USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 6
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Fitchburg sent to the front its two long-established military units, the Fitchburg Fusiliers, whose history dates from 1816, succeeding the old
453
CIVIL WAR
"South Company," which was organized before 1807; and the Washington Guards, which was organized in 1855, formed the nucleus and incentive for other Fitchburg units raised during the Civil War. The Fitchburg Fusiliers became Company B, of the 15th Massachusetts Regiment, which went into camp on June 28, 1861 ; the record of this regiment will be followed in another chapter. The Washington Guards formed the nucleus of six com- panies. Altogether Fitchburg sent nine companies into the field, and in the final accounting was found to have supplied "seventy-five men surplus above all demands upon it," "a record of which it may well be proud and one well worth preserving," according to Fitchburg in the Civil War. The nine Fitchburg companies referred to were Company D of 2d Regiment, Company B of 15th Regiment ; Company D of 21st Regiment ; Company F of 25th Regiment ; Company A, of 36th Regiment ; Companies A and B of 53d Regi- ment ; Company F of 57th Regiment ; Company H of the 4th Heavy Artillery was the last raised in Fitchburg, going into service for one year on July 18, 1864. Hurd's History of Fitchburg (1889) sums up Fitchburg's contribution thus : By way of summary, it may be stated that of the citizens of this town who went to the war, one was brevet brigadier-general, two were colonels, two majors, two surgeons, four brevet majors, seventeen captains, twenty first lieutenants, seven second lieutenants, three navy officers and sixteen sea- men in the navy, six hundred and ninety-three non-commissioned officers, musicians and privates, making a grand total of seven hundred and sixty-nine men-nearly one-tenth of Fitchburg's population at that time. Of this num- ber, sixty were killed in battle, sixty-eight died from wounds, disease, or starvation in rebel prisons, twenty-five were taken prisoners and eighty-four received wounds from which they recovered. To Fitchburg veterans goes the credit for founding, in December, 1865, Taylor Union, No. I, the inspira- tion of that fast disappearing organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, instituted in April, 1866. Later the members of Taylor Union, No. I merged with the Edwin V. Summer Post, No. 19, Grand Army of the Republic.
Of the civilian aspect of wartime activities little history is ever written, although its importance is tremendous and involves an unusually large pro- portion of the population. It is estimated that it takes four at home to pro- vide for the military needs of the soldiers at the front. There was no elab- orate organization of adults and children in the 1860's such as characterized the World War, but there were special town and city meetings, committees, local branches of such organizations as the Ladies' Soldiers' Aid Society, forerunner to the Red Cross, the Soldiers' Relief Committee, and community efforts fully comparable to those of a later and greater day. This activity was prolonged over years instead of months ; a greater portion of the male citi- zenry was in the armies; and the proportionate number of those who made
454
WORCESTER COUNTY
the last sacrifice was very much greater. The wounded were usually sent home to recover, thereby emphasizing the horrors and the suspense of con- flict as never before or since.
In April, 1861, Worcester in a wild outburst of enthusiasm, addressed its people, "Patriots, To Arms! To Arms! Enroll and Drill your Men. Be True to the Spirit and Blood of your Ancestors. Respond with Promptness to the Call of your Country." In April, 1865, what wonder that the city burst into almost hysterical rejoicing at the news of the surrender of General Lee? "A hundred guns were fired on the Common; John Boyden's 'Secesh Bell,' which rang for every Union victory, was sounded ; the people left their beds and assembled in the streets, shouting and cheering till they were hoarse. Bonfires were lighted in every part of the city .. The celebration con- tinued until dawn" and throughout the next day. On December 22, 1865, there was a most impressive scene in Boston. In the beginning of the war, Governor Andrew presented the colors to each departing regiment. On that December day four years later, troops marched to the State House, and the color bearer of each regiment left the ranks to return to the Governor the standards they had defended at so great cost.
CIVIL WAR RECORD OF WORCESTER COUNTY.
Town.
1860.
Number of Men in Service.
Killed, Missing or Died of Disease.
