USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Essex > Two centuries of church history : celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the organization of the Congregational church & parish in Essex, Mass., August 19-22, 1883 > Part 10
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*Savage Gen. Dict. I : 21.
tReport of Boston Record Commission, 1881. 76. #Savage. IV : 614. §N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg. 11 : 104. | Savage IV : 614.
** Report Rec. Com. ISSI : 116, 117. HIS. 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125. 126, 135.
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abstract probabilities of the case, for all idea of his childhood and youth. "The child is father of the man," and therefore the man prophesies the child; and, as it is matter of record* that, in his adult years, this man "was of a majestic form, and of great muscular strength and activity," I entertain no doubt that he was a stout, sun-burned, hardy, vigorous, fun-loving boy; and, as he started from the bottom round of the social ladder, that he worked for his living, and got his pliant mus- cles well-strung and stalwart, by diligent and untrivial toil. Whatever, in forest, field, farm-buildings or smithy, with ax, plow, flail, hoe or hammer, his father did; that-beyond question-John helped him do, growing hungrier, heavier and tougher, day by day. I fancy he was one of those lads, -some of us remember them :
-quaeque ipse miserrima vidi,
et quorum pars magna fui.
whom, in the good old days before farming was reduced to riding in a gig with some kind of a plowing, mowing or reap- ing machine in tow, it was safe to send off in advance with the first scythe in an overlapping series of mowers; recog- nizing his abundant ability not merely to keep his own ancles out of the way of the swinging blades of his pursuers, but to lead them such a rush as to make them wiltingly willing now and then to cry halt, wipe their brows, make music with their whetstones, and pass the jug.
We shall never know through precisely what agencies, or by precisely what influences, this young man awoke to the consciousness that he had in him stuff of which something better for his generation even than a good farmer, or a cunning workman, might be made. I imagine that he caught from the seraphic zeal of the good apostle to the Algonkins some kindling of desire to make others happier and better, and that that keen mind whose holy business it was to watch for signs of the progress of the Gospel in so many savage breasts,
*Sprague's Annals, i : 189.
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failed not to discern, and to stimulate, the beginnings of a higher life in the mind of a young parishioner so full of promise.
The "Free Schoole in Roxburie"-still in vigorous life, and at which my own son was fitted for Yale-had already been in existence near seven years when John Wise was born .* On the 22 Nov .- 2 Dec. after his birth,"t "convenient benches with formes with tables, for the scholars to sit on and to write at, with a convenient seat for the school master, and a deske to put the Dictionary on, and shelves to lay up bookes," had been duly provided for it. Doubtless our lad got his begin- nings at home. But that, when qualified to do so, he became at least an occasional occupant of one of these "convenient seats," is rendered almost certain by an ancient document in admirable chirography bearing date 25 Feb .- 6 Mar., 1668-69;, in which it is agreed between the six feoffees and John Prudden that-for the sum of £25 a year, to be paid " three quarters in Indian Corn, or Peas, and ye other fourth-parte in Barley, all good and merchandable"-said Prudden shall keep the school, and "use his best skill & endeavor, both by precept & example, to instruct in all scholasticall, morall, & theologi- call discipline, the children (soe far as they are, or shall be, capable)," of fifty-eight persons, "whose names are there- under written-all A BC darians excepted." On the list of these fifty-eight parents appears the name of John's father, "Joseph Wise."
, From Thomas Mighill, § the last previous incumbent-born at Rowley, who had graduated at Harvard College-in 1663, and was subsequently pastor at Milton, and South Scituate ; - and John Prudden ||-son of Rev. Peter of Milford, Conn., who had graduated at Harvard in 1668, and afterward preached at Jamaica, L.I., Rye, Conn., and Newark, N.J., then relapsing
+ Dillaway's Hist. Rox. Gram. School, etc. p. 7.
t Ibid. p. 26.
* Ibid. frontispiece.
§ Sibley's Ilar. Graduates, ii : 144. || Ibid ii : 258.
