USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Kingston > Report of the proceedings and exercises at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Kingston, Mass. : June 27, 1876 > Part 8
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Thaddeus Maccarty, born in Boston in 1721, a graduate of Harvard College, of the class of 1739, was ordained the sec- ond minister, Nov. 3, 1742, being himself then just twenty- one years of age. His great-grandfather, Thaddeus Maccarty, of Boston, was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artil- lery in 1681, and died in Boston, June 18, 1705, aged sixty- five years, whose widow, Elizabeth, died June 7, 1723, aged eighty-two. His grandfather, Thaddeus Maccarty, the third son of the first Thaddeus Maccarty, was born Sept. 12, 1670.
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His father, Capt. Thaddeus Maccarty, was a master mariner, and carried his son, Rev. Thaddeus Mccarty, while a mere boy, several voyages at sea. Rev. Ellis Gray, a distinguished clergyman of Boston, then only twenty-five years of age, preached the sermon at the ordination of Mr. Maccarty, which was printed at the desire of the church in Kingston. Mr. Maccarty was friendly to the famous George Whitefield, who was in 1745 again preaching over the country, but his parish here was nearly all strongly opposed to Mr. Whitefield, which induced Mr. Maccarty to ask his dismission, which was granted, and Mr. Macearty preached his farewell sermon on Nov. 3, 1745. Mr. Maccarty was settled in Worcester, June 10, 1747, and continued to preach there until his death, July 18, 1785, aged sixty-three years. His farewell sermon here was first printed in 1804, in which it is difficult, at this distance of time, to perceive any allusion to Mr. Whitefield whatever, or that his dismission was from any cause whatever except by mutual consent.
He occasionally afterwards visited Kingston and preached there, and on one such occasion on his return called upon the elder President John Adams, when a young man just out of college, and procured him to go to Worcester as a teacher, and President Adams mentions the name of Mr. Maccarty in his diary of that period.
Besides his farewell sermon at Kingston (never printed in his lifetime) and his sermon preached at Worcester, June 10, 1748, at his instalment in his pastoral office there, Mr. Mac- carty published two discourses delivered at Worcester, April 5, 1759, being the day of the public annual fast appointed by authority, and the day preceding the general muster of the militia throughout the province for the enlisting soldiers for the then intended expedition against Canada. His text was
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Joab's speech to the hosts of Israel preceding the war of King David with the Ammonites and Syrians, - 2 Samuel, chap. x, verse 12: "Be of good courage and let us play the men for our people and the cities of our God." Besides a sermon in 1768, on the occasion of the execution of one Arthur, and a sermon in 1770 on the occasion of the execution of one Livesey, both printed, Mr. Macearty preached at Worcester two ser- mons, both printed, on the occasion of a special fast observed there, as well as in many other towns, on July 14, 1774, on account of the public difficulties of that time, and also a sermon at Worcester, on the 23d of November 1775, a day of public Thanksgiving by appointment of the General Court.
Mr. Maccarty also preached at Worcester, on July 2, 1778, on the occasion of the execution of James Buchanan, William Brooks, Ezra Ross, and Bathshua Spooner, for the murder of Joshua Spooner, the husband of said Bathshua, at Brookfield, on March 1, 1778. This Bathshua Spooner, who conspired with three British soldiers, then prisoners of war, quartered at Brookfield, to murder her husband, by plunging him into a well, was a daughter of Timothy Ruggles, Esq., formerly of Hardwick, a Tory and refugee, who had formerly been speaker of the House of Representatives of this province, and the granddaughter of Rev. Timothy Ruggles, minister of Roches- ter in this county, for many years prior to his death in 1768, and with whom Mr. Maccarty had doubtless exchanged while minister of Kingston.
Rev. William Rand, born in 1699, son of Mr. William Rand, of Charlestown, and a graduate of Harvard College, of the class 1721 and who had been the settled minister of Sunderland from 1724, into the year 1745, was settled here in the year 1746. Unlike the parishioners of Kingston, the parishioners of Sunder- land were attracted by Whitefield, which led to the dismission of Mr. Rand from the parish there.
THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY CHICAGO
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Mr. Rand was settled in Kingston at the age of forty-seven, and in the full maturity of his intellectual powers. His pub- lished sermons, at the ordination of Rev. David Parsons over the third parish of Hadley, now the town of Amherst, on Nov. 7, 1739 ; at the ordination of Rev. John Ballantine, at West- field, June 17, 1741; and at the ordination of Rev. Abraham Hill, at Roadtown, now Shutesbury, Oct. 22, 1742, had estab- lished his reputation as a preacher. He was assuredly the great opponent of the famous George Whitefield.
On Sept. 10, 1741, the elder Jonathan Edwards, minister of Northampton, a great admirer of Whitefield, delivered a discourse at New Haven, entitled " The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God applied to that Uncommon Operation that has lately appeared on the Minds of many of the People of this Land; with a Particular Consideration of the Extraordinary Circumstances with which this Work is attended," to which discourse, as printed in one hundred and ten pages, was prefixed by Rev. Wm. Cooper, of Boston, another admirer of Whitefield, a preface in eighteen pages. To this discourse and preface Mr. Rand drew up an answer, entitled "The Late Religious Commotions in New England considered," in twenty pages to Mr. Cooper's preface, and in forty pages to Mr. Edwards' discourse, which answer was printed in 1743.
This answer was undoubtedly the ablest argument against Whitefield that appeared in print; and the reader will find there, logically written, the whole that can be said against Whitefield's preaching, and against preaching that is sensational and addressed to the passions and to the imagination.
Mr. Rand's answer cannot be abridged so as to be appreci- ated. I cannot help quoting, however, on page 6 of the reply to the preface, the following words of Mr. Rand : " He," that is,
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Mr. Whitefield, " made great pretensions to extraordinary com- munion with God and Christ, and placed himself high in their favor. 'My Master hath sent me,' 'What shall I tell my Master?' 'I will tell my Master,' 'I will rise up against you at the last day,' were phrases often in his mouth ; and they, with some others that he used, were very striking to vulgar minds."
Sixteen clergymen of Hampshire County, of whom Rev. Wm. Rand, of Sunderland, was one, assembled at Springfield on the fifteenth day of February, in the year 1745; and upon con- ferring together, drew up and subscribed an address to Mr. Whitefield, in which they tell him that his coming to that part of the country was offensive to them ; that they knew no justi- fication for his travelling from one place to another, as he had done, to preach where the gospel was already truly and faith- fully preached, and that by men, most of whom he, without a great degree of modesty, might esteem better than himself; that he had delivered many false and dangerous doctrines ; that he discovered a very censorious spirit by slandering the minis- ters of the country ; and that though many of his errors had been faithfully laid before him, he had not made Christian sat- isfaction, nor was there then to them any appearance of his reformation ; that, as he had disturbed the peace of their churches by the errors he had propagated and by the slanders he had uttered, they looked upon him as a person whom, in God's word they were directed to mark and avoid, as having caused divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine they had learned of Christ; and that they judged it would be of great service to him if he could be persuaded to look more critically than he had yet done, and seriously to review his own conduct ; that this might be a means to discover to him his errors and misconduct ; that while he continued such as he now appeared
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to be, they thought it their duty to use their influence to dis- suade their people from attending his ministry.
Any one acquainted with the style of Mr. Rand will instantly declare his opinion that this address was chiefly composed by him. This address was subscribed by Rev. Mr. Hopkins, of West Springfield, as leader; by Rev. Mr. Doolittle, of North- field, second ; and by Mr. Rand of Sunderland, third; and by the ministers of Sheffield, Blanford, Brimfield, Stockbridge, and Deerfield ; by the two ministers of Springfield ; by Rev. Noah Merrick, grandfather of the late Hon. Pliny Merrick, of our Supreme Judicial Court, then the minister of Wilbraham ; by the ministers of Westfield, Suffield (then in Massachusetts, but now in Connecticut), and by the ministers of Bernardston, New Salem, and Shutesbury. The publication of this address, signed by Mr. Rand, and well-known at the time as mainly his composition, doubtless precipitated his dismission from Sunderland.
