USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Services at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the First church in Cambridge, February 7- 14, 1886 > Part 7
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If I were a prophet, or the son of a prophet, I would like to lift the veil that hides from our view the next two hundred and fifty years, to show you the triumphs of Christianity in every land and clime, - how Christian institutions and Christian homes have become the common heritage of mankind; how art and science and philosophy and literature have laid their tribute at the feet of Christ.
"Then shall His glorious Church rejoice His Word of Promise to recall, - One sheltering Fold, one Shepherd's Voice, One God and Father over all! "
LETTERS.
MANY letters were received from gentlemen who were invited to attend the celebration, and some of them are here given :-
BOSTON, Feb. 5, 1886.
Rev. EDWARD H. HALL, Rev. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, Dr. J. T. G. NICHOLS, and others, Committee.
GENTLEMEN, - Accept my sincere thanks for your obliging in- vitation. Most gladly would I represent my venerated ancestor, as has been suggested to me, in celebrating the anniversary of a church at whose organization he assisted two hundred and fifty years ago. It would have delighted the old Governor's heart to know that the flock which the excellent Shepard gath- ered and fed so devotedly, almost in a wilderness, should increase and multiply, century after century, until no single fold would hold them.
I do not forget that the great Thomas Hooker preceded Shep- ard. Both were of that Emmanuel College in old England out of which came so much of the best Puritanism of New England.
Your church was organized in a memorable year of the Mas- sachusetts Colony. The First Church in Cambridge and Harvard College date alike from 1636, and they have gone along side by side, in prosperity and honor, to the present day. Harvard has given not a few pastors to your church, and your church or churches - from Thomas Shepard to the well-remembered
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FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE.
and highly valued Dr. Abiel Holmes, and their numerous suc- cessors - have furnished devoted friends and supporters to the College.
May the time never come when Religion and Education shall cease to be thus harmoniously associated in raising up sons who shall be worthy of their fathers !
Regretting that I cannot be with you on this interesting occasion, I remain
Very faithfully yours,
ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
BOSTON, Feb. 9, 1886.
Rev. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, Cambridge, Mass.
MY DEAR SIR, - I fear that, after all, I shall not be able to take part in your approaching anniversary.
This I especially regret, as yours is the third of the four churches in which I have a strong hereditary interest which has recently celebrated some memorable event in its history ; and at not one of those celebrations have I been able to be present.
First came the quarter-millennium of the Boston Church ; and John Cotton was one of my progenitors. Next was the bi-centen- nial of the old Hingham Meeting-house, which was dedicated during the pastorate of John Norton, whose daughter married John Quincy of Mount Wollaston. Now comes the Thomas Shep- ard quarter-millennium ; and Thomas Shepard was an ancestor of John Quincy. Next, and last, will be the quarter-millennium of the church at Weymouth, of which William Smith was forty-nine years the pastor ; and William Smith married the daughter of John Quincy.
I had accordingly intended to take part in next Friday's com- memoration ; it would have been to me a sort of family affair. Cotton Mather speaks of Thomas Shepard as a "silver trumpet," and again as " one whose life was a trembling walk with God." Whatever I might have contributed to your celebration would have been as a descendant of that Thomas Shepard, speaking, two centuries and a half after he began his labors, to the society
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of which he was the first pastor. The life of the church of Cam- bridge now covers almost two thirds of the whole period that has elapsed since the discovery of America. He who presided over the gathering of that church left behind him no quickly fading memorial. He wrought his life into a thing of permanence.
Will the work that Thomas Shepard's descendants are en- gaged in last as long as his work has now lasted ? It does not seem to me that we are building exactly in the spirit in which Shepard's generation built ; indeed, our generation is engaged rather in an eager race with Mammon than in a " trembling walk with God." The year 2136 may record a different verdict. It may be that the edifices - political, intellectual, moral, and ma- terija - into which we are now, consciously or otherwise, working our lives, will then stand a comparison as regards strength and permanence with those into which the founders worked their lives in 1636 ; and should they stand such a comparison it will be well for us. Meanwhile, what we may do they actually ac- complished. This, our present, is their future ; and that, at least, is secure. A generation which founds political and religious in- stitutions still flourishing in vigorous life and usefulness after two hundred and fifty years have passed over them has done a con- siderable work. Such a work Shepard's generation did; and the neighboring University, - which, Cotton Mather records, was planted at the door of the Cambridge Church mainly through its pastor's instrumentality, - no less than the church itself, seems likely to remain for many generations a living witness to the fact. So far as Thomas Shepard and his immediate congregation are concerned, time has recorded a verdict which cannot now be reversed.
