USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America. > Part 109
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In 1805, the Plum Island turnpike and bridge were built ; and in 1806, the Boston turnpike, which cost $417,000.
In 1819, West Newbury was incorporated as a town, with 1,279 inhabitants, leaving 3,671 to the old town, which was divided into two parishes and nine school districts.
In 1829, the break water was built by the general government, under the direction of Thomas M. Clark and Benjamin W. Hale. It ran from Plum Island to Woodbridge's Island, and thenee north-westerly to turn the tide from Plum Island Sound, in hopes of improving the Merrimac bar. It was 1,900 feet long. There was also a short break- water on the Salisbury side, at Badger's rocks ; but they answered no good purpose.
In 1835, Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury united in a grand celebration of their 200th anniversary. Hon. Caleb Cushing was orator; Hon. George Lunt, poet ; and Hon. Ebenezer Moseley presided at the dinner, which was attended by many distinguished persons. Among these were Lieut. Gov. Armstrong, Edward Everett, Stephen H. Phillips, Caleb Cushing, George Lunt, Robert C. Win- throp, who is a lincal descendant of Gov. Winthrop, Gov. William Plumer, and many others known over the land. The combined towns at the following census in 1840 had 12,066 inhabitants - Newbury, 3,389 ; Newburyport, 7,124 ; and West Newbury, 1,553.
In 1840, the Eastern Railroad was opened ; and ten years later the Newburyport Railroad to Georgetown, both running for miles through the town.
In 1843, the boiler to the first steam-engine used in the town, at the Wormstead rope-walk, exploded, killing the fireman, John Green, and badly scalding a workman, Lorenzo D. Ross.
In 1851 came the last division of the town, sections on the east and west being annexed to Newburyport, as had been desired by their inhabitants for a whole generation, the Legislature having often been petitioned to that end. Perhaps this event was hastened by the abo- lition of school districts and the establishment of a high school, cre- ating some ill-feeling. In notifying the adjourned meeting that year, Joshua Coffin, town clerk, advertised as follows : -
" The annual town-meeting, of what is left of Newbury, stands adjourned to Monday, May 12th, 2 P. M., at the towu-house, now in Newburyport."
It is probable that the old town, which long resisted this division, was benefited thereby. After that there was less conflict of interests ; its industry was chiefly farming ; and it has moved forward, a charm- ing rural district, showing on all hands constant improvement. Mrs. Nathan N. Withington, in'a recently published paper, speaks of some of the well-preserved old houses, which are landmarks and waymarks worthy of notice, such as the Ilsley house, at the head of Marlborough Street, which has stood the storms of two centuries. Its cellar walls, three feet thick ; its beams, fourteen inches square ; and its chimney, 18 by 8 feet at the base, show how strongly our fathers built. Here was the Putnam Tavern ; here Oliver Putnam, the founder of the Putnam Free School, was born ; and here "Eliza Wharton," whose sorrowful tale was the study of our mothers, passed a night on her way to Danvers and death. Here was the first printing-office in Essex County ; here calico and wall-paper were stamped ; and here chocolate was manufactured. The Coffin house, where reside the descendants of Joshua Coffin, the historian, is well along in its third century. It has always been in the same family. The residence of Parker and Noyes, the first two ministers, is standing on Parker Street, well pre- served, though it may be the oldest house in the town. If there be any older, it is the Poor residence on the Neck ; and each - the Poor and the Noyes house-has remained in the ownership of those families from the first. The Short house, on the south corner of Atlantic Ave- me and High Street, is about two hundred years old; and the stone house, on the Little farm adjoining, is still older. That was used as a garrison, when Indian raids were feared. Others are worthy of notice, of which we have not space even to speak.
CHAPTER V.
ECCLESIASTICAL AND EDUCATIONAL.
