USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 15
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1Several years afterwards, when the federal members of the First church, for political reasons, separated from it, and formed the Union church, they petitioned for the use of this meeting-house, for the installation of Rev. Mr. Punderson as their pastor, stating that a similar courtesy had been granted the Baptists. The selectmen, who were all democrats, refused the petition, on the ground that the Baptist church was organized from an honest dissent from the Congregational faith, while the Union church originated in hostility to that from which it separated.
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mentioned in the list, for some unexplained reason ; perhaps being absent that year.1 But, at whatever time the family or its differ- ent members came in, they brought their Baptist principles with them, firmly and religiously fixed in heart and mind. "Here was Baptist stock, root and branch, fiber and tissue, seed and fruit,"2 and here it has been transmitted ever since.
Elder Francis remained pastor of the church, preaching in the old North Woods school-house, for seven years and three months, and died in office, September 28, 1813. During his ministry, harmony prevailed, twenty-one members were added by baptism, and one by letter ; three were excluded, and one died, leaving a membership of sixty-nine. In 1807, the Shaftsbury Association welcomed the Pittsfield church back to its fold, and, in the announcement of its pastor's death to the meeting of 1814, placed upon its record the following honorable memorial : " We announce the death of the truly pious pastor of the Baptist church in Pittsfield, Elder John Francis. His highest encomiums are an ardent thirst for the welfare of souls, a pious grief for all sin, and an unblemished character."3 The Sun in announcing his death, said :
For a number of years he has been the worthy and highly esteemed pastor of the Baptist Church in Pittsfield, and was a zealous and faith - ful preacher of the gospel of salvation, uniting in his Christian char- acter, the strength of divine grace with the beauty of spiritual pro- portions.
Called suddenly to lay down his armor, he calmly bade adieu to the scenes of carth, trusting to that salvation he had preached to others. When asked, a few moments before he expired, what message he would leave behind, he replied, " Remember the words which I have spoken to you while I was yet with you."
Of the introduction of the Methodist church into Pittsfield, we have already given some account,4 but something more of
1In the records, John Francis is mentioned as three years on the school committee and holding other town-offices. Josiah, Jr., was also several years on this committee ; was selectman in 1817, and held other offices in town.
2Centennial sermon at the dedication of the remodeled church, April 6, 1873, by the pastor, Rev. C. H. Spalding.
3Rev. Mr. Spalding's sermon.
4 Vol. I., pages 455-6.
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detail is due to the results which have followed the labors of the early apostles of that faith in this vicinity.1
In forming the Pittsfield circuit, which then included a large extent of territory, Rev. Lemuel Smith preached the first Metho- dist sermon in the town, at the house of Zebulon Herrick in the East Part. This was probably in the year 1789,2 and the appoint- ment was continued at that house until the ensuing fall, when it was transferred to Nathan Webb's, about two miles distant, in Dalton. Here it was continued for several years, after which it was again changed to the school-house, near William Z. Herrick's, in Pittsfield, near the Dalton border. Soon after the first sermon, a class was formed with the following members : Thomas Hub- bard, Enoch Hubbard, Zadock Hubbard, Joshua Luce, Ira Gaylord, Henry Durkee, Edward Roberts, senior, Oliver Allen, Nathan Webb, senior, Nathaniel Kellogg, senior, Joshua Arnold, Solomon Clark.
Shortly after his first sermon at Mr. Herrick's house, Rev. Mr. Smith preached at the residence of Col. Oliver Root in the West Part, and made some converts. In the winter following, Rev. Robert Green, being detained by a storm at the house of Captain Joel Stevens, on West street, close under the Taconic mountains, made so good use of the tempestuous hours, in preaching, that a number of converts 3 were made and a class organized with the following members : Josiah Wright, Mr. [probably Joel] Stevens, Joshua Whitney, John Francis, David Ashley, Selah Andrews.
The meetings were held for a while at Capt. Stevens's house, then at the school-house, and finally at the meeting-house, which was erected on West street about the year 1800, and continued to be the principal place of worship for the Methodist society until 1827.4
"In 1801, Pittsfield was made the head of a district, embrac- ing all the territory which lies from Connecticut on the south, to the Canada line on the north, and from the Green to the Adiron- dack mountains east and west; or including what are now known
1Rev. Dr. Carhart, pastor of the church in 1864, prepared a brief sketch of its history from which we gather many of the facts here stated.
