USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salisbury > The West Parish Church, Salisbury, Mass. : One hundredth anniversary, June 17, 1885 > Part 3
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We pass now to the history of this building.
The first-meeting house in this parish was built about one-half mile to the north of this building, on the training-field, and in the corner formed by the old Portsmouth road and the so-called Dark Lane. It stood nearly in front of the house now occupied by John Smith, and near the farm-house owned and occupied by Isaac Morrill. The place is now owned and occupied by Samuel Smith. To the rear of the house of John Smith, and a little to the north, are the remains of the large rock on which was placed the bell which summoned the people into church.
Of some of the difficulties which were encountered in the formation of the second parish, and in the erection of a meeting-house for its accommoda- tion, I have already spoken.
It was so far completed May 24, 1716, that places for pews were assigned; and on November 15, 1716, it was voted by the town that Mr. Cushing of the First Church should preach every other Sabbath at the new meeting-house.
The first house was used for nearly seventy years, and was taken down by the contractors for the building of this house, that the materials might be used in its construction. The sill on the east side came from the old church and must be at least one hundred and seventy years old. All the materials in the old house which could be made available were put into this building. The erection of this house was decided at a town-meeting held January 18, 1785. " It was put to vote to see if the town will repair our West meeting-house, and passed in the negative."
It was then voted, " that a large committee consisting of persons from the various parts of the town be requested to take into consideration the expe- diency of a new meeting-house in the west end of the town. And if they shall judge it necessary that a new house be built, that they prepare a plan of such an one as they shall judge most convenient, and chose out and determine upon a spot of ground suitable for placing the same, together with what they shall suppose, after full consideration and inquiry, to be the best method of proceeding in the affair. And that they lay the result of their deliberation and
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inquiry before the town for their approbation or disapprobation, at an adjourned meeting. The said committee to consist of eleven, viz .: Dr. Benjamin Osgood, Ezekiel Evans, Aaron Clough, Capt. Jonathan Evans, Lemuel Stevens, Daniel Moody, Dr. Samuel True, Belcher Dole, Capt. Zebedee Mor- rill, Moses True, and Ezekiel Morrill."
The meeting then adjourned for nine days, and then again for a week. On February 3, 1785, the committee made their report as follows: " Upon delib- eration and enquiry your committee thinks it best to build a new meeting- house, viz .: forty-four feet by sixty feet on the sills or ground, and think not best to build where the old one now stands, but think the most convenient place for said house to be built on to stand is on the parsonage land to the westward of the parsonage house near Rocky Hill."
It was voted, that in the opinion of this town the place reported on which to build the new meeting-house is a suitable place.
It was voted to accept of the report of the before-mentioned committee with this one amendment: That if the committee to be chosen shall find it expedient to enlarge the meeting-house, that they are directed to proceed accordingly. And the said committee take down the old meeting-house at the west end of the town and make use of so much of the timber and other things there belonging as is suitable to the building of the new one, and prepare other timber and other necessaries for the same, and that the committee com- plete the said meeting-house suitable for public worship by the first day of - next. And if it shall so happen that any dispute arise respecting any timber or other necessaries, or any work done or performed on said house, it shall be settled in the judgment of Ebenezer Clifford, Esq., of Kensington, and Lieut. Philip Challis of Amesbury; and that the committee give a bond of the sum of two thousand pounds lawful money to the selectmen of this town for the performance of the before mentioned. And the committee shall cause to be sold at public vendue the pews that are to be built in the above-mentioned meeting-house, and the money arising from the sale of the said pews shall acrue to the committee for their engaging and performing all the aforegoing- mentioned purposes, and also shall receive of the town one hundred pounds, together with the remainder of the old meeting-house that is not suitable towards building the new meeting-house, and no more.
Voted, To accept the proposals offered by Col. Jonathan Evans, Maj. Joseph Page, and others.
Voted, To leave it with the selectmen and the committee last mentioned, viz .: Col. Jonathan Evans, Maj. Joseph Page, and others, as to the time when the meeting-house shall be completed and of giving and receiving the bond as before mentioned.
