USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Gardiner > Christ Church, Gardiner, Maine : antecedents and history > Part 4
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On August 13th, 1772, the Rev. Mr. Bailey dedicated the Church of St. Ann's at Gardinerstown, an event which the folk must have celebrated in their simple, hearty ways. The sacred building was
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then unfinished, though in a condition to admit of public services. Near the spot where now stands the lecture-room, circled by the grateful shadows of the pine-woods, this humble temple had sprung into shapely neatness ; a small square building, furnished with arched windows, its slender spire crowned by a glittering gilt vane in the form of a sturgeon. This was a present to the Church from Mr. William Gardiner, and by its Indian name, cabbassa (sturgeon), was intended as an emblem of the Cobbosseecontee, first so called by the red men who fished in its waters. A congre- gation of eighty listened to the liturgy of England, then for the first time voiced in their own Church, in the sonorous tones of the missionary, who had cheerfully travelled the nine woodland miles from Pownalborough to be present at the glad occasion. Usually, he tells us, he cut but a sorry figure in his rusty, battered wig and patched clothing, as he went among his poor parishioners ; yet his pronounced face, with slightly protruding chin and blunt nose, had a certain dignity, which, opinionated though it may have been, must have befitted gown and· pulpit. Besides rendering the ser- vices of the day he baptized three adults, Daniel Tibbetts, John Door, and Joseph Pike ; also five infants, Louisa Fletcher, Theo- dore, Edward, and Abiathar Tibbetts, and Hannah Warren.
Among those who gathered in the little sanctuary must have been Dr. Gardiner and his son, conspicuous in the midst of the settlers, and reverent in observance of the Church ritual. The portrait of the Doctor painted by Copley, which now hangs in the hall at Oaklands, must have been executed not far from this time. It is a vivid representation of a man past the meridian of life, and dressed in the scarlet coat of England, relieved by glittering but- tons and white frills at the wrist. Between the side curls of a white wig a kindly, keen old face looks out ; a face to whose hu- morous curve of lip and glance of eye is added the evidence of thought and practical tendencies, in the high forehead and verti- cal lines above the nose. The whole figure, one hand in its breast, is leaning slightly forward, the head a trifle bent, with a direct look at the beholder that gives him the suggestion of a certain watchful alertness in the intent eyes. Altogether a strong charac- ter ; a man of deep feelings, firm attachments, and earnest pur- poses, for whose protection the struggling Church of Gardinerstown must often have longed in the later and more troublous days.
Could we look closely at the worshipers assembled on that sum- mer day in the first Church of St. Ann's, we should surely see Sol-
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omon Tibbetts and his wife Elizabeth, who then offered to God four of their numerous children; with the Doors, their former neighbors in Lebanon, N. H .; and Peletiah Warren, with his young wife Abigail, the daughter of Solomon Tibbetts, whose name is so tragically connected with the Church's history, and whose little daughter Hannah was last on the list of the baptized. Not far from her on whom he was to wreak such a terrible ven- geance, may have knelt the strong-limbed Henry McCausland, who was one of the pioneer settlers. James Winslow, though a Quaker, was probably there ; and his wife, famous as the first white woman of the town, and well known to the sick as " Granny Winslow," so skilled in the art of healing when there was no physician in the country round about. Lieutenant Samuel Berry must have been there, with his thirteen-year-old son Daniel, the grandfather of some of our younger church members of to-day ; there, too, one might have seen that stalwart Nimrod, Capt. Nathaniel Berry, also with his son, later distinguished as one of Washington's Life Guards at Valley Forge ; and it is not improbable that, from " Co- burntown," all the Colburns, eight in number, may have crossed the river to be present at the dedication of the little Church that rose to their westward.
In the years immediately following this interesting ceremony, the work of completing the structure went on slowly. Doubtless the mind of Dr. Gardiner was engrossed with the colonial distur- bances in and around Boston ; and, moreover, he could not succeed in finding a minister for the little parish. The Rev. Mr. Wheeler, of Georgetown, had promised to preach in Gardinerstown once every month ; but when the church was ready for services, his resignation had taken effect, and the parish was left for such occa- sional ministrations as could be given by the over-worked Mr. Bailey. Several times he called the attention of the Society in England to the families in the vicinity of the Church, whom he numbers as about 400, "chiefly very poor," and having among them no clergyman of any denomination. In such threatening times, however, it was thought best to send no missionary to the new field, and so. Mr. Bailey did for the people all that he could, until his royalist principies checked his power in the country.