I remain, etc., CHARLES F. ADAMS, JR.
HARTFORD, CONN., Feb. 10, 1886. TO THE FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE.
DEAR BRETHREN, - I have received your courteous invitation to participate in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of your venerable organization.
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This invitation, extended to me as representative of the church first organized on the soil where your own has since for two and a half centuries occupied the ground, would certainly be accepted by me did not something more deterrent than the wil- derness which once stretched between Cambridge and Hartford interpose to prevent.
For the relationship of these two churches used to be warmer than mere association with the same spot of ground only would imply. Family ties united the first pastors of these churches, and many of their early members also. Father-in-law Hooker and Son-in-law Shepard on several occasions traversed the wide forest spaces on horseback in household interchange. One of the more tender of the touches which occasionally light up the rather majestic and sombre record of Pastor Hooker's life is that passage of his letter wherein he speaks of his grandson " little Sam," son of your Samuel the saintly, as sleeping in the same bed with him here in Hartford, and as having " such a pleasing, winning disposition that it makes me think of his mother almost every time I play with him."
And not the pastors only, but delegates of these two churches also, met on many occasions in those far-off days to consult about the less or more important matters of common welfare, - Ann Hutchinson's heresies, Congregational Platforms, Hartford Church quarrels, and the like.
These old memories are revived, and the old intercourse in a sense renewed, by your invitation to join with you in the holiday occasion of your present festivities.
Unable on account of present illness to do this, let me present you the memorial volume of a celebration similar to your own commemorated three years ago by the First Church of Hartford ; and let me extend to you, in this church's name, a hearty con- gratulation on your arrival at the same happy occasion in your own history.
With best wishes for the altogether enjoyable progress of your anniversary procedures, I am
Very truly yours,
GEORGE LEON WALKER,
Pastor First Church, Hartford.
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 1886.
Rev. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, D.D., Cambridge.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - Many thanks for the invitation to parti- cipate in the celebration of your two hundred and fiftieth anni- versary. I wish very much that it were in my power to be present ; for the commemorative services, I am sure, will be very interest- ing and instructive. What an eventful moment in the annals of American faith and piety was the coming of Thomas Shepard to New England ! His name has been familiar to me from boy- hood. When some nine or ten years old, I began to read Presi- dent Edwards on the Religious Affections ; and nothing in the book impressed me so much as the extracts from Shepard's "Parable of the Ten Virgins," given in the notes. How they would strike me now I cannot say ; but they struck me then as full of the "marrow of divinity."
What a pity it is that as yet we have no adequate history of New England religious thought and church life in the seventeenth century ! But such a celebration as yours will at least do much towards collecting and sifting the requisite materials, so far as they are still in existence. The Presbyterian Church and all the churches of the country owe a vast debt of gratitude to such fathers of New England as Thomas Shepard.
I trust your celebration will be at once delightful and edifying.
Ever most truly yours,
GEORGE L. PRENTISS.
NEW YORK, Feb. 11, 1886.
MY DEAR DR. MCKENZIE, - Your invitation to be present at the celebration to-morrow of the two hundred and fiftieth anni- versary of your church awakens in my mind a flood of recollec- tions and emotions.
I very much regret that the pressure of engagements here will prevent me from the personal enjoyment of what will be, I have no doubt, the great celebration.
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It seems to me that your church has been a signal illustration not only of prosperity in the large sense, but of God's readiness in our day to fulfil the promises made to his people. It must be an immense happiness to you and to all your flock that after two hundred and fifty years of various history you can look back and say truthfully, without boasting, that at no period in your whole career have you been stronger, or had a more vigorous vitality, or been in better, if as good, condition to do the full work of a church.
Had I known sooner of your plans, I might have arranged mine so as to be with you.
May God's blessing be with you in the future, as it certainly has been in the past !
Yours truly,
KINSLEY TWINING.
NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 1886.
