USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 48
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
As a commissioner of customs and also as a mandamus councillor he was doubly the object of popular detestation, and on at least one occasion owed his life to the speed of his horse. He was exempted from pardon by the Provincial Congress, June 16, 1775; but on revisiting Boston in 1796 was kindly received. His son, Sir Benjamin Hallowell Carew, was a distinguished British admiral, the friend of Nelson.
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F MYRICK
THE HALLOWELL HOUSE.
Commodore Loring's house, at present known as the Greenough Man- sion, was in May, 1775, the headquarters of General Nathaniel Greene, but Jos Loring was afterwards, for a brief period, a hos- pital for the American soldiers. Captain Isaac Sears, well-known as an ardent "Son of Liberty," bought the property of the State, and lived here a few years. Loring was the only native of Roxbury of any prominence who adhered to the royal cause. He learned the tanner's
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ROXBURY IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
trade, but afterwards went to sea and rose to the command of a privateer. He was made a captain in the British navy in 1757; was commodore of the naval force on lakes Champlain and Ontario, and participated in the capture of Quebec under Wolfe, and in the conquest of Canada. He was severely wounded while in command on Lake Ontario, and at the close of the war retired on half- pay, settling down at Jamaica Plain.
F-MPRICE
THE LORING HOUSE.
For three quarters of a century a single place of worship near the eastern limit of the town had been made to do duty for a population that had gradu- ally extended itself eight miles westward to the Dedham line. In 1706, Joseph Weld and forty- four others at the west end of Roxbury, on account of their great distance from the Meeting-house, and the great " travail and time in going and returning," prayed the General Court to be made a separate precinct, to be freed from taxes for the old parish, and for aid in building a house. Having without the required permission built a church and formed a congregation, in April, 1711, they sent a " humble address " praying for pardon to their " fathers and elder brothers" in town-meeting assembled, and again humbly requested a dismission to be a distinct precinct, assigning among other excellent reasons this most cogent one : -
VOL. II. - 44.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
" As for the season and opportunity we took for our aboves'd mismanaged enter- prise, whether this was the time agreeable to the approving will of God we dare not assert ; but the event proves it to be his permissive and determinate will, else it had not been so far effected."
Such reasoning was conclusive, and they were accordingly set off, the precinct line nearly coinciding with a line which should include the present Walk-Hill, South, Eliot, and Prince streets. Having accomplished their purpose, the Second Church, consisting of eighteen members, formerly belonging to the First, was gathered Nov. 2, 1712, and on the 26th Rev. Ebenezer Thayer, of Boston, was ordained as their pastor. A trivial inci- dent that prevented the settlement here of Rev. John Barnard, afterwards the celebrated minister of Marblehead, is thus related in his autobiography. It shows the popular distrust of Governor Dudley, even at that late day :
"In the latter end of 1711," says Mr. Barnard, "it was concluded by my friends, from the affection the people had for me, that I should have been fixed at Jamaica, a parish in Roxbury. I confess it pleased me, because it was within five miles of Boston ; but happening to attend a lecture at Roxbury, Governor Dudley, who saw me come in, threw open his pew door to me. Some of the chief persons of Jamaica were present, and observing the respect the Governor paid me, concluded I should be a Governor's man, as they called it, and though they were particularly set for me before, yet from some disgust they had for the Governor, altered their minds and threw me off."
The first building -occupied by the society stood on Walter Street and adjoined the burial-ground on the south. When the Third or Jamaica Plain Parish was formed from the Second in 1773, a new building was erected a mile further to the west.1
Mr. Thayer, who was a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard College in 1708, died March 6, 1733. His successor, Rev. Nathaniel Walter, was the son of Rev. Nehemiah Walter, of the First Church. He was born in Roxbury Aug. 15, 1711, graduated at Harvard College in 1729, was ordained over the Second Church July 10, 1734, and died March 11, 1776. He was a chaplain in the Louisburg expedition, and acted as inter- preter for General Pepperell.2 After Mr. Walter's decease Rev. Thomas Abbott, ordained Sept. 29, 1773, was pastor until 1783.