The president, professors, and tutors of Harvard College, an association of ministers convened at Weymouth, on Jan. 15, 1745, the pastors of the church in Brookline, and of the two churches in Roxbury, the ministers of Barnstable County, and of the North Association in the county of Hartford in the colony of Connecticut, in the same year, addressed Mr. White- field to. the same effect. The venerable Nathaniel Stone, of Harwich, then seventy-eight years of age, the same year, inter- rogated Mr. Whitefield whether he had any evidence whatever of what he had alleged, viz., that the then ministers of New England were inefficient and incompetent compared with their predecessors sixty years before; and in the next paragraph Mr. Stone declared to Mr. Whitefield that he well knew their predecessors sixty years ago, and had opportunity to observe, and had observed them, and that on comparing them, the pres-
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ent clergymen were as lively a ministry as the former ; and in the address of the association of ministers at Weymouth they declare that in almost every town where Mr. Whitefield had preached, the consequence had been an alienation between the minister and people.
No wonder that Mr. Rand should be sought for and settled by the parishioners of Kingston, who were so unanimous in their opposition to Mr. Whitefield. Mr. Rand's sermon at the ordination of Rev. Charles Turner, at Duxbury, on the 23d of July, 1755, was published ; as also his charge to the Rev. Caleb Gannett, at his ordination in Hingham for Cumberland, Nova Scotia, in 1767 ; and at the ordination, in Duxbury, of Rev. Zedekiah Sanger, in the year 1776.
It is a decisive evidence of the learning and talents of Mr. Rand, and of the estimation in which he was held by the cler- gymen of this State, at that period, that he was elected to preach and did preach the sermon to the ministers of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, at their annual meeting in Boston, on the 26th day of May, in the year 1757, which was published.
Rev. Zephaniah Willis, the fourth minister of Kingston, a graduate of Harvard College, of the class of 1778, was the only son and child of Mr. Zephaniah Willis, of Bridgewater, whose great-grandfather, John Willis, Esq., emigrated from England, and was a resident at Duxbury as early as 1637, became an original proprietor of Bridgewater, and settled there as early as 1656, when that town was incorporated; was its first representative to the Legislature of the Colony of P'ly- mouth in 1657, and from that time to 1681, including the period of King Philip's War was that town's representative, - seven- teen years more ; was justice of the peace, and a man on whom the town much relied, who died at West Bridgewater, Aug.
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27, 1693, as see in the Probate Records at Plymonth, Vol. 1, page 146, where we find his will proved Sept. 20, 1693.
A lineal descendant from John Willis, Esq., I claim a remote relationship to Rev. Zephaniah Willis. I own fifteen acres of land in West Bridgewater, parcel of the large landed estate that descended to him through his father from John Willis, Esq., one of the original proprietors of the territory of ancient Bridgewater. Rev. Mr. Willis sold out his inheritance in Bridgewater when he settled in Kingston. He was many years one of the trustees of the Bridgewater Academy, and I was examined by him as such trustee in the latter part of August, 1823, at the examination of the scholars who had attended school at the term then closing. On being informed that I had read through the ZEneid of Virgil, he casually opened at the beginning of the Fifth Book, and called upon me to construc. I quickly found myself in the hands of a sharp critic of the Latin language. As one instance of a number of his criticisms then : In the third line of Book V, I construed to him the words " monia respiciens," and rendered them "beholding the walls," to which he replied that true ZEneas was beholding the wal's, but that the word "respiciens " signified "looking back upon," and that as Æneas was sailing away from " the walls which shone with the flames," the word " respiciens " was the word which indicated precisely what ZEneas was doing. There are so many present that well knew Mr. Willis personally, that I might leave off in the middle, or even at the beginning, as to him.
Ile that knows not something of the biography of the ancient ministers of the parishes of New England, graduates of Harvard and Yale to a great extent, is deficient in his knowledge of the history of our country. They had great influence upon the affairs of the community in their age. The legislators of their
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time in the Colonial and Provincial General Assemblies looked up to them and sought their advice at the crises of the nation's peril. The learning and intellectual productions of the ancient ministers have long ago become mixed up with and become part of the common learning and intelligence of the people of the country, and the fair fame of the first four clergymen of Kingston is without blemish, stands high, and will grow brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.
9. Kingston, having furnished two Presidents of the Old Colony Rail- road Company,* rejoices to-day in the presence of another of her success- ful sons, who is a Railroad Commissioner of the State. Before the train starts to bear our honored guest to his adopted home, we hope to hear from him. .