The locating and building of a meeting-house was very frequently the occasion of disagreement, heated passions, and strife. Rev. Dr. Ide, of
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Medway, Mass., once told me that the incoming of new denominations into this commonwealth was due not so much to any change of conviction on the part of the people, as to divisions in the older societies; and many of these divisions arose in connection with the building of new churches. The building of this edifice was the occasion of great differences in the West end parish.
At a town-meeting held May 17, 1785, a dissent to the proceedings of the town was read, and put upon the town records, signed by Abel Morrill, Thomas Bayley, Benjamin Joy, Samuel Merrill, Philip Greely, Belcher Dole, Abraham Morrill, Daniel Merrill, Jr., Joseph Bayley, Reuben Morrill, Nathaniel Dole, Aaron Morrill, Daniel Merrill, Samuel Dow, Stephen Merrill, Aaron Dow, Perley Dow, Ezra Merrill, Ebenezer Tucker, Aaron Clough, Nicholas Merrill, Jr. In their dissent they say: " We, the subscribers, who are inhabitants of the town, judge that the town has not proceeded in a lawful way and manner, and we forbid the committee, or any man or men, pulling or taking down or moving our West meeting-house, and refuse and deny paying any part of the above said hundred pounds, or doing anything towards building the above said new meeting-house, or paying any part of the salary to the minister that teacheth therein." This dissent was strong, decided, and influential. Some of the names subscribed to the dissent were among the best citizens of Salisbury.
In consequence of this dissent, a proposal was made by Deacon Reuben Morrill, Nathaniel Dole, and others, that the whole matter be referred to a committee of three gentlemen, who should view the three places which had been mentioned as desirable for setting the meeting-house and any other places which might be mentioned, and that the decision of any two of this committee should be final. To which was added, " And we promise, covenant and engage each and every one of us to join and assist each other in building and completing said house, or house for public worship." This proposal of Deacon Reuben Morrill and others, made in the interests of peace and unity, it seems. was not pressed to a vote, as but a small number of the disaffected were present, and of course it could not morally bind the absent. The meeting was dissolved therefore, having passed but this vote, that the selectmen and the committee on building the house agree on further time to complete it.
At a town-meeting held July 18, 1785, the three deacons were appointed a committee to wait on Rev. Mr. Webster and consult as to what would be best in regard to public worship while destitute of a house, and report as soon as may be. The meeting then adjourned to Rocky Hill to view the site proposed for the church, and there voted to have no alteration in placing the meeting- house.
It seems then that the opposition to the site did not avail to break off the work, but that the preparations went steadily on, and by mid-summer the builders were ready to demolish the old church. Another remonstrance to the
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building of the church on Rocky Hill, signed by about thirty persons, dated July 28, 1785, was put upon the town records: " Whereas, there appears to be a great uneasiness in the town on account of pulling down the old meeting- house and building a new one on a place not convenient for our West part of said town; we, therefore, whose names are underwritten, do hereby manifest to the town that we are dissatisfied with such proceedings, and do utterly refuse to pay anything towards building said house or supporting a public teacher therein."
Most of these remonstrants resided to the north of the old church and towards the New Hampshire line. I now have a petition, dated July 20, 1785, and signed by twenty-one persons, to the parish in Seabrook, " to see if they will agree with us and build a new meeting-house upon the Province line, or move their meeting-house on to the said line, and in so doing we will join them in ministerial affairs and settle a Presbettern minister and will pay our proportion for said minister's support according to each of our Pols and Estates." The placing of the meeting-house at Rocky Hill would compel them to take a longer ride or walk. But the necessity of putting the church nearer the river, grew out of the fact that the population on the river road had greatly increased. The early settlers built their dwellings from one to three or four miles from the river banks. The oldest houses are to be found today near the interior of the town. But after the French and Indian wars were over, the people came down to the water side; and this church was placed here, rather than on the old site, to accommodate the growing population on the river road.
August 1, 1785, a town meeting was held, and it was voted to " set the meeting-house which was to be built to the eastward of the parsonage-house, instead of the westward as voted in February."
Thus after six months of contention and wrangling the place where this house now stands was determined upon, and the building of it went rapidly forward.