Ashburnham
2,108
243
32
Athol
2,604
387
51
Auburn
914
97
15
Barre
2,973
319
59
Berlin
1,106
I30
23
Blackstone
5,453
720
*87
Bolton
1,348
15I
21
Boylston
929
80
IO
Brookfield
2,276
255
48
Charlton
2,047
213
37
Clinton
3,859
419
67
Dana
876
88
4
Douglas
2,442
250
47
Dudley
1,736
200
27
Fitchburg
7,805
859
I28
Gardner
2,646
287
27
Grafton
4,317
399
59
Hardwick
1,52I
180
23
Harvard
1,507
I29
I5
Holden
1,945
204
30
Hubbardston
1,621
I68
44
Lancaster
1,932
18I
50
Leicester
2,748
272
33
Leominster
3,522
404
46
Lunenburg
1,212
I4I
30
Mendon
1,35I
156
I9
Milford
9,132
1,205
140
Millbury
3,296
403
32
Population
455
CIVIL WAR
CIVIL WAR RECORD OF WORCESTER COUNTY.
Population
Number of Men
Tozen.
1860.
in Service.
Killed, Missing or Died of Disease.
New Braintree
805
78
IO
Northboro
1,565
142
25
Northbridge
2,633
3II
34
North Brookfield
2,760
247
30
Oakham
959
III
23
Oxford
3,034
293
61
Paxton
725
66
15
Petersham
1,465
177
26
Phillipston
764
76
9
Princeton
I,201
I24
IO
Royalston
1,486
148
36
Rutland
1,076
III
I2
Shrewsbury
1,558
177
29
Southboro
1,854
219
I7
Southbridge
3,575
400
27
Spencer
2,777
319
43
Sterling
1,88I
178
21
Sturbridge
2,282
235
27
Sutton
2,676
223
21
Templeton
2,816
344
47
Upton
1,986
219
*26
Uxbridge
3,133
290
19
Warren
2,107
203
19
Webster
2,912
367
49
Westboro
2,913
340
25
West Boylston
2,509
240
31
West Brookfield
1,548
159
24
Westminster
1,840
166
34
Winchendon
2,624
294
49
Worcester
24,960
4,227
398
159,659
19,024
2,316
*Records missing. Estimated.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Churches
Worcester, county and city, are notably religious, more so than most American sections, judged by the number of churches, and their members. The present day citizen of the county may be less interested in theology and religious dogmatics than were the first settlers some two hundred and fifty years ago when a "meeting house" was the nucleus of a town, but this is no evidence of irreligiousness. Every census provides convincing proof of a constant increase in the number of adherents of the church societies of Worcester. The churches are the visible manifestations of faiths fervently held, and ecclesiastical records supply the materials from which the history, not only of religious development but also of the development of municipali- ties, is written and interpreted. In the final analysis there are few forces more powerful in shaping the destinies of people, than the religion they pro- fess, for this is their ultimate philosophy of the meaning of life, the basis of their ideas, ideals, and activities. Sectarian differences have little to do with progress and prosperity, for all the denominations represented in this part of Massachusetts have been of moral value and have made for good. The Puri- tan Colonies in what is now Worcester County included nothing in their char- ters or purposes providing for liberty in worship. These small first hamlets have become villages and towns and cities where liberty of conscience seems to approach license. Instead of a single church supported by public taxation and responsible only to its own self-constituted authorities, there are now many churches, too many perhaps, supported solely by members, and which manage their affairs without interference with, or from, the outside.
One of the most remarkable features of religious history in the Worcester region, particularly its county seat and other cities, is the changes that have taken place, particularly in the rise and fall of denominations. For almost a century Puritan, or Trinitarian, Congregationalism stood almost alone. Then followed a half century during which people holding other faiths entered the
FIRST PARISH CHURCHI, UNITARIAN, LANCASTER Dedicated in 1717, designed by Charles Bulfinch, architect of Boston State House
457
CHURCHES
communities and tried to establish their own sects, in the fear of determined opposition and unfair laws. Even those of Catholic faith who settled in the county in the first half of the eighteenth century found it advisable to con- form to the dominant religion of that period. As late as 1772 Colonial Mas- sachusetts went on record that while religious toleration was "what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced," its benefits were not to be extended to Roman Catholics because their belief was "subversive of society." There were, by Revolutionary times, a very few Baptist churches of the Roger Williams order, in the county, and a few Methodist bodies, survivals of the "Great Awakening" of a half century earlier.
