USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > The history of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 15
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Jonathan Dunham, a native of Plymouth, was at this date 52 years of age, past middle life, and came to Edgartown ripe with the experiences of half a century in temporal affairs, and now chosen to be a guide in spiritual concerns. He was not an educated minister, nor a college graduate. "With toil and Pains at first he tilled the ground," his epitaph states. He had been for some time "employed in Preaching the Good word of God amongst us for our Edification," according to the statement of a committee representing the settlement at Succonnessitt [Falmouth] in 1679, but he was only a lay preacher in reality.3 The choice however proved to be a happy one, and for a generation of years, laboring with ever increasing satisfaction to the church until he had reached the ripe age of eighty-five, this pastoral relation in our town was continued.4 Infirmities incident to his years however, in 1711, made it necessary that he receive some assistance in his work, and on May 15th of that year, at a special town meeting, it was voted to obtain "some able minister of the Gospel to be helpful to Mr. Dunham in the ministrie." Early in 1713, the church had unanimously selected Rev. Samuel Wiswall as coadjutor, and on March Ioth of that year the town unanimously voted to endorse that action in behalf of the proprietors.5 The town
1Edgartown Records, I, 32. 2Ibid., I, 64.
3Sup. Judicial Court Files, No. 2110.
4Mr. Dunham was not ordained until Oct, 11, 1694, when he was installed as "teacher" of the church at Edgartown, ten years after his call. The pastor of the Plymouth church and Mr. Fuller came by invitation to assist at the ceremonies.
6Edgartown Records, I, 65, 88, 93. He was ordained that year.
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voted him a salary of £30 per annum for the first year and raised this to $40 the next year, at the same time paying Mr. Dunham his regular salary, although he had "through age and other infirmity desisted preaching for the two years last past."1 Mr. Dunham died Dec. 18, 1717, and on his tomb- stone the following metrical elegy is to be seen: -
With Toil & Pains at first He Tell'd the Ground Call'd to Dress GOD'S Vine Yard & ws faithful Found Full Thirty Years the Gospel He Did Despence His Work Being Done CHRIST JESUS Cal'd Him Hence.
MINISTRY OF SAMUEL WISWALL.
He was succeeded by his assistant, Mr. Wiswall, then in his 38th year.2 This pastor was the first liberally educated clergyman settled in the town, having heen graduated at Har- vard as B. A. in 1701 and taken his degree of Master of Arts three years later. After this latter event he prepared himself for the duties of the ministry. He had no settled charge at first, and preached transiently as opportunities offered. Later he went on a voyage as chaplain of a large ship which was captured by the Spaniards and taken to Martinico, "where he underwent a dangerous Fit of Sickness, but God sparing his Life he returned to his Country again."3 He preached at Nantucket for about six months before accepting the call to this town. While here he acquired the Indian tongue "with a design to do what service he can amongst that people,"4 and labored both among the English and natives with highly satisfactory results. His ministry was uneventful, and like that of his predecessor the pastoral relations continued for over thirty years until terminated by death. He was "often infirm with respect to his bodily state," and never married, so that he might attend the work of his ministry "without Distraction." After much added labor in a season of sickness and mortality, he succumbed suddenly on the 23d of December, 1746, in the 68th year of his age.
1Edgartown Records, I, 102. Feb. 10, 1714-15.
2He was the son of "pious and worthy Parents in the Town of Dorchester," Mr. Enoch and Elizabeth (Oliver) Wiswall, and was born Sept. 2, 1679, in that town. 3Boston Gazette, No. 1325 (1747.)
"Mather, "India Christiana" (1721). Mr. Wiswall evidently was of a roving dis- position, and when he first came showed symptoms of restlessness. In 1714, when Judge Sewall visited Edgartown, he was asked by Capt. Thomas Daggett to "en- deavour to persuade him to stay among them." (Diary, II, 432.)
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THIRD MEETING-HOUSE.
