USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. II > Part 17
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History of Littleton.
XXXII.
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
T HE first settlers of the town, with rare exceptions, were religious people. Captain Caswell and his wife were mem- bers of the Baptist Church ; Thomas Miner and David Hopkinson were Congregationalists; the Rankin family, including David Webster, were Presbyterians, as was David Lindsey ; while James Williams, Ebenezer Pingree, Robert Charlton, Joseph W. Morse, and the Farr family, if not church members prior to 1800, became such afterward and always treated religious matters with becom- ing reverence. Among these pioneers Capt. Peleg Williams and the Bemis family were the only members of the community who were disposed to regard religious questions from a purely worldly point of view. As the population became more numerous, the percentage of irreligious persons increased, and a wider diversity of opinion in regard to theological questions became common. People who held to the doctrines taught by John Wesley and Hosea Ballou found their way hither, and while they strenuously refused to act with the Congregationalists in favor of appro- priating money for the purpose of employing a minister to preach the Gospel, and united with the most pronounced irreligious people in this matter, they were none the less among the most devout citizens of the town.
The history of the contentions in regard to " hiring preaching " and building the first meeting-house, have been related in the early part of this work 1 and need not be recounted. It is enough for our present purpose to state that the record of the proceedings in town meeting showing an adverse majority in these matters in no way proves that the citizenship of those days was less godly or less inclined to discharge all its religious duties than were the inhabitants of adjoining or neighboring towns that had been settled under somewhat similar conditions. The truth is that their conduct was guided more by a want of respect 1 Vol. I. pp. 232-249.
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Ecclesiastical History.
for a law that restricted their choice of a religious teacher and preacher to a denomination that taught doctrines which they re- garded as erroneous, than by a want of reverence for religious in- stitutions, or lack of willingness to maintain public religious worship.
It may be regarded as strange that a generation should pass before a church was organized. But diversity of opinion was doubtless a bar to such a consummation. The church member- ship was not large. James Rankin early after his coming desired to have a church regularly established, but it was a Scotch Presbyterian Church that he would found, and the Congregation- alists did not approve his proposition. Then when Rev. David Goodall came the question of organization was again raised, but during the lifetime of Elder Rankin, without result. The death of the Elder in the early summer of 1803 left the way clear to a union, and the organization of a Congregational Church.
The first church was established by the Rev. David Goodall and the Rev. Asa Carpenter, pastor of the church in Waterford, Vt., March 3, of 1803. The meeting for this purpose was held at the home of the Rev. Mr. Goodall at West Littleton, now the residence of Frank C. Albee. Ten persons, residents of the town, were present and participated in the proceedings and be- came members of the newly established church. The records of this and all subsequent meetings down to 1820, were kept on loose sheets of paper and long since disappeared. Consequently the membership, at the time of organization, cannot be accurately stated. There can be little, if any, doubt, however, that among those who became members at that meeting were : Rev. David Goodall and Mrs. Goodall, Andrew Rankin, Asa Lewis and Mary Lewis his wife, Nathaniel Webster and his wife Miriam, a daughter of Elder James Rankin.1 It is impossible to determine the identity of the remaining members, but it is quite probable that Dorothy, wife of Andrew Rankin, was one of the two. Asa Lewis was chosen deacon of the newly organized church.
During the next seventeen years the church was fairly prosper- ous. When we consider the small population from which its membership was drawn, and the many difficulties by which it was environed; the enterprising propagation of Methodism and other
1 Solomon Whiting was authority for the above list. A lad of twelve years, he was present at the house, but not in the room where the meeting was held. He made the statement in 1884, when he was burdened with the weight of ninety-one years. Though physically feeble, his memory concerning long past events was remarkably accurate. He also stated that the widow of Elder James Rankin was present, but declined to join with the others in the organization.
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History of Littleton.
comparatively new religious doctrines ; the want for several years of a pastor, a meeting-house or other stated place and times for worship,- this may well be regarded as one of its periods of prosperity.
