USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Great Barrington > St. James' Parish, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 1762-1962 > Part 3
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Arthur Pierce Middleton
St. James' Rectory, Shrove Tuesday, 1962.
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Chapter 1 IN THE BEGINNING
I N colonial Massachusetts, the affairs of parish and town were intermingled to the extent that it is impossible to disentangle them; the establishment of the first churches in Berkshire is inseparable from the formation and government of the towns. So in tracing the history of our church, we have also to delineate the events leading to the incorporation of Sheffield, Great Barrington and Stockbridge.
The territory which these towns later comprised was at this stage of our story in the possession of Mohican Indians, of Algonquin linguistic stock. In 1703 they had sold tracts of their land to several Dutchmen from the Hudson River valley and in 1705 the royal governor of New York, Edward, Viscount Cornbury, in granting a patent for those lands, opened them to settlement by their Dutch proprietors. They were the first white men to occupy the Westenhook" Patent, which embraced a large area of the Housatonic Valley lying roughly between Canaan and Glendale, and to that valley they brought their Lutheran faith. Their nearest church was in the Hudson Valley, however, far to the west across the Taconics and too distant for them to attend meeting and to receive any but the most in- frequent visits of their preacher. These Dutch trappers and farmers re- mained in isolation on the frontier, in Indian country, for another fifteen years before they were joined by English settlers from across the Hoosic Range to the east.
The English were a long time in penetrating the upper Housatonic Valley, for although Westfield had been settled in the early 1660's, the formidable "Berkshire Barrier" had delayed westward migration for over half a century. A Bostonian traversing the region on his way to Albany in 1694 characterized the mountainous terrain as "a hideous, howling wilderness", and except for such occasional travellers and traders to the Indians, the valley remained isolated both from the English to the east and the Dutch to the west, except for those few of the latter who had braved this Indian territory beyond the Taconics to occupy their land called Westen- hook.
It was not until 1722 that a petition by a number of inhabitants of Westfield in Hampshire County was granted by the Great and General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, providing that two tracts of land each seven miles square be laid out along the Housatonic River, the first northward from the Connecticut line and the second adjoining it on the north. In 1724 Chief Konkapot and twenty other Indians deeded the tracts, but reserving land west of the river, to a committee of four in con- sideration of "Four Hundred and Sixty Pounds, Three Barrels of Sider and Thirty Quarts of Rum". The land thus acquired by the English coincided in some degree with that of the Westenhook Patent, and the subsequent in-
*The Dutch rendering of the Indian name "Hooestennuc", which the English called "Housatonic", and which meant "the river beyond the mountains".
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filtration by the English of the sparsely settled Dutch holdings resulted in prolonged wrangling between the provinces of New York and Massachusetts until the border dispute was settled in 1786. Because the English had been the more aggressive in settling and developing their claim to the area, it was awarded to Massachusetts rather than to New York. The Dutch already resident there had become oriented toward the new English towns of the upper Housatonic, separated as they were by the Taconics from their own people and their Lutheran church in the Hudson Valley, so that when Anglican missionaries arrived the Dutch were quite ready to accept a church so similar to their own.
The two tracts acquired by the English were designated the Lower and Upper Townships, respectively, and comprised what are now not only Sheffield and Great Barrington, but also parts of Alford, Lee, Stockbridge and West Stockbridge. The land reserved by the Indians embraced what are now Alford and the western part of Great Barrington. The boundary between the two townships was at the Great Bridge, the Lower Township comprising land now included in Sheffield and the southern part of Great Barrington.
Settlement of the tracts began in 1726, with the first families oc- cupying land in the Lower Township and reserving space for the meeting house and a school; and so to Sheffield goes the distinction of having the first permanent church in the upper Housatonic Valley. Built in 1735, it was, of course, the established Puritan, or Congregational, church.
Coincident with this event there was from 1734 to 1736 a mission to the Indians in the northern part of the Township, in charge of John Sargeant, but after the General Court in 1736 granted to the Indians land in the Upper Township, the mission was moved to the new location, there- after called "Indian Town", which in 1739 was set apart and incorporated as Stockbridge. This grant of land to the Indians was made in exchange for their reserved land in the Lower Township, thereby opening the latter to occupation by the settlers from Westfield, as well as confirming the somewhat tenuous claims of the Dutch already on the site, who had earlier settled what they considered to be New York territory, the Westenhook Patent.
