USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 34
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The "Second Congregational" or Unitarian Church had come into being just before the Baptists organized, but for rather dif- ferent reasons. Not personal piety and the persuasion of New Testament Christianity, but a revolt against the whole Calvinist system of doctrine which seemed to allow for no change, and a warmer belief in the power of human beings to do good, were the chief reasons for the growing strains. The incident which brought about separation was the refusal of the Reverend Mark Tucker, young minister of the Old Church, to exchange pulpits with some of the more liberal preachers in nearby churches, as the liberals in his congregation understood he had agreed to do. The old minis-
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ter, the Reverend Solomon Williams, held a similar stand, stif- fened by the action of his neighbor pastors who refused to ex- change pulpits with one who had any association with the liberal preachers. The liberal part of the Old Church refused any longer to be stifled. Some of them left the Church reluctantly, but in February of 1825 a small group of about 40, led by 7 of the town's prominent citizens, founded the Second Congregational Society in Northampton. The same year they built a little white church, which lasted until it was destroyed by fire in 1903, when the church of today, in similar style, was built on the same site. Sev- eral very able men ministered to the congregation in the next 30 or 40 years-men who went on to eminent posts in other Uni- tarian churches, or to Meadville Seminary.
The third of the churches which were formed in that short period was the Episcopal church. In July 1826 the selectmen granted to "Joseph Cogswell and others . . . liberty to occupy the Town Hall on the Sabbath Day for the purpose of Religious Worship according to the Episcopal Form agreeable to their re- ligion." Of the three new churches it is least clear why this one broke away, but Joseph Cogswell of the Round Hill School evi- dently took the lead. It has been suggested that the presence of southern boys in the school, and of the residence of their families in Northampton during the summer, made it a natural interest for him, but others joined in heartily, and by February of the following year the members of the congregation numbered 99. Some of the customs of the church were irritating to the members of the Old Church, and Sylvester Judd expressed such impatience, in a town where Christmas was studiously ignored, by writing in his Journal on December 25th, 1840, "All sorts of Popish rites and other foolishness at the Episcopal Church last night and to- day." St. John's Church built on Bridge Street in 1829 the build- ing which with some alterations has since 1905 housed the Con- gregation B'nai Israel. Singing had been a matter of great interest in the town for years, so it is not surprising to find a note that the Episcopalians were allowed to meet in 1831 in the lower Town Hall to learn the chants in the service.
Even though the Old Church may have been reduced in size by the development of the new little churches it was still a very large and prosperous congregation, so much so that a decision was reached to divide in order to offer more people the opportunity of
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being active in Christian work. In 1833 the request for the dis- missal of some "42 males and 5 1 females" was granted and the Jonathan Edwards Church began its life, meeting at first in the new Baptist Church, but as soon as possible they built their own meeting house on the corner of Main Street and Old South. All of these developments, and not least the formation of the Edwards Church, give evidence of the great religious vitality of this period in Northampton. The First Church remained, conservative and solid, and dominant over all.
The decade of the 1840's saw two more churches come into being, the Methodist and the Roman Catholic. Whitefield had preached here in 1740, at the time of the Great Awakening, but the Methodist Episcopal Church was not established in America until 1784. In 1830 a small church was built in West Farms, which had been cordial to the Baptist group at about the same period, and in 1840 the first Methodist Class of Northampton was formed, under the leadership of Calvin Clarke from the West Farms group. For a year or two the Class met around in different homes, and in the Town Hall. A revival added to their numbers and in 1851 they were able to build on Center Street where the Elks Home now stands. It was a great undertaking for the small con- gregation, but people gave time and labor besides money, and townspeople of all denominations contributed. It was perhaps the only sign of Christian brotherhood that the members of the church received, for a history of the little church comments briefly that there was "not much mingling" for a long while. Like the Baptist Church the Methodists of the period were marked by warm personal piety and enthusiastic worship.
