USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Bristol > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 10
USA > Maine > York County > York > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 10
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 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
Signed sealed & delivered in Presence of us/ John Penwill
Mathew Austine
JOHN DAVESS RICHARD BANKES
JOHN TWISDEN
THE THIRD MEETING HOUSE, 1712
As remodeled and repaired this meeting house served its turn in the succession of buildings for the following thirty years, when it began to go the way of all ecclesi- astical "flesh." For some mysterious reason it had sur- vived the torch of the incendiaries at the Massacre in 1692; perhaps because defended by those who had sought refuge within its walls, or the Indians were more intent on destroying houses, with the idea of inflicting greater damage and suffering to the townspeople. Whatever the chance that spared it, by 1710 it was deemed unsafe and out of repair to such an extent that on May 15 of that year, at a special town meeting it was
Votted that att the Charg of this Town of York we will have a New Meeting house bult and finished att or before the Last day of Novem- ber in the year of our Lord 1712, to be fifty foot Square, and to be bult Every way Preportionable: and that the Way of Raising of Money for the same Shall be by a free Will offering as Each Man . Shall Subscribe: and if there be not Money Suffisant Raised that Way : then to be Raised by a town Tax or Rate: to be leved as the Law directs for the defraying of Town Charges: Said Meeting House to be sett on the Noth East side of the highway by the buring Place upon the Land Given for the Use of the Minestry. (Town Records i, 448.)
Samuel Donnell, Lewis Bane, Samuel Came and Abraham Preble, Jr., were appointed a committee to receive sub- scriptions from the residents "or of any who shall freely Give for the Carrieing on of said Work," and to enter into contract with "a Work Man or Work Men" to build the same, and to report to the town from time to time their doings and the progress of the work. It is evident that this plan of obtaining subscriptions for this work was the idea of Parson Moody, whose salary was in the nature of an unstated gratuity, not raised by taxation. Apparently it resulted satisfactorily as nothing to the contrary appears in connection with the method adopted and on March 23, 1713, the Selectmen were authorized to sell the old build- ing. It was probably sold to Nicholas Sewall, as in 1714
105
HISTORY OF YORK
the "Old Meeting house or ruins thereof" were mentioned in a deed that year as "now in the Possession of Nicholas Sewall" (Deeds viii, 174). It was standing in 1717 (Ibid. viii, 247). The location of this, the third building, will be understood as occupying the site of the present structure. Thus the town's meeting houses have been on three lots in different parts of the town. The main door opened on the side next the court house at that time, and as the house was square the roof sloped to the centre, coming to a peak in the middle. In 1731 additions and alterations were decided upon. Nine feet were added "at each end," pre- sumably meaning the southeast and northwest "ends," if a square building can have ends; and a "new Plain Roof," newly shingled to replace the old roof, and the sides clap- boarded. At the end next the highway a steeple was to be added, also shingled, all at an estimated cost of £330, to be paid for by taxation. £100 was voted to defray the initial charges, and Samuel Came, Jeremiah Moulton, Joseph Sayward, Peter Nowell and John Sayward were appointed a committee to manage affairs connected with this work.
The time for the completion of these changes was set at "the last day of July 1732," and as far as known these alterations were duly finished, and doubtless proved an esthetic as well as a material improvement to the severely plain boxlike appearance of the old building.
