USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Walpole > The story of Walpole, 1724-1924; a narrative history prepared under authority of the town and direction of the Historical Committee of Bi-Centennial > Part 6
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They brought in Joseph Belcher, a young man who had graduated in 1723 from Harvard, and he preached to the little congregation-a con- gregation so small that it could gather comfort- ably for service in the more commodious homes. When spring came, and with it Mr. Belcher's term drew to a close, it was decided to keep him with them permanently if possible-to have him "Preach the Gospel & Settle In the Work of the ministry Among us." This step was taken after consultation with the ministers of the neigh- boring towns.
As an inducement for him to come, they of- fered him £100 as a "settlement," a sort of bonus, as was a custom of the times, half to be paid to him when he should be ordained, and half the following year. And his salary was to be £50 for the first three years, and then after
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THE STORY OF WALPOLE
that £60. In addition he was to be given all the "Loose money of the Neighboring Inhabi- tants & Straingers Money that may be con- tributed." It was a handsome offer for such a small community; but Mr. Belcher had a convincing way about him.
Then the offer is increased. Rev. Mr. Bel- cher must have pleased them. They do not insist upon the matter of ordination. They offer him half the £100 settlement money when he accepts, and half the next year. And they will give him £60 the third year, £70 the fourth, £80 the fifth, and then "when there Comes to be the Number of fifty-five Families Ninety Pounds a year." On top of that they would "find him Fire wood when he Comes to Need it."
But it all came to naught for the time being; and if they could have seen the future, they would have been content to let it lie that way. But no, it was decided "that Mr. Belcher should Continue with us to Preach the Gospel," even though not regularly "settled." As late as February, 1728, "Setling mr belcher" is a topic for discussion in meetings. He is still preaching to them, for Joshua Clap is paid 15 shillings for "Boarding ye Minister." And finally, in the spring of that year, the town voted to have Mr. Belcher settle with them as their regular minister.
If the worthy gentleman's answer to this
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COPY OF ANSWER TO CALL AS FIRST PASTOR OF CHURCH IN WALPOLE BY JOSEPH BELCHER
MEETING HOUSE AND MINISTER
offer, which may be found recorded on the town books, is a fair sample of his loquacity, it speaks ill for the judgment of the congregation. Yet there is this much to be said, that his mean- ing is clear enough-which is more than one can say for many a sermon of his day.
"I am Persuaded Thatt divine Providence Calls and Oblidges me to an acceptance" is the tenor of it all.1
This ministry, so auspiciously begun, lasted only a year. Then we find the Selectmen calling a town meeting to deal "consarning dismising of raverand Mr. Joseph belcher from being our ministar." 2
Just what the trouble was we don't know. Perhaps the young preacher objected to holding services in a half-furnished meeting house. In- deed, it isn't certain that the meeting house was in condition to be used at all. More likely his pay was not forthcoming, for the matter of paying "the ravarnd mr belcher the fifty pounds of the sartlemint mony granted to him in his coll with the fifti pounds salary" is one of the matters the town discussed.3 Mr. Belcher dem- onstrated later in life that he was not at all backward about gathering money due to him, and otherwise.4
1 All the preceding details may be found in the early pages of the Town Records.
* Town Rec., I, 21. : Ibid.
4 Chaffin, 94 et seq.
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Possibly the young clergyman may have shown at that early stage of his career some of the peculiarities that marked his course -not so many years later. It is a well marked tradition at Easton, where he became pastor in 1731, that he would enter the pulpit with his pockets stuffed with sermons and deliver them, one after another, with great gusto, regardless of the fact that his congregation had early departed for home.1 He soon after abandoned the ministry.
But whatever the cause, Walpole, on May 5, 1729, voted his dismissal-then spent the follow- ing summer trying to decide about getting a new minister to labor among its people.2
Some idea of the size of the town and congre- gation at this period may be obtained from a vote taken in October, 1729, when Phillips Pay- son received 30 votes for minister and Joseph Baxter, Jr., another candidate, 7 votes.3 Only a year earlier, 1728, a tax apportionment made by the Provincial treasurer placed the Walpole valuation at £12.5.4., only the towns of Ux- bridge, Holliston and Sunderland being rated lower. 4
Yet, in spite of its humble station the town voted to offer Mr. Payson a settlement of £100, and a salary of £100 a year.5 Payson, a Dor-
1 Chaffin, 98-99. ? Town Rec., I, 22, 23.
3 Ibid., I, 24. 4 Mass. Arch., CXXIII, 370.
' Town Rec., I, 24.