Of his occasional visits to the Parish of St. Ann's, we have only scanty records. May 12, 1773, he made the nine-mile trip through the woods, just after a tremendous storm had swept across the country. Fallen tree-trunks and swollen streams had ren-
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dered the rude foot-track well-nigh impassible, and it was not un- til ten o'clock at night that Mr. Bailey succeeded in reaching Gardinerstown. The next morning, after preaching to a congre- gation of 104, and taking a collection of £8, 5 shillings, he re- turned for a baptismal service at Pownalborough.
On the first of the following August he was again at "Cobbossee- Contee," and this time there were 160 listeners gathered in the still unfinished Church. The contribution amounted to £9, a lib- eral sum for those troublous times. The size of the audience was doubtless pleasing to Dr. Gardiner, who, in all probability, made one of the number ; since, as the guest of Major Goodwin, he took supper at the Pownalborough Court House on the following Wednesday, and, in company with Mr. Bailey, dined on Thursday at his own farm on Swan Island. That he did not remain in the vicinity for any length of time, however, we are assured, for, early in the following month, Mr. Bailey visited Boston, preached in Christ Church and King's Chapel, and, during his stay, both dined and supped with Dr. Gardiner at his mansion. We may well sup- pose that it was a true delight to the poor missionary to feast at the ample board of such an ardent Churchman, and that, the meal once ended, there were many weighty topics for the discussion of patron and priest.
Two years before this all that was mortal of the stately Madam Gardiner had been laid to rest beneath the echoes of King's Chapel; yet in the home once hers, our Tory missionary must have met nearly all of the children whom she left, and who de- serve at least a passing notice.
John Gardiner, the eldest son, then about forty years of age, was strongly opposed to his father in his religious and political views ; but was extremely famous as a lawyer, and, at the time of which we write, was Attorney General in the Island of St. Christopher's, among the West Indies. He was called " the law reformer," and is remembered for his later eloquence in the legislature of Massa- chusetts, and especially for a speech in which he sustained the repeal of an act against theatrical representations, wherein he gave a most able and learned review of the Greek and Roman stages. His little son, John Silvester John, then about eight years old, had been sent to his grandfather's in Boston for education, so that the bright face of the future celebrity must have made one of the family circle in 1773.
The eldest daughter, Ann, whose name was given to the Church
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at Gardinerstown, was a famous beauty, and was painted by Cop- ley in the guise of the huntress Diana. She married, early in life, Arthur Brown, the son of the powerful Irish Earl of Altamont.
In 1771, Dr. Gardiner's second daughter, Hannah, had become the wife of Robert Hallowell, then Collector of Customs in the port of Boston, one of a fine English family, and, as evidenced by his epitaph in the graveyard of Christ Church, “ a man of firm in- tegrity, distinguished courtesy, and strong affections." He was the father of Maine's beloved " Squire Gardiner."
The third daughter, Rebecca, married Philip Dumaresq, who traced his lineage from nobles of the Isle of Jersey.
The youngest daughter, Abigail, afterwards the wife of Oliver Whipple of Portsmouth, was a woman of the most exalted charac- ter. She gave proof of her deep piety in a solemn written cove- nant, still preserved, wherein she dedicated herself unchangeably to God. This covenant she renewed in writing from time to time ; and, for this purpose, was raised by her attendants to a sitting posture upon her death-bed, where she traced the few faltering lines of a completed vow .* She was the mother of Hannah Whip- ple, who, in after years the wife of the Hon. Frederic Allen, gained celebrity as a poet and geologist, and was the pride of our little community. Her sister, Miss Ann Whipple, was also noted for her poetic talent.
Another son of Dr. Gardiner, as has been stated, lived upon his father's estate in Maine, and had the reputation of being a great sportsman, and, withal, extremely fond of practical jokes.
Besides the immediate family, many distinguished men of the day were wont to visit the Gardiner mansion; and some of them Mr. Bailey may have met upon his short visits. John Adams writes in his diary of dining there with several members of the Kennebec Company,-Bowdoin, Hallowell, and the elder Pitt; adding; "I shall hear philosophy and politics in perfection from H .; high church, high state from G .; sedate, cool moderation from B .; and warm, earnest, frank whigism from P."