It may not be inappropriate here to explain that the meeting houses of our fathers served a double purpose in their affairs, civil as well as ecclesiastic. They were used for all public meetings and served as the court house for the county. In them on weekdays the yeomanry gathered to wrangle over the election of town officers, the imposi- tion of taxes, the laying out of new roads and the ringing of hogs. When used as a court room its seats were filled with the curious, eagerly listening to the details of a murder trial, or the salacious evidence forthcoming in a bastardy case. Neither of these uses, even though neces- sitated by the poverty of the people, contributed to the sanctity of a house of worship and it may well be believed that attendants on Sabbath services were easily led away from the atmosphere of the church to recall the squabbles of last week's town meeting or murder trial, within the same walls. The first meeting house doubtless was the
106
STORY OF THE MEETING HOUSES
borough hall or city hall for Agamenticus and Gorgeana, and the place of trial of Mistress Cornish for the murder of her husband in 1644, where she was sentenced to death; also the meeting place of the Provincial governments of the Gorges and Godfrey governments, before the Usurpa- tion. It can also be said that the later courts were held here until its abandonment as a public building. The Second Meeting House staged some of the exciting con- tests between the Massachusetts usurpers and the Maine Courts, particularly on the occasion in July 1668 when Massachusetts armed troops invaded this Province to overthrow the legally constituted government set up by the Royal Commissioners by direction of the King. In short it is safe to visualize the first three meeting houses as town houses on weekdays, until the building of the first town house in 1734, when this unconscious desecration of the House of God came to an end, after a century of diver- sion from its consecrated purposes. The church here was organized as a parish in 1731, and as a consequence the town could exercise no authority over parish property within its boundaries, nor use it for civil purposes without permission. In building the town hall the town made a virtue of a necessity (Marshall, Address, p. 18).
The Third Meeting House, in its new dress, with some repairs to roof and belfry in 1733 and 1736, lasted until 1747, having seen thirty-five years of service, which marked the close of the pastorate of Samuel Moody.
THE FOURTH MEETING HOUSE, 1747
At a parish meeting held on April 19, 1744, it was "Voted that there be a Meeting House built in this parish, by subscription, of seventy feet long and fifty feet wide, and twenty-five feet stud, and be set in the same place where the old Meeting House now stands." This resolution came at a time when the interests of the people were centered on the Louisburg Expedition and Parson Moody was absent with the troops as chaplain, and his favorite scheme of building meeting houses by voluntary contributions lacked his dynamic personality to demand of his wealthy parishioners the last penny he could get out of them, voluntarily or otherwise. As a consequence the program lagged during his absence, and in the end was laid aside till his return. Again on March 25, 1747, the
107
HISTORY OF YORK
parish voted to build a new meeting house, adding to the former vote "that there shall be a Steeple Built at one End of the same." It is a popular belief that this steeple was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, but whether there has been general acceptance of the claim is problematical. At least it does not require lengthy argument to expose the fallacy of such an idea. This famous English architect was then dead. It may be that there is some slight reason for the association of his name with this addition to our church, if we assume that the form of it was adapted from one of his well-known London churches. It seems, how- ever, reasonable to credit the design of the artistic and graceful steeple, which surmounted the Fourth Meeting House, to Samuel Sewall, Esq., of this town, instead of invoking the reputation of Wren as its inspiration. Mr. Sewall was an architect by profession, and his services must have been secured by his fellow townsmen to pre- pare plans for the building, including the steeple, although a young man at that time. He was a man of ideas and genius in construction.
At the same meeting they voted to tear down the old meeting house and use "such of the stuff and materials as will answer" in constructing the new building. The oversight of this work was probably the last important labor undertaken by Parson Moody, as he was then three score and ten, but he lived to see its completion, a few months before his death. Its frame has remained as his monument to the present day and generation, although in somewhat altered form.
In 1838 and 1839 the building was remodeled within and without. The galleries, elders' seats, high pulpit and higher sounding board were removed, and more modern furniture substituted. The entrance, which had been on the street side, was changed to the end facing the court house. This reconstruction was completed in the summer of 1839 under the supervision of a committee consisting of Charles Moody, Joseph Junkins, Eben Chapman, Paul Langdon and Charles O. Emerson. On July 3, 1839, the Rev. John Haven preached the sermon at the reopening from the text: "And he was afraid, and said 'How dread- ful is this place! this is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.'" His discourse was pub- lished in pamphlet form soon after. ·
108
STORY OF THE MEETING HOUSES
For over forty years this renovated building answered the purposes of the parishioners, but in that period the younger generation had outgrown the severe simplicity of its appearance and demanded further modernization. In 1881 a committee was appointed to remodel exterior and interior to meet these views. This committee, consisting of Washington Junkins, John B. Fernald, Samuel P. Young, John E. Staples, Edward C. Moody, Edward Marshall and Wilson M. Walker, was appointed on April II, and on September 27, 1882, they reported the completion of their commission. The building was turned at right angles to its former position so that the tower and steeple faced the road. The main entrance was constructed through the tower, and the one in the opposite end reserved for the minister. This new orientation was accomplished with- out accident, but it was deemed wise to reconstruct the old tower and steeple. A new design for the steeple by a Bos- ton architect was adopted, calling for a greater height, about twenty feet, than the old one. The interior under- went as great an alteration. The pulpit was transferred to the end farthest from the main entrance to the north end, with the organ and choir seats to the left. The old singers' gallery was among the missing relics of former days, when the rejuvenation was finished. At the rededication which occurred shortly after, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, ex-Governor of Maine, delivered the historical address. This elaborate reconstruction was one of the features of the pastorate of Rev. David B. Sewall and now, forty years after, it is yet a worthy and modern memorial of the long line of ministers who have hallowed it in the past.