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MEETING HOUSE AND MINISTER
chester man and graduate of Harvard in 1724, was at this time 25 years old. He considered the offer, and "upon a close applicasion for heaven's direcksion," decided to accept pro- vided "that you will ingage to supply me with what wood I shall want and that it be brot to the plase where I shall live in the towne of Wolpole, and sutabele for the fire or fires that I shall have on Occasion for from time to time, to be about fower feet in Length so longe as I shall continue to bee your menster. . 1
The preliminaries settled, Rev. Mr. Payson began his preaching some time in the fall of 1729. Up to this time there had been no dis- tinct church society as apart from the town, but on July 2, 1730, the church was gathered with 10 members-Ebenezer Fales, Samuel Kingsbury, Thomas Clap, Ebenezer Robbins, James Bardens, Eleazer Partridge, Peter Fales, Joseph Carryl, Moses Chamberlain and Joseph Smith.2 This came as a preliminary to the or- dination of Mr. Payson in the following Septem- ber, which was carried out with all due cere- mony, including "entertainment" of the visiting clergy and other participants at the house of Deacon Fales.3
1 Town Rec., 27. The spelling, I trust, is that of the Town . Clerk, not Payson.
" A Service Commemorating, etc. Note. The early records of the society have been misplaced within a few years.
3 Town Rec., I, 29.
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Payson, whose ministry in Walpole spanned nearly half a century, became truly one of the people among whom he came to labor, and was truly beloved by them. His children were born and reared in the town. And his ashes rest now in the little burying place beside those of the early settlers.1
His popularity is attested on page after page of the town records, telling of his activities in town affairs. His discourses, we are assured, proved "very affecting to many of his People when in the hearing of them." Two of these sermons they desired to be printed "for Benefit of others, as well as for their own Good, and the good of their Children"; but we must confess that, on examining them,? no painful sense of loss at not having heard them surged forth in our soul.
The prospect that greeted the young minis- ter on his coming was not a brilliant one. 'Not only was the meeting house probably inferior in construction to some of our modern barns, but it was still far from finished. It was not until the spring of 1738 that the work of building pews was really under way, and not until the following November that a committee was named to "seat the Meeting house," 3 that is,
1 Address on Sir Robert Walpole, etc.
" Payson's Sermons.
3 Town Rec., I, 61.
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MEETING HOUSE AND MINISTER
allot the pews and benches to the various church members.
Meanwhile the parsonage had been estab- lished. Back in 1726, before the coming of Joseph Belcher, the matter of finding a suitable residence for the minister had come up.1 One of the venerable founders of the town, Peter Fales, Sr., had passed away (August 10, 1725).2 His wife Abigail, a daughter of the first William Robins, survived him; 3 and from her, in 1727, Ebenezer Fales and Thomas Clap purchased the old homestead with a view to using it as a par- sonage.4 The Widow Abigail, however, reserved her rights in the property; 5 and it is possible that both Rev. Mr. Belcher and Phillips Payson boarded with her. The estate was on the west side of Main Street, at Walpole Centre, its broad acres extending back to the river. The commo- dious house, which stood on the lot adjoining the Bradford Lewis homestead on the north, had been built probably in 1690.6
Whatever the exact arrangement was, any- thing approaching a makeshift would no longer suffice, for the young minister had turned his eyes upon a fair daughter of another town, and was dreaming dreams of his own nest. In 1732 he purchased this parsonage from Messrs. Fales
1 Town Rec., I, 9. 2 Town Rec., I, 2; also Vital Rec.
' Fales Genealogy, 26, 27. 4 Lewis, 90.
" Address on Sir Robert Walpole. 6 Lewis, opp. p. 13.
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and Clap, 1 the Widow Fales probably having died, though the date of her passing is not known.2 To this home, long since gone, Payson brought Ann Swift, daughter of Rev. John Swift of Fram- ingham, as his bride in 1733. Their first child, a son named after the father, achieved promi- nence in later life as the minister at Chelsea.
