USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > The First Evangelical Congregational Church, Cambridgeport, Mass. > Part 3
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Cambridgeport was an isolated village. Geographically, it was an island enclosed by Charles River, the great marsh, and Judge Dana's farm. Socially it was a marsh mantled with choking mist, generated by country trade from all New England, right under the mountain of smooth-handed and white-faced culture. Commercially, it was a presumptuous cut-off, renewing the rivalry of Dudley and Winthrop, on the eastern bank of Charles River. Turnpikes, highways, and avenues, extending from the bridges over Charles River, were the principal streets. Large commercial houses, with the seven spacious taverns, and their more capacious stables, were the principal build- ings. The stages, which made two trips a day into the then youthful city, containing just about as many inhabitants as Cambridge does to-day, were the principal vehicles. The Almshouse, on the westerly side of Norfolk Street, opposite Worcester Street ; the cemetery, on the present site of Broadway Park; the two school-houses, one on Franklin and one on Winsor Street ; the Cambridgeport
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> Parish Meeting-House, on Columbia Street ; the First Bap- tist Meeting-House, at the junction of Magazine and River Streets ; and the First Universalist Meeting-House, at the junction of Main and Front Streets, were the principal public institutions in this portion of Cambridge fifty years ago. Its first pastor was still in active service with each of the three organized churches, and each society was still worshipping in its original and unenlarged meet- ing-house. The population, consisting principally of re- cent settlers, was not far from fifteen hundred. There were already three churches in the village. One of them had been organized under the oversight of Dr. Holmes, the champion of Orthodoxy, in accordance with the usages of Congregational Churches in New England. Although it was known as the Unitarian Church, yet it had over it a settled pastor who did not take an active part in the con- troversy which wrought such havoc in the Congregational Churches of the Commonwealth, and who, many years after, declared with great satisfaction that he had never
preached a doctrinal sermon. It had not been so strange if the keen eye of Methodism had discovered here a field for effort, and organized, if not a church, at least a class.
The problem presents itself to us, From what source came a Second Congregational Church in this apparently unimportant and unpromising village ?
There is something about its name which intimates its origin and the occasion of its existence. "The Evangelical Congregational Church in Cambridgeport " is a very long appellation by which to designate a company of Christ's followers. We read more between the letters which make up the word " Evangelical" than we do in the letters them- selves. It tells us of the existence here, in the isolated
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village, of a number of souls which were not satisfied with what the then popular and dominant Liberalism af- forded them. It does not necessarily tell of any violent antagonism or revengeful ambition, but it does whisper, across the chasm of fifty years, that midway between the Seat of Learning and the Chair of State, both alike hon- ored in an Evangelical ancestry, which they both declared honest, though deluded, there were living men who loved the old way, and who desired to do something, even after the foundations had been destroyed, - " men who refused to be called children of the king's daughter, and chose rather to suffer affliction with those whom they believed to be the children of God, and who esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for they had respect unto the recompense of reward." There is in the name " Evangelical " a mellowness and a golden bloom that differ far from what appears in the name " Orthodox," which, hard and burnished, is nevertheless cold and heartless. However, we can endure these quali- ties in the name rather than in the spirit, especially as, applied by others, we accept in it their proclamation to the present and all coming ages, that " their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies being judges." Though but one half-century old, that movement, so unheralded, and that did not come by observation, claims and receives, even in the material and social growth and position of Cambridge, at least an equal share of respect from all its citizens with the more pretentious movements here in 1631 and 1805.
