USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Rowley > The tercentenary celebration of the town of Rowley, 1639-1939 > Part 9
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Elsas or Elsarse, the records show that he rang the bell from 1795 to 1813 with the exception of 1802 when Silvanus Hardy held the honor. Whether parish politics or illness kept him from his position in 1802 is not known. One of the last of the bell ringers was the late Deacon William B. Ladd.
In the olden days the ringing of the bell was considered an accomplishment and was taught to his successor with great care. Mr. Jeremiah Hardy, who was bell ringer from 1813 to 1847, was considered by Dr. Perry as the most proficient ringer he had ever known. The work was more arduous in those days and required a certain knack that only experience could teach. The tolling for public worship "sounded off" with a "clang" of three sharp strokes in quick succession. Since the bearings were remodelled, this effect cannot be produced.
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Down to 1855 the bell was rung every day at 12 and as a curfew at 9 p.m. This was continued, but not regularly, until the clock was given the parish by Burton E. Merrill in 1883. The bell was rung on all public days, on all occasions of especial joy or thanksgiving and was tolled on all occasions of sorrow. On the death of a person of note, the custom was to "tell" the age of the deceased by the number of strokes, one for each year. The bell was again tolled as the funeral procession came in sight of the church and was continued until it had disappeared. Tradition is that the first person that it was tolled for was Esther, wife of Daniel Parker, on Jan. 30, 1796. It was rung on the death of Washing- ton, at the end of the War of 1812, when John Brown was exe- cuted in 1859 and when Dr. Perry died in December of that year. It rang the glad news of the end of the Civil War and tolled when President Lincoln died. The last time that it was rung on an occasion of this kind was on the first Armistice day of the World War, 1919.
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Tent on Rowley Common, size 60 by 140 feet, with canvas flooring. The Tercentenary Ball and Banquet, leading features of the Celebration conducted therein August 25 and August 26, 1939.
BANQUET
The Tercentenary Banquet in charge of Mrs. Knight Dexter Cheney, chairman of the banquet committee, Saturday evening, August 26, was surely an occasion long to be remembered and was certainly a fitting event of the celebration.
One hundred years previous a banquet was held on the Com- mon, then on a wooden pavilion, while ours of this year was within a large tent.
The number of people from this and nearby communities, State officials and the officials of daughter and neighboring towns and cities, music by Essex County Training School band, the color- ful setting, all combined to make a most interesting and memorable social event for all who attended.
Seated at the head table were: Hon. Cornelius F. Haley, Chairman of General Committee, who officiated as toastmaster ; Tracy Elliot Hazen, Ph.D. of Columbia University, speaker of
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the evening; Mrs. Knight Dexter Cheney; Miss Gertrude W. Carleton; Selectman and Mrs. Frank W. Fletcher ; Selectman and Mrs. Samuel F. Knowles, Jr .; Selectman and Mrs. Rupert S. Morrill; Town Clerk and Mrs. John A. Marshall; Hon. Albert W. Glynn, Mayor of Haverhill, and Mrs. Glynn; Edward S. Nelson, Chairman of Selectmen of Georgetown; Harry L. Cole, Chairman of Selectmen of Boxford; Thornton E. Pike, Chairman of Selectmen of Groveland; Archibald L. Jones, Chairman of Selectmen of Middleton ; Brainard C. Wallace, Chairman of Select- men of Ipswich; George C. Parsons, former Chairman of New- bury Selectmen; Representative Harland Burke of Ipswich; Repre- sentative William F. Runnells of Newburyport; Rev. J. Kenneth Clinton, Pastor, First Congregational Church; Miss Marian G. Todd; Harlan C. Foster; George E. Pike; Albert F. Tenney.
Six hundred and forty townspeople, former residents and visi- tors, attended the tercentenary banquet which was held on the Common, Saturday evening.
The Toastmaster, Hon. Cornelius F. Haley, requested Rev. J. Kenneth Clinton, pastor of the First Congregational Church, to offer blessing.