Now that the minister had taken unto him- self a wife, the question of finances became vital. Unmarried, he might manage to scrape along as best he could on such part of his salary as could be gathered. But married, no such hit or miss proceedings could stand. And so when the annual meeting of 1734 came around, the town decided that "There Should be a contribu- tion on Saboth Days and yt what money comes in writ upon shall be for and towerds Mr. Pay- sons salery and the loose money to be for him as an over plus." It was explained that those who "shall so write on their Money,"should have their contributions credited to them as taxes. "Deacon Ebenezer Fales to keep an Acompt and Hold the Box." 3
In 1739 the question of title to the land on which the meeting house stood came up for settlement. The site selected by the committee of the General Court was within the bounds of the present Common, at or near the drinking
1 Address on Sir Robert Walpole. ? Fales Genealogy, 26, 27. 3 Town Rec., I, 47.
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MEETING HOUSE AND MINISTER
fountain, and the house, according to one tradition, faced the northwest. 1
Without pretending to have made any ex- haustive study of this point, which is one for the antiquary rather than the historian, I am of an opinion that the contemporary evidence points rather to a meeting house broader than it was deep (after the fashion of the famous Old Brick in Boston and other meeting houses of the period) with its front to the south or southeast, and its longest diameter southwest and north- east. For instance, it is decided (June 30, 1738) that the pews shall be "Six on the Southeasterly side of the house and three att the southwest end and three at the North- east End. The pulpit, I assume, was at the northwest side of the house, with "two Pews Made att ye Town's Charge to be for the Towns use on the Northeasterly end of the Pulpit." 3 When pew allotments were made Thomas Clap chose that "on ye Right hand Next ye Great doars" and Deacon Fales "on the Left hand Next the Great Doors. . . .. Now I assume that the Great Doors were on the broad front of the meeting house, which, in my scheme, would place them at the south- easterly side, opposite the pulpit. But were they there? Let us see.
1 A Service Commemorating, etc., 6, 7. Lewis, 89.
' Town Rec., I, 61. 3 Ibid., I, 60. 4 Ibid., I, 61.
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When the matter of title to the meeting house lot came up, Thomas Clap (who had agreed before the town was set off to give the land) 1 made an agreement, April 4, 1739, and gave a bond of £500 to give "all ye land without his fence on each side of sd meeting house" so long as it was used for church purposes, with the proviso that the town grant to him "ye next pue to ye Southerly Door of sd meeting house on ye Right hand of said Door for his and his familys use. .. . ' ' 2 or pay him £10. This pew at the right of the "Southerly Door" is clearly, I be- lieve, identical with that "on ye Right hand Next ye Great doars," which he had chosen for himself a year before. And as it is difficult to imagine the Great Doors of a meeting house as side doors, we will, I believe, on future investi- gation, definitely place this first little meeting house with its broad front to the morning sun.
Within, the space next the walls at the front and sides was occupied by the pews, privately built and, as was the practice, of such design as the owners chose-each boxed in with walls of various heights, with floors perhaps higher than the meeting house floor, so that, to enter, it was necessary to ascend a step or two and pass in through a gate. Sometimes the walls of these old box pews were so high that the occupants could not be seen when seated, a most con- 1 Ante 59.
' Town Rec., I, 67.
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COPY DEED OF LAND FOR FIRST CHURCH BY THOMAS CLAP
MEETING HOUSE AND MINISTER
venient thing in days when the dryness of ser- mons was exceeded only by their length, and when a nap now and again served to make the ordeal of "tending meetin' " a less fearful thing than wakefulness would render it. Only the crudest of benches served the less fortunate members of the congregation.1
Above the pews, perhaps only at the front, was a gallery, one part for the men, the other for the women. Or, instead of this, there may have been two galleries, one at each end. When in 1753 it was found necessary "to make more Room in the meeting house to make it more conuenient for sitting therein" it was "pre- posed" to build "one Pew oue the Mens stairs and a Nother ouer the women stairs and a Nother at the foot of the womens stairs." 2 But it was later decided that the better thing would be to build "another Tear of Gallerys." 3
Thus, with many a problem met and solved, the meeting house was finally whipped into shape, and the wherewithal for fuel and food was provided for the minister and the various little Paysons that came in due course to brighten up the parsonage.
