USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Gardiner > Christ Church, Gardiner, Maine : antecedents and history > Part 5
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
As early as 1791, a town meeting had been called in Pittston, " To see if the Town will vote to hear the Rev. Mr. Warren as a Candidate on the Principals of the Will of the Late Dr. Gardiner until next March Meeting or for any other term, and to see if the town will Vote to appropriate any Sum of their Money to his use or raise any sum for his Support in case they should agree with him for a Term longer than to expend the Legacy, and to pass any Vote or Votes relative thereto, that the Town when assembled shall think proper." After due consideration, however, it was decided " not to hear him at all."
It is evident, however, that this clergyman was employed during that year by the Churchmen of the town, as one of the Parish Books contains the following record :-
" The Rev'd Joseph Warren commenced preaching in St. Ann's Church in Pittston about the first of September, 1791, and dissolved his connection with said church on the 20th July, 1796.
Attest, BARZILLAI GANNETT, Clerk."
The incorporation of the parish itself took place March 28, 1793, and is recorded as follows :
"An Act to incorporate a Number of the Inhabitants of the Town of Pittston, in the County of Lincoln, into a Parish by the Name of The Episcopalian Society in Pittston.
Whereas, a number of inhabitants of the town of Pittston have petitioned this Court to be incorporated for the reasons expressed
65
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
in their petition, and it appearing to this Court reasonable that the prayer thereof be granted :
SECTION I. Be it therefore enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That Jedediah Jewett, William Barker, Henry Smith, Henry Dearborn, Nathaniel Bailey, Seth Gay, Barzillai Gannett, Stephen Jewett, Samuel Lang, Nathaniel Hall, Reuben Moore, Jonathan Redman, James Parker, John Nichols, Daniel Jewett, Benjamin Shaw, Peter Grant, Thomas Town, Cyrus Ballard, Simeon Goodwin, Nathaniel Berry, Thomas Berry, Bartholomew Kimball, Jeremiah Nichols, Andrew Bradstreet, Gideon Gardiner, David Philbrook, Rufus Gay, Jeremiah Wakefield, Gardiner McCausland, Joseph Bradstreet, Henry McCausland, Jr., Henry Smith, Jr., Nathaniel Kimball and Abraham Fitts, the petitioners, together with their polls and estates, hereby are incorporated into a parish by the name of The Episcopalian Society in Pittston with all the privileges, powers, and immunities which other parishes in this Commonwealth are entitled to by law.
SECTION II. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if any other person or persons may incline to join the said Episco- palian Society in said Pittston, he or they shall, with their polls and estates, be considered as belonging to the said Episcopalian So- ciety in the same manner as though they had signed the said pe- tition, and whenever any person or persons belonging to the Epis- copalian Society aforesaid shall incline to belong to the other part of said town by signifying such their desire in writing to the Clerk of said town, he or they shall, with their polls and estates, be and hereby are discharged from the said Episcopalian Society, and annexed to the other part of said town.
SECTION III. And be it further enacted by the authority afore- said, That Jedediah Jewett, Esq., be and hereby is authorized to issue his warrant, directed to some principal member of said parish, requiring him to warn the members of said parish, qualified to vote in parish affairs, to assemble at some suitable time and place in said town ; to choose such offices as parishes are by law required to choose, in the months of March and April annually, and to transact all matters and things necessary to be done in the said parish.
This act passed March 28, 1793."
The first Parish meeting of St. Ann's was held on the first of June, 1793, and the officers then chosen were : Jedediah Jewett, 9
66
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
Moderator ; Barzillai Gannet, Clerk ; Jedediah Jewett, William Bar- ker, and Reuben Moore, Assessors; Henry Smith, Jr., Collector ; William Barker, Henry Smith, and Ebenezer Byram, Wardens ; Henry Dearborn, Seth Gay, and Jedediah Jewett, Vestrymen ; Sam- uel Lang, Sexton.
These early Church officers were all men of considerable note in the history of our city, and the mere mention of their names suf- fices to call to the minds of many interesting stories of a by-gone time ; but in these pages we can stop only to notice a few of the most striking characters. First comes the Moderator, Jedediah Jewett, who was always a man of prominence in the civil affairs of Pittston. In the Revolution he had acted as Commissary of a New Hampshire regiment, being debarred by lameness from the more arduous service which he would gladly have undertaken. In 1787, he moved to Pittston, and settled upon a farm opposite "Grant's shipyard" at Bowman's Point. From that time he took an active part in the political and religious affairs of the town. He was at different times Town Clerk, Treasurer and Selectman, and served five terms as Representative to the General Court of Massa- chusetts. His uncle, the Rev. Jedediah Jewett of Rowley, Mass., a noted Congregational minister, was one of the first who had as- sisted the young student, Jacob Bailey, in his struggles for an edu- cation.
