USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > One hundred years of Mount Vernon Church, 1842-1942 > Part 7
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At the entrance of the Academy are two bronze memorial tablets, one
See Tobey Genealogy by Rufus Babcock Tobey and Charles Henry Pope, published in Boston, 1905, by Charles H. Pope. Edward S. Tobey (1813-1891) was one of the founders of the Boston Board of Trade, a vice-president and later president. During the Civil War, he was appointed a member of the Committee on Harbor Defense. In 1861, he was a delegate in Washington to confer with Secretary Chase and Congress as to the fi- nancial policy of the government. In 1875, he was appointed Postmaster of Boston by President Grant, and was reappointed by President Hayes, and again by President Arthur. 13 See Justin Winsor, Memorial History of Boston.
14 Samuel E. Herrick, Discourse Commemorative of John M. Pinkerton, printed in Boston in 1881. See also Edward P. Parker, The History of Londonderry, N. H., pub- lished in Boston in 1851.
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honoring the founders and the other honoring John M. Pinkerton. The tablets, twenty-six by thirty-four inches, were designed by the eminent sculptor, Daniel Chester French, whose father was a distinguished alum- nus of the Academy. The inscriptions were arranged by President Charles William Eliot of Harvard University.
The bequest of Deacon Pinkerton enabled the trustees to increase the facilities in respect to buildings, apparatus, and number of instructors, and to provide for an enlarged and advanced form of work. Robert Frost taught at the Academy in 1919.
THE ORCHARD HOME SCHOOL
The Penitent Females' Refuge (now the Orchard Home School) cele- brated its one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary in 1941, having been organized15 in 1816 by the Boston Society for the Religious and Moral Instruction of the Poor (now the Boston City Missionary Society). The Refuge received "fallen women and wayward girls from 16 to 30 years old from any place, who desire to reform or are placed here by relatives." The Refuge relied on "sympathy, occupation, and religious influences for reform."16 When prepared to care for themselves, the girls were placed at service in good homes.
At one time the Refuge occupied the Paul Revere House on Charter Street, the home to which Paul Revere moved in 1800 and occupied until his death in 1818. In 1844 a building was constructed at 32 Rutland Street17 (now occupied by the South End Music School) on land donated by the City of Boston. In 1854, the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Penitent Fe- males' Refuge was organized to manage the society and to raise funds, and the organization was incorporated as the Bethesda Society. Later both the Auxiliary and the Bethesda Society were amalgamated as the Bethesda Society.
In 1916, the Society moved to its present location in Waverley, in the home of James Russell Lowell, and in 1936 the name was changed to the Orchard Home School.
Mount Vernon Church has always been interested in the Refuge. Dea- con Daniel Safford,18 one of the original members of the church, was for many years a director of the Penitent Females' Refuge. In 1941, Miss Mary B. Smith, president of the organization and chairman of the Board
15 The earliest extant records owned by the Orchard Home School are dated 1820. Jus- tin Winsor, in his Memorial History of Boston, gives the date of organization 1818.
Directory of Charitable and Beneficent Organizations, 1899.
17 Margaret Deland, in Golden Yesterdays, mentions the Refuge on Rutland Street.
18 Ann Eliza Safford, Memoir of Daniel Safford, p. 296.
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of Managers of the Orchard Home School, addressed the Women's As- sociation of the church, reviewing the history of the Refuge.
NORTHLAND COLLEGE, WISCONSIN
Woods Hall at Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin, was erected in 1907, the gift of Mrs. Henry Woods. When it was very largely de- stroyed by fire in 1919, her daughters, Mrs. Craig and Mrs. Le Boutillier, undertook the restoration. Various organizations in the church have for many years taken a keen interest in the unusual work of this college and have contributed regularly to its support.
The president, Dr. Joseph Daniel Brownell, sends the following letter of greeting to Mount Vernon Church:
NORTHLAND COLLEGE ASHLAND, WISCONSIN December 13, 1941
DEAR FRIENDS:
It is indeed a very great pleasure and privilege for me to extend in the name of Northland College, most cordial greetings and congratulations to Mount Vernon Church upon its celebration of one hundred years of service.