109
CHAPTER VI ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS 1630-1700
So much has been written in criticism of the alleged irreligious character of the Maine settlements in early days by prejudiced Puritan authors, that it seems necessary to set forth the essential fundamental differences between the Church history of the Province of Maine and that of the provinces to the south of us, Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut. This difference lay in the relative emphasis placed on Church interests as compared to other concerns of the body politic. Emigration to Maine was not precipitated by religious differences at home. The early settlers did not come hither as crusaders to found a religious commonwealth, and gave to the Church and its require- ments only the usual normal place in the life of the people, not the paramount position to which everything else paid tribute. As a consequence the casual or biassed historian has conferred an odor of sanctity on Massa- chusetts, Connecticut and Plymouth, and a blanket of wickedness on Maine and New Hampshire. The West Countrymen came to carry on the lucrative business of the fisheries, and when King James was informed of their occupation, he said: "An honest calling, for it was the trade of the Apostles." This was their means of livelihood. They had neither time nor inclination to interfere with the religion of others, nor did they ever indulge in persecuting their neighbors for holding religious views different from theirs. Such punishments as they were obliged to inflict on the Quakers were not for doctrinal reasons, but for dis- turbances raised by them during service time, such as railing at the minister and like misdemeanors. This does not mean that the spirit of religion was lacking, only that it did not overbalance other phases of a well-ordered government. The early settlers were just ordinary English men and women who came here to plant a colony under the English flag, bringing with them the usual habits of a sane English rural life of which the Church was a part, not the whole, of life.
IIO
ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS
The earliest references to the subject of religion in the records plainly indicate that at some time before the year 1636 a Church building had been erected in the young settlement, as explained in the previous chapter, to meet the needs of the communicants of the Church.
To understand the character of the services held in this first building it will be helpful to consider the provisions of the Charter of 1639, granted by the King to Gorges. In this fundamental document it was declared "that the religion now professed in the Church of England and Eccle- siastical government now used in the same, shall be ever hereafter professed, and with as much convenient speed as may bee settled and established in and throughout the Province." It must not be supposed that every minister who came to New England at that period was a Separatist or a Puritan. While many were both, yet some were advo- cates of moderate non-conformity, and a few were strictly conformists. The Puritans and Separatists flocked to Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut, where they found sympathetic supporters, while the regular conform- ing clergy found asylum in Maine. The line of demarca- tion was complete.
As early as 1637 the people here tried to secure the services of Rev. William Blackstone, the first settler of Boston, a clergyman of the Church of England, and he gave them at first favorable intimations of acceptance, "but wee now finde by his answers to some, that his hopes are fed with the expectation of farre greater profitt by his husbandry there then he should have had by his min- istry here (4 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. vii).1 After this unsuc- cessful attempt William Hooke and Thomas Bradbury wrote an appeal to Governor Winthrop, September 13, 1637, to "solicit in our behalfe some godly minister" to supply the town's needs. They said:
he shall have a very good house, with an inclosure to it for the planting of corne; and allso a stip(end) of 20 li per annum, which wee hope in a short time wilbe doubled if not trebled. Neather will wee seeke to tye him to any maner of discipline then what shalbe found approveable
1 Johnson said of him that he retained "no simbole of his former profession, but a canonical cote." (Wonder-Working Providence, 20), and Hubbard adds the slur that Blackstone "betook himself to till the ground, wherein probably he was more skilled, or at least had a better faculty, than in the things pertaining to the house of God," (History of New England, Ed. 1848, p. 113). Had Mr. Blackstone been a Puritan clergyman we should have had a glowing account of the wonderful Providence which led this servant of God to come to New England.