It is difficult to separate religion from education, polities, or even war, in our early history, since the church was the soul and life of all. Religion was required as much in the magistrate as the minister, and the two classes acted together in the synods. Public office, and even the right of suffrage, was limited to church members. They founded this government, says Bancroft, on the basis of the church, and church membership could be obtained only by favor of the clergy and an exemplary life. They denied unlimited freedom of opinion, as the parent of ruinous divisions. The church was the central sun, from which all else emanated, and to which all things tended. To be any- thing, a man must be a member of the church. The minister was often the teacher, especially in the higher branches of learning, and, without a Sunday school, he eatechised all the children. Even the militia could not have heretical officers : in Rowley a man was re- jected from being a militia ensign because of heresy ; and in Newbury, in the second year of the town, we find John Spencer deposed from the captainey for heretical opinions ; and the men he should have commanded in the Pequod war, on their march to Connectient, stopped to discuss and decide the question, whether they were under a cove- nant of grace or of works. Mr. Spencer, who was among the best, and " best to do" settlers, was really driven back to England by the vote to disarm the heretics, which included with him Mr. Dummer and Mr. Nicholas Easton. Mr. Dummer was the richest man and the most enterprising, and contributed more to the town than any other man in it. Elliot says of him : "No man more deserved the praise of doing well." He was of so forgiving a spirit that, two years later, when Gov. Winthrop, his persecutor, was bankrupt, he contributed £100 to pay his debts. Mr. Easton resented the injustice done him, and removed to Rhode Island, where he became lieutenant-governor of the State, as was his son after him. So were degraded for sup- porting the cause of Sir Henry Vane, and receiving the opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson, three of the seven settlers who were allowed to prefix Mr. to their names. The same spirit ran through all the early years of the town.
We have already noticed the organization of the First Church, Thomas Parker, minister, and James Noyes, assistant and teacher, Both were very learned men, and no two men have lived since them who did so much to establish upon a solid basis our religion and our education. They have had no superiors as hard students, sound scholars, and thorough educationists. They were learned in theology, but not more so than in the sciences and literature of their day. They spoke and wrote in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic; they were at home in history and Oriental lore ; they were trained logicians and elegant writers ; and Mr. Noyes was our first poct. They made it the object of their lives to impress themselves on the minds of the town, and they were so successful that they live in us to-day, and will in the generations to come.
Both had been teachers in the same school in Newbury, Eng., a town dating back to the Roman era, fifty-six miles west of London, on the river Kennet, from which we have the name Newbury. Parker was the only son of a distinguished scholar, Robert Parker. He was admitted to Oxford College, but, his father being exiled, he went to Dublin to study under the celebrated Dr. Usher; then retired to Holland, where he studied with the no less celebrated Dr. Ames ; and later, he entered the University at Leyden, where they would gladly have retained him in a professorship, but as he could then safely re- turn to England he did so ; but, for more usefulness and greater free- dom, he came to New England, when only twenty-two years of age. " Whence," after a pastorate extending from 1635 to 1677, as Cotton Mather says, "he went to the immortals, in the month of April, 1677, in the eighty-second year of his age ; and after he had lived all his days a single man, but, the greater part of his days, engaged in apoctalyptical studies, he went unto the Apoctalyptical Virgins, who follow the Lord whithersoever he goeth."
The school which he and Mr. Noyes taught averaged twelve or four- teen scholars, for whom they took no pay ; and it was customary long after that time for the ministers to freely aet as tutors for boys pre- paring for college. They were often the physicians as well as the preachers and teachers ; and of not a few of them it could be said, as the tombstone declares of Christopher Toppan, "Skilled in the prac- tice of physics and surgery." Mr. Parker was so thorough in his studies that when in his last years, blind from excessive reading, he
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taught the languages, he could do it from memory. It is reported of him that, being interviewed by some of the most learned clergymen, who had donbts of his orthodoxy, he answered their English questions in Latin. They followed, when he retreated to the Greek and to the Hebrew, they pursuing; but when he answered in Arabic they stopped, and he declined to answer further, nnless to his peers in learning.
Mr. Parker believed in the government of the church as a finality, and, though he permitted the people to act in admitting persons to church society and in passing church censures, so long as to him they seemed to act regularly, yet finally he assumed the power to himself. In this position he was sustained by Mr. Noyes and Mr. Woodbridge, his successive associates, though it caused a long and bitter contro- versy, during which the people reduced his pay and deposed him by vote from the exercise of his ministerial functions ; but he finally was the victor.