ADDRESS OF CORNELIUS F. HALEY
AT TERCENTENARY BANQUET ON ROWLEY COMMON Ladies and Gentlemen :
Having had the honor to be selected by my associates of the Town's Tercentenary Committee to serve as toastmaster at this splendid gathering, I am pleased to welcome on behalf of the committee and the town in general our guests and visitors to the Town's Tercentenary Banquet as arranged by the committee in charge of the event. It is appropriate that this banquet be held on the Common for here in 1839 the inhabitants constructed a pavilion in which was held the official centennial dinner, 100 years ago. At that time leading men of the community spoke here. Their program was well carried out as Gage's history of the town records. We have tried to arrange and carry out the spirit of the celebration this year from the inspiration we gathered from the
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celebration in 1839 by arranging an order of exercises in keeping with the past and appropriate to the present. In addition to our Selectmen, who will extend the greetings of the town, we have recognized in their official capacity those who serve in the chief administrative offices of the communities that have been set apart from old Rowley since 1639, also the chairman of the Selectmen of the neighboring towns of Ipswich and Newbury. Our com- munity has much in common with these towns. We have here the representatives of the district who serve Rowley in the General Court. As our historical speaker we have a descendant of Edward Carleton, one of the first settlers of the town, Tracy Elliot Hazen, Ph.D., of Columbia University. The speaker will be presented by another descendant of Edward Carleton, Miss Gertrude W. Carle- ton, a Rowley resident and member of the town committee. We are grateful for the Rowley songs as composed by Miss Flora M. Smith, a former resident, and appreciate the music furnished by the excellent Essex County Training School Band, whose services the committee were fortunate to obtain through the courtesy of the Board of Essex County Commissioners. As presiding officer it is my province to present to you in the order of the program as arranged, the Mayor of Haverhill, which city has now in its municipal area what was the town of Bradford set apart from Rowley; and the chairmen of the Boards of Selectmen who are here from the towns of Georgetown, Groveland, Boxford and Middleton, all having been set apart wholly or partly from the old township lines of Rowley, as well as the chairmen of the Selectmen of Ipswich and Newbury and the Representatives in the General Court. I am sure you will appreciate the responses they will make for their various communities and the public offices they have the honor to serve in. I am, therefore, pleased to present the list of speakers on the program, copies of which have been distributed for your convenience at the tables.
Frank W. Fletcher, Chairman of the Rowley Board of Select- men, introduced by the Toastmaster, extended greetings of the Town as follows:
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ADDRESS OF FRANK W. FLETCHER
Tonight we are gathered here on Rowley's historic Common to celebrate a very important historical event that took place three hundred years ago, the founding of Rowley by Ezekiel Rogers and his little band of followers. A great many changes have taken place in these three hundred years that have passed. By their courage and fortitude they were the means of bringing about the many things which we are privileged to enjoy today. As chairman of the Board of Selectmen, it is my good fortune to welcome you here tonight and invite you to participate with us in honoring those early pioneers and to pay tribute to the memory of Ezekiel Rogers. I sincerely hope that one hundred years hence that future genera- tions that may be living at that time will again gather to pay tribute to Ezekiel Rogers and his little band of early pioneers. I also invite you all to attend the Old Home Community Service at the First Congregational Church Sunday afternoon at 3. o'clock. When the time comes that you terminate your visit with us I sincerely hope you will carry away with you our best wishes and fond memories of our little town, and that you will accept our invitation to return again and again.
A letter from Rev. Thomas Grady, curate at the St. Joseph's Church in Ipswich, was read by John A. Marshall, clerk of the Committee, stating that he regretted not being able to be present owing to official duties. Rev. Mr. Clinton then led the singing of the "Rowley Home-Coming Song" written by Flora M. Smith, accompanied by the Essex County Training School band.
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ROWLEY HOME-COMING SONG Tune - "The Old Oaken Bucket"
Beyond the low dunes of the gleaming white sea sand Where Plum Island Sound flows along the North Shore, A town named for Rowley, old Rowley in England, Lies deep in contentment and dreaming of yore. With Ox Pasture, Muzzey, with Prospect and Hunslow, Four green hills to guard it by night and by day, The town in the valley where brightly the streams flow, Bids wand'rer to sojourn and stranger to stay.
Chorus :
O fair town of Rowley! long, long will thy children Turn gladly their home-loving thoughts unto thee. O broad are the meadows where orchards are blooming And many the herds that roam over the hills The long summer day, and when evening is glooming The veery his vesper triumphantly trills With music of waters, the scent of the clover, The songs of the birds and the breath of the sea, No place can be found if you search the world over More lovely than Rowley or ever will be.
