USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Early ministry on the Kennebec Read before the Maine Historical Society, November 22, 1895 > Part 1
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Gc 974.1 T33e
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02427 2137
Gc 974.1 T33e Thayer, Henry Otis, 1832- Early ministry on the Kennebec
NOV 1.
EARLY MINISTRY ON THE KENNEESC D By, Rev. Henry O. Thayer, A. N. Read before the Maino Historical Society, November 22, 1895.
ROBERT GUTCH, THE PIONEER
The emigrant colonists to New England had been so trained by the practise or beliefs of their fathers, by statu- tes and events, by claims of conscience or by impulses of & hearty devotion, that they held religious teaching and obser- vances imperatively necessary or very desirable, .There were Indeed some - rough fishermen, heartless adventurers, vagabond products of ill social conditions - who "feared not God and re- 1
garded not man." . The greater part belleved in and sincerely favored religious institutions in some form and early sought to establish them. Religious movementa, therefore, in the period of settlement in that great valley, whose Inke fountains, brooks and springe, pour their waters into the Atlantic at ancient Sa- gadahoc, furnish valuable pages to our Enine history.
The distinction of the rivere Kennebeo and Engadahoc anciently made by English tongues censed after a century, and the aboriginal Kinnebeki was extended to the sea, And now Saga- dahoc only appears in oocnaional historical use. This paper deals with events in the district of the Ingadhoc, though em- ploying the modern name.
INITIAL EVENTS: FIRST HALF-CENTURY.
lo mention le here required of the Popham colony, though a witness to Englishmen's regard for divine worship. In- deed, then and in subsequent deondes, events which exhibit tho fact or the form of religious attention and activity had but a
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fragmentary record. Traces of the earliest Protestant worship in the Kennebec valley, after Popham, seem to be wholly effaced. It is a fair presumption that during the occupation by the men of Plymouth some religious services were held in their fort st Cuahnoc, conducted by such men as the Winelows, Alden or South- worth. Similar ministrations may have been afforded to fisher- men and farmers in the Sagadahoc district, or even occasional preaching by a chance visitor.
The Jesuits were the first to come with a religious
purpose. No priest accompanied Champlain in his visit in 1605, - but when M. de Biancourt, in 1611, came hither from Port Royal for grain, Father Pierre Blard shared in the voyage with the dis- tinct purpose com-ending his missionary zeal, "to see the dispo- sition of those nations to receive the gospel." Fo religiove ceremonial was observed here, though a festival day required the mass when the party was at the Sheepscot; but at an anchorage for a night, about two miles below where the city of Bath now im, an impromptu sacred concert was given by the Frenchmen at their superstitious priest's request, ns a plous shield against the baleful influence of the supposed incantations in the yells harangues, dance and orgies of a company of anvages on shore. Perhaps then for the first time, on the Kennebec, were chanted the Salve and various hymns of the church - sacred words of
Christian meaning. Next secular songs enlivened the still night imitated by the natives, and joined with answering mimicry and . hooting, echoed back and forth between savage and civilized, eo that the religious and decorous in the end were turned into the
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ludicrous and hideque.1
No missionary work was attempted by Jesuits or others so far as known till 1646, when Gabriel Dreuilletes came and ministered for a time to the atives in a rude chapel which they built for him a league above the fort of the Plymouth men at Cushnoc. Some thirty-three miles below the mission station and In the shore line of the city of Bath is a projection named from a former omer - Clapp's Point. Tradition has told that an- ciently it was Friar's Point, a name suggestive of past events of which it alone gives evidence.
Possibly Drouilletes had here a bark hut for temporary sojourn when visiting the lower Kennebec and seeking to win the men of Robin Hood; or possibly Capuchin monks constructed a rude domicile and prosecuted their work for a time among the Famenocka. 2
Even Sebastian Raales, during the expulsion of the Eng- lich, may have come hither from his Harantesuk Station and gather- ed and Instructed his niophytes on this inviting point where, during a century and more past, have been built fleets of coastere and have tomered maste of merchant levinthans. But "Friar's Point" conceals history we would gladly rend.
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1. Carayon, p. 64, translation by Prof. F. M. Warren, in our So- cioty's collections, 1891, p. 419.