These inhabitants of the northern part of the Lower Township num- bered about thirty families of some two hundred persons -- Dutch and English - who were without a church or a school. This situation was felt to be detrimental to the morals and welfare of the people and a serious hindrance to the progress of the settlement. The exigencies of their plight demanded legislative action, that the settlers be vested with parish privileges including authority for levying taxes for the support both of preaching and of schools. Accordingly, in 1742 the General Court passed an act granting to the inhabitants limited parish rights and privileges, enabling them to undertake the construction of a meeting house in that same year and to support a minister. This parish, as the earlier one in Sheffield, was Con- gregational, the established church in the Province which enjoyed tax support.
The legislature had, however, failed to provide for law enforcement and the taxing of non-proprietors, and an attempt to induce it to rectify this handicap by erecting the parish into a town was opposed by Sheffield,
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which would thereby lose that portion of its area. But a compromise was arranged by which the people were endowed with full parish privileges, and thus was created in 1743 the North (or Upper) Parish of Sheffield which was destined to become, in 1761, the Town of Great Barrington.
This period, when Sheffield Upper Parish and its church came into existence, was that of the Puritan Revival in New England, called the "Great Awakening". Its leader was Jonathan Edwards whose preaching at Northampton and whose writings stimulated a resurgence of religious fervor but who, because of the uncompromising severity of his views, was forced out of that parish. He thereupon moved west to Stockbridge to minister to the Indians, and here in the Berkshires he found a disciple in Samuel Hopkins, the first permanent minister of the Congregational church in Sheffield Upper Parish, who was settled in 1743.
These men brought to the upper Housatonic Valley - still a frontier region with marauding Indians - a religion that suited the dangerous and difficult life of the settlers. In the absence of the amenities achieved in older communities, such as Northampton across the Barrier, Puritanism made virtues of those qualities which frontier isolation required: austerity, self-reliance, impassiveness, frugality, industry, energy. It was characterized by godly fear and transgression was profane. It preached hell-fire as an antidote to the kegs of brandy in every cellar. Calvinist theology instilled in its adherents a sense of the worth and dignity of the individual man and initiated the tradition of universal education in America. It taught civic responsibility and although only landed proprietors and members of the established church originally enjoyed a vote, it was the wellspring of our democratic town meeting system of local government. Edwards, and later Hopkins, propounded these ideas in powerfully written treatises which carried their influence far beyond the Berkshires. And in a day when slavery existed in Massachusetts, Hopkins outspokenly condemned it.
In this period of intense Puritanism, social position and political power accrued only to members of the established church and the Puritan theocracy denied to those who dissented from its stern strictures their right to question its doctrines or even to absent themselves from meetings. The Dutch minority questioned Hopkins' view that the sinful world existed only to be burned in the fires of Hell, for their Lutheran belief held that the world was susceptible of receiving grace from a merciful and forgiving Heaven. Further, their lack of facility in the English language made it difficult for the Dutch to participate effectively in meetings, and because of this Hopkins' long, involved and highly intellectual sermons were be- yond their comprehension.
Although Hopkins during the earlier years of his pastorate had called upon the Dutch in their homes and they in turn had contributed toward the support of his church, they were later alienated by his refusal to abide by the "Half-Way Covenant" in force in older and more liberal sections of the Province - which allowed baptism of the children of non- members of the church - and to allow occasional services in the Dutch language in his meeting house. The Dutch absented themselves from Sunday meeting, preferring to read and meditate upon their Bibles at home. Their sympathizers fomented dissension in public meetings and held up the payment of Hopkins' salary time and again.
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The continued absence of the Dutch from Sunday meeting was in defiance of the strict colonial law that the inhabitants attend at least once every three months. The tithingmen had no choice but to lodge complaints with the magistrate, who in turn was required either to fine the recalcit- rants or to commit them to confinement in the public stocks. Among those condemned were four prominent citizens: Isaac Van Deusen and John, Peter and Garret Burghardt who, choosing public martyrdom to dramatize their plight, were taken to Sheffield as there were no stocks in the Upper Parish.
