USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > The first centenary of the North church and society, in Salem, Massachusetts > Part 3
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This was not the only William Browne who was somewhat widely known. He had a cousin, William Burnet Browne, for whom he seems to have been mistaken by Mr. Ward, the editor of "Curwen's Journal and Letters," and by Mr. Sabine (who perhaps followed Ward) in his "American Loyalists." Ward. in his biographical notice of our Colonel William Browne (p. 504, 4th ed., 1864), rightly says that he was a son of Samnel Browne, but incorrectly adds, " and a grandson of Gov. Burnet." Colonel William Browne had an uncle, William Browne, the proprietor of "Ryal Side," who married a daughter of Gov. Burnet, and had a son, William [Burnet] Browne. This William Burnet Browne was a cousin, therefore, of Samuel's son, William. Mr. Sabine seems to have fallen into the same mistake (p. 180, of edition published in 1847).
In the commonness of the name a doubt was suggested to the writer, at one time, whether the William Browne who was one of the original members of the North Church, and Colonel William Browne, the loyalist refugee, and afterwards Governor of Bermuda, were the same person. Subsequent investigation left no room for reason- able doubt. Not only is he designated as "Colonel " William Browne upon the records, but his name which was prominent among the officers of the First Church before 1772, and among those of the North Church after that date, suddenly disappears entirely from the records at just the time when Colonel Browne left the country. More- over, at the annual meeting of the proprietors, on Jan. 12, 1778, the collectors were di- rected " to apply to the Committee of Safety of this town, for all taxes now due on the pews belonging to William Browne, Esq." Colonel Browne's property was confiscated on account of his adherence to the royal cause ; and under the circumstances an applica- tion to the Committee of Safety for the unpaid pew taxes, shows the political status of the pew-holder to be just that which Colonel William Browne held at the time. Add, t hat Colonel Browne had pews both in the First and North Churches, which were offered for sale after his departure, and we are justified in saying that there can be no question that Colonel William Browne, afterwards Judge, then refugee, and later still appointed Governor of Bermuda by the English Ministry, was the same who was among the original fifty-two persons dismissed from the First Church to form the North Church. His mother, Katharine Sargent, was also one of the original members of this church. She was a daughter of John and Ann Winthrop, and married after the death of her first husband, Samuel Browne, Colonel Epes Sargent of Gloucester, who re- moved to Salem not long after their marriage. Colonel Sargent died in 1762, and his widow continued to live near her son, Colonel William Browne, on Essex street, in a house which he built for her, next his own, in 1763.
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physician, the courteous gentleman, the modest and ex- emplary Christian ; - Samuel Curwen, the son of a beloved minister of the First Church, himself educated for the min- istry, but diverted by ill-health to commercial pursuits ; a captain under General Pepperell at Louisburg ; a Judge of admiralty at the opening of the Revolution; a gentleman cultivated by letters and travel ;- Francis Cabot, a merchant of reputation and a gentleman of large wealth and influ- ence ; - John Nutting, educated at Cambridge, sometime a teacher, who had been thirty-six years a ruling elder in the First Church, and lived to fill the same office for eighteen years afterwards in the North Church ; for many years hold- ing various and important offices under the Government ;- Joshua Ward, the ardent patriot, long an officer in the First Church and in the North ; - his son, Richard, active and prominent both in military and civil affairs ; - Nathan Goodale, teacher and merchant; - the worthy Deacon Samuel Holman, who for forty years was one of the Standing Committee of the Proprietors and an officer of the church, deacon and ruling elder until his death, a period of fifty-three years ; - Col. David Mason and Capt. John Felt, those sturdy patriots whose names soon after became connected with the cause of popular liberty from their part in the affair with the British Col. Leslie at North Bridge, in February, 1775 ;- and of younger men, Benjamin Goodhue, afterwards senator, and Dr. William Paine, Jacob Ashton, William Vans-these are some of the names that stand among the founders of the North Church and society.
The only time when, perhaps, the society may have felt that a serious breach had been made into its security and strength was at the breaking out of the Revolution.
