USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Bristol > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 11
USA > Maine > York County > York > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 11
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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
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against his prosecutors before the same tribunal and by various devices managed to delay hearings from session to session for several months. At length he made answer and his defence was referred to Sir John Lambe and Dr. Matthew Gwynn for examination. Their report, after considering the evidence, was adverse and the Commis- sion adjudged him guilty as charged, but finding that he was "merely a lecturer" the sentence was modified to sus- pension of his ministerial function, removal from the lectureship and provision of his public submission to the Court "for his scandalous and heretical opinions." This action was taken April 16, 1635, and the costs of £80 were levied against him, attachment of his body was ordered, in default of which his surety "Mr. Quested, fishmonger" was required to satisfy the bond. Two months later, June 23, 1635, his bond was certified into the Exchequer as the principal had fled the realm and then was either in New England or on his way thither. The suit against his complainants was called for final disposition May 5, 1636, and it was adjudged to be a reprisal suit brought for "revenge" by Burdett, and as it. was reported that he "had gone to New England" judgment was entered for the defendants and they were discharged "from further trouble."
Burdett had indeed made a precipitous departure, for he took "his passage on board a ship and set sail for New England, leaving behind him a distressed wife and family, towards whose support the corporation (of Great Yar- mouth) generously allowed an annuity of twenty marks." (Blomefield, History of Norfolk, vol. ii, pp. 371-2.)
The date of his arrival in New England is not definitely known, but it is probable that he came in June 1635 with the fleet which reached Boston and Salem during that month (Winthrop i, 161). The first record of him is at the latter place where "a lott upon the Rock beyond Endi- cotts fence" was granted to him August 22, 1635, and on September 2 following he took the freeman's oath. This being dependent upon membership in their church it is evident that he had by that time joined the Salem church, then under the pastorate of the equally stormy petrel, Hugh Peter. Hubbard states that he was employed to preach among them for a year or more, "being an able scholar and of plausible parts and carriage." (History of
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New England, 353.) This employment was in the capacity of assistant to Peter and there he remained for over a year "but finding the discipline of the church too strict for his loose conscience," says the same authority (Ibid. 353), "as the other was in pretence too large, he left his brethren at Salem, out of love to his friends at Pascataqua." He selected Dover as the field of his next exploits and led the inhabitants of this peaceful town a merry life for the fol- lowing two years. By the persuasion of his eloquence he seduced the church people to drop their pastor (Hanserd Knollys) and give him the vacant chair. Then finding that politics offered a wider scope for his natural demagog- ism he entered the field for election as Governor of that plantation. Hubbard relates this incident as follows: "Not long after he came thither, by the assistance and help of some that entertained a better opinion of him than ever he deserved, he invaded the civil government and thrust- ing out Captain (Thomas) Wiggins, placed there by Lord Say and Sele and others, he became Governor of the place." (Ibid. 221.) This job suited him and his talents perfectly and he revelled in the power which it gave him over the civil and ecclesiastical elements of the community. It must have been some grim satisfaction to him to "inhibit" the unfortunate Mr. Knollys from preaching! The "silenced" pastor of Yarmouth was now silencing others in Dover, perhaps for a purpose. Being now in power himself he bethought him of those in power in England and apparently started a campaign to rehabilitate himself in the graces of the hierarchy at home, as in his capacity of Magistrate here he would have to be on working terms with the officials there. In pursuance of this supposed scheme he wrote to Archibishop Laud November 29, 1638, that "none but combinations" existed as a form of govern- ment in New Hampshire and that he had been "holding the helme for a yeare." His triumph was short lived, how- ever, for in the following December Captain John Under- hill was chosen as Governor in the next election and Burdett was out of a job. Evidently his character had been found out in the brief time of his residence in Dover and Hubbard says he was "not long after forced to remove by reason of sundry miscarriages he was charged with." (Ibid. 221.) In another place the same author adds that he left Dover, "either out of necessity or design, some
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foul practices of his being discovered." (356.) We shall not be left in doubt what these "miscarriages" and "foul practices" were, as we follow him across the Piscataqua into Maine where he next alighted at the young settlement at Agamenticus, now York, and soon had ingratiated him- self into the favor of the planters and their wives. Preach- ing being his best card he became "minister" at this place soon after his arrival (probably 1640), and, quoting Hub- bard again, "where we shall leave him for a time, driving on the same trade (or a worse)." It took him less than a year to wind up his career in Maine but in that time he was a very busy wolf in sheep's clothing. At the Court held in September 1640 the results of his preaching were spread out in three indictments found against him for adultery, for "entertaining" another woman "privately in his bedchamber" and for publishing and broaching "divers dangerous speeches." Fines to the amount of forty pounds were assessed on him when the jury found him guilty as charged, and in order to raise the money he had to borrow the sum from a widow residing there and give her a mortgage upon his real estate in the town.1 (York Deeds iii, 116.) This mortgage, drawn up by him- self, was fraudulent, as it "had neither date nor his hand affixed thereunto" and the trusting widow was obliged to get a title to his lands by the evidence of neighbors. It may be assumed that his ministerial reputation had been so badly damaged in three colonies that he now concluded that "the jig was up."
