USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 54
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88
At last, in 1850, an effort was made by the leaders of the two great parties, the Whigs and Democrats, to put an end to this agitation, and silence discussion by passing a series of measures in Congress, embodied in what was called the Compromise Bill. 'The question which had to be settled was the condition to be assigned to the territory gained by the war with Mexico. According to the Wilmot Proviso, it was to be all free. This the slave-power bitterly opposed. In January, 1850, Henry Clay introduced his compromise measure, which proposed to admit California as a State and New Mexico as a Territory, without applying the Wilmot Proviso to either; refusing to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but pro- hibiting the slave-trade there; allowing the trade in slaves between the States, and passing a more stringent fugitive-slave law. In the debate which followed, Mr. Clay declared that "no earthly power would induce him to introduce slavery where it did not exist."
lation of a book issued in Paris the same year. This writer had printed " Un Réformateur Am- éricain " in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. I, 1861.
Parker's own works are largely illustrative of his intellectual development, particularly his Experiences as a Minister, with an Account of his Early Life, 1859, contained also in the appendix of Weiss's Life of him. See the autobiographic pieces in the London edition of his works (1876), xii. His strong feelings came out emphatically in his Discourse on the Death of Daniel Webster, 1852, and in his Trial for the " Misdemeanor " of at Speech, in Faneuil Hall, against Kidnapping, April 3, 1865, with His Defence. There is in the Pub- lic Library a scrap-book, formed and annotated by himself, containing newspaper cuttings relat- ing to his indictment for obstructing the United States Marshal at the time of the rendition of Burns.
On his death various memorial sermons were published by Boston ministers, - W. R. Alger, C. A. Bartol, J. F. Clarke, G. H. Hepworth, etc. See also Mr. Clarke's tribute in his Memorial and Biographical Sketches. Colonel T. W. Higginson paid one at the time in the Atlantic Monthly, 1860. He has frequently been the subject of commen- dation and animadversion in the periodical press, -Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1861, and April, 1869; Christian Examiner, January, 1864, by J. H. Allen, and July, 1864, by D. A. Wasson ; New Englander, ii. and iii., by Noah Porter ; Contem- porary Review, 1866, by Professor Cheetham ; Fortnightly Review, 1867, by M. D. Conway. Numerous other references will be found in Allibone's Dictionary. A discourse by Samuel Longfellow was delivered at the dedication of the Parker Memorial Meeting-house in Boston, Sept. 21, 1873, and is printed in a pamphlet of the Dedicatory Services .- E.D.]
396
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
It was at this time that Daniel Webster made his famous Seventh-of- March Speech, in which he opposed the exclusion of slavery from the Ter- ritories by law, and accepted the Fugitive-slave law. This speech caused the greatest sadness at the North among those who had looked to Daniel Webster as a tower of strength against the encroachments of the slave- power. Down to the very day when this speech was made his intimate political friends in Boston announced that Webster was about to make a great speech in opposition to the plans of the slaveholders. He had already claimed the Wilmot Proviso as " his thunder ;" he had consulted with Joshua Giddings and Thaddeus Stevens in regard to his course. They had been led to believe that he would put himself at the head of those who opposed the extension of slavery. He now declared, however, that he was willing to divide Texas into four slave States; he said that he was ready to support the new fugitive-slave law with all its provisions. This speech of Webster was a great blow to the Antislavery cause. Whittier wrote con- cerning it his poem called " Ichabod." Men at the North regarded it, justly or otherwise, as a bid for the Presidency. But Mr. Webster's influence was still so great that a large and influential body of his friends in Boston, after a little hesitation, expressed their approbation of his course. Many, how- ever, refused to follow him. Joseph T. Buckingham, in the Massachusetts Legislature, moved to incorporate in a series of resolutions the words for- merly spoken by Mr. Webster, in which he had declared that the opposi- tion of Massachusetts to the extension of slavery was universal, and that they would " oppose such extension in all places, at all times, and under all circumstances, against all inducements, all combinations, all compromises."
