USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Portland > The history of Portland, from 1632 to 1864: with a notice of previous settlements, colonial grants, and changes of government in Maine > Part 34
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2 This was probably produced by the acceptance of the new house, and was the result of their threat.
3 The place where this "frame was set up," was near where the road which passes from the present meeting-house down to the bay, crosses Scitterygusset Creek : the first meeting-house at New Casco, was erected there, and continued to be the place of worship until the present house was built.
397
NEW CASCO PARISH.
suance of the second article it was voted "that the inhabitants on the eastward of Presumpscot river have their parish rates for this present year remitted to them so long as they have a minister to preach the gospel among them.". The next year a similar vote was passed, but this did not meet the wishes of the people in that part of the town, who had increased to a number sufficiently large to support a separate minister. In September, 1753, Nathaniel Noyes, Ichabod Clark, and fifty others, petitioned the General Court "to be set off as a distinct parish." The first parish assented to the prayer of the peti- tioners, and having amicably agreed upon the division line, an act of separation passed December 18, 1753.1 David Mitchell, who graduated at Harvard College in 1751, and Isaac Noles, . preached to the people of the new parish on probation, but at- tempts to settle them were unsuccessful. In 1756 John Wis- well, who had kept school in the first parish, and who had occasionally preached among them, was invited to become their pastor, and was ordained November 3d of that year.
In 1759 a movement was made for another dismemberment of the old stock in favor of a fourth or the Stroudwater par- ish. It was occasioned partly by an opposition which arose in the parish against the expensive projects then in agitation of procuring a bell, enlarging the meeting-house, and erecting the steeple ; and partly by a spirit of hostility to the "old par- ish," which began now to manifest itself, and which was after- ward more fully developed in the establishment of a new 4 society in the midst of the old one. That some persons had
lost their interest in Mr. Smith cannot be doubted, and many new settlers had come into town who were not attached to the
I The division line was as follows: "Beginning at the North Yarmouth line near the sea, and from thence running by the bay to Presumpscot river, and thence up said river as far as the westerly side of Mr. James Winslow's sixty acre lot of land on which his dwelling-house stands, and from thence to run a north-west line to the head of the township, including Macworth's Island, Clap- board Island, and Little Chebeag." The number of families within these lines at the time of the separation of the parish was sixty-two.
398
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
good old pastor by the associations of the past; the effect of these circumstances was apparent in an opposition to an in- crease of his salary, and in some attempts to procure another preacher. The separation of the Stroudwater parish which was urged by Samuel Waldo, although freely acceded to and the dividing lines established, did not take place at this time. And the opposition being unsuccessful in keeping down Mr. Smith's salary with a view probably to cause him to relinquish preaching, set on foot subscriptions in 1763 for a new meeting- house.1 In February, 1764, the subscribers met to arrange their future proceedings ; great excitement existed throughout the parish : there was also a difference of opinion among the opposition itself, which was carried to so great an extreme that two of the most respectable of the members quarreled and fought in the street. Mr. Smith significantly observes on this occasion, "a foundation for a church was thus laid-the pillars tremble !"2 It resulted however not only in dismem- berment of the parish, but in a separation of part of the peo- ple from the Congregational order and their formation into an Episcopalian society, the first which was ever organized upon the Neck.3 This was not effected in perfect harmony and ap- parently not in a pure zeal.
1 The good old man thus expressed the sadness of his feelings on this occa- sion-"1763, September 11, I have been discouraged about my enemies, they talk of a new meeting-house." Again, "November 24. * * and * * are sending about a subscription for a new meeting-house in favor of Mr. Wiswell."
2 Smith's Journal. These were one of the Waites and Brigadier Preble. The number of persons who subscribed for the new house in November, 1763, was forty-one, among whom, James Hope, the Waite family, and Brigadier Preble, were the principal members; James Hope died in 1765. His widow was living in Bristol, England, in 1777. She did not come to this country with her husband, who came from Devonshire in 1762. In his will made in 1765, she is not named. She caused it to be set aside. The affair produced great excitement in town .- See note to Smith's Journal, p. 210.
3 The vote for adopting the forms of the Church of England, was passed July 23, 1764.
399
FIRST PARISH.