James Noyes, the first associate of Parker, was his cousin. Both were born in the same town, in Wiltshire ; they taught in the same school; came over in the same ship; preached to the same people ; and, Mr. Parker being a bachelor, lived, studied, and died in the same honse. He was more gentle in manner, but no less firin in opinion or less esteemed throughout the Province. He was a very subtle logi- eian, and determined against all heresies. When he died, aged 48, in 1656, the church in Roxbury entered upon their records : "Mr. Noise, the blessed light at Newbury, died." He published more than Mr. Parker; and left descendants, among whom, as distinguished in Oriental literature as himself, was the late Prof. George Noyes, D. D., of Harvard University, translator of several Hebrew books of the Bible.
In both Parker and Noyes Harvard College found patrons. The town contributed to the university both of its sons and its means. The records of 1645 say : "By an agreement each family gave one peck of corn, or one shilling, to Cambridge College." In the first class, graduated in 1642, the best scholar of the class was Benjamin Woodbridge. He was termed "the first fruit of the college in New England," though he had studied at Oxford before coming here ; and he returned to England to preach and teach in Newbury and Salisbury, where his uncles, Parker and Noyes, had done the same. He died in his sixty-third year. He was a poet as well as a Christian scholar ; "a learned and mighty man," as one writer terms him. He was brother to John Woodbridge, our third minister, who married a daughter of Gov. Dudley ; was first minister at Andover, and the first teacher ordained in this conntry. In 1647, John Woodbridge returned to England, but came back after the death of Mr. Noyes, to help his uncle, Parker, and was settled from 1663 to 1670, when, in the oppo- sitiou to Mr. Parker, the people refused to pay ; but, like Mr. Parker, he never lost the confidence of the people who disagreed with him, and lived here an active magistrate till 1695, when the good man died. Of his eleven children, three were clergymen ; and, prior to 1845, forty-three of his descendants were among the graduates of American colleges.
The fourth pastor, also colleague to Mr. Parker, was John Richard- son, whose term was from 1675 to 1696. Then Christopher Toppan, a native of Newbury, entered npon a pastorate of fifty-one years, which ended with his death at seventy-six. His was a successful ministry, and he was a learned bnt a very eccentric man, most determined against " schemers " and "new-lights," and therefore against the Whitefield revival, which rendered his last days unhappy. Following him was John Tucker, of Amesbury, against whom was a strong opposition, his settlement being confirmed by only two majority of the church, and twelve of the parish ; but he enjoyed a long pastorate of forty-seven years, and died in 1792. His pastorate with that of Mr. Toppan made 101 years.
Next came Abraham Moor, of Londonderry. N. H., whose health failed, and he died in little over five years, giving place to John S. Popkin, one of the finest scholars in the State, who accepted a pro- fessorship in Harvard in 1815, much to the regret of all the people. He was the successor of Edward Everett, as professor of Greek liter- ature, in 1843. He resigned, and died in Cambridge in 1852. To his time all the ministers, except Mr. Moor, who was from Dartmouth, had been graduated at Harvard. Mnch did that university for reli- gion and literary culture in Newbury, but no less has Newbury done for that institution. Two of the presidents, Webber and Felton, were born here ; and, at one time, all three of its professors, Webber, Top- pan, and Pearson, were Newbury men. Prof. Popkin was never excelled there in the Greek, unless it was by Prof. Felton, who was almost a born Greek, as in the Hebrew Prof. George Noyes has not
been outranked ; and, in the law school, Prof. Simon Greenleaf and Prof. Theophilus Parsons have had no superiors. In proportion to population, no town in the Commonwealth has furnished it so many and such eminent students, and no town has had more of its sons there graduated, or attain higher honors in subsequent life to throw back lustre on their alma mater.
Leonard Withington, in 1816, was the successor of Prof. Popkin, and now, sixty-two years from his settlement, and in the ninetieth year of his age, holds the first place in the parish and in the affections of the people. of whom none, members of the church when he came, live to sustain his aged hands. He was graduated at Yale, and, for half a century has been a light in the church, and respected by all for his high character and scholarly attainments. Two pastors have been associated with him, - John R. Thurston, for eleven years from 1859, who received a call elsewhere, and was the first minister in 235 years to resign that pastorate for another ; and Omar White Folsom, now preacher. Till a very recent period, the ministers had much to do with popular education and the common schools, and also in pre- paring the youth for the colleges. Dr. Withington served on the school committee nearly thirty years.
