USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > Two sermons preached in the First Congregational church in Milton, on the 15th and 22d of June, 1862, and suggested by the centennial celebration, on the 11th of June, 1862 > Part 3
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Dec. 9th, 1835, " The old church having been turned round and thoroughly repaired, was reopened and dedicated to the service and worship of Almighty God. Rev. William P. Lunt of Quincy, and Rev. Orestes Brownson of Can- ton assisted Mr. Huntoon in the services.
Mr. Huntoon's connection with the society was dissolved at his own request, June 20, 1837, on account of his health, and that he might take charge of the Unitarian Society in Cincinnati. Mr. Huntoon went from Milton to Cincinnati ; Rev. Ephraim Peabody from Cincinnati to New Bedford, and Rev. Joseph Angier from New Bedford to Milton.
Rev. Josephi Angier was invited to become pastor of the society by a unani- mons vote, Aug. 7, 1837, and was installed Sept. 13, 1837, Rev. Caleb Stetson of Medford preaching the sermon. At his own request, and against the wishes of the people, Mr. Angier's connection with the society was dissolved June 22, 1845.
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1727498
The present pastor, John HT. Morison, was installed Jan. 28, 1846. '
From the first settlement of the town, notwithstanding the good Peter Thach- er's fears about " the lamentable animosities and divisions, which has been in this place," the most remarkable feature in the history of the parish has been the harmony between the ministers and their people. From the time when the Call was given to Mr. Thacher in 1680 down to the present day, so far as the parish records show, there has been, with the single exception already men- tioned, no difficulty between the minister and the parish. Mr. McKean and Mr. Gile were both settled by a unanimous vote of the Church. Every minis- ter settled here since the division of the town has received a unanimous invita- tion from the parish, and when the connection has been dissolved it has been at the request of the Pastor and against the wishes of the Society.
It would be unjust to close this notice of the parish without speaking of the Sunday School to which it has owed no small part of its prosperity. For twenty years it was under the judicious care of Mr. Samuel Adams, who spared no labor or expense in its behalf, and who during those twenty years was only twice ab- sent from his post at the opening of the services. He knew all the children of the parish. He visited the homes of the poor, supplied their wants, and from places too often neglected or forgotten, drew in children who would otherwise have been left to go astray. Those who were then connected with the school are not likely ever to forget their obligations to him.
The first Meeting House in Milton, I believe, stood near the place where Miss Polly Crane lived nearly ninety years of her long life, and where Mr. Wm. P. Blanchard now resides. The present Church was built in 1787. It was turn- ed round in 1834, when the galleries were removed and a part of the building partitioned off as a Sunday School room. In 1851, the partition was removed so as to make room for twenty additional pews, and a new room was added for the Sunday School. At about the same time an organ was procured.
There are few finer situations for a country church, and the original advant- ages of the place have been greatly improved by the noble trees that stand up- on it. About seventy years ago, at a town meeting, a number of young men agreed to spend the next day in setting out trees. They kept their engagement, and the fine elms which stand around the church with their hospitable shade and coolness through the summer months, and as holy sentinels amid the storins of winter, remain still the fruit of that one day's work, an emblem and memo- rial of the enduring results which may sometimes come from our transient ex- ertions. This fact was told me by the late Gen. Moses Whitney, the last sur- vivor of the company who transplanted the trees. Their names should be kept in lasting and pleasant remembrance.
ANCIENT HOUSES AND ESTATES.
I can make out but five families who live now on land taken by their ances- tors at the first settlement of the place. The widow of John Crehore holds a part of the original Crehore estate. The heirs of Simon and Rhoda [ Kingsbury Sumner] Ferry hve on land owned by their ancestors, the Sumners, from the
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beginning. Mr. Rufus P. Sumner cultivates, as his homestead, land which has been in his family from the earliest period of our history. The grandfather of the Hon. Charles Sumner was born and lived on some part of this Brush Hill Sumner estate. The Wadsworths, Jason, Thomas Thacher and Josiah, live on land which has never been out of the hands of their ancestors since it was first cultivated. The heirs of the late Col. Josiah II. Vose still occupy the place which has been owned by their family since 1654. And heirs of the late Mrs. Mary Boies Clark not only live on land owned by their ancestor, Robert Tuck- er, the first of the name in Milton, but it is probable that they live in the very house that he built a short time before his death. In his will made in 1682, he speaks of his " new house," and if that, as Mr. Robbins thinks, is the house now standing next beyond the Robbins house on Brush Hill, it must have been built as early as 1680, and is undoubtedly the oldest house in Milton. Next to it in age, and of a date not much more recent, is the Billings house. Both these houses are of a primitive order of architecture, and evidently belong to a period when building materials were plenty and labor was scarce. The Billings house continued in that family for many generations. Mr. William Creliore, whose mother was a Billings, and to whom I am indebted for many facts relat- ing to our history, was born in this house more than 80 years ago, and at a much more recent period it was the birth-place of the distinguished architect, Mr. Charles Howland Hammatt Billings, son of Ebenezer Billings. The house was widely known as a public house before the beginning of the present century, and was a favorite place of resort, especially at the cherry and strawberry sea- son, for parties from Boston and the neighboring towns. The Blue Hills were much more visited in those days than now, when the summit of Mount Wash- ington is hardly a day's journey from Boston.
