History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 59

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124

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The New Hampshire Gazetteer thus describes Wakefield in 1817: "There is here a meeting-house, a cotton factory, a carding-machine, three grainmills, three sawmills, three fulling-mills, and a handsome village containing several stores." President Monroe's 1817 to 1825 "era of good feeling " was partici- pated in by our villages. The population in 1854 had increased to 1,405; 299 polls. Inventory, $309,165; value of lands, $177,278; stock in trade, $2,900 ; value of mills and factories, $3,550; sheep, 699; neat stock, 1,473 ; horses, 24; money at interest, $9,800. (Each Gazetteer enlarges somewhat.)

FROM 1817 TO 1842. - Most of the records for sixteen years up to 1837 are missing. The chief events are building the new meeting-houses and devel- oping. In 1818 the town negatived the proposition, "how much it will raise to board and shingle the new meeting-house, even with the proviso that it should be free for regular preaching of all denominations of Christians and for holding of town-meetings." This action may have led to the building of the

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North Wakefield house of worship. Yet on November 5, 1820, town met in " new meeting-house." The proposal to move the old meeting-house to a more convenient site or invest in the new was rejected, as was the proposal in 1815 to build a hall.

In 1837 the town treasurer is authorized to take care of the surplus revenue and also of ministerial and school funds. It is voted that the interest arising from the ministerial fund belonging to the town be equally divided between the three religious societies in this town, namely, the Congregationalists, Methodists, and Freewill Baptists; to be paid over to the proper official of each society duly authorized to receive the same. This fund came from the sale of the "parsonage lands," which, after the death of Mr Piper, reverted to the town. The income or interest was for years $53.73. Fifty years later it was, by vote of town, extended in its blessing to the Episcopal and Adventist societies.

Town-house. - The town took the fund in 1838 and put it, in part, into a new town-house, which had long been "in the air," for which they paid Thomas W. Mordough the sum of $525. From that day to this it has stood. In 1842, "paint" it and "inhabitants can have it for religious purposes." About this time enthusiastic Advent meetings were held in the meeting-house. In 1843, " prohibit the use of Town Hall as a place of Deposit for Goods and Farming tools, etc."

The Poor in Town. - " The poor ye have with you always, and when ye will ye may do them good." Idleness and poverty are not sisters in every case, but the old rule was to warn out of town any who had no visible means of support, and in Wakefield in 1790, not to encourage ignorance nor shiftless- ness, they instruct the selectmen " carefully to look out and bind out to ser- vice all the idle inhabitants in town and such as neglect to provide for their families." Located tramps are not to be town charges. Still, when misfortunes and old age brought poverty the town would not see suffering, and some who in younger days had given an impulse to our activities were forced to appeal to the town, and were struck off to the lowest bidder.

In 1839 the town's importance called for a poor farm, and one was bought by the selected committee at a reported cost of $2,150, including " Purchase $1,500 & stock $500." George W. Copp, Joseph Maleham, and John Gage, committee. The bargain was not satisfactory to all, and the examiners appointed to see made report of our poor farm that it was lacking in wood and water privilege. Attempts were made in 1840, that year, to get a vote to sell it or " exchange it for a good convenient productive farm well wooded." A long discussion did not secure any action, and it was not sold until the vote of January, 1866. March, 1867, it was voted to abolish pauper settlements, and throw entire support on county.

1838, Wakefield voted against dividing the county into three unanimously.

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In 1839, 193 to 16, but in 1840 Carroll struck out for itself, and our town has acquiesced since.

THE MEXICAN WAR, declared May 11, 1846, did not seem to affect New Hampshire much; but one home in town, that of Ephraim G. Smith, felt the cloud, for his son, Lieutenant Joseph Parker Smith, a native of Wakefield and a graduate of West Point, a brave soldier, fell at Chapultepec and lies in the family burying-ground near to his brother, the late Morrill B. Smith, who went into the war of 1861 from Concord as major of the Eighth.

FROM 1840 TO 1865 four fifths were days of peace and progress. The coming into town of the railroad, while taking away some of the triumph of the rolling stage-coach, yet brought us nearer to the large cities and developed Union village and impressed upon us that we had a future.

WAR FOR THE UNION, but political questions were boiling. The old idea of 1793 and 1830 that emphasized state rights came out in practice in the extreme proposition that a state has a right to secede from the Union. To disprove that right government resorted to force and many a heart and home felt the War for the Union.

