USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Rowley > The tercentenary celebration of the town of Rowley, 1639-1939 > Part 10
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We can have no doubt that the same purpose dominated an- other group of families that hailed from another parish nearer to Rowley, whose origin, hitherto unknown, I have had the good fortune to discover, and shall expect to publish in detail in the immediate future. These included William Acy, William Stickney,
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Thomas and Jane Grant, and probably Robert Hunter, who had been living in the parish of Cottingham, just outside of Hull, to whose rector I owe an unfailing debt of gratitude for his notable kindness in facilitating my searches at different times.
Rev. Ezekiel Rogers must have been a man of very strong personality and wide influence. He attracted men of substance from farther afield, like the Jewett brothers from Bradford in the West Riding. They were also prosperous men, of relatively large business experience. The Rev. Mr. Cooper writes, "Bradford Street (in Rowley in New England) is not likely to have been named after our Yorkshire town, which at that time was an insignificant place." This appraisal is rather annoying to the pride of the local historians of old Bradford, who told me that its volume of manu- factures even 300 years ago was considerably greater than that of Leeds. Furthermore Mr. Cooper seems to be entirely ignorant of the well established fact that the Jewetts came from Bradford. They were of an old family there, so numerous at the time of the beginning of the extant parish registers (1596) as to be simply overwhelming to the searcher who attempts to unravel their earlier history. Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence (1654) states that "The first settlers of Rowley were the first people that set upon the making of cloth in this western world." In this enterprise we may well believe the Jewetts were leaders, continuing their hereditary family occupation; they doubtless had a strong influence in the new settlement to be able to dictate the name of the street in the midst of which they had their houselots. Besides the two brothers, Maximilian and Joseph Jewett of the first company, there were Abraham and John Jewett, who appear later in Rowley, and seem to be of the next generation. Mr. Blodgett wrote: "To me Abraham and John are mysteries." Mr. Amos E. Jewett, with keener imagination, has suggested that "it is probable they were nephews of Maximilian and Joseph, sons of William, born 1605." This conjecture I have found sufficiently confirmed by my more intensive study of the Bradford records, which apparently have not otherwise been seriously examined since the rather superficial pioneer work of Horatio G. Somerby many years ago. New ma- terial on the Jewetts and on the Mallinson family, forbears of the wife of Joseph Jewett, is being published in the third article
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in the series on Rowley founders (New England Historical and Genealogical Register for April, 1940) following the first two which are mentioned below. It was interesting to discover that three hundred years ago the family name was regularly written Jowett, as it is now in Yorkshire, and that this spelling was retained even in Massachusetts as late as 1653, as shown by the autographs of the immigrant Joseph Jowett and his son Jeremiah, reproduced here from an agreement for a sale of land to the Town of Rowley.
Forage faroff Frimiah fowoff
At the present time in Yorkshire the name is probably generally pronounced with the first syllable as in cow, but possibly it may in old days have been sounded as in sew, as the name of the great Dr. Jowett of Oxford is pronounced, as shown in the couplet quoted above, to rhyme with "know it." That would give an easier transition to the American "Jewett."
Besides the Jewetts, Hugh Chaplin, who lived near the south- west end of Bradford Street, is alleged to have come from old Bradford*, but the Bradford parish registers do not show the name, and local antiquaries assured me it had never been known there.
Another man of influence in the Rogers company was my mother's immigrant ancestor, Mr. Edward Carlton, whose family home had been at Beeford and then Hornsea, some eighteen miles from Rowley. Of the substantial character of this family I have recently given an account in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (Vol. 39, pp. 3-46, 1939; Vol. 40, pp. 3-18, Jan. 1940), at the same time demolishing the baseless connection of this pioneer with a London family of merchants and gentlemen which had been accepted in this country for about seventy years.
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A pedigree of the brothers William and John Boynton pub- lished in the Boynton Genealogy, by which they were gratuitously attached to an old family of Wintringham in the North Riding, has been wisely ignored by Blodgett and Jewett. Examination of the parish register demonstrates that they could not have belonged to this family. A long and notable lineage they doubtless could have boasted, but with what obscure branch of the family they were connected must remain a problem for further search. I firmly believe they came from some parish in the southern part of York- shire, but every clue followed has thus far led to a blind end.
