USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Gardiner > Christ Church, Gardiner, Maine : antecedents and history > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHURCH AFTER THE REVOLUTION.
The American Bishops .- The Rev. J. S. J. Gardiner in Pownal- borough .- Completion of St. Ann's .- Its parish organization and offi- cers .- Burning of the Church .- The new Church .- Rev. Mr. Warren .-
32
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
Rev. James Bowers .-- Mr. R. H. Gardiner .- The Rev. Samuel Haskell. -The Rev. Aaron Humphrey .- Lay-reading-Report of the Eastern Diocese .- Bishop Griswold .- Rev. G. W. Olney .- Society of Gardiner. -An informal wedding .- Laying the corner stone of the new Church .- The Consecration .- Sunday School .- The Rev. E. M. P. Wells .-- The Rev. T. T. W. Mott .- The Rev. Lot M. James .- The Rev. Isaac Peek .- The Rev. Joel Clap .- Burning of the old church .- The Rev. W. R. Babcock .- The organ .- The Bishop .- Death of Mr. R. H. Gardiner .- Death of the Bishop .- The Rev. John T. Magrath. - The Rev. C. S. Lef- fingwell .- The Rev. Leverett Bradley .- The Rev. Charles L. Wells .- Death of Mr. R. H. Gardiner. 2nd .- The Rev. A. E. Beeman. - Choir .- Repairs .- Gifts .- Societies.
CHAPTER I.
THE EARLY AMERICAN CHURCH.
So peacefully upon the hillside above the blue Kennebec sits our gray old Church, that we of the recent generation see but scan- ty traces of the trials through which she has passed. Stream and valley, the beautiful Common, surrounded by happy homes, the spires of sister churches, the stir of the busy little city, all speak to her to-day of a century's prosperity and growth. Yet in her stout heart are memories of storm and thick darkness, of rough country and bleak winds, of hardship and privation, of doubt and discour- agement within her very fold. The fiercer elements of nature and the human heart have warred against her, but, God be thanked ! she stands among us still ; and it is good to know that, long after our passion and our pain are laid to rest, she will endure to point the way to Heaven.
It is not many years since the Indian war-whoop rent the air of Maine ; not many years since home and hamlet were words of little meaning on the Kennebec shores. Like her colonial sisters, the growing country has been torn by factions, distressed by jealousies, and wrung by revolution and rebellion ; but, unlike them, she has known, even in the early times, what it is to lie beneath the pro- tecting shadow of the Mother Church. Seasons, fraught elsewhere with doubt and heresy, have found sturdy worshipers among our people, who, summer and winter alike, have trodden the paths of old "Church Hill," to kneel in the sanctuary of their fathers and of their fathers' fathers. Many a man has gone out from the doors of the church, to do in the world a brave and honest work ; many a saddened life has found solace within her hallowed walls, and the wanderer's surest guide is the remembrance of her baptism and blessing. It is no chance fancy, but a fact, often noted by the
4
34
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
stranger, that within her walls one is comforted by the all-pervad- ing sense of rest and home.
"Here would I stay, and let the world, With its distant thunder roar and roll ! Storms do not rend the sail that is furled. Nor like a dead leaf, tossed and whirled In an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul."
The story of the Episcopal church in Maine is by no means so turbulent as it has been in other States. Remote as she was from the populous highways of Puritan commerce, and thus deprived of many of the gentler influences which might have given her some touches of refinement, it may be that the rudeness of environment, the harshness of the wilderness, lent vigor to the infant church. Here, at all events, she escaped the intolerance and persecution that well-nigh checked her growth in other parts of America.
The fabulous tales of the New World and its attractions were not all that lured men to its shores. In accord with the religious spirit of the age marked by the Reformation, the desire for the conversion of the heathen was a leading motive among the early adventurers. Even the ungodly explorer, John Hawkins, read in his sailing orders : "Serve God daily ; love one another ; preserve your victuals ; beware of fires, and keep good company," voyaging the meanwhile on his pious mission to the Indians in his ship "Jesus." Raleigh was charged with the advancement of Christian- ity, and the ill-fated Sir Humphrey Gilbert issued a law to the col- ony of St. John's to the effect that their religion "in publique exer- cise should be according to the Church of England."
