USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Lancaster > History of Lancaster, New Hampshire > Part 21
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" Voted : To give Rev. Joseph Willard fifty pounds a year for the next three succeeding years after settlement then to rise in proportion to the valuation as it now stands to the sum of eighty pounds to be paid annually during his ministry one third in cash, the other two thirds in produce on condition that we can get such help from the neighboring towns as is now expected."
A committee was appointed to confer with the other towns in re- gard to having Mr. Willard preach for them a portion of the time at proportional rates on the salary the town had agreed to pay him. That committee consisted of Colonels Bucknam and Wilder, and Captain Stockwell. They were unable to effect satisfactory arrange- ments with the other towns, and at an adjourned meeting, August 7, 1794, the town voted to complete its proposed contract with Rev. Mr. Willard and not make any arrangements with other towns. It was further agreed to pay the proportion of his salary in produce at the " cash price," and the selectmen were authorized to agree with Mr. Willard as to the price on the first day of March each year.
A committee, consisting of Colonel Wilder, Lieutenants Cram and Rosebrook, was appointed to arrange for a " theological coun- cil to attend to the installation if it thinks it needed." Further it was voted to concur with the church in giving Mr. Willard a call.
Rev. Joseph Willard had been preaching here meanwhile; and while these negotiations were pending, he had organized the First Congregational Church. A statement of belief and covenant had been drawn up and signed by some twenty-four persons, fourteen of whom were women, on July 17, 1794. The church, being intended to accommodate the religious wants of the town, its covenant was sufficiently indefinite to cover a variety of shades of Christian belief and practice. Mr. Willard being a graduate of Harvard college shared the spirit of liberality that had begun to characterize that seat of learning. From the fact that he never preached upon the con- troverted points of theology then attracting increasing attention throughout New England, justifies the conclusion that he was much more liberal than the majority of Congregational ministers of his day.
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He was practical and charitable in all his relations to the church. For many years his salary was paid by the selectmen, who took his receipt for the same. The people cheerfully voted considerable sums to assist in clearing his lands and building his house. His lands were meadow and house lots 32, and lot 6, range 15, and lot I, range 25, adjoining his other lots. This comprised a valuable lot of land of one hundred and seventy acres in a compact body. He developed a good farm, and secured from it a good share of his living.
For a period of twenty-eight years good old Parson Willard, as he was familiarly called by those who knew him best, served his church to their entire satisfaction, and was loved and honored by his old neighbors and parishioners; but there came a time when a younger generation of people and others coming into town from other localities where theological controversy had been rife, became suspicious that their minister was not " sound in the faith." They missed the allusion to the hard theological dogmas that were com- mon in other places. It began to be whispered about the town that Mr. Willard " was not sound in the faith."
The town had now begun to be affected by the sectarian strife and rivalry that was rife throughout New England. The Rev. Mr. Willard had no desire to be connected with it. He deplored the whole thing, and aimed to pursue a pacific, independent course ; but that did not satisfy the disaffected ones. They clamored for what they called "strong doctrines." Mr. Willard proposed to the church that his relation as a pastor be dissolved; but those who had known him so long as a true minister of religion would not hear to it. Things went along for a few more years, when it became apparent to Mr. Willard that the opposition to him was too formid- able to be met by pacific tactics, and he resigned. After laying the situation before his church, they this time saw fit to accept his resignation, the story of which is given by Rev. G. H. Tilton in his sketch of the Orthodox Congregational church, in Part II, Chapter 10.
