USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Westborough > The history of Westborough, Massachusetts. Part I. The early history. By Heman Packard De Forest. Part II. The later history. By Edward Craig Bates > Part 7
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
Forbush, Mary Parkman, Elizabeth Fay, Dorcas Forbush, and Bathsheba Pratt.
A covenant had already been prepared by Mr. Park- man, - probably from the forms arranged by the Rev. Peter Thacher, assistant-pastor of the New North Church in Boston, of which Mr. Parkman was a member. This had at a previous meeting been read, considered, and signed by the candidates for Church membership. It is here given complete, as copied into the Church records in the handwriting of Mr. Parkman: -
WESTBOROUGH CHURCH COVENANT.
The Day being arrived (which before was appointed for ye Gathering a Church and ordaining a Pastor over them), and the Rev! and Beloved Elders and Delegates being formed into an Ecclesiaftical Council, proceeded in very Solemn manner to the said work. The Covenant, which was signed by each of the members, was in this subfequent form : -
WESTB : Octob : 28, 1724.
We (whose names are hereunto Subfcribed, Inhabitants of the Town of Westborough in New England) knowing that we are very prone to offend and provoke the Most High God, both in Heart and Life, thro' the Prevalence of Sin yt dwelleth in us and manifold Temptations from without us, for wch we have great reason to be unfeignedly humbled before Him from Day to Day,
Do, in the name of our Lord Jesus Chrift, with Dependence upon the gracious Affistance of his holy Spirit, solemnly enter into Covenant with God and one wth another, according to God, as followeth : -
I. That having chosen and taken the Lord Jehovah to be our God, we will fear Him, cleave to Him in Love, and serve Him in Truth with all our Hearts, giving up o'felves unto Him to be His People in all things ; to be at his Direction and sovereign Difpofal ; that we may have and hold Communion with him as
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THE FIRST SETTLED MINISTER.
members of Chrift's myftical Body, according to his Revealed will unto our Lives' End.
2. We alfo bind ourselves to bring up our Children and Ser- vants in the Knowledge and Fear of God by holy Inftruction according to our best Ability : and in special by the use of Orthodox Catechisms, that the True Religion may be main- tained in our Families while we live.
3. And we further promise to keep close to the Truth of Chrift, endeavoring, with lively Affection toward it in our hearts, to defend it againft all Oppofers thereof, as God shall call us at any time thereunto. Which that we may do, We Resolve to use the Holy Scriptures as our Platform, whereby we may discern the mind of Christ, and not the New found Inventions of Men.
4. We also engage ourselves to have a careful inspection over our own Hearts : That is, so as to endeavor, by the virtue of the Death of Christ, the Mortification of all our sinful Paffions, Worldly Frames, and Disorderly Affections, whereby we may be withdrawn from the Living God.
5. We moreover oblige ourfelves in the faithful Improve- ment of our Ability and opportunity to worship God according to all the Particular Institutions of Christ in his Church, under Gofpel Adminiftrations ; as, to give Attention unto the Word of God; to pray unto Him; to fing his Praise ; and to hold com- munion each with other in the ufe of both the Seals of the Cove- nant of Christ, namely, Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
6. We do likewise promise that we will peacefully submit unto the Holy Discipline appointed by Christ in his Church for offenders, obeying them that rule over us in the Lord.
7. We also bind ourfelves to walk in love one towards another, endeavoring our mutual Edification ; vifiting, exhorting, comfort- ing, as occasion serveth.
And warning any Brother or Sifter which offendeth, not divulging private offences irregularly, but heedfully following the several Processes laid down by Christ for Church dealing in Matth. 18 : 15, 16, 17 ; willingly forgiving all that manifest to the Judgment of Charity that they truly repent of their Miscarriages.
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
The covenant having been subscribed by the pastor elect and eleven other men, the council, having "got all things in readiness, as they supposed," proceeded in sol- emn state from the parsonage to the meeting-house, to begin the public services of the occasion.
