USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 25
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Miss Annie Woodman Stocking, daughter of Rev. William R. Stocking and Isabella Coffin Baker, left Williamstown for Teheran in the summer of 1906 as a missionary of the Presbyterian Board. Her mother was en- gaged in missionary work when she met and married Mr. Stocking. Shortly before her death she expressed a wish that one of her children might take up and carry on the work which failing health denied her. Her youngest daughter, a graduate of Wellesley College in 1902, was the one to fulfill her mother's cherished ambition.
In becoming a missionary Annie Woodman Stocking followed not only in the footsteps of her mother, but along the pilgrimage of her father and grandfather as well, for their lives, too, had been devoted to work in the foreign field.
Martha Grover, the daughter of John and Eliza Grover, was born at Birch Point in the south part of the town of Wiscasset. In August, 1901, she married Jewell B. Knight, who had received a special appointment by the American Board of Missions to make a study of famine conditions in India and the best means of preventing them. Funds to finance this project had been given the Board for this particular work by a donor who died eighteen months after Mr. and Mrs. Knight had arrived in Bombay, but whose heirs did not see fit to continue the undertaking. Meanwhile, the offi- cials of the Indian Government had inspected the work and when the origi- nal funds were exhausted, the Knights left the Mission and took up a simi- lar line of work under the government of Bombay. Later Jewell B. Knight was appointed President of one of the government colleges, in which serv- ice he remained until 1924, when, having reached the age fixed by the regu- lations for retirement from Indian Government Service, they returned to the United States and are now living in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts.
Lena Mae Dickinson, the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Mckown) Dickinson, was born in Wiscasset, June 12, 1880. She was received into the First Parish Church (Congregational) of this town in 1909. Ten years later, August, 1919, she was sent by the American Board of Foreign Mis- sions to Stambul to teach in the Gedik Pasha School. Her work in this school was inter-denominational among the Turks, Armenians and others, for this cosmopolitan city of minarets and domes is not only the seat of the Patri- arch, who is the spiritual, as well as in part the temporal, head of the Greek
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subjects of the Sublime Porte, but it is likewise the residence of an Arme- nian Patriarch, and there are several Roman Catholic and Protestant places of worship, besides its three hundred mosques.
The charities of Constantinople include imarets where food is distributed to the poor, with hospitals and lazzaretti for the sick of all the countries of Europe.
Lena Dickinson remained there for three years when she came home on a furlough in 1922. Owing to the impaired condition of her health, her fam- ily refused to give their consent to further missionary work, so she never returned to the Golden Horn. She died in Wiscasset, August 16, 1926.
Edith C. Boynton, Mt. Holyoke College, B. A. 1906, is the daughter of John Henry Boynton of the Birch Point family of that name.
She went to Amoy, China, December, 1915, under the Reformed Church in America and returned on a furlough in 1922. She was in Peking, China, as registrar and treasurer of Yenching College for Women, affiliated with Yenching University (a union Mission university for Chinese) for three years and a half, beginning January, 1926.
She was librarian of the College of Chinese Studies in Peking, a school for foreigners wishing to study the language and culture of China, for three years, 1929-1932. She was in Peking when the various warlords took over and left, until the Nationalists, still in control, came in.
Several years ago Miss Boynton bought a Chinese "daughter" from her father, when the child was but twelve years old, for $80 in local currency. The parent wanted money wherewith to obtain another wife, his first one having died. The girl, Sun-an, is now a trained nurse and working in an Amoy hospital.
Among Miss Boynton's many exciting experiences in China occurred a thrilling adventure when she was leaving that country in the fall of 1932. The vessel, the Helikon, on which she embarked from Hongkong to Saigon, being about six hours out of the former port, was seized by Chinese pirates who had shipped on the Helikon as passengers.
There were on board some rich native merchants whom these pirates pro- ceeded to kidnap, and on taking control of the ship, headed her northward towards their lair near the Hie-che-chin Bay. Two of the Chinese merchants jumped overboard and drowned themselves rather than submit to the pros- pective torture by their countrymen and impoverish their families through
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ransom demands. After the remaining Chinese had been taken off in a sam- pan, the pirates abandoned the vessel, which under its original crew pro- ceeded, after a further delay by a typhoon, on its way to Saigon in safety.