The next step in the development of the town religious life came about for a different reason: the immigration of a group which brought with them their own form of religion. The earlier citizens had come of Protestant stock, and the multiplication of the churches represented different emphases within Protestantism, but in the '40's came the vanguard of the Irish immigration. Al- though in 1806 there was no Roman Catholic church west of Boston and Father Cheverus had to come from there to give the consolations of the church to the two condemned Irishmen, by 1 844 the men who were bringing the railroad up from Spring- field were also building their church, and at Christmastime in 1845 the little seven-pewed church of St. John the Baptist on
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King Street was dedicated, though it was not until after the Civil War that the first resident pastor, the Reverend Patrick V. Moyce, was assigned to the church. The church was destined to be out- grown almost before it was finished, for the Irish were entering this country by the thousands, impelled by resentment for the long struggles against the repressive measures of the English gov- ernment, and the disastrous potato famine of 1845-46. Many of the Northampton families of today came in at that time, to settle in Florence and Leeds as well as in the central part of the town. The church of St. John the Baptist had to be expanded again and again, and Florence and Leeds families came to Northampton to Mass or later went to Haydenville, where St. Mary's Church was built in 1867.
They came to a town not prepared to give them welcome, al- though they were by no means unique, as we have seen, in meet- ing prejudice. Perhaps it can be said truly that history was against their being understood, or understanding. The habits of an es- tablished church were very strong, and resentments stemming from the Reformation lasted long in New England. Conversely, the very understandable determination on the part of Irish Catho- lics to live in this country as free citizens after enduring the re- strictions of the Protestant English government may have made them unduly suspicious and sensitive, when no offence was in- tended. It took a long while for the coldness to begin to melt, and meanwhile the religious groups lived side by side with politeness but too little intercourse and mutual appreciation.
The advancing century saw the strengthening in Northampton of two movements inevitably associated with the religion of the time, anti-slavery and temperance. By 1827 we find mention of a meeting in the Old Church to support the American Colonization Society, which was hoping to induce a gradual change in the at- titude of Southerners towards slavery. In 1834 an anonymous let- ter to the Gazette takes a more militant position and scores the apathy in the town towards the slavery issue, pointing out moral, religious, and practical reasons why it should be abolished. In 1838 the Anti-Slavery Convention for the Western Counties held part of its meetings in the Old Church. The Baptist Church in 1834 took a strong stand, declaring that they believed slavery to be "a sin against God," and "without the slightest countenance from the Bible, or from the principles of common justice .. . " But it
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was the short-lived community of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Florence, pledged to "put an end to slavery, war, fraud, intemperance, licentiousness, and crime of all sorts" that laid the foundation for the devoted work of the Underground Railroad stations which operated here.
The temperance movement also was taken up by the church groups, here as elsewhere in the country. By early 1834 the ser- mons on the subject were many and vigorous, and like the slavery issue it was a hardy perennial. In that year the Reverend Mr. Wil- lard presented to the Baptists, and they passed, a resolution which was made a condition of membership in the church. It reads: "Re- solved that we will not be concerned in distilling, buying, selling or using ardent spirits (except for chemical or medicinal pur- poses), and that in view of the immense evils thereby done, it is our duty unitedly and individually, to discountenance the use of it as far as possible." A total abstinence pledge was required of members in 1843.
Not only these but all the reforming movements and all "ad- vanced" ideas were lectured upon and discussed at the meetings in Florence of the Free Congregational Society which was founded in 1863, "to organize arrangements for the better attain- ment of good morals, general education and liberal religious senti- ment, whether Catholic or Protestant." Among the founders were Samuel L. Hill, who was a conductor on the Underground Rail- road, and the organizer of an advanced kindergarten, and A. T. Lilly for whom the Lilly Library is named, and who gave Lilly Hall to Smith College. By their own lights they were religious, though they represented the farthest possible remove from theo- logical orthodoxy. They had an unquenchable zeal for remaking this world. Most of the distinguished men and women of the country spoke there at one time or another, and Florence was far from being a sleepy little New England village. For nearly 30 years the Society operated independently, but in 1898 it became a member church of the American Unitarian Society, and in 1944 a third body, the Unitarian Church of Northampton and Florence was formed.