It would be worth something to us to-day if we could restore, even in our mind's eye, a picture of that autumn day and of those grave and reverend men as they walked in stately dignity to the little church. Very picturesque to us would be their antique garb, with small-clothes and shoe-buckles, the clergy in bands and wigs and scholars' gowns. Very oppressive to our lighter spirits would be their severe and unrelaxed faces, their slow and solemn gait, the air of deep awe and heavy responsibility which wrapped them about. But they lived in a stern and unkindly era. Life to them was not luxurious, nor even comfortable. They were wrestling with a wilderness; they lived under a hard and stern conception of God that made life tragic with its weight of accountability, but also made it sturdy and unflinching, in face of dire necessity. They were men of integrity, who adorned their profession of religion. The learning of the ministers was not large, - it could not be broad in the modern sense, but it was careful and ready; their manners were formal, but they were the manners of gentlemen. They were autocrats in the new land by virtue of their commission from Heaven; but they used their great powers in the interests of good order and virtue and the highest welfare of the communities they led.
!
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THE FIRST SETTLED MINISTER.
The dead leaves of late autumn rustled under their feet as they walked. The fields, robbed of their harvests, sloped away to the meadows as they do to-day. The rounded hills lay brown and soft to the southward; far away slumbered Wachusett in unbroken wilderness. The new meeting-house - a plain, square building, towerless, chimneyless, without even a porch to break its lines - stood awaiting them as the earnest of all that was to be in the future that lay dark to them. In the meeting-house were waiting the plain men and women of Westborough in their homespun garb (the men on one side of the aisle, the women on the other), awed in presence of the solemn occasion and the unwonted assemblage of digni- taries. They were unattractive in outward appearance, unless one searched the immobile faces for the lines of character; but they were men and women worthy to lay foundations, because they could lay them on prin- ciples that were deep and enduring, for which they had sacrificed already, and for which they were willing to sac- rifice. Around the outer walls, like sentry-boxes, were the pews of the more wealthy proprietors, and in front the high stairs led to the pulpit, to be filled soon with the " Revd and Beloved Elders," to whom the people gave unmixed reverence.
The public exercises thereupon began. The Rev. Joseph Dorr, of Mendon, made the opening prayer ; the sermon -which, we may be sure, was not lacking in length or solemn formality of style - was by the Rev. John Prentice, of Lancaster. Then came a conse- crating prayer by the Rev. Mr. Williams, of Weston, setting the young minister apart to his sacred office. The Rev. John Prentice then came once more to the front, laying the solemn charge upon the pastor; the
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
Rev. Israel Loring, of Sudbury, gave him the right hand of fellowship, and the graver duties of the day were com- plete. Then the young pastor rose and read a psalm to be sung, and after the singing pronounced the benediction and dismissed the people.
The day which Mr. Parkman had called, two weeks before, "ye awfull Time approaching," was over. Deep thoughts were stirring in his breast that night as the sun went down, as the pages of his Journal attest. It had been the grandest day of his life, and he resolved, with youthful ardor, to bring all other days to its high standard. And again and again, as the years went by, does he refer to it, in solemn language, as the great day of days to him, to whose high promise and anticipation he feels that he has but poorly responded.
The people rested in the satisfaction of a great under- taking accomplished, and a life-alliance, full of promise, consummated. They were now a town in very truth, since they had the institutions of religion. Nor were their congratulations vain. The newly ratified pastorate proved to be one every way honorable and beneficial to the com- munity. For more than half a century from that day, until his slender form grew bent, and his dark locks white, he administered his office in sanctity and honor. And the town grew around him and divided into two, and grew again and changed its centre, and built a new church, and filled it full and enlarged it, and bore its burden of the time, and its share in the Revolutionary War, be- fore his hand grew weary and laid down the pen. But it grew through all those years in the lines of sturdy worth, and laid foundations for our time broad and deep. May it be long before these true and patient men and women are forgotten here where their work was done !
CHAPTER VII.
1724-1730.
RECORDS. - CHURCH AFFAIRS. - SCHOOLS. - EARTH- QUAKE. - GROWTH OF THE TOWN.