Northland College has had many occasions for feeling deeply grateful to the splendid spirit of Mount Vernon Church. Personally, I have also a very deep and abiding affection for Mount Vernon Church and its people. It was one of the first churches to open its door and heart to me when I became President of Northland College in 1914. Previous to my administration it had equally wel- comed the first President, Rev. M. J. Fenenga, and throughout the entire history of Northland College Mount Vernon Church has had a very helpful and gen- erous part in the carrying on of this great missionary project on the northern frontier.
It has been my privilege many times to share in services of every nature at Mount Vernon Church. I have been its guest at morning services, mid-week services, church dinners, young people's rallies, Missionary Society luncheons -in fact there are few types of gatherings sponsored by the great spirit of Mount Vernon Church where I have not been made welcome in the name and interests of Northland College.
I count among my most treasured friends men and women whose lives have been devoted to service in Mount Vernon Church. The pastors have never failed to extend their friendship and counsel to me and to Northland, and it is my earnest prayer that the noble outreach and splendid service at home and abroad may find a consecration and enthusiasm for its second century of service equal to that demonstrated throughout the one hundred years of its glorious history.
I rejoice in extending congratulations and sincere good wishes, together with an expression of deep appreciation, on the part of Northland College to Mount Vernon Congregational Church.
Very sincerely yours,
JOSEPH DANIEL BROWNELL
54 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOUNT VERNON CHURCH
ROBERT COLLEGE, CONSTANTINOPLE
Mount Vernon Church has always been interested in Robert College,19 Constantinople (Istanbul), because of the connection of the Washburn family with that institution. The Reverend Cyrus Hamlin,20 a former missionary of the American Board in Turkey, was appointed the first president. He resigned in 1877 and was succeeded by the Reverend George Washburn, a former missionary of the American Board, who at that time was professor of philosophy at the college. The latter's wife, Henrietta Lorraine (Hamlin) Washburn,21 whom he married in 1859, was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Cyrus Hamlin. The Reverend George Washburn and his wife left Constantinople in 1908 and there- after lived with their son at his residence in Boston.
Dr. George Hamlin Washburn,22 the son, was born in Constantinople in 1860 and attended the preparatory department of Robert College. He continued his interest in the college and in problems of Turkey through- out his life. In 1919 he was appointed the medical director of the Near East Relief to minister to the sufferers of the war in Turkey. At this time, he organized fifteen hospitals in Asia Minor.
Dr. Washburn and his wife, Anna M. (Hoyt) Washburn, joined Mount Vernon Church in 1890. He was a moderator and a devoted dea- con of the church.
INFANT NURSERIES AND INFANT SCHOOLS
Dr. Kirk was interested in all projects which supported the physical, moral, and religious supervision of children. Better education for chil- dren, both in the school and in the home, he stressed in many of his ser- mons.
Following the suggestion of Dr. Kirk, Charlotte Marshall founded the first day nursery in Boston. This charity occupied a room in Salem Street,
19 Robert College was projected by James H. Dwight and William B. Dwight, sons of the Reverend Harrison G. O. Dwight, a missionary in Turkey. The college opened in a rented building in 1863 under the control of Christopher R. Robert (for whom the col- lege was named) a philanthropist of New York who supported the college. Under the sultan's permission, granted in 1869, the two main buildings were erected in 1871 and 1893 on a fine site on the Bosphorus.
20 The Reverend Cyrus Hamlin, born in 1811, was the brother of Hannibal Hamlin, the vice-president of the United States under Abraham Lincoln.
21 Mrs. Washburn "of the Mission Church, Constantinople, Turkey," applied for af- filiated membership at Mount Vernon Church on April 23, 1915. See Chapter IV for an appreciation of Mrs. Washburn.
22 Dr. Washburn was graduated from Amherst College in 1882, and from Harvard Medical School in 1886.
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where the babies were bathed and fed "while the poor mothers of 1837 went to work." 23
Dr. Kirk was interested in all the new methods of teaching very young children. It is amazing how many of the modern principles of educational psychology Dr. Kirk preached to the mothers of his Maternal Association at Mount Vernon Church in the eighteen-forties.
THE AMERICAN COLLEGE AND EDUCATION SOCIETY
The object of the American College and Education Society, incorpo- rated in 1816, was "to afford a limited patronage to young men preparing for the ministry, and to aid struggling institutions on our Western bor- ders." The directors of the Society recorded:
A multitude of young men may be found, possessed of promising talents, as well as piety, who are prevented by nothing but their want of pecuniary means from obtaining an education for the ministry. Colleges and theological schools in the newer portions of the country need, for a time, the helping hand of the older churches of the East.