But the compromises passed through Congress and became a law, and both the great parties decided to put down all slavery agitation; there was to be no more discussion of the subject in Congress or elsewhere. But an event soon occurred which dispelled this pleasing illusion. Three months after Daniel Webster's speech, and before the Compromise measures had finally gone through Congress, Harriet Beecher Stowe began the story of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in the National Era, published in Washington. In 1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in Boston in book form, and is thus a Boston book. In eight weeks the sale in the United States reached a hundred thousand copies ; in 1856 over three hundred thousand copies had been sold in the United States, and more than a million in England. It was translated into every language of Europe; also into Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese.1 Thus the whole world was reading about slavery in the United States, and discussing it.
Two or three fugitives from slavery were arrested in Boston, and two, Simms and Burns, surrendered by the United States Commissioners, were
1 [There are in the Public Library of all these translations of Uncle Tom's Cabin as many as could be procured a few years ago, the Cata- logue of the British Museum affording the titles to be searched for. Since the collection was
made, Mr. George Bullen, the keeper of 1hc printed books in the Museum, has furnished a full bibliographical list of such versions to a new edition of the novel published in this city. -- ED.]
397
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
taken back into slavery; but the trifling advantages gained by slavery from such renditions were vastly outweighed by the indignation against the slave- power, and all its abettors, occasioned by these transactions. In all ages and nations it had been held odious to return fugitives into the hands of their oppressors. The history of ancient and modern times teemed with this sentiment. George S. Hillard was a United States Commissioner, and as such would have been bound to surrender fugitives when brought before him in accordance with the law; but his wife, Susan Hillard, a noble woman, devoted to generous deeds, sheltered fugitives under their roof. On the day of the rendition of Burns the streets through which he was to pass were draped in black, and immense crowds filled Court Street, State Street, and Washington Street; the military who guarded him were received with loud shouts as " Kidnappers ! kidnappers !" The tension was so ex- treme that there seemed at one moment imminent danger of a tumult which would have cost many lives. The Fugitive-slave law was not only odious in itself, but believed to be unconstitutional in its provisions. The United States Constitution had provided that " no person shall be deprived of his liberty without due process of law," and that " in all suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." But Simms and Burns were deprived of their liberty without seeing either judge or jury. All the old guarantees of human liberty seemed to be removed by this law; and those who took part in passing it or executing it, from Daniel Webster and Millard Fillmore down, lost their political position from that hour.
The violence of the slave-power, and its disregard for the rights of the free States, caused many persons to accustom themselves to the thought that sooner or later force must be met by force. Others, believing that to send a man into slavery was a violation of the law of God, refused to permit the Fugitive-slave law to be enforced if it were possible to prevent it. They held themselves justified in rescuing a slave from his oppressor at any risk. Loving peace well, they loved justice more. This sentiment showed itself in Boston in the Shadrach rescue, the Burns riot, the formation of the vigilance committee, and in contributions to enable the oppressed Free-State emi- grants to Kansas to defend themselves against the Missouri invaders.
In February, 1851, Shadrach, a colored waiter at the Cornhill Coffee House in Boston, was arrested as a fugitive from slavery under a warrant issued by George T. Curtis, United States Commissioner. After a prelim- inary hearing the case was adjourned; and at this moment a body of col- ored men seized the prisoner, rescued him from the officers, and sent him away to Canada. Washington was filled with excitement; the President issued a proclamation ; Congress was deeply moved. Several persons were tried in Boston for assisting in the rescue, but none were convicted.
A few months later, Thomas M. Simms was sent into slavery by the same commissioner. It was on this occasion that the Court House was
398
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
surrounded with chains by the United States Marshal, and the judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts were obliged to stoop under this sym- bol of the slaveholders' supremacy in order to reach their tribunals of jus- tice. This was the hour of the deepest humiliation in Massachusetts; but it stirred the souls of many a son of Boston with the purpose of determined resistance to this overbearing iniquity.