The firm friends and supporters of the old parish, who were the elderly people, most of the old standards, and a majority of all who lived upon the Neck, in the hope of counteracting the spirit of disunion which was prevailing, and of strengthening the society in whose welfare they felt deeply interested, con- ceived the idea of associating with their aged and respected pastor, an able colleague, whose vigor and talents should sus- tain the drooping fortunes of their parish. Not having been successful at first on the abstract question of settling a col- league, some of Mr. Smith's friends procured Mr. Samuel Deane, then tutor at Cambridge, a young man of high repu- tation as a scholar and preacher, to come here. He preached several Sabbaths in May and June, 1764, and so well satisfied were the people with him, that in July the church invited him, by an unanimous vote, to settle among them as colleague with Mr. Smith, in which the parish concurred by a large majority.1
This measure however, so far from uniting the disjointed members of the society, produced a wider breach. The sub- scribers to the new meeting-house and the Stroudwater people made common cause in resisting the invitation to Mr. Deane, and when they found they could not succeed, their opposition took a more definite character, and within a week after the vote was adopted to call Mr. Deane, the one branch declared for the Church of England, and the other resolved to procure a separate minister for the fourth parish.2 They each carried their resolution into effect, and although the determination of the church people was sudden and somewhat unexpected, they executed their plans with great rapidity : as early as Septem- ber following, the corner stone of their house was laid and the building was completed the next season.3 In 1764 Mr. Wis-
1 The parish voted him one hundred and thirty three pounds six shillings and eight pence, lawful money, for a settlement, and one hundred pounds salary.
2 Smith's Journal.
3 The church was erected fifty feet long and 'twenty-nine high, on the corner of Church and Middle streets, where a brick block of two houses now stands; it was finished with a tower, in which a bell was placed. The following is a list
400
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
well of the New Casco parish, to whom the seceders from the old parish had for some time been paying court, suddenly left his people without the usual formalities, declared for the Church of England, and in August accepted a call from the new soci- ety to be their minister .! He preached in the town-house several Sabbaths, when in October he proceeded to England
1 "August 31, 1764. There is a sad uproar about Wiswell, who has declared for the church, and accepted of the call our churchmen have given him to be their minister."-Smith's Journal. They voted him one hundred pounds lawful money a year.
of persons who attended the church in 1765, and were taxed there :
Armstrong, Jonathan Green, John
Lawrence, Joshua
Bradbury, John
Green, Samuel
M'Curdey, Charles
Bagley, Benjamin
Green William
Mclellan, Robert
Bishop, George
Godson, Richard
McLellan, Joseph
Berry, Samuel
Gooding, Hannah
Motley, John
Baker, Josiah
Gage, Widow
Morse, Joseph
Cunningham, Patrick
Hustin, William
Mountfort, Edmund
Craft, Jonathan
Hanse, John
Mountfort, Samuel
Child, Thomas
Haden, John
Cobham, John
Ilsley, Daniel
Minot, John Newman, Michael
Cook, John
Knight, Benjamin
Osgood, Abram
Curwin, Nicholas
Kelley, Christopher
Owen, Samuel
Eldrige, Joshua Kent, John Eayre, Joshua Lumbar, Jedediah
Oulten, Anna
Fernald, Peletiah
Lowther, John
Page, Lemuel Purrinton, James
Preble, Jedediah Pool, Abijah
Sertain, John
Waterhouse, Jacob
Pettingil, Daniel
Sheperd, John
Waldo, Samuel
Proctor, Benjamin,
Sterling, Richard
Waldo, Francis
Pollow, Joseph Riggs, Josiah Riggs, Joseph Ross, James Rollin, Thomas Savage, Arthur Sawyer, Stephen
Thurlow, John Thomes, Morris Wiswel, William
Waters, Daniel Whitney, Moses Wells, Joseph Woodman, Stephen
Waite, Benjamin Waite, John, Jr. Waite, Stephen
Watts, Edward
Wyer, David
Wyer, Thomas
Swett, Joseph Waite, Isaac
Jenkins, Robert
Oxnard, Thomas
Cooper, Simon
Simmons
Waterhouse, William
Tuckfield, Thomas
401
EPISCOPAL SOCIETY.