Other teachers of distinction could be named. Anthony Somerby, who received a subsidy of lands to encourage him, and had his house where the jail now stands, was the first school-master ; and Henry Short, whose lands in Oldtown are still in possession of his descend- ants, was the second. They taught a grammar or a Latin school. At the time of the Revolution, Nicholas Pike, a man of distinction, author of the first arithmetic published in America. held the like posi- tion. His residence was on the corner of State and Harris streets, and the great elm bending over State Street was of his planting. Afterwards came Michael Walsh, of high mental culture, the author of the second American arithmetic ; and, later, were Roger S. Howard, David P. Page, and other men of mark in their calling.
The first parish was in advance of the public sentiment ; and the law for town libraries, and in the last century, in 1794. established what they called the "Social Library," of which Joseph Coffin was librarian, and the chief men of the town, - as John Adams. who educated two sons in college, Ezra Hale. for thirty-seven years town clerk, Eben- ezer Mareh. the Rev. Dr. Popkin, and later, the Rev. Dr. Withington - were interested in it. It was continued to 1848, and numbered several hundred volumes, carefully selected, and thoroughly read in almost every honse in " Oldtown."
In 1702, the people of Byfield. a parish which included a part of Rowley, built a meeting-honse, near where the present church stands. The parish name was from Col. Nathaniel Byfield, of Boston. It was not till 1706 that the first minister, Moses Hale, who had been preach- ing there from 1702, was settled. He was born in Newbury, grad- nated at Harvard in 1699. and died at sixty-six, in 1743, in the forty- first year of his labors there. Previously, he had organized the " Old South" Church in Georgetown, and that people presented the new parish with a communion service.
The second minister was Moses Parsons, of Gloncester, a great and strong man, from Harvard University, who became involved in a long and bitter controversy with one of his deacons, Benjamin Colman, upon the rightfulness of his ownership of three slaves. He was father of the chief justice, Theophilus Parsons, a name which is a tower of strength in all our courts. Mr. Parsons's death occurred in 1782, in the sixty-eighth year of his age and the forty-third of his ministry. He was much interested in education ; and it was during his ministry that Gov. Dummer, by will, established the first academy of the State, which to this time continues its nsefulness and bears his name. Mr. Parsons was not withont influence in bringing abont this result, and selected the first principal, " Master " Moody.
Elijah Parish, from Connectient, gradnated at Dartmouth in 1785, was the third minister, settled in 1787. He was learned, eloquent, and logical, and too prond ever to conceal or tone down an opinion. He was Hopkinsonian, which led to a division of the society, the dis- senters settling a Mr. Sleigh ; but the seceders returned again to the old church. In politics he was a violent Federalist, and declared and defended his opinions in the pnlpit. when party spirit ran so high that the Federalists would gather for miles to hear him, as they went to hear the great orators on " the stump." He died in 1825, in his sixty- fourth year, and the thirty-eighth from his settlement. He was the author of several valuable school-books.
Following him, in 1827, was Isaac R. Barbour, from Bridgeport, Vt., of Arminian views, which were not held by a majority of his hearers ; a temperance man, when everybody drank ; an nnwavering Freemason, when the story of Morgan fevered the community ; and
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an abolitionist, when that was a disgrace to any man. He was not wanting in ability or manly courage, but thought best to resign in 1833, which was the more expedient since a united parish was needed to rebuild the meeting-house, then burned, and that year rebuilt.
Henry Durant was the fifth minister - a man of gentle manners, a graduate of Yale, profound in scholarship, broad in literary culture, and liberal in religion, strongly inelining to Swedenborgian views. For a time he had charge of Dummer Academy. His health declining, he removed to California, and opened a school at Oakland, which grew into the University of California, of which he was president. He has passed to his reward.
Francis V. Tenney was settled in 1850, and dismissed at the end of seven years. He was a good scholar, but sought a wider field of labor. From 1858, for four years, the Rev. Charles Brooks was pas- tor; and he died, three years after his resignation, at Farmington, Conn. From 1863 to 1875, the church was without a settled pastor. Then James H. Child, now there, a graduate of Amherst and the Andover Seminary, was settled.