Dr. Gardiner, as one of the influential men and churchwardens of King's Chapel, probably inspired that parish with interest in his missionary labors; for at their Easter meeting in the spring of 1773, they voted "that the old Bell, with its Appurtenances be given to the St. Ann's Church, Gardinerstown." A bell had for- merly been presented to the Church by Mr. William Gardiner ;
*From MSS. of the Mass. Historical Society.
8
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whether it was removed, or, whether, in the local disturbances, the gift of Boston ever reached its destination, is unrecorded.
The stirring influences of the times were felt even in " the Maine wilderness." For years the life of the Rev. Mr. Bailey was in jeopardy ; the Kennebec Whigs, in their violence, refusing to hear any dictates of law or order. Once they proposed the erec- tion of a liberty-pole before the door of St. John's, and designed that Mr. Bailey should offer prayers at its raising. If he would not do this, it was proposed that he should be whipped around the pole ; but, in the business meeting of the schemers, this motion was "lost by a majority of two." That the faithful priest should so long have stood at his post, in the midst of the manifold dangers and indignities to which he was exposed, is little less than wonder- ful.
In September, 1775, an event occurred which drew away many attendants of St. Ann's to perish in an unsuccessful expedition. Benedict Arnold, and the troops detailed by Washington to make their way to Canada by the way of the Kennebec and Chaudiere Rivers, passed through Pownalborough and Gardinerstown. Major Reuben Colburn, of "Coburntown," had been busily building bateaux for the troops, who anchored their small transports in the Kennebec, before they embarked upon them. Major Colburn had been zealous in enlisting volunteers for the expedition, which was to join Montgomery before Quebec ; and it is said that over 1000 of the Maine youth fell in the disastrous campaign. One of the officers in command as the little fleet moved northward, was Gen. Henry Dearborn, upon whom the beauty of the scenery so im- pressed itself, that he registered a vow to return and build himself a home among its charms; a vow which he fulfilled some nine years later.
It is possible that services were occasionally held in the little Church, whose completion was now retarded, although, after this time, anything like regularity in their maintenance seems improb- able. Every Episcopalian was suspected of allegiance to England ; nor is it strange that this view prevailed, when so many of the clergy were confessed Tories. Outside of New England the ad- herents of the Church were generally of the upper and wealthier classes, and not infrequently numbered officers of the King. There were about 250 Episcopal ministers in the colonies at the out- break of the Revolution, and even the dignity of their order did not keep them from the ardors of party spirit. There were many
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who, like the Rev. Jacob Bailey, opposed the orders of the Conti- nental Congress to omit the prayers for England's royal family ; many who echoed the words of the Rev. Mr. Beach of Connecti- cut ;- "That he would do his duty, preach and pray for the King, till the rebels cut out his tongue !"
There were those, however, whose sympathies were with the American cause. One, a Virginia clergyman, preached a sermon ending with the words: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven,-a time of war,"-and, as he spoke, he threw off his robe, disclosing beneath the priestly vest- ment the uniform of a soldier, and walked from the Church at the head of a soldier people.
All over the country the loyalist clergy were mobbed, dragged from their pulpits, and threatened, even in the sanctuary, by the arrogance of a newly organized militia. Our humble Pownal- borough missionary was not exempt. He was once mobbed at Brunswick, and escaped to his own home, only to find there an- other fugitive from mob-law, in the person of Mr. William Gardi- ner. The next evening Mr. Gardiner, who had ventured to return to his estate, was again mobbed ; and, at last, under cover of dark- ness, he was rowed by friends down the Kennebec to a point where he took ship for New York. There he hoped to find his father, but Dr. Gardiner had already left the country with the British troops after the evacuation of Boston, and had gone to Halifax, whence, some time later, he sailed for England .* With his sons- in-law, Philip Dumaresq and Robert Hallowell, he is mentioned in the " Morning Chronicle " of the State of Massachusetts Bay, in the year 1778, under " an Act to prevent the return to this State of certain persons therein named, and others who have left this State, or either of the United States, and joined the enemies thereof."
At the time of his flight, Dr. Gardiner lost all his personal pro- perty, with the exception of £500, which he happened to have with him. "God only knows," he writes, "what I shall do !" From Halifax, and, in after days from Poole, England, he wrote many letters to his son William, and to his son-in-law, Oliver Whip- ple, of Portsmouth, who rendered him assistance in the care of his Maine estate, which, fortunately, escaped confiscation. It was a source of grief to him that the Church of St. Ann's was thus aban- doned in its unfinished state, and the troubles of the clergy in the
*From papers of the Mass. Historical Society.
