USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Hampton > Historical sketch of Hampton, N. H., for 250 years, 1638-1888 : and of the Congregational Church in Hampton, N. H. > Part 1
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Gc 974.202 H18r 1771796
M. L ...
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01096 3863
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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF
HAMPTON, N. H.,
FOR 250 YEARS,
!638-1888,
AND OF THE
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
IN HAMPTON, N. H.
HAVERHILL, MASS., C. C. MORSE & SON, 1901.
1771796
F
84235
.7
1:
Ross, John Alexander]
Historical sketch of Hampton, N. H., for 250 years, 1638- 1888, and of the Congregational church in Hampton, N. H. Haverhill, Mass., C. C. Morse & son, 1901. 1 p. 1., 25 p. 213em.
1. Hampton, N. H .- Congregational church. I. Title.
2-4073
Library of Congress
F44.II3R8
.. nn1.+
P ROAD
Sermon DCCL. HISTORY OF CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN HAMPTON.
Deut. XXXII: 7.
" Remember the days of old, consider the years of many genera- tions; ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thine elders, and they will tell thèe."
Our thoughts today go back two hundred and fifty years, when, on that lovely September day, the little company sailed up yon winding river, and saw com- petency, if not wealth, in the grass of the vast marshes rustling in the autumnal breeze and flashing in the golden light of the setting sun. Over these marshes the Indian chased the game. The smoke of the wig- wam went up on the clear air from amid the pines. Fish rose in the stream to the splash of the oar. Birds, dreading no more destructive weapon than the infre- quent arrow, on careless wing rose from beside the streams and skimmed the marshes and rested in the pine-tops. The waves sung their hoarse song, of which the ear never tires, along yon beautiful beach; and Boar's Head pushed her front into the sea, "shouldering the tide away," and defying the Atlantic's fiercest storms. More than two hundred and fifty years after Whittier sang :-
Now rest we, where this grassy mound His feet hath set
In the great waters, which have bound
His granite ancles greenly round
With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet."
This description was apt two hundred and fifty years before. It was well described in the old records a fair and goodly land, and it still is. What a pity father Bachiler had the musical and significant Indian name Winnicunett, " The Beautiful Place of Pines," changed for the non-significant name Hampton!
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كود
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Stephen Bachiler, the leader of this little band of stout men, was himself a kingly man, though the blood of Tudor or Stuart did not flow in his veins. He stood erect, like one of the pines of Winnicunett, though carrying the weight of seventy-seven years. When seventy years old he crossed the Atlantic, and on the third day after his arrival at Boston had a church organized at Lynn. With characteristic energy and independence, waiting no man's time and asking no man's permission, without council or installation, he organized the church, and went to work. One of his first ministerial duties was to baptise four infants. Put- ting aside the one first presented he passed to his own . grandson with the words, "I will baptise my own child first." That's father Bachiler. His restless energy and contempt of authority, and may be other causes, (for he was not a perfect man) soon got him into trouble. From Lynn he went to Ipswich. In the unusually cold winter of 1637, he, in his seventy-sixth year, with a few companions travelled through the snow on foot one hundred miles to what is now Yarmouth. We next find him at Newbury, where land was granted him. And on the sixth of September, 1638, the General Court of Massachusetts granted him permission to settle at Winnicunett. His frequent migrations do not remind me of Noah's dove seeking rest for the sole of her foot. There was not much of the dove about father Bachiler. His wanderings suggest the flight of the imperial eagle on kingly wing sweeping over forest and hill and plain, till he find fit home and resting place beside the great sea.
At this early period so closely interlinked were ecclesiastical and political affairs that it is difficult to separate the history of the church from that of the town. The religious assembly and the town meeting were held in the same building. These sturdy settlers
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of the marsh and the forest were even then disposed to recognize no king but God.