MY DEAR DR. MCKENZIE, - I thank you very much for the invitation to be present at the two hundred and fiftieth anni- versary of the organization of the First Church in Cambridge next Friday. I wish the founders of the church had possessed the foresight to organize a week later, for then I could have been with you. On that day I hope to be in Boston. As it is, I must content myself with sending to you, or rather to the church, my heartiest congratulations on its two hundred and fifty years of service, and on the progress in moral life and in religious thought which has marked that two hundred and fifty years, and which the First Church has certainly done its share in promoting.
Yours very sincerely,
LYMAN ABBOTT.
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
ANDOVER, MASS., Feb. 11, 1886.
Rev. EDWARD H. HALL, D.D., J. T. G. NICHOLS, M.D., and others, Com- mittees of the First Parish and of the Shepard Congregational Society.
GENTLEMEN, - I very much regret that previous engagements make it impracticable to accept your invitation to participate in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the First Church. The occasion is of great and wide intrinsic interest, and the proposed method of observ- ance impresses me as peculiarly appropriate and attractive. May the skies be as propitious as the day is rare and the celebration welcome !
Very truly yours,
EGBERT C. SMYTH.
MAGNOLIA, CLAY COUNTY, FLA., Feb. 6, 1886. Dr. J. T. G. NICHOLS, Cambridge, Mass.
I have received the invitation of the Committees of the First Parish and the Shepard Congregational Society to the com- memorative services of the First Church in Cambridge to be held on the 12th instant.
I regret that my absence in Florida will deprive me of the pleasure of attending the proposed reunion on that interesting occasion, especially as my ancestor, John Bridge, was the first deacon of that church, and was instrumental in persuading the Rev. Thomas Shepard to come to the New World, as is shown by his letter in which he says : " Divers friends went before ; but John Bridge writ me to come." It is very pleasant to see that after the lapse of two hundred and fifty years the memory of Thomas Shepard is to be so appropriately honored.
Very respectfully your obedient servant,
SAMUEL JAMES BRIDGE.
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FIRST CHURCH IN CAMBRIDGE.
Rev. Dr. MCKENZIE.
YARMOUTH, Jan. 29, 1886.
DEAR BROTHER, - My eye has fallen on the notice of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of your church, and it has called up a fact in the life of Mr. Shepard to which your attention may not have been called. In preparing a history of the church in Yarmouth a few years ago, I found that a council was called here in the latter part of 1647 to heal a long- standing difficulty. The most distinguished ministers of the Ply- mouth Colony were invited, together with John Wilson, of the First Church, Boston, Thomas Shepard, Cambridge, and John Eliot, of Roxbury. The result was very satisfactory, and the breach that threatened to destroy the church was healed. It was made the occasion by Mr. Shepard of some good work among the Indians of this region.
These churches were relatively more important than they are now; and this circumstance indicates that the relations of the ministers of the two Colonies were closer than might have been supposed from the distance between them at that day.
I will send by this mail a copy of my sermon in which notice is taken of this episode in the life of Shepard. It may have a little interest to you just at this time to trace the history of one of the earliest of the churches of the old Colony, which I hope will celebrate its quarter-millennial in 1889.
Yours truly, JOHN W. DODGE.
CAMBRIDGE, Feb. 4, 1886.
To Rev. EDWARD H. HALL, Rev. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, J. T. G. NICHOLS, M.D., etc.
GENTLEMEN, - I received your cordial invitation to partici- pate in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the First Church in Cambridge. I ap- preciate this invitation and the spirit which suggested it, for which I return my sincere thanks. I am sorry, however, I can-
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
not attend. I tender you my congratulations for your success in the past and my wishes for your progress in the future.
Gentlemen, your celebration will invoke the spirits of those men who founded these Colonies, and placed their impress not only on New England but on all North America wherever the English language is spoken. These men had but one fault, but they had many virtues. Their assiduity in religion as they understood it, their perseverance and courage, their industry and frugality, their honesty and simplicity of life, and - last, not least - their purity of morals should serve for the admira- tion and model of men.
Then let their fault be buried with them in the grave, but let their virtues be taught to generations unborn. And may all peoples serve God according to the light and grace that he imparts until the time come when "there will be but one fold and one Shepherd."