In 1794, a brother of Jedediah, Jesse Jewett, settled at Bow- man's Point, and became one of the attendants at St. Ann's. His daughter, Mary, who, in 1825, married Henry B. Hoskins, will long be remembered among the Church people of Gardiner, although she became a convert to New Church doctrines. The genial hos- pitality of Mr. Hoskins' home, with the kindly courtliness of Mrs. Hoskins, was long among the greatest charms ot Gardiner's so- ciety.
Still another brother, John, married his cousin Katherine, and among his descendants are many whose names will always be honored in Christ Church. A granddaughter of John Jewett was the late Mrs. Stephen Young ; and another, Martha, who married the well-known and estimable "Squire Williamson," died in 1892, leaving behind her the memory of a centuried life, richly sown with good deeds and faithful service to the Church, of which she was long the most aged communicant. Her son-in-law, Ephraim Forsyth, was one of the devoted souls whom the Church especial- ly delights to honor, and the loss of whose helping hand she feels
67
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
most keenly. Mrs. Williamson's uncle, Samuel, was the father of Mrs. Sanford Stevens, whose golden wedding, celebrated in 1891, brought back so many pleasant remembrances of the Church in the days of the Rev. Mr. Babcock.
Barzillai Gannett, the Clerk of the first parish meeting, was a man of a different stamp. That he was possessed of fine physical and mental powers ; that he had creditably filled many civil and military positions ; that in 1807 he had been a Senator ; that from 1793 to 1809 he was Clerk of St. Ann's parish, as well as an able supporter of the Church in all ways ; and that, having committed some "slight breach of trust," he fled from home because of his wounded pride, -all this is a twice-told tale, but one whose repetition is demanded by the annals of the parish. Major Gannett was a Freemason, and was assisted in his flight by two of the fraternity, who took him in a canoe to Abacadasset Point, just above the chops of Merrymeeting Bay. There he boarded a schooner bound for Boston, and long years passed, during which no definite news of the fugitive reached his deserted family. At last, a son of Bishop Chase of Ohio, who was in Gardiner, happened to hear from Mrs. Gannett the story of her husband's disappearance, together with a description of his fine and commanding person. Mr. Chase was the more vividly im- pressed with the conversation, because he recognized in many of its particulars a resemblance of Major Gannett to a gentleman of his father's congregation in Zanesville, Ohio. This gentleman, Benjamin Gardiner by name, was the president of an Ohio bank, and, as he had a wife and two children, Mr. Chase at first thought it impossible that he could be the lost defaulter. The coincidences however, seemed so remarkable, that finally he wrote to his father upon the subject. Bishop Chase sent for Mr. Gardiner and read the letter to him. To his surprise, the man gave every evidence of guilt, and, at last, confessed that he was indeed Barzillai Gannett. Once more an exile, he left behind him the woman who. he had so cruelly deceived, and from thenceforward, we read of him only the vaguest of rumors. His writing in the old Church records is all that remains to remind us of his chequered career.
Names most suggestive in our narrative are those of William Barker, who was a great owner of real estate in Pittston ; of Sam- uel Grant, whose son, Peter, married Captain Barker's daugh- ter, and who is famous throughout Farmingdale for shipping and local interests ; and of Andrew Bradstreet, two of whose grand- children married into the Grant family, and whose descendants,
68
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
men of wealth and great business talent, have probably done more for the prosperity of Gardiner and her Church than has been possible to the lesser stewards.
Then there was Major Seth Gay, one of the town's important men, who is recalled to us to-day by the old "Gay's wharf ;" and his brother, Rufus Gay, who first came to Pittston on foot from Dedham, Mass., carrying all his worldly wealth in a red pocket- handkerchief. His uprightness and integrity, however, were not long in winning for him a high place among his neighbors; and, until the age of sixty, when he became a member of the New Je- rusalem Church, he was active in our parish matters. His wife was a step-daughter of Gen. Dearborn, and two of his children, Mrs. Olive Worcester and Miss Dorcas Gay, will be long and af- fectionately remembered among Gardiner's people. By marriage the Gays were connected with Ebenezer Byram, the master build- er of Gen. Dearborn, whose family name also claims honorable mention among us. The descendants of Henry Smith and Reu- ben Moore are worthy of a more extended notice than can be given here ; since they have been so often active in the cause for which these early officers did their faithful work.
