USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Wilmington > Town of Wilmington Annual Report 1860-1887 > Part 26
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And now, having seen how the young parish went to work to provide itself with a house of worship, let us look into its way of
GETTING A MINISTER.
Preaching was maintained from the first, the two deacons of neighboring churches, who lived within the town, being the committee for providing it. The sum of four hundred pounds was appropriated that year for all expenses, including the meet- ing-house and the minister, twenty pounds a quarter being set apart for him .*
At the March meeting in 1731, it was voted to continue the preaching for the present, and a certain Mr. Smith was en- gaged ; but it was also voted " not to approve of any gentleman
* At this date an ounce of silver was still worth 21s. in currency.
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at present for settlement, or in order to settlement." Mr. Smith, then, understands that he has no chance. The next meeting was held, March 18, and then the same sum was voted for preaching as the year before ; and the two deacons, Harnden and Thompson, were authorized to treat with a minister for three months. Here you will please note a falling short of the method which, after these hundred and fifty years, the churches of nearly all denominations seem everywhere to have adopted. The favorite method now is to prepare as full a catalogue of candidates as possible, who are to walk in procession Sunday after Sunday, through the pulpit ; after which they are in a condition, out of utter weariness and confusion, to consent to any one who is strongly urged; unless, indeed, they choose to disagree upon all.
The two deacons seem, however, not to have given universal satisfaction ; for another committee was chosen, May 25, for the next quarter, with the same instructions. On the 6th of July, this committee are directed " to treat with Mr. Chandler" for three months' preaching. At the same meeting we note, in passing, that Abraham Jaquith and Kendall Pierson are made a committee for securing " a decent burying place to bury the dead in the town " (July 6, 1731). Up to this time, then, burials had been made either at the centers of Woburn or Reading, or in small lots near the homes of the deceased.
Then, on the 29th of October, 1731, one year from their first meeting, the town passed a vote that it " will provide for the settlement of a minister, in due time, by a sum of money given to him ; " also, that the town is "ready to treat with a gentle- man or gentlemen, with a view to settlement; " also, " that the Rev. Mr. Varney be treated with by the committee," " to preach to us for a time, in order to settlement."
That is to say : All the world is advertised that " the Town of Wilmington is ready for a minister; it will make suitable provision for him ; its committee is duly authorized to negoti- ate ; they will please begin with Mr. Varney, who is desired to serve us for a sufficient period to enable the people to know him well as a preacher and as a man." From this time, then, we must think of the firesides, the fields, the highways, and all places of regular or chance meeting, as hearing much talk and
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speculation on this matter. The subject takes its place with that of the meeting-house, the new roads to be opened, the crops, the weather, the state of the markets, and the value of the paper money, as a regular staple of conversation.
On the 7th of December, 1731, the old committee on preach- ing seems to have been restored, to act "till further order." Then follows a vote which I quote in full, as marking a differ- ence between those times and our own in the gravity with which towns then treated religious matters. The record is as follows : " Voted, That the Reverend Mr. Browne of Reading, and the Reverend Mr. Phillips of Andover, be treated with and entreated, by the committee in the town's behalf, to carry on the solemn exercises of a Fast in this town, for the Divine favor to this peo- ple in the great, weighty, and important affair of the choice and settlement of a gospel minister, upon the 23d day of December, instant. And in case these Reverend Gentlemen can't come, then to apply in like manner to the Reverend Mr. Barnard of Andover and the Reverend Mr. Putnam of Reading." Let us remember the town, in formal meeting, passed this resolve. The day of prayer was to be held in behalf of the town's choice of a man who should give instruction in the Christian religion to old and young, lead in the services of public prayer and praise, visit the sick and the afflicted, and bury the dead. Do we not all agree that the tone of the resolve befits its object ? Were our fathers the worse for treating such matters with becoming seriousness ?