The builders of the house were Messrs. Palmer and Spofford. These were eminent craftsmen in their day; and the first bridge across the Merrimac at Newburyport, the Pleasant Street Church, and many other buildings, attest the skill and thoroughness of these men. Timothy Palmer of Newburyport designed and erected the first permanent bridge across the Schuylkill, at Market Street, Philadelphia, which was for many years a wonder in that city. The church was so far completed that a town-meeting was held in it December 7, 1785, and this was the first town-meeting held in it of which we have any record.
At this time there were several causes operating to the distraction of the parish. But the division in regard to the site for this house was undoubtedly the chief, and hastened the sad work of its decline. This dissension rose at a period when there was a wide-spread religious declension in Massachusetts
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THE WEST PARISH CHURCH, SALISBURY, MASS.
which followed the Revolutionary war. And Salisbury suffered in common with other portions of the commonwealth. The Sabbath was desecrated, the sanctuary neglected, and the bible reviled as antiquated and effete. Rev. Dr. Webster, though an able and God-fearing man, had passed the meridian of his life, and was poorly fitted to meet and roll back the evil influences that were coming in upon his people. Added to all this, various denominations began to rise in Massachusetts in greater force than ever before. The strife and hard- feeling engendered by the dispute about the site for the meeting-house disposed many in the parish to look favorably upon some other denomination as a vent for uneasiness, instead of seeking concentration, and cultivating loyalty to the church of their fathers.
Then a little later was the starting of two other communities,- one at the Mills and the other at the Point,- and each was seeking to concentrate (and justly too) as much moral and religious influence and as much pecuniary strength as it could possibly obtain. Both these drew from this old parish at the West end. In fact, this was the last stroke which decided against its full, vigorous life in the future. There is not now a local population to fill these pews and support here constant religious services.
In 1793, the town was divided by an act of the General Court into two parishes, which were incorporated. The records of this parish, as distinct from the town records, are full and complete to the present time. Of the old com- munion set, eight goblets, two plates, and a baptismal basin, are now carefully preserved by Mr. William E. Morrill. For many years there has been here the ordinary life of a decaying rural parish. Still the old church stands, not merely as a monument of the past but as a store-house of the most tender and precious memories. Marriage trains have come in and gone out of these doors. Funeral processions have passed through these aisles, children have been brought here for baptism, and here the good Word of God has been preached to guide the perplexed, to cheer the desponding, to help the weak, to mould the lives and characters of its hearers to purity and truth.
And what an interesting old church this is! Parts of it came from the first meeting-house on the Upper Green, which had been a silent witness of the Sunday gatherings and the social talks of the people all through the trying scenes of the Indian wars and the Revolution. It looked upon the gathering of Salisbury men preparatory to their departure for Boston after they heard of the battle of Lexington. In that old church the Declaration of Indepen- dence was read at the close of the services the next Sunday after it was received by its patriotic minister, Dr. Webster.
It was well that the town decided to put into the construction of this church all the materials of the old church which could be used. Indeed, the building seems to be replete with precious memories. The very anxieties, discussions, perplexities, and oppositions through which it was carried only
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make it the more dear to you. How its very peculiarities speak the language of the times ! Here is the high pulpit where the minister was expected " to be separated unto the gospel," and here he was to deliver his sacred message. Below him sat the officers of the church for example, and for the preservation of punctuality and order: it was indeed the house of God, and no frivolity and no irreverent whispering were to be tolerated. Here were the square pews,-the family home. "God setteth the solitary in families," and here they sat in no promiscuous slips.
There is infinitely more unseen than seen, within these walls. There must have been good instruction here or there would not have been that sturdy growth of reverence which has preserved intact and with religious care this old building. There are other houses in this commonwealth where older frames than this still stand; but there is no one which retains that dear old aspect of a hundred years ago. It is to the credit of old Salisbury that this meeting-house still exists unchanged and unharmed. It is in itself a preacher of righteousness, and a remembrancer of what was good, and true, and noble, and patriotic in the men who cleared these fields, built these fences, and culti- vated these farms, and in the women who made the home the praiseworthy centre of good influence. In these times of unrest and change, when "men are running to and fro in the earth and knowledge is increased," it is a blessed experience to climb this hill and come within these doors and feel that to the heaving tumultuous ocean of business and speculation, you have said: " Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther; here shall thy proud waves be stayed."