Roxbury march. 10 . 1744/5 - Han Sir. your very humble Sent Kath & Walter
In 1739, Leonard Laukman, Richard Smith, Jonathan Pue,
Robert Auchmuty, Francis Brinley, and Lewis Vassall, gentlemen of wealth,
1 This house, still standing, was the scene of Theodore Parker's first ministerial labors.
2 His son, Rev. William Walter, also a native of Roxbury, was rector of Christ Church in Boston. The signature of the father, here-
with given, is from his letter to General Pep- perrell, accepting the position as chaplain of his forces. - Pepperrell Papers, i. 57. There is an account of the Walter family in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 1854, p. 209.
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ROXBURY IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
who had lately become residents of the town, asked for a piece of common land situated at the point of intersection of the Dorchester and Braintree roads, now Dudley and Warren streets, as a site for an Episcopal church. A compliance with their request the petitioners say, "we shall look upon as only just and equal, but an earnest of a true Catholic spirit to your brethren in the faith." Their petition was not favorably considered, and it was not until 1833, almost a century later, that St. James's Church, the first Epis- copal society in Roxbury was established.
The old First Church in which Eliot and Walter had preached was taken down in 1741. A new one built on its site was destroyed by fire in March, 1744, and the use of foot-stoves to which the confla- gration was attributed was on that account thereafter John Eliot prohibited. Towards the building of the fourth house, completed in 1746 upon the same plan as its predecessor, aid was received from the neighbor- Nohomich Hacher ing churches, services being held in the interim in the brick schoolhouse. Judge Paul Dudley provided a handsome porch, and Colonel Joseph Heath gave a clock. "So as not to intrude on the pews in the west gal- leries," a corner in them was allotted to the negroes to sit in. In 1753 the three seats to the right of the clock, in the centre of the gallery, were appropriated for those "who may be inclined to sit together for the pur- pose of singing." This house, used as a signal station by the Americans during the siege, gave place to the present edifice in 1804.1 From its belfry were displayed the signals which transmitted to the country the joyful intelligence that the British troops were evacuating Boston, and that the long siege had been brought to a successful termination. A constant and conspicuous target for the British cannon, its frame was pierced through in many places, one ball passing through the belfry.
Great was the excitement when the celebrated Whitefield preached here. In his diary, under date of Friday, Sept. 26, 1740, he mentions preaching at Roxbury in the morning to " many thousands of people who flocked in from all parts of the country," and whom he must have addressed from the open space in front of the church. He afterwards dined with Judge Paul Dudley, who left on record his impression that Whitefield's preaching seemed much like that of the old English Puritans, and that it was not so much the matter of his sermons as the very serious, earnest, and affec- tionate delivery of them without notes that gained him such a multitude of hearers.2
What would now be viewed as a simple matter, - a change of church hymn-books, - was a serious business a century ago. In a letter to Rev. Amos Adams, of the First church, dated Sept. 11, 1757, and signed by James Bowdoin and other influential parishioners, it was said that the New
2 A picture of this building, with its sur- roundings in 1790, faces the titlepage of F. S. Drake's Town of Roxbury.
2 [An account of the "Great Awakening "
under Whitefield is given in the Rev. Alex- ander Mckenzie's chapter in this volume. See also Mr. Goddard's chapter for the relations of the press. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
England version of the Psalms, however useful it may formerly have been, " is now become, through the natural variableness of language, not only very uncouth but in many places unintelligible," and it recommended that the version of Tate and Brady be substituted. The change was made July 9, 1758, " some people" says the church record, being " much offended at the same."1 Rev. Thomas Walter, some time pastor of the church, says the singing of his congregation " sounded like five hundred different tunes roared out at the same time; " and so little attention was paid to time that they were often one or two words apart, producing noises " so hideous and disorderly as is bad beyond expression." The manner of singing also had become so tedious and drawling, that he himself had paused to take breath twice in one note. The subsequent introduction of the bass-viol, or the "Lord's Fiddle" as it was derisively called, incurred serious opposition. "The old pious people," says an eye-witness, " were horror-struck at what they considered a sacrilegious innovation, and went out of meeting in high dudgeon."
Rev. Nehemiah Walter, Eliot's colleague and successor, was born in Ireland, of English parents, and before coming to New England, where he graduated at Harvard College, had attended one of the best schools in his native land. His proficiency in the French language was such as enabled him to preach, in the occasional absence of their pastor, to the French con- gregation in Boston in their own tongue ; and he was also a superior general scholar. The unanimous call extended to him by the First Church was approved and confirmed by the town, and he was ordained Oct. 17, 1688. He was an admirable preacher, speaking with great animation, though with a feeble voice. He was low of stature and of a very delicate bodily frame. Mr. Walter married Sara, daughter of Rev. Increase Mather. His sons Thomas and Nathaniel were both in the ministry in Roxbury. The pastor- ates of Eliot and Walter covered a period of one hundred and eighteen years, the latter dying Sept. 17, 1750, at the age of eighty-seven. Mr. Walter's residence adjoined Eliot's on the south.