In 1605, George Weymouth set sail from Dartmouth, England, for America, under the patronage. of Thomas Arundell, Lord War- dour, and the Earl of Southampton, so famous as Shakespeare's friend. The intent of this expedition was said to be "not a little present profit, but a public good and true zeal of promulgating God's holy Church by planting Christianity." On Whitsunday he landed upon a rocky island, known to us as Monhegan, but some two years before this called "Le Nef" by Champlain's seamen, on account of its blunt prominence, so like the prow of a ship. This island Weymouth made his headquarters, returning thither from sundry exploring and trading ventures, which he made along the sea-coast and for some distance up the Kennebec. Upon its height he set, in token of its possession by the Church of England, the discoverer's cross of rough wood. In all probability the ser-
35
1485707 HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
vices of his faith were more than once voiced upon the sombre cliff. Not always consistent in his missionary spirit, Weymouth captured and took back with him to England five Indians, of re- pute among their tribes, offering in excuse the plausible argument that in his country they would learn more of the true religion than could ever be taught in their native wilds. To these captive In- dians Maine owes much of the patronage of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the great "Father of New England colonization." Three of them he harbored in his own house, and their answers to his questions upon the characteristics of their country gave him great assistance in his adventurous schemes.
Largely as a result of his interest, in the month of May, 1607, two ships sailed from Plymouth for the American shore. One, the "Mary and John," was under the command of Raleigh Gilbert, son of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh, then unjustly languishing in the Tower. The captain of the second ship, the "Gyfte of God," was George Popham, the brother of Lord Chief Justice Popham of England, to whose influence and support the expedition was deeply indebted.
James I., then King of England, though weak of character, was yet Protestant enough to lend his aid to the establishment of the Church. In the charter of Virginia, which extended from Cape Fear to the south of what is now Maryland, he defines the especial duties of the colonists to consist "in propagating of the Christian Religion to such people as yet live in Darkness and Miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and which. may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and good Government."
With such designs did Popham and Gilbert trim their sails to the favoring breeze, and on Trinity Sunday, August 9th, under the cross erected, as they supposed, by Weymouth, they held what is known as the first "Thanksgiving service" of our country. Their Chaplain was one Richard Seymour, a minister of the Church of England, who, on this occasion, besides rendering the service, preached a sermon "on gyving God thanks for happie. meetynge and saffe arryval into the countrie." The psalm, "God is our ref- uge and strength," was sung by the little congregation, whose faith was unshaken by the buffeting of the waves upon their desolate landing-place, and whose courage was renewed by the dear and familiar appeal to the great Protector.
The subsequent landing of the colony upon the mainland at the
36
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
mouth of the Kennebec, the erection of their town, with its fort and Church ; its abandonment after the death of the Chief Justice and the dispute over the site of Fort St. George, are matters of great historical interest. For us of Christ Church, moreover, the researches of Bishop Burgess have attached a special importance to the chaplain of the tiny settlement, the first upon the New Eng- land coast, and to his celebration of the rites of Episcopacy in Maine, thirteen years before the Pilgrims set foot upon Plymouth Rock.
Though it be at the risk of digressing, it seems necessary to mention here the commemoration of this settlement which took place in August, 1862, at the fort then just completed and called by the honored name of Popham. Our late Bishop, the Vice Pres- ident of the Maine Historical Society, was chosen to conduct the ceremonies, which were under the open heavens. Made more beautiful by his impressive delivery, the services, mediævalized by the introduction of the prayer-book used in the reign of James I., once again sounded above the accompaniment of wind and wave. Later in the day the Bishop gave an address upon Richard Sey- mour, with the true scholar's accuracy tracing the lineage of this valiant priest from John Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who was the brother of Jane Seymour, and Lord Protector of England during the life of her son, Edward VI.