Yours very respectfully,
WILLIAM ORR.
CAMBRIDGE, Feb. 4, 1886.
MY DEAR MR. MCKENZIE, - In acknowledging the receipt of your kind invitation to participate in the exercises commemo- rative of the founding of our church, I much regret to say that absence in the South will prevent my attendance on that very interesting occasion, and I must content myself - as I shall do when the next two hundred and fiftieth anniversary occurs - by " being with you in spirit " only.
These occasions, so frequent of late in civic celebrations, possess double value and interest when of an ecclesiastical character ; and while they emphasize the fact that Church and State were intended by the founders of this Commonwealth to have always an independent existence, yet they prove that simul- taneous with the State was established the Church, and that it was never intended to divorce the religious influence of the latter from the former.
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Indeed, it is a fact worthy of our serious consideration that the men of State in those days were the men of Church ; and it was recognized as a fundamental principle in the selection of rulers that they only were fitted to rule who had first learned obedience to God, and that no morality could long exist in a community which ignored the importance of loyalty to Jehovah, the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and the importance of a religious basis in all education of the young, - a fact most opportunely brought into prominence in these days by the vigilant President of our College.
If history teaches anything, it is that godliness is profitable and essential to national vigor and prosperity.
We do not wonder that such men as Harvard and Dunster and Shepard and their associates made the religious factor so prominent in all civil and educational affairs. They did not overestimate its importance ; and hence the Church, the School, the State, were bound together by a common fellowship of prin- ciple, and whatever assailed either of them became a common enemy.
If the youth of those days were compelled to listen to such doctrines, it was a force like that of the pure air of heaven we are obliged to breathe, the healthful sunlight we must receive, the mother's love we are constrained to feel in every fibre of our being, and the care of a Heavenly Father we are forced to enjoy in the seedtime and harvest.
Nor can all the culture which our institutions of learning afford possibly be a substitute for that ethical teaching which has for its sole foundation the Word of God as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
If these anniversary occasions accomplish nothing else than to voice anew these old-fashioned but reliable and sturdy truths, we may find ample reward in them. If they fail in this, they become mere memorial services, where men and women meet only to muse over the somewhat antiquated inscriptions on their fathers' gravestones.
I rejoice in the prosperity of these two churches, now so hap_ pily brought together ; and as we celebrate that event with which " our common ancestor, Thomas Shepard," was so intimately identified, let his words come with fresh conviction. Writing to
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250TH ANNIVERSARY.
Richard Mather at the time the council was called to found the Dorchester Church, he says, "'Tis not faith, but visible faith, that must make a visible church and be the foundation of a visible communion."
To each of these churches may the message come from the recording angel: "I know thy works and charity, and services and faith."
Trusting that this may be our mutual experience, and with renewed regrets that I cannot be with you, I remain
Very truly yours,
JAMES M. W. HALL.
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BOSTON, Feb. 10, 1886. Dr. J. T. G. NICHOLS.
DEAR SIR, - As I find that I shall probably be unable to attend the Church Anniversary on Friday, I venture to enclose some historical notes which may be new and interesting.
I am a descendant of Francis Whitmore, who, with his wife Isabel, daughter of Richard Park, was a member of the First Church. In 1668 he was one of the three appointed to attend to the spiritual wants at the Farms ; and his house and farm were on the dividing line when Lexington was set off from the mother town. Of his five sons, all have descendants of the name living. His second son, John, was a deacon at Medford ; and his de- scendants are now gradually returning to this vicinity, - in fact, I believe one is a citizen of Cambridge at present. I hope many of the other early settlers of Cambridge will be represented at your meeting.
I submit the following memoranda in regard to your first minister : -
Thomas Shepard says in his Autobiography that his first wife was Margaret Tauteville, a kinswoman of Sir Richard Darley of Buttercramb, Co. York, at whose house he was engaged as chaplain. As there are descendants of this marriage, through his son, Rev. Thomas Shepard of Charlestown, whose daughter
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Anna married Daniel Quincy, I presume some interest will be felt in an effort to identify the estimable lady.
In Dugdale's "Visitation of Yorkshire in 1665" (published by the Surtees Society), I find on page 87 a pedigree of the family of Stoutville of Humanby in Dickering Wapentake. It covers only four generations, the then head of the family being Robert Stouteville, aged 31, married, and having three children.