To protect them from the jeers and insults of the populace Hendrick Burghardt, brother of three of the accused, and Judge Timothy Wood- bridge, the highly regarded schoolmaster of the Indians in Stockbridge, stood armed guard. There was no disorder and the accused men gained the sympathy of many who were already somewhat disaffected with Samuel Hopkins, thereby rendering his position even less secure. On their part, the Dutch thereafter attended meeting often enough to satisfy the law, but invited the Lutheran minister at Loonenburgh (now Athens), Stoffle Barkmire, and later Dr. Knoll at Kinderhook, to visit them monthly for baptisms and preaching in their own tongue.
On one of the occasions when Isaac Van Deusen, a very highly re- spected man in the community, was satisfying his obligation to the law, Hopkins glared down at him from the pulpit and exclaimed, "Every Sun- day that you are not here you are in Hell!" That crystallized Van Deusen's resolve to secure for his community the privilege of worship according to the dictates of a man's own conscience.
The relatively small number of Anglicans among the English in the community made common cause with the embattled Dutch. Notable a- mong them were David Ingersoll, John Williams and Israel Dewey. Dewey, too, had had a run-in with Samuel Hopkins. After having previously en- gaged the minister in written discussions of doctrine, he publicly expressed his disapproval of a sermon one Sunday in 1758, taking issue with Hopkins' assertion as to the beneficent uses of sin. Dewey was hailed to account for this breach of behavior and after several meetings had been called to ad- judicate the matter, it was decided to "let him pass without a public cen- sure, but only to admonish him before all the brethren". Dewey accepted the admonition "to be more modest and earnestly seek further light", but was adamant in his opinion.
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In time there grew to be about sixty unbaptised children, probably mostly English since the Dutch had been visited at intervals by Lutheran ministers from the Hudson Valley, and both English and Dutch dissenters from Hopkins' Calvinistic preachments determined to form another church. They sent to New Milford, Connecticut, to invite an Anglican priest, Solo- mon Palmer, to form a mission of the Church of England. Although the date is uncertain, he is believed to have held his first service in the Upper Parish in 1760. He returned several times and was later assisted by a priest named Thomas Davies who, with Palmer, were in the service of the Society
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for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, whose headquarters was in London. Their visits to both the North and South Parishes were only occasional from 1760 to 1767.
During this interval, there occurred the incorporation of the North Parish, by which it was separated from Sheffield and became the town of Great Barrington on June 30, 1761. The name was bestowed by the Pro- vincial Governor, Sir Francis Bernard, after the English family seat of his wife's cousin, Lord Barrington.
The town having achieved its separate identity, it now acquired a permanent Anglican parish when on September 21, 1762, Thomas Davies officiated at the organization of a Church of England. He preserved the details of this historic occasion in a certificate (1) written to exonerate the members of the Anglican church from payment of taxes to support the minister from whom they dissented, and it established beyond peradventure the event and the date which mark the beginning of our parish as a con- tinuing entity:
This may certify all whom it concerns, that on the 21st Sept. 1762, Robert Noble, Jonathan Reed, David Ingersoll, Sam'l Breck, Stephen King, John Westover, Jacob Burgott, Warham Williams, John Williams, John Williams Ju'r, Ebenezer Hamlin, David Clark, Jos'h Robie, Jon'a Hill, Daniel Bayley, Josiah Loomis and Josiah Loomis Ju'r., Put them- selves under my care as a minister of the Church of England, and ac- cordingly by mutual consent were formed into an assembly or body of People, to be denominated hereafter members of the Church of England, and moreover according to the Rules and Canons of s'd Church of Eng- land, and by authority divested in me I chose John Westover Clerk, and we mutually chose Robert Noble and Jonathan Reed Church Wardens. And therefore the above mentioned Persons, with all such Person or Per- sons as shall hereafter join with them are reputed to be and by the Canons of said Church of England, are esteemed members of said Church of England, and are exempted from Pay any Rates or taxes to Dissenters on any eclesiastical account whatsoever.
New Milford in Connecticut, Feb. 15, 1763.