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into school-teaching once more, and sending out several emi- nent pupils-it is probable that the lad obtained his real training for his college course; which was, most likely, largely accomplished by what sporting men would call a spurt of eighteen months of vigorous endeavor last preceding entrance. Over and beyond the common English branches, this training consisted* in the acquirement of a sufficient knowledge of Latin to be able to read ex tempore Tully, or some equivalent classic, and "to make and speak true Latin in verse and prose ;" with a sufficient knowledge of Greek to be able to "decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs" in that tongue. As the course of study, which from 1640 to 1654 had included but three years, was at the latter date lengthened to four,t and as Wise graduated in the class of 1673, he appears to have entered college in 1669, when he would be seventeen-years old.
Harvard College, then founded about thirty years, and which had sent out near 200 graduates, at that time had visi- ble existence on a spacious plain near the river, "a place very pleasant and accomodate,"# in a single wooden building orig- inally comely without, but by this time sadly out of repair ; having in it§ "a spacious Hall-where they daily met at Com- mons, Lectures, &c-and a large Library with some Bookes to it," having also chambers for lodging and closets for study, and "all other roomes of office necessary and convenient;" flanked on the one Hand by a modest Grammar School a little predating itself, taught by Master Elijah Corlett for nearly half a century, || and on the other by a small brick building then recently erected by the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel, for the encouragement and accomoda- tion of Algonkin students.
* Laws, etc., Quincy's Hist. Har. Un. i : 515.
t The Harvard Book i : 33.
*N. Eng. First Fruits. 12, Sibley's Har. Grad. i : 7. $ Ibid.
„ Paige's Hist. Cambridge, p. 366.
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There would be from twenty-five to thirty undergraduate scholars, with perhaps one third as many more who had taken their first degree and continued in residence, pursuing further study with a view to the second degree and a profession. Such were called "Sir" Smith, "Sir" Brown *- and so on-until they became Masters of Arts. The President was the only real officer. There were no professors .; Some of the "Sirs" acted as tutors; for which they received the munificent sum of £4 a year.# As the College was then a public institution it was subjected to the distinctions which pervaded the State, and soon after admission the members of the Freshman Class were "placed" according to the social rank of their families, and thenceforth at the table, at worship, in recitation and everywhere, were required to conform to the order fixed. The best rooms, and best seats, and even the first helpings at the table, thus belonged to the sons of the "first families ;" so that we may be sure that John Wise was frequently and effectually reminded that his father was a nobody ; and, very likely, that flame of his democracy which forty years later burst into a scorching and consuming blaze, began here, and · now, to kindle and smolder. Furthermore there were sharp distinctions of rank between classes, as well; the lower being the fag and drudge of the upper, not merely, but the Fresh- man being obliged to take off his hat not only to the President and Tutors, but also if one of the upper classes happened to come into the College yard. In either case said Freshman was obliged to remain uncovered until the more respectable party entered the building and disappeared from view.§ Nor was discipline by any means an empty word. No student without special parental permission founded upon a physi- cian's certificate-and "then in a sober and private manner"- could use tobacco; || nor could he "buy, sell, or exchange
* Sibley, i : 17.
+Harv'd. Book. i: 30. Ibid. § Ibid. 28.
|By J. Danker's account of his visit in 1680, there had been much back- sliding as to this. Mem. Long Isld. Hist. Soc. i: 384.
جديد
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anything to the value of six-pence, without the allowance of his parents, guardians, or Tutors ;" nor frequent the company of men of "ungirt and dissolute life;" while, if under age [nisi adultus] after twice admonition, any who perversely or negligently transgressed any law of God, or of the college, became liable to a whipping in the Hall openly-the culprit kneeling down, and the President opening and closing the "exercise" with prayer .* In a smaller and quiet way, the Tutors thrashed the boys at discretion.f Plum cake, for some reason which does not appear, was especially disreputable, and a few years later its use imperiled one's degree.# Fines abounded and money was scarce. College bills were apt to be paid in farm-products, garden "sauce," and merchandise.
I regret to say that in September of his Senior Year, our friend was caught in a scrape which proved that College human nature was at that time much as it has usually aver- aged. Edward Pelham-the most "respectable" man in his class,-it seems, had humbugged a young son of Urian Oakes into shooting a turkey belonging to some neighbor, which, turkey, being surreptitiously cooked by one Sam Gibson, was eaten on the night following by the said Pelham, John Wise, and one Jonathan Russell, then a Sophomore.§ The inn- keeper Gibson-although he and his wife insisted they had no idea that the turkey was stolen-was admonished and fined forty shillings, and committed until it was paid. What was ' done to the offending students is not so clear from the record, as-what was done with the turkey !
