USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916 > Part 14
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Rev. Edward O. Bartlett, who had acted as Dr. Todd's suc- cessor after the veteran parson's retirement, was installed pastor of the First Church in 1873. It is probable that the church was not quite ready to commit definitely Dr. Todd's pulpit to an- other. Mr. Bartlett resigned his pastorate in 1876. After an interval of more than a year, the church and parish were at length able to make a final decision, and on July fifth, 1877, Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins was installed in the pastorate. The choice was auspicious for both parish and town. Under the guidance of Dr. Jenkins, the affairs of the church flowed smoothly in their accustomed channels for fifteen years. He resigned his direction of them in 1892, and accepted a call which he received from the State Street Congregational Church in Portland, Maine, his native city.
Dr. Jonathan L. Jenkins was born in Portland, November twenty-third, 1830, and was graduated from Yale College in 1851. He studied theology at Yale and at Andover; and before coming
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to Pittsfield he had served in successive pastorates at Lowell, Hartford, and Amherst, having presided over the Congregational church in Amherst for ten years. He thus assumed his ministry at Pittsfield in the full maturity of intellectual powers that had been sharpened by exercise in the cultivated and critical society of a New England college town. A man of distinguished aspect and uncommon personal charm, a preacher who imparted spirit- uality with pungent eloquence, a progressive and open-minded scholar, Dr. Jenkins was well-equipped to maintain the tradi- tional dignity and influence of Pittsfield's oldest pulpit.
Dr. Jenkins identified himself as well with secular agencies for good. The cause of popular education found him a convinc- ing advocate. The beginnings of the Union for Home Work were inspired largely by him. His graceful presence and graceful speech were favorite features of public ceremonies and celebra- tions; on occasions less formal and more intimate, his talk was witty, amiable, and suggestive; and he had a genius for the con- cise and sympathetic phrase, whether spoken or written. His citizenship was a stimulation to many of the higher and uplifting interests of the town.
After leaving Pittsfield in 1892, Dr. Jenkins remained as minister of the State Street Church in Portland for nearly ten years. He then resigned active pastoral work. The home of his old age was in or near Boston, whence he came not infre- quently to Pittsfield, and gratified by so doing a wide circle of devoted friends. While making one of these visits, he fell ill; and he died in Pittsfield, August fifteenth, 1913, in the eighty- second year of his age.
The observance of the 125th anniversary of the First Church occurred during the ministry of Dr. Jenkins. The commemo- rative exercises were held on February seventh, 1889. The pastor delivered an impressive anniversary address, which the committee's report of the proceedings rightfully characterizes as the "work of a man who dearly loved his theme and spared no pains to do it justice". Members of church and parish read papers of historical interest, and reminiscent and congratulatory remarks were made by invited guests. In the chapel was ex- hibited a large collection of portraits of men and women who
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had been members of the church in the past, or who had worship- ed with it in its various meeting-houses. The purpose of the celebration was declared by its organizers to be threefold-to do honor to the memory of the fathers, to bring into closer relation- ship those who had succeeded or were descended from them, and to obtain and preserve memorials of the church's history, whether of record or derived from tradition. So far as the object last named is concerned, this purpose was visibly fulfilled, for the little volume published by the anniversary committee must al- ways be invaluable to the local antiquarian.
The resignation of Dr. Jenkins, which was accepted by the church, but not at once by the parish, was finally approved by an ecclesiastical council held on July twenty-fifth, 1892, pursuant to letters missive sent out by the First Church. The pastorate was then vacant for more than a year. On September fourth, 1893, the joint committee of church and parish received the ac- ceptance to a call sent to Rev. William Vail Wilson Davis. His period of service in Pittsfield continued for seventeen years.