In a letter from Thomas Gorges, the new Governor of Maine, to Winthrop dated February 23, 1641, we get the last glimpse of the hero of this clerical melodrama in con- nection with our New England background for its stage setting. "Mr. Burditt," he says, "is at Pemaquid, which lyes on the borders of this Province. He is grown to that height of sinn that it is to (be) feared he is given over. His time he spends in drinkinge, dancinge, singinge scur- rulous songes; for his companions he selects the wretched- est people in the countrey. At the springe I hear he is for Ingland." (4 Mass. Hist. Coll. vii, 335.)
1 He had a grant of twenty acres at Godfrey's cove on which he lived. The Widow Anne Messant acted as his housekeeper, but seems to have escaped any scandal through this association. She succeeded to the title of this property, by mortgage, and later by marriage with Governor Godfrey it became his residence, through couverture, and his name afterwards attached to the Cove and Pond.
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And there we leave him, the ordained minister of the church which he reviled as "a rout of drunkards and whoremongers" himself the hypocrite unmasked, "drinke- inge, dauncinge, singinge scurrulous songs" to his boon companions among the tipsy sailors of the fishing fleet that harbored at Pemaquid, "the wretchedest people of the countrey." It is to the credit of the Church of England and the Puritan Church of New England that both gave him short shrift when his true character was discovered.
It is only fair to record the end of the career of this amazing charlatan. He returned to England to prosecute an appeal, but if it were ever heard it has been lost in the confusion of that period. He served in the Royalist forces for a while as chaplain but was captured and imprisoned. After the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 he secured preferment in Ireland, where he became Chancellor of the Diocese of Leighlin 1666-8, and Dean of Leighlin 1668, until his death in 1671, aged about seventy years. Descend- ants still reside in Ireland. Thus we part from him, finally, with some assurance that his last days were days of peace and that he died at least in the odor of sanctity.
JOHN WARD
Having thus cleaned the Augean stables, Governor Gorges promptly looked about to secure a minister to suc- ceed the deposed parson. On December 23, 1640, he wrote to Winthrop: "We have sent younge Mr. Ward of New- bury a call. I hope the Lord will be assistinge to us in it." (4 Mass. Hist. Coll. vii, 333-5.) This was John Ward, son of Rev. Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich. He was born in Haverhill, England, and was graduated at Emanuel Col- lege, Cambridge, in 1626, obtaining his Master's degree three years later. Lechford, the well-known Notary Public of Boston, thus mentions the circumstances connected with this call:
Master Ward's sonne is desired to come unto the Province of Mayne. There is want of good ministers there; the place hath an ill report by some, but of late some good acts of justice have been done there, and divers Gentlemen there are, and it is a country very plenti- full for fish, fowle and vension. (Plain Dealing.)
Mr. Ward accepted the invitation to become minister here, and in company with Rev. Hugh Peter and Rev.
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Timothy Dalton of Hampton they started out to walk hither from Piscataqua and had an unfortunate experience in trying to reach their destination. Winthrop tells this story of it:
Though it be but six miles yet they lost their way, & wandered two days and one night, without food or fire, in the snow and wet. But God heard their prayers, wherein they earnestly pressed him, for the honour of his great name; and when they were even quite spent, he brought them to the seaside, near the place they were to go to.
