USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > A history of the town of Hanover, N.H. > Part 11
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remained in the village, beloved and honored, as pastor emeritus until his death June 25, 1910.
As would be expected many changes occurred in this period. Aside from the fluctuations in membership incident to the coming and going of many students, the roll of the church was largely changed. There were the usual additions at separate communions, but there were also five distinct revivals, at each of which there were twenty to thirty conversions. The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, organized by Dr. and Mrs. Leeds 1 in 1883, though never very large, became a helpful support to the church. The social life of the church was aided by the construction in 1878 of a ladies' room, an extension of the vestry, which was used for the meetings of various women's organizations and of the Christian Endeavor Society, and for the more general and less formal meetings of the church and society at which refresh- ments could be served from a kitchen connected with it.
The church building was several times repaired. In 1869 two enclosed porches were added, giving more commodious entrance, especially to the galleries, the foundations were repaired and furnaces in the cellar replaced the odorous stoves in the auditor- ium. In 1877 a more extensive alteration added ten feet to the length of the building, lowered the galleries and brought the organ to the floor. Again, in 1889, the building was lengthened so as to give a robing room for the minister, an alcove in the rear of the pulpit and a recess for the organ. The last was made imperative by the gift of a larger organ in memory of Mary Maynard Hitch- cock, the wife of Mr. Hiram Hitchcock who had secured plans for remodeling the interior from the eminent architect, Stanford H. White, and had himself met the largest part of the cost of reconstruction. The interior was made attractive by harmonious tints on ceiling, walls and pews, by simple and comely chandel- iers, afterward adapted to the use of electricity, and by a uniform carpet on the aisles and in the pews. A new pulpit and a new communion table (the latter the gift of Dr. William T. Smith) dignified the minister's platform.
1 Dr. Leeds having lost in 1874 (Oct. 29) a beautiful and beloved wife, Julia Lockwood Leeds (from New York City), married in 1882 Mrs. Emily Hart (Wells) Barnes, the widow of a minister, who brought to the church unusual gifts and devotion. She was beloved by everyone in the village and was of great help to Dr. Leeds in carrying on the various activities of the church. She had been for many years an officer of the Woman's Board of Missions and contributed largely to the missionary interest of the church. Owing in the first instance to her efforts the funds were raised in 1889 for remodeling the church.
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A forty years' ministry in the last half of the nineteenth century and in such a church as that on the College Plain would have been possible only in the case of a man of unusual power. Dr. Leeds' strength did not lie in any unusual gifts as a speaker, for he lacked the magnetism of the orator, but in a combination of qualities of mind and heart that gave him acceptance with men of differing demands. Professor Adams has well described him :1
Dr. Leeds was a man of deep and broad scholarship. Conservative by nature and training, he was nevertheless such a genuine lover of truth that he was able to pass through the stormy period of the seventies and eighties as a conciliating and constructive force. He was reverent, abundant in faith, always kind in judgment and speech, with no ambition for himself, great ambition for the church. In private conversation he was a man of sparkling humor, infinitely interesting, bright, and companionable. Some- how when he entered the pulpit these characteristics were too much sup- pressed by his feeling of the solemnity of the place and his office. His presentation of the spiritual truths of the Bible was conventional and for- mal. He was an effective preacher for those who could follow such thought without the challenge of new forms of statement or fresh applications of truth; to others he was not effective in the pulpit, but his sheer goodness, his daily example of the life of a Christian gentleman and scholar, made him a lasting power in the church and community.
The four years that passed without a minister after the retire- ment of Dr. Leeds seriously affected the life of the church. The service of the pulpit was kept at a high level by the board of preachers, but they had nothing to do with the other functions of the church. The needs of the College were well met in this service, but not those of the church beyond the service itself ; as time went on it became evident that a settled pastor was needed, but it was impossible to find a minister who would be satis- factory and who would accept a position restricted by the board of preachers. A diligent search was made for a pastor, without success until in 1904 the board of preachers was given up on the abandonment of required attendance by the students, and the Rev. Ambrose White Vernon of East Orange, New Jersey, accepted a call to the pastorate. With this, however, was asso- ciated an appointment to the professorship of divinity in the College, and as the duties of this professorship, chargeable to the College, made heavy demands, an associate pastor, the Rev. M. T. Morrill, was secured to care for the mid-week prayer meet- ing, to perform a part of the pastoral work and to preach on
1 One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College, 1771-1921 pp. 41, 42.
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Sundays to a congregation, known as the Union Religious Society and composed to a considerable extent of the members of the church, that met in the hall of the Grand Army.