Chorus :
There stands the white church as in days long departed, Though now from the clear streams the old mills are gone For great are the changes since Rowley was started, And Time, the sure reaper, has hurried him on. But let her not fear the rude sounds that shall rouse her When dreaming, she lies, of her deeds written down, Her sons and her daughters are true as the number Who chose the green valley and founded the town.
Chorus :
O fair town of Rowley! long, long will thy children Turn gladly their home-loving thoughts unto thee.
-Flora M. Smith.
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Responses were made by the following speakers who brought greetings from their respective towns and cities: Hon. Albert E. Glynn, Mayor of Haverhill, representing Bradford ; Harry L. Cole, Chairman of the Board of Selectmen and President of the Boxford Historical Society; Edward S. Nelson, Chairman of the George- town Board of Selectmen; Thornton E. Pike, Chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Groveland; Archibald L. Jones, Chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Middleton. These towns at one time were part of Rowley. In 1728 a part of Boxford was an- nexed to Middleton.
The toastmaster stated that Miss Gertrude W. Carleton had made known to him that a direct descendant of the toastmaster at the banquet one hundred years ago was present and he called upon Edmund S. Cogswell of Wenham, First Deputy Commissioner of Insurance of the Commonwealth, who responded as follows.
He is a great grandson of Thomas Gage, author of "Gage's History of Rowley" published 1840, who was the President of the day in 1839, and showed a ticket for the 1839 Centennial Dinner.
On the ticket was printed, "Ladies Ticket to the Centennial Dinner at Rowley, Sept. 5th, 1839."
The back of this ticket was endorsed by the signature of Thomas Gage, and the face of the ticket showed the initials T.G. $1.25.
Mr. Cogswell facetiously remarked that he had considered the idea of trying to use the ticket to admit his wife to the 1939 banquet.
Mr. Cogswell's mother was Mary A. Gage, daughter of Deacon Caleb S. Gage of Essex, son of Thomas Gage.
Accompanying him at the 1939 banquet were his wife, Eleanor Pickering Cogswell; his father, Henry P. Cogswell, aged 89; the three youngest of his four children, David Gage Cogswell, Ruth Elizabeth Cogswell and Katherine Hope Cogswell.
Deacon Caleb S. Gage of Essex had ten children, none of whom are now living. Of the seventeen grandchildren, sixteen now survive.
There are twenty-five great grandchildren living.
The other son of Thomas Gage was William Gage, who re- moved to Illinois, none of his children survive.
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The only survivor of this branch is his granddaughter, Mrs. Stella Davies of Litchfield, Ill.
Brainard C. Wallace, Chairman of the Ipswich Board of Selectmen, and George C. Parsons, now a resident of Ipswich, but a resident and Chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Newbury at the time the invitation to the banqeut had been received, brought greetings from their respective towns. Remarks were also made by Representatives Harland Burke of Ipswich and William F. Runnells of Newburyport. A letter was read from Miss Helen McGregor Noyes explaining the origin of Byfield.
The guest speaker was Tracy Elliot Hazen, Ph.D., of Colum- bia University, who gave a historical address. Dr. Hazen, who is a direct descendant of the early settlers of Rowley, has spent several summers in Yorkshire, England, gathering facts concerning the early settlers in Rowley. He had learned through this research many historical facts of great value and interest to the descendants of the early settlers, many of which he told to the gathering. One point which Dr. Hazen stressed was the difference in the pronuncia- tion of the Rowley in England and the Rowley in the United States. The address in full follows:
NEW LIGHT ON THE YORKSHIRE ORIGINS OF ROWLEY FOUNDERS
BY TRACY ELLIOT HAZEN
It is with a deep sense of the honor of the invitation which enables me to have a part in this great celebration that I stand before you tonight. What I have to say must take a much more personal and conversational form than would meet the approval of the editors, who like to have all statements in the third person.
When, on the opening day of the celebration, a distant relative who happened to be driving through town took me about to view the beautifully labeled houselots of the early settlers, and I could readily count no less than seven of the names as among my immi- grant ancestors, I began to have a deep feeling of having come home. It was my rather innocent belief, derived from a consid- erable perusal of the fine volume of Messrs. Blodgett and Jewett on the Early Settlers of Rowley, that none of those who have been continuously connected with the town could claim to carry the
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blood of a larger number of the pioneers. Today, however, I have found from a chart on the wall in the home of my hostess, which has been in the possession of her family since 1699, that Dr. Adrian Lambert has traced their lineage back to at least nine of the founders. It would be interesting if the Rowley Historical Society would initiate a competition to learn what residents can demonstrate the greatest number of founder-ancestors.