Missionary for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Thomas Davies,
The annual assessment against individuals for the support of the established church was £20; and in 1764 the members of the newly- formed Anglican parish were voted the privilege of drawing from the town treasury such sums as had been assessed them for that purpose and ap- plying them to the support of their own priest.
Not long after completing their parochial organization, the Anglicans decided to erect their own church and in 1763 a building committee was appointed to consist of John Williams, Samuel Lee and John Burghardt. The latter, by a deed (?) executed on December 14, 1763, conveyed a gift of land of about a quarter of an acre situated at what is now about 563 South Main Street, and funds and materials of construction were liberally contributed by members of the church. John Williams, Isaac Van Deusen and others were said to have been very generous and a friend of the enter- prise, in England, contributed a large amount of glass. The main body of the building measured 40 x 50 feet to which the porch and chancel pro-
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jection added 20 feet of length. There was a steeple 110 feet tall sur- mounted by a weathercock made of copper and gilded. In the belfry was hung a ship's bell contributed by a friend - the first church bell in town. Although the greater part of the church was built in the spring and sum- mer of 1764, pews were installed in 1769 by individuals at their own ex- pense and it was not until 1774 that the building was entirely completed. The Rectory had been built by Silas Goodrich in 1763. Services were first held in the new church on Christmas Day, 1764, by Thomas Davies, who preached a sermon from St. Matthew xxi: 13.
The edifice was modeled upon Christ Church, Stratford, Connecticut, and was considered to be very handsome (3). The glass sent from Eng- land was used freely, the sides of the church being largely of windows, large and high, with arched tops, and composed of many small panes, while in the east end, behind the altar, was a window of extraordinary dimen- sions. So prominent was this material in its construction that the church was sometimes derisively called the "glass house". Suspended from the ceiling over the pulpit was a sounding board, and in 1800 there was in- stalled near the pulpit a cenotaph used at a memorial service for George Washington, in the form of a wooden urn surmounted by a gilded ball, in- scribed "Washington". This church was used for almost seventy years; it was dismantled in 1833 and parts of it incorporated in the second church.
Although Thomas Davies had organized the Society in 1762 and had opened the new church in 1764, there was no incumbent or resident priest of the Anglican Church in Great Barrington for several years. Until 1770, when Gideon Bostwick was settled as its first rector, the church was served on an irregular schedule by missionaries of the Society for the Pro- pagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts: Thomas Davies, Roger Viets, Solomon Palmer and Ebenezer Punderson; and by Richard Mansfield, rector of Christ Church, Derby, Connecticut.
One of their number, Roger Viets, in a letter to the Venerable So- ciety in London, described the hazards besetting an Anglican priest in that stronghold of Congregationalism:
Symsbury, March 14th, 1764
Rev. Sir:
I have continued hitherto with gratitude, and to the utmost of mv power, to serve the Honorable Society, and, by God's blessing, with good success. A considerable body of people in and about Great Barrington having conformed to the Church. I being the nearest Missionary to them, undertook to visit them as often as I conveniently could, till the Honorable Society should have otherwise ordered. In one of my visits I joined a couple in Marriage, having previously had evidence of their legal publication, of the consent of the parents and guardians of the parties, and that there was no just cause or impediment why they should not be joined together. For this I was arrested at my next visit on the 30th of January, in the midst of my congregation, and in my robes, soon after the conclusion of the morning Service, and conveyed within one or two hours to the County Jail, where I continued 8 days, ( with many in- dulgences from the jail-keeper; ) and then gave bond with 3 substantial sureties for my appearance at the Court, which is 50 miles from Syms- bury: I employed 4 Attorneys and attended the Court, but the action
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was never entered in the county clerk's book against me: the gentleman who prosecuted me was onc Mr. Mark Hopkins, town clerk, county treasurer, King's Attorney, and brother to the dissenting teacher at Great Barrington, who took me to Mr. Timothy Hopkins, brother to the same dissenting teacher. My expense in this affair, besides the disgraceful insults and indignities I have suffered, amounts to a considerable sun, and has been of great detriment to me and the people of my Mission. I submit to the Honorable Society's approbation or censure, and beg their advice and direction, for which I wait with impatience. Mv licence from the Lord Bishop of London extends throughout New England, and as to what is mentioned in the writ ( a copy of which I send cnclosed, ) concerning a certificate from the town clerk, there are frequent instances of marrying without it: however, after the marriage I demanded. and procured it, and send a copy also enclosed. The judges of the Court treated me with kindness and complaisance; and I have reason to think they were very far from beginning or forwarding the prosecution. I could produce very full testimonies of my labours and success at Great Barrington and adjacent parts, as well as at Symsbury. The people of Great Barrington have actually begun to provide materials for erecting a Church, which is to be by far the most beautiful and expensive build- ing in that County. The plan is taken from the Church at Stratford in Connecticut, though not so large as Stratford Church. I hope in a short time, to give the Honorable Society some further account of this glorious undertaking. A few scattering inhabitants of a settlement called Noble- town, about 8 miles west of Great Barrington, have erected a frame of a very small Church.