In 1906 the basis of church membership was simplified by a revision of the covenant. No change was made in the statement of the creed, which had been adopted in 1836, but for the more formal covenant, which included articles of belief, there was sub- stituted the simple declaration of the determination to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and to do the will of God as revealed through Jesus, and a promise of fellowship and labor in the church.
Mr. Morrill was followed in two years by the Rev. Frank Latimer Janeway, who, on the resignation of Mr. Vernon in 1907 to accept a professorship in the Yale Divinity School, became act- ing pastor and in six months was installed as pastor. Five years later, in January, 1912, impaired health forced him to resign, and in the following September he was succeeded by the Rev. Robert Crawford Falconer of Ridgeville, Ind. Mr. Falconer laid great stress upon the social aspects of Christian life and was greatly interested in the progress of the "Church School," as the old Sunday School was now called. This school, established in 1813, had had a varied but helpful life. Begun on the model of a secular school, meeting once a month on Wednesday, it changed within a few years its time of meeting to Sunday, but still fol- lowed the secular form with "a male and female superintendent," whose duty it was "to appoint all teachers, prescribe the studies, exercises and laws of the school to see that a cor- rect account is kept of the attendance of teachers and the attend- ance and conduct of pupils and in general to render the school interesting and profitable to parents and children." Although no records of the school are preserved, it probably did not long keep its formal character, but soon assumed a more volun- tary organization under which it has been such a valuable adjunct to the work of the church.
Mr. Falconer left the pastorate in September, 1917, going immediately into the work of the Y. M. C. A. in France, in which he remained, except while recovering from a wound received in service, until 1919. The church was fortunate in the following November in securing the Rev. William W. Ranney of Denver, Colorado, whose short but effective ministry was closed by death February 2, 1920. After more than a year's interval the Rev. Roy B. Chamberlin of Middletown, Connecticut, was installed in his place November 7, 1921.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BAPTISTS
T' HE Baptist movement in New Hampshire began in 1755, when the first church in the State was formed in Newton, north- west from Haverhill, Mass. The first Baptist Church in Grafton County was established at Lebanon in 1771, but owing to the removal of many members it was dissolved in 1790.1 The church at Lyme was established in 1794 with fifteen members.2
The occasion for the rise of the Baptist Church in Hanover was the dissension in the church of Rev. Dr. Burroughs at Han- over Center, as the "main material which constituted the Bap- tist Church at its organization came out of Dr. Burroughs' church." The first adherent of Baptist tenets was Susanna Dowe, who, in November of 1785, addressed a letter to the church at the Center of which she was a member, stating that she had become con- vinced by personal study of the Bible that immersion was the only proper mode of baptism, and asking whether the church could still hold her in its fellowship. The reply of the church, made after due consideration, was creditable alike to its judg- ment and its piety. It said,
That although we do not understand ye word of God in relation to ye mode of baptism in ye point of view as this sister does; yet make a convic- tion that this sentiment is not inconsistent with ye character of a disciple of Christ we neither desire nor dare to exclude her from our fellowship and Communion so long as she shall continue to commend herself to our consciences, that she is governed by that temper which is peculiar to ye followers of ye meek and lowly Jesus.
At that time the Rev. Thomas Baldwin was in charge of the Baptists' interests in Canaan and he administered the rite of baptism to Miss Dowe, probably at some place not far from Goose Pond, in the brook that enters the pond from the north. Another convert soon followed, at whose baptism Mr. Baldwin preached the first sermon of the denomination delivered in Han- over, but it was six years after Miss Dowe's adhesion before the converts to immersion, mainly from Dr. Burroughs' church,
1 History of the Baptists, by Isaac Backus, 1871, vol. 2, pp. 533-544.
2 Church History of New England, by Isaac Backus, 1796, p. 103.
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were sufficient in number to form a church of their own. Of that church the following record appears :
Hanover, Oct. 10th 1791
The Baptist brethen and sisters met, and after opening the meeting by prayer proceeded to imbody as a church.