When Lancaster received an inflation of her population, about 1800, there came to her many shades of belief that did not readily yield to the prevailing religious thought and practices of the town. Among these new-comers were people whose training had been in other evangelical sects. In 1800, John Langdon and Rosebrook Crawford, two Methodist ministers, appeared in Lancaster, introduc- ing new methods of religious propagandism. The refined, quiet, dignified and rational methods of Rev. Mr. Willard were opposed by their very opposites. These men were loud enthusiasts, making use of sensational means to uproot and supplant the moderate " standing order," as manifested in the First Congregational church of Lancaster. While the friends of the First Church, as it was com- monly called, were shocked at this new order of teachers, they were
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a minority of the population, and the sympathies of the new-comers were largely with the new preachers. The community was deeply agitated over the matter of competition, and even came to open conflict with the new order of religious teachers. The hot-headed and less reasonable element of the conservative followers of Mr. Willard took Rosebrook Crawford to the river and ducked him and offered him some other insults, chiefly by connecting his name with certain scandals, which, to an impartial mind, seem to have had some color of truth in them. Langdon escaped violence as his record seemed clean; and aside from that he was a man of consid- erable ability and character, and did much to plant his church in these northern towns. They held their services about town in pri- vate residences and schoolhouses, and made many converts. The home of Dennis Stanley, where Capt. Alexander M. Beattie now lives, was one of their favorite preaching places for many years. Exhorters and preachers of that sect were common here for a number of years, and having made some converts to their creed, the church after a time adopted a wiser policy. They sent a more in- telligent, and in fact an educated, class of ministers here, with the result of establishing a strong church that has kept the lead among the evangelical sects of the town ever since its establishment. When the old First church became so weak from desertions from its ranks and splits within it that it could not support services in the old meeting-house, the Methodist preachers made use of that building as their meeting-place for a time.
It was not long after the coming of the Methodists to Lancaster that the Baptists made a like invasion of Jefferson, and at once began to overrun the adjoining towns in manner as the former did in this town. A Baptist church was early formed in Jefferson, and other places were occupied by them as preaching points. Between the Methodists and Baptists no special rivalry existed, but both trained their weapons of aggressive conflict against the Con- gregationalist church. They made many proselytes from that old church. For some years desertions from Rev. Joseph Willard's church were common; and some who wished to get rid of the church tax took advantage of the opportunity to nominally connect their religious contributions to some other church. Such persons could evade the support of Mr. Willard by giving notice to the town clerk that they belonged to another church. In 1802, this notice was served on the town clerk :
" Gentlemen, Selectmen of Lancaster.
" This may certify that the within named persons have given their names to the Baptist society in Jefferson and belong to the same, to wit: Saml. LeGro, Saml. Springer, Jr., Caleb Page.
" Saml. Plaisted, Presiding Elder in behalf of this society.
"Jefferson February 17, 1802."
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Another notice to the same effect had been given by a preacher of the Methodist society.
" This may certify to all whom it may concern that Benjamin Bishop attends our ministry and supports the same, Being a member of our Society.
" Signed by Nathan Felch Jr., a licensed Preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America."
" Lancaster Jan. 1, 1802."
There are many such notices spread upon the pages of the town records. Some of the foremost men and women of the town went over to the new sects, leaving the old church to fall into decrepitude, and its once loved old edifice into decay. Emmons Stockwell, in 1803, gave notice that he had cast his lot with the Baptists; and in the same year John McIntire did likewise. Joel Page went over to the Methodists, asserting in his notice that he was " most consci- entious in it."
In 1817 Eliezer S. Phelps gives notice that one Frederick M. Stone has signified a "willingness to support the gospel, and has attended my meeting and wishes to be free from supporting and paying Joseph Willard." Mr. Phelps signs himself as agent of the Methodist society. This led some others, among whom I find the names of Sylvanus Chessman and Levi Stebbins, to give notice that they would no longer pay minister's tax as they had not considered themselves as members of the First church. It does not appear that this class claimed any connection with other churches. They simply wanted to quit paying the tax to support any church, other than as they might see fit to do. This refusal seems to have been heeded by the selectmen and assessors, as there is no evidence that they were taxed after the notice was given. Events like this show us how feeble the law and public sentiment were on the question of forcing one to pay for the support of a church after he no longer wished to do so.