The organization of this church cannot be faithfully presented without reference to the great religious contro- versy of Massachusetts, and the stage which it had reached
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at the opening of the second quarter of our century. Fourteen years had now elapsed since the famous Parkman letter had reverberated from England as a declaration of war between the children of the one parentage. Agreeably to the prediction of that letter, " the Unitarians had carried Boston." " All the old churches in the metropolis of New England, with one exception, had passed into Unitarian- ism. The Christian Examiner was its powerful organ. The American Unitarian Association had been formed for the concentration of Unitarian efforts and the propa- gation of Unitarian sentiments through books and tracts and missionaries." Channing, Pierpont, and Dewey were on the field with their productions and their persons, - all noble men, each intensely and immensely individual- ized, but all agreed in denouncing the Calvinism of the day. " Orthodoxy was the despised and persecuted form of faith. It was the dethroned royal family wandering like a permitted mendicant in the city, where once it held court, and Unitarianism reigned in its stead. All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarians. All the trustees and professors of Harvard College were Unita- rians. All the elite of wealth and fashion crowded Unita- rian churches. The judges on the bench were Unitarians. The church as composed of regenerate people had been ignored, and all the power had passed into the hands of the congregation. This power had been used by the major- ities to settle ministers of the fashionable and reigning sort in the towns of Eastern Massachusetts. The dominant majority entered at once into the possession of churches and church property, leaving the Orthodox minority to go out into school-houses or town-halls, and build their churches as best they could." Dr. B. B. Wisner was then at the Old
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South, Edward Beecher at Park Street, Samuel Green at the Union Church, and Lyman Beecher at the Hanover Street Church in Boston. The younger Beecher had been settled over Park Street in December, and the elder over Hanover Street in March, 1826. The latter brought with him the state of warm revival feeling which he had had in Lichfield, Conn., for years. He at once instituted the inquiry meeting, and, " declining exchanges, was always at home." In June, 1826, he wrote: " Brother Wisner has got home, and I hope, in concert with him and Brother Green, soon to get under way in some general movement." In September, 1826, he wrote: " The revival has added about sixty to the number for whom we hope." The church at the outset numbered but thirty-seven." "The shaking among Unitarians is just begun. Two accom- plished young ladies from them wish to join our church, and five other persons of high standing are about to unite with Hanover Street Church. It would be easy to kindle a fire in all their congregations around Boston like that which Whitefield kindled in old Arminian congregations." Af- terward, alluding to this time, he writes : " The number of converts increased so fast that it was overwhelming.
Seventy persons were admitted at one communion. Till then all had been the butt of ridicule. The enemy had kept whist, except a few outlaws, at first, although the higher classes - the Cambridge College folks - had their spies abroad to see what was going on. . . In one day, after the seventy joined, the press belched and bellowed, and all the mud in the streets was flying at us. There was an intense malignant engagement for a time. Show- ers of lies were rained about us every day. Wives and daughters were forbidden to attend our meetings, and the
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> whole weight of political, literary, and social influence was turned against us, and the lash of ridicule laid on without stint. The time had not come when the leaders changed tactics and treated us gentlemanly." * Thus writes the hero of that wonderful crisis. To leave out of this discourse this exhibit of the spirit and forces in existence · and at work would be to overlook the occasional, if not a chief producing, nay, the only known, cause of this organi- zation, fifty years old to-day.
The bridge by which Cambridge is united to Boston is no more a matter of fact in the geographical and indus- trial growth of our city, than is the enterprise of Dr. James P. Chaplin in the Evangelical type of religion in this community. What " Prison Point " and the " Pest- House " abutments on the Boston end, and Lechmere's Point and Pelham's Island in Cambridge, were to the two termini of the two bridges respectively, Hanover Street Church in Boston and the Evangelical Congregational Church in Cambridgeport were to the termini of Dr. Chap- lin's great work, namely, the resting places and supporting bases. Without Hanover Street and Dr. Beecher with their work of revival, or without Dr. Chaplin's devotion, no such enterprise would have been undertaken and con- ducted as that which culminated in the organization of this church. The elements were in terrible conflict ; the storm was at its very height; animosities were in furious rage ; and to the eye of man there was about as much probability that this despised offspring of a defunct pietism would again find a home in Cambridge, of which it had been adroitly dispossessed, as that the Turks would retake the
* Lyman Beecher's Autobiography.