For approximately thirty years I have been delving in studies of New England immigrants, at first through paid professional agents (always unsatisfactory), then for twenty years by means of numerous personal summer vacation trips to England. These expeditions have been avowedly devoted primarily to scientific re- search (so that at first, just after the War, the suspicions of the British passport officials were aroused), and it has been only when continuous miscroscopic work became wearisome that I felt it was permissible to turn for relief to the more distant perspective of historical and genealogical research. In this field the Yorkshire families have been by all odds the most interesting, and I think I can say without undue boasting that I have gained a first hand knowledge of more of our ancestral homes than anyone else. This is my only apologia for my temerity in accepting the invitation of the committee to speak here.
In the statement just made I am reminded of a rhyme ascribed to the famous Dr. Jowett, master of Balliol College, Oxford, prob- ably the most distinguished scion of our great Jewett family, which was being recalled in London newspapers in 1938. It runs some- what like this:
My name is Doctor Jowett: I am the Master of this College. All there is to know, I know it: Aught else one thinks he knows, It simply isn't knowledge.
Now I do not really feel like that: I realize that we have only touched the fringes of research on the origins of the Rowley founders.
From the old parish of Rowley (pronounced Roeley in Yorkshire) I have never expected much, because it was well known that the early parish records were lost. It has even been believed there that Rev. Ezekiel Rogers carried away the parish register
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to New England, and that it might have been lost in the fire which consumed his home and library. Last summer, however, I decided I must see Rowley. It is a bit difficult of access. One goes out from Hull by train to the station Little Weeton. There I inquired the way to Rowley, and was asked what I wanted to see (for there is nothing but the church and rectory). There being no convey- ance, I walked nearly a mile out to the church, finding only one house where I could make inquiries. I was looking about in the church and churchyard when I was joined by the rector, a fine looking, elderly gentleman, since deceased. He was unexpectedly cordial and asked me to go with him to the rectory, telling me as we walked that there were evidences of foundations where a con- siderable village once stood. He still believed that the place was depopulated when Rev. Ezekiel Rogers led away the twenty families to cross the sea. He gave me a copy of an address delivered by the "Walking Parson," Rev. A. N. Cooper, before the East Riding Antiquarian Society some years ago, with the title "How Rowley in Yorkshire lost its population in the seventeenth century, and
how Rowley in Massachusetts was founded."* This paper is a curious compound of mangled facts derived largely from American sources together with the speculations of the author. For example, where Blodgett and Jewett have rather tentatively suggested names of some of the first company, this voluble parson blithely says "I am able to supply the names of the twenty heads of families, all of whom reached America," and proceeds to enumerate ten persons now positively known to have come from other places than Row- ley, and only one who probably did come from that parish. Mr. Cooper does give a touch on the cause of the migration which I have not seen emphasized elsewhere: The ministers within certain districts had their monthly exercises, when one or two preached and others prayed before a numerous and attentive audience. (It was probably through such gatherings that Mr. Rogers found his larger audience and gained the reputation which drew his follow- ing together for the migration). This evangelical movement was what worried the authorities. Then the Book of Sports was ap-
See Proceedings of the East Riding Antiquarian Society Vol. 15, pp. 85-100. 1909.
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pointed to be read in the churches, which advocated dancing, archery, leaping, and May games after Divine Service on Sunday. The object of this injunction was to detect the Puritans, as it was certain they would disregard the order.
But let us examine the actual data as to the supposed extensive population of ancient Rowley. It has been mentioned that the early parish registers are lost. As a partial substitute, however, one may read the so-called Bishop's Transcripts, records of all baptisms, marriages, and burials in the parish returned each year to the diocesan registry in York. For our parish of Rowley there is a considerable series of these returns from 1605 to 1640 preserved at York, which supply a fairly good substitute for the missing parish register during the Rogers period and before and after. In the summer of 1938 I made complete copies of these transcripts .* Tabulated for fourteen years, they show an average number of baptisms of 8.7 per year, which certainly cannot be said to indicate a large population at any time, and in 1640, two years after the migration, the number was 8, which is the number most often reported during the entire incumbency of Mr. Rogers. Further- more the parish includes four or five other hamlets, Hunsley, Bent- ley, Weeton, and Ripplingham, and nearly all the baptisms reported are of children of parents explicitly stated to reside in these other hamlets, and practically none in Rowley itself. It appears, then, that in Mr. Rogers' time, as now, the rectory was probably the only house near the church.
