USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > North Middleborough > The history of the Church of North Middleborough, Massachusetts : in six discourses > Part 7
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It was during Rev. Mr. Little's ministry, that the Pratt Free School was incorporated and endowed. An institution which is of such promise to the place, requires special
73
THE PRATT FREE SCHOOL.
notice. Instruction in the advanced studies of an English education, as also in the classics, had been given by the min- isters of the town. Rev. Mr. Reed had students. The school of Rev. Mr. Gurney was a success. Rev. Mr. Colby gave some attention to teaching. During the ministry of Messrs. Bliss and Packard, schools were taught both at the vestry of the church, and the parsonage. Young men from Andover would teach a few weeks in the winter. among whom are remembered Hillard, McChesney, and Reed. Miss Packard, daughter of the minister, gave instruction at the parsonage. At length these attempts grew into an academy,* chartered by act of Legislature, June 6th, 1856, and a location and building were secured by means of fifty dollar shares, which proved the beginning of what is now known as the Pratt Free School. It was deemed wise, after an experiment of nine years, to abandon, if possible, the idea of tuition, and to offer free instruction to all, who, within certain limits and subject to certain conditions, might choose to attend. So the shareholders, of whom there were thirty-one, surrendered their shares to Mr. Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, who again made them over to a board of trustees, with two hundred shares of the Baltimore, Philadelphia and Wilmington Railroad, whose par value was fifty dollars, and worth sixty-eight at the time he gave them. Thus the trustees had the location, the building, and something over ten thousand dollars to start with,- and since that time, Mr. Pratt has increased the endowment to more than twenty-five thousand dollars. It has been Mr. Pratt's wish that this should not be noised abroad, but it is certainly right that the people of the place should know it.t It ought to be said that Dr. Robinson, in shares, gave fully the value of the land whereon the building stands. This was in 1865. Mr. Pratt's letter promising the
* The Principals of the academy, as they are remembered by some of the scholars, were : T. Newton Snow, Lucien D. Fay, Roland F. Alger, John Shaw, Arthur Lake, Barton F. Blake, Nathan E. Willis, and Linus A. Gould.
t Mr. Pratt also donated the clock on the church, worth five hundred dollars; a hundred dollars toward the organ, and two hundred toward the parsonage.
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74. CHURCH OF NORTH MIDDLEBOROUGH.
endowment bears date "Baltimore, January 20th, 1865," and is addressed to " Messrs. Zebulon Pratt, Doct. Morrill Robin- son, Augustus Pratt, Rev. E. G. Little, N. F. C. Pratt," whom he nominated trustees. "I make this endowment," he writes, "solely for the benefit of the constant rising generation of my native place." After expressing somewhat at length his views and wishes, he thus closes : "Trusting, gentlemen, without further details, you will be able to establish and carry on this free school, and to transmit it in a flourishing condition to your successors, as time brings them forward, and with my best wishes for the success of the school, I am,
Your obedient servant, ENOCH PRATT." .
The Act to incorporate the Pratt Free School was passed March 16th, 1865. It has been regularly continued under competent teachers from the autumn of that year till now. Rev. Mr. Little, as one of the trustees, was an efficient pro- moter of its interests, until he left, when his place was filled by the choice of Mr. Jeremiah Pratt. At the decease of Dr. Rob- inson, the vacancy was filled by choice of Dr. Amos B. Paun. The principals from the beginning have been, Moses C. Mitchell, Earl Ingalls, George G. Pratt, Edward HI. Peabody, and H. B. Lawrence, who still holds the position.
In reply to a letter of enquiry directed to Mrs. Little, now residing in Wellesley, Mass., concerning her husband, the answer is prefaced with such a pleasant notice of the. North Middleborough home, with its "halo of pleasant remem- brances," as she is pleased to call them, that I must be per- mitted to transcribe it for you. "It was there," she writes, "nearly ten years of my life were spent, in happy family ties. Two of my children were born there, but most of all, those rooms as I recall them, seem hallowed by the many blessed meetings held in them, and the first joy of new born souls. How many earnest prayers have gone up to heaven beneath that roof, from hearts that beat no more. It seems to me a great many of those dear ones have died, but I do rejoice to hear so many are constantly coming forward to take their places." She thus continues :
75
REV. MR. LITTLE'S MINISTRY.