1 Sabbath in Puritan N. E., 33 et seq. ? Town Rec., I, 142. ' Town Rec., 145.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
THE ACADIANS
TN the first 16 years of Walpole's life as a town, 1724 to 1740, there were many other things besides the building of the meeting house to take the time and attention of the people. There were schools to be established, as the charter required. There were roads to be laid out, boundary matters to be adjusted, and various problems, such as the care of the town's poor, to be acted upon, some of which will come in for mention elsewhere in this narrative.
Those years of peaceful development now were come to an end. In October, 1739, with the outbreak of a commercial war between England and Spain (a war entered upon by Sir Robert Walpole against his best judgment), 1 Massachusetts was called upon to send an ex- pedition against Spanish America, which sailed away and met with disaster in the Caribbean. Whether Walpole men were in that ill-fated affair further investigations may show; but to judge from two sermons "Occasion'd by the present War with Spain, and other Judge- ments," preached in the Walpole meeting house
1 Ewald, 335 et seq.
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THE ACADIANS
by Rev. Phillips Payson, they probably were. In giving to his congregation the consoling in- formation that they might expect "as distressing and destroying Judgments as ever New-England felt," he demanded of them that they remember "How many of our Friends and Relations are called forth to Battle; and some fallen Prey to the Sword of their Enemy, and others shut up in their Hands, and have those that hate them to rule over them. . . . " 1 This of course may have been purely rhetorical, with no special reference to Walpole soldiers.
Though fortunately of brief duration, the Spanish War proved to be a forerunner of other wars which, in turn, led directly to the Revolu- tion. The development of political affairs in Europe brought England and France once again into hostile postures; and in 1744, with the peace-loving Robert Walpole out of power,2 a 30-year truce between these traditional enemies was brought to an end.
In Europe the struggle that followed was called The War of Austrian Succession. In America, because of the activities of Gov. William Shirley of Massachusetts, it is some- times spoken of as Shirley's War. Walpole men participated3 in an expedition which sailed from Boston in 1745 and, by an amazing stroke
1 Payson Sermons, 21, 47, 28. ? Palfrey, V, 58.
' Ante, pp. 70, 88.
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of fortune, managed to capture the French fort- ress of Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island. We know that at least two Walpole residents were among the troops sent down to garrison the frontier forts in Maine in the following year.
In the fall of 1747 Timothy Morse, one of the founders of Walpole, wrote to Governor Shirley telling that his son Elisha had been impressed in April, 1746, "to go down to the Eastern parts of this Province under the command of Capt. Jordan," that the boy was then stationed at Brunswick and "is very Desirous with Your Excellencys leave to Return Home. .. . " The elder Morse added that his own circumstances were such as to "Call for the Assistance of his said Son." 1
Shortly afterwards William Robins sent in a similar petition in behalf of his son Daniel, who had been impressed in July, 1746, and was "now at Georges Fort so Called." 2 Georges Fort was at Brunswick,3 so the two Walpole boys were companions in exile. We assume that Elisha Morse was in due course sent home. But young Robins was detained. And a year later, Sept. 7, 1748, we find Gov. Shirley writing down to Brunswick to find out what the trouble is.
He informs the commander, Capt. Jabez 1 Mass. Arch., LXXII, 757. 2 Mass. Arch, LXXII, 757. ' Sylvester, III, 301.
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Bradbury, that it had been "represented to me that Daniel Robins, a Soldier in your Garrison has been in the Service for above two Years, & that an other Man who was impressed to serve in his [place] deserted before coming to yr Fort. ... " He goes on to say that he under- stands that a youth of rather tender years but sturdy frame, had offered himself as a recruit with his father's permission. Shirley ordered that the boy be accepted, and Robins dismissed to return home. 1
Though the signing of the Peace of Aix-la- Chapelle, in October, 1748, and the attendant restoration of Louisburg to France in exchange for valuable English trading posts she had taken in India, theoretically brought the struggle to a close, it did not in fact do so.2 The Indians, once worked up to fighting pitch, could not be subdued by any paper agreement, and their enmity was further perpetuated by a boundary dispute of long standing which this peace treaty and subsequent boundary conferences failed to settle. Eventually things did quiet down, but only for a brief period. By 1754, though England and France were still nominally at peace, conflicting interests in the American fur trade, emphasized by the rapid expansion of French trading posts along the very indefinite west border of the English colonies, brought 1 Mass. Arch., LXIII, 198. 2 Palfrey, V, 91, 110.
