USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Middleborough > Two hundredth anniversary of the First Congregational church in Middleboro, Mass > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10
The times were auspicious for its organization. Although remote from the centers of the old and new world, its founders were, for the most part, men keenly alive to the great problems of church and state that were then being adjusted.
William and Mary were on the throne of England ; the gen- tle and beloved queen passed away two days after our church was organized. The Commoners of England had secured for the people the guarantees contained in that immortal state paper, the Bill of Rights. Freedom of the press was abont to be established. An enactment by Parliament granting a larger measure of protection and freedom than was ever before granted to Protestants had been passed ; the great Marlborough, who never lost a battle for England, and who had been honored as no other subject had been honored, was in disgrace for the most perfidious treason : the genius of Addison was just begin- ning to be recognized ; the marvelous creations of Sir Chris- topher Wren had already begun to beautify the great city of London ; Sir Isaac Newton had pointed out great laws which control the universe : in France the Edict of Nantes had been revoked with terrible results, and the blood of thousands of Protestants was flowing in the streets of the cities of France, and the world was still learning that there were men whose faith in their God was more precious to them than life itself.
In the colonies, our own Plymouth Colony had just united her fortunes with those of the Bay. The anxieties concerning the new charter had now been settled. The Colony of the Bay was just recovering from that terrible delusion of witchcraft
.
58
FIRST CHURCH, MIDDLEBORO
which had so disgraced the annals of her history, but which, happily, never extended to our own Plymouth Colony.
The last survivor of the Pilgrims of the " Mayflower," John Alden, had passed away eight years before; the horrors of the Indian War had ceased ; our ancestors had returned from Plymouth, whither they had fled for protection and safety dur- ing the war, and had now rebuilt their houses and barns and redeemed their long-neglected farms. Their numbers, also, were beginning to be augmented by the recent arrivals in the colony from the mother country.
Our town was so named because within its territory centered most of the Indian paths that traversed the southeastern section of New England, and from its being midway from Plymouth and the important settlement of Taunton. It was settled later than most of the towns in the colony, on account of the much larger number of Indians that continued to live within its border after they had retired from most of the other sections of southeastern Massachusetts, and who remained here until after King Philip's War.
There is a tradition, probably true, that the two men who first built houses here bore the historic names of Wood and Leonard. The former was situated between the house of Mrs. Lorenzo Wood and the river, the latter on the high ground on the other side of the street in front of the house of Mr. Perry Wilbur. From their homes could be seen the wigwams of the Indian settlement on the hill on the other side of the Namasket, and beyond their ancient burial ground. In what year they came or how long they remained is a matter of doubt.
Our town was incorporated in the year 1669. At the break- ing out of King Philip's War there were here sixteen families, who, upon its commencement, removed to Plymouth.
The eleven men who organized our church were most of them elderly men and children of the Pilgrims of Plymouth, who came from that town and settled within our borders probably a little before or a little after the year 1660. Eight of them were among the twenty-six men who made the purchase of
59
ORATION BY THOMAS WESTON
much of the territory of our town from the Indians in 1664. Nine, with their wives, removed their relations from the parent church in Plymouth, and the remainder united by profession of their faith upon the organization of the church. I am inclined to think that most of them were here before the town was incor- porated and probably some time before the "twenty-six men's purchase." Although this church was not organized until Dec. 26, 1694, I have no doubt that religious services had been held within the limits of the town by its first settlers for at least forty years before its organization. The opening sentence of their earliest records that have come down to us is significant. The men of that generation were not only familiar with the Scriptures, but they always used its quotations with truth and accuracy, and it is hardly probable that they would have used the words, "Thou shalt remember the way the Lord thy God has led thee these forty years," upon such a solemn occasion had they not been strictly true. Mr. Baylies, in his admirable his- tory of Plymouth Colony, gives as a reason of their delay in organizing their church that they were too poor to warrant a stated ministry until this time.
