USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Great Barrington > St. James' Parish, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 1762-1962 > Part 8
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III
A long-standing problem in the Episcopal Church was the aged clergy who, having served their parishes on generally low salaries, often became indigent upon retirement. At the instigation of Bishop Lawrence of the Diocese of Massachusetts, the national Church placed the matter before its several dioceses which in turn sought the support of their con- stituent parishes. St. James' responded at its Vestry meeting of April 16, 1915, wherein it was
Voted that it is the desire of the Vestry of St. James' Protestant Epis- copal Church of Great Barrington that the pension system submitted by the Committee of the Church Pension Fund be adopted by the Diocese of Western Massachusetts.
Adoption of the plan was contingent upon the creation of a fund of five million dollars and in agreement with that proviso, on March 7, 1917, it was
Resolved: by the Vestry and Parish of St. James' Church, Great Barring- ton, that in obedience to the Canons of the General Convention and the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, this parish accepts the assess- ment to assure support to the aged and disabled clergy and to the families of deceased clergymen, payable to the Church Pension Fund, which amounts to 712% upon the salaries paid to the clergy connected therewith
The clergy serving St. James' had, in the past, sometimes suffered "payless paydays" and the parish willingly joined with others to implement what some regard as "the most notable achievement of the Episcopal Church ... in this century . which assures to the clergy a reasonable financial protection in old age".
The latter part of Mr. Lynes' rectorship was also marked on the national scene by the involvement of the United States in what we have since come to call World War I. In 1917-18, men from St. James' marched off to war and are memorialized by a bronze table in the narthex:
This tablet is placed in honor of those from St. James' Church who served their country in the World War, 1917-1918.
Arthur P. Ackerman Silas H. Parks
Harold B. Benedict
W. Roy Parsons
C. Christopher Brown
J. Dodge Peters
George T. Brown
Alfred S. Reed
William T. Brown
Charles Reed
George Church
D. Coleman Remington
Arthur S. Fox
Leon Riche
George A. Harmon
H. Philip Staats
Clarence N. Hewitt
Clarence Stanley
John N. C. Holmes
Leonard L. Stanley
Howard S. Kerner
William W. Stanley
F. Mortimer Lane
Herbert M. Trumpfeller
Thomas T. Mackie
Robert J. Trumpfeller
Chester E. McDermott
M. Ives Wheeler
Harold D. McDermott
Robert K. Wheeler
John McDermott
Paul C. White
Frank R. Mead
Everitt Wilcox
Theodore B. Millard
Lansing Wilcox
Edward C. S. Parker
William B. Wolcott
Franklin Engs Presented by George Church A. D. 1919
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Charles N. Holmes
Gilbert Stanley
At the outbreak of the war Mr. Lynes, benefitting from his experi- ence as a veteran of New York's famous Seventh Regiment, was instrumen- tal in the organization of a local company of the State Guard. At first asked to be Chaplain of the Company, he was commissioned Major because of his knowledge of military procedure and he was largely responsible for the training of the outfit. As a member of the local committee on public safety during the war, he was responsible for many of the activities which were undertaken, and he ran the Liberty Loan campaign in the Great Bar- rington area. He was asked to be Chaplain of the Red Cross abroad but upon the Bishop's advice, declined in order to hold himself available for speaking in support of various war projects.
Those who remained at home also encountered adversity, which at St. James' was fortunately converted to good use. Churches everywhere were closed because it was impossible to obtain fuel to heat them, and in Great Barrington St. James' merged its services with those of the Congrega- tional Church. The resulting union services, arranged at a joint meeting of the Board of Trustees and Standing Committee of the Congregational Church and the Vestry of St. James' Episcopal Church on October 22, 1918, were a convenience to both churches. The Congregationalists were without a minister at the time, their Rev. Dr. Oliver D. Sewell having left in June; the walls, roof and tower of St. James' needed extensive repair; and a new organ, the gift of Miss Gertrude Dudley Walker, required ex- tensive remodelling of the chancel area for its installation.
By arrangement with Deacon Charles O. Nason, chairman of the pulpit committee of the Congregational Church, Mr. Lynes conducted a Communion service according to Episcopal ritual Sunday mornings at 9:30, a joint worship service at 10:45 and a session of the joint Sunday Schools at noon. On appointed Sundays he administered Communion according to the custom of the Congregational Church. The success of this arrangement, which prevailed from the end of October, 1918, to Easter, 1919, attested to the friendly and cooperative spirit existing between the two churches.