Rev. Thomas Walter, his son, and his colleague from 1718 until his death Jan. 16, 1725, at the early age of twenty-eight, possessed all his father's vivacity and richness of imagination, with greater vigor of intellect. He graduated at Harvard College in 1713, was one of the most distinguished scholars and controversialists of his time, and was the first to reform the church music of America. In 1721, his Grounds and Rules of Music Ex- plained, in which the music was printed for the first time with bars, threw the churches into commotion, some battling for the old and some for the new way of singing,-that is by rote, or note. "I have great jealousy " said a writer in the New England Chronicle, " that if we once begin to sing by note, the next thing will be to pray by rote, - and then comes popery."
The successor of Rev. Nehemiah Walter was Rev. Oliver Peabody, whose brief life and ministry closed in 1752. Rev. Amos Adams, the sixth
1 [See Vol. I., p. 457 .- ED.]
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ROXBURY IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
minister of the First Church, a native of Medfield, Mass., graduated at Harvard College in 1752, and was ordained here Sept. 12, 1753. His wife was Sarah, daughter of Dr. Charles Chauncy, of the First Church of Bos- ton. Mr. Adams was a very energetic preacher, having an extremely sonorous and plaintive voice; and, notwithstanding his plainness of speech and the length of his sermons, was popular in the pulpit, and had great influence over his people. He was an ardent patriot, and was the scribe of the convention of ministers at Watertown, which in May, 1775, recom- mended to the people to take up arms. His death, which occurred Oct. 5, 1775, was occasioned by a fever brought on by over exertion and exposure in the performance of his religious and patriotic duties.
The Third or Jamaica Plain Parish Church, at the corner of Centre and Eliot streets, owes its origin to Mrs. Susanna Pemberton, whose husband, Benjamin Pemberton, caused it to be built mainly at his own expense. It was raised in Sept., 1769, upon land bequeathed to Berij Pemberton the town by the Apostle Eliot; and on Dec. 31 the first sermon was preached in the unfinished structure by Rev. Joseph Jackson, of Brookline. Sir William Pepperell gave a Bible for the pulpit, and a few years later John Hancock, whose summer residence was at Jamaica Plain, presented the bell recently taken from the New Brick Church, Boston. Town-meetings were held here while the old Meeting-house was occupied by the Provincial soldiers in 1775, and in it the sessions of the General Court were also held in the spring of 1778, on account of the prevalence of small- pox in Boston, Dr. Gor- John Davis Tofeph Mayo 9 John Bakor Math Richards don officiating as chap- lain. The Third Parish, comprising thirty-five persons with their es- Comthe thu tates, organized Dec. II, 1769, was incorpo- rated in 1772; and July 6 of that year Rev. William Gordon, after having preached to the Society one year, was installed pastor. In May, 1773, nine per- PETITIONERS. 1 sons, Mr. Pemberton at their head, all belonging to the First Church, were after some opposi-
1 [These are the signatures to a petition to the General Court in 1771, for a committee to be
appointed to settle the dispute relative to the loca- tion of the Meeting-house in West Roxbury .- ED.]
.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tion separated from it by an act of the General Court, and annexed -to the Third Parish. Before this time it had formed part of the Second or Upper Parish.
Before coming to America, in 1770, Rev. William Gordon, a native of England, had been settled over large independent societies in Ipswich and William Gordon in London. After a pastorate here of fourteen years his connection with the Third Church was dissolved, and in 1786 he returned to England, where he published his History of the Amer- ican Revolution, a minute and generally faith- ful narrative of that memorable contest. Though rude and blunt in manner, and not interesting as a preacher, he was popular, and was facetious and social in disposition. A zealous champion of the negro race, he called public attention in numerous and vigorous newspaper articles to the absurdity as well as the injustice of holding them in slavery while carrying on the struggle for liberty. His warmth of temper and lack of prudence and judgment embroiled him with Mr. Pemberton, the patron of the society, occasioned Governor Hancock's removal from Roxbury, and cost him his dismissal from the chaplaincy of both houses of the legislature. The close of his life was passed in extreme poverty in Ipswich, England, where he died Oct. 19, 1807, aged seventy-seven.