Singing: Tune, "Portland." " Sweet is the day of sacred rest." Tune, " Invitation." " Come, my beloved, haste away."
The president of the day in introducing the Hon. R. S. Spofford, spoke as follows:
A few years ago a gentleman honored in social and political circles, after looking over this belt of territory to found a home, discovered on the borders of this ancient town, and within easy access of this church, a poet's paradise, where nature in all her beauty will never cease to give inspiration to thought. Today, Deer Island greets old Rocky Hill in a double capacity through its orator and poetess.
ADDRESS OF HON. R. S. SPOFFORD.
Ladies and Gentlemen : It is something more than a mere coincidence that the day assigned for the commemorative exercises in which we are now engaged, should be also an anniversary fraught with historic memories and
-
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hallowed in the civic heart. Whether the result of design or accident, there was an appropriateness in the selection of the 17th of June for this centennial occasion,-the more impressive when it is remembered that this ancient edifice has long been distinguished, not only as a temple of religious devotion, but, holding the electoral urns within its inviolate precincts, as a shrine of civil liberty. I shall not soon forget, coming to Rocky Hill meeting-house, there for the first time to cast my ballot as a citizen of Salisbury, how deeply my mind was impressed by these surroundings, and the conscious influences exerted by them,- influences and surroundings to which I am persuaded, giving as they do to every election almost the character of a sacramental act, we owe in no slight measure the healthful conditions of public life which this community enjoys.
Dating its erection from that eventful period anterior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it may not inaptly be said, comparing lesser things with great, that as in Grecian fable Thebes, the hundred gated, grew to the numbers of Amphion's lute, so did these venerable and venerated walls rise to their impressive proportions, at least in their builders' projecting minds, to the stormy music of the American Revolution. The earlier edifice,- ante- dating the erection of the present one by more than threescore years,-witnessed, in the term of its occupancy, not only the opening scenes of the War of Independence, but the more tragic occurrences of the old French and Indian Wars, constituting, in its twofold character of town-house and church throughout all that period, a focal point of the political and religious life of the community. At its humble altar the worshipers of the primitive congregation gathered with courageous devotion, while yet the war-wlioop of the savage resounded through the pleasant vales of the Merrimack, the record of his implacable hatred, with all its terrors of blood and flame, being but the familiar experience of their daily lives. Before its rough-hewn portals, upon that old training-field which was its appropriate site, the recruits and conscripts of the royal governors assembled for organization and drill in preparation for their suc- cessive military expeditions. There, too, the minute-men of the Revolutionary period rallied, under the summons of the Provincial Congress; with the bless- ing of their minister they marched thence in battle array, among the earliest of the troops responding to the call of the country at the outbreak of hostilities; and it was within those log-built walls that the Declaration of American Independence was read. We cannot fail to appreciate, recalling such incidents, that pious sentiment of the fathers which led them to dedicate the timber and material of the old church to the construction of the present edifice, stipulating with its builders to this effect; so that, as we stand today within these reverend walls, the ancient rafters speak to us with audible voices, as the oaken beams of the Argo, cut from the sacred forests of Dodona, uttered their oracles to the Argonauts.
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There are few towns of contemporary age with Salisbury in which the stirring drum-beats and swelling anthems of the Revolutionary period expressed a more profound public feeling, and few which have given more striking proof of patriotism and self-devotion. Giants and heroes were they, those Com- moners of Salisbury to whom the founders of this church belonged, in those times which tried the bodies as well as the souls of men,- they who fought at Crown Point and Ticonderoga; they whose hearts thrilled to the beating of the self-same old drums on the 17th of June, 1745, at the fall of Louisburg, and again on the 17th of June, 1775, at Bunker Hill; they who accompanied Benedict Arnold, with his lieutenant Aaron Burr, on that ill-fated expedition for the capture of Quebec,- the more ill-fated that Arnold himself was num- bered among the survivors,- and whose wives and kindred watched, perhaps from these very heights, the receding fleet as it dropped down the Merrimack. and out to sea, until the last sail sank from view beyond the jutting promontory of Boar's Head, beyond those sentinel outposts of the coast, the Isles of Shoals, and was lost upon the distant horizon.