Immediately following his accession to the place made vacant by the death of Mr. Dunham, the town held a meeting to consider the necessity of repairing the old structure, which had been in use over thirty years. "After some debate," the record states, "they being sensible, or the greater part, did find the old meeting house to be too scanty for the inhabitants of this town, they passed a unanimous vote for a new meeting house."1 With that deliberation however, which characterized all such affairs, they did not act upon this vote for a year, and on Jan. II, 1719-20, they finally agreed with Thomas Daggett to build the new structure, which should "not contain nor cover more ground than forty feet long and thirty wide."2 This was the third meeting-house erected in the town since its foundation. During the ministry of Mr. Wiswall he was paid a yearly salary ranging from £50 in 1718, to £100 in 1745, the latter amount being that received by him at his death.3
The town, on Jan. 7, 1746-7, voted to raise £150 for the ministry, and a month later a committee of five was ap- pointed to procure a successor to their lately deceased pastor. This committee acted promptly, and in two months had secured as a candidate, a young clergyman, the Rev. John Newman, then in his twenty-seventh year, brother-in-law of John Sumner of Edgartown, and a graduate in the class of 1740 of Harvard College. He was the son of John and Mary (Marshall) New- man of Gloucester, Mass., where he was born March 14, 1716. The church had voted, on May 8, 1747, to give him a call to settle, and on May 15th the town voted to concur in the selection, and further "for an incouragement" voted him the sum of £300, for a settlement and for a yearly salary.
"The sum of two hundred and fifty pounds in the old tenor to be settled at the rate of silver money at forty six shillings old tenor the ounce and so to raise or fall as the same shall rise or fall at all times hereafter as long as he the sd Mr. John Newman shall continue in the office of the ministry among us in this town.24
1Edgartown Records, I, 75 2Ibid., I, 150. 3Ibid., I, 73, 181 4Ibid., I, 188.
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MINISTRY OF JOHN NEWMAN.
Mr. Newman accepted this offer promptly, and the town "returned thanks for his acceptance." Elaborate preparations were made for the entertainment of the delegates from the churches which were invited to assist at his ordination, which occurred July 29, 1747, and the sum of £50 was raised to defray the expenses of entertaining the council.1 All this seemed to be in marked contrast to the simplicity which had heretofore obtained in the history of this church, but Rev. Mr. Newman was an entirely different character from his predecessors. He was the youngest pastor who had ever occupied this pulpit, and had recently returned from the siege of Louisburg, at which place he had served as chaplain to the garrison. Being possessed of some private fortune and imbued with the commercial spirit, he entered at once into the business of shop keeping on his own account, and in mari- time ventures in partnership with Mr. Sumner.2 In addition to this he was of a "worldly" temperament, which soon begat doubts and anxieties among those who could compare him with the grave and saintly Dunham, and the studious, ascetic Wiswall. This situation had in it the elements of probable discord, and the usual factions consequent upon this grew into activity. The older and conservative church members disapproved him, and the younger element in the town became his supporters.3
One of the Deacons of his church, Benjamin Daggett, became a bitter enemy and circulated scandalous stories about his character. He sued the deacon in the local courts for slander in March, 1757, and recovered a small verdict with costs, from which the defendant appealed.4 Thus vindicated,
1Edgartown Records, I, 190. The ordination sermon was preached by Rev. Thomas Balch, pastor of the Second Parish, Dedham, Mass, who had married his sister-in-law, Mary Sumner.
2 An account book kept by him in Edgartown, 1747-1758, is now in existence in · excellent preservation, and furnishes undoubted evidence that he did a thriving business in retail shop-keeping. He sold chintz and lawn to the women, ship chand- lery, pipes and tobacco to the men. Being skilled in "phisick" and "surgery," he purged and vomited the ailing townspeople and drew their aching molars during the week, as a preparation for his spiritual prescriptions on Sundays.
3Letter to Rev. Thomas Foxcroft of Boston. A similar condition existed simul- . taneously in Tisbury, and under date of Feb. 21, 1755, Experience Mayhew wrote: "There are great Travails & Dissentions arisen in two of our churches here viz at Edgartown and Tisbury. How they will end I know not. They need the help of the prayers of others for them."
"Dukes County Court Records, March term, 1757.
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Annals of Edgartown
he asked dismission from the church. The church finally acceeded to his request for severance of the pastoral relations, but the town, by a vote of 30 to 14, would not concur in July, 1758. In the following October the town reconsidered its objections, and for the "mutual good and comfort of this church and congregation doth concur with the vote of the church, and grant a dismission unto the Rev. Mr. John New- man from his pastoral or ministerial relations."1 If these dis- sentions drove him from the ministry they did not drive him from the town, and like his associate in Tisbury, the Rev. Nathaniel Hancock, under similar conditions, he decided to remain rather than turn his back on his enemies. He entered into public affairs, became Justice of the Court of Sessions and Common Pleas in 1761, and was Colonel of the Militia of the county the same year. He died Dec. 1, 1763, in his forty-third year, and lies buried in the cemetery beyond Tower Hill.2
MINISTRY OF JOSHUA TUFTS.