T HE years following were uneventful. It is not of the old days of legend and romance that we are study- ing, nor of nations and dynasties, whose brave figures of kings and nobles, with their history of wars and diplo- macies, excite our imagination by taking us into scenes where we are not likely, most of us, ever to go in propria persona ; but we are trying to bring back a little of the light and color of the days of our fathers in a simple New England town before it had been touched with the spirit of the modern time. There is, indeed, very little of the life and warmth of that time left in the musty records and meagre pictures that remain to us now. We are very thankful that these records, quaint and interesting as they are in their form, are so complete and so well preserved. Here, for instance, is this old book of Church records, written in the neat but cramped hand of Ebenezer Parkman, his entries covering the long period from Oct. 28, 1724, to Oct. 27, 1782. It is a small octavo volume, carefully rebound a few years ago by the thoughtful care of Samuel M. Griggs, and good for another hundred and fifty years of reverent handling. There are evidences of great pains on the part of the old minister - who was far from old when he began to keep it - to make it neat, and even
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
ornamental. The heading on the titlepage is in red ink, as bright, apparently, as the day it was written. There is a margin of an inch on every page, leaving but small room for record, but so closely is it written that the printer would have to use small type to put as much on a page of similar size. On the fly-leaf following the titlepage are the following mottoes, a trifle ambitious, perhaps, and high sounding, but natural enough to the eighteenth century youth of twenty-one fresh from classic Harvard and full of the importance of assuming his first parochial charge : -
And Moses wrote their goings out, according to their jour- neys, by the commandment of the Lord, and these are they. - NUMBERS xxiii. 2.
Ubi Tres, Ecclesia est, licet laici.1 - TERTULL., Exhortatione Castitatis.
In church dealing this rule is to be observed, scil.,
" Cuncta prius tentanda : sed immedicabile vulnus ense reci- dendum est, ne pars sincera trahetur." 2
It is a rule, - " Ubi nihil certe statuit Scriptura, mos populi Dei." 3
" Instituta majorum (modo sint secundum Normam Divinam), pro lege tenenda sunt." 4
In the library of the Antiquarian Society at Worcester there is a little pile of manuscript-written in the same minute hand, on the same diminutive page, but always preserving its margin for notes, corrections, and refer-
1 Where there are three, there is a church, even though they are laymen.
2 All things must first be tried ; but an incurable wound must be cut away by the sword, lest the sound part suffer.
8 Where Scripture lays down no fixed rule, the custom of the people is of God.
4 The ordinances of the Elders (provided they are in accordance with the Divine rule) must be held as law.
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RECORDS.
ences, - which constitutes a part of the Diary of Mr. Parkman during a period of fifty years. There were other volumes of the Diary and other manuscripts in possession of a great-grandson of the old minister, Samuel Parkman Jones, of Holliston; but they were burned in a fire which occurred in his house some years ago. There are also, in the Antiquarian rooms, many sermons, in the same fa- miliar style of execution, requiring almost as much effort now to decipher as it originally did to write them.
Of no less interest is the first volume of the Town Records. This contains the records of meetings from the very date of incorporation. The book itself, however, is not quite so old, having been purchased in 1727. The town ordered it to be procured in 1722; but nothing was done in a hurry in those days, and as it took five years to build the little barn of a meeting-house, it took no less to get the book that was to last long after the meeting-house had been forgotten. It was John Fay, the first "town clark," who attended to the business, and was granted, at a town meeting held Feb. 12, 1728, the sum of " 2s. 6d. a day for transcribing the town's acts into this new book." The task was accomplished in four days and a half, and netted him IIs. 3d.
But much as there is of interest in these old documents, it is only after long familiarity with them that we come to feel the breath of the time upon our faces, or to catch a glimpse of the men and women as they were. The men were as yet mostly hard-working farmers, and they had to subdue the untamed fields without the aid of modern tools and machinery. Nor had they any work- men to take the brunt of the labor off their own hands. The boys had to begin early; now and then a less thrifty man "hired out; " here and there one could afford to
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
have a negro slave. But there was little time for idleness, nor was it respectable. The one thing these men had no patience with was a shiftless body who could not be sup- ported without aid from the rest. The women had enough to do with the household and the rearing of the family and the spinning and weaving of the stuff for clothing; for he was a wealthy man who could afford anything other than homespun. There were great heart-burnings at one time owing to the attempt of one of the well-to-do matrons to outdo the minister's wife in the matter of a set of furs; and thereafter the cats of the neighborhood walked cir- cumspectly, lest they should have post-mortem exaltation to the dignity of fur-bearing animals. In winter, when the farms lay idle, there was enough to do to cut and haul the wood for the year, for twenty cords would do little but go roaring up the vast fireplace, and twenty more were needed to do the warming and the cooking en route. The young men and boys, tough, hardy fellows, were fond of sports, as boys are everywhere; but there was little time for them, except by the way, on a public occa- sion, or after a meeting of some sort, when wrestling was the great thing in vogue, and the champion had a certain glory in the talk of the town. In the evenings - which were short, for the early riser must be off to bed with the chickens - there was the mug of cider in the chimney-corner, or the stronger flip; and the toddy-stick was not without its use when the neighbors dropped in, or the minister cast a solemnity on the company with his dignity and his wig and bands and the magisterial authority that kept the young life in repression.