The church was organized Dec. 26, 1694, by these men and women in accordance with the simple forms of the church of the Pilgrims - first gathered in Elder Brewster's manor house in Scrooby, and afterwards removed to Leyden, and from there to Plymouth - and which have continued in our denomination to the present time. Letters missive were sent to the neighbor- ing churches of Plymouth, Sandwich, and Barnstable, which were represented by their respective pastois and delegates. They met, in all probability, in the old church edifice that stood somewhere between the residence which was formerly known as "Dr. Sturtevant's " and the Green. After the same simple ser- vices which are now observed in the organization of a church, the Rev. Samuel Fuller was ordained their pastor and religious teacher. They then adopted the Articles of Faith, substantially the same as they now exist in your church, and entered into solemn covenant with their God and with each other for the
60
FIRST CHURCH, MIDDLEBORO
faithful performance of the sacred vows that they then unitedly took upon themselves. After that their infant children were baptized, and John Bennet was chosen deacon and ordained and inducted into his office.
The church they thus organized was built upon what they sincerely believed to be the testimony of the Prophets and the Apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone. Their articles of faith and covenant were for the purpose of setting forth a common belief in which all members could unite and heartily agree, and for every member to consent to the rules and discipline therein set forth. They contained the essential doctrines of the Holy Scriptures, which they believed to be the only rule of faith and practice. They believed in self-govern- ment and open communion of the church, in its free toleration, with power to select their own pastors and officers, to receive, dismiss, and excommunicate members by vote of the whole church and by advice of the neighboring churches in council whenever desired by either party. They held with rigid ten- acity to that system of theological thought called Calvinism, - drawn, as they believed, from the inspired Word, -which was the corner-stone of the Puritan faith. That system of thought has always inspired its followers with a sense of their own independence and dignity as beings called of God into his own kingdom and glory and redeemed by the incarnation and sac- rifice of the Son of God. It asserted the rights of humanity and the equality of man before God and the law as no other system had. They, in common with the Congregational body of that day and this, believed strongly and tenaciously in a faith that put God first, the Commonwealth next, the citizen next ; and its followers have always endeavored to speak and act as they have professed.
David Hume said that England owed all the liberty she had to the Puritans. George Bancroft says that the monarchs of Europe, with one consent and with incisive judgment, feared these doctrines as republican. That system of theological thought was Calvinism, of which John Fisk says that its "dis-
61
ORATION BY THOMAS WESTON
semination over the world was one of the greatest steps that mankind had ever taken towards personal freedom." It was largely this mighty force in the thought of later times that achieved our independence.
The churches of our denomination have always been tenacious of this faith, which, as they believe, was once delivered to the saints. Its members from the beginning have always been well versed in the teachings of the Scriptures. Its great doctrines were intelligently comprehended by a large majority of our churches and adhered to with tenacity in the great theological controversies of the generations which followed between the churches of the Pilgrim faith and that of the Arminians, now known as Unitarians. We of to-day have but little idea of the bitter feeling that that controversy engendered in New England, and how it took hold of the churches, dividing some and chang- ing the faith of others. One quarter of the Congregational churches of Massachusetts went over to the Unitarian belief, - nearly one hundred in all. Of the churches in Boston, all but one thus changed its faith ; so did the church of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, where William Brewster was its ruling elder, where Carver and Winslow, Bradford and Fuller and their children and grandchildren long worshiped ; so did the church at Bridge- water, Wareham, and Kingston, in Hingham, and in most of the other towns in the Old Colony.
In all of that bitter controversy this church stood firm from the beginning and remained then, as now, true to its ancient faith. It is, however, a fact in history that cannot be ignored that the churches of the Puritan faith largely furnished the men who were foremost in promulgating the broad ideas of liberty and resistance to the oppression of Old England, and who led and guided the War of Independence, and afterwards framed the government and laid the foundation of the institutions of our country. And while ignorant men may sneer at the Puri- tans, their customs, and their belief, the world appreciates to-day the value of the lives, the services, and the principles which actuated those noble men more than ever before. Our
62
FIRST CHURCH, MIDDLEBORO
senior senator' in the United States Senate on a public occasion not long since, in referring to the forces that achieved our inde- pendence, said, with truth, that he did not believe that the American Revolution could ever have been successfully accom- plished and the government of the United States securely es- tablished without the preliminary educating power which had been given to the men of those times through the hard-headed orthodoxy which prevailed in New England. This was the faith of our fathers, and has continued the same during all of these successive generations. The day belongs to us, and it is not too much to say on an occasion like this that it is from our church and churches of our faith and order that largely have sprung the forces and influences that have molded the govern- ment and institutions of the land, and there are few churches in New England that contributed more of this mighty force in the infant days of the colony and nation than this ancient church.