Chose Bro. David Eaton, Deacon, " Abel Bridgman, Moderator,
" Thomas Nevins, Clerk.
For nearly a year and a half the church thus organized "enjoyed preaching of the word from different persons," among whom were the Rev. John Drew of Thetford, Vt., and Abel Bridgman of their own number, whom the church invited to accept ordina- tion and to become its pastor. A council, consisting of ministers from Royalton and Thetford, Vt., and Cornish and Plainfield, N. H., was called to ordain him, and having met, Feb. 7, 1793, turned its attention, first, to the church, and "proceeded to look into its standing and examined its articles of faith," and being satisfied apparently with its soundness, then examined the candi- date and proceeded with the ordination. This pastorate lasted until May, 1796, when, because of some change in his religious views, Mr. Bridgman withdrew from the church, but in March, 1798, he retracted his errors and was restored to fellowship, but, as far as we know, not to the ministry.
Elder Isaac Bridgman, though not yet ordained, succeeded his brother Abel in the charge of the church in 1796. He had been from the beginning an acceptable and effective preacher, and though urged to receive ordination with Abel in 1793 he then declined. The call being renewed in 1801, he was ordained in due form, June 17.
In May, 1797, the church came into relations with the Wood- stock Association, and the report for the next year gives thirty- six members. About this time members were added from among the people of Lyme and a new style was adopted, viz .: "The Church of Hanover and Lyme." Meetings were held, sometimes at Lyme, much of the time at "Lebanon City," now East Lebanon, and often in the Ruddsboro district, where the Dowes lived. The membership in 1804 was 143, of whom fifty-eight came from Lyme, forty from Hanover, ten from Dorchester and thirty-five from Norwich, Vt.
In February, 1806, it was voted to ordain Thomas Whipple to the ministry, and on June 4 a council was assembled for that purpose, but declined to proceed "because Bro. Whipple had
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taken too much and too often of the ardent," and he was after- ward displaced from preaching. The Lyme members, however, twenty-six in number, by leave obtained at a church meeting held in that town October 24, 1807, withdrew and formed a separate organization December 16, 1807, and set Mr. Whipple over it. In consequence of this last act and of their receiving a member who had been excluded from the Hanover church, they were, in 1808, cut off from fellowship, whereupon a large portion of the Lyme people withdrew from that organization and returned to the parent church in Hanover. The schism so weakened the Lyme church that on March 6, 1810, pursuant to a recommenda- tion of a committee of the association, it gave up its organiza- tion, and for a short time the Church of Hanover and Lyme resumed its former position and membership. The following October consent was again given to a new, and, as it proved, a final separation of the Lyme branch. The Hanover church at this time changed its connection from the Woodstock to the Barre Association, and continued in it until 1818, when it again changed to the Meredith Association. Elder Isaac Bridgman remained pastor until his death August 28, 1815, at the age of fifty-eight, but others preached a considerable part of the time, so many of the church feeling themselves called in that way that one of the female members said : "About every man in the church wanted to preach."
After the death of Mr. Bridgman the church declined. Its membership was reduced from 123 in 1811 to forty-nine in 1820. The pulpit was supplied by various transient preachers, and at one time the weekly services were in a fair way to be discon- tinued. A change for the better soon appeared and by 1821 the church was on the road to recovery under the ministry of Elder John Saunders, thirty-nine members being added to the church in that year. Mr. Saunders remained less than two years and was succeeded in 1822 by Elder Jesse Coburn, who remained until his death in December, 1832. Under his ministrations the church greatly prospered, fifty-one being added during his first year. Up to this time the church had no settled house of worship, its meetings having been held in private houses, in school houses, and often in a barn near the gristmill in "Mill Village," though after 1796 it had a part privilege in the South Meeting House at the Center.
