USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Gardiner > One hundredth anniversary of the diocese of Maine, 1820-1920, Christ church, Gardiner, Maine, May thirtieth to June third > Part 3
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Nearly one hundred and seventy years ago a corporation, known as the Plymouth Company, was formed to exploit the land upon the Ken- nebec River, and the leading spirit in the enterprise was its Moderator, Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, one of the best educated physicians in the United States, the fame of whose surgical operations still remains among medical historians. He settled in Boston, where in connection
F
Dr. Sylvester Gardiner
with his profession he carried on a large and profitable business in drugs and medical supplies.
In order to protect settlers from the ravages of the Indians, it was necessary to erect forts along the Kennebec River, and the Plymouth Company built a fort at Richmond in 1750, and in 1754 they constructed Fort Weston at Augusta, and Fort Halifax in Winslow.
The same year Dr. Gardiner acquired from the Company the land on both sides of the Kennebec, now embraced in the city of Gardiner and
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the towns of West Gardiner, Randolph, Pittston, and adjoining towns, then an unbroken wilderness; this territory was called Gardinerston. He was also instrumental in forming a settlement in Pownalboro, now Dresden, which was soon in a flourishing condition. Here a large build- ing was erected in 1761 for county purposes, which is still in a fine state of preservation, and in this church services were held until, mainly through the efforts of Dr. Gardiner, an Episcopal Church and parson- age were built in 1770.
Dr. Gardiner's was a strong personality; with wealth, good business judgment, and unbounded energy; one of the type which has always been prominently identified with the development of new countries, that of a man of vision, a natural explorer.
Imagine this country when Dr. Gardiner came into possession, with its forest extending to the river, its only occupants the roaming Indians. He subsequently acquired lands in other towns upon our river, until he had a vast domain of thousands of acres.
By liberal offers he induced settlers to locate here, and open up small farms. To protect them from the Indians, he erected a fort upon the site now occupied by the Universalist Church. He built a dam with the only saw-mill and grist-mill in this part of the country. Here settlers from miles around brought their corn to be milled, either carrying it on their backs through the lonely trails in the forest, or bringing it in their rude dugout canoes on the waterways of the two rivers which met at this place.
An ardent Churchman, he began, in 1771, the erection of a church which stood upon the spot now occupied by the parish house; and before it was finished services were held there, August 13, 1772, by the Rev. Jacob Bailey, a missionary located at Pownalboro. On this occa- sion eighty persons were present. The church was described as a small square building, furnished with arched windows, and a slender spire crowned by a glittering gilt vane in the form of a sturgeon, emblematic of the fish so abundant in our rivers. This vane was a present from Dr. Gardiner's son, William, who resided here.
The Rev. Jacob Bailey was an important factor in the Church at this early period, and deserves more than a passing notice. He was born in 1731, upon a rocky and barren farm in the town of Rowley, Massachu-
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setts. His parents were in a humble station in life, and unable to give him an education, but through the efforts of the Congregational cler- gyman at that place, funds were secured which enabled him to attend Harvard College, where he graduated in 1755. He was a classmate of
Christ Church, Gardiner
John Adams, our second President, with whom he corresponded for several years.
Following the custom of those days, on account of the poverty of his father and his low social standing, his name was last upon the roll of his class. He decided to become an Episcopal clergyman, and in Jan- uary, 1760, he went to England and received orders from the Bishop of London. He obtained an appointment as missionary to America, and part of his salary was advanced on an order signed by the king. In his journal this humble clergyman thus describes a dinner with the Bishop of London: " We had ten servants to attend twenty-one of us, and were served with twenty-four different dishes, dressed in such an
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elegant manner that many of us could scarce eat a mouthful. The drinking vessels were either of glass or solid gold."
He came back to America, and on July 1, 1760, he arrived at Pow- nalboro to assume his duties as missionary under the employment of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, with a salary of fifty pounds per annum, an amount, he says, beyond his most sanguine expectations. So far as we can learn, he was the only clergyman to officiate in Gardiner in those early days.