A period had been entered upon in which the old First church lost its prestige and influence as " the church" of the town. It was now being rivalled by two distinct movements that, as yet, had not shown any haste to organize churches. It was the aim of the Methodist and Baptist leaders to convert the people away from the old church. The time was not then come for them to organize. The Methodists preached here until 1831 before they formally organized a church, and until 1834 before building a meeting- house.
In the winter of 1816 and 1817, a woman from Whitefield, called " Mother Hutchins," the grandmother of the well known Stilson Hutchins of Washington, D. C., held religious services in differ- ent places in Lancaster, more frequently at the " Gotham " school-
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house, in what used to be old District No. 5. She frequently . preached at the house of John Weeks Brackett which stood near the red schoolhouse in old District No. 8.
Mr. Brackett became deeply interested in the movement, and while it was a source of comfort and spiritual strength to him yet it proved disastrous to him financially, for these religious enthusiasts, for such they were, coming from miles around, lodged themselves and teams upon him until they actually ate him out of house and home. Before that time he had been a fairly prosperous farmer ; but from the neglect of his business and the mistaken charity of feeding the multitudes that thronged his house he lost everything he had, and was forced to leave the country to seek opportunity to make a new start in life. Those people were so thoughtlessly, selfishly happy over the thought that they were getting their souls saved, that it never occurred to them that they were crowding their neighbor Brackett into bankruptcy and an early and untimely grave ; but such proved to be the case.
" Mother " Hutchins was a woman of very remarkable ability, and full of tact and zeal in making converts, and her influence was not without value, as is often the case with zealots. Her influence was moral, and ministered unto the intellectual life of the people who came under it. She was a tall, strong woman, not particularly masculine in appearance and manner, at that time over fifty years of age, kindly and motherly in spirit.
Her meetings were largely attended by people from adjoining towns; and when the enthusiasm reached its height in the winter of 1818-1819, it was a common thing to see many women and girls lose their strength and fall upon the floor, and behave, at times, in a most shocking manner.
The staid adherents of the old First church were shocked in the most extreme measure to behold this wild enthusiasm. They must have thought the people possessed by demons, or gone mad. Their religious emotions had been worked upon so much that it produced a form of hysteria of the nervous system, that caused them to com- pletely lose their energies under a return of the same emotional excitement, as we have come to understand the disease in later times. Then it was regarded by those coming under its influence as, if not miraculous, at least bordering upon the miraculous. Some whole families would be overcome in their homes during their religious devotions; and at public meetings it was " the proper thing " to do to get under the " influence."
In keeping with this wild enthusiasm was the mistake of encour- aging many ignorant laymen in taking part in conducting their meetings. Noise and the relation of their personal experiences, real and imaginary, was taken as evidence of religiousness, which
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led the misguided and designing to play a part that did not always redound to the credit of their movement. This condition of affairs lasted until some time after 1830, when the Methodist church put upon the Lancaster circuit men of more education and refinement of character, who led their large following to a more quiet and sin- cere manner of manifesting their religious fervor. This had a reac- tionary influence upon the entire community ; and as time went on religion assumed a more dignified manner. The last of that class of noisy preachers was one Dyke, familiarly called " Brother Dyke," who built the first parsonage of the Methodist church in Lancaster, which is still standing on Middle street, and occupied by James A. Stebbins. He was a remarkable character in some respects, a man of considerable talent, but whose forte was in loud exhorta- tion.
A Calvinistic Baptist church flourished in town as early as 1809; but its records have been lost for many years, and nothing is known of it beyond the fact that it once had quite a following. It seems that when " Mother Hutchins" came here she turned many of its adherents into Freewill Baptists, and its continuity was broken until about 1860, when it was revived or replanted in Lancaster. The movement never was a strong one, and was suffered to die out after a brief struggle for existence.