2Dr. Carhart thinks 1790-91.
3Bishop Asbury mentions in 1792, " a melting time among the people of Pittsfield, where the Lord was at work."
Dr. Carhart's History.
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as the Cambridge, Burlington, Plattsburg, St. Albans, and part of the Troy districts of the Vermont and Troy conferences, besides portions of territory now within the bounds of the New York and New England conferences.21
In the year 1804, the following persons, with such as might be associated with them, were incorporated as the Methodist Religious Society of Pittsfield, Hancock, Dalton and Washington :
Gideon Allen, Loyal W. Allen, David Ashley, Allen Barnes, Solo- mon Clark, John Clark, Seth Coe, John Dighton, Oliver Fuller, Ira Gaylord, Robert Green, Leonard Goff, Enoch Hubbard, Zadock Hub- bard, Thomas Hubbard, Malcolm Henry, Nathaniel Kellogg, Jr., Joshua Luce, Richard Osborn, William Pomeroy, William Roberts, Jr., Aaron Roberts, Aaron Root, Amasa Smith, Samuel Stanton, Eliphalet Stevens, Jonathan Stowe, Lebbeus Webb, Nathan Webb, Jr., John Ward, Joshua Whitney, Joseph Ward, Josiah Wright.
Many of the corporators named, we recognize as residents of Pittsfield, and a majority of them were undoubtedly so; but we are unable to point them out. The descendants of some of them still hold a place in the church.
Eli Root, Esq., was designated as the magistrate to issue the warrant for the first meeting of the corporators, but he dying before he had performed that duty,2 the organization was delayed until the next year, when a supplementary act was passed, author- izing the warrant to be issued by Joshua Danforth, Esq., or any other justice in the county.
In 1807, an important addition to the act of incorporation was passed, providing that
Any person belonging to either of the towns of Pittsfield, Dalton, Washington or Hancock, who may hereafter desire to join said Meth- odist society of Pittsfield, and shall declare such as his or her inten- tion in writing and deliver the same to the clerk of the town, and a copy of the same to the minister of the parish in which he or she may reside, on or before the first day of March in the year when such appli- cation shall be made, and at the same time produce a certificate of their being united with, or having become a member of, said society, signed by the minister or clerk, and two of the committee of the said
1Origin and Progress of Methodism in North Adams, by Rev. T. A. Griffin.
2Died, October 28, 1804, Eli Root, Esq., aged 74, for 50 years a resident of this town. Mortuary Record, First Church.
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Methodist society, such persons shall from and after the date of such declaration, with his or her polls and estate, be considered a member of said society. Provided, however, that such persons shall be holden to pay his or her proportion of all moneys [already] legally assessed in said parish to which such person formerly belonged.
Another section of the act required a similar course to be taken by those desirous of relinquishing their connection with the Methodist society.
This addition to its charter went far towards placing the Meth- odist society upon an equality with the "standing-order," and relieving its members from the vexatious yearly renewal of cer- tificates; giving it a decided advantage over the Baptists, who were unincorporated.1 .
In 1806, a general and interesting revival of religion began under Methodist auspices, and extended throughout the town.
In 1810, the annual New York Methodist conference held its session with the church in Pittsfield.
In 1812, a schism occurred which somewhat retarded the prog- ress of the society; about thirty of its members, at the West Part-a portion of the town, whose inhabitants were always much given to independent thought and action-seceding, and styling themselves " Reformed Methodists." In what their tenets dif- fered from the church from which they separated, does not appear ; but the "folly and wickedness," of which they are accused, seem to have consisted of disregard of the constituted ecclesiastical authorities of their sect. Rev. Mr. Hibbard, who was stationed on this circuit in 1813, says that public opinion was in their favor, fearing that they had been unjustly treated, and were a persecuted people. Upon Mr. Hibbard's arrival in Pittsfield, they sent a committee to him, requesting to be formed into a class according to the Methodist discipline; to which he con- sented on condition that they should conform to that discipline
1In 1795, Valentine Rathbun, Daniel Rathbun, John Remington, Jonathan Kingsley, and John Bryant, were incorporated as the Baptist Religious Society of Pittsfield with the rights and immunities usually enjoyed by dissenting par- ishes ; but the society died with Mr. Rathbun's church ; and for the reasons specified by Dr. Porter, no parish was incorporated in connection with that formed in 1800. Nor to this day is there any parochial organization distinct from the church, which was in 1849 incorporated with parochial powers, hav- ing previous to that year, held its property through trustees.