I am, Rev. Sir,
Your most obedient, humble Servant, Roger Viets.
In subsequent. letters, extending through 1768, Viets continued to detail the cost in taxes, privileges and imputation of disloyalty suffered by the people he served so devotedly in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and to such good and lasting effect.
In this period and for many years subsequently, it was necessary for a member of the Anglican Church to register with the town authorities a statement of his affiliation in order that he be excused from attending the Congregational Church. Such a document in Solomon Palmer's own hand, recently came to light and is quoted as illustrative of the situation in which our Anglican forebears placed themselves.
These are to certifie all Persons whom it may concern that Mr. John Rees is a Professor of the Church of England and has constantly and duly attended upon the Publick Worship of God in the Church at Great Barrington.
Aggramont, October 7th 1767
Solomon Palmer, Missionary
"In the Fall of 1960, Stockbridge Public Library.
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Chapter 2 THE REVOLUTIONARY YEARS
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T HE first permanent (or "settled") rector of the Anglican Church in Great Barrington was Gideon Bostwick. Born in 1742 in New Milford, Connecticut, he was graduated from Yale College in 1762 and a year or two later became a resident of Great Barrington, where he was master of the school established by a number of townsmen.
This was the period when the several supply priests from Con- necticut visited the new church irregularly, and in their absence Bostwick served as lay reader. Concurrently he served St. Luke's in Lanesborough, the second Anglican Church in the county, in the same capacity. In these activities he found his vocation, for after a few years the churches in Lanes- borough, Great Barrington, Nobletown (now Hillsdale) and New Concord requested the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (sometimes referred to as the "Propagation Society" or simply "S. P. G.") to furnish a permanent missionary to the area; the petition sent to London was signed for Great Barrington by Thomas Pier, Samuel Lee and John Burghardt.
Gideon Bostwick sailed for London in December 1769; on February 24, 1770, he was ordered a deacon in St. James' Chapel, and on March 11, again in St. James' Chapel, he was ordained to the priesthood by Rich- ard Terrick, Bishop of London. He returned to Great Barrington on June 4, 1770, to take up his duties as its first resident priest and rector.
In the early fall of that year, the new priest communicated his im- pressions to his sponsors, the Propagation Society in London, addressing his letter of September 10, 1770, to his mentor, Daniel Burton:
Reverend Sir- After an agreeable voyage of six weeks, I arrived safe at New York on the 29th of May from whence I proceeded directly to my mission where I arrived on the 4th of June. I preached the four succeeding Sundays at the several different parishes in my mission to numerous congregations, among whom I was very kindly received with all suitable marks of respect. The members of the Church of England, expressing great satisfaction that they have at last obtained a minister, unanimously desire thro' the channel of this letter to return their humble thanks to the Venerable Society for the appointment. I find there is at Great Barrington 43 families of the Church of England besides 13 fami- lies at Sheffield and Egremont, two adjoining towns, that constantly at- tend worship at Great Barrington. There arc at Lanesboro' and Noble- town each about 30, and at New Concord 20 families of the Church. There are in all 57 communicants: I have baptized since my arrival 3 adults and 62 infants. As they have no dissenting teacher at Great Bar- rington, the dissenters come to church whenever I officiate there, in greater numbers than I should have expected, since their late teacher spared no pains to render the worship and doctrines of the Church as odious to the people as he possibly could. But I find that their enmity against the Church seems to subside in proportion to the knowledge
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