This feeling showed itself on the next occasion when the Fugitive-slave law was enforced in Boston, by the arrest of Anthony Burns, under a war- rant issued by Edward G. Loring. Meetings were held in Faneuil Hall and elsewhere in Boston, at which the most determined speeches were made by Samuel G. Howe, George R. Russell, Francis W. Bird, Thomas W. Higgin- son, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, and others. Meantime a plan for the rescue of Burns had been formed by Albert G. Browne, John L. Swift, T. W. Higginson, and Seth Webb, Jr .; but it failed for want of a full under- standing between those engaged. Higginson, Webb, Lewis Hayden, and a few companions forced their way into the Court House, but failed of their purpose. Indictments were found against Parker, Phillips, Higginson, and one or two more. They were defended by John P. Hale, Charles M. Ellis, William L. Burt, John A. Andrew, and Henry F. Durant. The indictment was quashed, and the cases dismissed.
It is not necessary to describe the emotion produced by the murderous assault on Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks of South Carolina. This took place in the Senate Chamber, May 22, 1856. The cause of this brutal attack was Sumner's speech on "The Crime against Kansas." In this he had described the terrible wrong against freedom which the slave-power had committed in that territory. Unable to reply to his arguments, the slave- holders answered by blows; and during four years his vacant chair in the Senate testified in silence against this outrage. But he was spared to return to uphold the arms of Abraham Lincoln during the Rebellion, to see the end of slavery, and at last to be followed to his grave with the grateful tears of vast multitudes in his own loved city of Boston.
One of the warmest friends of Sumner, and one who stood by him faith- fully during his whole Antislavery career, was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. In him there seemed to reappear in New England the romance and chiv- alry of the Middle Ages. Born in Boston, a pupil in the Latin School, a student of medicine here, he went to Greece to assist in its effort for inde- pendence, when he was but just of age; and afterward took part in the Po- lish and French revolutionary struggles. Long after, amid his tender labors for the blind, the deaf and dumb, the idiots, and other children of sorrow, the Abolition movement appealed equally to his humanity and his chivalry. Especially he was deeply interested in the movement for making Kansas a free State. At his office on Bromfield Street you would meet the men en- gaged in organizing that emigration to Kansas which, after years of per- secution and trial, succeeded in saving it from slavery. There was to be found that most generous of men, -George L. Stearns, - who, after giving
399
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
thousands of dollars to furnish the Kansas emigrants with clothing, provi- sions, and Sharpe's rifles, is said to have given to John Brown, " first and last, more than ten thousand dollars in money and arms." In that office the present writer met and talked with Brown himself, just before his movement on Harper's Ferry, and heard from his own lips the general plan, though not the place or time, of his proposed assault on Southern slavery.1
The struggle for freedom in Kansas excited great interest through New England, and Boston again became the centre of operation, where this in- terest was organized into activity. Money was raised to assist the Free- State emigrants and supply them with all necessary help. The men raised funds to furnish them with Sharpe's rifles and ammunition; the women col- lected clothing and money for food. In numberless towns small societies were organized for this purpose, and the supplies were sent to Boston to be forwarded to Kansas by a committee, of which Mrs. Samuel Cabot, Jr., was the efficient and admirable licad. When John Brown, of Ossawattomie, needed money, he came to Boston and obtained it. When taken prisoner and about to be tried, John Albion Andrew raised for his defence a sufficient sum to obtain for him the best legal counsel. When he died in Virginia, a martyr for freedom, a large public meeting was held in Boston to obtain aid for his wife and surviving children. Thus Boston was faithful to the end, and down to the beginning of the Civil War was the recognized centre of all Antislavery movements, both moral and political.
When the Civil War began in 1861, John Albion Andrew 2 had been chosen Governor of the State of Massachusetts. He had been long known . as an Antislavery man, and as a leading member of the Republican party ; but few foresaw the ability he would display in his trying position, or how easily he would rise to its difficulties. With what foresight, with what judgment,
1 See the speeches of Colonel Thomas Went- worth Higginson and others, in the Memoir of Samuel Gridley Howe, by Julia Ward Howe : Boston, 1876.