to procure ordination, according to the established forms of the Episcopal church.1
1 The connection between Mr. Wiswell and the seceders, was produced by their going to hear him on Sunday, after they became disaffected toward the first parish. After Mr. Wiswell went to England, they used to go to Stroudwater to hear Mr. Browne. Mr. Wiswell returned in May, 1765. In July, 1766, he wrote to the society in England, for propagating the gospel, that his congrega- tion had increased to seventy families, who constantly attended public worship, together with a considerable number of strangers ; that from May, 1765, to July , 1766, he had baptized one adult and twenty-seven children, two of whom were blacks, and had twenty-one communicants .- Proc. of the Society, 1767. He re- ceived from this society twenty pounds as a missionary, the rest of his salary was made up by his people. As the law stood at that time, the seceders were obliged to pay taxes to the first parish, but by a vote of the parish in 1772, the amount raised upon the church people was regularly paid over to Mr. Wiswell. In 1770 it was seventy-one pounds seventeen shillings and two pence; 1771, eighty-five pounds fourteen shillings and three pence; 1772, eighty-one pounds one shilling and three pence; 1774, one hundred and nine pounds six shillings and nine pence. In 1765 there were fifty-eight churchmen included in the bills of the first parish, whose tax amounted to forty-three pounds seven shillings and ten pence. The first subscription for this new society was in the following words.
"Falmouth, November 4, 1763. Whereas the inhabitants on the Neck are be- come so numerous as to render it inconvenient to meet in one house for public worship, for the better accommodation of all the inhabitants, it is proposed to build another house for divine service between Major Freeman's and the house improved as a school-house. We therefore the underwritten, oblige ourseives, our heirs and assigns to pay the respective sums affixed to our names to the per- son or persons appointed to receive the money toward building a convenient meeting-house, Provided, 1st, Said meeting-house be made fit to meet in, at or bef. re the last Lord's Day in June, 1764. 2d, That the subscribers have the first choice of pews in this order, the largest subscriber choosing first. 3d, That if the Rev. John Wiswell, pastor of the third parish of this town, should leave his people, he be invited to settle as a minister in said meeting-house. John Waite, Jr., twenty-six pounds thirteen shillings and four pence; Benjamin Waite, forty pounds ; Daniel Ilsley, thirteen pounds six shillings and eight pence; Jedediah Preble, Jr., twenty pounds; Isaac Ilsley, in work, twenty pounds; Jonathan Ils- ley, in work, thirteen pounds ten shillings ; Jedediah Preble, thirty pounds ; John Motley, in work, ten pounds, and numerous others in various sums, as low as two pounds eight shillings. The Congregational form of worship was intended by the proprietors, but July 13, 1764, it was voted to adopt the Episcopal form of worship, and September 4, 1764, they gave the Rev. John Wiswell a call as
402
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
In March, 1765, the Stroudwater parish was incorporated, and on the 21st of August the Rev. Thomas Browne, who had been preaching there several months, was regularly installed.1
These events transpiring so rapidly and being of a singular character, produced, as may well be imagined in so small a community, the utmost excitement. But while they tended to occasion much unhappy feeling they knit the remaining friends of the first parish more closely together, so that the settlement of Mr. Deane which seemed to threaten a dissolu- tion of the society, gave to it more unity and strength. When Mr. Smith, who had now attained his sixty-third year, saw the bitter spirit of opposition fall harmless from his beloved peo- ple, and that they rallied around him and his colleague with more zeal and friendship than ever, his heart, which had drooped under the trials that had surrounded him, revived and swelled with joy. "A great day this !" exclaimed the good old man at the sight of a full meeting, notwithstanding Mr. Hooper of Boston, preached to the new church people. He rejoiced that his society still sustained itself, amidst the great divisions, and despite the unwearied efforts that had been made against it. The day at length arrived for the ordi- nation of Mr. Deane, and he was solemnly inducted into the
1 Mr. Browne graduated at Harvard College, 1752, and had been settled in Marshfield, from which he had lately been dismissed. He continued in the pas- toral charge over the church and society in Stroudwater until his death in 1797. The meeting-house now standing on the Capisic road, belonging to the fourth parish, was not built until 1774. Since that, the old meeting-house has under- gone an entire change.
follows, "We do invite you to accept the pastoral charge over us, and in order thereto, we desire you would, as soon as may be apply, to his lordship the Bishop, for ordination, to qualify you therefor ; and we do hereby promise to pay you one hundred pounds per annum, to commence at the time of your ordination."
May 6, 1765, James Hope was sent to Boston to get aid for the church.