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At the first of it the leading men of the society were on the side of the Government. The minister inclined that way in the beginning, though not long. Col. William Browne, Joseph Blaney, Francis Cabot, Samuel Curwen, Benjamin Pickman (he who was Benjamin Pickman, the junior, at the formation of the church ; his father had died in 1773), his brothers, William and Clark Gayton Pickman, Dr. Holyoke, John Nutting, Jacob Ashton, Weld Gardner, Jonathan Goodhue, William Vans, Andrew Dalglish, Henry Gardner, Nathan Goodale and James Hastie,-these were all disposed to support the Government ; certainly not all, perhaps not any, with entire approval of the measures adopted by the Government, but from a conviction, shared largely by thoughtful men throughout all the provinces, that successful resistance would be impossible, and that the difficulties between the Mother Country and the Colonies might be composed by moderate and conciliatory counsels. The greater number of these loyalists finally fell more into sympathy with the tone of feeling around them, and in the end adhered to the American cause. A few, however, resolutely chose the other course and joined the royal standard and, when the storm burst, withdrew from the country, generally retiring either to the eastern provinces or to England. Samuel Curwen, William Browne and Ben- jamin Pickman were among the latter; and in the very interesting letters and journal of Mr. Curwen, written during the period of his expatriation, we have a vivid picture, if sometimes a sad one, of the struggles and heart-sicknesses which these exiles endured. Their hearts after all yearned for their early homes, and the homes of their people. In many cases impoverished, dependent, tossed between re-
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viving hopes and new disappointments, as the fortunes of the conflict wavered, not altogether trusted by the Govern- ment whose pensioners they were, they wore away wearily the slow years of the war .*
Two or three votes found among the records of the pro- prietors seem to show that the resources of the society were much affected by the war.
At the annual meeting in 1776, a vote was passed to the following purport :- "Whereas, the difficulty of the times is such that, if a tax for the Rev. Mr. Barnard's salary was laid as usual, there is great probability that it cannot be collected ; therefore voted that a committee [of gentlemen named] be desired to wait upon the Rev. Mr. Barnard, to know if he will accept, for the present, of a free contribution for his support in lieu of his salary." Mr. Barnard accepted this proposal upon condition that it should work no inva- lidity in the original contract at his settlement. And though there is evidence that he did not for a time receive the full amount of his salary under this arrangement, it was remembered afterwards, and partial or full restitution was made of the sum deficient; and from about 1795 a
* The journal of Judge Curwen gives us also a pleasant glimpse of a fragmentary continuance of the fellowship of the North Church, in the years of their London exile. He makes frequent mention of social meetings with his old Salem friends; and often alludes to his Sundays, and his manner of spending the day. He became a regular attendant at the chapel of Theophilus Lindsay, the early and distinguished English Unitarian clergyman, who left a good living in Yorkshire from conscientious objections to some parts of the liturgy of the Established Church, which he afterwards altered for use in his London chapel. Mr. Curwen gives interesting notices of Priestley and Price, and other ministers of less note, whom he heard in London during his residence there. For Mr. Lindsay he came to entertain a very high regard, based upon his thoughtful discourses, and his beautiful christian life and character. He sometimes took with him, to his Sunday worship, his old friends and fellow-communicants of the North Church, Benjamin Pickman and William Browne; so, two or three, at least, of the brethren of the North Church met by the river of Babylon; and who shall doubt that there they sometimes wept (in secret) as they remembered the New England Zion, and the dear Salem of the West, and that they found it hard to sing her songs in a strange land ?
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regular annual addition of one hundred to three hundred and fifty dollars was made to his salary, and was continued to the end of his life ; thus making his salary at the highest, however, but about nine hundred dollars.
Dr. Barnard's ministry continued from Jan. 13, 1773 to Oct. 1, 1814, the time of his death, nearly forty-two years ; more than two-fifths of the century. He had had no assist- ant, though nearing the end of his sixty-seventh year, and left a fresh sermon partly written upon his table when he died.