In closing this address, I should like to revert to the last sen- tence of the Rev. Mr. Cooper's paper: "I have never known of stronger or wiser men than those who colonised America in the 17th century, of whom the men of Rowley, I am inclined to think, were second to none." - A pretty good tribute from an Englishman, who believed New England had taken a substantial group from his own country.
The statements to this effect by Blodgett and Jewett appear to be derived from Savage (Geneal. Dict. 1:360, 1860) who wrote of Hugh Chaplin: "He was born 22 May 1603, it is said, the s. of Ebenezer, wh. was b. 10 May 1572, wh. was s. of Jeremy of Bradford, Co. York, b. 4 Aug. 1541." Such a series of actual dates of birth could only have been taken from some pedigree which seems to have been lost sight of. It is certainly open to suspicion as to authenticity.
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FAIR DAYS OF OLD
Tune - "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" New England has no brighter page Than Rowley's early day When Rogers led his little band Across the sea to stay. Due south from Merrimac they found A valley green and fair, With four low hills to shut them in And guard them safely there.
Rich are the meadows where today The river meets the sea; Once on that quiet river's brink Slow mills turned peacefully. Within the ever charming Glen The weaving loom sang low; While Rowley craft along the coast Sailed fearless to and fro.
O Rowley River, Rowley town, Thy echoes yet are heard Of mill and loom; on Sabbath still Thy preachers' flaming word. Three hundred years have but begun The tale thou hast to tell, And we who love thy story pause To wish thee always well.
-Flora M. Smith.
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Lux Eng. & Barrow
First Congregational Church, Rowley, erected 1842. Located at corner of Main and Hammond Streets. Their fourth church building since settle- ment of the Town in 1639, showing tower clock, gift of the late David E. Smith, installed 1902. Scene of closing service of Tercentenary, August 27, 1939.
T HE church service at First Congregational Church on Sunday, August 27, brought to a fitting close the four-day celebration and was very finely carried out with a nicely arranged program as given herein and included daughter churches as well as the Baptist Church. The program for which as well as the excellent address of William Stickney Ewell of Rowley are published herewith.
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1639 - ROWLEY, MASSACHUSETTS, TERCENTENARY 1939
MEETING FIRST CHURCH, ROWLEY, MASSACHUSETTS Sunday, August 27th, 3:00 P.M. In connection with the Daughter Churches of the First Church, Organized 1639
Bradford 1669
Georgetown 1732
Boxford 1st Church
1702 Boxford 2nd Church 1736
South Byfield
1702
Linebrook 1749
Groveland 1727
and the Baptist Church, Rowley 1830 This service was broadcast through Radio Station WLAW, Lawrence, Mass.
THE ORDER OF SERVICE
ORGAN PRELUDE-Grande Offertoire Eugene . Thayer
Mrs. Charles H. Mooney
CALL TO WORSHIP Deacon George E. Kimball, Bradford DOXOLOGY
INVOCATION Rev. Samuel M. LePage, South Byfield ANTHEM-"Jehovah's Praise" E. L. White
Mrs. Harland Burke, Soloist
WORDS OF WELCOME Rev. J. Kenneth Clinton, Pastor
GREETINGS-From Rowley, England
Read by Deacon John A. Marshall
ANNOUNCEMENT Professor Franklin C. Roberts, Boxford OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE
"The Nation"-Duke Street-No. 549, Hymnal
O God beneath thy guiding hand Our exiled fathers crossed the sea; And when they trod the wintry strand,
With prayer and song they worshipped thee.
Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God
Came with those exiles o'er the waves; And where their pilgrim feet have trod, The God they trusted guards their graves.
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Thou heard'st, well pleased, the song, the prayer;
Thy blessing came: and still its power onward through all ages bear
Shall
And here thy name, O God of love, Their children's children shall adore, Till these eternal hills remove And spring adorns the earth no more.
Thy memory of that holy hour. Choir and Congregation
SCRIPTURE READING-Psalm 107-1-22*
PRAYER
Rev. Stanley H. Gregory, Pastor, Baptist Church Rev. Bernard J. Renner, Georgetown RESPONSE -- "Hark the Vesper Hymn is Stealing"-Old Russian Air Arranged by John Stevenson Double Quartet
Daniel N. Prime
ORIGINAL ODE* Mrs. Charles T. Mighill, Descendant
Supreme Eternal God,
Who sits enthroned above,
By whose almighty power, The wheels of nature move; Oh wilt Thou deign this day to hear, Our grateful song and humble prayer.