House of the Good Shepherd
In his diary he speaks of his visits to the Church at Cobbossee, as this region was then called. In an extract from a letter to Dr. Gardiner in 1763, before any church was built, he says, " As to Cobbossee I am sorry to find some of the greatest bigots there in the land against the Church of England. I was lately among them to preach a lecture, but the people excused themselves from attending, and desired that I would visit them on a Sunday. I, however, preached at Captain Howard's, Fort Weston, [Augusta,] and had a considerable congregation of the upper settlers."
At times travel between Dresden and Gardiner was nearly impos- sible. The missionary tells of a trip made just after a tremendous storm had swept over the country: "Fallen tree trunks and swollen streams had rendered the rude foot-track well nigh impassable, and it was not
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until ten o'clock at night that I succeeded in reaching Gardinerston. The next morning I preached to a congregation of one hundred and four, and took up a collection of eight pounds and five shillings." We should call that a fair collection on ordinary occasions even in these days.
Mr. Bailey's life was full of care and trouble. Upon the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, he remained loyal to England. On this ac- count he and his family were subjected to much hardship. They were frequently without sufficient food; he was mobbed, was in hiding many times to save his life, and the story of his sufferings reminds one of the lives of the martyrs. Finally, almost destitute of clothing, he escaped with his wife and infant by a small sailing vessel to Halifax. They set- tled at Annapolis, Nova Scotia. Although greatly desiring to visit the scene of his early labors, he never was able to return to this country.
Dr. Gardiner named the church he erected in Gardinerston, St. Ann's in honor of his eldest daughter, and he built a parsonage for the clergyman near the site of the present home of Josiah S. Maxcy, on Dresden Avenue. It is likely that a bell hung in the spire of the church, for at the Easter parish meeting, in 1773, of King's Chapel, Boston, it was voted, "that the old bell with the appurtenances be given to St. Ann's Church, Gardinerston."
Immediately preceding the Revolutionary War, the unsettled con- dition of the country prevented the finishing of the church. Dr. Gar- diner, in common with many other prominent people, remained loyal to the Government. When the British troops evacuated Boston, he sailed with them to Halifax and subsequently went to England, where he re- mained until after the close of the war. Later he returned to this coun- try and became one of the leading citizens of Newport, Rhode Island. He died there in 1786, and so great was the respect paid to his memory that, on the day of his funeral, the business houses of the city were closed and the shipping in the harbor was draped.
Although he had not again visited his possessions in Maine, he di- rected in his will that his heirs should finish the church and also pay the sum of twenty-eight pounds sterling annually to its minister. His Cobbossee Contee Tract was pledged to the payment of this trust. Following the English custom, he stipulated that the minister must
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be approved by his heir and by a majority of the parishioners. If the greater part of the parish objected to the candidate presented by the Gardiner heir, he could present a second person; if this one likewise failed to please, a third, "who should be inducted, any opposition not- withstanding." This provision was never insisted upon or carried out by his heirs.
Dr. Gardiner left also ten acres of land for a glebe,-to include his parsonage house, -and "his whole library to be used by the clergy, Epis- copalian and Dissenting, and by the Physicians living within fifteen miles east and west of the Kennebec River, and twenty miles north or south from the Church." During the war the library was lost or stolen, so the community never benefited by his gift.
Gardinerston was at first a plantation, but the inhabitants, desiring a town government, applied to the General Courtof Massachusetts, which granted them a charter, February 4, 1779, under the name of Pittston. St. Ann's Church seems to have been the only available place for public gatherings, as nearly all the town meetings of Pittston were held in that building.
Each year a sum of money, required by Massachusetts laws, was voted for preaching, and in the Pittston records we find this vote: "Twenty pounds in addition to sixty pounds previously voted to hire a person to keep school and preach for nine months." Evidently at this time the town took charge of the preaching, but later sums were raised each year and turned over to the parish toward the support of their own minister.