On the 6th of January, 1732, the committee are ordered to make further arrangements with Rev. Mr. Varney, if they can. This looks as though they had been well pleased. But they seem to have failed ; for on March 6th they are instructed to provide " transient preaching " for one month. Their hopes had come to naught; and they knew not what to do. And now comes something more like the modern way. There is, first, a vote "to hear ministers in order to settlement ;" then distinct votes, to hear Rev. Mr. Warren, Rev. Mr. Robbins, Rev. Mr. Brown; and if any one of these can not be had, then to hear the other two. But here comes in a difference again. Instead of causing these gentlemen to pass in review before them as rapidly as possible, each one is to be listened to
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for one month. There were no railroads through pulpits then.
On the 4th day of July, 1732, a special town-meeting was summoned for the choice of a minister, in which, to our surprise, a wholly new name appears - the Rev. Mr. Ward Cotton, who was unanimously elected " by paper vote."* The sum of three hundred pounds was voted for settlement; and "six score pounds, salary, of paper money, yearly, and to decrease or increase as the paper money, or other currency, shall rise or fall in value."
A committee was also appointed " to seek after land for a minister," for his house, and also for his cow and horse. A most substantial committee, composed of the deacons John Harnden and James Thompson, with William Butters, Abra- ham Jaquith and Benjamin Harnden, was appointed to treat with Mr. Cotton.
The negotiations did not go smoothly. For we find the town voting, Oct. 3, 1732, That the committee wait further upon Mr. Cotton. Meanwhile, it is voted that " Mr. David Stearns be sought for to preach till Mr. Cotton has been further treated with," and the meeting adjourns for three weeks. But the town does not meet until the 31st of the month, four weeks. Then, either the people are dissatisfied with their committee, or the committee are discouraged; at any rate a wholly new committee, Kendall Pierson, chairman, is elected, and are instructed to treat with Mr. Hobbey, Mr. Stearns, Mr. Browne and Mr. Ebenezer Hancock, for one month's preaching apiece " transiently." Again at the March meeting (March 6th), 1733, this committee surrenders its life, and the town returns to its two deacons, with Lieut. Benjamin Harnden ; and they are directed to treat with Mr. Jabez Fox and Mr. Ebenezer Hancock, each for four weeks. The meeting was adjourned to the last Tuesday of the month, when the town voted : that Mr. Jonathan Pierpont preach for the month of April and two Sabbaths in May .. On May 18, there was another meeting. The town was evidently disappointed that
*This, again looks a little modern. Mr. Cotton, we can fancy, is a man of whom they have heard such extraordinary things, that, without once setting eyes on him, they make haste to choose him, and do it unanimously.
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they had been unsuccessful ; votes, that a minister be heard, in time convenient for settlement. A committee is chosen to sup- ply the pulpit until the third Tuesday of June -to which time the town adjourns.
The town met again according to adjournment, June 19, and voted, " that Mr. James Varney be treated with, to preach for one month," and a committee of seven - the largest yet appointed - were chosen to confer with him. So the town had got back where it started, and is evidently hoping to carry out its original desire. The size of this committee indicates an expectation that something will come of this effort. And so it turns out ; for on the 12th of July, or about three weeks after, we find a " meeting called for the choice of a minister and some other things," and the first vote is " to proceed to the choice of a Gospel minister, which results in Mr. Varney's election.
It will be remembered that in the act of incorporation, "the inhabitants" were "required " to provide themselves with a minister, "within the space of three years." That term was within two months and a half of its end ; whether this fact had anything to do with the present agreement, whether the delay had been occasioned by a want of unanimity in favor of Mr. Varney, which had now disappeared after the hearing of so many others, or whether, as is more probable, the hesitation was on Mr. Varney's side, and was occasioned by the uncertain state of his health, can not now be confidently asserted. Twelve men are on record as having supplied the pulpit, ten of them since the vote that the town was ready for a settle- ment ; but most of these had, probably, been mere transient supplies. The people seem to have now called the man who was their first choice.
They vote him a settlement of three hundred pounds, * to be paid half the first year, and half the second, after his ordination ; one hundred and twenty pounds in currency, for his salary, to rise or fall, as its value falls or rises ; and that the town will be at the cost of obtaining its share of two thousand acres of land, " laid out to Woburn," for ministerial use, after it is obtained.
They likewise voted him twenty-five cords of wood yearly.
*Silver being at eighteen shillings per ounce in currency.