Mr. John M. Pinkerton, a deacon of the church from 1860 to 1881, was chosen a director of the American Education Society in May, 1858. From that time until his death he gave his counsel and legal advice with- out pay. In 1872 he was elected vice-president of the Society, succeeding Mr. Julius A. Palmer, another honored deacon of the church. From 1844 to 1856 Mount Vernon Church contributed over four thousand dollars to the Society.
In 1893 the American College and Education Society and the New West Education Commission became the Congregational Education So- ciety. It aided chiefly "Congregational Trinitarian theological students and Western colleges."
THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF COLLEGIATE AND THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION AT THE WEST
Mount Vernon Church was interested in the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, established in 1843. From 1845 to 1856 the church gave over three thousand dollars to the Society. The Reverend Edward N. Kirk addressed the Society in 1851 and, on November 11, 1856, he gave the "discourse at the thirteenth an- niversary of the Society."
23 From A Chapter of Beginnings by Alice M. Hawes, printed in the Mount Vernon Messenger of October, 1926.
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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOUNT VERNON CHURCH
There are two references in the church records to the Ladies' Society for the Promotion of Education at the West. On March 5, 1846, the Col- porteur Circle of Mount Vernon Church had a meeting, attended by one hundred, at which the secretary of the Ladies' Society for the Promotion of Education at the West spoke, regarding "the origin, formation, and ob- jects of that Society." She read letters from clergymen at the West, "re- questing that teachers may be sent out." Dr. Kirk addressed this Ladies' Society in 1847.
THE JOSEPH CLOUTER FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN CATALINA, NEWFOUNDLAND
The Joseph Clouter Free Public Library in Catalina, Newfoundland, was established in 1937 by Joseph Clouter, the sexton of Mount Vernon Church. Since that time about ten branch circulating libraries have been started in the chief towns along the coast. Within a few years over eleven thousand volumes have been given to the library, which was built by Mr. Samuel W. Mifflin, one of the leading merchants of Catalina.
A native of Catalina, Mr. Clouter came to the United States in 1896. When he revisited his home town in 1936, he was impressed with its lack of reading facilities and accordingly resolved to establish a library there. As a nucleus he donated three hundred books from his own library. The Christian Science Monitor was among the first to help this project by orig- inally giving over four hundred books and later adding many more. Through interest created by an excellent newspaper write-up and a radio talk by the Reverend Carl Heath Kopf, several hundred more books were donated.
Dr. Harry H. Germain, of the surgical staff of the Cambridge Hospital, was among those who became interested in this project. He and Mrs. Ger- main contributed five hundred and fifty books and a twenty years' subscrip- tion to The National Geographic Magazine. By June, 1937, about three thousand books were ready for shipment. The British Consul arranged for free transportation with the Furness Withy Steamship Company to St. John's and from there the fishermen conveyed the books to Catalina. Mount Vernon Church is proud to record this educational project of its far-sighted sexton, Joseph Clouter.
7 National and International Crises
Blessed be God who in this our great trial giveth us the churches. -ABRAHAM LINCOLN
THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865
T HROUGHOUT the Civil War the Reverend Edward Norris Kirk was an ardent and fiery supporter of the Union. Long before the beginning of the war Dr. Kirk preached against slavery. He belonged to that advance guard of reformers, often despised and insulted, who were known as abolitionists.
Five years before the outbreak of hostilities, with an insight into the future that was truly prophetic, Dr. Kirk preached a sermon on Our Christian Duty in These Perilous Times.
The Slave Power is now ready for a struggle. Justice and oppression have now met in the field of contest. Kansas is our Sebastopol. The war centres there. And I fully believe that, unless there be a special interposition of Heaven, neither party will yield until such a war has been gone through as the world has not seen. I am not saying what will actually take place; but am merely de- scribing what threatens to occur, and where we are. I am merely pointing to the thunder-cloud that hangs over us, ready to discharge its terrific battery. God may avert it. Man cannot. Coaxing, compromise, let-alone, are all too late. ... Canning's prophecy, that wars were henceforward to be wars of principles, is here about to be fulfilled.