Dr. Davis was a native of the town of Wilson, New York, where he was born February seventeenth, 1851. He was in 1873 graduated from Amherst College, and in 1877 from the Andover Theological Seminary. Before coming to Pittsfield, he had been installed pastor over Congregational churches in Manches- ter, New Hampshire, in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Worcester, Massachusetts. Lacking that sort of personal magnetism which is quickly and generally operative, he nevertheless possesscd the power of attracting and leading young people; and an early effect of his work in Pittsfield was the invigoration of the church by the youthful enthusiasm of new members. Intellectually, he had not many peers among the clergymen of the Commonwealth. "Many of his sermons", said a speaker at the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the church in 1914, "were built about a skeleton of philosophy, and full of philosophic phrases and ideas difficult for a lay mind to grasp, but no sermon ever here fell from his lips, which, understood, failed to uplift, encourage, lead on to God, and the coming of His kingdom here on earth". His fellow workers in Berkshire, and especially the poorly paid ministers of lonely country villages, found that his charity was not merely the impractical help of a man of books.
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He soon conceived a strong and beneficent affection for Pittsfield. Few men ever delighted so zestfully in the charm of Berkshire's hills and valleys. His end was tragic. In the beautiful gorge of Bash-Bish, near Great Barrington, he fell on the rocky slope, and was instantly killed. The date of his death was August twenty-fifth, 1910.
Rev. Dwight F. Mowrey was ordained assistant pastor in the following November; Dr. Davis's place, however, remained formally unfilled until June twenty-seventh, 1912, when Rev. James E. Gregg, the present pastor, was installed. Mr. Gregg had come to Pittsfield in 1903, to preside over the Pilgrim Me- morial Church on Wahconah Street.
The appearance of the interior of the edifice of the First Congregational Church was radically altered in 1882, when the walls were covered with a metallic leaf, much of the woodwork darkened, and a large memorial window, designed by Louis C. Tiffany and given in memory of Jonathan Allen and Eunice Williams, his wife, was set over the south gallery. In 1912 interior changes were again made, which involved the substitu- tion of a new organ for the old, and the provision of a memorial pulpit in remembrance of John Todd. The lecture room to the north of the church, having been substantially enlarged so as to satisfy the requirements of a modern parish house, was rededi- cated in 1894. The authorities of the parish, in 1911, parted with their real estate holdings on South Street, including the historic parsonage made famous as the residence of Dr. Todd.
The church in 1914 fittingly celebrated its 150th anniversary. The occasion, like the anniversary in 1889, was preservative of past tradition, but was in character no less a stimulus to future growth of usefulness. It is to be noted of the church that, while clinging faithfully to many ancient customs, it has been so pro- gressive, for example, as to be one of the earliest Protestant churches in New England to support, on its own individual ac- count, a home missionary in a western state. This was under- taken in 1907. A foreign missionary in Japan had for several years been sustained by the church. The Free Will Society of women, formed for the purpose of aiding home missionaries, has been in continuous and active service among the members of the
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First Church since 1820; the unique custom of inviting the peo- ple of Pittsfield to unite in holding a sunrise prayer meeting on New Year's day has been regularly observed by the church since 1816.
The dawn of the year 1876 witnessed the beginning of the seventh pastorate at the South Congregational Church. This was the ministry there of Rev. William Carruthers. It closed in 1877; and until 1885 the church had no settled pastor. The period for the church was one shadowed by adversity, testing the loyalty and courage of its leading members, but at the same time instilling that co-operative energy which later achieved gratify- ing results. The period was brightened, too, by the spirit of each of the two ministers who, although not formally installed pastors of the church, supplied its pulpit.
From November, 1877, to April, 1879, this duty was per- formed by Rev. Charles B. Boynton. He had been, twenty years previously, the second pastor of the church. His return, although only for a few months, was particularly welcome and fortunate. Associated with the youthful days of the church, he was peculiarly fitted to revive its strength. Dr. Boynton suc- cessfully endeavored to remove indebtedness which had been in- curred in 1873, when extensive alterations were made in the audience room. This he accomplished in 1878, albeit in the stress of hard times; and the accomplishment under these cir- cumstances re-established the confidence of his people. Rev. C. H. Hamlin, a clergyman of marked power and attraction, supplied the pulpit from 1879 to 1885. The period is remember- ed as one wherein the churches of Pittsfield possessed preachers of exceptionally fine quality. Among them Mr. Hamlin was conspicuous. The South Church was now turning the corner from its shadowy lane of discouragement, and was ready for the inspiration of a settled leadership.