Upon the triangular piece of ground on Centre Street, where the soldiers' monument now stands, the first school-house in Jamaica Plain was erected in 1676. Its principal benefactors were Hugh Thomas, who in that year gave to the town for this purpose all his real estate, besides other property ; and Rev. John Eliot, who in 1689 gave seventy-five acres of land. The Eliot School, named for the latter donor, was not incorporated until 1804. In 1714 the town refused to add ten pounds to the tax levy " for the better support of a grammar schoolmaster" to teach in the old schoolhouse in the town street. The sum was asked for on the plea that "the rents and donations to said school were not sufficient encouragement for a school- master." In 1741 a school was established at Spring Street (West Rox- bury), and twenty pounds raised yearly by the town for its support.
Increasing pauperism, occasioned by a large influx of strangers, had caused the subject of a workhouse to be agitated by the town in 1744. Its poor had previously been cared for by private individuals, at the public expense. The subject was revived in 1758, but, " being a time of war and great expenses," it was dropped, and was not again taken up until 1766. Two years later the building, which was of brick, and which stood just north of Mr. Prang's residence on Centre Street, was ready for use, con- tinuing in occupation until 1831. During the siege, the inmates having been removed, a company of provincial soldiers was quartered here.
Among the distinguished natives of Roxbury during this period was John Wise, "the most powerful and brilliant prose writer produced in this
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ROXBURY IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
country during the colonial time." He was the son of Joseph and Mary (Thompson) Wise; was baptized in Roxbury, Aug. 15, 1652; graduated at Harvard College in 1673, and was minister of the Second Church, Ipswich, from 1680 till his death, April 8, 1725. His zeal for civil and religious liberty, already referred to, received further illustration in his Church's Quarrel Espoused, a work of great literary merit and "a master specimen of the controversial art," published in 1710 in answer to Questions and Proposals by the Mathers. The latter was a scheme to take away the power of the laity in the New England churches, and to substitute therefor the will of the clergy. Wise's learning, logic, and eloquence completely frustrated the attempt. His Vindication of the Government of the New England Churches appeared in 1717. His books, reprinted by the Revolu- tionary leaders in Boston fifty years later, announce political ideas far in advance of his time, and which entitle him to be regarded as " the first great American democrat." 1
Another name that deserves to be held in grateful remembrance by posterity is that of Robert Calef, a native of England, by occupation a clothier and husbandman, and who at the time of his death, April 13, 1719, at the age of seventy-one, was one of the selectmen of Roxbury. At a time when nearly all were carried away by the witchcraft delusion, and when the excited multitude verily believed that Satan had been let loose among them, this clear-headed, courageous citizen, almost single-handed, opposed the popular madness, and let in the pure rays of truth and com- mon-sense upon the dark shadows of superstition around him. But this story has been told in another chapter of the present volume.
Mary Stevens, the granddaughter of this sturdy antagonist of supersti- tion in 1692, was the mother of Joseph Warren, the illustrious opponent of British tyranny in 1775.
Paul Dudley, son of Governor Joseph Dudley, was born in Roxbury, Sept. 3, 1675, and after graduating at Harvard College in 1690 went to London and studied law at the Temple. When, in 1702, his april 1718 Paul Dudley Justice of prace father was made governor, he accompanied him hither with the commission of attorney-general of the province. He was after- wards a member of the Legis- lature and of the Executive Council, and Speaker of the House. In 1718 he became a justice of the Supreme Court, and from 1745 until his death, Jan. 25, 1751, was chief-justice of Massa-
1 [See also Mr. Goddard's chapter in the present volume. His measure is taken with
American Literature, and in Dr. H. M. Dexter's Congregationalism as seen in its Literature .- appreciation in Prof. M. C. Tyler's History of ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
chusetts. He was a thorough and accomplished lawyer, and on the bench displayed quick apprehension, a retentive memory, and extensive erudition. Beginning his career with great zeal on the side of the crown, and sustain- ing measures tending to abridge colonial privileges, he became unpopular, and shared with his father in the bitter animosity of the Mathers. His talents, and independence in office, gradually reinstated him in the favor of the people. To him may be traced many of the reforms which obtained in the practice of the courts and the mode of administering justice. To the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, of which he was a member, he contributed materials for the natural history of New England. He was a benefactor of Harvard College, and in his will provided for the annual " Dudleian " lecture to be delivered before it. Other and more durable monuments of his beneficence still remain in the old milestones yet extant in Roxbury, marked with the initials " P. D."