In September of 1638 the fifty-six original settlers laid out the township of Winnicunett, and organized, or may be continued the organization of, the oldest church in New Hampshire with Stephen Bachiler as pastor. The name seems to have been changed to Hampton on · June 6, 1639. I should like to give here a paper prob- ably written by father Bachiler; but it is too long. Instead I will give a short extract from Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence: - After stating that Hampton had her foundation stone "scituate not farre from the famous River of Merrimack," and that " the great store of salt marsh did intice the people to set down their habitations there, having about four hundred and fifty head of cattle," the writer proceeds, " and for the form of the town it is like a Flower de luce, two streets of houses wheeling . off from the main body thereof; the land is fertile, but filled with swamps and some store of rocks, the people are about sixty families; being gathered in Church covenant, they called to office the reverend, grave and gracious Mr. Dalton, having also for some little space of time the more ancient Mr. Bachiler to preach unto them also."
Thus the church is planted in the wilderness. But a place is needed in which to meet for worship. Before - their own homes were finished the little log meeting- house went up on the Ring, near where Mr. Holmes now lives. And the bell must have summoned the worshippers; for at the second town meeting of which we have any record, " on the 22nd of the 9th mo., 1639," we find this vote :- " Wm. Sanborne (with his consent) is appointed to ring the Bell before the meetings (on the Lord's dayes and other dayes); for which he is to have 6d. per lott of every one having a lott within the Towne." How strange the sound of the bell, startling
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the echoes amid the pine woods, and rolling across the marshes! How sweet the sound to the early settlers in the wilderness! Memories of home were in it. It re- called the green lanes of old England, and the ivy- covered churches, where many of them had plighted their marriage vows, and some had left their dead. But we hear no word of repining from these brave men and true women. And a worthier home for the worship of their God must be built. In a town meeting of the following year it was voted, That Richard Knight build a "meeting-house frame 40 foot long, & 22 foot wide, with ye studdes 13 foot high (between joynte) 8 or 9 inches broad, & 18 inches only betwixt studd & studd with girt windows & a place for the Bell (now given by ye reverend pastor) 5 or 6 beams; 5 or 6 pair of prin- cipal rafters, & the rest answerable, to be payed, the one halfe in money or work by the tyme the frame is up, and the other halfe in money or beasts (at reasonable prices) within one yeare after." At a town meeting one year after this," agreement is made to defray the charge of ye meeting-house by voluntary gifte." And although not completed in 1644, it must have been occupied in 1640; for we read then of the porch being used as a watch-house. It was a plain building, without chimney or stove, at first without galleries, with a pulpit, and may be a pew for the minister; with unenclosed seats, probably without backs, where the men and women sat apart, and the young people sat by themselves, and the services of the tything man were needed to keep them in order. The prayers and sermons were long. But the people met to worship. They believed in a God who was ever with them, and ordered all the events of their lives. With fervor they sang from Dunster's Psalms. De- voutly they stood through the long prayer. With patience, if not always with profit, they listened to the always doctrinal, but not always practical, sermon; and
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during the week discussed its teachings in the field and by the fireside. We will not look too closely into the causes of the fierce quarrel between father Bachiler and his colleague, teacher Dalton. They were both men of high temper and stubborn will. Father Bachiler was deposed and excommunicated, left Hampton in 1647, married a third wife when eighty-nine years old, and re- turned to England in 1650, where he married again, his third wife being still living. The chronicler quaintly adds, " How much longer he lived, and how many more wives he married, is unknown." He died at Hackney, near London, in his hundredth year.
Thus ended the long and wandering life of Hamp- ton's first pastor, -- a man not always easy to get along with, somewhat arbitrary and imperious; but withal a man of large brain and large heart; a born leader of men; always taking on himself the heavier burden, and claim- ing the foremost place where danger was; and by his virtues and unselfishness making many steadfast friends. Prince quaintly says, -- He was "a man of fame in his day, a gentleman of learning and ingenuity, and wrote a fine and curious hand." The author of Wonder-Work- ing Providence is not so complimentary:
"Through ocean large Christ brought thee for to feede His wandering flock, with words thou oft has taught; Then teach thyselfe with others, thou hast need; Thy flowing fame unto low ebbe is brought.
Faith and obedience Christ full neare hath joined; Then trust on Christ, and thou again must be Brought on the race though now far cast behind, Run to the end, and crowned thou shalt be."