In January, 1885, Rev. I. Chipman Smart was installed eighth pastor of the church. He was by no means a stranger to Pittsfield, having served, before studying for the ministry, as editor of the Evening Journal. His memorable pastorate, which covered a score of years, is the longest recorded in the history of the church. The renewal of vigor and activity was maintained
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with constancy under his forward-looking and zealous direction, and the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the church, in 1900, found it progressing happily in strength and influence. Mr. Smart's rare talent for the incisive, racy expression of his thoughts, whether by tongue or pen, often affected the intellec- tual life of the community, like a tonic. He withdrew from the South Congregational Church in 1905, and was followed in its pulpit by Rev. C. Austin Wagner, who resigned it in 1908, to be succeeded in 1909 by Rev. Payson E. Pierce, the present pastor.
The tall white steeple of the South Church used to be the most conspicuous landmark in the central village. On January twenty-sixth, 1882, it was blown down by a westerly gale, as its predecessor had been in 1859. The steeple was not again re- stored, but the present belfry replaced it. In 1884 improve- ments were made in the lecture room, and a parsonage was pur- chased. The audience room was completely remodeled and re- decorated in 1892; the alterations involved the removal of the quaint pew doors, and the disappearance of the last of such doors in Pittsfield.
Over the Second Congregational Church, Rev. Samuel Har- rison presided faithfully from the time of his return to Pittsfield in 1872, until the date of his death, August eleventh, 1900. He was born of slave parentage in 1818, and was in 1850 ordained minister of the Second Congregational Church. His first pas- torate there was one of twelve years. During the Civil War, he served as a chaplain in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment, led by the heroic Col. Robert B. Shaw. Mr. Harrison, a simple, God-fearing man, so bore himself as to command the hearty re- spect of the town; he was "gifted in prayer," and his sonorous voice was well-known at public and religious meetings. Like his long life, his pastoral labor in Pittsfield was a patient, humble struggle against adversity, but his character won for him helpful friends. A memorial tablet in his honor was presented by some of them to the Second Congregational Church after his death. His successor and the present minister, Dr. T. Nelson Baker, preached his first Pittsfield sermon in August, 1901. The sixtieth anniversary of the organization of the church was suit- ably observed in 1906.
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An informal outgrowth of the First Church was the Peek and Russell Sunday School, opened in 1863 in a schoolhouse on Peck's Road. Its superintendents, between 1863 and 1895, were Jabez L. Peek, Zeno Russell and I. F. Chesley; it was maintained with enthusiasm; and from it came a movement toward the establish- ment of a Congregational church in the northwestern section of the city. A preliminary meeting having been held on March eighth, 1897, in the Sunday School rooms, the declaration of faith of the new Pilgrim Memorial Church received seventy-nine sig- natures on the fourteenth of the same month, and Rev. Raymond Calkins was called to the pastorate.
The founding of the church was with spirited generosity as- sisted, both financially and by personal counsel, by the manu- facturers whose mills were in the neighborhood; nor did the First Church fail in practical support of the undertaking. The new Congregational parish had, as its original trustees, Solomon N. Russell, Thomas D. Peck, and L. G. Goodrich, and the parish was characterized by a certain close community feeling, which was a legacy, perhaps, from the days when Pittsfield's factory villages were less accessible and more sharply separated. On July thirty-first, 1897, the corner stone was laid of the graceful gray stone edifice on the west side of Wahconah Street. The architect was H. Neill Wilson of Pittsfield. The building was dedicated on January fourteenth, 1898, and on the same day the Pilgrim Memorial Church was received into the conference of Berkshire Congregational churches. Rev. James E. Gregg, following Mr. Calkins, was installed pastor in 1903; and Mr. Gregg was succeeded in 1909 by the minister who now serves the church, Rev. Warren S. Archibald.
It will have been remembered that the construction of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church was commenced in 1864. The stately ceremony of its consecration, celebrated in 1889, marked the culminating point of a quarter-century of devoted endeavor on the part of priest and parish; and with truth can it be said that the edifice of St. Joseph's is a monument to the life- work of one man.