2. Charlevoix, Vol. I., p. 435 - repeated by Thea's Catholic xis- sione, p. 135, says the Capuchins had a hospice on the Kennebec and welcomed Dreuilletes on his first journey. This, however, is not supported by the narrative of Lalemant (Jesuit Felations 1647) for it was plainly at Penobscot that Father Et. Ignatius of Paris, and his Capuchins received the zealous missionary. Still, slight evidence (Historical Magazine, Vol. VIII.) creates a presumption that some of these monks tarried for a time at Kennebec either preceding Dreuilletee or when his brief sojourn closed.
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AN IMMIGRANT FAMILY.
The year 1650 will mark approximately a manifest in- crease in the tide of immigration which, unto rany pointe from the sea to Teconnet, brought in new occupants - farmers, lumber- men, fishermen, traders. Within a few years previous to this date and in the decade following, a large part of the land pur- chases from the Indians were made. English immigrants or their sons, who had located in the oldest towns of Massachusetts, were taken up and borne on hither by an eastward wave to seck new homes. These constituted the larger part of the adult popula- tion previous to Philip's war.
Among these one name for a time stood out in promin- ence, and asteem le rightly due in the dimness of the distance and of the facts for honorable position and usefulness of the man, Robert Gutch. £ His name is first discovered in the records of the town of Balem and in its first decade. He received in Nov- ember, 1637, a grant of a half acre of land near Winter Harbor. - Again the authorities vote him in 1645, a small piece of marsh which lay at the end of his ten-acre lot. Such land ownership indicates a farmer possessed of a freeman's right in the Salem colony. The land first granted was situated "by his father Holgrave's" (or Howlegrave), who,. it appears, was his father-in- law, and subsequently moved to Casco Bay.
It is assumed that on this lot he built his house and made for his wife Lydia Holgrave, s home near her father. of the date of marringe or of the arrival from England of the tro families, I learn nothing.
1. Now known as Finter Inland. Essex Institute Collections, 1862 p. 118.
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In a single incidental mention of "r. Gutch, I find reasons to believe that he came from Wincanton, a town in the southorat of Somersetshire.1
I regret that research in English records has not been possible, yet I have found this none of several families in Glastonbury, fifteen miles from Wincanton. Here in the church of St. John the Baptist, a John Outch was minister in the time of the commonwealth, dying at the close of 1657." 2
The name of Robert Gutch appears in the membership of the firet church of Enlem, to which he was admitted in 1641. The same records show the baptism of his children, seven in mun- ber, in the years from 1641 to 1654. ' One other daughter is not included in the list. 3
THE MAR, BETTLER AND 'CITIZEN AT KENNEBEC.
After this introduction a dozen years go by when he is disclosed enlarging his possessions, as many a man has done, by adding mortgages to house and land in 1651-52. Evidences of financial embarrassment in ensuing yours create a presumption that he found himself in such financial straits as precluded res- sonable hope of escape, and therefore, on best terms he could make, surrendered his home and moved on into the wilderness to begin anew.
1. A deposition taken in 1682 (Sesex County Recordo) states that one fluch Jonas came from England above thirty years since, that he came from Vincanton and was servant to Mr. Robert dutch and his cister. Unless "above thirty years" was so indefinite as to include a dozen more, the date will be about 1650, and will show a journey back to England when a sister returned with him of whom nothing further is known, I must regard this person as the Ro- Port Sud-Brofns JfkstandupptAntlatRFiakrisafety, 1891, and letter of ita President.
3. Felt's Annals of Salem, p. 555, Essox Institute Collectiono, 1864, p. 238.
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He witnessed a deed at Pennquid, in 1657,1 a single trace of n transient or extended sojourn in the east, possibly while prospecting for a home.
Two and a half years later he purchases land situated on the Kennebec River, the conveyance of which was formally exe- cuted Liny 29, 1660, by five Indian "Baanmores," Bobine Hoode be- ing chief. 2 The price was concealed under the phrase, "for di-
vers considerations moving therounto." Payments for neighboring tracts of land were, in one case "one hogahead of corn and thirty pumpione," in another, "one beaver skin and a bushel of corn yearly rent, and a quart of liquor" each Christmas. Honce we cannot think Ir. Gutch was hard pressed to make paymentc. . change it was, from being the hard-pressed owner in Salem of a dozen nores, to become the free proprietor of four thousand acres At Kennebec.
The lands to which he gained ouch title es the native lords could give, lay on the western side of Long Peach in the Kennebec, twelve miles from the sea, and now mostly fall within the aren of the city of Bath, and such has been the distribution of business and population that a very large part of the city's wealth, ite manufactories, shipyards, its varied traffic, public
1.' Suffoll: Deeds, Book III., p. 50.