All of the English and American passengers had been subjected to search, but owing to the proximity of a British gunboat, then doing patrol duty off the mouth of the Yangstze, they were allowed to go without further moles- tation.
Arrived at Saigon, Miss Boynton went overland to Angkor and Bangkok, thence to India and homeward.
Ruth Dunwoody Bailey, daughter of Dr. Bernard Andrew and Louise Isabel (Dunwoody) Bailey, was born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1898. She graduated from Simmons College, Boston, in 1920. She professed re- ligion in 1921 (being a convert of Lawrence B. Greenwood), at Wiscasset. The following year she went to the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. On September 10, 1924, Ruth Dunwoody Bailey married Ellis P. Skofield of Portland, Maine.
In March, 1929, they went together to Manila and other places in the Philippine Islands for a year, after which they returned to the United States. In 1932, the Association of Baptists for Evangelism in the Orient, purchased the Japanese ship, Fukuin (in Japanese this word signifies "good news," i. e. "glad tidings") and sent them to Palawan Island and the Sulu Sea to carry the Gospel message to places where it had never before pene- trated. The Fukuin, in charge of Captain Bickels, had been previously em- ployed by the Baptists, spreading the Gospel along the Inland Sea of Japan.
While the vast majority of civilized Filipinos are Roman Catholics, some of the advanced thinkers are showing a marked preference for other forms of Christianity. In the southwestern group, the Sulu Archipelago, the in- habitants are Mohammedans. There the presence of polygamy and a mild form of slavery are two of the problems with which the missionaries have to cope.
Among the many who have evinced a deep interest in the work of the Skofields was no less a personage than the Dian-dian of Sulu, the sister of the Sultan of Sulu, who spent three days with them on board of the Fukuin.
Captain and Mrs. Skofield have three children all of whom were born in the United States.
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Church History
The Methodist Episcopal Church of Wiscasset
A conference of Methodist ministers of New England was held at Lynn, Massachusetts, in September, 1793, at which eight clergymen were present, among whom was Jesse Lee, who came from Virginia to Boston and intro- duced Methodism into the District of Maine. He entered at once upon his duties and traveling on horseback, preached at different places along his route.30 He carried a Bible and hymn book in his saddle-bags along with his personal necessities. Although his eloquent sermons and melodious choral singing drew crowds as he preached in the vicinity of this town there was nothing of Methodism worthy of note in Wiscasset until 1818, when a class was formed by a few earnest members who then laid the foundation of a lasting society.
Just at the time when the class was formed in this town, the doctrines of Wesley and Calvin were hotly contested and convictions were tenaciously if not acrimoniously held. Congregationalism, both here and in the west par- ish, was slipping, and the adherents of John Wesley were gaining ground.
Several of the members of the First Parish Church of Wiscasset who had strayed from the fold had already identified themselves with other denom- inations, and a number of them joined either the Methodist or Baptist churches, both of which societies were then being formed.
The beginning of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Wiscasset is de- scribed in the original church records as follows:
About the year 1818 a few members of the M. E. Church moved into Wiscasset and laid the foundation of a prosperous society in prayers and tears. But few additions were made to their number for several years. Still they persevered in their religious duties with primitive zeal, uniformly observing the peculiar usages of the church, as far as their situation would admit of it.
Among the early additions made to this, these obscure and despised company of Spiritual Christians, was a young man by the name of MOSES DONNELL. "The Lord of the harvest" early filled him with "faith and with the Holy Ghost", and thrust him into His vineyard. . .. . In 1826 he was Licensed a Local Preacher, and was after this, an honored instrument of great good to this yet feeble society. . ..
In 1828 one of the most powerful and extensive revivals of Religion took place here ever known in this section; in fact it may be doubted whether there has been one in New England of greater spirituality since the first organization of the Church on the
30. It was said that "Methodism came to Maine on horseback, brought hither by a 250 pound purveyor," for Jesse Lee was a ponderous man.