"Elbridge Gerry Little, son of Joseph Little and Rebecca Webster Little was born in Hampstead, N. H. Nov. 11, 1817. Through childhood and youth he was very frail but learned readily, was a good scholar, especially in Mathematics. Com- menced teaching young. Taught in Haverhill, Lynnfield, Atkinson, Newbury, Danvers, Wrentham, etc. Commenced the study of Latin with Rev. Joseph Peckham. Experienced re- ligion in the Spring of 1838, united with the church in Hamp- stead, the July following, after which he decided to study for the ministry. He had private instruction by Prof. Benj. Greenleaf, Bradford; read to him Xenophon, Livy, and Horace. Entered College in the autumn of 1842, at Princeton, N. J. During his course there, he met his own expenses in part, by giving private lessons and teaching school during vacations. He graduated from Nassau in 1845, entered the Theological Seminary at Princeton from which he graduated in 1848, and was licensed to preach in April, 1848. He was ordained at Manayunk, a suburb of Philadelphia in Oct. 1848. Married to Sarah E. Coleman of Newbury, Mass. in July, 1848. Her son, Edwin C. now lives in that place. On account of the illness of his wife, who died in March, 1851, he came North, and was installed pastor in Merrimack, N. H. Sept. 1850. There he was married to his second wife, Mrs. Sarah J. Weston, who with her infant son, died and was buried in Merrimack. His labors were blessed with an almost constant revival. His next field of labor was Ashburnham, Mass., where he was settled in August, 1855, and where he was married for the third time to Lucia F. Sanderson, of Phillipston, Mass., October, 1856. Their children, Sarah Isabel, Alexander Elbridge, and Walter
Sanderson, all living. Mr. Little labored in Ashburnham until his removal to North Middleborough, and on removing from North Middleborough, in 1867, made his home in Welles- ley, Mass., having secular business in Boston, but preaching much, especially in New Hampshire, establishing missionary enterprises, travelling ten miles between his preaching stations, with little regard to compensation, such was his love for the work."
Rev. E. P. Marvin, an intimate friend of Mr. Little, prepared the following notice of him for the Congregationalist soon after his decease :
"Rev. E. G. Little died peacefully and in full christian hope, in Wellesley, Dec. 29, 1869. He had been troubled. with some derangement of the liver for a year or so, and was taken down with neuralgia, resulting in fever. He was sick only a few weeks, and was not considered in danger until two or three days before he died. He had just completed a beau-
76 . CHURCH OF NORTH MIDDLEBOROUGH.
tiful residence; causing him much extra care and toil, which added to his daily pressing labors in the city, and his almost constant preaching on the sabbath, prostrated a constitution, which had been weakened by zealous and indefatigable labors in the place of his last pastoral settlement. The large and tearful gathering at his funeral, the full and tender address of his pastor, and the testimony given by several clergymen, who resided near him, and who had known him long and intimately, showed the sense of bereavement and sorrow felt by the community, and justified the deep and desolating grief manifested by the widow with the fatherless children. . But they were sustained by the richest consolations and sweetest hopes upon every remembrance of him.
Part of his labor in Boston, after he felt constrained to leave the pastoral work, was the management of Mr. James Gray's real estate journal. In the next issue of that journal, Mr. Gray thus feelingly says: 'Our editor is gone. He who guided this paper, giving it shape and tone, has left the toils and trials of this changing life, and taken up his abode in the unchanging home of 'many mansions.' We shall sadly miss his aid and co-operation, both in connection with our paper, and in the general business office, for he had come to be a most efficient and reliable helper. But great as will be our loss in our business department, it will be far greater in our social and friendly relations. We had come to know and esteem him as a true and upright man, and as a tried and faithful friend. We are filled with sorrow, and we know all our readers and business associates will be, at this unexpected parting.' Mr. Little's ministry was marked by accuracy of scholarship, and careful investigation. He was very instruc- tive in his sermons and in the bible class, and very . genial and affectionate in conversation. He inclined to the older type of congregational theology, and was very biblical in his statements and analysis, and was often sought in council among his brethren and the churches. After fifty-two years of toil, passing through severe and repeated bereavements, he finished his course with joy, fully trusting his family to the promised care of the great shepherd, and has taken up his abode with the forever exulting redeemed."