The doctrine that a negro is not a man and the doctrine that the negro is a man, have now come to the death-grapple; and a nation will heave with every convulsive struggle of the contest. Neither party will yield until a continent has been swept with the deluge of civil war. Two races are growing up here that cannot live peaceably until, like Russia and the western Powers, they have fought each other into a new treaty. ... The false sense of honor, the boast of chivalry in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, the murders and duels in which men of the South and Southwest are so constantly engaged,- all these we must regard as a natural growth of that peculiar doctrine. And when this southern chivalry undertakes to form the customs of Freedom's metropolis, and gutta-percha bludgeons take the place of candid discussion, the friends of freedom will bear it no longer. And to that point, I believe in the depth of my soul, we have now come. What, then, is before us? War, war; fratricidal war!
There are cowards at the South, and cowards at the North. The former can whip men that are pinioned, and can challenge men who do not set up their
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lives at the same price as a ruffian's. The latter can goad others on to a war in which they mean to take no dangerous place or part. But when you have put them aside, there remain men, on both sides, who will go to the end, after a beginning is made. But if we begin, even the cowards must at length fight. And when man has tasted blood, he becomes a tiger; the angelic, the human, retires ; the animal comes up to control his powers and guide his actions.
Some talk coolly about dissolving the Union. There is, probably, but one dissolution to be brought about by a fanatical war, of which, at length, men will become weary; and then some Napoleon I. or Napoleon III. will take the reins of empire; and so many white men as may be left, will make up, with the negro, the slave population of America. Yes, you can dissolve the Union, -not into North and South. When it takes place, believe me, it will be a moral dissolution, not a territorial separation. When brothers fight, they fight to the death. And when the Union is dissolved, Freedom bids the western hemisphere farewell; the hopes of our fathers, the hopes of the oppressed, the hopes of the best spirits in Europe, sink for the present century!
I am afraid that a cowardly calculation emboldens some of us. . . . My firm belief is, that a civil war in America will be a war of the world. The des- potic powers of Europe, the Catholic powers, will take the side of the Cavaliers against the Puritans.
In the summer of 1860, Dr. Kirk toured through the south with his friends, the Honorable Gardiner G. Hubbard of Boston and Professor Guyot of Princeton. His plan was to spend as much time as possible talk- ing to slave-holders, hoping to urge them to abolish slavery. This was an exciting and dangerous trip, because the presidential campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln was in progress. On the train bound for the south a canvass was made of the voters. Dr. Kirk and his friend Hubbard were the only two who announced their choice of Lin- coln. News of this informal canvass soon reached the passengers in an- other car, who seriously debated "whether the two republicans should be put off the train." In North Carolina the proposition was made to "tar and feather them" and in Georgia they were threatened by a mob.
Dr. Kirk had many conversations with ex-president John Tyler, a Vir- ginian. Tyler asserted that the slaves were happier than the freeman of the North. "I believe you," Dr. Kirk quickly replied, "but horses are still happier." Returning to Boston again after this southern trip, Dr. Kirk was more decided than ever as to his convictions.
Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. Because of ill health at this time Dr. Kirk had an enforced vacation in New York, Princeton, and Washington. In a letter from Washington to his parish- ioner, Mr. Edward S. Tobey, Dr. Kirk wrote on March 21:
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I am now on the fifth week of banishment from my pulpit; and must pass at least one more silent Sabbath. . .
This morning I attended the senate and heard a speech from a Delaware member. He proved to his own satisfaction that the party in power was logi- cally necessitated to carry out its opposition to slavery to the extent of destroy- ing the institution. The president keeps his own secrets so well that outsiders cannot talk very wisely in advance. You know at Boston as much as the loung- ers here, about public affairs. . . .
In April, Mr. Edward S. Tobey, then running a line of steampackets to Charleston, invited Dr. Kirk to accompany him in one of his vessels, the afterwards famous South Carolina. Because of a storm off Cape Hat- teras, they were obliged to put in at Norfolk. As they passed through Hampton Roads, the United States steamer Pawnee was about to leave for Charleston with supplies for Fort Sumter. Alarmed for the safety of his ship and friends, Mr. Tobey announced that his ship must return to Boston, and that his companions must hasten to Washington. They had just taken their seats in the omnibus when the telegraph announced: "Fire opened upon Sumter this morning." This was the fateful day of April 12, 1861.