The little church had not as yet more than half an ex- istence. It did not hold its first communion till the 7th of March, 1725, and it had at that time but fourteen mem-
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CHURCH AFFAIRS.
bers, with no woman among them, and no officers but the pastor. The vessels which were used on this occasion must have been from the household store of some one of them, for the first piece of service they owned was a flagon presented the same year to the church by " a friend of its welfare in Boston." It was fifteen years later before they had a baptismal basin, which, when it came, must have been a fixed font; for we read that in 1735, IOS. was given for the purpose, and four years later Ios. more was added, " by the same person, who also bought the basin Dec., 1739, and devised it to ye Church's use," to- gether with " a frame for the basin, with its Shaft and Skrews, &c., price 20s.," which " was given and devoted by ye same."
Another note of the time is seen in a bit of record in the minister's Diary in January, 1726. We have seen how slowly everything was accomplished in the way of public works, whether in the building of the meeting-house, or the purchase of a town-book, or the settling of a minister. The same deliberation infected the habits of the people on Sabbath morning. " I observe," writes the young minis- ter, " a general delinquency in our people in coming to meeting, through which I am obliged to wait near half an hour, or altogether, as it has sometimes proved, before I could begin the exercises of worship." Doubtless there are those who will take malicious comfort in finding such venerable antiquity attaching to this custom; nevertheless it is the historian's duty to be truthful. An emphatic illustration of this lagging deliberation occurred in con- nection with the appointment of the first deacons. They had been nominated as early as February, 1725; but it had been difficult to assemble the little church for business, so that more than two years and a half elapsed
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
before any further action was taken. On the 5th of Octo- ber, 1727, a meeting was called to " confirm the previous choice or make a new one, and also to consider the want of sufficient vessels to carry on the orderly celebration of the Eucharist; " for as yet they had only the flagon pre- sented in 1725. Mr. Parkman says : -
" The meeting was opened with Prayer to the Supream Bishop of the Church for Divine Direction and Conduct in the Affair undertaken. The Address ended, the Ends proposed were declared; but Examining into the Number present, and Comparing them with those that were not with us, we found there was but a minor Part of the Church. Wherefore, Con- sidering with all the Importance of Every Such Matter in a Church (as hath reference to its officers), any proceeding to the Business mainly designed was by every one declined ; and since there must be a New Appointment, the other matter above men- tioned was likewise deferred to another Opportunity after it was somewhat discoursed about. So yt having again Suppli- cated a Benediction from God & appointed our Reassembling on this Day Se'nnight, the meeting concluded."
Special pains were taken to notify the absentees, but at the adjourned meeting there were only eleven of the twenty-four male members present. Considerable discus- sion arose as to the validity of action by a minority; but they at length determined to proceed, and chose by writ- ten ballots, with a good degree of unanimity, John Fay and Isaac Tomlin as deacons. They accepted the office in January, 1728. The meeting further assessed a tax of two shillings on every male member, to purchase "a flagon holding two quarts, and two Pint Tankards, also a Bason for water of Baptism."