And yet this simple organization, this belief, these incidents, was not the church they founded. It was their conception of a plan for the commingling of spiritual aspirations for the service they desired to render to God and humanity ; the place where they could find inward peace and growth for their immortal natures, here in this consecrated place, that was then and there made, and has so continued to be, the First Church in Middleboro.
I should certainly fail in the discharge of the trust you have so kindly imposed upon me should I neglect to give in detail something of the lives and characters of the founders of this our ancient church. Although there is but little extant con- cerning them except tradition, I have gathered briefly of this what I have been able to find.
There is nothing grander in any place or in any age than its strong, consecrated, devout Christian men. Men never stood out in a stronger light, having all of these attributes and more, than the noble souls whose lives we recal to-day. It is true
' George F. Hoar.
Y
63
ORATION BY THOMAS WESTON
that most in their lives is gone from us, but the occasion brings us where we may see something of the details of those lives as they were here lived, and what they did and what they accom- plished for future generations, and how they went out to their reward on high.
The roll of the founders of this church we honor to-day is as follows : -
SAMUEL FULLER and his wife.
JOHN BENNET and his wife.
JACOB TOMSON and his wife.
JONATHAN MORSE and his wife.
JOHN COB, Jr.
ABIEL WOOD and his wife.
HESTER TINKHAM.
SAMUEL WOOD.
DEBORAHI BARDEN.
ISAAC BILLINGTON.
WEIBRAHI BUMPAS.
SAMUEL EATON.
SAMUEL CUTBART.
EBENEZER TINKHAM and his wife.
The most prominent of these men was their first pastor, the Rev. SAMUEL FULLER. He was the son of Samuel Fuller, of the " Mayflower," celebrated for his piety and skill as a physi- cian. So desirous was he that his son should be better fitted for a useful life that he made provision for his education in his last will and testament. He was born in 1623, and received a good education. He was one of the twenty-six purchasers of the large tract of land covering much of the territory of the town, and came to dwell in our borders, I am inclined to think, before 1662. He served as deacon in the church at Plymouth for sixteen years in the early part of his life, and was the religious teacher of the inhabitants of the town from the time of his settling here until his death. The town voted to provide a house and twelve acres of land for him as early as 1680, which was located a little east of what was formerly the residence of Dr. Sturtevant. The same year the town voted him a yearly salary of twenty pounds, one quarter to be paid in silver and the remainder in corn and wheat, and also to fence his field ; and every person who failed to do his portion was to pay a bushel of corn. At the same time a house was built for him (which was burned with all other houses in town at the commencement of the Indian War), the site of which is not
64
FIRST CHURCH, MIDDLEBORO
precisely known. During the war he removed to Plymouth with the other settlers, and there remained until its close, when he returned in 1680.
I think it was during this year that the town built our first meeting house, near the house of the late Dr. Sturtevant.
In 1680 he was chosen one of the selectmen of the town. Tradition is uniform that he was not only an enterprising, in- telligent, industrious man, but an earnest, devout Christian teacher, who spent most of his life in preaching the gospel, although not an ordained minister until the year before his death. He was ordained at the time of the organization of the church, and died a few months after. A stone on the burial hill marks his resting-place and contains a suitable inscription. 1
The Rev. Dr. Backus, writing in 1741, said that before King Philip's War in 1675 there were three churches of praying Indians in the territory included in the limits of our town - one at Namasket, another at Assawampset, and a third at Titicut - and that in these three churches there were one hundred and thirty members. The churches at Namasket and Assawampset numbered seventy members. Such remarkable results at that time must have been largely due to the long, devout, and faithful Christian service on the part of this godly man, aided as he was by Rev. Mr. Treat, of Eastham (whose labors for the conversion of the Indians were not surpassed by the great apostle Eliot himself), and the Christian associates of Mr. Ful- ler, who must have been very early in the town. It would certainly appear to be the fact that not only Mr. Fuller but the organizers of this church had been here for at least forty years to have seen such fruits of their faith and their works.