The other ancient houses in Milton belong to a later period and to a much higher style of architecture. The Foye house, now occupied by Mr. Samuel Littlefield, the Hutchinson house, better known to the present generation as the Russell house, the Inman or Robbins house on Brush Hill, the Taylor house, between the two churches, and the Gov. Belcher place (his house was burned in 1776,) are not only in themselves among the finest places in this neighborhood, but they have also associations of historical interest. Gov. Hutchinson's house, as Mr. Robbins informs me, was confiscated after he fled from the country. It was purchased by Samuel Broom, and, passing from his hands, became the residence of James Warren, whose wife, Mercy Warren, was the author of a valuable history of our revolutionary war. Thomas Lee of Cambridge owned it for a little while, and sold it to Patrick Jeffrey who had married Madam Haley, a sister of the noted John Wilkes of England. Jeffrey's wife left him, and he died at his house in Milton, in 1812 The estate was afterwards purchased by Mr. Barney Smith, and is now owned by his grandchildren, the heirs of his daughter, the late Mrs. Lydia S. Russell, widow of the Hon. Jonathan Russell.
Maj. General EDWIN VOSE SUMINER, [see p. 6,] son of Elisha and Nancy [Vose] Sumner, was born in Boston where his father resided a few years But
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both his parents were natives of Milton to which they returned while he was yet a child. They lived in the house now occupied by Miss Kendall on the right hand side of the Canton road, next beyond the lane that leads to the top of Brush Hill.
OFFICERS NOW IN THE WAR.
The following officers from Milton are now actively engaged in the war. Those who know them best have the least apprehension that they will bring any thing but honor to the town or to the august and sacred cause to which they are giving themselves. And the same may be said of many of our young men who have gone as privates.
Lewis N. Tucker, Capt. Co. A. 18th Reg. Mass. Volunteers. John E. White, Capt. Co. G. 99th Reg. N Y. Volunteers. Algernon S. Badger, Ist Lieutenant, Co. I. 26th Reg, Mass. Volunteers. Walter S. Davis, Ist Lieu- tenant, Co. F. 22d Reg. Mass. Volunteers. William H. Forbes, Ist Lieutenant, ist Reg. Mass. Cavalry. Stephen G. Perkins, Ist. Lieutenant, Co. H. 2d Re- giment, Mass. Volunteers. Edward S. Huntington, 2d Lieutenant, 11th U. S. Infantry.
Since the above was written, one of these young men, Stephen G. Perkins, has fallen in battle at Cedar Mountain. He was one of the finest examples that I have known of manly integrity, and purity of heart. It would not be easy to find a man who had less taste for the excitement, the glory, or the pursuits of war. He went not from impulse, but from a deliberate sense of duty. His thought had always been more for others than for himself. He was reserved and undemonstrative in his manners. His actions were better than his words, but his character was greater and better than either. He grew upon his associates from day to day, till he became in himself an influence among them, so that they felt, as one of them expressed it, that they must all have higher purposes of life, because they had lived with him. His eye was as clear as the eye of an infant, and every morning found him apparently as new and fresh as if he bad just been made.
" Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart : *
* * * and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay."
It is a great price that we are paying for our civil rights, but the institutions which produce such men are worth defending at any cost, and the country which has such young men to give is worth dying for.
Lieutenant Perkins was the son of Stephen H. Perkins, and grandson of Samuel G. Perkins. His mother was the daughter of Richard Sullivan. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1856, and at first studied law. But some things in the practice of the law offended his sensitive moral nature, and he entered the Scientific School at Cambridge, where he had just completed the course and taken his degree, when he went off to join the 2d Mass. Regiment.
PETER THACHER.
Peter Thacher, son of Rev. Thomas Thacher, first minister of the Old South Church in Boston, according to Dr. Sprague, Annals of American Pulpit 1. p.