As we approach the middle of this century we come upon many interesting questions that engaged the attention of the churches. The people were not so provincial or insular in their religious thought as they were at the beginning of the century, when the dis- ciples of Whitefield and the Baptists invaded this region. The newspaper press had been established in Lancaster since 1837, which may be always taken as a sure sign that a local public opin- ion is breaking down and that the people are beginning to feel out in their thought to what is thought, said, and done in the world at large. At such times people of an isolated community begin to take on a larger phase of culture, and at the same time become critical in their opinions. It was so, at all events, in Lancaster. National and world-wide questions were coming to have a strong influence upon all the institutions of the community. Politics and business had already felt the influence of national movements, and had undergone important changes. Lancaster was then within forty-eight hours of Boston, the metropolis of New England, and the hot-bed of all manner of new movements in thought. Men of a national reputation as scholars and orators had been in the habit of coming into these mountains during their vacations, and as lecturers on the popular platform of that day. The old men had been dis- cussing these larger themes about the streets, and in the hotels and stores, where the long winter evenings were wont to be spent, and
.
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the younger men and boys had listened to their observations at first, no doubt, with open-eyed wonder, but after a time in a more ques- tioning mood.
Then came the debating club, called in Lancaster the lyceum, participated in by the leading thinkers of the village. The lawyers, editors, physicians, teachers, and merchants discussed the live ques- tions of the day. We do not find the names of the clergymen on its roll of membership, nor among the disputants. Perhaps they were not interested in the subjects discussed, as they were not what were supposed to belong to their " sacred " calling. The themes considered were mostly ethical and political ones. This institution, one that did so much to train men to a ready thought upon all man- ner of questions, was a strong rival of the church, which up to the time of which we are speaking was the one institution that molded public opinion with a masterly hand. Here was an entering wedge that was destined to split in twain what had for a century or more been the double function of the churches in this country,-the influ- ence of the minister, powerful over public opinion only in the ratio of difficulties that prevented his opinions being replied to by his hearers.
Now that the newspaper and lyceum had appealed to the thought of men, and had left an opportunity for reply,-in fact, they had both invited it,-the people became accustomed to do their own thinking, and uttered their thoughts with a commendable degree of freedom, a freedom not seen in Lancaster for two generations under the influence of the established order of things. Formalities and conformities had weighed heavily upon the mind and spirit of the people, but now these burdensome accretions of the community life had fallen away, and they had even come to hold them in con- tempt. Their thought and spirit had come to conform more closely to its actual environment than to the traditional ones, in which they had stood in a false awe of. For twenty years men had been read- ing and thinking upon the great problems that engaged the thought of the ablest minds throughout the civilized world.
These movements had their influence upon the religious thought and life of Lancaster, for they could no longer be separated from them by any classification. To call them " secular," or "mere morality," did not destroy their influence upon the minds of the people. The time had come when men demanded that religion take cognizance of secular and moral questions. Religion, if it were to command men, must face every point of the social horizon. To worship God, and assure one's self that he was saved for another world, was not enough to satisfy the thought of the deep thinkers, of which class Lancaster had many at that time.
Traditional religious doctrines and practices were called in ques-
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tion. New doctrines and practices came to be entertained, and about this time a liberal, rational, non-creedal church came into existence in Lancaster,-" the First Congregational society " (Uni- tarian). This new society numbered among its members the men who had taken strong grounds against the Mexican War and slavery. The minister of the new church, Rev. George M. Rice, was a pro- nounced anti-slavery agitator. He went farther, however, than his society cared to follow in the matter; but the time had arrived when churches must deal with those so-called " secular and moral " ques- tions. The churches lent their influence strongly to the temperance agitation that culminated in the prohibitory law that has existed in the state for over forty years. When the War of the Rebellion broke out, the pulpits were not silent on the great questions in- volved in that struggle for the preservation of the Union. Nor have they been often lacking in the courage to deal with questions out- side of their creeds in the past quarter of a century.
