USA > Maine > Ancient dominions of Maine : embracing the earliest facts, the recent discoveries, of the remains of aboriginal towns, the voyages, settlements, battle scenes, and incidents of Indian warfare, and other incidents of history, together with the religious developments of society within the ancient Sagadahoc, Sheepscot, and Pemaquid precincts and dependencies > Part 24
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But the wilds of Maine already echoed to the sol- emn chants of the rites of the liturgy of the Latin 1646. tongue in the services of the Roman Church, whose missionaries had penetrated its depths with a self-sacrifice and devotion worthy of a better cause. Gabriel Druillets, in the wilderness of the Kennebec, had planted the cross of the Church of Rome, and about it gathered the nucleus of
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a settlement, to which, as the heads of the religious estab lishment, succeeded the two Bigots, 1 father and son, fol- lowed by the indefatigable Father Ralle, whose melancholy end has tinged the history of the Kennebec with sad memo- ries of blood and ferocity. Thus were the foundations of the town of Norridgewock laid in the early history of our State.
CONGREGATIONALISM INTRODUCED.
u A half century had elapsed when Robert Gutch 1661. appeared some twelve miles above Popham's Town, at a place called " Long Reach," the site of the pres- ent city of Bath, where he lived, preached, and perished. Twenty years prior to his appearance as a public religious teacher in the clearings of the lower waters of the Kenne- bec, Robert Gutch was a resident of Salem in Massachusetts, and had united himself in membership with the first church there, where his name is enrolled in the annals of that ancient town. But Gutch was an original occupant of the soil at the Reach, and had become the owner thereof by purchase of the Sheepscot sagamore, Damarin, or Robin Hood.
To the new clearings, settlements of the pioneer popula- tion, and fishers' hamlets on the islands and river-banks, which had at this period begun to open the primeval forests along the margins of the Sagadahoc, and adorn its banks with civilized life in the rude habitations of the early fron- tier-men, Robert Gutch came as a man of God, a preacher of righteousness.
His own plantation on the Reach probably was a central point,-the nucleus of a considerable hamlet as the center of missionary labor, according to the ordinary and natural laws of human aggregation. A man in humble life, of
1 Charlevoix, p. 435. Williamson, vol. i. p. 369.
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deep religious cast of mind, not endowed with literary at- tainments-a type of that class of men who subsequently have appeared as pioneers and foundation-builders in the establishment of Evangelical Congregationalism in Maine, -Robert Gutch, a Congregationalist of the ancient faith and order, moved by the wants of the newly-settled clear- ings upon the Sagadahoc waters, probably circulated from point to point as a missionary. Tradition has presumed him to have been a Presbyterian. But every indication is against such a presumption. The forms of faith and wor- ship among the early Congregationalists of New England were, to say the least, in strong affinity with Presbyterian- ism, if indeed those forms and that faith were not taken therefrom as the parent stock-of which Congregationalism, as a slip plucked from this root, has been, by unskilled hands, set out to grow up an unpruned shrub in another field of the same soil, whose fruit, deprived of the natural sap, becomes bitter or sweet, according to circumstances. The absence of ecclesiastical forms and sanctions, so per- sistently adhered to by Presbyterian judicatures, is pretty good presumptive proof that Robert Gutch was a simple . Congregationalist-an unlettered, pious man, whose gifts and graces commended him to the people as a religious teacher.
THE SITE OF ROBERT GUTCH'S CHURCH.
Near the head of Arrowsic Island, opposite the city of Bath, a house of worship was traceable in its decaying ruins for many years, and had been seen while standing by ancient men who knew the place where it stood after the house itself had been destroyed, and which was reputed to be one of Mr. Gutch's meeting-houses.
Mr. Gutch's abode on the Reach was, without doubt, the nucleus of a town midway between the Arrowsic towns on the south and east, and the Merry Meeting plantations on
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the north and west. Here, with pious zeal and fortitude, as the first missionary herald of the Cross in Maine for some years, Mr. Gutch preached the unsearchable riches of the love of Jesus to the early adventurous dwellers of this region, who, with their lives in their hands, stoutly con- tested with savage wilds and tempestuous seas the resources of the deep, as well as the dominion of the untamed and virgin soil.
DEATH OF GUTCH.