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Later, they appropriated thirty-two pounds* for the expenses of the ordination. Mr. Varney was ordained, Oct. 24, 1733. The object of the incorporation of the town is accomplished. It is now a complete human society, families organized under the forms of both church and state, and is competent to fulfill all its functions.
THE MEETING-HOUSE REPAIRED.
I shall pass over about thirty years. They were years which witnessed the two French and Indian wars ; the one com- mencing in 1744, and lasting about four years, the other in 1755, and lasting seven years. No small proportion of the bur- den of these wars on this continent fell upon Massachusetts, as was natural. For as early as 1721, her population was 94,000, while in 1729, eight years later, that of New York was but 65,000; and in 1732, three years later still, Pennsylvania had but 30,000 ; Maryland, 36,000, and New Jersey, 47,000. The worst result of the war here, however, was its disturbance of the currency. The government of the State felt itself com- pelled to issue paper money, which continually fell in value ; giving opportunity to sharpers and speculators to ply their hateful business, to the grievous affliction of the great mass of the people ; reducing many to poverty, and keeping the poor from rising. There are few disasters so deplorable and so exas- perating, as the introduction of fiat money. And much of the currency of those times was little better.
The year 1762, as just remarked, saw the end of the second French war. And in 1764, the Wilmington people had became dissatisfied with their meeting-house. Its builders were grown old or had died, and the younger people wanted something up with the times. Besides, the population of the town had increased, and required more room.
As usual, it took some time to come to an agreement. The first vote appears May 21, 1764,-to " new shingle and clap- board the meeting-house," to put in new windows, the glass
*The cost of Rev. Mr. Jackson's ordination, in 1729, at Woburn, had been £83. 9s. 6d .; of which the principal item was, 433 dinners, @ 2s. 6d. each, £54. 2s. 6d. The keeping of 32 horses, 4 days, was but £3. But 6} barrels of cider, cost £4. 11s .; and 25 gallons of wine £9. 10s .; while 178 suppers and breakfasts amounted to £8. 18s.
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seven by nine, (instead of the diamond panes), also "new doors," and "as many pews as the house will admit of;" " the hind seats in the gallery were to be made banister seats."
But it seems that all were not pleased with this plan. For on the 4th of June, just a fortnight later, another meeting was held, at which all the votes of the preceding meeting were reconsidered, and then it was voted "to repair the meeting- house by adding twelve feet to its length," in the middle ; " to make pews all around against the wall; to make another row of pews on the fore side of the alley ; then finish it off, inside and out, and sell the pews to the highest bidder; " to pay for this by assessment on the town ; it being understood that Joshua Thompson stands to his offer to pay $50 towards the cost, over and above the sum that the pews shall bring. Captain Samuel Walker, Ensign Paul Cook, Thomas Pierce, Lieutenant Benjamin Harnden, and Ensign Thomas Rich were appointed a committee for carrying out this plan.
Ten days later this second plan was modified by a vote to make the addition of twelve feet at the west end instead of the middle. On November 26, again, it was voted " to plaster the meeting-house." So by degrees a plan was worked out.
If you had been coming along the road from the north-east some bright morning early in 1765, you would have seen. in- stead of the black, square, barn-like edifice of a year ago, a new-looking structure of decidedly oblong shape (58 feet by 36 feet), all resplendent in light yellow, with large-sized square panes, 7 by 9, in place of the old diamond panes ; and entering, you find the interior changed still more. The walls have been newly plastered ; new pews line the four sides, paneled and topped off with small balusters ; and three pews on each hand front you as you stand in the middle doorway, leaving room for four rows of benches between them and the aisle running past the pulpit. Looking up, the fresh ceiling is disfigured with the old braces. Most of the gallery-front is brown with thirty-two years' exposure ; but twelve feet of it are of the color of the pews. Two of the pews, however, near the pul- pit, look old, like most of the gallery.
The townspeople's eyes were open ; and at the March meet- ing of that year (1765) it was voted " That the braces in the
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meeting-house be removed and put on top of the beams." What they were going to brace there, the record does not say. This vote evidently developed a difference of opinion. People must needs have something to exercise their faculties upon ; and as nothing more important offered itself then, they dis- enssed the question of these braees. "Shall they be eut out or not?" and if so, shall they be put above, to fasten the beams to the roof ? On the 9th of September another meeting was held, and the opponents had been able to rally sufficient strength to bring the vote to a tie. An adjournment was taken to the 19th, at which time the progressives triumphed and the braees were doomed. It is probable, though by no means certain, that within a year they were removed.