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Shipka Pass. I quote again from Lyman Beecher's Au- tobiography : -
"From the beginning, my preaching was attended with interest. I could take hold. There was very earnest hearing in the congregation : deep solemnity and not mere novelty. I felt in my own soul that the word went forth with power. It was a happy season, hopeful and auspicious. Not long after, Dr. Chaplin began to attend. He had been in the habit of listening to a dead, feeble fellow on the wrong side, but who didn't do much on any side. Shall never forget how Chaplin heard. He was of quick, strong feeling, and was wide awake to hearken. He began to bring over his family and his patients from Cambridgeport ; and, as the seriousness in- creased, he came in with three or four carriages - some thirty persons -every Sabbath. Among the first acquaintances I made in Boston was old Dr. Chaplin of Groton, father of Dr. Chaplin of Cambridgeport. He had asked a colleague, and the church had voted to call John Todd, but the society refused, and employed Unitarian ministers from Boston. In fact, the society, with a minority of the church, turned the church out of doors, and took the property. They were backed up by recent legal decisions, which declared that the parish was the church."
A council was called. Lyman Beecher drew up the re- port. Thus from the pen of Dr. Beecher himself we find that Dr. Chaplin was brought under the inspiration of Beecher's mind and spirit. In a letter to one of his daughters, dated February 3, 1827, he writes : -
" I preach every Thursday evening at Cambridgeport, a mile only this side of the College, in the Baptist Meeting-house .*
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* It seems pretty clearly authenticated that Dr. Beecher began to lec- ture in Miss Ellis's school-room on Prospect Street, the same room where
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, The house is full, and exceedingly silent and solemn, and there is a revival begun, - about a dozen inquirers and five cases of recent and joyful hope. Many come from Cambridge, and some from Brighton, Newtown, and Roxbury. In Newtown is a revival begun . My eye and heart are on Cambridge, where the Congregational Church is low ; and the College is, as you know. But the revival of Evangelical sentiments in the community around the College cannot be without effect ; and, possibly, yet the fire may break out in the institution itself. For this we wait and pray, and as far as we may, use the means."
We turn now to the first written records of what after- wards became this organization : -
"Towards the close of the year 1826, the Rev. Dr. Beecher commenced a course of public weekly lectures at Cambridge- port. It was instituted at the request of a few individuals, who had, for some time previous, been connected with the Hanover Street Church in Boston, under the pastoral charge of the Rev. Dr. Beecher. Believing him to be a faithful and successful minister of Christ, having seen, and some of them having experienced, the efficacy of Divine Truth as dispensed by him among his own people, they felt anxious that their neighbors and friends should enjoy the same blessing. They were kindly furnished by the Baptist Society, under the pas- toral care of the Rev. Bela Jacobs, with the use of their meet- ing-house for this purpose, and many souls will, we doubt not, have occasion forever to bless God that he inclined the hearts of his children to adopt this means of bringing the glad tidings of
the first Sunday school was held, but was soon compelled to go into the Baptist Church in order to accommodate his audience. Even the Baptist brethren were afraid of him; and not until they saw the fruits of his la- bors, did they risk the pollution of their pulpit by allowing him to preach from it.
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salvation, as it were, to their doors." The Holy Spirit soon began to accompany his truth with his own divine energy, and soon many were anxiously inquiring the way to Zion. A considerable number .... were, as we trust, brought to the knowledge of the truth. At length, after mature and prayer- ful deliberation, several .Christians of the Congregational de- nomination began to feel that the time had come for them to take some active and efficient measures for the stated enjoy- ment of the means of grace and the administration of Divine ordinances among us. The indications of Providence were sufficiently clear with regard to the course we should pursue, and measures were accordingly adopted for the erection of a house for the accommodation of an Evangelical Congregational Church. Believing, as we do, that the doctrines of the entire alienation of the human heart in its natural state from God, the necessity of a regeneration by the special agency of the Holy Spirit, the divinity and atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the future eternal punishment of the finally im- penitent, are clearly revealed in the Scriptures, and indeed constitute the very essence of our holy religion, we feel anx- ious that ourselves, those connected with us, and those who come after us, may hear them faithfully and statedly preached. We believe that men are sanctified through the truth, and that these systems of religion which strike out or disguise these fundamental doctrines are fatal errors, whose tendency is to delude and destroy the souls of men. Under these impres- sions, in humble reliance, as we trust, on the great Head of the Church for all needed wisdom and grace, we enter on this undertaking with cheerful confidence. While discharging what we believe to be a duty to ourselves and to those who shall come after us, we would rejoice in the privilege of being the instruments in rearing a temple to the worship of God, our
* The italics are mine.