Changes in the Protestant churches after 1850 came partly by expansion, which led to new congregations, but even more by expansion which forced new building. The Leeds Evangelical Religious Society founded in 1867 was too hard hit by flood dis- aster and the change in industries to flourish, and although the So-
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ciety continues to the present it sold its building, in 1911, to the Church of St. Catherine the Martyr. The Florence Church So- ciety, founded in 1860, grew steadily, in spite of the competition offered by the Free Congregational Society, and as the Florence Congregational Church it is today one of the largest Congrega- tional churches in the county.
Fires were responsible for some building, for in 1872 the Ed- wards Church burned, and in 1876 the Old Church. Both had to be rebuilt, the former at the corner of Main and State Streets, the First Church on its historic site. The Episcopal Church outgrew its quarters and in 1893, thanks to a munificent bequest of Mr. and Mrs. George Bliss, they built the present church on Elm Street. The Methodists also needed more room, and in the same year they built their new church a bit farther out on Elm Street. It was later changed inside and out to make it more serviceable and beautiful.
Other churches of the general Protestant tradition were to enter the town in the early years of the 20th century: the First Church of Christ Scientist, in 1907, and the Northampton Sev- enth-Day Adventist Church in 1916. An interest in Christian Science was witnessed to by the holding of the first public service in Northampton in 1898, and testimony meetings, a Sunday school and a small Reading Room soon followed, though it was not until 1907 that the Christian Science Society became incor- porated as a church. The little group was able to build, and in 1908 the simple white church on Center Street was dedicated. The Reading Room and Sunday School are now maintained in an adjacent building owned by the church.
The Seventh-Day Adventists were a group who, like the Friends later, met with others of their faith in nearby towns, Con- way, or Williamsburg, and finally in Northampton, finding meet- ing places in homes, the Williamsburg W.C.T.U. or in Odd Fel- lows Hall. In 1916 a group of 9 formed a church, but during some of the following years they met again with the Williamsburg group, and finally in 1947 bought the Free Congregational So- ciety building in Florence. It is a small congregation but its prac- tice of tithing means that some 57 adult members contribute about $5000 annually beyond local expenses "for the spread of the gospel and the uplift of their fellowmen, regardless of color, race, or creed." It would be hard to find another group that could equal this record of personal devotion for the cause of Christi- anity.
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But if there seems to have been continuing vitality in the Protes- tant churches it was the Roman Catholic churches which were growing beyond all belief from 1875 on. The Reverend Michael E. Barry became priest in Northampton in 1872, and he shep- herded his flock through exciting years until 1889, and built with vision. In 1878 a separate parish was organized for Florence, Leeds, and Haydenville, and by 1880 the Church of the Annunci- ation in Florence was dedicated. The great new St. Mary of the Assumption Church on Elm Street was dedicated in 1885, built on the site of the Old Mansion House. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament was built in 1900.
As the different national groups moved into the town parishes for them were organized. Father Rainville was sent as priest to the growing French group in 1886, and by 1891 he had raised enough money to build a chapel to serve as both church and French-speaking school. By the end of the century the member- ship of the Sacred Heart parish was about 1600, and by 1912 they were able to build their present beautiful church on King Street. In that same year the Polish-speaking Roman Catholics built St. John Cantius' Church on Hawley Street. But common nationality does not necessarily make for unity, and in 1931 the St. Valentine Polish National church broke away from the Roman Catholic church and the following year built on King Street. The congre- gation was formed in the depths of the depression, and it is an evidence of devotion and determination that the church was debt free in 20 years.
Although the movement as a whole is discussed elsewhere this chapter on the religious life of Northampton would be incom- plete without mention of the development of the parochial schools by the Roman Catholics, beginning in 1891. The Sisters of St. Joseph have taught in them, and in the schools of the Sacred Heart parish since 1930 the Sisters of the Order of the Presentation have worked. In 1954, 25 per cent of the total school population is in the parochial schools.