The first of the line there recorded is Charles Stouteville, who died about 1622, having by wife Anne, daughter of Bryan Robin- son of Boston, Co. Linc., two sons and three daughters. Two of these daughters married, respectively, Thomas and John Acklam, of Drinho, Co. York ; and the third, Margaret, is called the wife of - Shepheard.
The coincidence of names is almost certain proof ; and I can, moreover, explain the way in which Margaret Estoteville was a kinswoman of the Darleys.
Foster's " Visitations of Yorkshire " shows that Richard Dar- ley and his son William were settled at Wistow, Co. York. Richard, son of William, settled at Buttercramb, a place about twelve miles from the city of York. He was the father of Richard, who was born in 1570, and who was the patron of Thomas Shepard. This Richard (or Sir Richard, as Shepard terms him) married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Gates of Seamer, Co. York. Her grandmother was Lucy Knevet ; and Anne Knevet married Nicholas Robinson of Boston, Co. Linc. A marriage of cousins brought the relation closer, as Lady Dar- ley's uncle married Elizabeth Robinson. On the Robinson side, Charles Stouteville was own cousin to Mrs. Elizabeth (Robinson) Gates.
Thus, as the annexed table shows, Lady Darley was connected by marriage closely with the Robinsons ; and Margaret Stotevile was within the range of kindred. They were cousins' cousins.
We may well imagine that as Margaret Shepard's grandfather was a younger son, and Mrs. Gates represented the senior line, there would be a tendency for the junior branches to turn to- wards that line.
Family ties seem to have been strong in those days. Numer- ous intermarriages strengthened these bonds. Thus Lady Dar. ley's aunt married John Alured ; and their daughter married
25OTII ANNIVERSARY.
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Francis Darley, own cousin to Sir Richard. A daughter of Sir Richard married an Alured, as Shepard records.
I think we may safely say that Shepard's wife has been iden- tified ; that she was well connected ; and that the fact that her grandfather, Bryan Robinson, was of a good family in old Bos- ton is not without interest to her descendants to-day.
The " Visitation of Lincoln," printed in Vol. IV. of the " Gene- alogist," shows some confusion in the Robinson pedigree ; but in this record, as well as the " Yorkshire Visitations," the fact that Nicholas and Bryan Robinson were brothers is clearly shown. Possibly further investigation would show some other line of connection between the Darleys and Estotevilles ; but I submit that the present is sufficient to bear out Shepard's words.
Charles Knevet =
Nicholas Robinson = Florence Yerforth. of Boston, Co. Linc.
Sir Henry Gates = Lucy.
Anne = Nicholas.
Bryan
Margaret Fitzwilliam.
Edward Gates = Eliz. Cave.
Henry =
Elizabeth, only dau. and heir.
Anne
Charles Estoteville.
Sir Richard = Elizabeth Gates.
Margaret = Rev. Thomas Shepard.
Darley of
Buttercramb.
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As to Shepard's ancestry, we know from his Autobiography that he was born in Towcester, Northamptonshire, Nov. 5, 1605, being the third son of William Shepard, who was born in Foss- cote, near Towcester. It seems, also, that his paternal uncle, unnamed, lived at Adthrop, - a little blind town adjoining Fosscote. It is now called Abthorpe.
Having had occasion some years ago to make some genea- logical inquiries in England, I obtained through Colonel Chester, our ablest antiquary, the Shepard record from Abthorpe.
It seems that "the little blind town " is now of more im- portance ; and its church record includes Fosscote.
The earliest record is that of Richard Shepherd, who had by wife Anna children Cicely, Thomas, Samuel, and Richard,
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between 1583 and 1595. Later on, Thomas, Michael, and William Shepherd appear, - from 1615 to 1630 ; and the name (spelt Shephard, Shepherd, or Sheppard) continued down to 1700.
Although we cannot identify Shepard's grandfather and grandmother, with whom he lived in Fosscote in 1608 (unless the latter be the widow Margaret Shepherd, buried Dec. 31, 1616), we find in these entries full confirmation of his state- ment as to his ancestry. Undoubtedly a search at Towcester would give more facts ; and I hope this will not be overlooked in the future.
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