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colonies only increased his anxieties. In June, 1779, the brave Jacob Bailey himself was obliged to flee the country, and Episco- palianism in Maine seemed without a protector. With deep regret the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts saw their hitherto successful emissaries scattered before the breath of the cannon, and realized that the defection of the clergy meant a season of languishing for the Church, in the midst of such invet- erate enemies. It is one of the hopeful signs of the time that now-a-days, though we have no greater sympathy with the loyalists' sentiments, we yet hold, with Bishop Burgess, that "there is no cause to blush for a mistaken conscience, or for sacrifices to prin- ciples, the highest in themselves, though erroneously made." Surely it was the error of an essentially noble spirit that prompted these words of Dr. Gardiner in his exile and distress :* "I don't believe there ever was a people in any age or part of the World that enjoyed so much liberty as the people of America did under the mild indulgent Government (God bless it !) of England, and never was a people under a worse state of tyranny than they are at present." (Extract from a letter of 1776.)
At the close of the Revolution Dr. Gardiner again sought Ameri- ca ; but, during his absence, the vast estates which he owned in Massachusetts and Connecticut had been confiscated, and only his lands in Maine were secured to him and his heirs. The Church of St. Ann's, though saved from the destruction which had visited St. Paul's of Falmouth, was not !destined to see completion during the lifetime of its founder ; for in the year succeeding his return he died suddenly of a malignant fever at Newport, R. I. His obituary notice, published in the "Newport Mercury," of August 14, 1786, reads as follows :-
"On Tuesday last, departed this life, in this city, Dr. Silvester Gardiner, in the eightieth year of his age.
He was a native of this state, but for many years prior to the Revolution an inhabitant of Boston in the state of Massachusetts, where in the line of his chirurgical and medical profession, he long stood foremost. He was possessed of an uncommon vigor and activity of mind, and by unremitted diligence and attention ac- quired a large property, which, though much injured by the late civil war, was not wholly annihilated. His Christian piety and for- titude were exemplary as his honesty was inflexible and his friend-
*From papers of the Mass. Historical Society.
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ship sincere. He has left behind him to deplore his loss a truly excellent wife and a numerous posterity.
His remains, attended by many of his relatives and by the most respectable citizens, were removed to Trinity Church the Friday following, where the funeral service was read, and a sermon suita- ble to the solemnity, at his particular desire, preached to a very crowded audience ; after which the body was interred under the church. The colors of the shipping in the harbor were displayed half-mast high, and every other mark of respect shown by the citi- zens on the mournful occasion."
In the will of Dr. Gardiner instructions are given to his heir to complete the Church ot St. Ann's out of his personal estate. £28 sterling are to be paid annually and forever to its minister, who must be approved by William Gardiner, or his heirs, and by the majority of the parishioners. If the greater part of the parish ob- ject to the candidate presented by the Gardiner heir, he is to pre- sent a second person ; if this one likewise fails to please, a third, "who shall be inducted, any opposition notwithstanding."
Dr. Gardiner also left ten acres of land for a glebe, to include a " Parsonage house," and his whole library, to be under the care of the Episcopal minister at Gardinerstown, and to be used by the clergy, Episcopalian and Dissenting, and by the Physicians living within fifteen miles east and west of the Kennebec, and twenty miles north and south from the Church. This library has long been scattered, and the legacy fund commuted into property owned by the Church, while the parsonage lot has been divided and sold among the dwellers in the city.
Cemented into the wall of Christ Church, on the right of the chancel, is the cenotaph which was erected to Dr. Gardiner's mem- ory after his pious wishes had been duly carried out. It is of black marble, cut in three painted arches, and bears in letters of gold the Latin inscription, composed by the Rev. J. S. J. Gardiner :-
" Sacrum Memoriæ SILVESTRIS GARDINER, Qui natus, haud obscuro genere, in insula Rhodi Studuit Parisiis
Et Bostoniæ diu medicinam feliciter Exercuit. Postquam satis opum paravissit,
Navavit operam ad domandam ornandamque
Hanc orientalem regionem, tunc incultam.