In 1791, in the call for a town meeting in Pittston, an article was inserted, - "'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, etc." After due consideration it was voted, -" Not to hear him at all."
In the parish records is a statement signed by the clerk which says: "The Rev. Joseph Warren commenced preaching in St. Ann's Church, Pittston, about the first of September, 1791, and dissolved his connec- tion with said Church on the 20th of July, 1796." Evidently the town had relented, and the Rev. Joseph Warren has the distinction of being the first settled clergyman on record in this parish, or in this city.
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Up to this time St. Ann's Church was not an incorporated body, the building being the property of Dr. Gardiner and his heirs. March 28, 1793, thirty-five citizens of Pittston became, by an act of the Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts, incorporated into a parish by the name of "The Episcopalian Society in Pittston;" and its first meeting was held June 1, 1793. Some of the incorporators were those whose names have been familiar in this community. The most prominent was General Henry Dearborn. When Arnold sailed up the Kennebec River on his disastrous trip to Quebec, in 1775, General Dearborn, then a young man, accompanied him. He was so struck with the beauty of this place that he returned at the close of the Revolutionary War, built a home here, and became our leading citizen. During the trying days when there were discordant elements in the community, he was a tower of strength. Jefferson made him Secretary of War, and Madison, in 1812, appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army. He was one of the first vestrymen of this Church.
Major Seth Gay, another of the original vestrymen, was one of the leading citizens of the town, and was its postmaster for twenty-six years. His descendants have been and still are communicants of the Church, and his great-grandson is a member of the present vestry. The other vestryman and the moderator of this first parish meeting, Jedidiah Jewett, was active in the political and religious affairs of the town and served five terms as representative to the General Court of Massachu- setts. He was a nephew and namesake of the minister who assisted Mis- sionary Bailey to obtain his college education.
Other names prominent in the affairs of this city are Bradstreet, Grant, Gay, Berry, Kimball, Byram, Parker, and Moore. Nathaniel Berry was one of Washington's Life Guards. Showing the changes wrought by time, many of the incorporators' names are now not even known in our city.
At the first parish meeting they voted, "that the pews in the Church should be arranged into classes numbered and taxed. That the first class should be taxed at four pence a Sunday, the second class at three pence a Sunday, and the third class at two pence a Sunday, and the proprie- tors of the pews should pay accordingly."
The little church building was never entirely finished, and workmen
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were engaged upon it when, on the 22d of August, 1793, one of the earliest settlers of the town, an old Revolutionary soldier who had be- come deranged, fancied that the Lord had ordered him in expiation of his sins to make a burnt offering of the church and kill its minister. On
St. Ann's Church, Gardiner: Second Building
that day, carrying some live coals in a baby's shoe from his home, he crept into the church unnoticed, deposited them among the shavings, and the little structure was soon completely destroyed. He intended also to kill the rector, the Rev. Joseph Warren, who boarded at General Dearborn's, but, fearing the General, he took as a substitute for his sac- rifice a woman bearing the same name as the rector. He called at her home, but found she had gone up the Cobbossee stream to visit her sick mother. He followed in his canoe, found her at the home of her mother, and before he could be prevented, snatched a knife from a table and cut the throat of Mrs. Warren from ear to ear.
The undaunted Churchmen called a meeting six days later at the dwelling of General Dearborn and voted, "to build another Church fifty feet in length, thirty-five in width, and the posts fifteen feet long, with a porch or belfry twelve feet square. No steeple."
That fall they began the erection of the building, and the next summer the new St. Ann's Church, though not entirely finished, was occupied.
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The funds were furnished through the legacy of Dr. Gardiner, with the aid of the townspeople and offerings of parishes in Boston, Newbury- port, and Salem. The building was very plain inside and out. There was but one aisle, with two rows of high pews, each furnished with a door, a plain reading desk, and a pulpit of the old-fashioned style, with wind- ing steps. In those days there were no stoves for heating churches, but a potash-kettle did duty instead.