On the 29th and 30th of October New England was shaken by an earthquake of considerable force. The earth trembled perceptibly, and the houses rocked. The
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EARTHQUAKE.
effect upon the simple-hearted and religiously trained people was violent. They ran into the streets crying to God for mercy, sure that the calamity was a direct expression of His personal displeasure for their sins ; for so they were uniformly taught to regard all alarm- ing natural phenomena. The ministers everywhere "im- proved " the occasion, to warn the people of their transgressions, which were thus seen to be threatening them with the judgments of God. In December the Gov- ernor appointed a fast on account of it; and as late as February, 1728, Mr. Parkman used it at a church meeting to enforce a due sense of the importance of such meetings, and of observing law and order in the conduct of them. The meeting was called to consider some charges against Josiah Newton, " military clerk," afterward deacon; and the address of the pastor, as indicating his strong con- victions regarding church government, and illustrating his style, is of sufficient interest to quote :-
"The church had in ye Next place a serious and warm Discourse offered by ye Pastor, tending to and pressing ye Consideration of ye Momentousness and authority of church meetings and ye very good or very Evil Aspect they may have in ye church : ye awfull account to be given in to ye great Lord and Supream Bishop, of our Behaviour and management while together in this manner : The Fatal mischiefs of Divisions : ye Necessity of Caution in the Contentious Times, especially while under y awful Rebukes of Heaven : upon ye whole, yt we ought to keep ourselves under ye narrowest watch, and carefully ob- serve ye Rules of ye Platform of church Discipline, it being ye Foundation yt we (as yet) are upon."
It provokes a smile to-day that men should sincerely believe that an earthquake was sent for the special pur- pose of warning men to observe the rules of church disci-
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
pline; but the belief was honest, and their use of it regarded as entirely legitimate. Science had not yet il- lumined the general public, and " seismic force" was an unknown term. Mr. Parkman held the same theories for himself that he used to hold his people in leash, as is strikingly illustrated in the following year. In the begin- ning of 1729 he was taken ill, and the malady proved long and serious. A fast was appointed in his behalf February 9th, but in the following November he was still unable to preach, and the town voted him £10 extra, in spite of the " desents " of Samuel Fay and Samuel Forbush,1 and three weeks later voted to provide for "trainchant preaching." Even in the March following, the town is supplying the pulpit. An entry in Mr. Parkman's Diary, July 8, 1729, is of special interest for its quaintness of metaphor and its revelation of the working of his mind :-
" I have warning from God by my Infirmities that I must re- move from my Temporal Possessions. This clay Tabernacle I now Inhabit Cracks, and threatens me yt it must Dissolve: 'T is but Earthen ware, and it doth not Sound whole. A little matter will dash it to pieces.
"Now what do I know about any Right I have to an Eternal Inheritance, to a Building of God, an house not made with hands, wherein I may spend an happy Immortality, since I am upon the move ?"
So wrote the young man of twenty-five, in great physical depression. But youth and hardihood triumphed even over that long year's feebleness, and in the spring of 1730 he returned to work.
1 That Forbes and Forbush were originally the same name appears from a record in Mr. Parkman's Diary in 1727, Aug. 22: " Rode to Mr. Forbes' and married Com. Cook and Eunice Forbush; so they will spell their name."
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CHURCH AFFAIRS.
One more incident illustrative of the times is in place here. On the 24th of May, 1730, not long after the pas- tor's return to his pulpit, Deacon Fay presented a brief confession to the church " for his irregular conduct on May 3d, when attempting a Speech to ye Congregation after ye usual exercises were finished; " of which he says that " how zealously and innocently soever it could char- itably be supposed to be meant, it was neveryeless very imprudent and of ill tendency, for it was immediately answered by Lieut. Forbush. He again replyd with ex- pressions of Passion and Threat, upon which issued much Disturbance altogether Criminall & Surprising upon the Lord's Day and after our holy imployment." Thus far the good deacon, whose spirit is most admirable and Christian. The lieutenant had not yet advanced so far in self-mastery, and refused to confess; and it was not till July, 1734, more than four years later, that his confession came tardily in.
In September, 1725, there had been a time of affection- ate interest and anxiety at the parsonage, as the frank and simple record of the Diary shows; and on the 14th a daughter was born to the young couple. Five days later the wee thing was taken to the meeting-house and bap- tized with due solemnities, the father and mother of the young pastor being present, and his father holding the child for its own father's consecration. "I called it," says the young man, with the beautiful simplicity of affection, " by my wife's name, Mary." This was the first of sixteen new-comers that greeted Mr. Parkman during the thirty- six years following. The New England stock had not reached the time of its decline; it had all the vigor and vitality of the old English blood. Not even the ancient Hebrew could out vie the Puritan in singing,-
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