With father Bachiler was associated as teacher Timothy Dalton, one of the original settlers. After father Bachiler's departure, he seems to have had a fairly quiet and prosperous ministry. The meeting-house was completed during his ministry. He had a farm of 300 acres, and for some years at least a salary of forty
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pounds. After 1652 he seems to have received no salary, and, probably owing to failing health, performed no pastoral or ministerial work, although retaining the title and (I think) the official authority until his death, December 28, 1661. Rather singular duties were ex- pected of ministers in those days. At different times he was chosen with two others "to sett the bonds between Hampton and Colchester" (now Salisbury); with five others "to go and view the highway towards Colchester," and "on a committee to confer about a ferri-place." Teacher Dalton was a more consistent man than his first colleague; but I think not so able a man, nor so un- selfish. He seemed to know how to look out for him- self, and acquired considerable property. Still we find him relinquishing four years' salary, which the town owed him; and his famous -Deed, from which came the ministerial fund, was partly gift. "He conveyed by this Deed to the church and town of Hampton for the use of the ministry forever, certain portions of his land for the sum of 200 pounds sterling." Johnson in his Wonder- Working Providence calls him "the reverend, grave and gracious Mr. Dalton;" and gives him a glowing poetic eulogy, which is too long to quote in full. He was an able theologian, strictly orthodox, and somewhat intol- erant. He had a keen eye for Quakers and witches, although not directly concerned in the persecution of Eunice Cole. Johnson sings of him:
" Age crownes thy head. in righteousness proceed To batter down, root up and quite destroy
All Heresies and Errors that draw back Unto perdition, and Christ's folks annoy."
What is mortal of him rests in yonder cemetery. Peace be to his ashes. He laid a foundation stone in this venerable church. I would lay my tribute wreath on his tombstone, if I could only find it. Is it not somewhat to our shame that the tombstones of these fathers of the church and town are lieing neglected, and
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hidden by the rank grass?
But how did the strictly orthodox Dalton get along with his somewhat heretical colleague, John Wheel- wright? It seems to me that there must have been friction between men of such positive character as they both were, and so divergent in theological opinion. In those days men contended rather too earnestly for what they were pleased to call the faith once delivered to the saints. Of course THEY were "the saints." Wheel- wright was brother-in-law of the famous Mrs. Hutchin- son of Boston, and shared to some extent her views. If he did not, as she did, claim immediate revelation as the guide of his conduct, nor denounce in equally ex- travagant terms the magistrates and ministers; he had very little respect for authority, civil or ecclesiastical, and in his doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit came perilously near to fanaticism, and pushed his doc- trine of justification to the verge of antinomianism. When Mrs. Hutchinson was banished from the colony and went to Rhode Island, he withdrew to Exeter, and formed a settlement and church there. His claim to Winnicunett, founded on a grant from Indians, was rightfully disallowed by the General Court of Massa- - chusetts. We next find him at Wells, in the province of Maine. The General Court having removed the sentence of disability on the acknowledgment of his errors, he was called to Hampton, then claimed by Mas- sachusetts. The call is a curiosity. I should like to give it in full, if I had time. The good people of Hampton were evidently somewhat afraid of his love of change or aptness to stir up strife. They frame the call with all the carefulness and minute particularity of a legal document. Mr. Wheelwright is offered free trans- portation from Wells to Hampton, 40 pounds per year, a house and house-lot, and " the farm that was Mr. Bachiler's." To raise the salary it was voted :- " Every
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master of a familie shall paye 5 shillings to the some of 40 pounds; & be more or lesse, according as the some or somes of the rates are; & all single-men, which goeth at ther owne hand, ore that taketh anye wages for them- selves, they shall likewise paye 5 shillings as aforesayd." " Then what remaineth shall be raised upon the estate of every person equally, according to that they do pos- sesse - be it in houses, land, cattle, boates, or otherwise; excepting only ther corne, which shall goe rate-free." A like salary was at the same time voted to teacher Dalton.