I have the loan of three sermons in manuscript, preached in this place by Rev. Mr. Little, the first March 1, 1862, from John x : 1st and 9th verses -" Verily, verily, I say unto you he that entereth not in by the door into the sheep-fold but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. I am the door ; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved,
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SERMONS OF REV. MR. LITTLE.
and shall go in and out and find pasture." The second was preached Mar. 15, 1863, from Hebrews Ix : 28. " So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him, shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." The third was preached Feb. 4th, 1866, from 1st Peter, 2: 9. " But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him, who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light." I have not time to dwell upon the dis- courses but I find in them much to prove that their writer was a wise and profitable preacher of the new testament of Christ. Mrs. Little, in writing me, simply adds to her statements of the labors of her husband elsewhere, concerning his ministry here," he was not idle." These few words probably char- acterize that ministry well. So far from being idle, he was especially in the earlier parts of that ministry, a most indefati- gable, laborious and efficient worker for the Master, the record of whose labors is on high, and on many a saved soul, yet on earth. I have already intimated that the records of the latter part of Mr. Little's ministry are wanting .* The calling of the council, which acted on his dismission, and their proceedings are not in the book of records. It is to be presumed, they were regular and that the dissolution of the pastoral relation was effected. It was during the year 1863, the latter part of August, Bro. Wales Hayward was chosen deacon, and soon after, Bro. Williams Keith, who declined and Bro. Solomon White was chosen. This I do not find on the records, but have made an entry to that effect.
·
* It would have been a matter of interest. if all who served their country from this parish during the war of the rebellion, beginning with the firing on Fort Sumter, the 12th of April, 1861, and ending with the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Court House, the 9th of April, 1865, had been named on the records, at least those who lost their lives. The following list of these last, is complete as I can make it :
CASWELL. IRVING W., 1st Mass. Cavalry, died of disease. EATON, WILLIAMS, 4th Mass. Regiment, died of wounds. HANDY, DANIEL, 66 disease.
HATHAWAY, LEVI, "
HAYWARD, EDWIN, 38th "
PERKINS, CYRUS, 18th . “ 66
PERKINS, EZRA H., 33d Iowa
10}
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78 . CHURCH OF NORTH MIDDLEBOROUGH.
The first entry I find, subsequent to the pastorate of Rev. Mr. Little, is the following :
"Copy of the engagement entered into, on the part of the committee of the church and society and Rev. Henry L. Edwards, March 3, 1868. As committee of this church and society, we hold ourselves authorized to contract with Rev. H. L. Edwards to become the pastor of this church and society, with or without installation, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, including parsonage at one hun- dred dollars, with three sabbaths for vacation and with the understanding that this relation commence March 3, 1868, and continue as long as it is mutually satisfactory, which engage- ment was accepted by all the parties.".
There never was any installation but the engagement thus entered into, continued until the 30th of June, 1873, or five years and four months. I have received from Rev. Mr. Ed- wards, in answer to enquiries, the following :
"Born in Southampton, Mass. Jan. 24, 1822. No direct connection with Jonathan Edwards but nearly connected with Prof. B. B. Edwards, and Dr. Justin Edwards. Prof. Edwards used to say that the present Edwards family was the same just previous to the emigration from Wales. My parents' names were Luther and Rachel (Searl) Edwards. I studied at Williston Academy, Amherst College and Andover Theolog- ical Seminary. My first settlement was at South Abington, Mass, twelve years, where I found my wife, Mary (Thomas) Dyer and our children are Addie, Lizzie, * Harry Dearborn and Halley Winslow, the eldest son Harry deceased."
Rev. Mr. Edwards came here from South Abington and left in 1873, to become superintendent of public schools in North- ampton, which position he still fills, being specially interested in and adapted to such a work. While pastor of this church, he was a member of the school committee of Middleborough and interested himself in the cause of education. During his ministry, there was an accurate account of the charitable col- lections of the society, the only one which I have been able to find from the beginning, a very unfortunate omission. I learn however from one, who knows something about it, that these . collections have been gradually growing and were never
* As we aim at perfect historical accuracy in this book, it is due to the truth to state these daughters are the children of Mrs. Edwards, when the wife of Mr. Elihu Dyer of South Abington.
79 .