May 19, 1766, we find still further tokens of new ideas in the vote " To paint the breast-works of the galleries, the pil- lars and the pulpit ; " also, " To remove the 'chears' out of the alleys." But then, in March, 1767, the " chears " had not gone ; the vote was repeated, and three men were appointed to see that the thing was done.
The cost of these repairs had amounted to £2132. 48. 4d. old tenor, or somewhat over £284. new tenor.
Deaeon Morrill (now near his eighty-fifth year) remembers this house well. Its interior had been painted, the records say, in 1766 ; and the color, when it eame to be taken down in 1813, was a dull red, like old, rough mahogany. The pulpit, built by Mr. Evans, was a much nicer piece of work than the one in the meeting-house of 1814. It was handsomely grained in imitation of mahogany. " Its poplar framework, having been covered from the light, was found as white, when taken down, as when first put up." Above it was an elaborate sounding-board projecting from the wall, over the window, shaped with graceful eurves and delicately colored, a very light red. It was paneled underneath. The pulpit desk was eov- ered with some kind of erimson eloth, having a border of silk tassels. Upon it lay a rich velvet eushion, with large tassels at its corners. " Old Mr. Walker, minister at Danvers, was preaching one day, and nestled round so much that he knoeked it off into the deaeon's seat, much to the edifieation of the younger portion of the congregation, and it had to be taken up
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to him. At the minister's right hand rose an iron bracket, shaped like a crane, holding an hour-glass." "At his left hand," when the deacon was young, "used to lean old Mrs. Jabez Brown, the Rev. Mr. Reynolds's mother-in-law, with her ear-trumpet, which she swayed back and forth, following the motions of the minister's body."
There was a broad stair below, on the level of the deacon's pew ; and our venerable friend remembers hearing that his grandfather had a large dog who would make that stair his post for a dog's watchful kind of sleep during sermon-time ; and when his dog-ship judged that the minister had preached long enough, he would rise, stretch himself, and gape; which was a signal, I suppose, for the tithing-men to shake their rods at the boys.
In the old times it was customary for a deacon to line off the hymns. There was old Deacon Benjamin Jaquith, who, by rea- son of failing eyesight or other infirmity, was a little uncertain in his reading; and tradition has not yet forgotten how " the dear old soul, his wife, used to quake inside of her bonnet and wince, when he stumbled over the lines. She owned 'it made her feel so bad.'"
Behind the pulpit the round-topped window had rows of side-lights. It was draped with heavy crimson curtains having tasseled borders, and was parted and hung over ornamental supports on each side. There were but three wall-pews on the minister's right, and the space of the fourth was taken up with the stairs and one or two seats placed sideways, in front of which seats was a passage leading to the closet underneath the pulpit.
This closet was an awesome place. In it were kept the christening-basin (gift of Cadwallader Ford) and another arti cle, the thought of which, when the deacon was young, used to make his flesh creep. He " had to go into that closet, at times. It was a dark place, with a peculiar shut-up odor, and corners in which nobody knew what might be hiding itself." Going towards it one morning, he felt very timid about enter- ing. Then he thought he heard something - "a pretty bad kind of a noise," he could not tell what. So he concluded he would get somebody to go with him ; and found a young fellow
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named Kittredge, who boldly declared that he would find out what made the noise. The two went together, Kittredge ahead. He found the basin, he found the " grave-cloth," and - nothing else. That noise remains a mystery. It probably sounded within those ghostly chambers which even boys often find near, but which their feet never tread.
We come next to
THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION.