Mr. Wheelwright seems to have had a quiet and prosperous ministry here. May be he had learned wis- dom by experience. Permission was given by the town to certain persons to build a gallery in the west end of the meeting-house, to be held as their own property; and a substantial fence was erected about the cemetery. When Mr. Wheelright's orthodoxy was questioned by two leading ministers of the times, his church stood loyally by him, and petitioned the General Court in his behalf. It is a grand characteristic of this church to be loyal to its minister. It is safer disturbing a bee-hive than laying an unfriendly finger on the occupant of this
pulpit. The rash man who attempts it, will have reason to wish he had never been born. And Mr. Wheelwright must have been a practical and profitable preacher. The following extract from one of his sermons is good preaching for the present time :- " Thirdly. let us have a care, that we do show ourselves holy in all manner of good conversations, both in private and public; and in all our carriages and conversations, let us have a care to endeavor to be holy as the Lord is; let us not give occasion to those who are coming on, or manifestly opposite to the ways of grace, to suspect the way of grace; let us carry ourselves, that they may be ashamed to blame us; let us deal uprightly with those with whom
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we have occasion to deal, and have a care to guide our families and to perform duties that belong to us; and let us have a care that we give not occasion to say that we are libertines or antinomians." The extract certainly justifies the eulogy of this church, -that "he was a sound, orthodox, and profitable minister of the gospel." It is not certain when he left Hampton. He was here in 1654, for in December of that year it was voted that Io pounds be added to his salary. This year is noted for the remarkable hail-storm. The storm was in June. In some places the hail lay twelve inches deep, "and was not all dissolved 2 days after the storme in many places, as we are informed by many eye-witnesses, and many of which haile were said to be 3 or 4 inches in length." I infer from the record of a town-meeting held December, 1656, that he was then about leaving, or that there was trouble between him and Mr. Dalton. But the vote is so ambiguously worded that no positive statement can be ventured on it. In 1658 he was in England, and high in favor with Oliver Cromwell, who said that, when he and Wheelwright were fellow-students at Cambridge, he was more afraid of meeting him at football than he was afterwards of meeting an army in the field. He returned to this country, and died at Salisbury in 1679, between So and 90 years of age.
Mr. Wheelwright's successor and Mr. Dalton's next colleague, Rev. Seaborn Cotton, so called because born at sea. inherited all the stiff Calvinism of his father, the · famous John Cotton of Boston. There is a volume of his sermons in manuscript.in the Massachusetts Histor- ical Library. How hollow a sound these old contro- versies now have! Then these creeds pulsed with life. To-day that valley is full of dry bones; and lo, they are very dry. After some delay Mr. Cotton was installed pastor in 1660 or thereabouts; two years after that un- seasonably cold weather that came on after the apple
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trees were in blossom, - the change in temperature so sudden, and the cold so severe that "in a fishing boat belonging to Hampton one man died before he could reach the shore, another was so chilled that he died in a few days, and a third lost his feet." His salary was fixed at sixty pounds. He had also a house given him, and a farm of 200 acres laid out at Hogpen Plain. The church must have had some prosperity; although there seems a decline of membership. In those days young people did not behave so well during services as they do now. At a town-meeting in 1663 :- " Itt is ordered thatt two of the inhabitanc of the towne shall sitt in the gallery to keepe the youth in order in time of publick exercises to see that they keepe their plases & sitt orderly & inofensavely." At a town-meeting in June, 1675, it was voted, - That all the inhabitants over twenty meet at the ringing of the bell to assist in raising the new mecting-house, and a fine of twelvepence in money is to be imposed on all who " faile of appearance." It was some years before the meeting-house was finished. In 1679 we find a vote for seating the people in the new meeting-house, so that it must have been then occupied. It 1680 it was voted that the old
meeting-house be taken down. The heathen, as our fathers termed the Indians, were now making trouble; for in 1689 " it was voted that all those which were willing to make a fortification about the Meeting House to Secure themselves and their families from the Violence of the Heathen they shall have free libertie to doe itt." Captain Samuel Sherburne was the first man to whom was granted liberty to build a pew for his family in the meeting-house; "provided," the record characteristically reads, "he builds it not so high as Mr. Cotton's seat is built." This was in 1687. The minister was then the great man. He was king in his Jerusalem. To him the boys took off their hats, and
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the girls curtsied; and from his lips was received the law, as well as the gospel. Still I had rather live in the nineteenth century than in the seventeenth. I believe that now a minister, if he is devoted to his work, in- dustrious in his study, and frank with his people, will have as much influence as it is safe for any man to have. And two hundred years ago the sturdy freemen of Hampton knew when and how to put a check on their pastor. They shewed him great respect, and allowed him much influence; but, to quote the words of a writer of that time, they were very, "very tender and tenacious of their liberties."