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Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. In this temple we trust men will ever be taught to honor the Son even as they honor the Father ; that many weary and heavy-laden sinners will be directed to the great atoning sacrifice that taketh away the sin of the world ; and that it will prove to all who shall assem- ble in it from Sabbath to Sabbath to pay their vows unto the Most High, none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven."
The hint which we found in the corporate name was a needle of no false pointing. The spirit of the enter- prise took to itself a befitting body. Conviction begat purpose, and purpose brought forth this true child of fervent piety. Such a record is an inheritance which any church of to-day might well covet. This first-born child of the great awakening in Boston, from 1826 to 1832, cradled one mile east of where Harvard College was cradled two hundred years before, was canopied with the same expression of solicitude on the part of its parents, as was the College on the part of its parents, that provision might be made for those who should come after them.
To exhibit the living features of this movement, we must go out of these written records and- search among the traditions deposited in the families of those who participated in them. The " wagon-loads" of those who went to hear Dr. Beecher in Boston had not been neg- lecters of public worship. They were legally members of the Unitarian Church, Rev. T. B. Gannett, pastor. They had become members in accordance with the then prevailing custom, the doctrine of regeneration having fallen into disrepute. They went from the church that worshipped in the large brick meeting-house in Cam-
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bridgeport, away from the preaching which they had, over to Boston, to hear the Evangelical Beecher. Dr. Chaplin was an Evangelical minister's son. His father was one of the many Congregational ministers who re- fused to submit to the dominant "ism" of the day, --- a colleague and predecessor of John Todd at Groton. Immediately upon Dr. Beecher's coming to Boston, Dr. J. P. Chaplin sought an opportunity to hear him. He became converted, - regenerated, -and with the spirit of those who heard Jesus, he gave himself to the work of leading others to Him who had saved him. He stood high in society. He was born and reared to a position, and he was born with elements of character which, under grace, fitted him to be a leader in the com- munity. He was a practising physician. He had a large family under his roof, and in connection with a retreat for the mentally disordered, which he instituted and presided over, exercised an extensive influence among influential families. He had in his work teams and wagons. As one after another became interested in " salvation from sin through Jesus Christ," in distinc- tion from " Christian civilization," he brought carriages, such as he had, to the service of transportation, and finally " fixed up his great wagons," which were made without springs so as to give his patients exercise in their pleasure rides, and took whoever would go over to hear the " blessed gospel preached." Even with this provision the healthier and stronger of the people habitually walked to and from the meetings in Bos- ton.
The Saturday evening prayer-meetings were held in his house for almost fifteen years, and he invited Dr. Beecher
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over to Cambridgeport. There were but few men who moved with him, but these few were very resolute as they came to be moved by the Spirit of God. There were more women ; and, as in Paul's work, so in this, they were noble in their devotion. The spirit of opposition was thoroughly aroused, and all conceivable measures were adopted to prevent the deluded fanatics from leaving home, families, and business, and running after this man. Especially were some of the wives and daughters opposed by their husbands and fathers. Out of much tribulation they came to the day which we now hold in glad remem- brance. Unlike many instances of church organizations arising out of the great controversy, there was no party in the Cambridgeport Parish out of which another church was organized. I am unable to find any record of any considerable disturbance incidental to the controversy except what Dr. Paige gives in these words : "The great majority of the Cambridgeport Parish, together with their pastor, adhered to what was styled the liberal party, and were thenceforth known as Unitarians." It is certain that whatever else that small minority did, they did not organize themselves, as such, into a new society out of which this church grew. "Organized in the midst of this theological ecclesiastical seething, it is a great relief for us, who come to the estate be- queathed by the fathers, to know that originally it was not the embodiment of a spirit of hostility, of animosity, and of sleeping, if not aroused, revenge against the usurping majority. There is no occasion, therefore, for any hard feeling, any bitterness, among neighbors of any other denomination, as we look together over the annals of those days. In this community, in which
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already, and for some years, a Unitarian, a Universalist, and a Baptist church had been firmly established, a few people of strong convictions, of warm hearts, of ready hands, and open pocket-books, erected a tabernacle and put into it the ark of their covenant. They did it in the exuberant flow of their new life, and whether they builded wisely or not they who read to-day may justly declare.