It must have been a significant scene which thus bridged the gulf of more than two centuries. One could almost imagine that, across the abyss, the two clergymen clasped hands ; the one, young, enthusiastic, brave, imbued with the pioneer passion for evangeliz- ing the nations ; the other no less brave, no less enthusiastic, but with the silver hair and placid face that symbolized the Church's steady growth since the time when the earlier missionary first set her standard on this chilly shore. The attempt of the youthful zealot to transplant the faith of his home to the newly discovered land was a subject of great importance in the eyes of the Bishop, and he was never weary of studying it in all its aspects. To quote from the conclusion of his address : "Richard Seymour has his honor, not from his memorable descent, but from the place assigned him by the Providence which presided over this now Christian land. He was not the first who ever preached the Gos- pel or celebrated the Holy Communnion in North America ; that honor fell to Wolfall, in 1578, on the shores of Newfoundland or Labrador. He was not the first English clergyman in the United
37
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
States, for Hunt had already begun his pastoral office on the bank of the James. He was not even the first Christian teacher within the limits of Maine, for L'Escarbot, a Huguenot, had instructed his French associates in 1604, on an island in the St. Croix.
But Seymour was the first preacher of the Gospel in the English tongue, within the borders of New England, and of the free, loyal, and unrevolted portion of these United States. Had he inherited all the honors of his almost regal great-grandsire, they would have given him a far less noble place than this in the history of man- kind."
For nearly forty years after the abandonment of Fort St. George, there was no established minister of the Church of England in the "'Province of Mayn," which, in 1647, passed from the heirs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Not much later than 1640, one John Winter, living on Richmond Island, near Winter Harbor, petitioned for a clergyman to officiate in the settlements about the newly chartered town of Falmouth. Winter was the agent of the influential English merchant, Trelaw- ney, who owned the outlying districts of the harbor, and through whom it was arranged that the pastoral charge of the country should be assumed, at the munificent salary of £25 per annum, by the Rev. Richard Gibson, a graduate of Magdalen College. Rich- mond Island, now a bleak prominence, was then fertile and beau- tiful ; a sphere of missionary labor not unattractive to the young minister, who, however, soon found himself brought to bay by the "discourtesy" of his patron, Winter. That Winter entertained the idea of marrying Gibson to his daughter Sarah is one of tradition's guesses, substantiated by a wonderful replenishment of the maid- en's wardrobe. "If we may judge from the clothing ordered by her father from England, the island belle was well dressed at the Sunday service held by the young minister." Gibson, however, was faithful to an earlier love, and, pursued by Winter's consequent resentment, was soon obliged to abandon his charge. In 1642, prosecuted by the Court of Massachusetts for exercising the func- tions of an Episcopal clergyman to marry and baptize, he was par- doned upon the promise of an immediate return to England.
A little later came to Richmond Island another incumbent, the Rev. Robert Jordan, who, proving more amenable to the wishes of Winter, espoused his daughter, and became the father of a large family, which now boasts thousands of descendants. His obedi-
38
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
ence reaped also a pecuniary reward, as he inherited Winter's property, and obtained, by an act of law, £1700 of the estate con- fiscated from Trelawney, who was imprisoned in 1640, on charge of treason. As a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Jordan deserves high praise. He was brave and faithful in the discharge of his office. At Pemaquid and at Richmond's Island he long held regular ser- vices ; despite the stringency of Massachusetts, celebrating Christ- mas, Easter, Whitsuntide, and Michælmas. His discourses were direct and vigorous, and his mind free from the errors of a super- stitious time. It is related of him that, upon the death of one of his cows, he greatly angered his neighbors by refusing to allow the trial of an old woman, whom they accused of having bewitched the beast.
The organization, in 1764, of the parish of St. Paul's in Fal- mouth, proved the staying principle in the doctrine of these early apostles. Though the church, dedicated there during the next year, was burned by the British in 1775, and though her service's were discontinued for a season, still the present parishes of Port- land rank as a magnificent outgrowth of the humble work begun long ago by Gibson and Jordan.
Several years before the establishment of the Falmouth parish, the missionary spirit had reached as far north as Pownalborough (now Dresden), and in 1770 a church was built there. But to any sketch of Christ Church or its predecessors a few particulars of Episcopacy, considered throughout New England at large, must form the introduction ; since the religious privileges enjoyed by the Kennebec Valley settlers were almost entirely the result of in- fluences outside the present State of Maine.