This will afford an insight into the difficulties of travel at that period through almost trackless forests, even in such old settlements as Kittery and York. This was in April 1641, and all that is known further indicates that he then began his services, which like those of his predecessors, turned out to be of short duration. Evidently ministerial candidates from Massachusetts were not prepared to rough it in Maine. He left before March 1642 to become the pastor of the church in Haverhill, Mass.
JOSEPH HULL
The next clergyman in succession was the Rev. Joseph Hull. Born in 1594, he was graduated from St. Mary's Hall, Oxford University, in 1614, and became rector of the parish of Northleigh, Devonshire, in 1621, where he remained for eleven years. He arrived in Boston May 6, 1635, as the leader and pastor of a band of colonists gathered about Broadway and Batcomb, Somersetshire, the latter being one of the residences of the Gorges family. This company sat down at Wessagusset (Weymouth), Mass., the old and still existing plantation of Capt. Robert Gorges. As he had come in the interests of the Established Church it soon became the purpose of the Puritan oligarchy to get rid of him and they adopted the tactics of dividing his parishioners. Rev. Thomas Jenner was used by them for this purpose, and being sustained by the magistrates and elders as their approved ministerial choice, Mr. Hull was forced to leave in the fall of that year. Obtaining a grant of land from the Plymouth Colony for lands at Mattacheese, he founded the town of Barnstable with some of his followers and represented them in the first General Court of that colony. Again the
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Puritan clergy began the same method of undermining his position, using the Rev. John Lathrop as the splitting wedge. Thence on call from some of the leading men at Yarmouth he went there and was shortly after suppressed in the ministry and excommunicated. Finding it impos- sible to pursue his calling in either colony under such con- ditions of persecution, he went to the Isles of Shoals in 1643, whence he was called to assume charge of the vacant pastorate in this town. This action gave great offense to the Massachusetts theocracy. "They had entertained one Hull, an excommunicated person and very contentious, for their minister" wrote Winthrop (Journal ii, p. 21). This disingenuous and discourteous statement concerning an educated university graduate, whose only crime was to belong to the Church of England, serves as an example of the narrow bigotry of that period. This enmity was visited upon his offspring in the same insinuating lan- guage, as may be read in the same Journal (Ibid. ii, 210). No record exists covering his pastorate. One contem- porary allusion survives to show his opposition to the encroachments of Massachusetts in connection with the Isles of Shoals, which were divided between Maine and Massachusetts at that time when New Hampshire was administered by the latter government. Godfrey had been favorable to turning all of the group to the juris- diction of Massachusetts. "It is not Mr. Hulls mind," wrote Godfrey to Winthrop, adding "I and Mr Hull and the rest Jobe 12, ii, seeing no appeal allowed must have patience." The biblical allusion reads as follows: "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you," a quotation not calculated to promote the entente cordiale between the rivals. Mr. Hull had a suit at law with God- frey in July 1646, in which the latter prevailed, over a lot of marsh land in York and in the next year he returned to England.1 After his arrival in England Mr. Hull obtained an appointment to a parish in Cornwall, where he remained for the next twelve years, until the Restoration when he was ejected by the Royal Commissioners. He returned to New England in 1661 and was settled over the church at Oyster River (Durham) N. H., with some like connection over the Isles of Shoals. He died in the latter place Novem-
1 He was witness to the will of Henry Simpson March 18, 1646-7.
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ber 19, 1665, and is said to have been buried in this town, by the information of a descendant.
NATHANIEL NORCROSS
It was not until the following year after Mr. Hull's departure that a successor was found in the person of Nathaniel Norcross, of whose coming we are apprised in a letter of Mrs. Lucy Downing to her nephew, John Winthrop, Jr., under date of December 17, 1648, which states:
. . . Mr Norcross is flowen to Agamenticus, and theer he sayth for his short experience he likes very well. Mr. Godfrey whear he lives keeps a very good howes, and if wee will goe thither a hows with 3 chimnyes hee promiseth, if 2 of them blowe not downe this winter, which may be feared, being but the parsons howes. I am willing to make you smille but I wish him well and the work of the Lord to prosper in his hands. (5 Mass. Hist. Coll. i, 37.)