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It was distinctly avowed | "that Christ lay in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning ;" and secret prayer, and reading scripture twice daily, were
*Laws. etc. Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ. i : 516; S. Sewall's Diary. 5 Mass. Hist. Coll. v : 4.
t Quincy. i : IS9.
*Harvard Book. i : 40.
$ Sibley. ii : 416.
|| Rules, etc., Sibley, i: 11, 12.
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especially enjoined. Profaneness and neglect of worship were forbidden, and diligence in every duty demanded. At seven o'clock in the morning and at five o'clock in the after- noon, each student was required to attend prayers in his Tutor's chamber, and to give report of his own private read- ing of the Word.
Scholarship was clearly as much better than now in some respects, as it was worse in others. No English was allowed to be spoken on any occasion *- the sole exception being now and then a public declamation in the vernacular. No scholar could get his first degree who was not able, at sight, to trans- late the sacred Hebrew and Greek-flavored with Chaldee and Syriact -into Latin, and "resolve them logically." And none could get his second, who did not satisfy the Overseers of his due proficiency also in Logic, Natural and Moral Phi- losophy, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, History, Botany and Rhetoric.#
Wise happened upon Cambridge in changeful times. The venerable Chauncy was President when he entered, but died in his Junior year; so that he graduated during the obscurely sad and brief term of Leonard Hoar, and took his second degree under the acting presidency of Urian Oakes. Joseph Browne, who died at 32 just as he was to be settled over the Charlestown Church, John Richardson who afterward spent one-and-twenty years as teacher of the Church in Newbury ; and possibly Daniel Gookin, who expended years of labor upon the Indians near Sherborne, were his Tutors.§ There were but four members of his class, viz .: Edward Pelham, George Alcock, Samuel Angier, and John Wise. Though a common, it was not the universal custom with these "Sir" Knights of learning who had just become Bachelors of Arts, and were looking forward to a second degree from the College, to
* Laws, etc., Quincy, 1 : 517.
t Ibid. (IS). # Ibid. (19), and i: 191.
§ Sibley, 1 : 207, 210. 277.
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remain in residence, and pursue three further years of study in Cambridge. And-possibly because he was twenty-one, possibly because he was poor, possibly because he had com- mon sense enough to know that he could do better elsewhere, and still more possibly because he was full-grown, handsome, liked people in general and was well-liked of them-John Wise chose other places for these years. As to what path precisely, and what inducements, he followed, we lack evi- dence ; but in a few months we hear of him as preaching and living so well in Bradford, Conn. that they wanted him to settle against his will. Certain it is that when Philip's War was raging, in 1675, he was there, for it is on the Connecticut Records* that, 14-24 Jan. 1675-6, the Council of that Colony "appoynted Mr. Wise of Bradford, to goe forthe minister to our army, and accordingly wrote a letter to him to prepare and goe forthe with the sea-side forces to New London, there to meet with Major Treate, &c;" and we further find from a letter of Major Palmes,t dated at New London twelve days later, that our young friend accepted that chaplaincy, and had then just marched with the troops into the Narragansett country. We next hear of him as back at Cambridge at Commencement, 5-15 July, of that same year, where he de- livered one of the two Master's Orations, affirmatively dis- cussing the thesis: An impossibile sit mundum fuisse ab acterno?
About this time a minister was wanted at Hatfield, where Rev. Hope Atherton of the class of 1665 at Cambridge had been settled in 1671, but was now demented and dying in consequence of exposure and being lost in the woods in the Indian war; # and Wise took his place and preached there some two years after his death, but was unwilling to settle, and came back to Roxbury, where-I do not say this was
* Col. Rec. of Conn. 1675-1677. 399.
t Ibid. 402.
*Sibley. ii : 194.
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why he came back-5-15 Dec. 1678, he married Abigail Gardner .*
Our next bit of news concerning him brings him hither. Although we had not here in Massachusetts, so long ago as in the latter quarter of the 17th century, arrived at a Governor who directed the ministers what not to preach about on Fast Day; we had an "honorable General Court" which made it a part of its concern that vacant churches should secure pastors which enjoyed its confidence.