A significant name upon our Church books is that of General Henry Dearborn, the hero of many battles, and the father of a son who has rightly been called one of America's greatest benefactors. That this wonderful man has lived in our city, is its honor ; and that he was zealous in the Church must have been a fact of much import. He served both as Warden and Vestryman, and, until ap- pointed Secretary of War by Jefferson in 1801, lived not far from where the Public Library now stands, taking a vigorous. share in both Church and State matters. In 1794, it is said that Louis Philippe, then an exile from France, visited Gen. Dearborn for several days, attended by the celebrated Talleyrand. It was un- fortunate for the future of our city's interests that General Dear- born's influential presence was so soon removed by the require- ments of his great office.
The Rev. Joseph Warren, before mentioned, was the first min- ister of St. Ann's. His salary was set at £65 per annum ; and the pews of the Church were divided into three classes; those who occupied the best ones paying fourpence a Sunday, and the others threepence and twopence respectively. But the little sanctuary that had outlived the dangers of the war was not destined to be, for any length of time, Pittston's place of worship. Henry McCaus-
69
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
land, one of the earliest settlers, who had served in the Revolu- tionary war, became deranged, and fancied that the Lord had ordered him, in expiation of his sins, to make a burnt-offering of the Church, and to kill its pastor. The first part of his sacrifice he carried out on the 22nd of August, 1793. The madman lived near Farmingdale, and, on the appointed day, he took some live coals in the shoe of one of his children, and set out upon what he sup- posed to be a divine mission. He crept along the bank of the Cobbossee Stream through the dense growth of pine-woods, until almost at the point where Dr. Gardiner had formerly built the "New Mill." There he forded the water, and, still keeping cau- tiously under cover of the trees, came at last to the little wooden building that he sought. The carpenters were still busy upon it, though, for the moment, no one was in sight ; and the maniac, with his quick movements, soon buried his coals in a heap of shav- ings upon the loose floor-boards, covered them with an unhung door, and vanished again into the forest. He had taken with him the Bible used in the Church, and this was afterwards found upon a stump, where he had left it. The flames, bursting forth in all directions from the little sanctuary, warned the townspeople of their loss ; and the Church that had stood so bravely through the country's changes, soon fell, a heap of glowing ashes.
After the success of his burnt-offering, McCausland set about the completion of his destroying work. He made several plans to murder the Rev. Mr. Warren, but failing in their accom- plishment, decided to offer another victim in his stead. He finally chose for the vicarious sacrifice a woman whose name was the same as that of the clergyman, the wife of Peletiah Warren, and the daughter of Solomon Tibbetts. One day, as she crossed the Cob- bossee on her way to visit her sick mother, he followed her in a canoe, and, unable to overtake her upon the stream, pursued her into her mother's house, which he entered, feigning a neigh- borly call. When the family were off their guard, he seized a butcher-knife that his roving eyes had descried in a beam overhead, and with it he despatched Mrs. Warren in an instant. Her dying shriek awoke her brother, who was asleep in the room, and seizing a loaded gun, he rushed after the murderer, but he was restrained, and McCausland fled into the woods. It is said that he had con- ceived more bloody plans, and that another of his intended victims was Mrs. Peter Grant, the grandmother of Mrs. Anna Ellis and Mr. W. W. Bradstreet. This design of slaughter, however, he did not
70
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
follow out, but, after lingering at large in the forest for some time, he came to a realizing sense of what he had done. Since the burning of St. Ann's, the congregation had met for worship in the upper story of the "Great House ;" and there they were one day terrified by the sudden appearance of the wild and haggard mur- derer, who confessed his guilt and gave himself up to justice. Though sentenced to be hung, he was afterwards pardoned on the ground of insanity, and, since there was no asylum, was confined in the jail at Augusta for the thirty-six years before his death. He was an object of curiosity to the people of the neighborhood, who used to pay a penny apiece for the privilege of "hearing Crazy McCausland pray." For the stipulated sum, he was accustomed to appear at his cell window,-a strange object with his long beard, in those days of shaven chins-and there he would mumble an in- coherent prayer. The money which he thus obtained he sent to his family in Pittston.
