Society in the district assigned to this church. Miss Carter and Miss Alexander were
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOUNT VERNON CHURCH
superintendents of the Chinese Sunday School,21 and Miss Brown22 and Miss Ballou23 served the church for many years as the "Pastor's Assist- ant."
TRACT AND BIBLE SOCIETIES
The Reverend Edward N. Kirk and the members of Mount Vernon Church were interested in several tract and Bible societies, including the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, established in Boston in 1803, the Massachusetts Bible Society, established in 1809, and the New England Tract Society, established in 1814, which changed its name in 1823 to the American Tract Society.
From 1844 to 1856 Mount Vernon contributed over six thousand five hundred dollars to the American Tract Society, and nearly three thousand to the American Bible Society. In Dr. Kirk's original will, dated July 9, 1869, he bequeathed to the American Bible Society "two thirty-sixth parts" of the residue of his estate after the death of his three sisters. Ac- cording to the codicil to the will, dated February 6, 1874, he bequeathed to the Society "one fifteenth part."
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION AND YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION
The first Young Men's Christian Association24 in the United States was founded in Boston in 1851, just one year after the establishment of the Mount Vernon Church Association of Young Men. Early in 1852, rooms were opened for the Y.M.C.A. in the building on the southeast corner of Washington and Summer streets.
The Reverend Edward Norris Kirk was deeply interested in the Y.M.C.A., and often addressed the anniversary meetings. Mr. L. P. Row- land, the first general secretary, has recorded: "Dr. Kirk was my personal adviser again and again."
Many of the members and officers of Mount Vernon Church have since then been actively interested in the work of the Association. The late Mr. George W. Mehaffey, a former deacon of the church, was general secretary of the Boston Y.M.C.A. from 1895 until 1920. His organization
21 See the section on China in this chapter.
22 See Chapter IX for Miss Brown's work in the Mission Sunday School.
23 See Chapter VIII, under the Neighborhood Women's Club, for an appreciation of Miss Ballou.
24 The Y.M.C.A. was founded in London by George Williams in 1844. The first American associations were organized in Montreal and Boston in 1851. Mr. Edward S. Tobey, a treasurer of Mount Vernon Church, was appointed president of the Boston Y.M.C.A. in 1861.
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MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES AND ORGANIZATIONS
work began in 1888, when he was called to establish the West Philadel- phia Y.M.C.A.
Another member of the church interested in the Association is Mr. James B. Watson, who for many years has been active in the work of the Foreign Student Department of the Boston Y.M.C.A. Mount Vernon Church was the birthplace of the Cosmopolitan Club, now sponsored by this Foreign Student Department.
Mr. Wellington H. Tinker, associate minister of Mount Vernon Church from September, 1908, to September, 1909, has held prominent positions in Y.M.C.A. organizations. In 1926 he was appointed executive secretary of the Intercollegiate Branch of the New York City Y.M.C.A., retiring in 1936.
The Boston Young Women's Christian Association25 was established in 1866 and was incorporated in 1867. An earlier attempt had been made in Boston in 1859 to establish an association, but members of the clergy26 discouraged the project, fearing "young ladies would be withdrawn from their own church work." There is no record that the Reverend Edward N. Kirk discouraged the early attempt in 1859.
In 1908 the members of Mount Vernon Church were interested in the building of the new wing of the Y.W.C.A. at 40 Berkeley Street, and contributed generously towards the project. The Girls' Parlor was called the Mount Vernon Church Room.
25 The Y.W.C.A. was founded in London in 1855. In the United States the Y.W.C.A. was the outgrowth of the Ladies' Christian Union established in New York in 1858.
26 Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia, Vol. VIII, p. 880.
6 Educational Institutions and Educational Organizations
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman, that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. -SECOND TIMOTHY, II: 15
F ROM THE EARLY days of the Puritan fathers, the Congrega- tional Church has always associated religion and education. Mount Vernon Church joined its sister churches in contributing its share to American civilization. Its ministers and members were influential in the establishment, maintenance, and administration of several educational institutions in the middle and late nineteenth century, including Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Wellesley Female Seminary, Wheaton Sem- inary, Northfield Seminary for girls, Mount Hermon School for boys, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pinkerton Academy, and others.
MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE
Daniel Safford, one of the original members of the church and for many years a deacon, was interested in higher education for girls.1 Hear- ing that Miss Mary Lyon had the same interest, he and Mrs. Safford in- vited her to make their house2 on Montgomery Place her home whenever she came to Boston. In October, 1836, the corner-stone of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was laid. In March, 1837, Mr. Safford called a meeting of some twenty friends at his house and more than $3000 was subscribed, including a gift of $1000 from Deacon Safford. This amount was in- creased by other Boston pledges to over $4000, thus assuring the financial success of the Seminary. Safford Hall was named for this generous benefactor, who was a member of the Board of Trustees. Among other gifts from Daniel Safford to the Seminary were several pianos and a sheet-iron Rumford oven, which bore his name as manufacturer.
1 Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, founded in 1836 and opened in 1837, became in 1888 Mount Holyoke Seminary and College, and in 1893 Mount Holyoke College. The Mount Holyoke College Library owns five letters from Daniel Safford to Mary Lyon, two letters from Mrs. Safford to Mary Lyon, and one letter from Mrs. Safford to Miss Julia E. Ward, one time principal of the Seminary.
2 In 1836 the Saffords moved to 3 Beacon Street. Ann Eliza Safford, in her Memoir of Daniel Safford, writes: "The chamber set apart for Mary Lyon's use was the scene of some of her most interesting labors. Here she superintended the publishing of the Prin- ciples and Design of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary . . . and wrote The Mission- ary Offering.
46
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EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
On the opening day of the Seminary, Mr. Safford, with "his coat off and on his knees," was seen tacking straw matting on the platform of the Seminary Hall. Mary Lyon's friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Safford con- tinued to strengthen through the years.
The Reverend Edward Norris Kirk3 also was interested in the Seminary and for many years was considered its spiritual adviser and friend. In 1856 Dr. Kirk was elected a member of the Board of Trustees, and in 1858 he was elected president of the Board, serving until his death in 1874. He bequeathed4 to the Seminary the bulk of his valuable library and some of his property when his sisters should no longer need it.
Arthur C. Cole, in his delightful book A Hundred Years of Mount Holyoke College, pays the following tribute to Dr. Kirk:
Dr. Kirk brought an important contribution of aggressive leadership to the board and to the seminary. Giving generously and patiently of his time, he made close contacts with the teachers and even with many of the pupils. He stood for the highest educational standards and often entered the classroom to expound his ideas of the best methods of study and of instruction. He always in- sisted upon keeping Mount Molyoke Seminary in the forefront among institu- tions for the higher education of women.
WELLESLEY COLLEGE
Wellesley Female Seminary (now Wellesley College) was incorpo- rated in 1870. The Reverend Edward Norris Kirk was an intimate friend of the founders, Mr. Henry F. Durant and Mrs. Pauline A. Durant. Of interest not only to members of this church but also to graduates of Wel- lesley College is the following letter, dated October 10, 1869, written by Mr. Durant to Governor Claflin, announcing his idea of founding the seminary and his desire to appoint Dr. Kirk a member of the Board of Trustees.
3 The Mount Holyoke College Library owns fourteen autograph letters of Dr. Kirk from 1855 to 1863,-nine to Miss Chapin, the principal, two to the pupils, one to the Trustees, and two to the secretary of the Board of Trustees. See Appendix M for the calendars of these letters.
4 In Dr. Kirk's will, signed on July 9, 1869, he stated: "I direct my said executor to deliver to the Andover Theological Seminary and to deliver all my remaining books to the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. . . . When my said sisters shall all have died, I . . . direct my said executor to pay over ... also Four Thirty-sixth parts to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary." On February 6, 1874, he filed a codicil to his will, bequeathing "unto the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, two fifteenth parts. It is also my will, that the two fifteenths of my residuary estate bequeathed to the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, and to the Wellesley College respectively, shall be carefully invested by the Trustees of those institutions, as a Library Fund for each, and that the annual income thereof, shall be applied to the purchase of books, which shall be placed in the two librar- ies, with book-plates designating them as given from the Kirk Fund."
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOUNT VERNON CHURCH
DEAR SIR :
It has been my intention for many years to build a Female Seminary (some- thing after the general plan of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) on my coun- try place here.