When in the days of old, The fathers of our race From persecution fled, To seek a resting place, Where they in peace might wor- ship Thee, From cruel priests and tyrants free.
Then Thy protecting hand, Did guide them safely o'er, Whilst they the ocean crossed To this then desert shore; And Rogers with his little band Safely arrived on freedom's land.
And now may we, their sons, While in Thy courts this day, With grateful hearts adore, With contrite spirits pray;
That He who was our father's friend,
Their children here would still defend.
Through future ages may Our sons and daughters join With cheerful heart and voice, In worship so divine; Here Lord remain and bless our race,
Through every age 'till time shall cease.
OFFERTORY-"Praise Ye The Father" Gounod "Jerusalem My Glorious Home" Dr. Lowell Mason
RESPONSE Deacon E. Milton Stacey, Groveland
Two hundred times our earth, Has run its annual round,
Since on this pleasant plain, A safe retreat they found;
And on this spot a church did raise, And dedicate it to Thy praise.
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HYMN -- "The Christian Life"-Whittier-No. 320, Hymnal Announced by Richard P. Chadwick, West Boxford
Dear Lord and Father of mankind Forgive our feverish ways; Re-clothe us in our rightful mind; In purer lives thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like those who heard, Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee, O calm of hills above Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee, The silence of eternity Interpreted by love.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease, Take from our souls the strains and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire, Thy coolness and thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire : Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, O still small voice of calm. Choir and Congregation
SPECIAL MUSIC-"The Souls of the Righteous"
T. Tertius Noble
Choir
ADDRESS-"Rowley of the Massachusetts Bay Colony" William Stickney Ewell, Rowley
HYMN-"The Living God" Ste. Anne
Choir and Congregation Lined by Deacon Harlan C. Foster, Rowley
BENEDICTION Rev. William Nicholl, a former pastor
ORGAN POSTLUDE-"Triumphal March" M. Costa
Mrs. Charles H. Mooney Ushers in Costume :
Palmer S. Perley George E. Pike
Earle S. McCormick Randolph W. Emerson
Milford R. Buck William J. Jerome
Chorus Choir under the direction of Wallace Adams of Newburyport Mrs. Wilbur K. Foster, Accompanist
*The Scripture and the Original Ode read today were used at the 200th Anniversary Celebration of the Town in 1839.
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This service attracted a very large number of people, all the seats in the church being filled before the service opened and many were seated on the lawn and in cars where the program was brought to them through an amplifying system. The choir, dressed in Puri- tan costumes, was seated in the balcony in the back of the church and was accompanied by Mrs. Wilbur K. Foster on the small organ.
There were interesting documents exhibited, also six very old silver communion cups owned by the church, birth records dating from 1639 and a weathervane from the old 2nd church dating 1697. At the close of the service, refreshments were served in the chapel.
CLIPPING FROM HULL & EAST YORKSHIRE TIMES OF ABOUT JULY 30, 1939
"Rowley: New Rector: The Rev. Donald Charles Urquhart, M.A., commenced his duties at St. Peter's Church last Sunday, when there were large congregations at the morning and evening services. The new Rector thanked his parishioners for the welcome they gave him at his induction, and said he would endeavor to prove worthy of their confidence.
"Greetings from U.S.A. In 1638 the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, for 18 years Rector of Rowley, East Yorkshire, who refused to read from the pulpit 'that accursed book which allowed sports on God's Holy Sabbath or Lord's Day' and was suspended by Arch- bishop Laud, determined to seek that freedom in foreign lands which he could not enjoy here. He sailed from Hull with some 20 families from Rowley. He founded the settlement at first called - 'Mr. Rogers' Plantation.'
"Other Townships set off from the territorial Rowley of 1639 were Bradford (Haverhill), Boxford, Georgetown and Groveland, and on (July) 4, 1639, Mr. Rogers' Plantation was incorporated as Rowley, Mass.