C
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196, was born in Salem, in the year 1651. His mother was a daughter of Rev. Ralph Partridge of Duxbury. He was graduated at Harvard College, in 1671, where he was the classmate and friend of the first Chief Justice Sewall. Hle was a tutor at Cambridge several years, and instructed the class of which Cot- ton Mather was a member. He became the intimate friend of his classmate and fellow tutor, Samuel Danforth, son of the Deputy Governor, whom he ac- companied to England, soon after leaving college. While in England he was strongly urged to join the Established Church, and tempting offers were made to him. But after careful investigation, his mind was made up against the claims of the church of England, and soon after the death of his friend, Mr. Danforth, near the end of 1676, he returned home. See Savage's Genealogi- cal Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 272. " He married," says Mr. Savage, "21st Nov., 1677, Theodora, daughter of Rev. John Oxenbridge of the First Church, which had eight years before been in fierce entity with the third church founded for his father, and so, I hope, some help was given to the quiet that began, soon after the death of Gov. Bellingham, to reign through the colony so long dis- turbed." They had nine children, only three of whom survived their father. She died 1Sth Nov. 1697, and he, for his second wife, married Susannah, widow of Rev. John Bailey, assistant minister at the First Church, Boston. They had one child who died in infancy. She died 4th Sept., 1724, in her 59th year. In 1727, about three months before his death, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Judah Thacher, and widow of the first Joshua Gee, and not of Rev. Joshua Gee, who, Mr. Savage says, survived him by many years. Peter Thacher, according to the Church records, was ordained in Mitton, Ist June, 1681, and died 17th Dec., 1727. The funeral sermon by Cotton Mather is a beautiful discourse, and the title is as follows :
" The comfortable chambers opened and visited, upon the departure of that aged and faithful servant of God, Mr. Peter Thacher, the never to be forgotten pastor of Milton, who made his flight thither, on December 17, 1727."
The Boston Weekly Journal of 23d Dec., 1727, thus speaks of him : "He was a person of eminent sanctity, of a most courteous and complaisant behavior; cheerful, affable, humble and free of speech to the meanest he met with. He had a great deal of vivacity in his natural genius, which, being tempered with grace and wisdom, appeared very engaging both in his common converse and public performances. In his ordinary conversation there was a vein of piety, agreeably mingled with entertaining turns and passages, an air of freedom and cheerfulness, that made it very easy and pleasant in any company. * * He was a zealous asserter of the purity and liberty of our evangelical churches."
Peter Thacher's daughter Theodora, who was admitted to the Church in Milton, Feb. 2, 1701, married Capt Jonathan Gulliver, and died Dec. 7, 1732. The following is from Mr. Thacher's Church Records : " March 23, 1700 or 1701. Son Oxenbridge, Daughter Elizabeth, Mercy and Mary Badcock were admitted into full communion with the church in Wilton." His son, Peter Thacher joined the church, Feb. 6, 1704. Oxenbridge was born in Milton, May 17, 1681, and was graduated at Harvard College, 1698. In 1713-4 he married
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Elizabeth Lillie, sister of Sir Charles Hobbie. She died Nov. 3, 1736, aged 61. He married (2) Bathsheba Kent, widow of John, July 30, 1740. In 1737 he was.residing in Boston, as at that time he was dismissed from the church in Milton, and "recommended to Dr. Sewal's Church in Boston." I do not know how long he continued in Boston, but he spent the last years of his life in Milton, where he died, Oct. 29, 1772, at the great age of 91 years, 5 months, and 12 days. He must long have been the patriarch of the town.
His son Oxenbridge, grandson of Rev. Peter Thacher, was a man of extra- ordinary influence and ability. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1738, and for many years no man in Boston held a higher place at the bar. He en- tered with all his heart into the contest with England, and was associated with James Otis and John and Samuel Adams in the discussions with which that contest began. He died however in 1765, ten years before the war had actu- ally broken out. John Adams gives the following vivid sketch of him. " From 1758 to 1765, I attended every superior and inferior court in Boston, and recol- lect not one in which he did not invite me home to spend evenings with him. when he made me converse with him as well as I could on all subjects of re- ligion, mythology, cosmogony, metaphysics, -Locke, Clarke, Leibnitz, Boling- broke, Berkley,-the preestablished harmony of the universe, the nature of matter and of spirit, and the eternal establishment of coincidences between their operations, fate, foreknowledge, knowledge absolute,- and we rea- soned on such unfathomable subjects, as high as Milton's gentry in pandemo- nium ; and we understood them as well as they did, and no better. But his favorite subject was politics, and the impending threatening system of parli- mentary taxation, and universal government over the colonies. On this subject he was so anxious and agitated, that I have no doubt it occasioned his prema- ture death."