As he thus circulated from hamlet to hamlet, he was cut off by being drowned, precisely when or where is not stated, but probably while crossing to or from some of his preach- ing stations. That he was a preacher of righteousness, and was drowned at an early period, and that the peninsula of Long Reach, the site of the city of Bath, was his home and possession, is the principal record of his life, labors, end, and history we have.
The hamlet of Robert Gutch, at Long Reach, on the Sag- adalioc, it would seem escaped in the sacking of the Arrow- sic towns in the war of King Philip. As he was no " truck- master "-no military chieftain-no man conspicuous ex- cept as a servant of the most high God, and therefore in no way obnoxious to savage resentment, he probably remained unmolested. His life and character may have been a shield, not only to himself and household, but to the villagers of his hamlet on the Reach ; for being known only as a man of God, he was brought within a circle of well-known sav- age veneration, Penhallow having asserted "that it was remarkably observable that among all the settlements and towns of figure and distinction, not one of them has been utterly destroyed wherever a church was gathered."
Robert Gutch was therefore one of the earliest 1669. missionaries, and the site of the city of Bath one of the earliest stations in Maine.
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RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS EXTINGUISHED.
Subsequent to the decease of Mr. Gutch, the destruction and depopulation as a consequence of savage warfare, broke up all the organizations of society. The institutions of education and religion were utterly neglected, and the ordi- nances of religion were not administered, and the altars thereof were broken down; "and in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants ; and for a long time the whole land lay without a teaching priest and without the law."
EARLY ARRANGEMENTS FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION BY THE RETURNING SETTLERS.
On the return of the fugitive inhabitants to re-peo- ple the wastes of Philip's war, provision for religious 1683. instruction and the administration of its holy ordi- nances entered into the original plans and organizations of those who went in to re-possess the land and repair its breaches.
CONGREGATIONAL PROCLIVITIES OF THE RETURNING SHEEPSCOT PLANTERS.
Within the Dukedom, those who organized to return and revive the Sheepscot plantation, on " Mason and Jewett's Neck," the ancient town of New Dartmouth, at their original meeting on Fort Hill in Boston, previous to embarkation, ordained " that there shall be speshall and speedy order taken that there may bee a convenient place as a tract of land laid out for a Ministree, with a convenient place to sett a meeting house to ye best advantage for ye towne ; and also, that we may have a minister of our own ffree choyce, and such a man as ye mager parte of ye towne shall Like and Approve of ffor that end."
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EPISCOPAL SERVICE AT PEMAQUID.
At Jamestown, in the Pemaquid precinct of the Dukedom, it was ordained in council that-" for the forwarding of piety it is requisite that a person be appointed by the com- missioners to read prayers and the holy scriptures." Thus was early provision made for religious instruction, at both capitals of the Dukedom, Congregational forms prevailing at New Dartmouth ( now Newcastle) on the Sheepscot, and Episcopal forms prevailing at Jamestown, the capital at Pemaquid. 1 The two forms were in accordance with the views and polity of the two settlements. At New Dart- mouth, Massachusetts emigrants re-occupied the wastes of Sheepscot, and the principle of the majority, the voice of freemen, gave law to the settlement ; while at Jamestown military rule overrode all rights and voice of the people, becoming so oppressive at length as to force complaint and petitions for redress to the Governor at New York, from the inhabitants, -Pemaquid, subsequently to Philip's war, hav- ing been largely re-settled from New York, 1 the residence and seat of authority of the ducal governor.
SAVAGE HOSTILITIES DISASTROUS TO RELIGION.
But the ruthless and bloody hand of war soon extin- guished these kindlings of religious interest. The tread of war, the image of death, the besom of destruction, soon obliterated every foot-print of religion, and swept away every vestige. The voice of prayer and praise was heard only in camp, surrounded with soldiery and trappings of war; and as the incense of Mars, it went up as an official offering from the lips of those who as chaplains were attached to expeditions for the chastisement and subjection of the sav- age foe.
Apart from the army arrangements for religious instruc-
1 Pemaquid Papers, pp. 51, 70, 80.
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tion, the voice of the man of God had ceased, and the peo- ple were without a teaching priest.
REJECTION OF BAXTER.
Mr. Baxter, a chaplain and missionary under ap- pointment to the Kennebec Indians, was set apart by 1717. Gov. Dummer, and introduced to them as their relig- ious teacher of the Protestant faith, whose services the sav- ages were reluctant to receive, and finally rejected, saying to the Governor, as he exhibited the Bible as the symbol of Protestant faith and authority, and Mr. Baxter as its ex- pounder, in the treaty conference, -" all people have a love for their ministers, and it would be strange if we did not love them that come from God. God has given us teaching already ; and if we should go from that, we should displease God. We are not capable to make any judgment about religion."