The church and town, on July 10, 1759, voted to call Mr. Zachariah Mayhew of Chilmark as pastor to fill the vacancy created by the dismission of the Rev. Mr. Newman, but owing to his employment by the Society for Propagating the Gospel and "some obstructions or obstacles that were in the way," he decided not to accept the charge.3 Another attempt was made to secure the services of a clergyman, and the Rev. Joshua Tufts, Harvard College 1736, who had been settled as pastor at Litchfield, N. H., and Narragansett Town- ship, No. 2, was invited to assume the vacant pastorate in December, 1759. The town voted to purchase a parsonage, and made the usual provisions for his maintenance. Mr. Tufts accepted, and further provision was made "for the Removal of his family and things here and for the maintainance of his family until they may arrive."4 But he was scarcely warmed in his seat before trouble began, and on July 9, 1760, a committee was appointed "to wait upon the Rev. Mr. Joshua Tufts and discourse with him with respect to his asking and
1Edgartown Records, I, 217
2In the same cemetery is buried the body of Mrs. Mary Newman, his mother, who died September 28, 1755, in her seventy-first year. His widow, Mrs. Hannah New- man, married Aug. 27, 1766, Jonathan Metcalf. She was five years older than Mr. Newman.
3Edgartown Records, I, 219.
4Ibid., I, 221-223.
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taking a dismission from his call to the pastoral and ministerial office in this town." A sum of money was also voted him, "provided he asks and obtains a dismission."1 His pre- decessor, now John Newman, Esq., was chairman of the com- mittee of the church which reported the advisability of ter- minating the relations. In this report, in which the church concurred, the following recommendation was given Mr. Tufts:
That notwithstanding some reports have been spread to the prej- udice of the Rev. Mr. Joshua Tufts' character since he came to this place by which the affections of some of the people seem to be so far alienated from him that it has been thought convenient by the sd Mr. Tufts and this Church that he be dismissed from his pastoral and ministerial relation thereto: yet we hereby declare we are in full charity with the sd Mr. Tufts and hope that in some other place he may have an opportunity of improving his ministerial talents and of being more extensively useful in promoting the Kingdom & Interests of our Common Lord.2
The exact nature of the disaffection indicated by his invol- untary exit is not known, but it may have been an echo of the troubles of his predecessor.3
MINISTRY OF SAMUEL KINGSBURY.
The usual town and parish committee was forthwith charged with the duty of providing a successor, and a year later Rev. Samuel Kingsbury, a recent graduate of Har- vard in the class of 1759, was invited on July 15th by the church, and the town concurred, July 21, 1761, with a money offer for a settlement.4 The town further voted him a yearly salary of £66, 13 shillings and 4 pence, and he accepted the call. He was ordained November 25th of that year,5 and entered upon a successful pastorate which lasted for seventeen years, until terminated by his death from small pox, on Dec. 30, 1778, in the forty-third year of his age. He was the last victim of an epidemic of that disease, which had existed in
1Edgartown Record, I, 224.
2Edgarton Church Records. This report was signed by the moderator of the meeting.
3The town voted to reconsider the purchase of a parsonage, and devoted a portion of this money "to pay the towns debts." He was later settled at Cumberland, N. S., and died in 1766.
4Samuel Kingsbury was born in Dedham, Dec. 28, 1736, the son of Ebenezer and Abigail Kingsbury of that town, where his ancestors had lived for four generations.
"The ordination sermon was preached by the Rev. Moses Adams of Roxbury, and other portions of this ceremony were taken by Reverends Andrew Boardman of Chilmark, Jacob Bacon of Plymouth, Thomas Balch of Dedham, and Abraham Wil- liams of Sandwich.
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Annals of Edgartown
the town for some time. Rev. Mr. Kingsbury, after a residence of two years in the town, had married, Dec. 15, 1763, Jedidah, daughter of John and Jedidah (Smith) Sumner of this town, a niece of Mrs. John Newman, and thus indentified himself with one of the leading families of the town.