In 1665, King Charles II. sent into the provinces commission- ers, charged to examine, among other matters, the condition of adherents of the Church of England, and to hear any complaints presented by the people. It is not unlikely that their reports were colored by national prejudice and by the remembrance of ill- treatment which they received at the hands of the colonists ; yet they have been made the basis of many historical studies, and some of their naive statements will bear quotation even in these critical days. They claim for Connecticut a considerable latitude of opinion. "They will not hinder any from enjoying the Sacra- ments and using the common Prayer Books, provided that they hinder not the maintenance of the Publick Minister ; . for the most part they are rigid Presbiterians." It may be added,
39
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
however that, until 1702, there were in Connecticut no public ser- vices of the Church.
In Rhode Island they report "liberty of conscience and worship to all who live civilly . In this Province only they have not any Places set apart for the Worshipp of God, there being so many subdivided sects they can not agree to meet together in one place, but according to their severall Judgments they sometimes associate in one house, sometimes in another." Perhaps it was not sarcasm, but only chance, which caused the worthy commissioners to chron- icle, very near the summary of the country's religious views, the petition of an Indian chief, who desires them "to pray King Charles that no strong Liquor might be brought into that Country, for he had had thirty-two men that dyed by drinking of it."
Upon penetrating as far north as the "Province of Mayn," then restored to the heirs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the commissioners found affairs discouraging indeed. The largest of the settlements in the vicinity of Falmouth contained only about thirty "very mean houses," and the people are described as "for the most part ffish- ermen who never had any government amongst them ; and most of them such as have fled hither from other places to avoid Justice." Of the dwellers on the Piscataqua they say : "If his Majesty will assure the people they shall not be tyed to religious ceremonys, the generality of them will be well contented . Those who have declared themselves loyall are very much threatned and in great feare, and have earnestly prest us to sollicit his Ma'tie for their speedy defence and safety, that they may not be afflicted or ruined for showing their loyalty. We therefore earnestly desire you to acquaint his Ma'tie with their desires in this ; as also of having their children baptized and themselves admitted to the Lord's Supper."
In and about Boston the commissioners discovered the true cen- tre of intolerance. It is conceivable that men of the Puritan stock, who shuddered at the memory of Archbishop Laud, should suspect those who professed his faith ; but Episcopacy was not the sole ob- ject of their hatred. All varieties of religious belief met their stern displeasure ; and the reports, with a ghastly system of capitaliza- tion, tell of Quakers, many of whom "have been beaten to a Jelly." To continue :- "They did imprison and barbarously use Mr. Jour- dain for Baptizing Children. Those whom they will not admit to their Comunion, they compell to come to their sermons, by forcing from them five shillings for every neglect; yet these men thought
40
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
their own paying of one shilling for not coming to prayers in Eng- land was an insupportable Tyranny."
" They have many things in their Laws derogatory to his Ma'ties honour Amongst others, whoever keeps Christmas day is to pay five pounds."
" They convert Indians by hiring them to come and heare Ser- mons ; by teaching them not to obey their brother Sachems . ·
The lives, Manners, and habits of those whom they say are converted, can not be distinguished from those who are not, except it be by being hyred to heare Sermons, which the more generous natives scorn."
Boston, though the coign of vantage from which the inexorable Puritans hurled their thunder-bolts, was not without its Church- men. With the English deputies came the ministers of their land, careless of the fanatical threats that assailed them on every side. Whatever trials they endured were as nothing, if they could only hope, with the Rev. William Morrell, who in 1623 came to Plymouth as chaplain of Robert Gorges,-
"To see here built An English kingdom from this Indian dust."
Not far from the time of this priest's visit, Boston was the home of Walford, Mavericke, and the Rev. William Blaxton ; men, whose lives might well have taught the Puritan; to respect at least the use of the Prayer Book. Such charity, however, was no part of their harsh regime. Walford and his wife were banished ; Maver- icke, called "the only hospitable man in the country," was subject to the ceaseless censure of the colonists ; and Blaxton preferred his solitary dwelling in the woods. of "Shawmut," or, later, a life among the Narragansett Indians, to the society of the dangerous neighbors, who misliked the cut of his "canonicall coate." "I came from England," said he, "because I did not like the lord-bishops ; but I cannot join with you because I would not be under the lord- brethren." Morton of Merry Mount, dubbed by Governor Brad- ford "Lord of Misrule," was cruelly persecuted by the Independ- ents for his adherence to the Prayer Book and the celebration of Christmas Day ; so that, at the last, he fled to Agamenticus (now York, Maine), where he died, the broken victim of a worse tyranny than that of England.