2 [A statue of Governor Andrew stands in Doric Hall in the State House. It is the work of Thomas Ball, and a published volume describes the services at the unveiling. Another stalne, by Thomas R. Gould, was erected over his grave in the Hingham Cemetery in 1875, when it was pub- licly dedicated, October 8, with an address by IForace Binney Sargent. A memorial volume, containing the exercises of the dedication, was compiled by Luther Stevenson, Jr., and pub- lished in 1878, giving views of the statue, which is in marble. The materials for his official life are contained in more than thirty thousand pages of his correspondence as Governor, preserved at the State House, and in about five thousand pages of his private correspondence. He sent during his five years of service nearly one hundred mes-
sages to the Legislature. Edwin P. Whipple delivered the address at the commemoration ser- vices of the city, and it is contained in his Suc- cess and Its Conditions. His military secretary, Albert G. Browne, Jr., prepared a sketch of his life, which, having served as an article in the North American Review, January, 1868, was pub- lished, somewhat expanded, as The Official Life of John A. Andrew, 1868. This volume also con- tained his valedictory address on leaving the gov- ernorship. His pastor, James Freeman Clarke, printed a sketch in Harper's Monthly, February, 1868, afterward included in his Memorial and Biographical Sketches. Peleg W. Chandler sup- plicd a memoir, printed in the Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., April, 1880. This was later issued separ- ately, with the addition of personal reminiscences and with two of the Governor's literary addresses, never before printed. His descent is traced in the N. E. Ilist. and Geneal. Reg., January, 1869. - ED.]
400
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
with what untiring devotion to his country's needs, with what courage to meet every danger, his work was done, all may read in the history of that terrible struggle. As Boston was the leader in the war for Indc- pendence, under the guidance of Sam Adams and his companions, so it was again the leader of the North in the war for Union and Freedom, under the guidance of John Albion Andrew. Just to all his opponents, with no self-seeking, with imperturbable sweetness of temper, though capable of a fiery indignation against wrong-doing, he disarmed opposition at home, and united Massa- chusetts in an unbroken phalanx against secession. William Lloyd Garri- son, John Albion Andrew, Charles Sumner, and other of the Boston leaders in this struggle were fortunate beyond most reformers in living to see the work fully accomplished to which they had given their lives. Some indeed, like Theodore Parker, Horace Mann, and Ellis Gray Loring, "died without the sight;" but many, like Garrison, Sumner, Phillips, Sewall, Andrew, Oliver Johnson, Maria Chapman, Lydia Maria Child, and Lucretia Mott, lived to see the consummation of their hopes in the advent of universal freedom ; 'they lived to see a Republic trodden by no foot which was not free. More than four millions of human beings had been changed from slaves to freemen, had become American citizens, and had entered on an upward career of improvement.1
Of the war itself, of which this was the result, we have nothing to say here. A great number of Boston young men went to hardship, peril, and death, from their interest in this cause. Those who returned had their reward in knowing that they had assisted in the triumph of human liberty ; those who fell have made the place where they sleep hallowed ground forever.
" Their memory wraps the dusky mountain ; Their spirit sparkles in the fountain ; The meanest rill, the mightiest river, Rolls mingling with their fame forever ! "
James Freeman Clarke
1 [A group symbolic of Emancipation, - af- fording a portrait statue of Abraham Lincoln, representing him as freeing a slave, cast in bronze at Munich, designed by Thomas Ball, in 1874, and presented to the city by Moses Kimball, --
was erected in 1879 in Park Square, when Fred- erick O. Prince, the mayor of the city, delivered a dedicatory oration, December 6. (City Docu- ment No. 126, of 1879, describes it and the cere- monies.) -ED.]
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES OF BOSTON SINCE 1780.
BY THE REV. INCREASE N. TARBOX, D.D.
T HIS chapter presents, in a brief and comprehensive form, the history of those Congregational churches of Boston which, since the Amer- ican Revolution, have kept to the Trinitarian belief. To keep within the limited space it will be needful to avoid minuter details, and confine our- . selves strictly to a general or outline view.
The population of the town of Boston in +775 was, according to the common estimate, not far from 17,000. Her Congregational churches at that time were eleven in number, named as follows, with the dates of their organization : --
First Church Aug. 23, 1630.
Federal-Street Church
Nov. 15, 1727.
Second Church June 5, 1650.
Hollis-Street Church Nov. 14, 1732.
Old South Church
May 12, 1669. West (Lynde Street) Church Jan. 3, 1737.
Brattle· Street Church Dec. 12, 1699.