Each passing year saw its numbers augmented, and the char- acter of its accessions in these years was of a high order. Among those who came to its fold were Robert Charlton, a man of attain- ments and sturdy virtues, Guy Ely, for many years one of the town's foremost citizens, Noah Farr, Gideon Griggs, David, Barney, and Luther Hoskins, Isaac Miner, Joseph W. Morse, Jonathan Par- ker, Solomon Mann, who built the mills at " Ammonoosuc village," and who must have been one of the first to add his name to the roll after the organization, Sylvester Savage, Isaac Stearns, and Luther Thompson, a brother-in-law of Deacon Lewis. The wives of nearly all the members mentioned, it is hardly necessary to state, were also of its membership. In this period also Lyman Hibbard was one of the most active and intelligent members. It was his fortune soon afterward to be the first member of the church to be arraigned at its bar, and to suffer the penalty of excommunication. His offence was heresy, the particular form of which the record does not state, but it would doubtless be covered by the term " agnostic," which Huxley applies to all sorts of doubters.
Having no meeting-house until 1815, services were held in schoolhouses ; the most frequently used for this purpose were those near the residence of Priest Goodall in the middle district, that a few steps from the inn of Captain James Williams, and the one in District No. 7 on Mann's Hill. The Rev. Mr. Goodall was generally the preacher, and supplied as often as his health would permit ; the Rev. Asa Carpenter also occasionally officiated in the years immediately following the formation of the church. When the meeting-house was occupied, the Rev. Mr. Goodall was engaged as supply for the first six months, and during a greater part of the time thereafter until the engagement of the Rev. N. K. Hardy, in the spring of 1816. The new minister was a licentiate, a man of singular purity and sweetness of character and unselfish devotion to the cause to which he gave his years and his strength. His home, the first parsonage in town, was near, and north of the house of Jonathan Parker, on the farm at present owned by Frank I. Parker. It was a log-cabin with two rooms and a loft, and stood on the bluff above the winding flow of the Parker Brook. The highway as it then ran was well up in what is now Mr. Parker's pasture. The only exisiting trace remaining of that parsonage is a bit of a stream that trickles from the well at the
1
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foot of the bluff which supplied the minister's family with water for domestic purposes. It is now nearly filled with the deposit of years of neglect. In this cabin was held the first Sunday-school. After a year the pastor moved to a small house that now consti- tutes the ell part of the residence at the corner formed by Meadow and Main Streets. It was then owned by Sylvester Savage, and here the Sunday-school was continued by Mrs. Hardy. Mr. Hardy was not strong when he came here, and it is probable that consump- tion had even then fastened upon him. At all events the rigor of the climate and his arduous parish duties completely broke his health, and in 1819 he yielded to the disease, closing a life-work that is almost forgotten by men, but its influence lingered for many years among the people, to whom he was greatly endeared.
The first entry in the existing records is dated May 3, 1820, and is in the handwriting of the Rev. Drury Fairbank, who succeeded Mr. Hardy as pastor of the church. This entry, bearing the date of the 28th of the same month, throws light on one of the past transactions of the church that is somewhat veiled in obscurity : " Baptised .. . a child of Deacon Gideon Griggs." This record is conclusive of the fact that Deacon Griggs held the office prior to the coming of the Rev. Mr. Fairbank. We know that Deacon Lewis was elected at the meeting called to organize the church. The late Marthia (Nurs) Goodwin stated in 1885, that when she was a girl, Mr. Lewis was a deacon, and that at the first communion she attended in the old meeting-house, Andrew Rankin and Gideon Griggs were the deacons. This communion service was probably in 1815, or certainly not later than 1816. She was born in 1795, and at the time her statement was made was of sound and per- fect mind and memory.
At the time of the death of Deacon Lewis in 1815, the meeting- house had but recently been finished and the pews sold. Is it not probable that when the church filled this vacancy caused by his death, they also decided to elect another to this office, and that Andrew Rankin and Gideon Griggs were chosen deacons at that time ?
In the spring of 1820 the Rev. Drury Fairbank was called to the pastorate, and returned a favorable response, and on the 3d of May he was formally installed as pastor over the church. There is no known account in existence of this service, the only cere- mony of the kind performed in the old meeting-house, and the only person from abroad known to have been present was Rev. David Sutherland, of Bath, who bore a part in the service.
The advent of Drury Fairbank marks a new era in the ecclesi-
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History of Littleton.
astical history of the town. He was a man given to the use of the pen, and kept a brief but clear record of church events from the time of his installation until the final close of his pastorate in 1836. Soon after his settlement he bought the farm near the meadow cemetery known to the present generation as the Flan- ders place, where he made his home the remainder of his life.