RESPONDED TO BY HON. FRANCIS M. JOHNSON, OF NEWTON.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, - Talfourd has said, a scent, a note of music, a voice long unheard, the stirring of the summer breeze, may startle us with the sudden revival of long-forgotten feelings and thoughts. How rich in remind- ers of the past is this occasion ! It is now twenty-seven years since I left Kingston and took up my abode among strangers ; but memory, obeying the commands of the heart, annihilates time and space, and I confront at will the familiar scenes and impressive events of other days, - the days when Kingston was my home. The view is panoramic, and every object by its associations is a treasure. I will refer to one or two of them. There stands the old meeting-house, where J attended Sunday School and sang second treble in the choir. I see its spacious portico, and two quaint cupolas, each surmounted with a gilded ball, and its solemn-toned bell, - how hearts have ached when that bell has tolled ! - the high, white pulpit, occupied successively by parsons Willis, Cole, Sweet, and
* Col. John Sever and Alexander Holmes.
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Pope ; the galleries on either side, and the singing seats op- posite the pulpit, provided with curtains, behind which the younger members of the choir exchanged expressions of friend- ship, unobserved by the preacher above or the congregation below.
Prominent among the choir stands Deacon Jedediah Holmes, playing most vigorously on the " big bass viol," and Walter Bartlett, leading off with the sharp-toned violin. There are the roomy pews of unpainted pine, topped out with short-turned balusters and rail, and the little box-pew away off' in the cor- ner, next the ceiling, for colored folks. But the colored man now, in this centennial year, sits nearer the pulpit than he used to ; he has a seat, also, in our halls of legislation. Thanks to those noble men and women who protested against the insti- tution of slavery on the rostrum, and the gallant boys in blue who fought against the slave-power on the field of battle, and vanquished it there, we are able to say of the United States of America what the poet Cowper has said of England, "Slaves cannot breathe in America. If their lungs inhale our air, that moment they are free. If they touch our country, their shackles fall. That's noble, and hespeaks a nation proud and jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then, and let it circulate in every vein throughout this great country, that where Columbia's power is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too."
The old meeting-house gave place to the present Unitarian church in 1851, and according to the historian it was erected in 1798, on the site of one built in 1718. The general appear- ance of the town has not changed very much in these twenty- seven years, - its picturesque beauty has always been a subject of remark ; but who can relate the changes that have taken place among the people, among the families of the town? Here the changes have been great. The silent monuments in the church-
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yard and cemetery denote this; the busy broods of beings which have sprung into existence, and scattered, as the young birds scatter from the parent nest, all testify to this. The young have become middle-aged, and the middle-aged old ; the stripling of thirty years ago is now the orator of the day, with power of speech to stir men's hearts and minds according as he wills. All see and feel the power, the silent, mysterious power, of time.
As I remember, Kingston was progressive, and kicked up as much of a dust as any other town of her size. She had her temperance meetings, and. Miller meetings, where was sung
" In eighteen hundred and forty-three Will be the year of jubilee,"
and anti-capital punishment meetings, non-resistant meetings, abolition meetings, and I believe women's rights meetings, beside lyceum lectures and debating societies. I am quite sure the ladies of Kingston held women's rights meetings if they desired any rights they did not possess, for neither the men nor the women of Puritan stock have ever been backward in asserting their rights. Would. there not be an immense women's rights meeting, if the Massachusetts legislature should enact the old Roman law of 2,081 years ago? This law read, "No woman shall possess more than half an ounce of gold, or wear a garment of various colors, or ride in a carriage drawn by horses in a city or town, or any place nearer thereto than one mile, except on occasion of some public religious solem- nity." This law was repealed at the request of the matrons of Rome and the towns surrounding, who assembled en masse at the capitol, and protested against it.
Kingston heard the voices of the best lecturers of the period, such as Phillips, Douglas, Brown, Foster, Gough, and Garrison,
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and it did not cost then $500 to secure a lecturer on any subject.
In " Tippecanoe and Tyler too " times Kingston had her log cabin as good as the best of them ; and the cry of " Hard cider, $2 a day and roast beef" had, as Josh Billings would say, "its average enticin effect "; for Kingston, like other cities and towns throughout the country, has had a weakness for the allegorical and romantic during the heat of important political campaigns.
The time allotted me is up. I thank you for your kind at- tention to my bric-à-brac remarks.
10. No name has been more prominent in our town than that of Sever. There is a LITTLE bit of history connected with their origin here of spe- cial interest to us all.
RESPONDED TO BY THE FOLLOWING LETTER.
NEW YORK, June 13, 1876.