III
HISTORY OF YORK
out of (the) word of God, which must be the touch(s)tone and triall of all our actions. Good sir, lett nott any former scandalls, which have beene (partly just and partly unjust) raysed upon us, be any obstacles to hinder the good and profitt which by this meanes may, through Gods blessinge, betide our poor soules here after.
From the context it is quite clear that both a church and parsonage existed at this date.
WILLIAM TOMPSON
The local committee succeeded in inducing Rev. Wil- liam Tompson, an Oxford graduate, recently arrived in New England, and temporarily resident at Dorchester, to accept the living. Mr. Tompson, a native of Lancashire, born in 1598, had been settled in 1623 as curate of Newton, a chapelry of Winwick in that County. He was described as "a very gracious sincere man, an instrument of much good, a man of much faith" (Winthrop, Journal), but this happy augury for the spiritual welfare of Agamenticus was not to last long. In 1639 he removed to Braintree, Mass., and late in that year was installed as colleague of Rev. Henry Flint in charge of the church at that place.1 Once more the cry for help went up, this time from William Hooke alone. On January 28, 1639-40, he gave out this despairing wail of pessimism:
there is noe posibelity here with us for the geathering of a church, except God in mercy open there eyes and let them see there super- stititious waye which they desier to goe.
This has been misinterpreted by Puritan writers to show that there was no church here at that time, although Mr. Tompson had just left. A ministerial vacancy does not abolish a church. What Hooke meant must be read in the colloquial jargon of the Separatists of the period. He says they were worshipping in their "superstitious waye," by which he meant the Church of England form of service, and bewailed the fact that there was no hope of "geather- ing" a church according to the Puritan manner. The people had resented the disloyalty of Hooke and refused to follow him in his attempt to hand them over bodily to the sectaries. Dissenters in their writings and publica- tions at that time uniformly called the ritual of the church
1 The statement in Volume I, page 230, that Mrs. Elizabeth Masterson was a grand- daughter of Rev. William Tompson, the first minister of Agamenticus, is an error. She was descended from another Rev. William Tompson.
112
ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS
"superstitious" or "idolatrous" and that is the signifi- cance of his letter.
GEORGE BURDETT
GEO: BundeA A short time before this there came to Aga- menticus from Dover the Rev. George Burdett, whose career in that town had been marked by political and ministerial perform- ances of a gross character which he staged there. As he had led a like stormy career in England, acquiring a picturesque notoriety before his emigration, it will be of interest to devote some space to a recital of his life.
George Burdett, probably of an Irish branch of a family of English origin, born about 1602, attended Trinity Col- lege, Dublin, where in 1619 he was censured for "scornful behaviour to the authorities and for profane and scoffing speeches." After securing the degree of B.A. at Dublin, he was matriculated as sizar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University, the college of Cromwell and our own John Wheelwright, both of whom had graduated before Burdett entered. This university was conspicuous in furthering the dissenting movement in England, of which Burdett became one of its most offensive exponents. Archbishop Laud, as an alumnus and official of Oxford, had reflected his influence towards maintaining the authority of the Established Church, and so it happened that those who were liberally inclined either went to Cam- bridge as possible dissenters or were made so while there. This seemed to be the superficial result with Burdett, at least, for his career after graduation was to run amuck with little delay and find himself in bad repute with the ecclesiastical authorities of the Kingdom. He had cur- acies or a similar grade of clerical duties at Brightwell (Berkshire), Saffron Walden (Essex) and at Havering (Norfolk) in succession and in 1633 was employed in the capacity of "public lecturer" by the municipal corpora- tion of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, at a salary of £1oo a year.