It seems to be the proper time to apply for an act of incorporation, and I have prepared a petition to be presented to the Legislature for this purpose. The main object is to give education of the highest standard to young ladies of the middle classes at very moderate prices. It is to be eminently a Christian College and I wish to have the principal evangelical denominations represented on the Board of Trustees. Dr. Kirk and Professor Phelps, Howard Crosby, Rev. Dr. Clark of the American Board, and Mr. Abner Kingman are to be among the Trustees. I wish very much to add your name to this list. It may occur to you to ask how much of my time will this take? The answer is very little. I do not expect to build the Seminary for two years at least.
I do wish for your advice about the matter and trust you will allow your name to be used as one of the Trustees.
Mrs. Durant joins me in kind regards to Mrs. Claflin and yourself.
Your friend,
H. F. DURANT.
P.S. I intend to endow the Seminary myself and not ask the Legislature for $40,000. If you see Dr. Kirk he will tell you about my plans.
Dr. Kirk, together with the Honorable William Claflin, the Reverend Austin Phelps, the Reverend Howard Crosby, the Reverend N. G. Clark, Mr. Abner Kingman, and Mr. & Mrs. Durant, signed the petition to the Legislature for the charter, and became members of the Corporation in 1870. At the first meeting of the Board of Trustees, on April 16, 1870, Dr. Kirk was elected president of the Board,5 and served until his death in 1874.
He bequeathed6 to Wellesley College two fifteenths of the residue of his estate, remaining after the death of his three sisters, to be invested as a library fund. The College received in 1893 $5941.72 and added interest totalling $6000. Later distribution of gain on securities increased the fund to $6700. Each book bears a book plate, designating it as a gift from the Edward N. Kirk Library Fund. Since 1912, by vote of the Library Committee, the income has been restricted to the purchase of books too expensive to be bought from department allotments from other funds.7
5 Florence Converse, The Story of Wellesley and Wellesley College, A Chronicle of the Years 1875-1938. See also Acts of Incorporation, Deeds of Gift and Statutes of Wellesley College, printed in Boston, 1885. The college opened in 1875.
6 His will was witnessed by Pauline A. Durant, Henry F. Durant, and J. Wyeth Cool- idge. (Suffolk Courthouse, Probate number 55307.)
Ethel Dane Roberts, A Brief History of the Wellesley College Library, p. 20. See also Evelyn A. Munroe, Record of the Trust Funds of Wellesley College, p. 71.
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EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
He also bequeathed to the college "thirteen volumes of the work of Chrysostom, and also all the volumes and numbers of the Living Age, with the Museum and Eclectic, which preceded the Living Age."
Another interesting bond between Mount Vernon Church and Welles- ley College is the marriage of President Alice Freeman to Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard College. Mr. Palmer, who joined the church on July 4, 1858, at the age of sixteen, has the added distinction of being the first infant baptized in the church. He was born on March 19, 1842, the son of Deacon Julius Auboyneau Palmer and Lucy Manning (Peabody) Palmer, two of the original members.
In a letter,8 dated December 22, 1887, Professor Palmer gives Alice Freeman these directions: ". . . and I want you to leave your marriage license with Adams Claflin, to whom I will also hand mine. Mr. Herrick must have them before the service, and I ought to have reminded you yesterday to bring yours with you to Boston and to secure its transit into Mr. Herrick's hands." Mr. Herrick9 is, of course, the Reverend Samuel Edward Herrick, who helped to perform the ceremony.
Professor Palmer was a member of the Board of Trustees of Wellesley College from 1912 until 1933. Among his gifts to the college is a priceless collection of first and rare editions of English poets, with special collec- tions of Tennyson and the Brownings, and nine hundred original letters of Robert and Elizabeth Browning. The George Herbert Palmer Library Fund10 of $15,000 was established in 1921 by Professor Palmer. This fund became available to the college in 1936 "for the preservation of the Library of English Poetry which I have already given to Wellesley."
Still another bond between the church and Wellesley College is the Anne L. Page Memorial Kindergarten, now a part of the college. The Kindergarten was founded in 1913 by the late Mrs. Helen M. Craig.
WHEATON SEMINARY
Miss A. Ellen Stanton, who joined Mount Vernon Church in 1898, was for many years a teacher and the principal of Wheaton Seminary. Stanton Hall at Wheaton College, dedicated on October 15, 1921, was named in her honor.
8 Ella Freeman Talmage, An Academic Courtship, Letters of Alice Freeman and George Herbert Palmer, 1886-1887, with an introduction by Caroline Hazard, p. 248.