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If asked, for what ideas or what type of influence this church stood, during these earliest forty-two years, I should say, taking its pastor as its representative : first, it stood for the religion of a true humanity ; a religion which made love to man the best expression of love to God; for that inter- pretation of Christianity which makes prominent its humane spirit. Dr. Barnard was a whole-hearted man. He loved his kind. He loved little children. Men of diverse tastes and various culture found themselves drawn to him. He won by his own genial, sympathetic and comprehensive man- liness. You saw how friends gathered around him in the first instance in the First Church. They stood by him at the sacrifice of life-long associations and deepest rooted affections. The spirit that animated himself he evoked in others. He was a reconciler ; not by studied compromises, but by native courtesy and magnanimity. His generosity of mind put generous construction upon other men's mo- tives, and by the inbred honor of his character he held the confidence he gained. He proved that he had courage and sincerity, or he might have been cast aside as a time-server. He was a young man of twenty-seven only,
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when the Revolutionary War broke out. With such men in his society as Judge William Browne, Col. Benjamin Pickman, Francis Cabot, Judge Samuel Curwen, Dr. Holyoke and others, on the one side, and the Wards, Col. Mason and Capt. John Felt on the other; himself first leaning to the side of politic concession, even signing the complimentary address to Gov. Hutchinson, but after- wards joining the party of resistance with no equivocal or doubtful devotion, and publicly recalling some of the ex- pressions to which he had previously subscribed, he seems, nevertheless, to have done all with such a frankness, consci- entiousness and fearlessness, as to put his honesty and patriotism beyond question, so that he retained the friend- ship of those who became divided from each other.
In the affair of Col. Leslie at the North Bridge, he was conspicuous and characteristically the minister of peace. Among the various and sometimes conflicting accounts of the prominent actors and scenes of that day, there is a sub- stantial agreement in mentioning Mr. Barnard's presence and active and successful efforts to prevent bloodshed. Leslie's force, three or four hundred strong, passed by his meeting house on their march through Lynde and North streets, to the North Bridge. The afternoon congregation had already been dismissed at the alarm that such troops were approaching, and Mr. Barnard lost no time in pre- senting himself to the British officer, who stood baffled and exasperated before the raised draw at the North River, and remonstrating against his threat to fire on the people. Young as he was, he bore the difficult part of pacificator among these angry, heated and hostile men, who, on either side defiantly declared their intention to yield nothing, with
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a self-possession and a persuasiveness in remonstrance, which finally succeeded. Col. Leslie gave his word of honor, at length, that if permitted to pass his men over the bridge, he would not go beyond a certain number of rods. The bridge was lowered and he kept his word. The mood of mind in which so many of the inhabitants had hurriedly and excitedly assembled leaves no room for doubt that there would have been serious collision and probably loss of life, if the counsels of forbearance had not prevailed.
I called a few weeks since upon the late Rev. Charles Cleaveland of Boston, who died at the age of one hundred years, wanting a few days. He joined this church in 1791, and from December, 1804, to December, 1806, was the clerk of the society. On my introduction to him as the minister of this church, he exclaimed : "O ! I love the North Church ! Good Dr. Barnard ! Good Dr. Barnard !" and proceeded to express with enthusiasm his affection and reverence for that excellent man.
But Dr. Barnard was not merely the large-hearted man. He was a respectable scholar and loved the fellowship of literary men and good thinkers. He was a wise counsellor and his aid was much sought in the ecclesiastical councils of his time. He was a preacher of popular and acceptable gifts. Few ministers had more frequent proofs of this in the form of complimentary invitations to preach occasional discourses, abroad and at home; many of which were also printed. He delivered the Dudleian Lecture at Cambridge in 1795 ; preached before the convention of congregational ministers in 1793; before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1789 ; and ordination sermons at the settlement of Aaron Bancroft in Worcester in 1786, and of Ichabod
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Nichols of Portland, Maine, in 1809; besides many other discourses before charitable institutions and on days of pub- lic observance. A discourse preached on the death of Gen. Washington, in 1799, was published "by desire of the town" and it shows a warm and admiring gratitude for the character and services of that great man; a feeling which obtained repeated expression in his public discourses.