Perhaps in the same connection one might mention the re- ligious contribution of Smith College to the town. The college was situated in Northampton in 1875 because of its many churches, and in turn townspeople have found interest in the well- known preachers who come to address the college congregation, and in the preaching of members of the faculty.
The Jewish faith was the last of the three which express the
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religion of any very large number of Americans to enter North- ampton. It was the very end of the 19th century before there were more than a very few Jewish families in town. But at that time a larger number came, chiefly from Lithuania, Russia, and Poland, bringing with them their devotion to the Orthodox faith. Like the religious groups that had preceded them they met first in private houses, then in rented halls, and finally in 1905 they bought the old building of St. John's Episcopal Church. The changes that they wrought in the building were interesting, for with the removal of the spire and the addition of the Mogen David the exterior became characteristic of a synagogue. The interior was made into a traditional Orthodox synagogue, with a central bema or raised platform 12 feet square, railed, and containing a reading desk and seats. From it the scrolls of the Torah were read, and the service conducted, and classes went on in the wing at the rear. Fire in the wing, and perhaps also the less Orthodox tastes of the congregation 20 years later brought about sweeping changes in 1924 when the central bema was removed. Today the con- gregation would probably consider itself Conservative rather than Orthodox.
The 20th century saw greater unity among the Protestant churches, and greater friendliness among all groups. The Protes- tant Ministers Association, summer Union Services, and the Lent- en University of Life are indications of this temper. Experiments differed from time to time. All the churches supported the Re- leased Time Religious Education movement in Northampton, by which young people are released from public schools for an hour a week, if their parents so desire, to be given religious instruction in their respective churches or the synagogue.
The religious life of any town is an intangible, impossible to capture in words. Perhaps especially in America where a new situation demanded new solutions a kind of activism was in- evitable. Certainly all of the churches of Northampton have de- veloped various societies, and have concerned themselves too much with brick and mortar and the means of supporting their pastors. If sometimes in that process the real meaning of religion has been smothered it would not be surprising. But with all the activism, and with all the divisiveness, it is nevertheless true that the history of the town bears witness to the belief of its people that the great and eternal things are of the spirit, and that human lives must be lived to the glory of God.
Chapter Forty-Six
Our Goodly Heritage
By MARY ELLEN CHASE
I T T is pleasing to think that, although the work of man during 300 years has revolutionized the appearance of early North- ampton, the work of God has remained substantially the same. Streets and houses, churches and schools, shops and hotels have obliterated the old roads, lanes, and paths, and most of the original buildings erected by our forefathers. The first meeting- house, which also held the first school; the Red Tavern of the 18th century and its successor, the Mansion House of the early 19th, both of which stood on the present site of St. Mary's Church; the stately homes of 200 years ago-these have given place to the steady movements of change and progress. Yet the Connecticut has changed relatively little in three centuries; the long range of scalloped hills remains the same; and although meteorologists can now tell us helpfully what our weather is likely to be even in this valley where weather knows no limits, they cannot control it.
When in 1654 men called by names still familiar to us, Parsons, Miller, Bliss, King, and others, began to build their homes on what are now Pleasant, King, Market, Bridge and Hawley streets, they knew the beauty and the danger of the Connecticut much as we know it. When they farmed the meadows, still green and open for our delight, they saw the sun rise over the range as we still may see it from a dozen high streets and hills. Perhaps, in- deed, their charming names for two of the twelve original sec- tions of meadow land, Old Rainbow and Young Rainbow, were chosen by some romantic young Puritan who had rested on his spade or hoe to watch the early sunlight cast prismatic shadows across the fields, precisely as we may see such sparkling morning shadows there today. Although Northampton people of 300 years ago did not know the rhododendrons, which add to the loveliness of Look and Childs' Parks, or the forsythia, magnolia, dogwood, and Judas trees, which lift our hearts after our usually sullen Feb-
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ruary and March, they surely knew and wondered at the wild laurel of woods and pastures; and their children doubtless filled their hands as children do today with yellow lady's-slippers, ar- butus, bloodroot, and violets. Whenever Seth Pomeroy rode away to two wars during the 18th century, he is never unmindful in his letters to his wife of "that pleasant place" where he lives. And we can be sure that Jonathan Edwards, who was a poet in spirit as well as a theologian and a philosopher, marvelled over the colors of October as he took his solitary rides into the country. He might ponder, as he rode, over his sermons on the Omnipotence and All- ness of God and the nothingness of man; but he was not one to be unaware of the proofs of God's omnipotence as he lifted up his eyes to the glowing hills.