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"During the past 60 years many visitors from Rowley, U.S.A., have visited their East Riding mother Church and village espe- cially during the incumbency of the late Rev. H. C. T. Hildyard (1852-1898), by whom they were entertained, and the last party (to make themselves known) were led by Mr. Taylor, the school- master, who after visiting St. Peter's Church, called at the school in 1909.
"During the past half century the two Rowleys have been kept in touch with each other by various correspondents, and Mr. Lacy, parish clerk, has just received an interesting letter from Mr. John A. Marshall, Town Clerk of Rowley, Massachusetts, con- taining messages of good will and greetings to all at 'good old Rowley,' England, and stating that they are about to celebrate the tercentenary of their home town of Rowley established so long ago by the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers and incorporated in 1639.
"Mr. Marshall encloses a programme for a general observance of the event which extends from August 24 to August 27, including a pageant depicting early scenes and incidents of long ago: dedica- tion of bronze tablets marking historic spots (including battles with the native Indians by the early settlers) : pilgrimages to places of interest in the town: and concluding with a grand religious service in the Rowley Congregational Church on August 27, in which all local and daughter churches will take part. Mr. Marshall con- cludes as follows :
" 'It would indeed be a great pleasure and satisfaction if some one from the good old Rowley, England, could be with us, but we fear that is too much to hope for, but would add greatly to the completeness of the occasion.
" 'We do at least desire and trust we may have a message from our mother Church to be read at this service, so we earnestly ask that such a message may come for that purpose.'"
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St. Peter's Church, Rowley, Yorkshire, England, the Mother church, where Rev. Ezekiel Rogers served as rector, 1620-1638. Erected in thirteenth century and still in use. Described as built of brick, covered with cement. Very unusual for such antiquity.
GREETINGS FROM THE MOTHER CHURCH AND PARISH OF ROWLEY, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND READ BY DEACON JOHN A. MARSHALL TO OUR BRETHREN OF ROWLEY, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A. ON THE OCCASION OF THE TERCENTENARY OF THEIR HOME TOWN OF ROWLEY
Founded so long ago by the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, beloved Rector of Rowley, England, 1620-1638, this message of Greeting and Good- will is sent. "Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from Our Lord Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1-3.)
Much as we regret inability to be with you in body we shall be with you in spirit, and pray that many spiritual Blessings may result from that Great Service.
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Mr. Marshall's outline of the programme to be observed and kind invitation to be present was read by the Rector at both services in Church on Sunday, July 30, and aroused the keen interest of large congregations whose unanimous desire was that this Message of Goodwill be sent.
I enclose also our Rector's personal Greetings, and we shall eagerly anticipate the news of its safe arrival together with particu- lars of a Memorable Event, which shall be read to Parishioners on whose behalf I write, and that God may bless, preserve and keep you all, is the prayer of
Yours sincerely, Chas: Lacey, "Acacia House" Little Weighton, Hull, Eng.
(57 years Parish Clerk of Rowley, England)
P.S. All correspondence received will be carefully preserved, and we shall be delighted to be kept in touch with our "Brethren across the Sea."
GREETINGS FROM RECTOR OF CHURCH AT ROWLEY, ENGLAND
Rowley Rectory Little Weighton, Hull, Yorkshire Tel. Kirk Ella 46401 August 5, 1939
To our friends at Rowley, Massachusetts:
We, the parishioners and Rector of Rowley, East Yorkshire, England, send you our greetings and every good wish.
I only wish it had been possible for some of us - or even one of us - to partake in your celebrations, but our thoughts will be with you then and our prayers for your future welfare.
Donald C. Urquhart,
Rector.
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ROWLEY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY By WM. STICKNEY EWELL
Written for the Rowley Tercentenary. Delivered in the Congregational Church, Rowley, Sunday, August 27, 1939 1
The week that your committee called on me to give the address on this Tercentenary Sunday I had another visitor, a delightful old gentleman, a "stranger within my gates," who had come some twenty miles with his gardener to dig up a wild plant in my field for his garden. I hoped he had found one of our rarer native orchids, an arethusa or a calopogon, but all he took was a brown-eyed Susan. It seemed he could have done better in Rowley fields other than mine, fields where arethusa and calopogon grow, but brown-eyed Susan was what he had come for. Even so, there was sense and good taste in his selection, but I wonder at the committee's penchant for the common flower of ordinary soil.