Hic sylvas late patentes evertit, molas omnigenas
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Ædificavit, omnia rura permultis tuguriis ornavit, Templum Deo erexit,
Atque hæc loca habitantibus pater-patriæ dici Profecto meruit. Vir acerrimo ingenio ; medicus sciens, Maritus fidelis, pius in Liberos,
In obeundis negotiis vigilans, sagax, indefessus, Integer vitæ, in sacris literis doctus, Christianæ fidei omnino addictus, Ecclesia Anglicanæ observantissimus, Mortuus est in insula Rhodi, Anno Domino MDCCLXXXVI, ætatis LXXIX. Ut viri de ecclesia deque Republica optime meriti Memoriam commendaret posteris, suæque insuper Erga avum venerandum pietatis monumentus extaret, Honorarium hoc marmor erexit,
Nepos hæresque, ROBERTUS HALLOWELL GARDINER."
* (Translation. Sacred to the memory of Silvester Gardiner, who, born in Rhode Island of family not obscure, studied in Paris, and practised medicine successfully a long time in Boston. Hav- ing obtained a competency, he directed his attention to the civil- ization and improvement of the Eastern country, then unculti- vated. Here he leveled extensive tracts of forest, built various kinds of mills, ornamented the country with numerous cottages, erected a church, and by the inhabitants of these parts has richly deserved to be called the father of the land. Distinguished for his abilities, a learned physician, a faithful husband, a good father, of an incorruptible integrity, in transacting of business indefatiga- ble, sagacious and vigilant, of upright life, deeply read in the Sacred Scriptures, a firm believer in the Christian Faith, and whol- ly devoted to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of Eng- land, he died in Rhode Island, in the year of our Lord 1786, aged 79. That he might commend to posterity the memory of a man who deserved so well of the Church and of the Republic, and that a monument might exist of his own gratitude towards his venera- ble grandfather, Robert Hallowell Gardiner, his grandson and heir, has erected this honorary marble.)
*From Hanson's History of Gardiner and Pittston.
CHAPTER, IV.
THE CHURCH AFTER THE REVOLUTION.
When, after the Revolution, her place in America was again as- sumed by the Church Militant, she soon laid claim to the inde- pendence which was assuredly her right. The next year after the declaration of peace, the Rev. Samuel Seabury, of Connecticut, was consecrated at Aberdeen, and became the first Bishop of the United States. Three years later, the succession was further pro- vided for, by the consecrations at Lambeth Palace, of Bishop White of Pennsylvania, and Bishop Provoost of New York. Thus established upon a firmer basis, the Church, after only a brief sea- son of discouragement, gave hopeful signs of an increase in num- bers and prosperity.
With the return of peace, the dwellers in the Kennebec Valley began to long for the improvement of their religious facilities. The Church of St. John's, since the flight of its Tory minister, had been rapidly falling into decay, and the interests of the vicinity were centering about the more northerly point of Gardinerstown. Yet it is interesting to note that, during the winter of 1787, ser- vices had been read at Pownalborough by the Rev. John Silvester John Gardiner, the grandson of Dr. Silvester Gardiner, and a man of uncommon talent. He was afterwards for many years the Rec- tor of Trinity Church, Boston, and was of wide repute among the clergy of the land. He is celebrated as a charming and eloquent preacher, a brilliant classical scholar, a reader of great dramatic power, and one of the founders of the Boston "Anthology Club." "For thirty-seven years," says the late Bishop Brooks, "he was the best known and most influential of the Episcopal ministers of Bos- ton. His broad and finished scholarship, his strong and positive manhood, his genial hospitality, his fatherly affection, and his elo- quence and wit made him through all these years a marked and powerful person, not merely in the Church, but in the town."
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Since the pronounced Toryism of Dr. Gardiner had proved so disastrous to his interests, the town which was once called by his name had been re-christened Pittston, in honor of the Pitt family of Boston. With the peculiar Saxon characteristics of the place, its people fell naturally into the English ways of regarding Dr. Gar- diner's family and their Church, a fashion which savors nothing of humility, though it recognizes the kindly superiority begotten of wealth and gentle breeding.
William Gardiner, the heir of his father's land in the neighbor- hood of St. Ann's, at once set about finishing the little structure, as Dr. Gardiner had desired. In 1792, Major Reuben Colburn was requested to " get the Windows and Doors put up in the Meeting- house," and, in 1793, the Church was completed. William Gardi- ner, besides giving the vane and bell, had also begun the erection of a parsonage house on land near the Church ; but it was never finished, and was allowed to go to decay.
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