Looking forward to the re-opening of his church in the spring, Mr. Lynes issued another pastoral letter in December, asking that, the debts remaining from the purchase of the old organ in 1903 and the work done upon the property at the time the parish house was built, be discharged by subscriptions made as a Christmas offering and paid as an Easter offering. The outcome of his plea is not recorded, but it appears that contributions fell far short of requirements, since on May 21, 1919, the Vestry authorized the Treasurer to borrow $7500 to pay all outstanding obligations of the parish.
On Easter Day, April 20, St. James' Church was re-opened and the new organ dedicated. Given by Miss Walker in memory of her parents. Mr. and Mrs. William Hall Walker, the instrument was built and installed by the Austin Organ Company. Miss Walker contributed its cost of $14,380, the expense of altering the church to accommodate it, and an endowment fund to maintain and improve the instrument. This fund has made it pos- sible to keep the church warm during the winter months to prevent de- terioration of the organ, and to rebuild it from time to time to bring it into conformity with modern tonal standards.
In October 1918, just prior to the closing of the church, the parish
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house was equipped as an emergency influenza hospital in charge of Miss Willarette C. Sears, visiting nurse, and a corps of volunteers, with Miss Nellie Tobey in charge of business arrangements. At the time, during the great influenza epidemic rampant over the country toward the close of the war, Fairview Hospital had fifteen "flu" patients and because that institu- tion, then located in two frame houses on West Avenue, was too small to accommodate all who were sick, seven additional beds were placed on the second floor of the parish house.
On June 25, 1919, Mr. Lynes tendered a supper to the Wardens and Vestry, which was served by the ladies of the parish, and at the meet- ing which followed, submitted his resignation to take effect August 1, in order to accept a call to St. Paul's Church, Jersey City, New Jersey. His departure was keenly felt by the parish and the resolution drafted for the Vestry by John S. Stone, Edward B. Dolby and Alfred W. Wilcoxson, said in part:
The service of Joseph Russell Lynes to St. James' Parish has been marked throughout by true churchmanship, helpful preaching, unusual executive ability, broad sympathies and tender care for his parishioners in sorrow, in sickness and in death; and this Parish owes its present harmony and prosperity in large measure to said Joseph Russell Lynes, and to the tactful cooperation of Mrs. Lynes, both of whom have labored unceasingly not only for the Parish but also for the general welfare and interest of our community at large . .
In 1936 a Communion Rail of carved walnut was erected in the Chancel in memory of Dr. Lynes, who had died in 1932, but who had since his departure from St. James' maintained a summer home in North Egre- mont. His son, Russell Lynes, Managing Editor of Harper's Mazagine, still occupies the home on week-ends and during the summer; and his widow, Mrs. Adelaide Sparkman Lynes, is still active in civic and social affairs in Great Barrington, to which she returned after Dr. Lynes' death in Engle- wood, New Jersey.
Four months after Dr. Lynes left St. James', Robert Bachman Jr., of St. Paul's, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, was called as rector, beginning on January 1, 1920. His very promising ministry was terminated by his death, at 44, on November 28, 1921, as the result of an operation. "A brief bio- graphical sketch in the Pastoral Staff said of him, in part:
In his short ministry at Great Barrington he made a deep impression. He had started a vigorous work along strong church lines and he had the enthusiastic support of a united parish. His friends did not realize it, and probably he did not realize it himself, but he was already suffering from the disease which proved fatal.
Mr. Bachman was a man of great personal charm, of marked intel- lectual ability, a devoted and loyal friend, a zealous parish priest and a remarkable preacher. During the last years of his life he developed unusual power as a preacher. His sermons, essentially evangelical, were of a philosophical nature, expressed with a wealth of poetic illustration and in a model of literary style. They were delivered in a clear, incisive, forceful manner, and made a deep impression upon his congregations.
A personality of rare charm and promise is gone from us. He will long be mourned by many singularly devoted friends. May he rest in peace!
The Altar and Reredos, purchased for St. James' by popular sub- scription in 1923-26, is his memorial.
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Chapter 8
BEAUTIFICATION AND RETROSPECTION
I
F OLLOWING the brief supply ministry of Edward C. Bradley of Lee, the Rev. Edward C. M. Tower, senior curate of St. Agnes' Chapel of Trinity Parish, New York, was called to St. James' where he held his first service on May 7, 1922.