In April, 1794, the Rev. Joseph Warren again assumed his position as rector, which had been so tragically interrupted. He was given the loose contributions of money in addition to a salary of seventy-two pounds, and he was promised, if he should marry, an additional salary of eighteen pounds.
It is interesting to read the Church records of one hundred and thirty years ago. Next to the discussion concerning the minister and his salary, the sexton received the most attention. Nearly every year the office of sexton was put up at auction and bid off for from $10 to $11.50 or $12 a year. Twice they were obliged to throw in the use of half a pew with the salary. Among the sextons were some of the most prominent men of the town.
One year the parish voted, "to accept the minister as long as he and they could agree." Another year they voted, "that the minister should receive his stipulated salary until three-fifths of the Society are opposed to him and he could not dissolve his ministerial connection without the approbation of a majority of the members, or until six months after he had notified said Society of his wish or intention to leave and they should consider such notice to be expedient or beneficial to them."
A few years later the minister desired to accept a call to another State and addressed a touching letter to the parish, giving as his reason his state of health, and adding,"with this single object in view, I am prepared to meet the distress of dissolving a most amiable and interest- ing connection; to incur the unnamed censures to which such a trans- action never fails to give occasion; and especially to become the object of the taunts and abusive maledictions of the fanatical, but wicked, pretenders to superior goodness; from whose calumnies, the purest motives, and the most upright behavior, form no security." This touch- ing appeal brought this vote: " His dismission, agreeably to his request."
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At a meeting held June 5, 1802, they voted, "that this Society adopt the Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church as established in the United States of America, and that their parochial proceedings be at all times regulated agreeably thereto."
At that time, being without a rector, they " employed a reader at $3.50 per week, including his boarding."
Another year they voted " a salary to their minister of $330 and the use of a dwelling, or $360 without the use of a dwelling, at the future option of the Society."
By the will of Dr. Gardiner nearly all of his estate went to his son, William, and at his death, which occurred a year after the Doctor's, it descended to his grandson, Robert Hallowell, the son of his second daughter. This young lad was but four years of age at the death of Dr. Gardiner, and, as the property was entailed, nothing was done to pro- tect it. Robert Hallowell became of age in 1803, when he assumed the name of Gardiner ; and from that date the name of Robert Hallowell Gardiner has been an honored one in our city. Five of the descendants of Dr. Gardiner in direct line have borne that name.
In that year, by act of the legislature, that part of Pittston west of the Kennebec River became the town of Gardiner. Although the legal title of the parish was the "Episcopalian Society of Pittston," after the town west of the river was incorporated as Gardiner, the Church records immediately changed the name to the "Episcopal Society of Gardiner."
By act of the General Court of Massachusetts, passed February 28, 1807, the name was legally changed to the " Episcopal Society of Gar- diner," but no mention is made of it in the records.
When, in 1803, Robert Hallowell Gardiner, who had been in delicate health from childhood, came to this place, he faced a situation that might have daunted a much older and stronger man.
The town at that time was in a chaotic condition. For over twenty years the entailed land had not been open to purchasers, so that only eleven settlers had valid titles to their homes, while eighty-six were squatters, a disagreeable and unsatisfactory community. Mills, dam, wharves, and buildings were in a dilapidated condition. No carriage road led into the town, but all connection with the outside world was
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THE DIOCESE OF MAINE
by water and bridle paths. Even the clearings were scattered, and the forest came nearly to the church doors.
He built new dams, mills, and wharves, and aided practically every business enterprise which started in our community. From that time on
Robert Hallowell Gardiner, 1782-1864
he was the prominent man of our town and one of the influential men of our State.