Rev. Edward H. Purcell was born in Donoughmore, Ireland, July fifteenth, 1827, and educated in his native land for the
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priesthood. Having been ordained in May, 1853, he took ship for Boston, where he arrived in July, 1853, and immediately came to Pittsfield. In the following year, 1854, he succeeded Father Cuddihy, whose assistant he had been theretofore, as pastor of St. Joseph's; and in that office he remained until his death in Pittsfield, November ninth, 1891. His pastorate at St. Joseph's covered a period of thirty-seven years. Merely to re- cord its duration, however, is by no means to express adequately its value to Catholicism in Pittsfield or in Berkshire County. While Father Purcell was not, in a strict sense, one of the pioneers of his faith in Western Massachusetts, he was familiar, personally and at first-hand, with all of its loyal and arduous early efforts to plant permanent establishments for the service of its people in this part of the state. He inherited from those times that simple courage and that infinite patience which finally overcome great obstacles, and to his parishioners he imparted the same plain virtues. An example of this was the manner in which the members of the parish, under his guidance, freed their church edifice from its heavy construction debt. They were not wealthy. Often the task seemed hopeless. For twenty-five years they applied themselves to it. At length the duty was accomplished, St. Joseph's received its consecration, and, as if thereby his earthly mission was concluded, their beloved priest two years later passed to his reward.
Father Purcell, as the general community knew him, was a neighborly, humorsome, easy-tempered and easy-going man, suggesting the lovable "P.P." of Irish story. He was so long and so beneficently concerned in Pittsfield life that frequent and unmistakable evidence was given of the high esteem in which he was held by the whole town. By his own people he was tenderly revered, for he had journeyed with them from youth to maturity; he had shared, for nearly forty years, their joys, their aspirations, and their sorrows; he had seen their number and their influence grow steadily, and their place of worship change from a rural chapel to a noble city church; and he had always upheld before them a pattern of kindly, guilelesss manhood.
An enumeration shall not here be attempted of the many valuable assistants who have served under the parish priests at
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St. Joseph's. One of them, however, compels notice. Rev. R. S. J. Burke was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1855, and died at West Springfield, in 1904. Although he was curate under Father Purcell for only a few years, he left a memorable imprint upon the church and upon the town. Father Burke, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, was an orator of im- passioned eloquence, and often returned to Pittsfield, after he ceased to be a resident in 1882, to teach vigorous lessons in re- ligion and in patriotism.
The successor of Father Purcell was the Rev. Terence M. Smith, who was born in Ireland in 1849, was ordained to the priesthood at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1875, and served pastorates at Palmer, North Adams, Greenfield, and Lee, before coming to St. Joseph's. He died at Pittsfield on March tenth, 1900. The period spanned by his pastorate was notable for a striking expansion of the parochial interests under his charge. Father Purcell had purchased land immediately south of the church, and in 1896 Father Smith began the erection thereon of an academy and a convent home for the Sisters of St. Joseph. The building was first occupied by the Sisters in 1897. At that time it was the only Catholic academy in the diocese wherc in- struction was given in the more advanced branches of learning. After two years, the purpose of the seminary was altered, and the curriculum was changed to that of a parochial high school. In 1897, Father Smith acquired land on First Street in the rear of the convent, built there a school building, and opened, in 1899, St. Joseph's parochial school. The anxious and thoughtful labor involved in supervising the establishment of these institu- tions was not the only unusual burden shouldered by Father Smith. In 1893, it had become evident to the diocesan authori- ties that the number of worshipers at St. Joseph's had far out- grown the capacity of a single church, and that the parish must be divided. The result of this decision was St. Charles Church, of which mention is later to be made; but here it is to be observed that the division of a parish, especially of one so endeared to its older members as was St. Joseph's, is a process of peculiar trial for pastor and for people, and that Father Smith sustained his share of it with sympathetic discretion.
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Rev. James Boyle followed him in the pastorate of St. Joseph's in 1900. Impressive as had been the advance of Catho- licism in Pittsfield during the pastorate of Father Smith, its forwardness was no less marked under the ministration of his successor. In 1913, St. Joseph's parish again was necessarily divided, and the parish of St. Mark's was established in the western part of the city, with a chapel on Onota Street which was opened in May of that year. In the preceding March, announce- ment had been made of the purchase of land at the corner of Tyler and Plunkett Streets for the use of a future Catholic parish in the northeast section. Meanwhile, the congregations at St. Joseph's taxed and overtaxed the capacity of the church.