During the ministry of Dr. Barnard this pulpit and this society stood also for religious liberty. Not negatively only, by preaching practical religion and leaving dogmatic divinity aside, did the minister of this church discountenance bigotry and the over-valuation of theological schemes, but positively, earnestly, frequently, did he rebuke the spirit- ual assumption and uncharitableness which makes of one's own opinion, or of the interpretation of truth by one's own church, a standard for others' confessions. I presume that Dr. Barnard was in the earlier part of his ministry what was called then an Arminian, perhaps towards the end of his life a Unitarian. I speak guardedly, for though Dr. Channing so classed him, Dr. Samuel Worcester of the Tabernacle Church declared that he was not a Unitarian. Their different ways of defining "Unitarian" would probably explain the contradiction between them. Dr. Channing was not mis- taken, in supposing that Dr. Barnard was, in his general habits of thinking, in sympathy with the liberal clergy of his time. I have heard a tradition that when once a pa- rishioner said : "Dr. Barnard, I never heard you preach a sermon upon the Trinity," he replied : "And you never will."* It is very evident that the society at the time of
* Dr. Prince says of him, however, that though "his preaching was more practical than metaphysical," " he did not neglect to discuss any religious subject which he
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his death in 1814 had had such teaching and was, in its whole organic life, so penetrated and moved by the spirit of religious freedom, that it was all ready to take, as it did take without a consciousness of change, its place among those churches which about that time were beginning to be known and to know themselves, as Unitarian.
One of the later and most interesting of the minutes entered by his hand upon the pages of the church record book, is the reply sent by this church to a communication from the Rev. Abiel Abbot and the society of which he was the pastor, in Coventry, Connecticut; an answer to the request that this church would send delegates to an ecclesi- astical council to be held in Coventry, to advise them as to their duty under what seemed to them an arbitrary attempt of neighboring churches to exercise ecclesiastical domination over them, in clear violation of the vital principles of con- gregational liberty. This church declined to send repre- sentatives to a council in Connecticut, "thinking it not proper for us," they say, "to enter in ecclesiastical form another state, which, with the patronage of its civil govern- ment differs from us in its church discipline." This did not prevent their severe condemnation, however, of the inter- ference of certain churches which had arrogated to them- selves the power to dismiss a minister from his settlement without his own or his society's consent. But "we think," is their conclusion, "an ecclesiastical council formed of members only from this state, to take cognizance of your affairs, would not be a promising means under divine Providence to free you from the injuries of which you
thought would throw light on the Scriptures, inform the minds of his hearers, and lay open the designs of God in the gospel, impress the minds of his hearers with reverence and love, confirm their faith and excite obedience."
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complain, and to restore and establish the rights you claim as Christians. It might be seriously hurtful to you in civil process ; which, in our judgment, must issue your aggrieve- ments, or perpetuate them."
This letter was signed by Thomas Barnard, "by the desire and direction of the church." But it is evident, I think, from these last sentences at least, that it was not drawn up without consultation with legal minds ; and a church on whose roll of members stood the names of Judge Putnam, Ichabod Tucker and Leverett Saltonstall, not to mention more, had no need to go elsewhere to find the ablest counsel for its guidance on questions legal-ecclesiastical.
Still, this letter was in the very vein of Dr. Barnard's most habitual thought and discourse. And it was well said after his death that "the influence of his name assisted to preserve the liberties of our churches from the abuses of power and the ignorance of misguided men."
Dr. Barnard, whose death occurred Oct. 1, 1814, was succeeded in the following April by the youthful John Emery Abbot, son of Dr. Benjamin Abbot, for half a century the distinguished head of Phillips Academy at Exeter, N. H. It would be difficult to make those of the present generation, and strangers to our history, understand fully the very great love and veneration with which this rare young man inspired his people ; and which still make his name and memory dear to the hearts of his few surviving contemporaries. Less than twenty-two years of age when he was settled ; assuming at once the full burden of pastor over a large society ; and preacher to a congregation con- taining a large number of persons of high intelligence and culture ; his health never vigorous ; he possessed such
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graces of spirit, bore himself with such a modest dignity, preached with such a matured wisdom and moving earnest- ness, and gave himself so wholly and gladly to his work, that the remembrances and traditions of his brief and broken ministry of four years-barely two and a half of active labor and ended more than fifty years ago-are more distinct, marked and permanent here to-day, than would be expected from a ministry of a quarter of a century.