BENJAMIN GIBSON.
Such also was Benjamin Gibson at St. George's, who perished in the expedition of Col. Westbrook up 1723. Penobscot River, in the bitter cold of a February campaign, in which was destroyed the chief village of the Penobscot tribe, together with their church.
PRESBYTERIANISM INTRODUCED.
Rev. Robert Rutherford was an Irishman and a Presbyterian, the religious teacher of the Dunbar 1729. emigration. Under the patronage of the Royal Gov- ernor of Sagadahoc, he was introduced to Bristol, and sta- tioned at Fort Frederick of Pemaquid. It is quite probable he officiated at first as a chaplain to Dunbar, and then preached as a missionary. The relations between Dunbar and this divine were of the most intimate and confiding char- acter. Upon leaving his gubernatorial seat in Maine, Gov.
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Dunbar committed his property in charge and possession to Rev. Mr. Rutherford, his spiritual guide. Rutherford is represented to have been a man of amiable and excellent disposition. This carly herald of the Cross preached 1743. in Bristol, Brunswick, and Georgetown. 1 Dunbar died, and his widow married Capt. Henderson of St. George. Rutherford followed to St. George, where he died and was buried near the tomb of the late Gen. Knox of Thomaston, where his ashes still repose.
DUNBAR'S RELIGIOUS PROCLIVITIES.
It would appear, from the interest of Col. Dunbar in Mr. Rutherford, that his own religious sympathies were with the Presbyterian sentiments ; whose forms of faith and church order he undoubtedly did much to introduce and establish within the boundaries of the Ancient Dominions of Maine, by bringing into the country emigrants of this belief to re-people and fill up its war-wasted towns and hamlets. Hence the foundations were laid for religious organizations of this ancient establishment throughout the region ; the blessed fruits of whose faith and virtue appear to this day in the general purity of doctrine, zeal, and piety which char- acterize the orthodox communities of this whole region, whose churches are scions from this ancient stock, and whose root and fatness still impart freshness, verdure, and fruitfulness.
Thus it will be seen that on the re-settlement of the Ancient Dominions of Maine, under that efficient officce of the Crown, Dunbar, a new race was introduced, and new foundations for the administration of religious ordi 1730. nances were laid ; and from this period and from these causes we may date the beginnings of perma nency and prosperity in religious influence here.
1 Mar. 19, 1743. Voted to raise £20 for Mr. Rutherford. MSS. rec ords, ch. in Georgetown, M. L. Hill, Esq.
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RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE DUNBAR EMIGRATION.
The Scotch-Irish emigrants of Dunbar and his coadjutors brought with them their peculiar religious views, sympa- thies, and proclivities ; and through them the Church of Scotland sent out her roots, and Presbyterianism started up on every side, here and there, in the community, upon which, as the parent stock, most of the Evangelical Congre- gational churches of this region were afterward grafted ; and to the devoted and intelligent zeal and piety of a learned and faithful ministry here introduced by the Church of Scot- land, and set to watch, train, and rear her distant sons and daughters in their wild New England homes, the present generation is greatly indebted for a pure faith and precious gospel ordinances, administered according to the ancient covenant engagements of the church of Christ.
RELIGIOUS HABITS OF PRESBYTERIANS.
The religious character and proclivities of the peo- ple, in the Dunbar settlements, soon developed a 1741. state of deep religious interest. Destitute of the stated means of grace, "the people 1 met together every Sabbath, and. frequently on other days, for the purpose of worshipping God in a public manner, by prayer, singing of Psalms, and reading instructive books ; " and "a happy revival of religion " followed. Such was the state of public feeling and interest in religion when Mrs. Porterfield, escap- ing from shipwreck, found an asylum among the inhabitants of Townsend, which facts happily illustrate the character of the newly-planted colonists, for religion and piety, within the Dunbar towns.
THOMAS PIERPONT.
Thomas Pierpont preaclied at St. George's as chaplain of
1 Mrs. Porterfield's Narrative, White's New England, p. 209.
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1731. the garrison there, receiving his compensation Aug. 10. from the public treasury. The religious views and standing of this gentleman are unknown ; but lie unquestionably was one of the earliest ministers of Thomaston.