William Hazlitt writes in one of his essays of the pleasures in- herent in the study of weather and defines these pleasures as one of the rewards earned by a life of hard work. London and Salis- bury Plain afforded him rich opportunities for such pleasure; but I have often thought during my 28 years in Northampton that Hampshire County might have given him far richer. There are few places in the entire country, and surely none in New Eng- land, where the weather can be more capricious, more infuriating, and more rewarding. Hail, rain, sleet, snow, ice, bitter cold and stifling heat; humidity to dampen and smother the most buoyant of spirits; clear, dry skies to raise them; fog and mist; thunder and lightning unparalleled in their ferocity; sunsets unrivalled in their brilliancy-all these have not changed in three centuries, nor will they in yet another three. When Daniel Webster came among us in the summer of 1847 to save for the Northampton region and its less fortunate citizens the legacy of the incredible Oliver Smith, the mercury stood at 95°; and I assume that Daniel lost his sleep that night in the Old Mansion House with vast irritation, pre- cisely as all of us have since lost our own during many a summer heat wave.
It is one of the less recognized of human tragedies that too many sojourners on this earth complete their threescore years and ten without acute awareness of the spirit, or the genius, of the par- ticular place in which they live; in other words, that we are in- clined to take for granted the familiar and thus allow its wonder to escape us. This truth becomes especially regrettable when the place in which one's lot is cast possesses the distinctive and lovely
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features of our own. Now, while apple blossoms are clothing a hundred orchards and the new green of birches and maples is bringing miraculous life among the hemlocks and pines of our hills, we might well realize sharply what this valley affords us and our children in terms of natural beauty. A short drive or climb on foot to any one of fifty hill-tops will reveal our town and a dozen villages on a fertile plain entirely surrounded by the Berkshires, toward which the land rolls upward in numberless hills separated by swift streams. The Pomeroy range cuts the western sky; the Nonotuck and Holyoke, the eastern; Greylock rises in the north- west; and the wide, slow river with its yellow sandbars and its hundreds of quiet backwaters flows southward to the sea. The white steeples of village churches; the red, brown, and gray to- bacco barns with their perfect lines; the nets above tobacco plots giving the illusion of small lakes in the sunlight; the low, even rows of onions with women in bright kerchiefs working on their knees among them-these are among the gifts and graces which together form the spirit or the genius of this place in which we live. And in the winter when deep snow covers the fields and lies in white patches on the sharp, blue hills, another season brings its graces also.
Nor are we always sufficiently aware of the contributions made by once alien newcomers to our fields, hills, and streets, to our industries, our means and ways of life-contributions of other languages and other customs to add to our civilization and culture. It is nearly 150 years since Father Cheverus came in June, 1806, to give spiritual consolation in the jail on Pleasant Street to two Irishmen unjustly accused of murder and sentenced to be hanged on Pancake Plain. Today it is incredible that no home would give him welcome until Joseph Clarke opened his doors, an act which may well be remembered and honored as one of the noblest in the history of Northampton as a community. Since 1845, when there were but three voters in the town not of Yankee stock, Irish, Canadian French, and later Poles, Lithuanians, Jews, Czechs, Italians, and other races in lesser number, have come among us to add variety and value to our common life. Anyone who has heard the strains of Polish music and the untiring stamp of Polish- American feet at a wedding celebration; or who has seen the bright heads of Polish and Lithuanian women bending over the onion and tobacco field; or who has taught bi-lingual boys and
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