The war of 1861 is of recent date, and the votes in the town taken give but little idea of the pain even in patriotism which came to the loving and loved ones when the boys went to the front and when news came from the battlefield. In 1861 some answered the call to help to sustain the government, among whom was William Grantman, then in Boston, who, later, returned severely wounded, and for him was secured the commission of captain of that company in the regiment to which belonged our boys.

Action of the Town. - The first recorded action of the town revealing the existence of the war was in March, 1862, when " $300 are to be appropriated by the Selectmen for the support of families of soldiers who have enlisted in the service of the U. S." August 21. Voted, "to pay each man resident of this town who has enlisted or who may hereafter enlist in the service of the U. S. under the last call of the President for volunteers the sum of two hundred dollars until the quota shall be filled or the time of enlistment expires and to pay the sum of one hundred dollars to each man resident who shall enlist in said service under call of the President for soldiers by draft for the term of nine months until the quota shall be filled or time of enlistment expires to be paid at the time such soldiers are mustered into service, and that the seleetmen be authorized to borrow the same on the credit of the town at a rate of interest not exceeding six per cent." October 20. The President calls for 300,000 by draft. The town votes one hundred dollars in addition to sum already offered, etc., 65 to 14. Motion for indefinite postponement made by Alvah H. Sawyer had failed by 65 to 23. Five hundred dollars were voted for aid to soldiers' families. October 23. The Seleetmen are authorized to enlist non-residents under last call for 300,000 by draft at a bounty not exceed- ing $200. " After many remarks " this action taken, 26 to 0.

1863, August 15. " $300 for each one who may be conscripted or drafted for the suppres- sion of the Southern rebellion or for each person who shall serve as substitute; selectmen to borrow and pay sokliers in ten days after mustered into service." " Unanimous." Novem- ber 27. " Selectmen authorized to raise $15,200 for bounties under last call for 300,000, and to pay out in such sums as they shall see fit."

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1864, April 4. $5,000 for bounties under last two calls of the President for volunteers. Selectmen authorized to hire said sum on credit of the town and give note. June 29. Select- inen to raise $10,000 for those who may hereafter volunteer, enlist and be mustered in, such enlistment to be with the consent of the selectmen ; authorized to hire and give note. Select- men authorized to pay each drafted man or his substitute three hundred dollars when mus- tered in. Unanimous. August 26. Voted to each man who has volunteered to serve as sub- stitute for any drafted or enrolled man in said town, and has been mustered in, $100 for one year's service, $200 for two years, $300 for three years, to them or their assigns, provided that no assigu shall receive a greater sum than he has actually paid. April 30. Aid to soldiers' families, $800. November. The town raises $10,000 for bounties to those who may enlist or furnish a substitute, the selectmen to pay, as expedient, one, two, and three hundred dollars for men for one, two, or three years.

Men, bounties, aid to soldiers' families were contributions of our town offered in reply to the calls for help : forty thousand and six hundred dollars in bounties to volunteers, drafted men, and substitutes ; sixteen hundred dollars for aiding soldiers' families and men some of whom lost their lives ; others lived to suffer from the effects of wounds, disease, and exposure, and all who lived and were brave are still reckoned as heroes. But none were sorry when the last battle was fought, the last victory won, and the last soldier was mustered out. War never has been, and may it never be, our nation's highest opportunity or delight. At the close of the war the town debt was $27,000 ; reduced since then in 1872 to $12,000 by the reimbursement by the state for bounties $11,000 : decreased steadily till it was, March 1, 1889, $6,000.

CHAPTER XLIII.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

Centennial Poem - First Church - Organization - First Members - Early Action - Rev. Asa Piper - Rev. Samuel Nichols - Rev. Nathaniel Barker - Martin Leflingwell - Joseph B. Tufts - Rev. Daniel Dana Tappan - Rev. Alvan Tobey - Rev. Sumner Clark - Rev. George O. Jenness - Rev. Albert H. Thompson - Rev. Lyman White - Early History of Church and Society - Deacons - Other Members - One Hundredth Anniversary - Second Congrega- tional Church - Organization - Original Members - Ministers - Deacons - Sunday-school - Freewill Baptist Churches - Methodist Episcopal Church - Second Advent Church - Epis- copal Church - Meeting-houses, etc.

BEHIND the dusty bars of time Is rung to-day a century's chime; A century dim, with all it holds, To-day the grasping past enfolds.