As it turned out, Mr. Tower's rectorship of twenty-two years at St. James' was second in duration only to the twenty-three years of Gideon Bostwick. During his more than two decades of service, the nation saw eras of "boom and bust", and locally, his church was the center of many events and activities. With a sense of the continuity of history, Mr. Tower kept detailed records and a voluminous scrapbook in which are chronicled the episodes of his time.
This sense of history also moved him, in the first year of his tenure, to institute on Christmas Eve a carol service sung in a medieval setting and to enlist the participation of a priest of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Rev. D. Callimahos, who wore the distinctive vestments of his church. Anticipating by forty years today's efforts toward church unity, Father Callimahos alluded in his letter of acceptance to the "best friendship and the closest relationship" between the Anglican and the Greek Orthodox Churches and his hope of their eventual "complete union".
Early in 1923, on January 19, a fire in the basement of the parish house destroyed two grand pianos in the hall above, burned the floor and permeated the church and choir vestments with smoke, to the extent of about $3000 damage. Occurring in the forenoon, the fire was soon dis- covered and extinguished before serious damage was done to either parish house or church.
Upon the death of President Warren G. Harding, Mr. Tower con- ducted a memorial service on August 10, 1923, at which ex-State Repre- sentative Orlando C. Bidwell spoke.
Toward the end of that year, a movement got under way to mem- orialize the late rector, Robert Bachman Jr., by an altar and reredos. A committee made up of Mr. Tower, Philip Bird, Mrs. John H. C. Church, Edward P. Davis, Mrs. M. C. Hamilton, Frank J. Pope, Warren A. Ransom, Justus J. Schaefer, Mrs. George L. Taylor and Alfred W. Wilcoxson, Treasurer, accepted a design submitted by the New York ecclesias- tical architect Wilfrid Edwards Anthony and solicited contributions to total $3500 from Mr. Bachman's friends in both parish and town.
The Bachman Memorial Altar project was successfully concluded by its consecration on May 30, Trinity Sunday, 1926, by the Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Davies. D.D., Bishop of Western Massachusetts. Few are the churches anywhere that incorporate an altar of such beauty and artistic
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merit. Its description, which follows, is adapted from contemporary ac- counts in the Pastoral Staff and the New York Sun:
The Altar, itself, is made of Indiana Bedford limestone, of a soft buff tone. Its face is divided into three parts by four vertical bands of . grapevine design, with roses blended. In the upper center of the panels are shields carved with the emblems of the Holy Name in the center, flanked by scallop shells on the left for Saint James Major and the windmill of St. James Minor on the right.
The mensa is of one slab according to tradition, into which beneath the portion whereon rests the chalice, has been set a stonc brought by Mrs. John H. C. Church from the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem cut with five crosses. On either end is incised, after the Gothic manner, the memorial inscription. The ornaments stand directly upon the Altar according to ancient usage.
Behind the Altar and beneath the memorial window is the reredos, of chrome and gold in the style of the Middle Ages, surmounted by a cresting showing many emblems of the Holy Eucharist. Directly over the Altar Cross is a canopy richly adorned, the straight line of the reredos being further broken by four finials, each capped with a golden fleur de lys. The center shows a golden rayed vesica, surrounded by symbols of the four Evangelists. On either side are four niches contain- ing figures of the saints who were most closely associated with Saint James, the Patron of the Parish. From left to right they are John Baptist, Mark, Peter, the Blessed Virgin Mary, John the Evangelist, Andrew, Luke and Paul. These carven images and their garments are all painted according to the traditional colors. The work is further embellished by two riddel posts, handsomely carved and bearing gilded cherubim; and enclosing the Altar -- also a very ancient custom - are the riddels of blue and gold brocade.
The window above was brought into harmony with the reredos by polychrome decoration of the jambs and arch. The entire wall of the Sanctuary has been decorated to harmonize, complementing the red and gold pomegranates of the window with the arms of both the Diocese and the township.
New Altar ornaments of silver, wrought in the Florentine Renaissance style, complete the memorial. The Anderson Memorial Window, above the new Altar, had itself been augmented two years before bv two side panels completing the representation of the Ascension, the gift of Albert A. Winant in memory of his parents.
The old Altar was given to the Church of the Good Shepherd in West Springfield.
When Mr. Tower began his rectorship in 1922, St. James' was carrying a debt of over $5000 incurred by the repair work done at the end of the war. Dr. Lynes' plea for the discharge of the debt in 1919 having been something less than successful, Mr. Tower addressed himself to the task and by 1927 the parish was able to note with satisfaction that the church was at long last entirely free from debt.