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and receive him as their minister. This they did, and appear to liave conducted themselves blamelessly through the usual proba- tion of six months. But when, at the expiration of that term, they expected to be fully re-instated, Mr. Hibbard told them that although their motives in withdrawing from the church were, as he believed, pure, yet he considered the act wrong, and that their error had arisen from a mistaken notion of conducting class-mnat- ters. He therefore required of them a confession of their error in this respect. To this four or five assented; the others with- drew in displeasure. Mr. Hibbard gives the following account of the end of the schism :
I found they would neither receive me nor the discipline to govern them, unless we would govern according to their opinions. But my sufferings and labors with them were so well understood, that it changed public opinion, and their congregation left them; this vexed them, and they accused me heavily. They said, " You meant to break us up." I said, " Yes, that is true, and I am only sorry that I did not succeed in making you good Methodists."
These schismatics formed a coalition with others, on different cir- euits, and made zealous struggles to establish themselves as a church, under the name of " Reformed Methodists." But Wisdom was not "jus- tified of her children " among them; therefore they have not prospered. Confusion was in their counsels, and in many places they dwindled away. Professing themselves to be spiritually wise, when they were not, they became bold in their boisterous preaching, and, having the name of Methodists, they were in good repute for a while. But some have since joined the Shakers, and some the Christians, so that their number is now (1826) small.' 1
These schismatics, who have long ago passed away, and left no defenders, should not be judged too harshly. The solitude of farm-life in our retired highland valley, palisaded by great hills, favored much erratic religious and theological thought. In the loneness of his forest-hemmed fields, nature, life, few but deeply- conned books, and the Sabbath sermon pondered through the week, propounded to the farmer awful questions, for which no wide read- ing had furnished him either an answer, or an excuse for setting them aside as beyond answer. A resolute and inquiring mind, with a deep sense of personal responsibility for error, forbade him to avoid or to meet these questions lightly. Had he attempted
1 Hibbard's Memoirs, page 321.
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to shun them, they would only the more persistently have haunted him. He met them, therefore, manfully, and the result was, doubtless, in a great majority of instances, a deep and abid- ing conviction of religious truth. But often, instead, there came of his meditations, fanaticism on the one hand, deism on the other; or, perhaps more frequently than either, a personal creed more or less approximating to those of the neighboring sects, but doing away, either by explanation, modification or absolute denial, with some of the points which interposed stumbling-blocks in the path of his faith. Every town had marked men of this class, who, by earnest and prolonged thought, however little guided by learning, had wrought out for themselves a philosophy of religion, in various degrees divergent from the orthodox beliefs of the day ; some making but a slight reservation, at which the conservators of the church might wink, in their assent to the Articles of Faith; others maintaining heresies so rank that they were deemed infidels.
Fanaticism rarely manifested itself - unless some extreme opinions among the Methodists could be so considered-in regard to either public or private morals ; but generally in pushing dis- proportionately and to undue limits, points in ordinarily-accepted doctrinal theology, or by the perversion of obscure but startling passages of Scripture, which had been morbidly pondered. Thus, much brooding over St. Paul's admission of the possibility of an unpardonable sin, haunted more than one unhappy religionist to madness: a fact which has furnished a theme to the greatest American author who has presented truth under the guise of fic- tion.
A favorite subject for these lonely thinkers among the hills was found in the mystical prophesies of Daniel and St. John regarding the latter days of this earth ; and some of them deemed that they had solved the inspired mysteries. 1
1 William Miller, known as the Second Advent Prophet, but only profes- sing to be a divinely-commissioned interpreter of prophecy, may be consid- ered as one and the most noted of this class-and the only one who, so far as we know, fixed upon and believed himself to be commanded by God to proclaim a certain year as that in which the Fitth Monarchy would commence. For, although he removed from Pittsfield almost in infancy, his father's family had long been residents of the town, and, in his new home, he was surrounded, among similar scenes, with the same influences which prevailed in the old.