It was as early as 1770, that the town voted its commendation of the merchants of Boston and other commercial communities, for the non-inter- course measures into which they had entered, and proscribed the dutied tea. for domestic use, until the repeal of the obnoxious revenue enactments; while in 1774, on receipt of the news that the harbor of Boston had been blockaded, it declared that to be a blow at the root of all American liberty and property, and, by vote of the town, donated with marked liberality sixty pounds for the relief of the poor of that city,-a liberality subsequently emulated by the spon- taneous contributions of enlisted men, and by the loan of large sums of money by a number of the women of estate, to support the general cause. I know not whether it be true that the guns of Bunker Hill were to be heard at the Pond Hill settlements so that all knew a battle was being fought; but heard or not, there was scarcely a family - as our local annalist, Mr. Merrill, relates - not represented upon that battle-ground; nor did the report of that battle fail to bring personal sorrow to many a Salisbury fireside. Thus having anticipated, as did other Essex towns, the outbreak of hostilities by her military prepa- ration and discipline, it needed but the call of the country, again and again repeated, to summon sons of Salisbury to the field, and to support them there with such liberal expenditure as leaves no doubt of the ardor of her people, from the beginning to the close of the war.
It would have been strange, indeed, occupying such proximity to the old town upon the opposite shore of the Merrimack,- the two communities pulsing then, as now, along their arterial highways with the currents of a common. life,-if Salisbury had not felt the contagious enthusiasms of Newburyport : Newburyport, that fire-brand, that electric flame of Revolutionary passion, of
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whom it may be said, even now, in the retrospection of a hundred years, that in her municipal annals at that crucial epoch, resplendent with illustrious names and with heroic measures and resolves, she appears to move on with the conscious dignity, not of a mere municipality, but of a great State ;- a com- munity tried by every extreme of patriotic devotion, withholding neither men nor· means whenever or wherever the country made its requisition; a community with whom the idea of absolute independence of the mother country, then indeed a revolutionary one, first found authoritative utterance, when in a full town-meeting, long prior to the action of the Continental Congress, it was. resolved that, " if that honorable body, for the sake of the United Colonies should declare their independence of the kingdom of Great Britain, this town will with their lives and fortunes support them in the measure :" Newbury- port, within whose borders the detested tea was first destroyed, not by a disguised mob assembled in the night-time, and by surprise and stealth, as at that famous tea-party of which Boston boasts, but in the broad and open day ,. with mature deliberation, and by municipal act.
Thinking of Salisbury in these patriotic relations, it has always added a. peculiar interest to this immediate locality, and especially to this ancient structure, to recall the fact that it was along this primitive highway, in 1798,. when on his visit to the New England States, the Father of his Country rode, accompanied by many a war-worn veteran, recruited as his voluntary escort from the surviving ranks of those who in the days of conflict shared his toils and triumphs. The record of that pilgrimage presents Washington as the recipient of one continuing and spontaneous ovation, when, as he advanced from town to town, from hamlet to hamlet, young and old came out to greet him with an exuberance of affection never known by monarch of the Old. World in the plenitude of his imperial power. If the charger upon which he- rode was not shod with silver, as the Spanish Conquistador's was shod, or bated,. as the Roman's pampered steed was bated, with golden oats, yet, I know not with what civic observance, calculated to express the homage of a free people,. loving freedom's forms and bred in freedom's ways, he was not compassed about. But we may be sure that, with the enlightened spirit for which during his whole life he was distinguished, and with his deep religious feeling, so. spacious a temple as this of Rocky Hill, then newly dedicated to the service both of religion and freedom, could not have failed to attract Washington's. observation, attesting, as it did, not alone the rooted religious faith of the people but their confidence in the permanency of the newly established order of things. We cannot doubt that approaching it with such reflections, his emotions must have been of the most pleasurable character,- more grateful to. his wise and benignant mind even than those which his welcome at Salisbury doubtless awakened, memorable as that was in many of its incidents, and.
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