When Charles Eliot was President of Harvard he was strongly opposed in his purpose to found a graduate school, and in a meeting called to consider the project, an objector dissented on the ground that Harvard was established as a college for under- graduates. Mr. Eliot answered that it was for the undergraduate that he wanted the graduate school, as he looked to it for teachers in the College who knew not alone a path across their field of instruction, but the entire field. I have thought of this as Mrs. Cheney and Mr. Jewett have piled book on book for me to read in preparation for this address, and I have collected considerable source material in addition to what they have given, but the field for the history of our Rowley is of extraordinary extent. I cannot even cross it with you this afternoon, but will try to take you by a somewhat zig-zag path to various points of interest in that field.
"Enough is left besides to search and know: But knowledge is as food, and needs no less Her temperance over apetite, to know In measure what the mind may well contain."
Paradise Lost, VII: 124.
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The history of our town has its roots in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and it is well to begin with that back- ground as it explains the reasons for our being better than could be shown by a mere recital of our separate story, if indeed there is a separate story; and there is an interesting neglected item in this history which is much older than our colony, older even than the Plymouth settlement. Captain John Smith of Virginia, in 1614, gave us many of our names. He at that time named New England, Plymouth, Charles River and Cape Ann.
For years immediately following the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth emigration to New England languished. In 1623 a company of merchants in Dorchester, England, planted a small fishing village on Cape Ann. A certain Conant of Plymouth, but who was out of favor there, came to Cape Ann and was made Manager of the community, a starveling product of mercenary adventure, which he transferred, in 1626, to Naumkeag. This withering plant is of some but not considerable importance to us, because its history has been continuous through fusion with that of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In England the Puritan party, grown strong in numbers and in the calibre of the men who had joined it, felt the years of strife close at hand after one hundred and fifty years of no real fighting on English soil; a serenity which could not last long after Charles I became King, in 1625. Still, emigration did not begin at once. For many years, long ante-dating the sailing of the Mayflower, English- men had been moving to America, to Bermuda, and to the West Indies, but the Puritans were not of their ilk. They loved Eng- land. They were devoted to the Church of England, and to their homes. They were the ones who through long years had estab- lished representation of the people in the government, and it was their hope that they could arrest the political retrogression which had set in, and prevent the intolerance which Charles seemed de- termined to impose. It was a new problem, and even the leading Puritans were not of one mind as to how it should be met. Many of them opposed any thought of leaving England, trusting to their increasing numbers and weight, and to their governmental sagacity to establish their political and religious ideas, and all that without having to leave the Church of England. Others saw no hope of
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doing this. No one read with clearer insight the sinister overcast of the skies than John White, Puritan rector of Trinity Church in that same Dorchester where the Cape Ann fishing venture was launched ; and it is to his foresight and intelligent promotion that we owe the beginning and sturdy character of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
John White feared that Puritanism itself was at stake, with no certainty that it could survive in England. He believed that it could be preserved in America, if emigration could be made under the sponsorship of men of wealth and of wide social influence. The Plymouth colony had done fairly well with only a few people and with very meagre resources. Generally colonies had failed because they were made up of, to use his own words: "a multitude of un- governable persons, the very scum of the land." He was a good organizer and, though he seems never to have come to America, he persuaded some of the best men in England to go with the people he sent over. In March, 1628, he secured from the Council for New England a tract of land, "consisting of the territory included between three miles north of the Merrimack and three miles south of the Charles in one direction, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the other," but before asking for this grant he had brought to his support men of such note as to give his colonial project bright promise of succeeding, well illustrated by his selection of John Endi- cott to lead the first band of settlers.
Endicott arrived at Naumkeag in September, 1628, with sixty settlers. Conant and his little group disputed the title of the new colony, but the dispute could not have been so very quarrelsome as they seem almost immediately to have changed the name of the plac: to Salem, the Hebrew word for peace. The next spring John White and his associates obtained from King Charles a charter, creating a corporation, under the legal style of the "Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England." In April, 1630, John Winthrop, a wealthy gentleman, came as Governor, to whom John Fiske refers "as one of the very noblest figures in American history," and of his value to the colony he writes: "when he was selected as the Moses of the great Puritan exodus, there was a widespread feeling that extraordinary results were likely to come of such an enterprise." There was an immediate increase in emi- gration, which continued in a swelling tide until 1640, when the
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