Father Boyle was a native of Birkenhead, England, where he was born August fifteenth, 1845. When he was a child, his parents came to the United States. His early youth was one of spirited adventure. At the age of sixteen he enlisted for the Civil War in the Thirty-seventh regiment of New York volun- teers, presenting himself to the officers in the disguise of a drum- mer boy. He forthwith carried a rifle, however, instead of a drum, and on the field of Fredericksburg he was promoted to the rank of sergeant. This was when he was seventeen; a year later he was a lieutenant. After the war, he obtained work in the treasury and post-office departments, and at the cost of much self-sacrifice educated himself for the priesthood. He was graduated from the Catholic seminary at Montreal, and in 1875 at Springfield was ordained. In 1900 he came to Pittsfield from Ware, Massachusetts, and in Pittsfield he died, June eleventh, 1913.
Strength of spirit and strength of intellect were his in no ordi- nary combination, for they were welded by the sympathy of a man who knew mankind and to whom mankind was readily drawn. The furnace of war and privation had sternly forged his character; a gentle humanity inspired it. He was handsome and distinguished in face and figure, and in manner courteous and approachable. An omniverous reader of good books, he was the cause of the reading of them by others, and a watchful sup- porter of public education. The broad duties of patriotism had a no more zealous advocate than he in Pittsfield, nor one more zealous to practice what in speech he upheld.
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The present pastor of St. Joseph's, Rev. Bernard S. Conaty, became Father Boyle's successor in 1913.
The interior of the edifice was renovated and greatly beauti- fied immediately prior to the consecration during the pastorate of Father Purcell, and again in 1901, when some added conven- ience in the seating facilities was gaincd by rearrangement. Long before the latter year, however, the number of parishioners of St. Joseph's was obviously too large for the size of the church, and a division of the parish was deemed necessary by the Rt. Rev. Thomas D. Beaven, the bishop of the diocese.
This was effected in 1893, and on the evening of November fifth of that year the members of the new parish were assembled at the Coliseum on North Street. Their pastor, Rev. Charles J. Boylan, was presented to them by Rev. Terence M. Smith, the pastor of St. Joseph's. Father Boylan at this meeting headed the subscription for the building of a new church by a personal contribution of $500, and he announced that he would name the church St. Charles Borromeo, because it was on that saint's day, November fourth, that he had arrived in Pittsfield. He cele- brated the first mass of the new parish in the Coliseum, on No- vember twelfth, 1893, and services were regularly held there for more than a year.
Ground was broken for the edifice of St. Charles in May, 1894. The site selected, on Briggs Avenue, was on a command- ing rise of ground in the northwestern part of the city. The architect was John W. Donahue of Springfield, whose design was a free adaptation of the early English Gothic, executed in brick with marble facings. The corner stone was laid by Bishop Beaven on October seventh, 1894; on the following December ninth mass was first celebrated in the basement of the new building, and there services were conducted, pending the com- pletion of the edifice.
The pastorate of Rev. Charles J. Boylan continued until December, 1897. He was a clergyman well-adapted for the task of establishing a new church, for he possessed tact, mag- netism, and an unfailing sense of duty to his sacred charge. Father Boylan was born in County Cavan, Ireland, in May, 1854, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1878, at Montreal.
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On July twenty-sixth, 1913, he died at Springfield, being then pastor of All Souls Church in that city. Although he labored in Pittsfield for only four years, he impressed his character strongly upon the parish of which the beginnings were confided to his care. Rev. William H. Goggin was Father Boylan's successor at St. Charles, serving from January, 1898, until April, 1902. His pastorate witnessed in March, 1899, the impressive blessing of the bell, a gift from two parishioners; and also the dedication of the church by Bishop Beaven in June, 1901. The next pastor was Rev. C. H. Dolan, who was succeeded in December, 1903, by Rev. William J. Dower; and Father Dower continues to serve the church. The same spirit of earnest effort and self- denial, which characterized the successful endeavors of the parishioners of St. Joseph's to free their church from debt, had a parallel result in the parish of St. Charles; and the newer church, like the older, moved steadily forward in prosperity.
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