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soil of the Puritans. Before it commenced this little society of the Apostolic stamp, like those Deciples who "waited for the promise of the Father" continued long in fervent prayer for the "Baptism of the Holy Ghost." God heard their prayer; and in their little social meetings this great work commenced, and Brother Donnell though con- stitutionally a very diffident man and without much school education, labored very effi- ciently in the village. In connection with him Rev. David Young and his brother John were very useful in promoting this work of God. Rev. Mr. Drew of Skowhegan, a local preacher and full of zeal, likewise, did efficient service in this revival. These serv- ants of God, were the principal agents in promoting this work of Grace, though many others were likewise honored. They spake with authority in demonstration of the Spirit; and by the Grace of God they silenced the Scoffers, who, at first, went to ridicule them. The Bible truths they preached, the spiritual exhortations they gave, the faith- ful warnings they fearlessly uttered, and the fervent prayers they offered were so un- like anything the people here had ever heard, and were so attended to their hearts by the Holy Ghost that the entire place was sensibly shaken with the power of God. The voices of old and young, the rich and poor, the saint and sinner all mingled at times, in the cry for mercy, and many were brought out of the darkness into the marvelous light of the Gospel.
The Great Revival of this town in which all of the churches joined seems rather to have had the effect of dividing than uniting them after the emo- tional agitation subsided.
The Methodist meeting-house was enlarged in 1858, at which time the belfry was added, made from a design by Alexander Johnston, Esq. Under the date of February 19, 1877, in his diary we find "New Methodist bell was placed in the tower today. Pealed its first note at 3 hr. 10 m. P. M." It is made of steel and weighs thirteen hundred pounds.
In 1907 Capt. William Henry Clark, of the G. A. R., presented the town of Wiscasset, his birthplace and lifelong home, a clock which was placed in the bell tower of the Methodist Church.
The Baptist Church
During the latter part of the seventeenth century it is probable that the Episcopal denomination was the largest one in the state. A hundred and fifty years later, in 1832, the church census showed that the Calvinist Bap- tists were the most numerous denomination in the United States. The num- ber of ministers then belonging to that sect was 2,914.
The Baptists began their work in Maine as early as 1682, when William
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Church History
Screven, an Englishman, was ordained in Boston, and went to Kittery, where he attempted to organize a church. Being an upright man, a talented and eloquent preacher, he made many converts whom he baptized by im- mersion. As the movement grew he was summoned before the magistrates and charged with preaching without proper authority. He was fined £Io and forbidden to preach or hold religious services. Notwithstanding this mandate of temporal power, Mr. Screven established a church of eight members and with them emigrated to the Cooper River, near Charleston, South Carolina, in September, 1682. As far as is known this is the one in- stance of religious intolerance attributable to the government of the Prov- ince of Maine.31
A century later Hezekiah Smith founded the first Baptist Church in Maine and organized churches in Gorham and Berwick. An association of churches was formed in Bowdoinham in 1787, and a college established in Waterville in 1820. There are now four Baptist preparatory schools, Hebron, Coburn, Higgins and Ricker. The Baptist and Freewill Baptist churches were united, and became one church in 1915, under the presidency of Gov. Carl E. Milliken, himself a member of the Free Baptist Church. They have 33,647 members and 400 churches.82
The advent of the Baptist denomination in Wiscasset occurred at the time of the reorganization of the First Parish Church, when the reunion of the First and Second Religious Societies was attempted. Some of the irrecon- cilables joined the Calvinists, who for a time formed a strong body in this locality.
The cornerstone of the first and only Baptist Church in Wiscasset was laid June 3, 1822. The church building was raised June fourth and fifth: it was dedicated March 20, 1823.33
This church, according to its early records, was called the Calvinistic Bap- tist Church of Christ in Wiscasset. Its records show furthermore that "The preaching under which this church was gathered commenced statedly in this town on the first Lord's Day of February, 1821. The last Lord's Day in April the first candidates were baptised."
31. Williamson, I, 570.
The parish of Prince George, Winyah (Georgetown, South Carolina), is the outgrowth of St. James, Santee. The land on which the Episcopal Church in Georgetown stands was donated by Rev. William Screven, the first Baptist minister to go to South Carolina.