Dear Sir, - Your kind invitation to be present as a guest at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of our native town is duly received. I beg you to believe that my inability to accept the invitation is not caused by indiffer ence or by want of love for the dear old town which I delight to claim as my birthplace. It is associated with one of the happiest of boyhoods, and every inch of its ground recalls some youthful pleasure. No day ever passes without my thoughts turning to it. Before me in my study always hangs a picture of my home, - that home which, in vacation days, I always gladly sought until death, by its too frequent comings, taught me that not houses but hearts make home. The cemetery now is more homelike than any other place, and there, when the work of a busy life is over, I hope to rest.
The first occurrence of the name of Sever in Kingston is
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almost coeval with its incorporation. Tradition has it that Nich- olas Sever, a graduate of Harvard College, in the class of 1701, and afterwards pastor of a Congregational Church in Dover, N. II., was taking a horseback journey to Cape Cod for the benefit of his health. Arriving at Kingston, he halted on his way at the house of a Widow Little, subsequently owned and occupied by my grandfather, John Sever. Mrs. Little found in the stranger whom she entertained, an angel unawares, and on the 21st of November, 1728, became his wife. She was herself a lineal descendant of the Winslows and the Warrens of the May- flower. Three sons were born of this marriage, William, James, and John. The two latter died without surviving issue, and William, who lived till June 15, 1809, is still known to the older inhabitants as Judge or Squire Sever. The house now occupied by Miss Jane R. Sever was built for him at the time of his marriage to Sarah Warren, of Plymouth, in 1760. Like his father, he had three sons, William, James, and John. William in early life moved to Worcester, and was the father of the Jate Mrs. Gov. Lincoln and Mrs. Rev. Dr. John Brazer, of Salem. James was the late Capt. Sever, not yet passed out of memory, and Joli was my grandfather, who died in 1803, . leaving six children, the three eldest of whom, as in the two preceding generations, were named William, John, and James. Those of this later generation who remained in Kingston always, I believe, proved themselves public-spirited citizens, devoted to everything that would promote the honor and wel- fare of the town. Those who settled elsewhere were always strong in their attachment to their birthplace. The male line of the name in town ceased on the death of my father in April, '69. I am sure that by all the descendants of Nicholas Sever, the name of Kingston will ever be regarded with peculiar rev- erence and affection.
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With many thanks for the kindness shown and the honor done me in your invitation, and with regret that it does not seem expedient to me to accept it,
I am most cordially yours,
WINSLOW W. SEVER.
11. Cape Cod, - the right arm of Massachusetts.
RESPONDED TO BY HON. JOHN B. D. COGSWELL, OF YARMOUTH.
It seems to me, Mr. President, eminently proper that, on this occasion, you should remember that picturesque peninsula, without the intervention of which, like an outstretched arm, we should not be gathered together. Most thankfully our fathers welcomed its shelter on that memorable Saturday noon when the shattered Mayflower dropped its anchor in Provincetown Harbor, thirty-five days before the landing at Plymouth. There they refreshed and refitted themselves after the discom- forts and perils of the terrible voyage; there they thanked God for deliverance from the dangers of the sea, and with a spirit of cheerful resolution they sang such songs of praise as Deborah and David had sung of old. Dec. 10, Carver, Brad- ford, and others of the exploring expedition kept the Sabbath on Clark's Island in Plymouth harbor, and their abstinence from labor and journeying has been justly extolled by eloquent tongues ; but at the same hour, the main body on board the ship were, for the fifth time, exhorted by Elder Brewster to lift up their eyes and hearts from the beach and hills of Prov- incetown to contemplate that heavenly country whither they were tending.
Save the sick and the infant in arms, all the Mayflower company pressed the sands and explored the secret places of the cape. Standish, Bradford, and the exploring band
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encamped two nights in Pamet, now Truro, where they first caught a glimpse of savages, flying before them. There they found the ship's kettle, and the hidden corn which they carried away with them in it and in their pockets, seed-grain for the twenty acres which they planted the next spring, and which gave them " good increase," saving the lives of all at Plymouth. Here, too, they first inspected the architecture and furnishing of the Indian wigwam, and the memorials of the departed, buried in the Indian grave. Sounding along the shore, and exploring the inlets of Wellfleet and Eastham, they were rudely assailed in the dusky dawn of Dec. 8 by that stormy flight of angry arrows which they called the " First Encounter."
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