The American Revolution either marked the beginning of heterodoxy in religions, or was the cause of it. Some authorities hold that the Revolution so filled men's minds with the idea of freedom in all things that the coercive features of Puritanism was resented and a more liberal basis of worship sought. Modernists point out that war is one of the most demoralizing of forces, in that "vice and immorality follow in the wake of armies." One thing is certain, that at the time of the founding of the Commonwealth reli- gion was in a generally enfeebled condition, and the straight line of ortho- doxy held few attractions. Unitarianism had filtered into the Congregational churches, although it was not until a quarter of a century had passed that the contrast between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism became manifest and led to the conflict out of which the Unitarians came the victors, at least in Massa- chusetts.
The early years of the last century were an era of increased numbers of churches founded in Worcester County of denominations not of Puritan origin. Even the Roman Catholic Church, against which prejudice fought even when the ranks of Protestantism were in disarray, managed to get a foothold. As immigrants poured into the region, more especially when the turnpike fever raged, the Blackstone Canal was under construction, and the later railroads were projected, both the character of the population and of its religions began a change that has progressed with increasing speed since. Rev. Robert Howard Lord, Ph. D., sometime professor of history in Har- vard University, has written :
"In little more than a century the religious and social structure of this once fundamentally Anglo-Saxon and exclusively Protestant Commonwealth had been profoundly altered by the incoming of other racial elements and the vast growth of the Roman Church, to the point where the majority of the population is now of other than English stock, and as far as church affilia- tions are concerned, Massachusetts is today more nearly Catholic than any- thing else. History affords few parallels to this transformation. Its conse-
-
458
WORCESTER COUNTY
quences, though they cannot be fully evaluated today, can scarcely fail to be momentous.
"This great upbuilding of the older church has taken place in a region which was originally the stronghold of ultra-Protestantism, and of all Ameri- can communities the one most passionately hostile to 'popery.' It was effected, moreover, mainly by the Irish, of all newcomers those in some ways most antipathetic to the older stock. Racial antagonisms were thus added to religious ones to produce that 'dead wall of prejudice and hatred, hard as the granite of our eternal hills,' which Catholicism has had to encounter in this Commonwealth."
Although written of Boston, the following comment has as true an appli- cation to Worcester :
"Out of all the clashings of Puritans and Quakers, Calvinists and Armini- ans, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Protestants and Roman Catholics, and Con- servatives and Radicals in religion and politics, which Boston has seen, has emerged the ideal of free thought, free speech, and toleration of many points of view ; an attitude which has become ingrained and chronic, and that today makes Boston a singularly attractive place of residence for persons who else- where have suffered from tyranny or cramping environment. The result is a measure of present amity between former foes of historically hostile faiths, which is unprecedented, while at the same time there is a candor in express- ing diverse point of view without diminishing personal and sectarian good- will which is the surest proof of the high measure of civilization to which the section has attained." (G. P. Morris in New England.)
Without attempting here to trace the changes in faiths, or the numerical differences between the churches, from the old days to the new, one may point out that the whole trend of the years has been towards bringing breadth, freedom, elasticity and joy to religion. The emphasis in the churches is now centered upon the psychology of religion, rather than on theology. The demand is for religious educators, teachers of philanthropy, ethics and prac- tical religion. In the supplying of this the modern churches have been as direct, rational and efficient as the citizens of the section have been in their politics and business. Few large cities are more noted for their benevolences than those of Worcester, and in their order of size, Fitchburg, Leominster and Gardner have kept pace. Some of the characteristics of present day ecclesiastical practice are direct survivals of the original faith, or polity. Many of the ideas of stewardship of means, standards of personal and civic conduct, have their roots in the early theocratic government. More espe- cially has the high place that the minister or priest holds in the community been retained. The clergyman still counts as a man of influence, as a
459
CHURCHES
moulder of public opinion, as a citizen conspicuously qualified to shape the practical policy of the administration of schools, libraries, charities and local government. His preaching is less controversial, the altered social structure and conditions of living have made impossible some of the oldtime pastoral supervision, and he has not the direct censorship of folk that were the privi- leges of founders of the church he now serves. All of which probably con- tributes to the power he wields.
No detailed history of the separate denominations and their church organizations now represented in the county can be attempted in the space allotted to this chapter. This has been ably done in earlier general histories of the region, and in numerous special histories published by denominations and individual churches. We must rest content here with paragraphs where pages are needed, with brief statements concerning beginnings, prominent personalities, and a few of the outstanding events and movements in reli- gion. There are a hundred churches in Worcester city alone, and more than that in the other cities and towns of the county, and these are divided among more than thirty separate denominational organizations.