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THE STORY OF WALPOLE
on armed conflict in America and presaged a greater impending struggle.1
New England's answer to the border troubles was the immediate garrisoning of Nova Scotia. This step led in 1755 to the expulsion of the Acadians or French Neutrals, so-called because they had attempted to maintain a position of neutrality between England, in whose territory they dwelt, and France, to whom their natural sympathies went out.
It is not for us to enter into the details of this terrible business, which exceed in its refined cruelties even the wholesale expulsion of French and Belgian populations in the last war. As Longfellow has told in "Evangeline," families were broken up and their members widely separated. Some of the vessels in which the Acadians were crowded were ordered to New England, others to colonies far to the South. Several shiploads of these people reached Boston in November, 1755, and were apportioned among such towns as bid for them, it being at first sup- posed that England would foot all the bills and that boarding the French neutrals would prove a profitable industry.
Walpole, we judge, received none of this first lot. But as the weeks wore on others came to the colony, some from Nova Scotia direct, some from colonies to the south, where they had ob-
' Palfrey, V, 113, 127.
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THE ACADIANS
tained possession of vessels and were trying to make their way back to their old homes. Some of the latter who came into Massachusetts harbors for shelter were detained by the au- thorities and apportioned among the towns.
Eleven of the Acadians who had come to Massachusetts "from the Southern Govern- ment," 1 8 adults and 3 children, were sent to Walpole to be cared for some time in the winter of 1775-1756.
They are listed by the Walpole town fathers as Petter Landeres, his wife and two children; James Dantramont (probably D'Autremont), aged 84 at the time of his coming, Margret, his wife, aged 54, and their children Joseph, 22, and Margret, 19; and Petter Robbertshaw, 29, with his wife Margret, 24, and their child Petter, aged 2, to whom was added more than a year later another son who was named Joseph.2
In November, 1756, the Selectmen, Joshua Clap, Moses Ellis, Aquilla Robbins, Jedidiah Morse and John Boyden, sent to the Provincial authorities an account of expenditures made on account of the Acadians up to that time. It included "houseing & Transporting them & Goods," "Prouisions and fire wood" and "Nes- serary Implements," all of which came to nearly £8. To this the thrifty Selectmen tacked on an item of £1.10 to recompense themselves "for 1 Mass. Arch., XXXV, 275. 2 Mass. Arch., XXIII, 626.
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their trouble"; but the Provincial authorities promptly struck this last item out. 1
The money spent for the maintenance of the French Neutrals had come from the town treasury; and in February, 1757, when the call for town meeting went out, it contained an item for a regular appropriation to care for "The Nuter French" in the coming year.2 Accord- ingly, on March 1, "The Town Granted thirty Pounds Lawful Money for ye Support of the Nuteral French that the General Court Sent to this Town." "' 3 A few days later the Selectmen sent in another bill to the Province for ex- penditures on account of the Acadians. Its items included "a meet tub Pail and Cagg full of Cyder" as well as "Tobacco, Turnips, Patta- toes, Sope, Beens, and Molt." 4
A year later, March 1, 1758, we find that the Landeres or Landers family had been removed from Walpole, possibly in the course of a reap- portionment of the Acadians among the towns. But those who remained were a heavy burden. The Dantramonts were said to be "uncapable of Labour Except for a little Cloathing and that allmost gone" and consequently had been boarded out all year. The elder Dantramont was suffering from a "canser"; and among the items on the town's account is one
1 Mass. Arch., XXIII, 275.
2 Town Rec., 157.
' Town Rec., I, 158.
4 Mass. Arch., XXIII, 629.
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THE ACADIANS
"To Doc Daggett for Doctring Joseph when Sick . . £0-04-0"1
Furthermore, "Petter Robbertshaw has had the Rumetisarm and has Been uncapeble of Labour This winter and his wife has a young Child about ten Months Old." This was little Joseph. Accordingly we find among the charges:
"To Rum Sugar Beiskat [Biscuit] Raisens and Linning [linen] for Petter Robbertshaw wife her Lying in · 0-07-0
"To going for ye Midwife a french woman at Sherbon with two horse and aman . . 0-06-0" ?
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