Now what of the content of these old Bishop's Transcripts for our purposes? The first item of interest was:
"Margaret, daughter of Mr. John Northend of Ripplingham, baptized March the 30, 1620."
She was the widow Crosse of New England, and married secondly in 1650, John Palmer. The name Cross is found in the old Transcripts, but the return for the year in which this marriage might have occurred is not preserved. Next :
* Copies of these Transcripts will be deposited for the convenience of future searchers in the library of the Rowley Historical Society, and in that of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston.
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"Henry Pickerd clerke parson of Rowley (was) buried Decemb. first 1620." One wonders if he may have been related to John Pickard, prominent citizen of Rowley in New England, who mar- ried in 1644 Jane Crosby. The records yield no indication as to the fact.
In the book of institutions preserved in the Diocesan Registry at York, I found a copy of the letter of the archbishop, dated 21 Feb. 1620 (21), "Tobias (Matthew) to our beloved in Christ Ezekiel Rogers clerk master of arts, greeting" appointing him to "the parish or church of Rowley in the county and our diocese of York after the death of Henry Pickard clerk last incumbent there." (Translated from the Latin.) After this appointment the first notable event in the Transcript is:
"Ezekiel, sonne of Mr. John Northend of Ripplingham bap- tized ffebr. 10, 1621."
Here we may see at once the origin of the Christian name of the ancestor of many families in our Rowley - undoubtedly named for the new rector in the first year of his incumbency. In 1622 John Northend and William Jackson are returned as the church wardens.
"26 Sept. 1624, Jeremiah, sonne of Robert Northend of Weeton baptized." He was a servant to Mr. William Bellingham and to Mr. Rogers, but returned to England. In 1630, his father, Robert Northend, was a church warden. In 1634:
"William Bellingham & Elizabeth Wiuill were married May the 29 day."
1637. "Elizabeth the daughter of William Jackson of Huns- ley, baptized May 14."
This item amply confirms the conjecture of Mr. Jewett that William Jackson of New England came from old Rowley.
"Dorothie the wife of Mr. Thomas Nelson buryed Sept. 27."
Since no record of baptism of his sons Philip and Thomas is found, it is probable that Mr. Nelson had lived in some other parish up to this time, and was perhaps attracted to Rowley by the fame of Mr. Rogers. He is called the wealthiest of Mr. Rogers' company, and may well have been one of the chief counsellors and supporters in the migration. Nothing has been published previously as to his origin, so far as I have been able to discover.
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We have, then, evidence from the parish records of only four families that came with Mr. Rogers from old Rowley, though there may have been others. If then, so few of the first company were from old Rowley, whence did they come? Mr. Jewett, in his in- troduction, mentions first Thomas Barker, Constance Crosby, Thomas Elithorp, and Francis Lambert as coming from Holme-on- Spalding-Moore, a parish about fifteen miles southeast of York, and about eleven miles west from Rowley. In the summer of 1938 I spent some time in the vicarage of Holme, under the kind hospi- tality of the Vicar, going over all the records of these families, almost at once learning to my surprise that the early register had been copied in 1913 by Miss Elizabeth French (now Mrs. Bartlett of Boston), who has now lost or mislaid her own copy. I also read most of the wills pertaining to these families at York, only to find on my return here that most of the same ground had been covered about 1913 by Mr. J. Gardner Bartlett for the genealogy of "Simon Crosby the Emigrant" (Boston, 1914). This material was evidently used by Boldgett and Jewett in preparing the account for their "Early Settlers of Rowley," though not mentioned by them. Nevertheless I had little regret for the time "wasted" on this study, for it gave me an intimate and clear picture of the character of these families, all interrelated by marriage, which would not otherwise have been grasped. To these should be added John1 Johnson of New Haven, whose son Capt. John married Han- nah, daughter of widow Constance Crosby in Rowley, Mass. The Holme register confirms the suggestion that he was related to the Barkers. Probably Richard Longhorne also came from Holme. The group of Mr. Rogers' followers from this parish must have been one of the most important elements of the company. The whole impression presented by the study of their wills and estates in Eng- land shows that they were substantial yeoman land owners in good circumstances, who could have been moved by no economic discon- tent to leave their comfortable homes, but undoubtedly were anxious to secure freedom of worship.
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