MINISTRY OF REV. MR. EDWARDS.
larger than during Mr. Edward's ministry. The annual col- lection for foreign missions averaged about seventy dollars, home missions, half as much, and other objects, from fifteen to thirty dollars. This is about the rate of giving since I came among you. This increase of charitable collections took place when you were paying your minister more than ever before and this was the time, when one thousand dollars were ex- pended on the church for repairs, and a still larger sum was expended for a church organ .* Rev. Mr. Edwards recorded the names of such as were constituted life members of various benevolent societies by contributions of this church and society. The number of councils in which the church was represented by pastor and delegate, were nine, of which five were for the settlement, and four for the dismission of ministers. Only two infant baptisms are recorded, and these of the pastor's own children. The dismissions from the church recorded are six, and one excommunication. The deaths are not recorded, and the admissions to the church only in part, but by careful enquiry, the deficiency is, I think, supplied. The number of admissions by letter, twelve; the number admitted on profes- sion, twelve. The ministry of Rev. Mr. Edwards is too recent- ly closed among this people to require any comment from me. It is remembered by you in all its details, and better under- stood by those, who for these five years and more waited upon that ministry in this house, than by one who came among you only a little more than a year since, as a comparative stranger. Of the ministry of your present acting pastor, t I do not
*It ought to be said, concerning this organ, that the maker, Mr. Stevens, pronounced it a two thousand dollar organ, sold for twelve hundred dollar's. It is a very satisfactory instrument, and in the hands of the present organist, Mrs. Reed, is of great service in the songs of the sanctuary. The Ladies' Circle, of which Mrs. Otis Pratt is President, took charge of this important work, and accomplished it.
t It has since occurred to me that I need not be deterred by undue mod- esty from saying about myself, that born in Boxford, Mass., the 22d of Au- gust, 1815, I was baptized in Newburyport, by Rev. Samuel Spring, of whose church my mother was a member. This mother dedicated me to Christ and His ministry in my earliest infancy, and to that dedication, accepted and re- newed as my own act in later life, I owe my entrance upon the work. Edu- cated at Phillips Academy, Andover, Amherst College, Andover Theological Seminary; ordained and installed as pastor of the Spring Street, now Win- slow Church, Taunton, Nov. 23, 1837, and continuing its pastor, with the
80. CHURCH OF NORTH MIDDLEBOROUGH.
propose to speak, only to say that after a ministry about equally divided between the east and west, I engaged with you, without installation, the first of June, 1874, and we were permitted to gather in the fruits of your precious revival in the winter preceding, in the year 1874, by profession, twenty- nine and six by letter ; in 1875, to this time, seven by profes- sion, and one by letter, making a total of forty-three during this pastorate. One child has been baptized. Four have been dismissed to other churches. Six of the church have died. Your pastor has officiated on sixteen funeral occasions. He has solemnized five marriages here and elsewhere. He has attended, at your request, one council to advise concerning the dismission of a minister. This ends the official record of my ministry, and brings the history of your church down to the present time, the first of August, 1875.
I must hasten to make a few remarks, suggested by this his- tory, what the old divines used to call "practical observations." 1st. The period covered by the history of this church, if we include the preliminary account of the Indian settlement, from the time of Winslow and Hopkins to the setting off of this parish as a distinct precinct, is two hundred and fifty-four years, or, reckoning from the organizing of the parish, in 1743, O. S., one hundred and thirty-two years. During these years, last named, nine ministers, including your present acting pas- tor, have served this church statedly, seven with and two without installation. Their entire time of service covers a peri- od of one hundred, nineteen years, five months and twenty-two
exception of five years of pastorate in Bedford, Mass., until 1855, in the autumn of that year, I left Taunton for the pastorate of the First Congrega- tional Church, Quincy, Illinois, where I remained till the beginning of 1869, when, after preaching three months to the New-England Church, Chicago, I served as acting pastor of the Richmond Street Church, Providence, R. I., for one year and a half, or until its union with the High Street Church, and for two years in the same relation to the Olivet Church, Bridgeport, Conn., until called to this charge in May, 1874. Married the 7th of March, 1838, to Julia Reed, daughter of Dea. William Reed, of Taunton; our children have been William Reed, who died when thirteen, Samuel Hopkins, Francis Wol- cott Reed, and Joseph Welch. Their mother, a pupil and teacher in Ipswich Female Seminary, still lives, having shared all these years in the burdens and cares as well as privileges and blessings of a ministerial life with one, who delights in this opportunity of expressing to the world his indebtedness for whatever of success he has had in this ministry of nearly forty years, to the tender and unceasing sympathy and help of this, his life-companion and faithful co-laborer in all good designs.