It is a deserved tribute to a remarkable person, rather than historical accuracy, to write of the good John Eliot, "Apostle to the Indians" as the first minister of Worcester County. History records the various efforts made from 1642 to 1676 to settle the Nipmuck country, as this region was then known. Indians were responsible for the failures of these attempts, and to some of whom the "Apostle" had preached and taught. This devoted young man, a graduate of Cambridge University, came to Roxbury of the Massa- chusetts Colony, in 1632, to serve as pastor of its church. He evidently. took more seriously than the early Puritans the avowed purpose of our fore- fathers in coming to this country, the evangelizing the heathen natives of the land. When the aborigines received one of their first lessons in religion in the extermination of the Pequods in 1637, Eliot was awarded a captive as his bond servant, and from him learned the Indian tongue. The minister trans- lated the Bible into the Indian, and also a primer, a catechism and other works, which were printed upon the only press in the Colony. These tremen- dous labors were but the first of greater ones, for from 1646 he was mis- sionary extraordinary to the Indians from the Nipmuck country to Rhode Island and New Hampshire. The mistakes he made were few, the most seri- ous being the attempt to segegrate his converts in permanent villages after the English fashion. The so-called "Praying Indians" and "Praying Towns" were chief among the results of his endeavors. In chapter four of this his- tory, a full account is given of John Eliot, his converts and their towns, a number of which were located in what is now Worcester County. Eliot was
460
WORCESTER COUNTY
the first regular preacher in the region, and although his sermons were deliv- ered mostly in the Indian tongue, he also visited the few white men in the territory and ministered unto them also. Daniel Gookin, a power among the Puritans, accompanied him on many occasions, and in 1674 was with him when seven new "Praying villages" were added to the original Biblical seven. Five of the second group were in the area of the present county. The prac- tical end of John Eliot's work and of the English settlements in the Nipmuck County came in 1675 with King Philip's War.
In 1676 there were four named "towns"-Lancaster, Mendon, Brook- field, and Quinsigamond (Worcester)-settlements in name only due to Indian massacres. In the Puritan theocracy, a town was a religio-business organization, a combination church and State. A meetinghouse was usually the first public building, the minister the outstanding public servant, and both supported by the Colonists. Church attendance was required of citizens, and lands were set apart for the meetinghouse and for the first pastors. This held strictly true only until the Massachusetts Bay charter was abrogated in 1684, a sufficiently long period to permit the Congregational Church to become firmly established and the only State church. It was years before other denominations gained sufficient influence to secure exemption of their organizations from taxes levied to support the Congregational Church, the latter named having acquired the status of a town church. True religious and political liberty began nominally with the separation of the State and Church by the Eleventh Amendment, but not completely until the Statute of 1887 (Chapter 419) "freed the people from compulsory support of churches by taking away from the religious societies, or parishes, all power of taxa- tion."
The first of the original towns of Worcester County, Lancaster, was founded in 1643-47. Incorporated on May 18, 1653, a covenant of laws and orders drawn up by six "prudentiall men of said Towne," which all had to sign to become citizens, had in its first articles, provisions for "Church Landes" a "Convenient meeting house for the Publique Assembling," a min- ister's house and a ten shilling tax on house lots for the support of the ministry. In intent, if not in word, these provisions are found in town char- ter agreements of the other earlier towns. Joseph Rowlandson, aged twenty- two and the lone graduate in 1652, of Harvard College, arrived in 1654 to be the first minister of the "plantation" or town. He evidently had a difficult time living on a fifty-pound salary, and was disheartened also by the failure to build a meetinghouse, and only a call from Billerica aroused the people to the raising of his salary and a church. The meetinghouse was built in that same year, 1658, and the Lancaster Church was formally organized two years later. Church records are missing of the years prior to 1708, when Rev.