To encourage thrift, he founded our Savings Institution, the second oldest in the State, and was its President until his death. He built the Gardiner Lyeeum, the first technical school in the country, subscribed liberally to the building of steamboats, aided the railroad which came to our city, and was our first mayor. His literary ability was of the highest,
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and for several years he held the office of President of the Maine His- torical Society. In 1804 he became a member of the Episcopal Church, at which time he presented St. Ann's with a silver Communion service ; in 1809. at the age of twenty-seven, he became a vestryman and three years later senior warden, filling one of these positions each year until his death, a period of fifty-five years. From the time he became a mem- ber of the vestry he largely assumed the care and responsibility of the Church. He was the second person chosen a delegate to the Diocesan Convention from this parish, being first elected in 1810. With the organ- ization of the Diocese in this State in 1820, he was elected a delegate to the General Convention, and he was reelected each session while he lived. From 1820 to the present, he, or his namesakes, son or grandson, have been elected to every General Convention, except four, and at several he was a delegate from Maine and his eldest son from Georgia.
Mr. Gardiner left a journal which gives us much of the history of this Church. His account of its affairs and its ministers from 1793 to 1847 has been published, together with Miss Gilmore's admirable and full description of the parish from its beginning to 1893.
Mr. Gardiner tells how in the early days when his church was closed he attended another ; and, as no doubt others have done, he speculated whether worship could be beneficial conducted by a minister whose man- ner and matter were uninteresting, with little to engage the mind or the affections; but he concluded "that upon the whole it was at least useful. The people collected with clean faces and clean clothes. They sat still and were serious, they heard scraps of Scripture, they sang hymns, many of them of an elevating character, and if their thoughts were not raised by the preacher to the contemplation of the attributes of their Creator and Redeemer, they yet received some vague notions of worship due to an invisible God." These were the impressions of over a hundred years ago.
In 1809 the Episcopal Church in this country was in a very depressed condition. The political preference of its ministers for the Mother Coun- try, where many had been educated and all had received their commis- sions to preach the gospel, had produced a strong prejudice against it. Thus there were few candidates for the ministry ; and from 1809 to 1817 there were no Episcopal clergymen in the State. This parish, despair- ing of finding one, engaged a minister of another denomination, and
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the Bishop was requested to admit him to orders. "Though well-inten- tioned he proved to be a very ordinary man with a large family of rude, ungoverned children, not sufficiently under control to enter the house of God with decency." As the parish did not increase under his ministry, he was soon notified that his connection with itwould cease. At that time there were probably only seven or eight communicants in the Church.
For many years, whenever they were without a clergyman, Mr. Gar- diner conducted the service himself. In 1816 he organized a Sunday- school for the instruction of youth ; and for many years he was its super- intendent. It was one of the first in New England, and for many years the only one in this State.
During the years spent without a clergyman, the funds raised, together with the legacy of Dr. Gardiner, were used for the erection of a new parsonage, the old one having fallen into decay; and the dwelling now owned by Judge Spear on Dresden Avenue was built and later used as one. Several years afterward this was sold, and a dwelling which then stood opposite the house of Henry Richards was purchased and occu- pied as a parsonage ; but, being inadequate for that purpose, it was dis- posed of, and the present parsonage in its very desirable location was purchased, largely through the generosity of one of the liberal-hearted women parishioners.
In November, 1817, the Rev. Mr. Olney became the rector ; and soon the little building became so crowded that the parish voted to build a larger church. Plans were drawn by the Rev. Samuel Jarvis, of New York, which were modified by reducing their measurements ten feet in length and six feet in width. On November 30, 1818, a contract was entered into with Robert Hallowell Gardiner to build the church, and he presented the parish with the lot on which the church stands.
At this time the question arose whether the legacy of Dr. Gardiner to St. Ann's Church could legally be claimed by the Episcopal Society of Gardiner, and to settle the question an act was passed by the Massa- chusetts General Court, June 19, 1819, which reads: "The name of the Episcopal Church in the town of Gardiner, heretofore known by the name or style of St. Ann's Church or otherwise Episcopal Society of Gardiner, shall cease, and shall be called and known as Christ's Church."
One hundred and one years ago to-day, on Monday afternoon, May
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31, 1819, the cornerstone of the present building was laid. Appropriate religious services were held in the old church, and then the clergy, sing- ers, and congregation, together with members of the Supreme Judicial
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