2. York Deedø, Book II., follo 63. This angamore's namo ie writ- ten variously, but usually Robinhood, as in an early ønle of land 1648 - "I Ramerin 000 called by my Indian name or Robinhood soe called by my English name." - Plymouth Recorde. Another convey- ance by him, the earliest known, uses a different native nate, Nowhotimormet, but has Robinhood in the signature. Ramcgin 18 elsewhere Rawneagon.
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buildings, churches, mansions of the rich and ordinary dwellings of the people, are situated upon those acres. A cove at the north - Harwarde - another at the south, a short distance above some rocks once called the Jiggles, but latterly Trufant's Led- ges, mark permanently the boundaries on the river. The distance from north to south on a right line across streets and wharves in the business front of the city is two and one-eighth miles. The tract extended back by estimation three miles, or to the next estuary, New Vendone River. . Adjacent on the south wo land con- veyed by the enme nagumores to Alexander Thwait on the previous day. The cove" was the common boundary and the tro estates were 1
divided by a westerly line adjusted by mutual agreement of the purchasers, the sign no witnesses each the other's doed. Also in the rear of Thwait's land lay another portion of Gutch's pur- chase but its extent and bounds cannot be traced and it soon passed into other hands.
The removal of Mr. Gutch from Salem to the Kennebec le alone indicated by the date of the purchase, the spring of 1650. He may have moved his family a year or more before, or lived a while at Pomaquid. Two sites have been assigned for his house by tradition, but neither has but slight claim to certainty be- cause of change and rebuilding consequent upon the wars. It was surely a rude, humble home at convenient access to the water and having ite outlook upon the shaded or gleaming Kennebec, yet de- lightful views were esteemed of little worth since life In that
1. Marked by Neasrs. Houghton's shipyard, and by Messrs. Donnell's ropewalk burnt in 1890.
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new, harsh beginning meant In rd world to gain subsistence and open the way to better yearn. John, the eldest of the family, was about twenty years old, able-handed, wo pronuno, to "lift up the axe upon the thick trees," where perhaps not one had ever been felled; a little girl of three or four was the youngest of seven daughters, if so many still lived who would aid to advance the family fortunes. A hard working man by the nocesaitles of the case, mas thie Kennebec plonger.
A fragmentary but suggestive view of Mr. Gutch in pub- lic relations is furnished us by the Yorkshire records. Fhon Charles II. made his feeble attempt in 1665, to establish his royal authority in Gorges' Province of Maine, his commissioners, or probably their deputy, mnde demand for submission upon the in- habitants of the last district enstward, then without a name enve "the Testern Side of Kennebec River." Twenty-two mon took the oath of allegiance and supremacy on September eighth. The name of Robert Gutch hende the list, and the fact has worth to suggest his social prominence, or possibly, leadership. He 18 then enpowered by that royal authority to administer the same oath to others of whom it should be required - which honor may be claimed na a testimony to his high standing, whatever nome- times was the character of the king's officers. For must it be held a blemish that at this time, September 12, 1665, he, and four others of his tomnemen likewise, gained the logal right un- der bonde to retail liquora. In the next your he, and his re- cent neighbor Thmait, were drawn jurors in s murder trinl held at court at Casco. Also, in this year, 1666, he was appointed
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administrator on the estate of John lowlegrave of Falmouth, who, va infer, was his wife's father.
So much alone appears in contemporary records, exhibi- ting his public duties and position - a more glimpse of him ns a citizen upholding government and law, trustworthy and honored, There was little friendliness between the New England colonists and Charles Stuart, but to sign the name in acceptance of the king's government at Kennebec did not prove Robert Gutch a hearty and subservient royalist, nor declare him out of sympa- thy with the men of Massachusetts, who now feared the abridgment or loss of their self-government. One can indeed rend into that signature and service, royalist, and by implication, Angli- can. But we enn as well read attachment to order and law. First rose the question of government where there had been none; en- doreement of the king's colonial policy was another matter. It
was to Rr. Gutch's credit that he ranged himself on the side of lawful authority. His course savored of good citizenship, and it was duty also for him to serve his king. Hie opinions or motives we cannot know.