The courageous townspeople at once set about the erection of a new Church. A meeting of deliberation was called at the house of General Dearborn, and a committee chosen to superintend the building. Its members, Henry Dearborn, Benjamin Shaw, Eben- ezer Byram, Reuben Moore, and Henry Smith, began their task in the fall of 1793 ; and by the next summer, though not entirely finished, the new Church was ready for use. The legacy fund of Dr. Gardiner, the aid of his executors, the subscriptions of the Churchmen in the neighborhood, and the offerings of parishes in Boston, Newburyport, and Salem, defrayed the expenses of the work. The new St. Ann's was an unpretentious wooden building, measuring fifty by thirty-five feet. It was only fifteen feet in height, but had a projecting porch, some twelve feet square, which extended above the main building in a sort of belfry, although there was no steeple. In the year 1828, Allyn Holmes, then a pupil at the Lyceum, made a water-color sketch of this old Church. Several photographs have been taken from this sketch, which gives a clear idea of the bold little building, as it once stood, squarely fronting the rough land which is now transformed into our beauti- ful " Common."
The interior of the Church was as uncompromisingly severe as its exterior. There was but one aisle, and two rows of moderate- ly high pews, each furnished with its door and great wooden but- ton. Box-pews, a trifle above the floor-level, encircled the body of the house. In the eastern end of the Church, answering to the
71
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
chancel, stood a plain reading desk, and, towering above this, was a pulpit of the old-fashioned style, whose winding ascent com- prised eight or nine steps. The gallery was a wide one, extending nearly to the middle of the building, and filled with seats resem- bling settees. Back of these the sexton stood, when he tolled the bell. In common with other buildings of its kind and time, the Church made little provision for the physical welfare of the fold. Such an innovation as a furnace or a stove was not to be thought of then ; and to neglect the services was a cardinal sin. More than one curly-headed boy has trudged over the frozen ways, car- rying his mother's little foot-stove, and thinking bitter thoughts of the long sermon-time, when he, in all probability, would sit crying for the ache in toes and finger-tips.
The Rev. Joseph Warren was called, in April, 1794, “ to settle as minister in the Episcopal Parish in Pittston ;" and he again took up the duties which had been so tragically interrupted. The par- sonage, built by Mr. William Gardiner, was fenced during the sum- mer, and the clergyman was offered the improvement of the parsonage land, and the " loose contributions of money," in addi- tion to a munificent salary of £34, 135., 4d., which, with the legacy fund left by Dr. Gardiner, amounted to £72. An inducement to matrimony was also held out to him, in an agreement to give him, when married, an increase in his salary of £18; surely, the most modest of endowments for a bride !
A season of great hardship now dawned upon the Maine settlers. The farmers did not understand the proper preparation of the new soil, and, in consequence, crops were not forthcoming. Boiled beech-leaves, skimmed milk, and hasty-pudding, formed some of the fare upon which strong men were forced to subsist as best they might. Laborers often lived upon " herbs," i. e., greens, peas, potatoes, etc. ; and one hard-working man ate nothing for a week but smoked alewives and milk. In consideration of the high price of provisions, the Parish in the spring of 1796, offered to give Mr. Warren an increase of salary, to the amount of $93.34.
The Rev. Mr. Warren left Pittston on the 20th of July, 1796, having accepted a call to Charleston, S. C. His room was imme- diately filled by the Rev. James Bowers, who, it would seem, was not at first in priests' orders, as, in 1799, he is mentioned as a "deacon of Pittston." His salary was fixed at $333.34, and he was given in addition the use of the parsonage. This salary he was to receive only so long as it was pleasing to three-fifths of the
72
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
society, with the understanding that he was " not to dissolve his ministerial connection while a majority wished his stay."
By a vote of the parish taken in April, 1796, different rates of rent had been imposed upon the members of the society who oc- cupied pews in the Church. An assessment of ten cents was paid each Sunday by those who sat in the " first-class " seats ; while the holders of the " second-class" pews were taxed eight cents, and those of the " third-class," six and one-half cents.
In the year 1797, the pews were sold for the sum of $658.50 ; and the next year, the gallery pews, which had just been finished, were also disposed of. In 1800, taxes for the payment of the min- ister were apportioned to the members of the society throughout the town.