32. The Maine Book, p. 195.
33. Diary of William Greenleaf.
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
The church was formed by Adam Wilson and organized by Elder Houghton and Elder Pilsbury. The first sermon was preached by Elder Silas Stearns of Bath. Among the pastors were: Adam Wilson, William Morse, John M. Bailey, W. Glover, Abiel Wood, J. C. Morrill, David Nutter. The clerks were William Greenleaf, George Augustus Starr, T. B. Robinson, Thomas Brintnall, Abiel Wood, Jr., Zenas Hall, J. C. Morrill, who was assistant clerk, and William Beals.
Among the few entries made during the short period of its existence we find the following:
July 10th, 1824 .- Received Mrs. Mary Scott as a member of this church.
October 15 .- Nancy Chaney was bubtised and added to this church.
Jan. 24, 1841 .- Eliza Wood was detained by her guardian from embracing baptism on account of the cold.
The first Sabbath School in town was started by Catherine Light and Mary Scott (Polly Thaxter) in the house on Middle Street now owned by William Southard.34
Heterodoxy appears to have arisen and threatened the Baptist Church, for we find under the date of July 31, 1841-"Met at the vestry and voted that Brethren, J. C. Morrill, William H. Holmes, William Greenleaf and William Bragdon be a Committee to revise the Articles of Faith and Cove- nant of this Church and report at the next meeting." This was done and ten Articles of the Faith appear followed by the Covenant. It was also "Voted -As a rule of the Church, that the use of Ardent Spirit as a beverage is inconsistent with a public profession of the Christian Religion." This re- vision seems to have been, however, a superfluous attempt at reconciliation, for it failed to quell the dissension which was at that time agitating the Antipædobaptists of Wiscasset, and after a brief but perturbed period of existence the doctrine of predestination and free grace was no more heard from its pulpit.
The Calvinist Baptist Church closed its doors in the month of June in the year 1843. Many of its members had already united with the Congrega- tional or First Parish Church of Wiscasset, while others joined their breth- ren of the Freewill denomination just across the town line in Woolwich, which church had been founded sixty-two years previously, by Rev. Ben- jamin Randall.
34. Statement of Mary Catherine Boyd, the daughter of Catherine Light.
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Church History
St. Philip's Episcopal Church
The original settlers in New England, particularly those who founded the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies, were those who had refused to conform to the rites and tenets of the Church of England. These dissenters very naturally chose for their sanctuaries a form of worship which differed materially from that of the Anglican Catholic Church.
Between the years 1760 and 1770, a church building was erected by pub- lic subscription, raised principally among the loyalist faction of the Proprie- tors of the Kennebec Purchase. This was St. John's, the first Episcopal Church in the Province of Maine. Another Episcopal Church was erected on the western side of the Kennebec, four miles below Hallowell, which was called St. Ann's Church. This edifice was burned shortly afterward by an insane man, Henry MacFarland.
Pownalborough was then in the diocese of London and so remained for twenty-four years, until Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first Episcopal Bishop in the United States was consecrated in Edinburgh, Scotland, November 14, 1784.
We have seen that Rev. Jacob Bailey, who had originally been a Congre- gationalist, changed his convictions and espoused the Episcopal creed. After graduating from Harvard College, to take Holy Orders, it was necessary for him to go to London for ordination, and after walking from Gloucester to Boston, he sailed for England on January 10, 1760. While in London he must have seen and enjoyed much that was unlike his New England train- ing and environment. He dined with the Bishop of Rochester at Fulham, in what seemed to him a state of great magnificence. He says: "We had ten servants to attend us, and were served with twenty-four different dishes, dressed in such an elegant manner, that many of us could scarce eat a mouthful. The drinking vessels were either of glass or solid gold."
On March 16, 1760, he was ordained priest and from the Bishop of Lon- don received authorization to officiate as priest in New England, and we find that upon this parchment was affixed a stamp, five shillings three times, which elicited the comment from Mr. Bailey, "that everything, even the gifts of the Holy, had a price."
After the completion of his ordination he sailed home and reached Pownalborough, July 1, 1760, almost simultaneously with the incorpora-
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
tion of the town. The people of Pownalborough had looked forward with eager anticipation to the coming of Mr. Bailey, for they had heard of him as "a person of exceptional morals, prudent, grave and uncorrupt in regard to the Christian Faith." They made pledges, as ample as their means would allow, up to twenty pounds per annum. Then we find the missionary priest installed in a log house on the banks of the Eastern River, surrounded by his garden in which he took such interest in the cultivation of rare plants. Being a Loyalist he was so persecuted during the tempestuous years of the Revolution that he was obliged to take refuge in Nova Scotia. He started on his voyage from Pownalborough to Halifax, June 7, 1779.