403
FIRST PARISH-REV. MR. DEANE.
sacred office the 17th of October, 1764, in the presence of a vast collection of people.1
The church people felt severely the oppressive obligation which rested upon them, not only of supporting their own min- ister, but of contributing to the support of the ministers of the first parish. In 1765, when party zeal was at a high point, the first parish refused to excuse them from paying toward the set- tlement and salary of Mr. Deane, and in 1770 they preferred a petition to the General Court to authorize that parish to omit taxing them. The other party not consenting to this prayer it did not succeed; but in 1772 the collector was directed by the parish to pay back to those persons the amount he should collect of them deducting only the expense of collect- tion. In 1773 the amount raised by the parish was three hun- dred and sixty pounds lawful, of which the proportion assessed on those who attended the church, was eighty pounds or two- ninths of the whole. Both parties were at length desirous of procuring some relief to the members of the church from this legal obligation without a relative benefit, and in the latter year a committee of conference was selected from each party in a spirit of amity, which was willing to forget former asperi- ties and to remove existing difficulties. The conference re- sulted in a united petition to the General Court, which in pursuance of the application, exempted the members of the Episcopal Church from any further contribution to the first parish. Thus terminated an unhappy quarrel, which for sev- eral years had disturbed the peace of the inhabitants on the Neck, and had scattered the bitter fruits of dissension and
1 Rev. Mr. Adams prayed, Mr. Merriam preached, Mr. Morrill prayed, the sen- ior pastor gave the charge, Mr. Peter Smith the fellowship of the churches, and Mr. Woodward closed with prayer. Mr. Adams was probably the Rev. Amos, of Roxbury. Mr. Merriam was Jonas, of Newton. Peter Smith was of Wind- ham, son of the pastor. Mr. Morrill was from Biddeford, and Mr. Woodward from Weston.
404
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
division in its little neighborhood ; both societies now moved on in quietness to the eve of the revolution.1
At the time of the revolution, the only religious societies on the Neck were the First Parish and the Episcopal Church ; in the other parts of the territory of ancient Falmouth there were three flourishing churches with regularly ordained preachers, viz .: Mr. Clark and Mr. Browne, in the Purpooduck and Stroud- water parishes, and in New Casco, Rev. Ebenezer Williams, who had succeeded Mr Wiswell.2 Beside these, there was a society of Quakers, which held regular meetings according to the es- tablished usages of their sect.
The first meeting for worship which was set up by the Friends or Quakers in this State was in that part of Kittery now called Elliott, in 1730, and from the seed there sowed, they spread into different parts of the State.3 Some indication of their increase and of the serious alarm it occasioned, is given in the fact, that the first church in this town kept a fast in 1740, "on account of the spread of Quakerism," at which all the ministers in the western part of the State attended.4 In
1 The next year after the settlement of Mr. Deane, the singers who used to sit below, were moved into the gallery, and in 1769, the scriptures, at the request of the church, were read for the first time as part of the regular services of the Sabbath .- Deane's Diary. In 1756 twenty-five pounds were raised to purchase Tate and Brady's Psalm Book, with the tunes annexed.
2 Mr. Williams graduated at Harvard College, 1760, and was settled Novem- ber 6, 1765 ; he continued the faithful pastor of this flock until his death in 1799.
3 There had been two transient meetings prior to this, the first in York, De- cember, 1662, by three women who had been whipped and expelled from Dover, N. H., and soon after, another was held in Berwick.
4 July 30, 1740. "The church kept a day of fasting and prayer on account of the spread of Quakerism. Mr. Jeffrey and myself prayed A. M. Mr. Thompson preached. Mr. Allen and Mr Lord prayed, and Mr. Willard preached P. M."- Smith's Journal. Judge Sewall in his diary gives an account of the Hoegs of Newbury, who in 1711 became Quakers. In 1714 a fast was held in Newbury, on account of the spread of that "pestilent heresy."-Coffin. Descendants of these young Hoegs visited our town in 1830, and by their venerable appearance,
405
QUAKERS.
1742 a meeting was held in Berwick and the same year they appeared here, the singularity of their dress and manners which were more strongly marked than they are at present, attracting universal attention.1 In 1743 a few families in Falmouth had adopted the opinions of that sect and a meeting for worship was then first established in town. James Wins- low was the first of our inhabitants who joined that society. He came from Plymouth colony before 1728, and is the ances- tor of the numerous family which then as now lent a most im- portant support to the doctrines of that respectable people in this neighborhood. In August, 1743, Benjamin Ingersoll "de- sired to be taken under the care of the meeting," and in less than a year after, we find Nathan Winslow and Enoch Knight of Falmouth, members. In May, 1751, a monthly meeting was established for the Friends in Falmouth and Harpswell ; the male members of which were James Winslow, James God- dard and Benjamin Winslow of Falmouth, and Edward Estes, Thomas Jones, Ebenezer Pinkham, and Lemuel Jones from Harpswell.