° Alice Freeman Palmer's sister, Mrs. Ella Freeman Talmage, wrote on June 6, 1941, from Marlboro, N. H .: "Both Miss Doris Volland and Wellesley are dear to me, so we are friends. I wish I could help you more in your centenary history. . .. It is correct to say Dr. Herrick performed the ceremony at the wedding December 23, 1887. As there were two clergymen in the family, my husband, and Professor Palmer's brother, they each had a part in the service but Dr. Herrick legally married them.
10 Evelyn A. Munroe, Opus Citum, p. 81.
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOUNT VERNON CHURCH
Miss Stanton first came to Wheaton Seminary as a teacher in 1871. She continued to teach French until the summer of 1880. In the fall of that year, she became principal and also taught classes in Mental and Moral Science and Butler's Analogy, both of which offices she filled through June of 1897.
She was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, and was educated at Mount Holyoke. She studied in London and Paris, specializing in French. She died in Hampton, New Hampshire, in 1924.
In a letter11 written to Mr. David R. Craig, on February 5, 1916, from Hampton, Miss Stanton requested that her name "be allowed to remain on the records" of the Mount Vernon Church. She wrote:
When my duties there {Wheaton ] had ceased I removed to Boston where for some time I was a church "tramp" before deciding where to settle in a church home. I often found myself in the Mount Vernon Church listening to Dr. Her- rick. One Sunday I remember particularly-it was at the dedication of the beautiful La Farge window. . . . But I soon learned that the window was a memorial to Mr. & Mrs. William G. Means who were old acquaintances . . . in Manchester. . . . Soon after I went again to the church. Rev. Dr. Mc Kenzie was in the pulpit. He had often been a guest at Wheaton Seminary . . . "Do you come to this church ?" he asked. I replied that I had nearly decided to do so. He said, "I would advise you to by all means, for Dr. Herrick is one of the most scholarly ministers in Boston, and a most spiritual man."
NORTHFIELD SEMINARY FOR GIRLS AND MOUNT HERMON SCHOOL FOR BOYS
Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), the celebrated preacher and evangelist, came to Boston in 1854, a boy of seventeen, and secured work at his uncle's boot and shoe business on Court Street. His uncle insisted that he attend church and Sunday School. Accordingly he went to Mount Vernon Church on Ashburton Place. He enrolled in Mr. Edward Kim- ball's Bible Class and also joined the Mount Vernon Association of Young Men.
He came before the Church Committee, applied for admission to the church, but was temporarily refused because of his ignorance of theology and the Bible. He was finally accepted with misgivings and on May 3, 1856, he received his first communion and signed the membership book.
In 1857 he went to Chicago and engaged in city missionary work. He opened a Sunday School there which later developed into the Chicago Avenue Church, of which he became a pastor. He later founded North-
11 See Appendix O for complete letter.
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EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
field Seminary for girls and Mount Hermon School for boys in North- field, Massachusetts, and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
The story of Moody and Sankey is well known. Mr. Moody preached to crowded audiences in the United States, England, and Scotland. He in- fluenced many young men who were afterwards to become famous, in- cluding Henry Drummond, Keir Hardy, and Sir Wilfred Grenfell.
In 1937 Mount Vernon Church celebrated the hundredth anniversary of his birth, with commemorative addresses and an exhibit of fascinating Moody memorabilia.
THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Edward Silas Tobey,12 a very prominent citizen of Boston, was for eighteen years the treasurer of the Mount Vernon Congregational So- ciety. He was a member of the original committee appointed in Boston on January 11, 1861, for the purpose of "adopting measures for the or- ganization of the Institute, and in furtherance of a petition to the Legisla- ture for a charter and a portion of the Back-Bay land."13 The Institute, later called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was founded in 1865 with a class of twenty-seven students.
Mr. Tobey held official relations to the Institute for several years. He was interested in several educational institutions, and became a trustee of Bradford Academy from 1863 to 1875 and of Dartmouth College from 1863 to 1870.
PINKERTON ACADEMY
Pinkerton Academy in Derry Village, New Hampshire, was founded in 1814 by the far-sighted beneficence of Major John Pinkerton (1735- 1816) and his brother, Elder James Pinkerton (1747-1829). In 1881 the latter's son, John Morison Pinkerton,14 a deacon of Mount Vernon Church for twenty-one years, bequeathed to the Academy $200,000. Dea- con Pinkerton was at one time the president of the Board of Trustees. He was an alumnus of Yale and a prominent lawyer in Boston.
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