In the Byfield parish, for more than a century the best academic education has been within the reach of the youth through the Dummer Academy, founded by the bequest of William Dummer, lientenant- governor from 1722 to 1728, who governed the Province wisely and well, after he was left acting governor, from the return of Gov. Shute to England ; and again he was left in power by the death of Gov. Burnet, in 1729-30. Ile was grandson of Richard Dummer, to whom that town granted lands to have him settle there, and these same lands came back - bread cast on the waters - in the bequest of the governor. His family has been distinguished in our history. Hc was born in Boston, son of Jeremy Dummer, and had two brothers and a sister. He married Katherine, daughter of Gov. Dudley. After liv- ing in retirement many years, he died in 1761, and the academy was opened in 1763, but not incorporated till 1782. As a classical school it has taken rank second to none in New England, though it has not of late years been large and prosperous, like the Phillips academies of Andover aud Exeter. For a full half-century it was nniversally acknowledged to be the first academy of the country in rank, as it was first in the fact of time.
The snecess of Dummer Academy was established by its first prin- cipal, Samuel Moody, who commenced with twenty-eight pupils, the Rev. Mr. Parsons preaching a sermon eulogistic of the liberality of Gov. Dummer, from -" The liberal soul deviseth the liberal things."
" Master Moody" was called from York, Me., a son of the Rev. Joshua, who was called Handkerchief Moody, from a habit of not allowing himself to appear in unpulpit or other public place without a handkerchief over his face, in shame believing himself to have been responsible for the death of a friend. They were from William Moody, of Newbury. His success was from rightly apprehending the true theory in education, that it is not to acquire information, but men- tal training ; not to learn, but to obtain the power to learn. During his administration, the reputation of Dummer filled the States and the nations ; and of the 525 students under his charge, some came from foreign countries as well as the several States. Less success attended his successors to 1821, when the academy revived and attained its pristine glory, under Nehemiah Cleveland, who, in the twenty years of his administration, wrought as good a work as Moody.
Among the graduates of Dummer, best known, are Theophilus Par- sons, the chief justice, the father of our system of jurisprudence, and his son of the same name, who was Law Professor at Harvard ; Rufus King, the eminent statesman and diplomatist ; President Webber, and Profs. Smith, Otis, Pearson and Jackson, of Harvard ; Chief Justice Sewall; Samuel Phillips, founder of the academy at Andover, and at Exeter N. H. ; Com. Preble, of the United States Navy ; Maj. Gen. Oetherlong, distinguished in India; Prof. Cleveland, of Bowdoin ; President Benjamin Hale, of Geneva College ; Chief Justice Tenney, of the Maine Supreme Court; with a host of others too numerous to mention, known in religion, law, science, polities, and all the honor- able and learned pursuits of life. It has had a marked influence upon the character of the people in its neighborhood, though it has induced many of the youth, by the culture there attained, to seek usefulness in wider fields of action.
As Newbury has the honor of being the seat of the first academy in America, so it claims the first female seminary in Massachusetts, which was established by Dea. Benjamin Colman, in 1806. The unfinished church built by the seceders from Dr. Parish's society, Byfield, was purchased and fitted up for the school, and is still known as the semi- nary building. Miss Rebecca Hardy was the first principal, but was soon succeeded by Miss Rebecca Hasseltine, who acquired a wide repu-
tation as a teacher, her school rapidly filling up from all parts of the Union. Miss Hasseltine was succeeded by Miss Mary Atwood, Miss Eliza Tuek, and Miss Mary Adams. After the school had been in operation about ten years, the Rev. Joseph Emerson, who had mar- ried Miss Hasseltine, bought the school-building and rented the board- ing-house, and, in connection with his wife, assumed the charge of the establishment for some years, when he removed it to Wethersfield, Conn. Many young ladies were fitted at this school for the higher walks of life. Mrs. Judson, and Mrs. Harriet Newell, the missiona- ries of world-wide reputation, Miss Mary Lyon, the founder of the South Hadley Female Seminary ; and Miss Grant, of the Ipswich Female Seminary, were graduates of the Byfield school.
Male Academy. - Soon after the opening of the female school, :1 separate school for boys, known as Colman's Academy, was set up in the lower story of the seminary. It had two teachers, the Rev. Mr. Burnham and the Rev. Mr. Burbank. It was intended as a sort of opposition to Dummer Academy, the classies and higher English branches being taught ; but it could not succeed against a free school, and it closed in a year.
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