In these good old times manners must have been rather rude, when the town deemed it necessary to im- pose "a fine of 5 shillings on any one who should dis- charge a gun in the meeting-house, or lead a horse into it."
Eunice Cole, of whose exploits as a witch tradition has so much to say, was a sad trial to Mr. Cotton, who inherited all his father's abhorrence of witchcraft, and a continual vexation to the town. Miserable must have been her death, alone and unattended in her wretched hut on the Ring; and melancholy her funeral, her body hustled without religious service into a hole near by, with a stake driven through it, to which was attached a horse-shoe.
About the same time the following shameful war- rant was directed to the constables of several towns, and executed in Hampton and other places :- " You and every one are required, in the King's Majestie's name, to take those vagabond Quakers Anna Coleman, Mary Tompkins, and Anne Ambrose, and making them fast to the cart's tail and drawing the cart through your several towns, to whip them on their naked backs not exceeding ten stripes apiece on each of them in each town; and so to convey them from Constable to Con-
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stable till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you will answer at your peril; and this shall be your warrant."
In the trouble with Gov. Cranfield, who seems to have been as badly damaged in principle as he was in fortune, Mr. Cotton does not appear as well as pastor Moody of Portsmouth. The latter bravely met the storm, and went to prison rather than forsake his post or deny his trust. When Cranfield sent the arbitrary mes- sage to Hampton that he should come and demand of Mr. Cotton to have the sacrament administered to him according to the liturgy of the Church of England, Mr. Cotton found it convenient to visit friends in Boston. But he, as was then too common, took it on himself to declare the judgments of Heaven. He denounced God's anger on the judges in the Moody trial, declaring of one of them, Henry Roby, that he would not have so honour- able burial as an ass. This was strangely fulfilled. Roby was of dissipated habits. "When dead, his body was taken, and thrown into a hole near the great rock in the rear of the old meeting-house sometime in the night." This was probably done to evade an iniquitous law of that time, which permitted the creditor to attach the body of the deceased debtor. There was also indirect- ness in Mr. Cotton's petition to the General Court for aid in getting the arrears of his salary. The General Court very properly left him to his legal remedy against the persons indebted to him. He had an efficient helper in " good old John Dearborn," as he is styled in the record, one of the early deacons of this church, who died in 1731, at the advanced age of eighty-nine. Mr. Cotton died pastor of this church. April 19. 1686, at the early age of fifty. He was the author of a Catechism not now extant, and is described in Mather's Magnalia as "a thorough scholar and able preacher." He certainly was a hard working minister, delivering well studied sermons on the Sabbath, calling the young people about him for
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frequent catechising, and visiting among the families of his flock. Also a doughty fighter of the Arminian heresy, and zealous for the truth as he understood it. If he did flee to Boston to escape imprisonment, he was no coward. If he did bend to the storm, he was not a reed shaken in the wind. Should the storm blow too fiercely, he would stand firm; and rather be uprooted and laid prostrate like one of the Hampton pines by the strong wind, than deny the faith. He left a list of the names of sixty-eight members of the church.
His successor was his son, John Cotton. He was ordained pastor of the church November 19, 1696, ten years after the death of his father; but was acting pastor sometime before his ordination. In 1694 the town voted a salary to our present minister, Mr. John Cotton. The vote is somewhat of a curiosity. I give it as recorded. " The Town will give our present minister, Mr. John Cotton Eighty-five pounds a year for his paynes in the work of the Ministry amongst us to be payed every half year in Wheat five shillings pr bushell, Indian Corn three shillings pr bushell, Mault and Rye att four shil- lings pr bushell, pork at threepence pr pound, all marchble and good over and beside the contribution every quarter formerly agreed upon, and the use and benefit of the House land and Meadow that is appointed for the Ministry. And the Town to maintain the out- side fence of said land and Meadow, and besides what the Town shall see case to doe for him in Wood towards maintaining his fiers." Mr. Cotton is also to have ten cords of wood additional, if he will preach a monthly lecture. And there were several votes respecting the repairing of the parsonage fences. There are no regular church records of an earlier date than this. The church was in a sad state of spiritual decline when Mr. Cotton became its pastor. Only twenty-five members, ten male and fifteen female. During his pastorate of thirteen
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