Let us look now at the features of this strange child, this new sister in the ecclesiastical family of Cambridge- port, and at the place where it was laid.
This church was a reassertion of what the courts had denied. It was not the parish, but it was composed of those in the parish who gave satisfactory evidence of being born again. There were in all forty-six persons. Seven of them were males and thirty-nine were females. Of these one each came from Park Street and the Old South in Boston, West Cambridge, Brighton, Lincoln, Boscawen, N. H., Augusta, Me .; two each, from Wo- burn and Mr. Gannett's church, Cambridgeport ; ten on profession of faith ; and twenty-five from Hanover Street, Boston. Of the seven male members, four -namely, J. P. Chaplin, Dexter Fairbank, Samuel Barrett, and Francis E. Faulkner, Jr., were from Hanover Street ; one, William J. Hubbard, from the Old South ; and two, David Bancroft, Jr., and Thomas C. Bisco (both afterwards Congregational ministers), on profession of faith. The twenty-five who came from Hanover Street had all united with that church under Dr. Beecher, during the year previous to the organization of this church. We must add that many who afterwards united with this church became interested or converted during this same season.
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On Austin Street, opposite Temple Street, stands a house, now owned and occupied by G. H. Folger, Esq., upon which we now turn our eyes gratefully and with veneration. It was the home of Dr. J. P. Chaplin, and is the only house now standing associated with the events which we celebrate to-day. The Baptist Meeting-house, where Dr. Beecher preached, and for the use of which from December, 1826, to September, 1827, a vote of thanks to the Baptist Church stands recorded, was consumed by fire in January, 1866. The first meeting-house, dedicated September 20, 1827, was also consumed by fire in 1854. And not only is it the only house associated with these events, but not one of the individuals who participated in them resides in Cambridgeport to-day. Dr. Beecher and Dr. Chaplin long since died, and every one of the others have either died or removed their residence from us, although one, Mrs. Clarissa Richardson, still lives in Boston, and is a member of this church. That house stands yet, and as one reads the early records, it seems to have been in those days as the house of Obed-Edom, "the place where the ark of the Lord abode." In it the people who afterward became a church held every meeting, as they deliberated with reference to the choice of site, the plan of the meeting-house, and the mode of raising funds for building it, and with reference to the organization of the church, to the adoption of creed, covenant, and by- laws, and to the election of officers in the church ; and in it the church, with very few exceptions, held all its even- ing meetings until September, 1841, or for fifteen years. Here, too, sat the Council which organized the church and dedicated the meeting-house ; the Council that installed the first pastor, Rev. David Perry, in April, 1829; and the
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Council that dismissed him, in October, 1830. Here, too, met the brethren, as they conducted the troublesome cases of discipline which drew their full length slowly along throughi a series of protracted sessions and numerous adjournments. Here, too, met the brethren, when two sides were taken, according to their respective convictions, upon the antislavery question, to discuss what measures to adopt. In this house votes were taken to receive nearly every one of the two hundred members of this church who united with it previous to 1840, and to dis- miss those who transferred their connection, and to appoint delegates to the very many councils to which neighboring churches had invited it. Here was the home for many years of the pastor whose honored memory makes the scene of his labors and his rest so dear to you all. This house seemed to be the place, almost as exclusively as was " this mountain " to the Samaritan, "Jerusalem " to the Jew, or even Olivet to our blessed Master. One's affection grows for the spot as the rec- ords progress. First, "at Dr. Chaplin's," then, after his death, "the late Dr. Chaplin's," then, after a few years, " Mrs. Chaplin's," and then, after her death, "the late Mrs. Chaplin's," until three years after her death the name no longer appears. The house stands a monument to their zeal, a tablet written all over with their delibera- tions, a censer filled with their prayers, the abode of the ark in which was kept the precious things of their faith.
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