During the pastorate of Mr. Kingsbury, the old meeting- house, built in 1720, and used for nearly fifty years, succumbed to the ravages of time and our climate, after many annual patchings, and on Dec. 29, 1767, the first move was made towards rebuilding, by the appointment of a committee to consider the subject and report conclusions. A change of location was advisable among other things at this time, as the centre of population in the village had moved steadily northward since the early settlement in the Mashacket region. On Feb. 2, 1768, after having voted to build a new meeting house, a committee was appointed "to agree with Deacon Matthew Norton concerning a spot of land to set or build the meeting house on as also with Mr. Matt. Mayhew concern- ing a way [to the land]." This arrangement was effected satisfactorily, and two weeks later, in consideration of £5 lawful money, an acre of land was purchased of Deacon Norton, and the deed passed to the church.1 This site was described as follows:
The Meeting house is to be set up on the easterly part of the land that Deacon Matt. Norton purchased of Mr. Matt. Mayhew a few rods to the westward of a tract of land belonging to Thomas Vinson, on the Northwest side of the way that leadeth from Peases Point to the Plain.2
FOURTH MEETING-HOUSE
In order that the residents then living in the locality of South Water street might reach this new site readily, Matthew Mayhew simultaneously with Norton, deeded to the town a way one rod wide extending from Water street to the church. With these preliminaries settled, the committee charged with the construction of the new house of worship,"having met and considered of the same and the bigness of sd house," made the following recommendations as to dimensions and other details concerning ways and means: -
1Dukes Deeds, IX, 758, dated Feb. 9, 1768.
2Edgartown Records, I, 292.
3Dukes Deeds, IX, 759, dated Feb. 9, 1768.
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Deacons Seat
PULPIT
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FLOOR PLAN FOURTH MEETING-HOUSE 1769-1827
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Annals of Edgartown
First that the meeting house be built forty-five feet wide and sixty feet long and that there shall be built in sd Meeting house ninety-seven pews sixty-four of sd pews to be set up below and thirty-three pews to be built and set up in the gallery above: . The sd meeting house and pews to be built according to the plan drawn by the sd Committee.1
Of these pews, the one next the pulpit on the left was reserved for the ministry, and the remaining pew owners were assessed a total of £26. 36s. 8d. towards building the meeting- house. Further provisions were made for payments and for- feiture of pews, and that the town should be assessed to pay the balance of cost above the amount charged to the pews for construction. With a liberal disregard of all architectural requirements and symmetry of design, the town voted further :----
if any persons have a mind to have a window against their pews in any part of sd meeting house, and person so minded may have liberty there- for, provided that they do it upon their own cost and maintain the same, and before the outside is finished.2
As the work progressed, various changes in details were voted by the town, including the raising of the studding eighteen inches, "by splicing the posts," elevating the wall pews six inches above the main floor, and raising the underpinning. At length this large new structure was completed, probably about the early part of the spring of 1769, and became the fourth meeting-house erected for the worship of God in Edgar- town.3
MINISTRY OF JOSEPH THAXTER
After the death of Rev. Mr. Kingsbury the church and town began to cast about for a successor, and on April 6, 1780, it was voted that the town should "proceed in the most expe- ditious manner to procure a Gospel minister to preach to the town for the space of three months." The committee who had this matter in charge procured the services of Mr. Joseph Thaxter of Hingham, as a temporary supply, some time in May following, and he began to "preach to the town."4 Mr. Thaxter was a son of Deacon Joseph and Mary (Leavitt)
1Edgartown Records, I, 292.
2Ibid., I, 275. It is only fair to say that this vote was reconsidered later, and it was voted that these be proportioned by the carpenter. The windows in second story were to have twenty panes and those below twenty-four panes.
3On March 21, 1769, the selectmen were "impowered to Prime the windows of the meeting House," which wonld indicate its completion about that date.
4Edgartown Records, I, 321.
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Thaxter of Hingham, and was born April 23, 1744, in that town. He was graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1768, and was subsequently engaged in teaching school in his native place. He had represented Hingham at the General Court, and at the outbreak of the Revolution joined the patriot forces at Concord and later at Cambridge, and was chaplain of Colonel Prescott's regiment at the Battle of Bunker Hill. At the date of his first coming to Edgartown he was in his 37th year and unmarried. After the usual "trying out" and baiting process with the new candidate, a committee was appointed to "treat" with him upon the basis of a permanent settlement. On August roth the church unanimously gave him a call, and the town, concurring in the same manner, offered him £100 in silver at 6s. 8d. per ounce as a yearly salary. His reply is worth printing in full.