The party passed the evening at the Spottswood Hotel in Richmond. On Monday Dr. Kirk attended the convention in Richmond. From there he went to Washington, where the city was "in a blaze of excitement, expecting an attack at any moment." In Baltimore he found a mob of ten thousand people gathered in Monument Square, calling for that ardent abolitionist from Massachusetts, Senator Charles Sumner,1 who was concealed from them in the city. In Philadelphia he met excited throngs who were welcoming the Sixth Massachusetts troops under General Ben- jamin F. Butler, the first armed volunteers to come to the defense of Washington.
Before returning to Boston Dr. Kirk went to Chicago. Writing to his sisters from that city on May 13, 1861, he recorded his impressions and repeated a conversation he had with the treasurer of Illinois concerning the character of Abraham Lincoln.
Chicago has grown to great dimensions, but is now suffering greatly from its banks having been founded on southern securities, which just now are among the most insecure of human institutions.
The zeal of the Northwest in our country's cause has not been overestimated.
I traveled in the car with the treasurer of this State. He says that Abraham Lincoln came to him when he was twenty-one years old, to be employed by him
1 The Harvard College Library owns two letters of Dr. Kirk to Charles Sumner, one written in 1850 and the other in 1857.
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in plowing prairie land. Lincoln lived with him eight or ten years. He was industrious, honest, highly moral, studious, firm. All he lacks is experience and a thorough business talent. Both of these can be supplied by time and by competent counselors and aids. I feel confident that the government is plan- ning wisely and firmly; or rather, God is working for a righteous cause.
My own present fears are on two points ; some departure of our people from their present high vantage ground of patriotism, submission to law, deter- mination to uphold government, and a patch-work peace with rebels.
Returning to Boston, Dr. Kirk recorded on Sunday, May 26: "Per- mitted to enter my pulpit again. Much of the social gratification was spoiled by the aversion of my people to hear me preach on the war. I was conscientious in it; but it has led to so many severe remarks that a few more repetitions of them would convince me my work was done here."
However, this depression was only temporary. His work at Mount Vernon Church was not "done here." Most of the congregation joined their minister in the struggle for liberty and the preservation of the union.
On October 21, 1861, at a meeting of the Mount Vernon Church and Society, plans were made for the establishment of the Soldiers Aid As- sociation. Dr. Kirk was elected the president; his sister, Miss Harriet N. Kirk, was elected secretary of the ladies committee; and Mr. W. R. Butler was elected treasurer. At the sewing meetings2 some of the prominent men in the church often made "patriotic & stirring remarks" and urged the ladies "to greater zeal & earnestness in the cause, in view of the great & increasing demands made by the wants of our noble & brave defenders."
The other organizations in the church were also vitally interested in the outcome of the war. The mothers in the Maternal Association had special prayers for husbands, sons, and fathers in the service. They also contributed funds and made clothing for the soldiers. The following prayer for peace, recorded in the secretary's book on October 1, 1862, is universal in its appeal.
Many are now throughout our country passing through deep waters, severe trials, & deliverance alone cometh from him who ruleth all nations. May God so incline the leaders of our land, & the hearts of our enemies, that they may bow in fear before him, doing his Will, bringing peace & happiness to the homes of our sons. . . . Let us daily remember them be- fore the throne of grace, & the wives & mothers who have given up their husbands & sons to the nation's call & may the day be hastened when peace, freedom & salvation shall fill our land.
Another organization which was vitally interested in the Civil War was the Mount Vernon Association of Young Men. Long before the out-
2 For the work accomplished by this Association see Chapter VIII.
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break of hostilities these young men had spirited discussions, and de- bates on the burning questions of the day, such as "Would the dissolu- tion of the Union tend to do away the evil of Slavery from our land?" and "Has a single State the right to withdraw itself from the Union?"
In 1857 the young men debated: "Resolved, That the pulpit addresses of Rev. Dr. Cheever, on the sin of Slavery, present an example worthy of the imitation of the Christian Ministry throughout the land." Again in 1859 they debated: "In the event of the reopening of the African Slave trade in the United States, ought the Free States to secede from the Union?" In 1861, about five months after the firing upon Fort Sumter, they debated: "Would it be just for the United States government to emancipate the Slaves at the present time?"
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