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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

We bid you all remember well

The struggles none may fully tell, Of Parson Piper and the few, Who " builded better than they knew."

O'er these hills their feet have trod,

Their ancient plows upturned this sod;

They builded homes, they churches raised, Within whose walls their God they praised.

A century old - this church and town

Outlasts many a gilded crown;

To-day we place a golden star Within Time's swift revolving ear.

A golden clasp -this bright To-day -

Binds two centuries on our way;

Behind we hear a last faint chime Mingle with that of coming time.

And may we, who stand to-day Where stood those long passed away, Leave a record bright and pure, Which, like theirs, shall long endure.

- Centennial Poem, by George S. Dorr.

F IRST CHURCH. - September 22, 1885, was celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the organization of the First Church and ordination of the first settled minister, Asa Piper, of the town of Wakefield. At this time the history of the church was given substantially as follows: The church was made up of nine members; five were the men and four the women, making a beautiful picture of these homes consecrated to God by the united love of both the partners. No church could have a better start, no community be blessed more richly, than in a church made up of consecrated homes. These husbands and wives were likely not the only Christians in Wakefield on that clear September morning in 1785, but their names are worthy of record. Samuel Haines, Avery Hall, Abigail Hall, Richard Dow, Mary Dow, Simeon Dearborn, Martha Dearborn, Mayhew Clark, Mary Clark. Descendants they have who may well praise the God of their fathers who gave them such an ancestry, not descended from royal blood, but princes and princesses in the everlasting kingdom.

What led to the organization of this church at this time? They tell us in part, and we know two facts that would be likely to affect their action. The war of the Revolution had ended four years before ; its thunders had died away, and the people were settling down to the labors and arts of peace, to build up the young nation whose liberty they had purchased on the bloody battlefield. And to this end the Christian church would add its great influ- ence. Again, the town for several years had cared for its own religious welfare instead of allowing private individuals so to do, as now, and voted each year to have preaching four, six, or eight weeks by some minister designated by the town, with attempts at permanent settlement in 1779-80-82. Now, increased

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in population and resources, and possibly more awake to the religious need, the people, in town-meeting assembled, proposed to have a minister the year round, just as much as a selectman or pound-keeper, and to keep alive and awake the religious spirit, as well as to keep the roads and bridges in good condition, that society may have a safe journey .. And very likely they were shrewd enough to see that the material prosperity would be enhanced by the spiritual.

The earliest accessible record is in that eventful year of Concord and Lexington, when the colonies began the struggle to free themselves from the yoke of the "tyrant." Yet our early settlers did not forget to pray and to worship. For in May, 1775, the town met "(1) To see if the town will vote to have any preaching this summer, and if any, what method they will take to hire it. (2) To see what method the town will take with those men that inlisted as minit-men. (3) To hear the request of William Blaisdell relative to exchanging more or all of the school lot with said Blaisdell. Signed, Simeon Dearborn, Noah Kimball, Joseph Maleham, selectmen." So they were probably chosen at the first meeting. At the next meeting, July 17, it was voted "that there be preaching ;" "that there be eight Sabbaths preaching here at the expense of the town unless the proprietors are bound by charter to supply this. Voted that Mr Henshaw be the man ; that Mr Jonathan Gilman, Simeon Dearborn, Esq., and Mr John Horn be a committee to apply to Mr Henshaw, or some other suitable person, if he cannot be had." Each year the military and religious concerns occupied the mind of the citizens as the chief concerns - to supply the army with soldiers and the town with preaching. These are the names of the preachers mentioned : 1775, Henshaw ; 1776, Chickering or Henshaw and Hall, perhaps Avery Hall, who had moved in from Rochester, where he was pastor for nine years up to 1775; 1777, Mr Porter, very likely later the distinguished Dr Nathaniel Porter. 1778, Rev. Mr Dutch and Cummings ; 1779, Mr Henshaw, and Mr Dutch was called to settle; 1780, Rev. Josiah Badcock ; sixty voted for his settlement, fifteen against; 1781, Rev. Mr Kendall ; 1782-83, Rev. Moses Sweat, who seems to have got a hold of the affections of many, and a mild contest took place, according to the record, whether or not he should be the permanent supply. Once the town voted "to have no Sweat that year." The next they voted yes, but he declined. The reason given by tradition is not given by the uninspired town clerk, and I will not give it, only advise all ministers to be careful in their horse trades. He seems to have had a reputation more as a Greek and Hebrew scholar to whom great scholars looked as an authority. His home, as pastor for many years, was in Sanford, Maine, where he died in 1824, at the age of threescore and ten.