From this it may be inferred that Mr. Norcross began his work in the autumn of 1648, and the little glimpse of his surroundings given us in her chatty letter enables the visualizing of a picture of early conditions encountered by the ministry of pioneer days. He was the son of Jeremiah and Adrian ( ------ ) Norcross, born in London about 1618, and educated at Catherine Hall, Cambridge University, from which he was graduated in 1636. It is probable that he came to New England with his parents in 1638 to Watertown, where his father settled. The son had been settled as pastor at Nashaway (Lancaster), Mass., and Exeter, N. H. (in 1646), before coming to this town. It is not known how long, or rather how short was his stay, as no reference to him is found in any local record. He was here long enough to have his name recorded "Mr Nor- cross his marsh," probably describing the minister's marsh given by Godfrey to the town. It is fair to say that the frequent changes of ministers were due to the inability of those who came here to convert the people from their "superstitious waye" of adhering to the Church of Eng- land service and they left soon to spread the tale of "ungodliness," as excuses for their failures. Whither Mr. Norcross went from here is not known, probably to Eng- land, as he was in charge of the parish of Little Walsing- ham, County Norfolk, in 1654, and there his parents fol- lowed the next year.
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JOSEPH EMERSON
Joseph Emajon Of the ministerial situ- ation for the next few years there are no records to en- lighten us. No name has come down to us as the immediate successor to the late incumbent. From some fragmentary allusions it can be inferred that some sort of joint arrangement existed between Wells and this town by which services were main- tained, but not enough is available to reduce it to concrete terms in affirmation. The next minister to have the care of the church here was Rev. Joseph Emerson, but how soon he took charge cannot be stated. He was brought to New England when his parents emigrated, about 1637, when he was a boy of about sixteen years of age, and lived at Ipswich. The first knowledge we have of him is in 1653 at Wells, where he "submitted" to Massachusetts jurisdic- tion at the time of the Usurpation. He was then acting in a ministerial capacity in that town and it is believed shar- ing his time with York on a basis of division of salary. The loss of records of Wells and Kittery deprives us of any precise knowledge of such a reciprocal plan at this date, as was later adopted. Mr. Emerson continued at Wells and in 1664 a formal contract is of record whereby he was to receive £65 per annum, of which York was to pay a share. As far as known he lived in Wells and the arrangement was probably for alternation of Sabbath services in each place. A clause in the agreement was that he should have two pounds of butter for every cow, and it was charged that his wife would come for it, frequently, before it was churned.
During his joint incumbency he was the victim of the irruption of the Quaker crusaders in 1663, when they invaded Maine on their missionary tour of northern New England. As a full contemporary account of these events has come down to us from Quaker sources, it will be instructive to read what they say on the subject:
About twenty Miles from Oyster River, near the Sea-side, at Gorgeana sometimes called York, in the Province of Mayn, George Preston and Edward Wharton being and appointed there a Meeting of Friends. Priest Emerson and his wife endeavoured what they could with the Magistrates of that place, to hinder the Meeting, wherein they not being able to preveil, they came to the meeting-place before they were
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come together, and the Priest said, That George Preston was a Deceiver; and by the Scripture undertook to prove him so to be, if he had a Bible; which George Preston pulling out of his Pocket, and giving to him, he turned to that place, wherein the Apostle speaks of Meats and Marriages; which G. Preston being not concerned in, for he did neither, charged him with Lying, for that he had not proved him a Deceiver, neither was such a one as that Scripture said. The Priest's Wife demanded of him, where he lived? He answered In the Lord: That's Blasphemy, said the Priest, (What a heap is there of blockish Priests in the Country? One saith of the Three Persons in the Trinity, which he affirmed, These be Somethings. Another said, The Spirit was not his Rule and he hoped it never should.) And this (to add no more in this place) saith, Its Blasphemy; when Geo. Preston said, He lived in the Lord; whereas the Apostle saith, In him we live, move and have our being, (Acts 17, 28). Being baffled here, he fell on Edward Wharton, and said to him, That he might be ashamed to Travel up and down the Coun- try so as he did, whilst his wife and children starved for Bread; who had no Wife nor Child. And the Priest prest him again with the same thing; Edward advised him to take heed what he said: and told him, It was good Counsel. The Priest reply'd He could prove it; and that there- upon he affirmed it. Edward charged him with Lying, as he had done at first, when the Priest so said. You have had a Wife, said the Priest's wife, to help out her Husband. That's another Lye, reply'd Edward Wharton. Were you never married? said she who before affirmed that he had had a Wife. Not that I know of, reply'd Edward, for if I had been so, I should have known it. Thus the Priest and his wife, being made up of Lies and Falsehoods, and filled with Ignorance, made their endeavours to, but could not hinder the Meeting, nor accomplish the end which their Lies sought to effect. One of the Magistrates Deputy's was at the Meeting; and when the Meeting was over, his Wife fell to odds about Friends and their Meeting, the Deputy's Wife pleading for both. (Bishop, New England Judged, pp. 386-7.)