In his curacy in New York, Mr. Tower was noted for his interest in boys and their problems, and at St. James' he soon formed a Boys' Club. This group enjoyed a program of varied activities, held father-son dinners in the parish house, and went camping with their mentor at the Pontoosuc Lake camp of the Pittsfield Y.M.C.A.
During Epiphany, 1928, the Rector announced in a pastoral letter that a Parochial Mission would be held the last ten days of January, the preacher to be George W. Ferguson, Canon Missioner of the Diocese. Ex- horting his flock to support the evangelistic event, Mr. Tower wrote that
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Its purpose is nothing less than a brave spiritual adventure . . . jointly undertaken to accomplish a notable service for Christ and his Church . . . From a religious point of view, our community is typical . .. There are many who are nominal Christians, drifting, indifferent, curdled or asleep . . . Surely it is not untimely to sound a clarion call.
Services were conducted by the Canon Ferguson every day and several times a day from January 21 to 30, with Holy Communion and preaching, and with special services for men, for women and for children. Although it was during that time of prosperity and "whoopee", and al- though zero weather prevailed, the services were well attended by people of all persuasions and the enterprise was deemed a success.
In the late summer of that year a new Fairview Hospital was being built to replace the two inadequate frame buildings on West Avenue and on August 18, at the laying of the cornerstone, Mr. Tower delivered the invocation.
In the 1920's the Men's Association of St. James' Parish flourished, holding regular dinner meetings at which prominent speakers delivered interesting talks. One of the Association's major efforts occurred during the two-term presidency of W. Taylor Day, when Mr. Tower conducted Bible conferences and instruction in church history, with discussion and questions following his lecture.
November 11, 1928, was the tenth anniversary of Armistice Day and on that occasion Episcopalians from the whole of Berkshire County convened at St. James' for a patriotic service and mass meeting in the cause of peace. The featured speaker was Raymond C. Knox, S.T.D., Chap- lain of Columbia University, who preached a sermon on "The Peacemakers". His plea was for ratification by the United States of the Paris Peace Pact, as even then forewarnings of war were looming in distant parts of the world.
In September, 1930, the Taconic School, organized by Frank J. Pope and others, opened its doors in St. James' Parish House to about 20 pupils. Mr. Pope was president and treasurer. After its first term, the school moved to the old Whiting house in 1931.
II
St. James', with the assistance of the parishes in Stockbridge and Sheffield, was host to the thirty-second annual Convention of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts on May 23-24, 1933. The occasion was on the first day marked by golf at the Wyantenuck Country Club during the af- ternoon and a diocesan supper that evening at the Berkshire Inn, at which Walter Prichard Eaton, author, drama critic and the "Sage of Sheffield", spoke on the subject of "Frontiers". At Evensong in the church the Rev. Dr. Bernard Iddings Bell, Warden of St. Stephen's College, Columbia Uni- versity, preached. On the second day, after Holy Communion, morning and afternoon sessions of the Convention met at the Berkshire Inn, with luncheon at the parish house.
Members of the parish who served as chairmen of the committees responsible for the success of the meetings were Edward B. Dolby, deco- ration; Frank W. Beattie, music; Mrs. George L. Taylor, luncheon; John H. Smith, banquet; Charles E. Patterson, tickets; Miss Katharine C. Hall,
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first aid; Alfred W. Wilcoxson, committee chairman; and the Rev. Edward C. M. Tower, general chairman.
Three years later, at the thirty-fifth Convention in 1936, Bishop Davies asked that a Bishop Coadjutor be elected so that in the event of his death or incapacity, his successor would already have been chosen and be able to assume at once the active administration of the diocese. He ap- pointed St. James' Mr. Tower chairman of the committee to consider nomi- nations and as one of the lay delegates, Frank J. Pope of Great Barrington. Mr. Pope was at the time a member of the Standing Committee of the diocese as well as a delegate to the Provincial Synod. The election was to take place on September 30, but the prescient Bishop Davies died on August 25 at his home in Lenox; the committee then was charged with bringing in nominations for a Bishop and the election was postponed to October 21.
The Convention to elect the Bishop was held in Springfield to which the delegates from Great Barrington, in addition to the Rector, were Mr. Pope, John H. C. Church and Charles Rockhill. The committee had nomi- nated three men, and from the floor five others were offered, including William Appleton Lawrence of Grace Church, Providence, R. I., and Ed- ward C. M. Tower of St. James', Great Barrington, whose name was placed in nomination by Mr. Church and seconded by Mr. Pope. Mr. Lawrence was elected on the second ballot.