The next stage in the known history of the man is brief and is the last. Less than a year passed after his ser- vices in the court at Canco when a new entry places his namo again in the record, viz .: letters of administration granted to Ers. Lydia Gouch on the estate of her husband Robert Couch de- ceased. To his public duties and usefulness suddenly the end had como. The record shows the widow's bondemen more Capt. Ed- mund Patteshall and George Kunjoy. For their security she
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ande over to them her deceased husband's entate.
. The date of the session when these matters transpired . is not shown, but it was previous to September, for the inventory of the estate by the Appraisers Christopher Lawson and Ednund Patteshall man dated September 25, 1667. It was presented in court certified by required oath October fourth. No place of
residence of the deconsod le included in the records. But asido from the familiar names, all the persone having part in the ad- ministration are Kennebec residents oxcopt "unjoy of Casco. There is no place for a question respecting identity. The date of his death enn only be determined approximately, depending on the frequency of the courts, and the immediate notion of the adminis- trator. If the court sesalons were monthly and if Mrs. Gutch presented the inventory as ordered at the next session after her appointment, then she ms appointed in September, and hor hus- bande denth, if reported to the court at the first following 888- sion, would have occurred in August. If, however, there was delay in either stop, or the courts were bimonthly, the death would be put back to July or Juno. we will thereforo write the date, the summer of 1667.1
Death was caused by drowning, as unvarying tradition has told, but the place or the ocension are involved in doubt. One account tells of the enprizing of his boat while crossing Long Reach. Another declares that he was drowned by missing the
1. More painstaking search may attain accuracy . The records of various nesslona were not all entered in chronological order, and in places are obscuro.
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way at a fording-place between Arrowsic and Parker's Islands, that he was on horseback and his wife also loet her life." The drowning of Ers. Gutch, of which this tradition retains details, is manifest error, and grave suaplcion arises in respect to euch a cause of drowning for much horseback riding in that period was improbable since such is the topography - the rivers, many creaks, extensive marshes - that without the present complement of ferries and bridges, A horse could travel but a few miles ox- eept by long detours. People whom Ur. Gutch wished to visit would have been reached far more easily and expofitloudly by bont which even now le a common method of travel of many people living near thoee watersbye. 3
HIS MINISTRY
Nothing in records or documents of the period indicate
it. Te should have been wholly ignorant of the fnot but for inquiry into land titles in the following century. Cale of the lande and the great lawsuit respecting them" revealed his minis- 2. Christian Mirror, March 10, 1888.
3. Pret historical notices of "'r. Cutch in many worke assign his death to 1679. This date was probably an inference. In respect to the legal title to his estate certain need persone deposed that so many years ago they lived at Kennebec and knew him or family, or lived with him; by which apparently he was alive in 1674, or in 1678. These depositions were intended to chow heirship of des- cendente who had gold their rights, and the deponente seem to de- Birnate the latent years of their residence there without distin- quiching sharply a similar date for Mr. Cutoh. Indeed, it may have been regarded ns policy not to mention the date of his death. but to allow residence of members of the family, himself included, to prove possession of the lands in defence of title. Those de- positione in 1724, 1734, 1744, indefinite or equivocal, must be Interpreted consistently with the probate recorde which are be- yond ance1l.
1.Jeffries ve. Donnell, Lincoln County, 1764: - Superion Court, Falmouth, 1706. The court sustained the Gutch title, but the
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demandant appealed to the king in council, and was allowed a new trial on a single point of error in admission of evidence, but no step towards a trial was taken.
terial character. In depositions by his daughter and granddaugh- ter, he is styled "Rev. Mr. Gutch" and minister at Kennebeck. " Jonathan Preble who came to the river in 1716, and gained knowl- edge of events in the previous century and had acquaintance with some of I'r. Gutch's descendants, testified that he was often told that Gutch had been a preacher to the fishermen and was drowned near a hundred yeare previous.3
Jabez Bradbury conversant with the river and people after 1716, deposed that he had often heard of Mr. Gutch, the min- ister, and that there was a meetinghouse somewhere on Long Reach in his day. Such a place of worship is fully certified. Preble testified he had seen it, and indeed, it is well proved that it stood on land which he owned. His sons, and a neighbor equally informed, have pointed out the precise site to persons living. It stood at the extreme northwest point of Arrowsic Island, and nearly opposite across the river from Mr. Gutch's home. That Mr. Preble saw it proves that it stood unscathed through three Indian wars, when the savages burned vindictively nearly every structure the white settler built in order to drive him out. Yet it is to their honor that they respected the
place of worship. It is worthy of note that the land of this
2. York Deede, Book XVI., fol. 109. Book XXIV., fol. 264.
3. Williamson's Kaino, Vol. II. p. 488. This testimony, if given at the trial in 1764 (not 1758), will closely certify the date of Mr. Gutch's death.