At that period a "lecturer" was a clergyman of Puritan tendencies, usually, maintained by private contributions or public funds to preach without being compelled to read
II3
HISTORY OF YORK
the service to which they objected. This was the sort of work best fitted to the spectacular methods and unbridled tongue of Burdett and it gave him ample scope for all sorts of sensational deliverances from his public lecture- ship. Savage is in error in stating that he was in the enjoy- ment of a "fine living" in that town, for the records expressly state that he was "no beneficed man" meaning the induction to any ecclesiastical living or church pre- ferment like a parsonage, vicarage or donative office. It is evident that he was employed for his qualities as a pulpit orator for the documents in his case state "that he was merely a lecturer and lived at Yarmouth upon the benevo- lence of the people."
That such a man in those times of social ferment should come to the front in spectacular denunciations of the established order of things, theological and social, need not surprise the student of human nature. It was then popular to rail at the Crown, the nobility, the gentry and the Church dignitaries and impute to them the vilest characters and to include in their denunciations all those who held to the ancient and orderly forms of church and society. We can be prepared now to read that in one of his Sunday harangues he indulged the declaration that all those who went to communion were "an unhallowed rout of whoremongers and drunkards." Naturally this choice phraseology, so tersely expressed, led him to the next step, an ostentatious refusal to partake of communion on Easter Sunday. For this contumacy, shortly after his entrance upon his duties, he was suspended by the Rev. Clement Corbett, Chancellor of the Diocese, in 1633, but was soon released by the Bishop of Norwich "if no new cause of scandall appear against him." One of his favorite per- formances was to answer in his afternoon "lecture" the sermon preached by one of the clergy in the forenoon. An instance of this is cited to show his methods and style. Rev. Mr. Cheshire had spoken of the duties of ministers, who must not be "dumb dogs but bark and bite too" whenever it became necessary to expose erroneous teach- ings. Burdett in criticism "remarked on the dogs and curs which would be snarling at the saints and compared them to Cerberus, and said of himself that he would like the dog T. Nilus lap and away lest the crocodile should catch him."
114
ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS
Of course he found ample field for the exploitation of such talents of coarse invective in his treatment of the forms and ceremonies of the Church. He classed those who bowed at the name of Jesus as the "greatest of hypo- crites," which was his answer to a warning from his ordi- nary that he must bow his knee whenever the name of Christ was used in the service. He argued that the name of Jesus must not be reverenced in an ostentatious manner "as by pulling off hats" but by the spirit within. For this suspension followed, but again he was leniently treated by the authorities. Yet he did not profit by these experiences of considerateness and, as is usual, mistaken leniency, and continued in his sensational career of preaching against the Church and its practices.
In the matter of confession he held that its use accord- ing to the liturgy of the Church of England was no con- fession at all, and as a further example of his ribaldry in the pulpit may be cited his tale of a boy who had seen a pictured representation of God and being asked who and what God was answered: "An old fool in heaven with a white beard." That such insubordination coupled with vulgarity was tolerated is an evidence of the temper and numbers of those dissatisfied with the existing Church polity, and it is probable that the persuasive eloquence of Mr. Burdett aided in the increase of both. He attracted "many of the schismatical people in Yarmouth" to his lectures - people who wished to be entertained or thrilled with his diatribes, and he flattered their vanity by telling them that "ministers ought to be chosen by the people." This is the characteristic appeal of the demagogue, fully crystallized, playing on the passions of the proletariat for his own selfish ends. The patience of the ecclesiastical authorities had at last reached its breaking point, and his ordinary, Dr. Richard Corbett, Bishop of Norwich, sum- moned him to answer why he should not be deprived of his ministerial functions. He refused to answer, except to say that he did not consider Dr. Corbett competent to be his judge. Suspension followed in the summer of 1634 and charges were preferred against him by Reverends Brooks and Cheshire, who related the various contumacies described above and the case was lodged in the Court of High Commission, having jurisdiction over ecclesiastical recusants. As a counter stroke Burdett made charges
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.