Gov. Bradford, after the Pilgrims' first encounter with the hostile Indians at Plymouth, wrote home to his beloved pastor, the Rev. John Robinson, of the signal victory that they had obtained. In his answer to that letter, after tender and en- couraging words, he adds this sentence : "O, that you had converted some before you had killed any !" That rebuke
1 See page 96.
65
ORATION BY THOMAS WESTON
could never have been administered to your ancestors, the founders of this church, for the record shows that before the gun of John Tomson (borrowed by Lieut. Isaac Howland) had been fired from the garrison house of the town at the Indian on the high rock just above the Star Mills, while menacing the settlers who had there retired for safety, wounding him so that he soon after died in the house of Wil- liam Nelson, which stood not far from the house of the late Jacob Bennet, they had converted more than one hundred and thirty before they had killed one.
Next to their minister, probably JJACOB TOMSON was the most influential and prominent of that little band. He united with the church upon profession of his faith at its organization. He was the son of John Tomson, a member of the church of Plymouth, and, with his children, was in the habit of attend- ing church there every Sabbath. There is a tradition that he when a boy, and in his early manhood, was in the habit of walking from his father's house to Plymouth and back every Sabbath to attend services, a distance of over sixteen miles. He was an industrious, enterprising man, honored and re- spected throughout the colony. He was one of the twenty-six men who made the first purchase from the Indians of the ter- ritory in this town. He made the survey of the land so pur- chased, and divided it into lots among his associates. His father was certainly here before 1654, and there is every reason to believe that his son was with him during those early years.
He was a large owner of real estate in this and the adjoining towns. He was one of the few of His Majesty's justices of the peace in the colony for many years : was elected seleetman of the town in 1697, and held that office for twenty-five years. He was a representative to the General Court for the years 1708- 18. He was a devont, earnest Christian man, of much influ- ence in this church and prominent in the affairs of the town and colony.
Our first deacon was JOHN BENNET, born about the year
.
66
FIRST CHURCH, MIDDLEBORO
1642. He came from Beverly to our town, and died March 21, 1718, aged seventy-six years. He was selectman for five years, and town clerk for thirteen years. He was a man of considerable learning, well versed in Scripture, and of sturdy character. He was of much assistance to the pastor of the church, and rendered great service in many ways to the church during its early years. He was a man of good judgment, discreet, and always zealous for the growth and prosperity of the church that he so long and faithfully served.
SAMUEL WOOD came from the church at Plymouth. He was a selectman in 1684, and was re-elected upon eight different occasions. He was also a man of prominence, and greatly respected. His descendants are very numerous in this and surrounding towns. Very many of them have been distin- guished in the professions, as well as in other of the varied occupations of life. He died in 1718, in the seventieth year of his age.
ABIEL WOOD was probably a brother of Samuel. He was a quiet, industrious man, of strong religions convictions. His descendants were not numerous. He died in 1719, aged sixty-one.
EBENEZER TINKHAM united with the church on profession of his faith at its organization, and was one of the selectmen for three years. He was a man of great enterprise, and did much for the church and town. He died April 8, 1718, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. The enterprise of their ancestors has always been a characteristic of his posterity.
HESTER TINKHAM was a sister of Ebenezer, and there is no record of her marriage. She died in 1717, at the age of sixty- eight.