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minister at Kennebec included "Friar's Point," whoever the pan, or whatever may have been the hidden history, so nearly did the two men's work tome together, though esch did his own.
Questions will arice respecting his ministerial stand- ing and work. Was he a minister regularly ordained? I strong- ly doubt it. Ho was a young man when he left England, though not too young to have had preparation for service in the ministry if ordained and devoted to Episcophoy, Salem was a ntrange place for him, since there, says Bancroft, "they feared the adherents of the establishment as spies in the camp;" and a little faction who would retain the forme of the mother church vere regarded se- ditious and in the persons of their leaders, 'the Brownes, Episco- pasy was oxiled. . Surely Outch, a half-dozen years later, did not enter Falem with these opinions, and yet soon enter the com- Eunion of the Enlen church. Subsequent ordination would have been conferred on him in the colony only as a religious teacher of an existing church, of which there would have been record. But it will be objected that locking this authority the striet oversight by the berated and so-called intolerant Varanchusetta would not permit him to exercise the ministerial function. Indeed, the right to silence any unordained person was Affirmed in 1653. But Mr. Cutch was in an incipient set- tlement, was without the boundn of ecclesinational usage and lan, and beyond the authority of magistrate or oldere. Thore the
opportunity and the urgent need would answer all questions ros- pecting his right to preach the gospel. Indeed, we know that a successor wno unordainod. Hence In the large freedom of the
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wilderness where men are simply men not molded into systems, the Siches of the Inhabitants, his own conscience and devotion wrote the proper certifiente for him to do the work of an evangelist.
Of his ministry in ite methoda or extent we know noth- Ing save that the house of worship denotes a regular assembly and such services as were possible. Meetings elsewhere in dig- tant house and garrisons, visitation, teaching, catechising, are probable. We assume a considerable portion of his time was ap- plied to tilling his home acres in hard work for his family's Subalatence; and if he made his evangelism free the service was not unrewarded for in New England, then, the religious teacher bad no slight honor, and gifts to the voluntary and devoted 1g- borer would not fail in the place of stipulated salary.
The denominational relations of Fobert Gutch have been questioned in the interest of the early history of the several churches. Various opinions were expressed when little was known of him but the mere fact of his ministry. Mow it is permitted to make more positive statemente.
It was a hnety misapprehension of history which infer- red that he was Presbyterian, and because many Kennebec settlers were such. 1 Presbyterianiam came into Maine with the Scotch- Irish a half-century after his death, and one of the earliest known churches in the colonies was only organized in 1684, at Snowhill, Maryland. A dozen years previous a few preachers and adherente were to be found in the adjacent states. Fere he Pres- byterian Er. Outch would have been there an advance pioneer by several decades and in New England a lone representative during that century. Likewise at the time of his immigration, in
1. Maine Historical Collection, Vol. II. p. 205, and elsewhere.
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in the general turmoil in England just preceding the com- conwealth, in the strife of Puritan and churchman, the opposing 2: 285 sims of Independenta and Presbyterians as the latter were seek- ing power and to become the national church, it would be wholly unexpected for a Presbyterian to make close affiliation with Puri- tans in Massachusetts.
. To Episcopacy also has Er. Gutch been assigned. This opinion will indeed bring him into connection with the church aystem introduced into Gorgen' Province of Kaino. But there tere opposing elements and much indifferentism, and also various public interesta tending towards alliance with Massachusetts, and in the progress of events a growing friendliness to her church system.
Before the removal of Mr. Outch to the Kennebec, the ambitious Bay Colony had with drastic influence, brought the wes- tern towns under her authority, And Episcopacy was naturally re- etrioted and waning. It miat be questioned if that district at the extreme boundary, styled "the western side of Kennebec," ever had close relationa or any civil relations with the rest of the province. when King Charles set up his government, this narrow peninsula, or a portion of its inhabitants yielded to the sun- mons whether by loyalty to him or by desire to have some form of government. A few men of the east of the river did the same by reporting at Sheepecot. Previously the two siden had been one In interest, untrammeled in their wild freedom by laws, courte or exactions. Their business relations had been chiefly with Boston and adjacent towns from which many had come, and their sympathles, we believe, largely tended that way, for it is by no
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