Accessions were made continually to the society from among the people here, particularly from that part of Falmouth in which James Winslow resided ;? preachers from abroad occa- sionally visited and aroused the people, and some of their own members too were early stimulated with zeal to spread their
1 July, 1742, Mr. Smith says, "many strange Quakers in town."
2 James Winslow had a grant of land on' Fall-cove brook, at Back Cove, to erect a mill on, in 1728, but this falling within an ancient grant, he removed before 1743 northerly to the Presumpscot river, near where its course is turned southerly by Blackstrap Hill. He died respected, leaving a large posterity, in 1773. His children were Nathan, Benjamin, James, Job, two daughters, mar- ried Hatevil Hall and James Torrey, who all joined the society of Friends The privilege of Fall brook for a corn-mill, was voted to him in 1729.
and the unchanged simplicity of their dress, carried us back to the dark day when their ancestors took their lives in their hands and ventured all things for the faith, as they believed, once delivered to the saints.
406
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
religion. In 1759 certificates were granted to Patience Estes and John Douglass "to travel on truth's account," and in Aug- ust of the same year, Mary Curby from England, and Elizabeth Smith from West Jersey, came here as traveling preachers.
In 1768 a meeting-house was built by subscription near the Presumpscot river, in that part of the town which retains the ancient name, forty feet long and thirty-two feet wide, on the same spot where their first house, quite a small one, was erected in 1752.1 Previous to 1774, the Quakers had been required to pay taxes for the support of the ministry in the first parish ; but at the annual meeting in that year, perceiving the injus- tice of compelling persons to contribute to the support of a mode of worship from which they derived no benefit and of which their consciences did not approve, they passed the following vote : "Voted that the following professed Quakers, living within the bounds of the parish be exempted from par- ish rates the current year, viz: Benjamin Austin, Nathaniel Abbott, Samuel Estes, James Goddard, Benjamin Gould, Solo- mon Hanson, Robert Houston, Daniel Hall, Enoch Knight, John Knight, John Morrill, Stephen Morrill, Jacob Morrill, Elijah Pope, James Torrey, Ebenezer Winslow, Benjamin Wins- low, Job Winslow, William Winslow, Oliver Winslow, John Winslow, Samuel Winslow, and James Winslow."2 None of these persons lived within the present limits of Portland, and
The following names of the subscribers to the new house, will probably show all the adult males belonging to the society in this vicinity, viz: Benjamin Wins- low, Benjamin Ingersoll, Hatevil Hall, James Goddard, Enoch Knight, Stephen Morrill, Samuel Winslow, Nathaniel Hawkes, James Torrey, Job Winslow, Elijah Pope, John Robinson, Elisha Purington, Benjamin Winslow; Jr., David Purington, William Winslow, James Winslow, Nicholas Varney, Jacob Morrill, Elijah Han- son, Jonathan Hanson, Benjamin Austin, Daniel Hall, Peletiah Allen, William Hall, Nathan Winslow. Some of these lived in Windham.
2 A law was passed by Massachusetts, in 1757, exempting "Quakers and Ana- baptists who allege a scruple of conscience," from paying ministerial and parish taxes ; the necessity of the above vote of the parish we do not perceive unless it was to designate the exempts.
407
QUAKERS.
it was not until several years after the revolution that a suffi- cient number had gathered upon the Neck to constitute a sepa- rate meeting for worship.1 Liberty was first granted to them in 1790 by the monthly meeting, to hold a separate meeting for worship for five months to be held at the house of William Purington.2 The brick meeting-house of the society, corner of Federal and Pearl streets, was commenced in 1795, and finished in 1796 : it is two stories high and its dimensions are thirty-six feet by forty.
The branch of the society in this town, was permitted to hold but one meeting on Sunday until 1797, when the privi- lege was extended to two meetings: after the peace of 1783 it received many additions from other societies in this town and from other towns, including some of its most valuable mem- bers. During the revolutionary war and to the year 1800, there were several revivals in the society ; and during that pe- riod they were in the habit of openly declaring their senti- ments in the congregations of other christians : on a Sabbath in May, 1779, four Quakers attended meeting at the first par- ish, "sat with their hats on all the forenoon and then liar- rangued."3 David Sands a celebrated preacher of their order from New York, aroused attention in a high degree in favor of their principles ; in March, 1785, he preached in the Assem- bly room on the Neck to a crowded audience ; the Falmouth Gazette thus speaks of his performance : "He professed great candor to all who differed from him in religious sentiments ; delivered many true and important doctrines of the gospel, without mixing any of the sentiments peculiar to his sect ; he spoke severely against gaming and other fashionable amuse- ments." Perhaps that people never produced so much excite-
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