In the year 1782 the earnest desire for constant religious worship showed itself in the call for all the legal voters to meet at the meeting-house "for the

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purpose of consulting upon our religious affairs, and to come into and prose- cute such measures as the Town shall think fit when met, in order to have the Gospel preached among us. The matter of Religion, with the means appointed for the promoting of it, are so important that we shall be acquitted of Blame, yea, commended for calling the Town together at this busy time, and desiring all concerned to attend as above mentioned. Avery Hall, John Wingate, Mayhew Clark." At the notified meeting, August 26, Captain David Copp, moderator, it was voted to adjourn one week. Then it was voted "to keep Thursday, 12th day of instant September, as a Day of Fasting and Prayer for Direction in the calling and settling of a minister." "Voted also to invite the Rev. Messrs James Pike, Jeremy Belknap, Joseph Haven, Isaac Hasey, Nehe- miah Ordway, to assist and advise on that occasion." This was a council called not by a church, but by the town, Esquire Dearborn, Captain D. Copp, and Avery Hall to be a committee to write to these ministers. No permanent min- ister was advised, but Esquire Dearborn, Captain Copp, Mr. Nathaniel Balch, Mr. Richard Dow, and Mr. Avery Hall were chosen to hire for a term not exceeding two months.

Their desires were at last gratified in 1784. In the spring of that year it was voted to have eight Sabbaths preaching. Captain Copp, Ensign Clark, and Major Palmer, a committee " to apply to some suitable person to preach with us on probation 4 Sabbaths at first." In the August meeting, Lieutenant Jonathan Gilman, moderator, "voted to hire eight Sabbaths preaching in Addition to what was voted last spring. Simeon Dearborn, Esq., Avery Hall, and Mr. Richard Dow to be a new committee to hire a candidate on Probation at Discretion, and meeting dissolved." November, the town met and voted to give a call to the man selected by this committee (at Cambridge), and he accepted. This ended the yearly supply. I have given the names of the suc- cessive ministers who served the town only a few weeks, but long enough to show their excellence and the taste of the people. And judging by the later renown of Sweat and Porter, that, even in their younger days at Wakefield, they must have shown some of that power of mind, we may judge that all these early town ministers of Wakefield were fully up to the average of those days. Their service was limited, and we pass them by with a brief notice, which they surely deserve. They were the forerunners of the settled minister.

A new era dawns upon the town, when, in 1784, there appears in Wakefield a young minister, twenty-seven years old, of stanch English stock, whose great- grandfather came from Dartmouth, England, about 1650, when "Charles the First had his Cromwell." This ancestor settled in Ipswich, Mass. The strug- gle in the land of his birth, without doubt, had its impress on his character and that of his descendants.

This young minister was not a soldier of the Revolution, but a thorough

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patriot, a good scholar and priest of the Most High God. Nine and forty years he lived not far from the beautiful lake, until on the 17th day of May, 1835, he died very suddenly, much lamented by the church and the citizens of the town generally - Rev. Asa Piper, the first pastor of this church, the first and only settled town minister. He stands at the head of the line in time and talent. His successors must have mention, though it be brief. In 1828, September 17, Rev. Samuel Nichols was ordained as colleague pastor, serving as such until March 7, 1833, when he was dismissed by council. He was a graduate of Ban- gor Theological Seminary, 1826, a native of South Reading, Mass., where he died in 1844, in the forty-sixth year of his age. As a preacher he may not have ranked high for brilliancy, but the comparatively large number of addi- tions in his short ministry, of over forty to the membership of nine at his arrival, speaks well of the spiritual condition of the society. Six weeks after our first minister was laid away in his peaceful grave, but a few steps from the sacred house where was his throne, there came another minister, not quite forty years of age - Rev. Nathaniel Barker, and he lived among you, lo, these many years, that life of a holy man, until a few years since he was called away, at fourscore and seven, to the reward of the faithful. He also was a college graduate, sharing with Dartmouth the honor of one of her sons in 1822. Rev- olutionary blood and the martyr spirit was in his veins. His father, Samuel Barker, a soldier of the Revolution, was of heroic mold; his mother, Betsy Rogers, was the daughter of Major Rogers of royal descent, tracing back his ancestry to the fires of Smithfield and to John Rogers the martyr. He was born in Rowley, Mass., January 6, 1796, and bred in a Christian household, educated for the gospel ministry, a graduate of Andover, 1825, ordained at Mendon, Mass., soon after, where he served a few years, with a heart bound up in the cause of the Redeemer; he was led by providence to Wakefield. He once told me, speaking of the liquor traffic, then quite brisk, "I thought if I did my duty I should n't stay long." But the Lord gave him nearly fifty years longer as the village pastor and upright citizen, and never did his voice or heart shut up to the blight of that curse, or any other which sin has brought into the world. He now sleeps in the burial-place on the brow of the hill, revered in the memory of all. He had a mind of no small grasp, and as a theologian he has not had his equal in the county. He was true to his convic- tions, that to him admitted of little opposition. Of the church he writes in 1854, " The tide is always going out. But the Lord is the stay of his people." Yet to the twenty-nine at his arrival, forty-five had been added, and his great moral influence had reached many hearts. He died October 13, 1883.