William Miller was born February 15, 1782, at a farm-house which stood on
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Occasionally a few persons in Pittsfield, and perhaps some of the neighboring towns, uniting upon an erratic creed, formed a little schismatic sect, of which, if the representations which have come down to us are correct, the Reformed Methodist was one. But, generally even sooner than in their case, the majority returned to the communion which they had left, while the remainder, for the most part, gravitated to the Shakers; whose boast, indeed, it was that, in the bosom of their peaceful church, all troubled spirits found rest; a boast which, after the first few years of their establishment in Berkshire and Columbia counties, had at least the semblance of truth.
If deism, less frequently than other forms of error, resulted from morbid religious studies and meditations, it had, from other causes, become in the mass of community more prevalent than any other. Rev. Mr. Hibbard, writing of his experience on the Pittsfield and Litchfield circuits in 1797-99, says : " I was kindly received by many; but deism was prevailing. Mr. Thomas
the south side of West street, about one mile from the park. In 1786, his parents migrated to Low Hampton, Washington county, New York, where he remained until he was twenty-two years old, when he removed to Poultney, Vt. He was a captain in the war of 1812, and was engaged in the battle of Plattsburg, conducting himself with credit. From his youth he was a devoted student of the Bible, and early became convinced that the second coming of the Redeemer would take place in the year 1843. In 1833, he believed that he received a command from Heaven to go out and proclaim the approaching end of time, that all men might be prepared to meet their Judge. After the mental struggle and pleading with the Lord usual in such cases, he yielded to the impulse-divine or otherwise-and, for ten years, with voice and pen, taught men that the second advent of the Saviour would be witnessed in the year named. And so evident was his sincerity, and so plausible were his arguments -- aided by the excitement that such an announcement would create in a certain class of minds -- that a great multi- tude, said to number fifty thousand souls, embraced his doctrine, and, after their fashion, prepared to ascend with their Redeemer and King. And, although the passing of the year 1843 disproved his predictions, and the great mass of his followers left him, yet in the following y - he published an " Apology," acknowledging, of necessity, an error in his omputation, but maintaining that it could be only slight, and that all the signs continued to proclaim the end nigh at hand. In this faith, having returned to the home of his youth at Low Hampton, he died in 1849. A remnant of his disciples still believe in his modified prediction, but year by year, diminish in num- bers. All who knew him, agree in pronouncing him a sincere and truthful man, of the utmost purity of character, and earnest in his love for his fellow- men.
19
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Paine's ' Age of Reason' was highly thought of by many who knew neither what the age they lived in, or reason, was." But not only were Paine's theological works "highly thought of" by many persons of superficial thought and attainments-to many of whom they had been introduced by sympathy with his politi- cal utterances-but the more learned and subtle reasoning, and the keener and more polished wit, of Voltaire found a favorite place in the libraries of cultivated and able men. The influences which, extending from Paris, Berlin and Ferney, infected the whole civilized world, did not leave remote Berkshire untouched. Many openly denied the truth of the Christian religion; many more secretly doubted, or disbelieved. Even hatred of France could not protect all the federalists from the power of the great French philosopher ; and men who would have scorned to yield to the vulgar missiles of Thomas Paine, were almost proud to fall before the knightly lance of Arouet Voltaire. It was the fashion of the day.