Not until the building of old King's Chapel, however, did Bos- ton's animosity burst forth in its full fury ; and then the arrogance of such rulers as Randolph, Dudley, and Andros, must furnish
41
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
great excuse for those who attacked the citadel of their faith. Mob law offered, to a people never half-hearted in anything, the only means by which they could rid themselves of a controlling Church in the hands of their oppressors ; and to do this they mar- shalled all their forces. Governor Simon Bradstreet, with the min- isters of the three churches of the Boston Independents, the Rev. Messrs. James Allen, Increase Mather, and Samuel Willard, united in forbidding the use of a meeting-house to Andros, when he wished to hold services upon the restoration of the Stuart kings.
It was a common thing for a Puritan deacon to start up beside an open grave, and forbid the minister, though "with Gown and Book," to read the Burial Service. Churchmen were styled "Papist Doggs and Rogues," and Increase Mather published a vir- ulent pamphlet against "the Booke which sayth that Christ has re- deemed all Mankind," with its "broken responses and shreds of Prayer, which the Priests and People toss between them like Ten- nis Balls." The Rev. Mr. Ratcliffe, the Governor's chaplain, was the target at which all the Independent ministers from their pulpits flung their abusive threats. "Baal's priest" was the name by which he was commonly called, and those desirous of so doing feared to attend the Church services which he conducted. No one dared to ring the bell for the Episcopal gatherings, and every possible arti- fice was employed to keep men from the prayers which their ene- mies styled "leeks, garlick, and trash." Sewall, the apt and gos- sipy chronicler of the time, speaks of Mr. Ratcliffe as an "extra- ordinary good Preacher," but clad in "a Rag of Popery, flaunted in the face of all who care to attend the services." When one reads of the punishments dealt to Churchmen who celebrated holy days, it seems like the grimmest of satires that this amiable annalist should chose Christmas, of all other times in the year, to pay a visit of inspection to his family tomb, concluding his record with the words, "It was an awful, yet pleasing treat."
The intolerance which culminated in the assaults on King's Chapel, the imprisonment of Andros, and the flight of his chap- lain, was too violent to endure for any length of time in a country already instinct with the germs of liberty. The fallibility of Puri- tan thought met its exposure in the horrors of the witchcraft delu- sion, that "error that left the sting of crime ;" and the appointment of Sir William Phips, under the charter of William and Mary, as the royal Governor of Massachusetts, of which Maine was then a part, marked a new era for the Churchmen. One of his first acts was to 5
42
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
secure religious liberty to all but papists, and this was, of course, an immense advance upon the rigor of previous administrations.
In 1722, an event occurred in Connecticut, which, in its conse- quences; was of vast importance to the Anglican world, and which must have had its influence upon the mind of the founder of our city. Dr. Timothy Cutler, the President of Yale College, with six others of its instructors, declared to the trustees of the College their intention to join the Episcopal Church. Dr. Cutler and five of the other protestants had been pastors of the Independent sect ; therefore their defection was the more keenly felt. The inciden- tal gift of a prayer book to Dr. Cutler had led to his embracing the tenets of the Church, and, as a man of devout habits and strong powers of logic, his example had much influence.
As was natural, the anger of the deserted party burst forth in all the violence of invective. Cotton Mather assailed the converts as "cudweeds, degenerate offspring, backsliders," etc., and asked, "Do not these men worship the beast?"
Dr. Cutler, having taken orders in England, accepted the im- portant pastorate of the new Christ Church in Boston, which he held for forty-two years. One of his fellow converts was the cele- brated Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, as the pastor of Stratford, Conn., exercised an immense influence upon the future Church.
Yale College felt in more than one way the loss of these valuable men. Succeeding years proved the influence of what the Inde- pendents called "The Connecticut Apostacie," by bringing about the withdrawal of at least one of every ten graduates to join the ranks of Episcopacy. Among these Maine has a peculiar interest in 'Henry Caner, who conformed to the Church of England in 1724, since later, as the rector of King's Chapel, he was connected with the Church in the north, and was the pastor of Dr. Silvester Gardiner.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.