Gentlemen: Whereas the Church of Christ in this place did on the Ioth of August last past unanimously invite me to settle with you in the work of the Gospel Ministry & whereas the town on the same day did unanimously concur with the Church in their choice and did then for my encouragement and support vote to pay me annually the sum of one hundred pounds in Silver money at six shillings eight pence per ounce so long as I shall continue in the office of the ministry among you. I have taken your invitation and encouragement into consideration and think your unanimity has made the call clear. Sensible of the care and trouble in which I must necessarily be involved in having all the necessaries of life to purchase wherever I can find them I most sincerely wish to avoid such cares as much as possible and therfore would propose that your agree- ment with me may be to give me ten cord of good oak wood, three tons of good English hay, forty-five bushels of Indian Corn, fifteen bushels of rye, eighty weight of good fleece wool, two hundred weight of large pork, two hundred weight of good beef including the proportion of tallow and two hundred Spanish milled dollars. Your compliance with these proposals will free me from such care and trouble and tend to my comfort & happiness, and I shall consider it as an evidence of your love and affection to me which I sincerely wish ever to enjoy should my proposals be agreeable and be accepted by the town. I then shall be ready to join with your committee in agreeing upon the Council and appointing the day for my solemn Seperation & introduction into work of the Gospel ministtry among you. Asking your prayers for me that I may be made a blessing unto the Church and People of God in this place I am, gentlemen, in love and affection your devoted and obedient servant in our Lord Jesus Christ.
September 19th, 1780.
JOSEPH THAXTER, Jr.
This reply was considered satisfactory, and all its require- ments accepted by formal vote of the town, and agents were appointed to carry out its provisions yearly in respect to the
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REV. JOSEPH ("PARSON") THAXTER FROM MINIATURE BY FREDERIC MAYHEW In possession of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Susan Coombs.
Annals of Edgartown
produce and fuel. He was ordained Nov. 8, 1780,1 and began a distinguished pastorate under circumstances that were favorable for both parties to the contract. One exception, however, is to be noted. As he entered upon what proved to be a long ministerial service here, there arose in the town as elsewhere, those schisms in the church, which resulted in the separation of large numbers who began to follow the new doctrines preached by itinerant Baptist and Methodist preach- ers.2 As time progressed, these dissenting bodies grew larger numerically, and in local influence, and were a continual thorn in his flesh. This however was but an incident in his long career of usefulness, and only the requirements of space in this volume prevent an extensive review of his life and services. "Parson" Thaxter, as he was generally known, was the last of the old school village pastors, the guide, philosopher and friend of his flock, from the cradle to the grave. He ministered to them in their physical ills as well as leading them in the spiritual paths when in health, and for forty years he was easily the most distinguished personage in Edgartown. He wore to the end of his life the cocked hat, short clothes, knee and shoe buckles, and carried the long cane familiar to the generation that lived during the Revolution. At the laying of the corner stone of Bunker Hill Monument in 1825, he was designated as the official chaplain to offer prayer, in the presence of the distinguished Marquis de Lafayette, and his venerable appearance on that occasion attracted general at- tention and incited public comment.3 His prayer was reported in all the current papers of the time, and the noted Chaplain Thaxter of Prescott's regiment, then passed four score, was one of the marked figures on that memorable occasion.
The Unitarian sentiment which pervaded New England in the early part of the 19th century and penetrated the hallowed fanes of so many of the old Puritan churches, also found lodgment here under the later ministrations of Parson Thaxter, but he was affectionately regarded as a gentle heretic.
1The ordination sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Hilyard, and Revs. Zachariah Mayhew, George Damon and Isaiah Mann took the other portions of this ceremony.
2As early as 1781, when he had just begun his work, "the religious society com- monly called Annabaptists in this town" were in existence, and when Mr. Thaxter was ordained, a committee was appointed to negotiate with them as to attendance on the services.
3It is traditional that when passing him in the streets men and boys lifted their hats, and the women and girls made a courtesy.
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He died July 18, 1827, and lies buried in the cemetery that adjoined the meeting-house on Pease Point way. In the same enclosure are buried the remains of his two wives, Mary, daughter of Robert and Desire (Norton) Allen and Ann, daughter of Samuel and Anna (Wass) Smith, together with a number of their children.
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