Soon after the migration of Irish to this country, following the period of famine in Ireland, there were settled in Lancaster some of that race of people who have been for so many centuries devotees of the Roman Catholic church. Some time after 1850, their num- bers had increased in Lancaster to an extent that enabled them to hope for religious teachings of their own church, and in time a church. Services were held here at irregular intervals until 1858, when the old Deacon Farrar place on Main street, where the par- sonage and church now stand, was bought by the late Father Noiseux and remodeled into a residence for the priest, and a chapel in which services were held for some years. A church was insti- tuted, and as time has gone by the numbers have increased so that to-day it is the largest religious society in Lancaster, numbering more communicants than all the other societies combined. The present building, "All Saints " was erected in 1877.
About the same time the Calvinistic Baptist society, already re- ferred to, was organized. The Protestant Episcopal society was organized about the same time.
Since that time the history of religion in Lancaster has been very similar to that of any other community in New England. One sees here the same excess of denominationalism over and above genuine religious conviction of thought and charity that prevails throughout the country at large. Every sect numbers among its adherents intelligent, earnest, sincere men and women who are the salt of the earth, and who exert that true conservative spirit that while it does not run to excess in the erratic notions and practices of the times yet does not go backward to the dead men's ideas in the outgrown past for their example. They are capable of making and of following their own examples when circumstances of greater enlightenment
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demand it of them. They are the true conservators of religion and its institutions who use them as the instrumentalities of spiritual growth, rather than bow down to them as fetiches.
CHAPTER XIV.
LANCASTER IN RELATION TO THE VERMONT CONTROVERSY.
We cannot well pass by a matter so grave as that of the so-called Vermont Controversy without pausing to give it our serious consid- eration. This triangular controversy between New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont drew forth from General George Washing- ton the statement that the future of American independence might have been sacrificed by a wrong termination of it. A question of such serious magnitude, and one in which Lancaster bore some part, deserves careful and thorough study at our hands.
This controversy, that came so near working the serious mischief that Washington saw as one of its possibilities, sprang from the pol- icy of Governor Benning Wentworth indiscriminately granting lands by charters for new towns in a territory that was in dispute between his state and New York. As we have said, elsewhere, Governor Wentworth thought to get the start of the governor of New York by granting charters to the lands in dispute, and so granted no less than sixty charters in a single year-1761-for towns in the disputed territory on the west side of the river. His grants also extended up the east side of the Connecticut river a con- siderable distance, making a solid body of townships in the fertile valley.
In 1764 the dispute had grown so bitter between the two states that New York took an appeal to the king, who declared the west- ern bank of the Connecticut river, from the northern line of Massa- chusetts to the forty-fifty degree of latitude, the boundary between New Hampshire and New York. For a period of more than twelve years the towns on either side of the river put different constructions on the rulings of the king. New Hampshire towns, or those on the east side of the river, claimed that the king's ruling applied only to the future and did not undo the grants by Governor Wentworth, while the towns on the west side of the river claimed that the king meant to undo Governor Wentworth's grants, and that they were in New York, and must look to that state to make their titles valid by rechartering the townships. As we shall see presently Lancaster took the same view of the matter that the other New Hampshire towns did, but later, when another complication of the question arose, she failed to act with the seceding towns on the western side.
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The matter dragged its weary length along with little friction from 1764 to the time of the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, when it took a new turn, one wholly unexpected to everybody.
Both in New Hampshire and New York those disaffected towns involved in the controversy of the past twelve years interpreted the Declaration of Independence as absolving them from all allegiance to either of the two states, and that they were left in what they chose to call " a state of nature." Immediately a movement was set on foot to form a new state out of the towns on the upper Connecticut valley that were granted since 1761. The movement was welcomed by some sixteen towns in New Hampshire which accordingly re- fused to send delegates to the state convention that was called to meet at Exeter in 1779 to frame a state constitution.
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