Let it ever be borne in mind that the Massachusetts Colony originated in the feeling of English Puritans that the liberty to practice the true religion was not secure in England. They feared a return of prelacy, and of Romanism, its elder sister. Hence the deep resolve that there should be another England across the water, where the true faith should be safe from assault. But that it might be safe, the political rights of the colony, secured by its charter, must be maintained. Let it ever be remembered, that this purpose, deliberately adopted by John Winthrop and those who acted with him, formed the very central principle and was the actual vital force of the whole movement. It was in the hearts of all the people. The orig- inal charter had been taken away Oct. 23, 1684, and the rights secured by it had been cut down ; but every measure of the crown for repression, however successful, had only intensified the determination of the colony to maintain its essential free- dom. It had fought every inch of ground, and this struggle had kept its purpose strong and fierce. During the French and Indian wars all questions of this nature were neces- sarily out of sight. But these wars were extremely burden- some. They laid upon the people a dreadful load of debt, and tormented them with a depreciated currency. So soon as the wars were over, this outcry arose : " We shall not get free of debt in many years." (Felt's Mass. Currency, p. 151.) "Can it be possible that the duties to be imposed and the taxes to be levied shall be assessed without the voice of one American in parliament ?" Then comes the Stamp Act and the Revolution. But the fact to be noted is, that the very purpose in which this colony originated was itself an act of essential rebellion, covert, deliberate, and determined, against the powers supreme. It
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was the purpose to have a new England, which should, first of all, and at any risk, be other than the old England in its very innermost spirit, and in its religious and political principles and forms, distinct. Sooner or later the newness of that new Eng- land must necessarily make itself both seen and felt. It had, indeed, been doing this all along, and now it was about to do it in a most decisive manner. The New was openly to defy the Old, and to make itself separate. And it was in no sense acci dental that this separation began in Boston. John Winthrop, before he left England, investigated the question of the feasi- bility of an armed resistance to the British crown, if that should become necessary. The sword was in his mind when he started for these shores ; and there never has come a time when the colony which he planted was not ready to shed its blood for the achievement of its hope,- the peace that only comes of liberty. Later, she engraved her solemn testimony to this readiness on her coat of arms : - " Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem." - With her sword she seeks the stable peace of freedom.
On Monday, the 19th of September, 1768, the records give us the first note of the approaching struggle, - six years and a half before the Battle of Lexington, - in the election of Mr. Paul Cook, a committee-man to serve at a convention to be held at Boston, Thursday, the 22d; and also in a vote, "That the town do highly approve of the votes and proceedings of the town of Boston, and do return them their thanks." Thus it was that the Town of Wilmington launched its raft upon the rapids of the rebellion. It was deliberately and decisively done, and never has the town repented its act.
I propose now to draw from the records so much of a view of the part taken by the town in this struggle as these records give. And first of all we are struck with the frequency of the town-meetings during this period. From the 19th of Septem- ber, 1768, till the news of peace reached Congress, March, 1783, these numbered 135 ; during the seven years of the war, 110; or nearly an average of 16 a year. If these meeting's took three hours each, of fifty men, whose labor was worth ten cents an hour, the cost amounted to about $240 a year, or for seven years, to $1680, besides their travel. But let us note
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some of the things done in these meetings, and some of the little events with which greater ones were mixed.
Among the latter, I observe that " deer-reaves," or, as elsc- where called, "persons to inspect the killing of deer," were still among the town-officers; that, in '69, Rev. Mr. Morrill wanted his salary paid semi-annually, and the town refused to do it ; that, in '70, it was voted to remove the school into three districts, and in '71 into four districts, a committee being ap- pointed to determine the particular places, which indicates that school-houses had not been built in all. Also, in '71, there was a vote to send a representative to the General Court. It appears to have been customary for each town to pay its own representative ; and hitherto Wilmington had uniformly been too economical to do this. But now public affairs were coming close home to every man, and all will be agreed, we should suppose, that they must have a voice in the great questions of the hour. But no ; economy does not yet consent. In May this vote was reconsidered and negatived by a large majority. The times were not quite ripe for a measure so costly.
In March, '72, there seem to be school-houses in the " Nod " district, in "Mr. Walker's and Jaquith's," and " over by Buck's and Eames'," but in the south the school is to be held " at or near the house of Samuel Butters, Jr."
The year '73 opens with a sound of public commotion, the town holding a special meeting on Thursday, the 28th of Jan- uary, at which a " committee appointed to examine the public grievances " made a report, which occupies a little over one page of the records.
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