There was a long period after the Church of England closed its doors when the people of Pownalborough had no religious services, although visiting clergymen of different creeds occasionally held services at the old Pownalborough court house and in various other places.
It was eighty years after the Revolution before an Episcopal Church was formed in Wiscasset.
In an old diocesan journal Bishop Burgess, the first Bishop of Maine as a separate diocese, wrote the following:
Sunday July 27, 1856 .- I preached three times in what was then the Baptist Meet- ing House at Wiscasset. The Rev. Frederick D. Harriman of the Diocese of Connec- ticut was spending, at Wiscasset, some weeks with relatives. His zeal and diligence soon made him acquainted with the religious condition of the place, and he found on one side a disposition favorable to our church and on the other side a good House of Wor- ship which had remained for years unoccupied. At his suggestion, I visited Wiscasset and assisted by him, performed three services and preached to large congregations.
It is impossible, remembering all which has followed, not to reflect with wonder that less than a year has passed since that day. Wednesday, Nov. 12, I consecrated to the service of God, according to the rites and usages of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the edifice of St. Philip's Church at Wiscasset. A parish had been organized through the labors of Rev. F. D. Harriman and the Rev. Pelham Williams, a Deacon, had taken charge in connection with the neighboring Parish of Dresden.
Rev. Pelham Williams was admitted by me to the Holy Order of Priests, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1857.
When the Baptist meeting-house was taken over by the Episcopalians it was called St. Philip's Church for St. Philip, the Deacon, because its first minister, Rev. Pelham Williams, was then a deacon. Very slight alteration
35. Frontier Missionary, p. 129.
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Church History
was made at this time on the building,36 but obviously the form of worship underwent a greater change when immersion gave place to affusion.
The font of St. Philip's Church was given by the children of the parish, September 23, 1857.
A fund of $500 was started in 1863, presumably by Joseph Emerson Smith, and invested as a nucleus of a fund for the construction of a rectory. Five years later, in 1868, the rectory was built next door to the church.
In 1874 services were started in Newcastle by the rector of St. Philip's Church and it is remembered how Rev. Henry R. Pyne used to make the journey to Newcastle and back on a hand-car over the Knox and Lincoln railroad tracks in all kinds of weather in his zeal to continue these services.
A memorial service for our first president was held in the Episcopal church on April 30, 1889-the one hundredth anniversary of his inaugura- tion. Flags were flung to the wind and the peal of bells reiterated the un- changing sentiment of that first election day when the country rang with acclamations and the cry arose: "Long live George Washington, President of the United States."
It is recorded in the diary of Alexander Johnston thus:
Splendid day for the military and naval display at New York, in memory of George Washington, our first head of the nation 100 years ago. Prayers were offered at St. Philip's Church from 9 to 10 A. M., and the entire Court, with Juries also, marched over from the Court House in procession and attended the same, in obedience to the request of President Harrison ; a thing never before done in Wiscasset.
An organ in memory of her son, Edward Carter Sortwell, was given by Mrs. Alvin F. Sortwell to St. Philip's Church. It was installed by Mr. Law the last week in September, 1918. The organ was built by the Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company of Boston.
The rood screen was given in memory of Mrs. Marion Howard (Smith) Prentiss after her death in 1910.
The stained glass window which forms the reredos was given by Rowe Browning Metcalf in memory of his father, Manton Metcalf.
36. Francis H. Fassett was the architect employed when St. Philip's Church was remodeled. He designed the Maine General Hospital in Portland, the Portland Public Library, the Portland High School, the First Parish Church and the Church of the Sacred Heart in Portland as well as a num- ber of buildings in other New England cities. He died November 1, 1908, at the age of eighty-five years.
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Rectors of St. Philip's Episcopal Church
1857-1861
Rev. Pelham Williams
1861-1865
Rev. William W. Niles (later Bishop Niles)
1865-1869 Rev. Edward A. Bradley
1869-1871
Rev. Edward Goodridge
1872-1873 F. C. Jones was lay reader
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