The second Oxenbridge Thacher married Sarah Kent, probably the daughter of his step-mother, July 27, 1741, and had eight children. Of these, two entered the ministry and were greatly distinguished in their day; viz. Peter, born in Milton, where he was baptized, March 15, 1752, and Thomas. Peter was graduated at H. C., 1769. He was first settled in Malden, and in Jan- uary, 1785, was settled over the Brattle Street Church in Boston, and was greatly distinguished for his personal virtues and his persuasive eloquence. His brother Thomas (H. C. 1775) was the minister of West Dedham, and was never married. He was an, eccentric, able man, and used to say, "I know, brother Peter excels me in prayer, but I can give the best sermions." Peter ยท was made a D. D. by the University of Edinburg, and died in Savannah, Ga., in the autumn of 1802. October 8, 1770, he married the widow Elizabeth Pool, and had ten children. His son, Thomas Cushing, was the minister of Lynn. Another son, Peter Oxenbridge, was a judge of the Boston Municipal Court. "In the difficult and often critical exercise of the powers entrusted to him," says President Quincy, " he upheld the dignity of his office, and main- tained the cause of justice with a fearless and discriminating spirit." A younger son, Samuel Cooper, the successor of Rev. John T. Kirkland as pastor
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of the New South Church, in Boston, May, 1811, the intimate friend of Buck- minster and Channing, was a man greatly beloved and honored. He died at Moulins, in France, January 2, ISIS, and his body now rests, with that of his father, in the burying-ground in Milton. A beautiful Memoir of his life was written by his friend and successor in the ministry, Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood.
I remember another descendent of our Peter Thacher, who deserves to be mentioned here as a most worthy minister. Rev. William Vincent Thacher (H. C. 1834.) was a minister in Savannah, Ga., for a short time, and gained the entire confidence of those who knew him. He died on his passage from Savannah to Boston, in 1839. He, too, I think, is buried with many of his family, in our Milton grave-yard.
JOIIN TAYLOR.
John Winslow, of Plymouth, born in 1597, the son of Edward Winslow, of England, and brother of the distinguished Edward Winslow of Plymouth, came to Plymonth in the Fortune, 1623, and in 1627 married Mary, daughter of James Chilton. There is a family tradition that she was the first person of English parentage who landed in the expedition to Plymouth ; she having leaped from the boat and waded ashore. This tradition was written down in 1769, from the lips of her grand-daughter, Ann [Winslow] Taylor, then in her 92nd year. Their son Edward Winslow, by his second wife, Elizabeth, (d. of the second Edward Hutchinson and his wife, Catharine Ham by, d. of a lawyer at Ipswich, Eng.,) had, among other children, Ann, born Aug. 7, 1678, who married John Taylor, and was the mother of Rev. John Taylor, the minister of Milton. Of John, the father, who died in Jamaica, nothing is known except that he was the son of Richard Taylor, of Boston, who joined the church Jan. 1, 1642, being then "a single man and a tailor." Richard, by his wife Mary, had John, born the 2nd, baptized the 6th of February, 1647, and died in 1673. Having sustained a good character in life, he was lamented in death. " He," says his danghter-in-law, "bequeathed two handsome legacies to the old Brick and Old South Churches in Boston."
The Rev. John Taylor, of Milton, was born in 1703, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1721, being the class-mate of Chief-Justice Stephen Sew- all, as his predecessor, Peter 'Thacher, had been the class-mate of C. J. Sam'l Sewall, fifty years before. He was ordained in Milton, Nov. 13, 1728, Rev. Thomas Foxcraft, of Boston, preaching the sermon ; and died Jan. 26, 1750. One of his daughters married Nicholas Gilman, of Exeter, N. H., and was the mother of John Taylor Gilman, a man of sound judgment and massive integrity of character, who was 13 years governor of N. H. Her son Nicholas Gilman was a Senator in Congress, a man of great persoual influence, and an accom- plished gentleman. . Her son Nathaniel Gilman was also a man widely known and respected. This family of Gilmans has been one of the most distinguished families in N. HI.
Rev. John Taylor built the pleasant house, which now stands between the two churches in Milton, and which is occupied by Capt. Charles Taylor,
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and his sisters, whose mother, Mrs. Mary Taylor, who lived in this house till her death, March 16, 1860, aged 89, was the widow of William Taylor, the son of that William Taylor who was the nephew of the minister and wrote down his grandmother's words. She retained her faculties to the last, and was able to tell more about what had taken place here during the last eighty years than any other person that I knew. Her memory of things was very exact and vivid. She had a sound, discriminating mind, and was of a retiring, modest disposition. There was a quiet dignity about her which was very pleas- ing. She was one of the finest representatives among us of a generation which has now passed away.