His younger brother, Colonel William Dudley, born Oct. 20, 1686, graduated in 1704, and though he never practised the law as a profession. is said to have been the first educated lawyer of native birth who sat upon the bench of the Court of Common Pleas. Brought carly into public life, he filled a large space in the political affairs of his time. Sent to Canada when only twenty years of age to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, he succeeded in redeeming, among other captives, the Rev. John Williams of Deerfield. In 1710 he acquired reputation as an officer in the expedition against Port Royal (Annapolis), and was colonel of the Suffolk County Regiment from that year until his death, Aug. 10, 1743. He represented Roxbury in the General Court, and was for several years Speaker of the House and a member of the Governor's Council. Like his father and grandfather before him, Colonel Dudley possessed talents of a high order. and was exceedingly popular. With strong intellectual powers, a brilliant fancy, and a ready elocution, he excelled in debate, and thereby exercised a commanding influence in the public assemblies of which he was a member.
William Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts from 1741 to 1756, was the son of a London merchant, who by marriage became possessed of the estate of Otehall, in the parish of Wivelsfield, Sussex, England. He was educated at Cambridge, and designed for the bar, where his superior talent Whirly and address procured him the notice of Sir Robert Walpole and of the Duke of Newcastle, who gave him his appoint- ment of governor. Arriving in Boston in August, 1731, he practised law with success until appointed to the chief magistracy, in 1741. He was the prime mover in the successful expedition against Cape Breton in 1745, which resulted in the capture of Louisburg. Visiting England in 1749, he was placed on the commission to settle the American boundaries, spending much time in France with small result, and returning in August, 1753.
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Shirley was a strong advocate of prerogative, and in 1756 advised the ministry to impose a stamp tax in America. In February, 1755, he was made a major-general, with the superintendence of military operations in the Northern colonies. The next year he was superseded both in his command and his government, and ordered to England. Triumphantly vindicating himself from the charges against him, he was made a lieutenant- general in 1759, and was governor of the Bahamas from 1758 to June, 1769, when he returned to Roxbury, residing in the mansion built by him until his death, March 24, 1771. Shirley possessed great industry and ability, but though enterprising, able, and deservedly popular, was ambitious in a degree disproportionate to his powers.1
Major-General William Heath, born March 2, 1737, on the old home- stead, was brought up a farmer, pursuing this occupation when not in the army to the close of his life. Joining the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company at the age of seventeen, he was its captain in 1770, at which Heath time he wrote for the Boston Gazette some essays signed "A Military Countryman," urging the necessity . of acquiring skill in military exer- cises, in view of the threatening aspect of public affairs. It was partly through his efforts that the organization of minutemen, which placed New England at once upon a war footing, was effected. He had previously been commissioned a captain in the Suffolk Regiment by Governor Bernard. Hutchinson superseded him in his command, but when, in 1774, the people selected their own officers, they chose Heath colonel of the regiment. He was frequently moderator of town-meetings, and a member of the General Court. Engaging with zeal in the Revolutionary contest, he was the trusty coadjutor of Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, was a delegate to the Provincial Congresses of 1774 and 1775, and was an active member of the committees of Correspondence and of Safety. Made a provincial major- general in June, 1775, he received the same rank from the Continental Congress in August following. Heath, who was the only general officer on the ground on the memorable 19th of April, 1775, organized and directed the armed husbandmen who that day put the far-famed British regulars to flight. He commanded a division at the siege of Boston, was at the head of the Eastern department in 1777 with the care of the Saratoga Convention prisoners, and subsequently had charge of the posts on the Hudson. Upon the discovery of Arnold's treason, Heath was the trusted officer to whom Washington confided the command at West Point. Returning to his farm at the close of the war, he was chosen a delegate to the convention which adopted the Federal Constitution in 1788, was a State senator in 1791-92, and was judge of probate for Norfolk County from 1793 until his decease, Jan. 24, 1814. In 1806 he was chosen Lieut .- Governor of Massachusetts,
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