Rev. Robert Dunlap, a native of the county of 1737. Antrim, Ireland, and a graduate of Edinboro' Uni- versity, embarking with a numerous emigration for . America, escaping the perils of shipwreck in the long-boat, when ninety-six of his companions were engulfed, took up his residence at Nobleboro'. 1 How long he remained at this then thriving village is not known. He repaired 1747. to Boothbay, and finally settled at Brunswick. Rob- ert Dunlap was a Presbyterian of the Scotch-Irish faith, and undoubtedly an acquisition from the Dunbar emi- gration.
EARLY CHURCH ORGANIZATION IN GEORGETOWN.
Seven years before, the organization of a church had been made in the revived and re-peopled Arrowsic plantations, now incorporated as Georgetown. This church 2 was organ- ized in the faith and order of the gospel as held by Presby- terians, with a membership of no less than thirty males. But a considerable portion of the early settlers were Con- gregationalists, and much attached to its forms of church organization. "Hence dissension early arose."
McLANATHAN.
William McLanathan was employed to preach ; and 1734. for ten years he there performed ministerial labor. His ecclesiastical relationship is not clearly defined. 1745. The probability is that at first he was Presbyterian, and when dismissed, he acquired Episcopal procliv-
1 MSS. from John MeKeen, Esq.
2 Greenleaf's Ecclesiastical Sketches, pp. 73, 75.
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ities, and officiated at the several points on the Sagadahoc and Kennebec waters, in the service of the Church Mission- ary Society, as a minister of the Episcopal Church. He seems to have been a man of popular address and attractive talents, but selfish and unscrupulous in character, as well as in the means adopted to accomplish his designs and advance his interests. At Georgetown there early existed the nucleus of an Episcopal church and society, which may indeed have been only the product of the change of eccle- siastical relationship in the officiating clergyman, and which never appears to have had a full development in that neigh- borhood.
REVIVAL OF EPISCOPACY ON THE KENNEBEC.
The Kennebec river runs in a very direct course by the present city of Bath, which feature gave the peculiar and appropriate name of " Long Reach " to this portion of the Sagadahoc and its margins on the west bank. " At some ! distance below the city, a sudden turn of the river at right angles, which immediately resumes its previous southerly course, leaves the bank a rounded headland, of bold shores and conspicuous position. It was at this point an Episcopal church was erected." 1 The Lithgow family reared near the church a spacious and elegant mansion. The sacred edifice stood a few rods from the river, at a distance from any settlement. Its position undoubtedly was suggested by the fact that the exigencies of the times and the customs of the inhabitants made the river the great highway of travel, and the light canoe the vehicle of locomotion.
The church is described as having been a low building, with a double floor, without traces of pews-simple, with- out ostentation in architectural finish. The building finally was appropriated to housing cattle, and the churchyard, con-
1 Frontier Miss. p. 281.
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verted into a barnyard, was turned up by the plowshare.
PARAMOUNT RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE DUNBAR TOWNS.
But the great center of religious interest and influence appears to have opened in one of the communities of Col. Dunbar, in the newly laid-out settlement of Townsend-a modern appellation for the ancient Cape Newagen-since called Boothbay.
In the piety of its inhabitants recently introduced, of Scotch-Irish descent and Presbyterian church relationship, the foundations were laid for a wide-spread and deeply mov- ing religious power, through the whole region.
PURITY AND POWER OF SCOTCH-PRESBYTERIAN PIETY.
The light and power of their religious zeal and holy liv- ing kindled on all sides the latent sparks of piety which lay smoldering and smothered beneath the ruins and decay of more than a generation wasted and broken by savage war. Imbued with the spirit of the gospel, as breathed out in that summary of faith embodied in the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, these colonists became as lights in our newly settled wilds, whose radiance illumined the darkness of the whole region, and quickened, in a heterogeneous and pio- neer population, a very general desire to enjoy the gospel ordinances, which developed shortly the most grand and precious results. These results, traced in connection with their causes, merit a conspicuous place on the page of his- tory, and a detailed narration in the annals of the past, as a guide to the future explorer into the mysteries of religious power.
This is our only apology for making copious selections from the manuscript records of the first church in Boothbay,
whose date is anterior to the incorporation of 1763. that town, the church being the first body politic Dec. 22. there organized according to Presbyterian princi- ples.