His successors were : Marvin Leffingwell, of Methodist training, who did a faithful work of four years before 1860; Joseph B. Tufts, a graduate of Harvard in 1849, from 1861 to 1864, during which period several were added to the church. These are all dead. From November 19, 1865, to April 1,

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1871, the now venerable, still vivacious and exact, Daniel Dana Tappan, a graduate of Bowdoin in 1822, labored in season and out of season for the upbuilding of Zion, and the full harvest is not yet. From his pen, gifted even down to fourscore and seven years of age, is this grand hymn : -

God of the centuries! thy truth Has through the ages kept its way, And still maintains a vigorous youth With ever-widening, lustrous sway.

So, too, thy Church, her Guide in view, From times remote has kept her course, Dispensing good like early dew, Of human weal a failless source.

This hundredth year of her birthday This little flock thy care would own, And grateful homage here we pay As thus we bow before the throne.

This aged minister still retains his vigor. Though born in 1798, October 30, this last winter, at over ninety, he has led a prayer-meeting every week, and several times has preached.

During his service, five days before Christmas in 1867, the bell, weighing 819 pounds and costing $388.73, of which $100 was contributed by friends away, was joined to the church, the first church bell in town, to call with its silver tones the people to the house of God.

Rev. Alvan Tobey served the church for a short time, in 1871, I think. Rev. Sumner Clark, our near neighbor and firm friend, had agreeable memories of the three years from May, 1872, that he spent with his Wakefield parish, and still holds in their hearts a large place. He was born in Framingham, Mass., October 4, 1812, and died in Wolfeborough, December 20, 1887. He was graduated from Amherst College in 1840.

The five years before 1880 were marked by a signal display of the grace of God, especially among the young, in the ministry of Rev. George O. Jenness. This parish will not forget the dominie and his helpmeet.

During the eighties, the feeble light of your historian has been shed, and it is to him a pleasure and a pride to have served in this centennial year this ancient church, and recount the deeds of the pious ancestors.

Albert Henry Thompson, the third of four sons of Edward. Kneeland Thompson and Elizabeth Dearborn Smith, was born January 27, 1849, at Chelsea, Mass., and brought up in Scarsport, Maine, after his father and mother were lost at sea on the brig " Albert Perkins," of which his father was " master." He went to common schools in Searsport, and assisted his grand- father in his drug and book store, until in May, 1865, he took a course at Comer's Commercial College. In the fall he entered Phillips Andover Academy, and at the end of three years had missed but three recitations, and graduated June 30, 1868, with the second rank as salutatorian.

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He then entered Amherst College, where he was graduated July 11, 1872, with B.A. He took first prizes in English composition and Greek. He entered the junior class of the divinity school of Yale College, September, 1872, and was graduated with the degree of B.D., May 13, 1875 ; was appro- bated to preach by the New Haven West Association of Ministers, May, 1874. IIe was ordained as an evangelist February 26, 1879, at Bingham, Maine, and preached in summer vacations, 1873, at Enfield, N. H., and 1874, South San- ford, Maine ; also, in Georgetown, Conn., from May 8, 1875 to 1877 ; Bingham, Maine, 1877-79; Cromwell, Iowa, 1879-80; Wakefield, N. H., 1880-87 ; and from May, 1888, to the present at Raymond. He married, January 13, 1885, Mrs Arvilla Hardy Pitman, daughter of Loammi Hardy, of Ossipee.

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History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 59

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co. Number of Pages: 1124

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124