I need not repeat to your well-instructed ears the story of the three years of endeavor which proved needful to overcome the reluctance of the town and the first church in Ipswich to the establishment of a church here, on the one hand; and to provide a candidate for the new pulpit, whom the Court should esteem able, pious, orthodox and Congregational, on the other. Suffice it to say that by 22 May-I June, 1680, the "Jebacco" company of believers presented to the Committee of the Court "Mr. John Wise, as a person upon whom they have unanimously agreed upon for their minister."
The Committee liked him, and the Court; did "allow & accept thereof." How long he had been here, or how much he had preached to the people, does not appear, but he soon came among them to gladden them for the rest of his days.
It would be surplusage- after the historical review which you have already heard, and in the face of that admirable volume§ by. one of your former pastors, which in such a fit and pleasing manner enshrines your annals, and which I trust is in nearly all your houses-were I to dwell upon the details of the service here of your distinguished first pastor. I may only glance at it, as, in three departments, it magnificently illustrates the best qualities of the New England ministry of a past age, while, at the same time, in so doing manifesting the
* Savage. iv : 614.
t Mass. Col. Rec. v : 285. Ibid. 286. +
§ History of the Town of Essex, etc., by Rev. R. Crowell. D.D., 186S.
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real greatness of the man himself. I refer particularly to the relation of the old-time pastor among us-always nearly the best-educated man, often almost the only well educated man, in town; the man of broad discretion, far sight and large hope, as well as profound religious faith-to civil and social, as well as ecclesiastical affairs.
It was inevitable that, in their civil matters, the masses of the people in their first century here should look very much toward the ministers for guidance as to public affairs. It was on all hands conceded that religious considerations largely led to the emigration ; what, therefore, so natural as that the ministers of religion should be looked to to water the young tree in its new soil. It was very far from priest-craft, or even assumption, or ambition, in the clergy which led to their be- ing largely consulted in the Massachusetts Colony in its earlier days by the magistrates. Not only were the pastors of these flocks in the wilderness, by the high range of their studies presumed to be more familiar than other men with political ethics and the science of jurisprudence, but the fact that they were experts in self-government in the church, suggested that they might easily contribute valuable aid toward those Colo- nial transactions which from the beginning were largely marked by self-government in the State. Moreover the in- fluence which came westward over the sea during the times of the Commonwealth at home, could not fail on the one hand to set the people to asking, and on the other to prompt their spiritual teachers toward contributing, counsel-and sometimes something more-to the affairs of the town, and the Colony. And when unexpected, and sometimes start- ling, problems suddenly demanded decision, it was of all things most natural that the freemen should look toward the Elders for suggestion.
Mr. Wise was always ready to accept his full measure of responsibility and toil for the State. His brief service with the troops from Connecticut in Philip's war was followed by
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124 Congregational Church and Parish, Essex.
a much more responsible and important service of the like description, when, in 1690, the Legislature of Massachusetts sent him as chaplain to that ill-judged, ill-planned, ill-managed, ill-fated and in-glorious expedition of Sir. William Phips for the conquest of Canada. Mr. Wise seems, indeed to have been about the only man who brought home any increase of renown; but it is clear that beyond the pious discharge of the special duties of his sacred office, he greatly distinguished himself by "his Heroick Spirit, and Martial Skill and Wis- dom," and it is certain that more than forty years after the event, and more than ten years after he himself was dead, his family received from the State substantial proof of the honor in which his memory was held in consequence .*
Much more of moral, and perhaps quite as much of physi- cal, courage was however demanded by the action which, in 1687, he took in resistance to what he believed to be civil tyranny. The exasperating- yet possibly over-hated -Sir Edmund Andros had been for more than two years Governor of a New England consolidated from the separate Colonies, by what the colonists felt to be the unwarrantable abrogation of the Charters, under which for almost two generations they had lived in peace and prosperity, and upon whose va- lidity not only their public legislation, but all their private property titles, depended. If the new measures were sus- tained, it was literally true that there was not an acre of land between the Penobscot and the Hudson, which-however guarded by legal papers-had not thus reverted to King James the Second; and which, with all its belongings, could not be sold or given away-in the face of those who had bought, paid, sweat and bled for it-to whomsoever he liked. There was a new flag and a new seal, and new ways altogether. Andros seemed to our fathers of that day to be purely a despot; and this new New England simply his despotism. As to taxation he was empowered-with the assent of his
*Sibley, ii : 432.