Before he had been two years here his health began to give way. A journey and short trial of a more southern air, in the fall of 1817, proved of no advantage,-it was thoughit did him injury. And though he preached once after his return, he continued from that time steadily to decline. In the next spring and summer, of 1818, he rallied somewhat, passing the season in his native town. In the autumn worse symptoms reappearing, he sailed for Havana, though very feeble, and passed the winter in and near that city. The warmer climate brought no restoration ; and he returned extremely reduced to Exeter in June, 1819, and died there, at his father's house, on the 7th of October following.
Mr. Abbot was a good scholar and a conscientious student. But his highest power lay in the silent influence which ever went forth from a soul which had its conversation in heaven ; a soul of deep religious sensibility ; a character of stainless purity ; a life which seemingly exhibited at once, in tranquil equipoise and harmonious activity, all christian excellences.
His early death, the fading out so soon of this morning light of beauty and promise, watched as it was by so many tearful eyes and sympathetic hearts, no doubt heightened
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that exaltation of sanctified love by which he became trans- figured in the recollection of his people.
The coming of Mr. Abbot to the ministry of the North Church marks an epoch in its history, in that it was the first taking of an open stand by the society on acknowledged Unitarian ground. Gradually, perhaps unconsciously, the society and its first minister had long been tending to this point. The church had never imposed a creed upon its members ; for neither the broad covenant of the First Church which it reaffirmed, nor the additional sentences which it put with it, made their subscription in any sense subscription to a creed. Even those phrases which incident- ally disclosed the faith of the church in certain doctrines, which it then held but afterwards discarded, were never written to be used as a creed, nor were referred to as such, nor imposed upon any ; and not till long after the church was largely composed of Unitarian believers, was it deemed of importance to change a word of them ; for they knew this writing to have been drawn and signed, not as a statement of what was to be believed, but as an engagement to fidelity in certain duties to be done and certain practical ends to be sought. The church was always catholic in spirit and set sincerity of belief and simple discipleship above all forms of confession.
Congregationalism in Massachusetts up to this time had been a name without any necessary doctrinal significance. A church polity, simply as such, it drew up no system of divinity and prescribed no articles to be assented to. Indi- viduals within these churches did such things abundantly. But, as men free to think and write their thoughts, they did it, and they had been equally free to think and write other-
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wise, if they had pleased, and Congregationalism, as a mode of church organization, government or fellowship, could not in consistency have cared or interfered.
The name Unitarian had not yet begun to be much applied, distinctively, to churches, but within these churches discussion had long been going on over the doctrines of the Calvinistic scheme which, by many of the leading men of the state, clerical and lay, were zealously denied and ably controverted. Mayhew and Freeman, and not a few others of the clergy of Boston and the neighborhood, had been open champions of the Unitarian faith in the last century. It has been said that as early as 1790, the general tone of thought in Boston was Unitarian. It was probably as true of Salem as of Boston. Drs. Barnard, Prince and Bentley, and, if prevalent traditions can be trusted, a rector of St. Peter's Church, contemporary with them, were theologically in close sympathy with the Boston clergy just named ; while there were thoughtful laymen in all these churches, not a whit behind their pastors, as defenders of religious liberty and as loyal disciples of reason in the interpretation of Christianity.
The controversy waxed warmer in the early years of the present century. The views of different preachers were keenly canvassed and the lines of coming separation began to appear. William Ellery Channing, settled in the Federal street pulpit of Boston in 1803, though himself averse to polemic writing, gave a fresh impulse to the discussion by his inspiring discourses upon the immeasurable capabilities, hopes and aspirations, of human nature ; by his bold and warning call to churches and Christians to stand fast in their Christian liberties - to come under no yoke of human creed
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