Samuel Mather Church . May 29, 1742.
New North Church
May 5, 1714.
School-Street Church Feb. 17, 1748.
New South Church
Nov. 22, 1719.
The Federal-Street Church, organized in 1727, was originally Presby- terian, but is placed in the above list because it eventually became Congre- gational. The two churches standing last upon the list ceased to exist soon after the close of the war. They were both peculiar in their origin, though in ways quite different. They were organized under such conditions that their life and fortunes were made to be largely dependent upon the two men who filled their pulpits. As it happened, these two men had, each of them, a long pastorate. But upon the death of the Rev. Andrew Croswell, minister of the School-Street Church, April 12, 1785, and of Dr. Samuel Mather, June 27, 1785, these two organizations were suspended, and their membership was merged in the neighboring churches. The other churches named above continue for the most part until the present day.
Up to the Revolution the strength of the Boston population was Puritan, after the order of the first founders, with only a small admixture of antag- onistic elements. The church development had been, therefore, chiefly VOL. 111 .- 51.
402
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Congregational. Nevertheless, in addition to the churches named above, there were at that period three Episcopal churchcs, - King's Chapel, 1686; Christ Church, 1723; and Trinity, 1728. There were also two Baptist churches, - the First, 1665; and the Second (now known as Warren Avenue), 1743. One Methodist church had been established, 1771; and onc Quaker, 1694.
It was long ago said that " Boston was the paradise of ministers." Dur- ing the one hundred and forty-five years preceding the Revolution, in nothing had her people taken greater delight than in their learned and able divines, and their stately Sabbath assemblies. Favored at the beginning in the possession of John Wilson and John Cotton, associate ministers of the First Church, and meanwhile, as her churches multiplied, having had her choice among the graduates of the college near at hand, her min- istry had been her pride and boast. Her meeting-houses, though built in the simplicity of the ancient days, with more of strength than beauty, were yet structures of dignity, on which the thought and the wealth of the town had been freely expended. Mr. Cotton had done more, perhaps, than any other man, to give shape to the early Congregationalism of New Eng- land, and to the forms and usages of her public worship. That system which he helped to build, and which soon after was embodied in the Cam- bridge Platform of 1648, was something grand, stately, governmental; but it was not Congregationalism, as we now understand the meaning of that word. It was a system of high forms and graded dignities, in which the bench of elders, - the teaching, the pastoral, and the ruling elders, - held all the real power; while to the common members was given the Christian privilege of obeying their elders in the Lord. What we now regard as vital to the true idea of a Congregational Church, - the equality of all voting members in matters of government and order, making the organization a simple and strict democracy-this was something known among the Pil- grims at Plymouth from the outset, but was practically unknown in the Massachusetts Bay through all those early years. But whatever the system of church government prevailing in Boston before the Revolution, no onc can doubt that her churches were to her as the apple of her eye.
The Thursday, or fifth-day, Lecture was suspended for several months during the time of the siege. Snow, in his History of Boston, says: "Thurs- day lecture had been continued by Dr. Andrew Eliot until about the 23d of December, and was renewed immediately after the evacuation of the town, on the 28th of March, when Washington attended." This weekly lecture con- tinued, as an institution, until after the middle of the present century. Some eight or ten thousand lectures must have been delivered in the town during the two hundred years while the custom lasted. Now and then one of more than usual interest and importance was published and preserved. Most of them filled their places from year to year, and from age to age, like the regu- lar meals of a household, which furnish strength and vigor for the passing days, and are forgotten.
1
403
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES.
In glancing back it will be seen " that from the founding of the First Church in 1630, down to the organization of the School-Street Church in 1748, no long period had passed without adding a new church to the list. The longest interval was that of thirty years, between the formation of the Old South in 1669 and Brattle Street in 1699. In general a new church appeared upon the field on an average of about ten years. This being so, the contrast between the times going before 1748 and those following after is very remarkable. On the old territory of Boston no new Congregational Church appeared from the year 1748 down to the organization of Park- Street Church in 1809; while, as we have seen, two of the churches which existed in 1748 became extinet in 1785. In this long period of sixty-one years not only was there no gain, but an absolute loss.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.