As to the tradition respecting Mary Chilton, the words given below were written down by William Taylor, in September, 1769, "as related," he says, "by my grandmother, Madam Aun Winslow," who was born the 7th of Aug. and baptized the 8th of Dec., 1678, which was the year before Mary [ Chilton] Winslow died, and only 58 years after the landing at Plymouth. Ann Wins- low's mother, Elizabeth Hutchinson, was born in 1639. She was forty years the contemporary of Mary Chilton, and for ten years, at least, her daughter-in- law; so that Ann Winslow had abundant means of learning whether the story was true or not. Mr. Savage says in regard to it, Genealogical Dic., IV., p. 601 : "She [ Mary Chilton] had come in the Mayflower, and in her favor cir- culates the ridiculous tradition that she was the first of English parentage that leapt on Plymouth Rock ; but the worthless glory is equally well or ill claimed for John Alden, for neither of them is entitled to that merit." I agree with Mr. Savage as to the value of the glory. But it will be seen that the family tradition is not that she first " leapt on Plymouth Rock." Mr. Taylor's memoranda of what his grandmother said is as follows : " She [Mary Chilton] came over with her father and mother and other adventurers to this new settle- ment. One thing worthy of notice is that her curiosity of being first on the North American strand, prompted her, like a young heroine, to leap out of the boat and wade ashore. John Winslow, another early adventurer, married said Mary Chilton, from whom have descended a numerous and respectable poster- ity. My grandmother, now living, who affords me these memoirs, is the last surviving grandchild, in the 92nd year of her age."
REV. NATHANIEL ROBBINS.
Stories are still told which show the easy and familiar terms on which Mr. Robbins lived with his people, and their friendly relations to him. From 1770 to 1785, or even later, was a period of great privation and distress among our people. At no time since the first years of the Plymouth Colony has the con- dition of the ministry been more circumscribed and embarrassing. For exam- ple, Rev. Samuel West, D. D., of the second precinct in Dartmouth, now New Bedford and Fair Haven, was one of the ablest and most faithful ministers of that generation. But in January, 1779, in consequence of representations from persons " of undoubted veracity, that the circumstances" of Mr. West " were in such a degree deplorable as to demand immediate relief," a meet-
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ing of the precinct was called, and it was voted to raise seventy pounds to procure fire-wood and corn for Mr. West. In most of the country parishes throughout New England there was the same distress, growing out of the depreciated and disordered state of the currency, and the disturbed condition of the country. Mr. Robbins was too skillful a farmer to be reduced to such straits as many of his brethren were, but the voluntary contributions of his parishioners, in those trying times, must have formed no unimportant part of his income from the parish. Mr. Robbins's son, Edward Hutchinson Robbins, Lieut. Governor of Massachusetts, and many years Judge of Probate for Nor- folk County, during the latter years of the last century and the first quarter of this, exercised a more important influence in this town than any other man. His death is thus mentioned in our Church Records : " Dec. 29, 1829, Hon. E. H. Robbins. The eldest son of the late Rev. Nath'l Robbins. A great man has fallen in our Israel."
REV. JOSEPH! MCKEAN.
In strength of mind, in earnestness of purpose, in intellectual accomplish- ments, in a high sense of honor and of duty, Mr. Mckean was certainly infe- rior to no one of the honored men who preceded or followed him in the ministry here. But he came here very young. Our national government was not yet fairly embarked. The cries of party warfaire were for the first time fiercely assailing it, and he threw himself into its defence with all the ardor of a gener- ous and inexperienced youth. He was greatly beloved here. Between leaving H. C. in 1794 and settling here in 1797, he had taught an academy at South Berwick, Me. A venerable man, now living, has told me that he was one of his pupils there, and that, at the close of the last term, every pupil had a glass of wine put into his hand, and the teacher, with a glass in his hand, proposed this toast : " The rising generation : may they continue to rise till they all meet in heaven." After Mr. Mckean had his connection with the parish dis- solved, his family remained in Milton several years. He married Amy Swasey, of Ipswich, and left three sons : Joseph William, Henry Swasey, John George. They all graduated at H. C., and were young men of uncommon ability, but died too soon to fulfil entirely the promise of their early youth. Of the daugh- ters, one married Joseph E. Worcester, LL. D., and another Charles Folsom, A. M. Both are now living in Cambridge.
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