461
CHURCHES
John Prentice was made pastor, and none exist of town meetings from 1671- 1717. Other accounts relate that in the Indian depredations of February, 1676 (O. S.) most of the citizens of the town took refuge in the minister's house, of whom a number were killed and the rest surrendered. His house was burned at this time and all but two of the buildings in the place destroyed a few weeks later. The inhabitants returned, however, after a few weeks, and Rev. John Whiting became the pastor of the settlement in November, 1690. Another meetinghouse was erected in 1706, when Lan- caster was a town of several hundred population. Most of the first pastors of the Lancaster First Church died at their posts or were retired because of the infirmities of old age. After John Whiting came Rev. Andrew Gardner, in 1701, and after his death in 1704 he was succeeded by Rev. John Prentice, who was pastor for forty-three years before he died. Rev. Timothy Harring- ton, the successor, was pastor for forty-seven years, and was followed by Rev. Nathaniel Thayer, in 1793, who also lived and labored for forty-seven years. In 1916 the First Church celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the building of its fifth meetinghouse. Of the other churches in Lan- caster : The First Evangelical was organized in 1839; the Universalist Society dates from 1838; the New Jerusalem Church was founded, possibly, in the later 'thirties, but not legally organized until 1876. A Catholic chapel was consecrated in 1873; the Seventh Day Adventist Church was organized in South Lancaster in 1864 and an edifice built in 1878.
Mendon, second of the original settlements in the later Worcester County, started in 1659, promised in its petition for a new "plantation" to get under way when a full number of persons, "with an able minister" should appear. It would seem that no able minister appeared until a few years later, 1864, or earlier, Mr. John Rayner. Rev. Joseph Emerson was the pastor of the town in 1669, and has generally been accepted as the first of the many Mendon clergy- men. A meetinghouse was constructed in 1669, which had two successors prior to the building of a fourth in 1730. The first church was destroyed in 1675 and not replaced until 1680, when a classmate of Cotton Mather, one Rev. Grindel Rawson, arrived at the parish, but did not become its settled minister until 1684. Among the early pastors of the Mendon Church were Rev. Joseph Dorr, who died in 1768 after a service of fifty-two years. The religious organizations became Unitarian, in 1818, under Rev. Simeon Dog- gett, who was dismissed in 1827. The First Parish Church was erected in 1820; the North Congregational Church was founded in 1828; a Methodist Church was started in 1853, and there was a Friends' Meetinghouse built in Mendon village, in 1729, which was used until 1841 by the Quakers. The East Blackstone Friends' Meetinghouse was erected in 1812.
462
WORCESTER COUNTY
The present bounds of Brookfield include only parts of the area prominent in its early history, although third in point of age among the towns of Worcester County. It had a meetinghouse, but not a minister before 1676, after which the settlement was no more for nearly ten years. A new church was not constructed until 1715, and the Rev. Thomas Cheney was invited to become its pastor a year later. He died in 1747, and was followed by Rev. Eli Forbes, Thomas Appleton, and Rev. Joseph Appleton. In 1798 Rev. Thomas Snell was appointed and filled the pulpit for sixty-four years. In 1848 West Brookfield was set off as the First Precinct, the original settled section of Brookfield, and the First Church thereafter was continued in West Brookfield. The Methodist congregation began in a class meeting of 185I. Rev. Father Roubier said the first mass in the village and by 1889 Michael J. Murphy had Gardner, Brookfield and East and West Brookfield as his parish. The Catholic Church in Brookfield, proper, was built by Presby- terians and used by them for a quarter of a century. The West Brookfield church was consecrated in 1889 and the East Brookfield church is of a later date. The Baptists became established in North Brookfield, in 1872, and its Methodist Episcopal Society dates from 1829, and its first church from 1833. Another Methodist Church was built in 1861; the Union Congregational Society was founded in 1853; Christ Memorial Church was dedicated in 1894; and the Catholics built a church in 1867.
Worcester was the fourth of the first towns established in what is now the county, and there were ten others erected before Worcester County was organized in 1731. The ecclesiastical history of the county seat will be sum- marized later. Continuing with the mention only of the earliest churches in the order of the establishment of the fourteen original towns: Oxford owed its rise to French Huguenot refugees and its first church, while of the Con- gregational type was unique in the annals of early Worcester County. "M. Blondet is their minister," wrote a refugee, in 1687, but religious services were held in the homes of the French settlers. The English resettled Oxford in 1713 with Rev. John James as their first minister. A meetinghouse was put up the following year. Sutton had its first church in about 1719, and evidently a "Mr. Macinstree" did the preaching. The church was formally organized in 1720, and John McKenustry ordained as its pastor on November 9, that same year. Leicester started a meetinghouse sometime between 1719 and 1722, but it was not completed until 1741; Rev. David Parsons held services in the unfinished building from 1721. Rutland's first religious edifice was started in 1719, and Rev. Joseph Willard was called to be the first pastor in 1721, but was murdered by Indians before his installation. Not until 1727 was a church leader secured in the person of Rev. Thomas Frink.
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