Against this fashionable deism, and every other form of infi- delity, the Methodist church set itself to war; and not only against these. It was emphatically a church militant. It boldly attacked the theological tenets to which other religious denomi- nations clung most tenaciously. It denounced as sinful many of the pleasures in which, not only the world at large, but most " professed Christians," delighted to indulge. And, in return, it found itself and its doctrines bitterly assailed on every side. As men at that period were intensely partisan in their politics, so they were intensely sectarian in religion. Each sect held most obstinately, and made most pronounced, those tenets which were most peculiar to itself. That is, it concentrated its attention, as it did its defenses, at the points most likely to be assailed. The Baptists being of the Calvinistic branch of their denomination, and adhering to the Congregational church-polity, differed little from the " standing-order," except in requiring baptism by immer- sion as essential to true membership in the Church of Christ, and in denying that ordinance altogether, to infants. But in these points there was matter enough for sharp theological controversy. Their oppugnation to the prevailing creed was, however, of little moment compared with the attacks made upon it by the Methodists, who acknowledged a hierarchy of bishops, presid- ing elders, priests and deacons; who boldly denied the doctrine
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of election and reprobation ; averred the possibility of a "fall from grace ; " and in other particulars impugned the traditional the- ology of New England as unscriptural. Little advance had then anywhere been made towards genuine toleration of opinion upon points like these ; and with a very large class errors of belief concerning them were considered as fatal to the holder's hopes of Heaven ; while many of those who did not deny that those who taught them sincerely, might be saved, yet deemed their offense a very serious one, and dangerous to the souls of others. The result was, on both sides, an immense amount of polemical, doc- trinal, preaching and writing, for the public ; of angry controversy and uncharitable judgment in private life. And in this storm the Methodists were, as far as numbers and social position was concerned, the weaker party.
But, not content with assailing the favorite theological tenets of the Calvinistic churches, the Methodists entered upon a cru- sade against the most cherished pleasures of the world. However pertinaciously the Congregational church clung to the doctrinal teachings of the Puritans, its discipline as to social pleasures had, whether for good or evil, become greatly relaxed. Saving a little ascetic observation of the Sabbath, and a few like points, it was, in Berkshire, hardly less tolerant of the genial pleasures of life, than was the English Church. This, the Methodists attrib- uted to the prominence generally given to the notion that good works-if not absolutely, as held by some, a hindrance-were not essential to salvation. It was perhaps in quite as great a meas- ure, due to the liberalizing influence of increasing wealth and culture, and to the position of the Congregational, as a quasi state church. But, whatever may have been the cause, the old Puri- tanic view of the wassail and the dance, as exceedingly sinful, had almost entirely disappeared. Never was there a people more given to, or more unrebuked in, those pleasures, than those of Pitts- field and Berkshire in the earlier part of the nineteenth century ; with few exceptions, and those chiefly from Methodist influence. The numerous taverns were haunted by revelers of all grades ; and the social glass, with its associated merriment, was found every-where from the bar-room to the clergyman's sideboard. Festal suppers were frequent : clubs, like the Woronoko, held them at regular intervals at the houses of their members ; all public festivals were celebrated by them, or by dinners; they
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followed the squirrel-hunt, the military election or whatever else afforded an excuse for the jovial spirit of the day. But dancing was the passion of the young, and, while certain tavern-revelries of the coarser sort, were frowned upon by staid elders, the " civil dance" was approved, or at least not greatly discoun- tenanced. Clergymen sometimes defended it as innocent, or at least but a venial transgression, although some lingering trace of older opinions was found in the idea that dancing was not to be indulged in while they were present. But, with this excep- tion, the practice was as universal and as passionately followed as among any European peasantry. In all respects, the people of Berkshire were a genial, pleasure-loving race ; often, indeed, it must be confessed, pursuing it too grossly and to too great extremes.
Against all this-including gaming, light conversation, jesting, and of course profanity-the Methodists waged uncompromis- ing warfare ; some of the more zealous, indeed, occasionally push- ing their opposition to what, in a less primitive state of society would have been deemed impertinent. It may be imagined that while in this conflict they won some friends and converts, and in time largely influenced public opinion and manners, they roused against themselves a hostility which manifested itself in divers ways, and in various degrees. But this, as well as the opposition which they encountered from other denominations, they counted only the persecution which crowned their faith. Nothing of the kind, however, seems to have manifested itself until some years after the first introduction of the Wesleyan Church into Pitts- field ; and it could never have been very general. The Metho- dist preachers first held forth in the houses of Congregational church-members, who hospitably entertained them, and took great pains to gather the people to hear their exhortations ; and this was often the case through all the earlier years of the nineteenth century. Nay, even deistical tavern-keepers invited them to exhort in their dancing-halls. And, in return, the preachers, at least in the earliest years, generally left their converts, uninflu- enced, to unite with the churches to which they were attracted by circumstances ; often the Baptist or Congregational. The cour- tesies of the deists, of course, could not be returned in that way.
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