It was in the closing years of his pastorate that an incident occurred of considerable moment to the church and to the town. The growth of the village had been so rapid that in 1828 the geo- graphical centre of the town had ceased to be the centre of popu- lation. The regular church attendants resident in or near the village outnumbered those in the rest of the town, and they naturally sought better church accommodations. They proposed to build a meeting-house in the village and have the church worship there. The people living at Rankin's Mill and those at North Littleton opposed the measure with vigor. The village people were not strong enough to stand alone, nor were the church- going people from other sections able to maintain a regular service in the event of the withdrawal of the villagers. The question was discussed with more or less zeal during two years, but no conclusion was reached until " Priest" Fairbank threw the weight of his influence in favor of the proposed change of location. It is evident that his action was influenced entirely by the changed conditions which environed the church. He saw with the clear judgment of an unselfish man that the highest welfare of the community required that the meeting-house should be so situated as to accommodate the greatest number, and that alone was suffi- cient to lead him to the village party. The suggestion made by Joseph Robins to him that " a new meeting-house meant a new minister" could have no weight with a man of Mr. Fairbank's well-known character. A man who had given thirty years of his life to the exacting toil of the ministry for the mere pittance of two or three hundred dollars a year was not open to the gross persuasions of greed. Time and decay, too, served to hasten the inevitable end. The meeting-house at the centre was sadly in want of repair, and the majority refused to appropriate money for the purpose of putting it in respectable condition as a place of worship. The village people then saw that their hour had come, and a meeting was called to consider the question of build- ing a meeting-house at the village. This meeting was held at the schoolhouse on the Mann's Hill road on Wednesday, April 14, 1830.
It was organized by the election of Dr. William Burns as mod-
E
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CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, ERECTED 1832.
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Ecclesiastical History.
erator and Aaron Brackett as secretary. A vote was taken as to the expediency of building a house of public worship in or near the village, and it was voted to build a brick house. A committee of twelve was elected to decide upon a location and draft a plan of the proposed building. The committee comprised Elisha Hinds, H. A. Bellows, William Berkley, Joseph Shute, Noah Farr, William Brackett, Abijah Allen, Levi Burt, Simeon Dodge, Drury Fairbank, Isaac Abbott, and Josiah Kilburn. The meeting then adjourned to the " 21st inst. at three P. M.," at which time the committee made its report, selecting as a location a " spot near Mr. Hibbard's, on Esq. Bonney's," the price to be $50. The com- mittee also presented a plan of a building which did not seem to be entirely satisfactory, as the meeting voted " that a committee of three be appointed to draft the best plan for a house, taking into view the present plans drawn by the first committee, and establish on the most proper place, also to ascertain the probable difference between the erection of a brick or wood house, and ascer- tain the price that good brick can be obtained for and report at our next meeting." The committee appointed consisted of H. A. Bellows, James Dow, and Sylvanus Balch. It was " voted that Mr. Bonney be paid within three weeks from this day for the land," and also " voted that this meeting stand adjourned to Thursday the 29th inst., at 'the new meeting-house." The last five words may be regarded as an attempt at humor, as no plan of the building had yet been adopted or even the lot purchased ; they are the exact words of the record, however. At this adjourned meeting the committee reported in favor of building of wood, and their report was adopted. They also presented a plan which was accepted " subject to such alterations as may be thought expedient here- after." It was also " voted to choose a committee of seven per- sons whose duties shall be to draw up a paper describing the doings of all the meetings, the place selected, the general plan of the meeting-house, the use to which it shall be appropriated when erected, and all the other things that may be expedient and proper to give a sufficient understanding of the plan to be pursued in erecting such house, to present such paper and procure subscrip- tions thereto, and also whenever in the opinion of said committee sufficient subscriptions are obtained, to proceed in the erection of said house in such manner as they may deem expedient." This committee consisted of William Brackett, H. A. Bellows, Simeon Dodge, Adams Moore, Josiah Kilburn, Levi Burt, and Noah Farr. The above committee presented the following proposals for build- ing the meeting-house and call for subscriptions : -
VOL. II. - 11
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History of Littleton.