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HISTORY OF PRESBYTERIANISM THERE.
Rutherford and Dunlap 1 had each labored prior to this date in Boothbay. "The inhabitants of the ancient Cape Newagen, long harassed and distressed by the natural diffi- culties of settling a new country, and particularly by the frequent wars with the savages,"-by whom the settlement was repeatedly broken up, and the whole place laid waste- had, at this date, hardly gathered strength enough to settle the gospel among them. Long had the land languished under "the heavy affliction of silent Sabbaths." Various itinerant preachers had occasionally afforded the inhabitants the privilege of hearing the word there and in other places ; and from time to time, application had by them and by set- tlers in other places, been " made to the Rev. Presbytery of Boston for supplies."
JOHN MURRAY INTRODUCED.
The neglect of the Presbytery to relieve their religious necessities left the people in a state of despondency. But, as the darkness of religious destitution gathered over these revived plantations in defiance of their efforts to roll back the cloud, a star of hope dawned in " the arrival of Mr. John Murray, a probationer from Ireland, drawn hither by repeated invitations 2 from one of the principal settlers " of Townsend. The Rev. Jonathan Adams, a native of the place and present incumbent of the ancient pulpit where the Rev. John Murray officiated, and a lineal descendant of this distinguished servant of the most high God, has informed the author that the name of the " principal settler," whose invitations at this early date drew Mr. Murray, the Irish probationer, to Boothbay, was " Andrew Reed," also an emi-
1 MSS. records, Sess. Book, p. 8.
2 Sess. records, MSS. p. 8.
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grant from Ireland, and a native of the same town there with Murray, whose uncle he was by marriage.
MURRAY'S FAVOR WITH THE PEOPLE.
The ministrations of the young Irish probationer, after preaching some time, were found generally acceptable. At Mr. Beath's house, the people of the place gathered, " where they unanimously voted to give Mr. Murray an invitation to be thie stated pastor of the town."
As an encouragement for him to remain among them, ninety pounds per annum were subscribed at once ; and in addition thereto, the settlers engaged to give him two hund- red acres of land, to build him a house, " to clear and labor his said lot," provide, cut, and haul his firewood annually. A subscription was started to secure these promises ; and in the language of the record, -" the Lord spirited up the inhabitants, so that it was quickly filled up."
PROMISE EXTORTED.
Mr. Murray proposing to return again to Ireland, and feeling disinclined to remain in the newly-settled Townsend at Boothbay, left in February. Determined to " push his call to a final result," the inhabitants chose and sent à com- mittee to Boston to secure the influence of the ministry there in their behalf. All was found to be unavailing. But, after meeting all his objections with perseverance and an importunity that always conquers, a promise was finally extorted from the candidate, " that, if he returned to settle in America, should the application be renewed, Townsend should be the place of his settlement." Elated with this promise of success, the commissioners returned to the east- ward, and Murray pursued his journey westward.
MURRAY'S DEPARTURE.
Importuned at New York and Philadelphia, he was divert-
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ed from his purpose of an immediate return to Ireland by a call to the pastoral charge of a church in the latter city, which circumstances seemed to require him to consider. He thereupon informed his friends in Boothbay ; and though they replied by vigorous and repeated renewals of their suit, "it would seem their wishes never reached his ear." He was ordained by Presbytery over the church in Philadelphia.
ACTION OF THE PEOPLE OF BOOTHBAY.
On learning this event, the inhabitants of Boothbay, cling- ing to the promise made to their commissioners, resolved to prosecute their cause in the judicature of the Presbyterian Church ; and solicited Capt. Andrew Reed to communicate with Mr. Murray on their purposes in this particular, who closes the correspondence in behalf of the people by saying, " We are firmly resolved to insist upon your promise to the uttermost, as we believe they have got you settled there [in Philadelphia ] by fraud and treachery-by stopping both your letters and ours." We here have a clew to this singular position of matters in relation to these parties.
SUCCESSFUL PROSECUTION OF THEIR CLAIMS.
The appeal of the people to the Presbytery of Philadel- phia passed unheeded. Not discouraged, the prosecutors carried up their cause before the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, by petition of the town, setting forth a state- ment of facts, supported by documentary evidence, not doubting their success "if once they came before so con- scientious a court as the Synod." Andrew Reed was at the head of the prosecuting commission. In conclusion, the papers were all returned by the same hands by which they were sent on; and with them the minutes of Presbytery,
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