SAMUEL EATON was a son of Francis and Sarah Eaton, pas- sengers in the "Mayflower." He was settled in Duxbury in the early part of his life, and removed from there to Middleboro probably before the twenty-six were purchasers, of whom he was one. He married Martha Billington, probably a daughter of Isaac Billington, and died March 18, 1724, aged sixty-one
67
ORATION BY THOMAS WESTON
years. He was a member of the church in Duxbury before joining this church.
WEIBRAH BUMPAS was the wife of Joseph Bumpas. She died Dec. 27, 1711. Her husband was a son of Edward Bumpas, one of the passengers of the " Mayflower," and a brother of Edward. who was one of the twenty-six purchasers of territory from the Indians in 1664. She was formerly a member of the church at Plymouth, and severed her relations to join this church at its organization. The descendants of Joseph and Edward were nu- merous in town at one time, and were industrious, thrifty men.
JONATHAN MORSE owned a large tract of land in town, and was frugal and diligent. He was a member of the church in Plymouth, and severed his relations with that church to join this. Some of his descendants have been very prominent in the literary and scientific world. He died in 1709, aged seventy years.
JOHN COB, Jr., was a son of one of the twenty-six pur- chasers of much of the territory of the town. His father was recorded as one of "the first-comers" in Plymouth. He was enterprising and thrifty. It was his custom, as well as that of most others in town before the organization of the church, to attend the customary service in the old church in Plymouth, re- turning the same day. He died in 1727, aged sixty-eight years.
SAMUEL CUTBART left no descendants, and died in 1699 at the age of forty-two. No tradition has ever come down to us concerning him.
But little is known of ISAAC BILLINGTON. He left no male descendants, and died in 1709 at the age of sixty-six.
DEBORAH BARDEN was connected with the family that has always been well known in town from its earliest organization.
And so we have recorded the little that has come down to us of these illustrious names, the founders of the church whose history we rehearse to-day. Of most of them we may say,
" Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply." '
1 Gray's " Elegy."
68
FIRST CHURCH, MIDDLEBORO
It is enough then for us to say that they were devout Chris- tian men of sterling character, distinguished for their sobriety and industry, whose influence for good was long felt in this community. Tradition is uniform that the daily walk of these men and women was in accord with the solemn vows they took upon themselves on that memorable Sabbath of Dec. 26, 1694.1
It is not my purpose to trace the interesting story of this church from that day to this. It has been an eventful one. It has had its dissensions, but fewer than most churches of the Commonwealth. The differences between the old lights and the new lights were soon forgiven and forgotten. It has had its "toil and tribulation," but,
" Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God,"
that have also been seen here. The years of 1728, 1741-2, 1808, and 1823 were
" Years of the right hand of the Most High "
in this place. Nor does time permit me to name the men who have been prominent in its membership since its organization, or the part they have taken and the influence they have exerted in molding and shaping, not only the many interests of this church, but the affairs of the town, and not a few of them in the broader field of the colony, afterwards the Commonwealth.2 The sacred fire on this altar, kindled two hundred years ago, has been kept burning by the children and children's children down to the seventh generation.
No church is richer than ours in men and women whose lives have made the world wiser and better, and whose Chris-
1 A brief sketch of the lives of some of the more prominent members of the church for the first one hundred years of its existence may be found in the history of the church.
2 Of these, more than a dozen have been ministers of the gospel, about the same number physicians and lawyers, and scores of them in every honorable trade and occupation scattered all over the country.
69
ORATION BY THOMAS WESTON
tian characters have been radiant with the power of the endless life.
We are upon historie ground to-day. From my boyhood there has always been a peculiar charm that has lingered about the sites of the houses of worship this church has successively occupied. I must linger for a few moments to recal some of the associations connected with them ; we are fortunate in know- ing the exact location of each of them. The first, standing between the house of the late Dr. Sturtevant and the school- house on the Green, was the place where worshiped those godly men who, with their pastor, had been, under God, the instruments of converting the Indians who before the Indian War had been gathered into the three churches within the borders of our town as it then existed. These Indian churches became extinet with the breaking out of the war, and most of the Indians joined the whites in that bloody contest ; after its close they removed to other parts of the State, or became so commingled with the settlers as to lose their identity.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.