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compliant Council-to impose such taxes as he pleased, and send them down to the towns to be by them assessed, collected and paid. It became his pleasure thus to impose a tax of a penny on the pound-say $4.00 on the thousand. A little after the middle of August 1687 an order came to this town, that such a tax be levied and collected here.
William Hubbard-the well-known historian-was pastor of the First Church, and lacked but little of his three-score years and ten. Perhaps for this reason ; perhaps on account of his "singular Modesty ;"* possibly because of some occult personal tie indicated by the fact that Andros selected him to preside at the next Commencement of Harvard College- where he had the taste, in his oration, to compare Sir William to Jason fetching the Golden Fleece ; t-we do not hear of him as taking an active part in the commotion which followed. But we do hear of John Wise-then five-and-thirty ; at which age a self-poised man is apt to think reasonably well of him- self, and an active, effervescent man to feel equal to almost any contract social or civil. Mr. Wise, with two of his parish- ioners went over to Ipswich proper on Monday 22 Aug .- I Sept. 1687-doubtless the thing had been talked over between meetings the day before-to the house of Mr. John Appleton, where several principal inhabitants of the town were quietly assembled, in what we should call a caucus. They reached the deliberate conclusion that "it was not the Town's duty any way to assist that ill method of raising money, without a General Assembly, which was apparently intended by Sir Edmund and his Council."# And the next day in town- meeting John Wise made a speech in which he said that they had a good God, and a good king, and would do well to trust in them, stand to their privileges as Englishmen, and quietly refuse to cooperate in a procedure which "doth infringe their
* John Dunton. Life and Errors, etc. cited in Sibley,.i : 5S. t Sewall. Diary. 5 Mass. Hist. Coll. v : 219.
# Sibley, ii : 430.
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Liberty ;"* and the town voted-without a single negative- against compliance with the Governor's order.
For this, Mr. Wise, as ringleader, with five others, was speedily arrested and lodged in Boston jail "for contempt and high misdemeanour ;"; was refused a habeas corpus by Chief Justice Dudley ; was tried at Oyer and Terminer, and found guilty. Mr. Wise was "suspended from the Ministerial Func- tion" fined £50 and costs, and required to give "at thousand pound bond for the good behavior one year," while his com- panions were also fined and disqualified from office.
But "the whirligig of time" was not long in bringing "in his revenges." Before twenty months had passed, Andros -anticipating the scheme of a great traitor of later date- was trying to escape in women's clothes from the jail on. Cas- tle Island, § and Wise was back in Boston as one of the Ipswich members of the Convention which was reestablishing the old government ; and under the new flag of William and Mary, sued Chief Justice Dudley for having denied him the habeas corpus ; with the result, it is stated, of recovering damages. ||
These incidents, with what they suggest, will be further illustrated when we come to glance at Mr. Wise's Congrega- tional teachings; which moved men more mightily toward our present republicanism than those of any one of his cotempo- raries, and can leave us in no doubt that, in this department of civil influence, few men-if any man-of his day excelled your Chebacco pastor.
There are, moreover, good words to be spoken of him in the matter of a more purely social inspiration. Over and above all those ceaseless and countless promptings toward daily improvement of some sort, which an educated leader of the community whom all love and respect, and whose great powers are matter at once of common admiration and
Ibid.
t Crowell's Hist. Essex. p. 102.
* Sibley. ii : 432.
§ Palfrey. Hist. N. Eng. iii : 583. | Crowell. 103.
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enjoyment, is giving forth as unconsciously as the climbing sun is banishing the night-shadows ; Mr. Wise wrote his name upon the history of the last quarter of the 17th and the first quarter of the 18th century, in connection with some definite endeavors to make men happier as well as better.
In Feb. 1696-7* there was a movement on the part of cer- tain residents of his vicinity to emigrate to South Carolina, and settle on the Ashley river, near a company already gone from Dorchester ; and Mr. Wise placed in the hands of "Wm. Haskel, Sen., Purser for the Company of Subscribers for ye voiage," certain admirable "Instructions for Emigrants from Essex County, Mass, who Intend to Remove themselves and families into South Carolina."
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