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LENGTH OF PASTORATES.
days, leaving about twelve years, since the parish was organized, that it has been without what might be called a settled ministry, and of these twelve, it ought to be stated, five fully are the years after the parish was set off before a church was organized, thus leaving seven only since that time. The longest pastorate was that of Rev. Mr. Colby, thirty-four years, one month, twenty-seven days, and, to name them according to their length : Rev. Mr. Reed, twenty-eight years, three months, ten days ; Rev. Mr. Gur- ney, twenty-seven years, seven months, twenty-five days ; Rev. Mr. Little, nine years, nine months, although his stay after installation was only eight years, five months, two days; Rev. Mr. Backus, seven years, nine months, three days ; Rev. Mr. Edwards, five years, three months. twenty- seven days; Rev. Mr. Bliss, two years, eleven months, thirteen days; Rev. Mr. Packard, two years, five days; and your present pastor, one year, two months. Of the eight ministers who have preceded me, four, or just one half, have died and are buried in this place, and the sum of the years of their ministry is ninety-seven years, ten months and five days. Of the remaining four, two or just half, have died elsewhere, and closed their ministry on earth. Two yet remain. Having carefully examined the record of the ministry of these eight servants of the Lord in this. place, . I desire, in closing, to gratefully acknowledge the goodness of God in giving this people such a ministry, against whom in their living or dying, this church has brought no recorded accusation of unfaithfulness to their ordination vows-nay, rather the memory of them is embalmed in your hearts, and your thought of them is always with the tenderest and most sacred love. It is not always so in the history of churches, but I'thank God to-day, in this, my sixth and last sermon, reviewing the history of this church, that what I have just said, is true of this ancient church, in looking back over one hundred and twenty years, nearly, of minis- terial life and labor. To the praise of the riches of the divine mercy in Christ Jesus be this acknowledged concern- ing these His ministers.
82 . CHURCH OF NORTH MIDDLEBOROUGH.
Still another word. If there be a difference in the ven- eration and affectionate regard, in which you hold the memory of these various ministers of Christ, it is in favor of those, who lived in this place the longest, and took the children from their mothers' arms to instruct and train for Christ and heaven. It is now many years since he, whose ministry covered more than four and thirty years, walked these streets, and taught from house to house as well as in the sanctuary on the sabbath day the wonderful things of this gospel, but little children hear from the lips of their parents the name of Philip Colby, spoken with such tender love, that they know him to have been a good man in their father's and mother's day.
2d. To complete the summary of these years, I will add, that this church has been invited to sit in council ninety-four times. Five ministers have recorded four hun- dred and seven marriages, and three ministers have recorded four hundred and forty-nine deaths and funerals. Five hun- dred and thirty-five, according to the records, have united with the church, sixty-three by letter, and four hundred, seventy-two by profession. Sixty-five dismissions from the church are recorded, and twenty have been excluded or cut off by excommunication. One hundred and eleven children have been baptized, on the faith of believing parents. What is noticeable and sadly so to such as accept the covenant as . for the children as well as the parents, is the marked neg- lect of the ordinance, which is the sign and symbol of that covenant -the sacrament sealed in the blood of Jesus. And still another noticeable feature in this review and summing up of results of labor, is the tendency to wait for seasons of special interest, and rely upon special effort to the neglect of ordinary, every day effort, and living continually for Christ, expecting and looking for results in the saving and sanctifying of souls, day by day. Precious as have been seasons of reviving from the Lord, all the more sad and melancholy have been the years and months of declension and decline, when the ways of Zion mourned, and few came
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CONCLUSION.
to her solemn feasts. Oh! that I might understand better myself, and lead all my hearers to feel how sweet and sat- isfying and beautiful is a continuous glow and fervor in the christian life, and an ever growing delight in the way of the Lord. Let this be more and more the history of this church - a growth with no check - a recovery of the soul from its lost and low estate, with no relapse- a revived, saved, sanc- tified state, with no return to the world-its beggarly ele- ments, and no declining from the right way. So shall be realized in its precious fulfillment what is written concerning " the path of the just, as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." So shall be under- stood the meaning of this prophecy, "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous. They shall inherit the land forever -the branch of my planting - the work of my hands," saith the Lord, " that I may be glorified."
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