In 1825 the church, inspired by Mr. Coburn's enthusiasm, voted to build a house of its own. For that purpose a religious society
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was organized under the law of the State, December 28th, and the next year the present brick edifice was erected, at a cost of $1,800, according to plans drawn by Mr. Coburn himself. The successful completion of the enterprise was due to his untiring efforts, a considerable part of the work being done by his own hands. He himself built the pulpit from designs of his own. The building was neat and well proportioned, in dimensions being forty feet by fifty, and having an appropriate belfry at the south end. It was dedicated in 1827. The pulpit originally stood between the entrance doors at the south end, but in 1854, in connection with extensive repairs, it was transferred to the north end and opposite the entrance. and of course the pews were turned around to correspond with the change in the pulpit.
In 1836 the present parsonage, nearly opposite the meeting house on the road to the Center, was bought at a cost of between $500 and $600. An earlier attempt to build a parsonage had been made in 1823, when an "average tax" was laid upon the members of the church to purchase materials with which to build a par- sonage, and within a year a house was erected a few rods east of the common on the Ruddsboro road, and occupied, but by some unexplained means the house passed into Mr. Coburn's hands and was sold by him and the avails worked into another house which he built for himself.
On the 18th of August, 1829, a council called by this church conferred ordination as an evangelist upon Edward Mitchell, a creole mulatto from Martinique, W. I., the first negro graduated from Dartmouth College, a member of the class of 1828. The church records note his dismission in February, 1833, "in con- sequence of his having finished his collegiate course." He preached at several places successively for short periods and settled at Magog in Canada.
In 1830 the church transferred its connection from the Meredith to the Newport Association, with which it is still associated. Its activity at this time is indicated by the fact that in 1827 a Sunday School was begun and at the same time a Missionary Society, both of which are still in active operation, though having suffered periods of decline.
Mr. Coburn died in 1832 after a successful pastorate of eleven years, during which the membership of the church increased from eighty-eight to one hundred and twenty, notwithstanding a loss of fifty-eight. For the next two years the church was without a pastor, securing such supplies as it could for the services of the
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pulpit. Naturally it declined under this condition and within two years the membership had fallen to 104. Two short pastorates then followed, that of Nathan Chapman for two years and that of Jarius E. Strong for a similar time. Three years again ensued without a pastor, but during that time there was a series of pro- tracted meetings in 1839, when Levi Walker was preaching as a supply, in which he was assisted by the Rev. Ira Pearsons of Newport and the Rev. Gibbon Williams of Plainfield. Great interest was aroused, which continued for several years so that under the pastorate of Rev. Ransom M. Sawyer, which began in 1840, the membership of the church rose to 148.
Mr. Sawyer was succeeded in 1841 by the Rev. Jonathan R. Green, who after three years accepted a call to the church in East Hardwick, Vt., but returned to Hanover in 1846 for a stay of two years. The intervening year of 1845 was filled by the Rev. Daniel Mead, who acted as a physician to the body as well as to the soul and answered the calls of his parishioners for medi- cal advice without charge, although from others he expected the usual fees. The period from 1848 to 1852, which witnessed the pastorates of the Rev. Daniel F. Richardson and the Rev. George W. Cutting, was one of unrest and controversy. The records of the church show much discipline and contention, there being much disagreement on matters of belief as well as lapses from good standing. Several withdrew from the church, but in 1852 there was a recovery of good feeling, under the pastorate of the Rev. Charles Newhall, when the seceeding members returned and all votes of an acrimonious nature were rescinded. The pastorate of the Rev. J. S. Herrick, extending from 1858 to 1863, was one of great harmony, as evidenced by the fact that during that period the records show but one case of discipline. In 1841 the church put itself on record on the question of slavery, which was then coming into great prominence by the following vote :
Resolved, that we have no fellowship with slavery, neither do we as a church regard any slaveholder as a member of good standing in the church of Christ.