In April, 1802, Mr. Bowers decided to accept the position then offered him, of Rector of St. Michæl's, Marblehead, Mass,, and he left Pittston with the assent of his parishioners there.
During the nine years' service of Mr. Warren and Mr. Bowers, the Holy Communion had not once been administered to the peo- ple who, anxious as they were for Church privileges, must often have longed for this supreme rite. The little congregation, how- ever, had not lost its interest through the slothfulness of its guar- dians, and, although without a rector for more than a year, the parishioners still endeavored to keep up the regular meetings. During the summer of 1802, they engaged Mr. Nathan Crocker as lay-reader, paying him $3.50 weekly.
June 5, 1802, the parish adopted "the Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as established in the United States of America."
In the summer of 1803, an invitation to assume the pastoral care of St. Ann's was sent to the Rev. Samuel Haskell, who had once been Rector of Christ Church, Boston. He accepted the call, and came to Pittston in July of the same year. As the parsonage was by this. time in a ruinous condition, $50.00 for the rent of a house was granted him, together with a salary of $500.00. Mr. Haskell was a man of energy, and devoted to the interests of the Church, whose Sacraments he duly administered, although, during his stay of six years, there were not more than seven or eight communi- cants.
In 1803, the town of Gardiner was separated from that of Pitts- ton, and re-named in honor of the heir who succeeded to the es- tate of William Gardiner. It must have been with joyous antici-
73
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
pation that the village welcomed its new proprietor, and that the elder men recognized a something of native resolution in the face and carriage of the young man, frail and delicate though he ap- peared. The son of Robert and Hannah Hallowell, he was obliged, by the conditions in the will of his grandfather, to assume the family name, as the inheritor of the estate ; accordingly it was as Robert Hallowell Gardiner that he came to his own. It seemed at that time as though the slight youth, who had but just returned from a foreign trip which he took for the benefit of his health, must prove unequal to assume the charge of a land so crowded with troublesome tenants as was this of his claim. The mere journey to his estate must have been a great tax upon him, as there were still no carriage-roads through Maine, and the trip by water could only have been made in a primitive fashion. The estate had been left to him with the attached condition that it should not be sold, and that no leases should be granted beyond his own life-time. The place itself was materially. at a stand-still. Hallo- well and Augusta had blossomed into flourishing towns, but their sister settlement was in danger of remaining far in the background, when young " Squire Gardiner," as he was always called, came into possession. His earliest tasks were to break the entail upon the estate, to have the bounds properly surveyed, and to make ar- rangements with the " squatters," whom he found usurping his land. Of the ninety-seven families then living in Gardiner, eighty- six had no title to the soil which they claimed. Everyone knows the story of the young man's summons to this class of people to meet him and take instant measures either to buy, lease, or aban- don the disputed lands. His future greatness in Gardiner was de- termined, once for all, by the courage with which he faced and quelled the ringleader of the rowdy squatters, who thought to bully the slender stripling into an easy submission to their terms. A little later, men of their kind murdered the surveyor of a neigh- boring district which they claimed ; but, before this new heir's quiet, fearless gaze, the outlaws shrank ; and, agreeing, with only one exception, to his proposals, became peaceable and industri- ous townsmen.
In the beginning of the century, life in Maine meant so much of the hard and the uncongenial, that it was little short of wonder- ful to see this scholarly, travelled youth adapting himself to the rough country folk, and, with a zeal matched only by that of his grandfather, devoting his every energy to their improvement.
10
74
HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH.
The year after his arrival, he built a fulling-mill, and laid the foundations for an ample wharf, omitting, meanwhile, no measures which could attract settlers to the vicinity. So successful was he in his plans, that, at the close of his first ten years' administration, the population of the town had doubled. Though, after tedious law-proceedings, he had broken the entail which hampered the Kennebec estate, and had thus attained more freedom in its man- agement, Mr. Gardiner still adhered to certain English ideas of business ; a peculiarity which could scarcely fail to create some enemies, even if, in many instances, it led him to the wisest course. Believing in the superior advantages within reach of a small community, as opposed to a larger one, he refused to sell his mill property, and kept all extended interests in his own hands. Thus the townspeople, like their English brethren, were, in a measure, dependent upon their "Squire"; and this circumstance has contributed to give Gardiner its noticeable English coloring, upon which so many writers have made remark.
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.