This detailed report of the "Meeting" held in York in the summer of 1663 had its aftermath in the Grand Jury pre- sentments brought in July 7, at the next term of Court, in which Mr. Emerson was the accused party, viz .:
We present Mr. Joseph Emerson for telling of a Ly
Witnesses Capt. Francis Raynes, Richard Bankes We present Mr. Joseph Emerson for telling of a Lye Witnesses Thomas Curtis, Hene: Sayward We present Mr. Jos. Emerson for speaking falsely Witnesses Ric: Whitte, Frances White
This was a rather formidable array of the leading citizens of York who were apparently voluntary witnesses against the minister, and possibly may indicate the sympathy of the people with these traveling Quakers. The people of Maine were never guilty of heresy hunting or religious persecution. From first to last they were tolerant of dif-
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ferences of belief, and whatever legal enactments of a repressive character were made in the Province followed the Usurpation of Massachusetts in 1652. The moral and political influences of that transition are responsible for any alteration for the worse in the liberal sentiments of the first generation of settlers in Maine. While Massachusetts bigots were passing laws calling the Quakers "a cursed sect of heretics" (Col. Laws, 121), and providing for their execution on the gallows and actually putting some to death, or cruelly flogging them from town to town, the spirit of toleration here in York is shown by the record just cited. Such an example as here quoted could find no duplicate in Massachusetts courts, wherein a minister was put on trial for slandering a Quaker! Nothing in the his- tory of the old Province of Maine, of which York was the chief town, is so much to its everlasting credit as its clean record of religious toleration, until the baleful influence of Massachusetts laws caused occasional lapses after their government had acquired control of our destinies. Yet this Province was never good soil for the transplantation of their sanguinary Mosaic code of laws, notwithstanding the pressure for such enactments.
This experience apparently had its effect upon the mind of Parson Emerson and the next year he departed hence for Massachusetts, going to Milton. He remained there about a year and left because an increase of salary was not voted on the occasion of his second marriage. He settled at Mendon as pastor in 1669, and died at Concord, Mass., January 3, 1681. At the date of these occurrences just related there was living in the town of Kittery, in a ministerial capacity, a clergyman destined to play an historical relation to this town. Rev. Shubael Dummer had come to Kittery some time before 1661, as preacher of God's Word, and like Mr. Emerson had his peace of mind disturbed by these "vagabond Quakers" as they were described in a writ of 1662. It will again be as well to let these "vagabonds" tell their story of the encounter. The particular persons involved were Ann Coleman, Mary Tomkins and Alice Ambrose who visited Maine and came
to a place called Newquechawanack, where they had a Meeting; and Shubal Dummer, the Priest of the Place was at the Meeting, who sat quiet; and the Meeting being ended he stood up and said: "Good woman, you have spoken well, and prayed well: Pray what is your Rule?
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The woman Reply'd, The Spirit of the Lord is our Rule, and it ought to be thine and all men's to walk by. To which the Priest answered It is not my Rule, nor I hope ever shall be. See the sad Condition of your Priests and Magistrates, and those who are led by them. One saith, The Three Persons in the Trinity are Three Somethings, and so flies away. Another saith, The Lamb's Book of Life, no Body here knows that Book. A third saith The Spirit of the Lord is not my Rule nor I hope it ever shall be. (Bishop, New England Judged, ii, 369.)
It is scarcely necessary to call attention to the differ- ence in treatment accorded to the Quakers by Emerson and Dummer, the one resorting to personal abuse and the other asking courteous questions, after the visitors had spoken. The doctrinal merits of the encounter need not be considered. It gives an insight into the character of Mr. Dummer which helps to explain the esteem in which he came to be held by the people of the town which he was soon to serve for nearly thirty years until a tragic death severed the ties of pastor and flock.
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