Mr. Herrick's pastorate was followed by two years in which the church depended on what supplies it might happen to secure, but for the most part it had to be satisfied with readers of it's own number, David Camp and Newton S. Huntington most often rendering that service. From 1865 to 1872 the Rev. Franklin Merriam was an accepted pastor, but the year of 1873 was spent without a pastor, yet in that year there were held
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revival meetings under an evangelist, E. A. Whittier, which led to the bringing of twenty-four into the church. Nine years later there was another revival, following on a series of special meet- ings, which led to the baptism of twenty-four at one time in the presence of a large company of 400 or 500 spectators. In all, there were twenty-nine additions to the church as the result of the meetings, but eight years later, in 1890, a series of special meetings, begun in November, did not issue in any marked addi- tion to the church.
For nearly twenty years, from 1879 to August, 1898, the church enjoyed the ministrations of the Rev. N. F. Tilden, pastor of the Baptist Church in Lebanon, who added to his work there the care of the Etna church. Under him the church was blessed with the revival just mentioned and had a steady life. In 1891 the Sab- bath School was reorganized and many from the church at the Center came to attend its services. In that year, on September 14th, the church celebrated with great interest and great success the one hundreth anniversary of its founding. A large gathering was present, and the elaborate program was as follows:
AFTERNOON, 2:30 O'CLOCK
Organ prelude
Invocation
Words of Welcome
Anthem
Scripture Reading
Rev. G. C. Trow of West Plainfield
Rev. C. W. Kimball of Meriden
Music
Choir
By the Pastor, Rev. N. F. Tilden
Henry Chandler, member of the Choir for 47 years Mrs. Laura A. Barnes
Original Hymn Benediction
EVENING
Social Gathering at the Church at 6:30
Organ prelude at 7:30 Prayer Anthem Address
Rev. J. E. Sanborn of E. Washington
Rev. Geo. W. Gardner, D. D., Prof. of Sacred Literature and Christian Ethics in Colby Academy, New London, N. H. Subject : The Church and the College Choir
Music
Rev. Fred S. Leathers of Lyme Deacon Horace Hoyt, Jr.
Prayer
Historical Address
Hymn Reminiscences of the Choir
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The Baptists
Remarks and Reminiscences by
Original Poem Original Hymn, written by
Prayer and Benediction
Rev. W. A. Farren of New London Rev. C. C. Sargent of Claremont Rev. W. F. Grant of Newport Hon. N. S. Huntington of Hanover Also such ex-pastors as may be present Mrs. C. N. Camp
Rev. Geo. W. Gardner, D. D., Former member of the Church
During the latter part of Mr. Tilden's pastorate the vitality of the church was shown by extensive improvements that were made in the church edifice and the parsonage. The outside of the church was repaired, the inside was repainted, new provision made for the choir, new cushions for the pews and a new carpet for the floor were provided, and the parsonage was repaired and painted. All this was done at an expenditure of $625, but the effort for improvement did not stop with this, and continued even after the departure of Mr. Tilden, for in 1898 an earnest movement was made to build a vestry. A subscription was set on foot and the record says that it "succeeded wonderfully well," as indeed it did, for by the next year the vestry was "up and covered," soon becoming of great value in the operation of the church.
Mr. Tilden was followed for four years, from 1898 to 1902, by the Rev. J. F. Pride, who came from Dorchester, Mass., and he, for seven years, from 1903 to 1909 inclusive, by the Rev. Alfred J. Chick. After him the pastorate remained vacant for two years, during which various preachers occupied the pulpit, some of them being members of the faculty of the College, but most frequently a student, R. B. Barnhardt. Mr. Barnhardt finished his college course in 1911, and in anticipation of his departure the church began early in the year to consider what it could do. It was already a missionary church, receiving from the Baptist missionary funds an annual grant of aid, and found it difficult to raise, even with this outside help, an amount suf- ficient to secure a settled pastor. A few miles distant, at the Center, was another church likewise unable to maintain a settled pastor. The two churches were of different denominations, yet held in essentials the same beliefs, and their common need gave new emphasis to a question which had already found expression, whether it would not be possible to bring about a working union of the two, so as to make one effective organization. In February of that year negotiations began between the churches, looking
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toward a "federation." Committees were appointed on both sides, whose deliberations, extended over ten months and, directed by the desire of mutual advantage, resulted by October in a scheme by which "each church was to keep its independence and each to aid in the financial support of a pastor."
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