Again a participant in civic affairs, Mr. Tower in November 1936 delivered the principal address at the dedication of the Soldiers' Memorial, which stands on the lawn of Searles High School. He also dedicated the Reed Memorial Fountain in front of the Town Hall.
St. James' Church was in 1937 the scene of the ordination to the priesthood of Charles Flint Kellogg. Although not the first such ceremony in the history of the parish, it was unique in that the candidate was a na- tive of Great Barrington, a communicant of the parish and a former acolyte. To Bishop W. Appleton Lawrence, who presided, it also marked a mile- stone, as it was his first ordination since he became Diocesan.
The son of Charles T. and Bertie K. (Hawver) Kellogg,. the candi- date had been educated locally and at St. Stephen's College and Harvard University, and was a senior at the General Theological Seminary in New York at the time of his elevation to the diaconate by Bishop Davies in Christ Church Cathedral, Springfield in 1936. At the time of his advancement to the priesthood at St. James' on February 24, 1937, he was a curate at the Church of the Mediator in New York, whose rector, Dr. John Campbell, preached the sermon and charged the ordinand with his responsibilities. Also participating in the service were Arthur Murray of St. John's, North Adams, who read the Litany; Edmund Randolph Laine of St. Paul's, Stock- bridge, who read the Gospel; and Mr. Tower, who placed the new priest's stole (up to that point worn over his left shoulder only) over both shoulders to symbolize his new status as a priest of the Church. Other clergy in the Chancel were Franklin Knight, St. Paul's, Holyoke; Louis P. Nissen, St. George's, Lee; Ralph B. Putney, Trinity Church, Lenox; Nathaniel Noble, master at Lenox School for Boys; and Ralph H. Hayden, St. Stephen's, Pittsfield. Following the Wednesday morning service, a reception was held at the Berkshire Inn and a luncheon served to the visiting clergymen.
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The Anglican antecedents of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America lead us to have more than a casual interest in events in the land of our Church's origin. And so it was that again Mr. Tower's sense of the historical asserted itself and led him to observe on May 9, 1937, the coronation of His Britannic Majesty King George VI with a special service at which were sung the national anthems of both Great Britain and America.
III
That year of 1937 also marked the 175th anniversary of the organ- izing of St. James' Parish in 1762. Although the observance of the anni- versary centered about St. James' Day, July 25, note was earlier taken on Sunday, May 23, during the first visitation of Bishop Lawrence to confirm a class of seventeen, of the laying of the cornerstone of the present edifice eighty years before.
To arrange a suitable celebration of the anniversary, a committee was appointed to include both representatives of the Vestry: C. Albert Ander- son, John H. C. Church, Frank J. Pope, Robert K. Wheeler and Alfred W. Wilcoxson; and representatives of the Parish Aid and Missionary Society; Mesdames John H. C. Church, J. Dodge Peters, George R. Pinkham, John L. Robbins and George L. Taylor. Subsidiary to this committee was one to raise an Anniversary Fund of $5000, by which it was intended to retire the floating debt which had again arisen, and to repair, redecorate and repaint the church, rectory and parish house. Its members were Messrs. Church, Pope, Richard Cobden Jr., Charles E. Hotchkiss, Mrs. Pinkham and Miss Helen Hawthorne. Their goal was exceeded.
For the Commemorative service on Sunday July 25, St. James' Day, the entrance to the church was decorated with a shield displaying crossed swords, the arms of the Diocese of London, of which the church was a parish when founded, a shield representing the Diocese of Western Massa- chusetts, and the red and yellow banners of St. James' Parish.
To open the service, there was a procession from the parish house to the church, which included the Vestrymen and Wardens of the parish, acolytes, Bishop W. Appleton Lawrence, the Rector (Edward C. M. Tower) and visiting clergymen: Dr. John F. Plumb, Canon of Christ Church Cathe- dral, Hartford, Connecticut; Charles Flint Kellogg, Church of the Mediator, Kingsbridge, New York; Edward K. Thurlow, Christ Church, Sheffield; William H. Weigle, Mount Vernon, New York; Franklin Knight, Great Barrington; M. L. Brown, Mount Vernon, New York, William J. Brown, St. John's Church, Manchester, Vermont; E. T. Theopold, New York; E. Russell Bourne, Church of the Resurrection, New York. In his sermon, the Bishop complimented St. James' Parish for having had a strong parisli founded by men of strong convictions. Assisting Frank W. Beattie at the organ were Phonsi Carlo, violinist, and Franklin Adams, 'cellist.
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