"To be erected upon the spot before designated which is to be suit- ably prepared for that purpose, and to be completed as soon as conven- ient, in a time not exceeding one year, casualties excepted, to be formed generally upon the following plan and upon the fashion adopted at meeting aforesaid, subject however to such minor alterations as may be found necessary or expedient by the building committee, which plan is as follows, viz. : A one story house in the modern style with the gable end to the road, height of posts eighteen feet, length of the house fifty- four feet, width forty-five feet, roof arched, a single curved gallery for singers across the front end, and fifty-two pews or slips, materials to be of wood of a suitable description, put together and finished off in a good workmanlike manner, and the outside properly painted white, the house when erected, to be owned and occupied as a place of publick worship by each denomination of Christians in proportion to the number of slips owned by each denomination. When completed the expense of building to be ascertained and the pews appraised by the building com- mittee according to their comparative value to defray the expense of building and the choice of said pews, after due notice given, to be sold at public auction, and the proceeds of the sale of the pews to be divided among the subscribers in proportion to the amount of their several sub- scriptions.1 Subscriptions to be payable one half in cash, the other half
1 The call for subscriptions reads as follows :
We the subscribers hereby request the committee chosen as aforesaid for the purpose of procuring subscriptions and the building such house to proceed in the erection of the same in the manner set forth in the proposals aforesaid, for which we bind ourselves severally to pay to said committee or their successors the several sums annexed to our names respectively in the manner described in the above proposals.
LITTLETON, May 31, 1830.
Subscribers' names.
Dolls.
Cents.
Guy Ely, one half in lumber
$50.00
Sylvanus Balch, half cash, half lumber & lime
100.00
Drury Fairbank
50.00
Aaron Brackett
75.00
Henry A. Bellows
75.00
Wm. Burns
100.00
Isaac Abbott
50.00
Josiah Kilburn, half in lime & lumber
40.00
Truman Stevens
40.00
Adams Moore, forty
40.00
Albert Little
40.00
Timothy Green
40.00
Simeon Dodge, half boards & half work
20.00
Joseph Shute, five dollars in January and five in neat stock in October in 1831
Jonathan Lovejoy, ten dollars in labor
10.00
Jonathan Nurs, two dollars in labor
2.00
Wm. Brackett
50.00
G. B. Redington ยท
50.00
Abijah Allen, twenty five dollars in one year from October next & five thousand merchantable boards .
50.00
Solomon Fitch in labor
5.00
Elisha P. Miner in labor at the common price
6.00
$943.00
Geo. Little, half in shingles, half in lime
50.00
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Ecclesiastical History.
in good saleable neat stock, grain, or suitable material for building to the acceptance of the building committee, at a fair cash price, one half of the money by the first of October next, the other half in one year from that time, the stock in two equal payments at the times specified for the payment of the money, one half of the grain in Jany. next, and the material for building delivered upon the spot, when called for by the building committee."
The vote of the meeting that authorized the building of the meeting-house provided that it should be constructed within a year, " casualties excepted." It is evident that the committee failed to procure at once what they regarded as a sufficient pledge in money, material, or labor, to warrant them in proceeding with the erection of the building. This want of funds they considered one of the contemplated " casualties," and the frame was not raised until 1832. The building was ready for occupancy in 1833, and was dedicated on the Fourth of July of that year. There was a belfry on the front end of the building, a square, box-like structure, with a high roof running to a point and surmounted by a short pole or spire. The interior of the church was arranged with the pulpit at the southwest end as at present. There was but one entrance, in the centre of the front end, opening into a vestibule which ran the width of the church, except as it gave room for stairs running into the singers' gallery over it, which was about ten feet deep. There were fifty-two pews in the church, one for each Sabbath in the year, and each pew-holder was entitled to choose the denomination which should occupy the pulpit one Sunday each year for each pew he owned.
In 1835 Mr. Fairbank, much broken in health but not in spirit, intimated to some of his friends that it would perhaps be for the best interests of the church that his relations as its pastor should be dissolved. These friends regarded the proposition with dis- favor, and it was not until another year that a council was called and the relations of pastor and people were dissolved.
The pastorate of Drury Fairbank was of longer duration than that of any other minister who has been settled over this church save that of Mr. Milliken, which exceeded it by nearly two years. In the last year that the old meeting-house was occupied for relig- ious worship there was a great spiritual awakening, and thirty- one persons united with the church. Among those who came into its fold at this time were John Farr, Sylvanus Balch, and Ezra Parker, who in subsequent years were among its strongest pillars.
In taking final leave of his charge Priest Fairbank made a
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History of Littleton.
brief statement embodying a review of his work among this people, which he spread upon the church records.
" The following facts," he says, " are thought to deserve a place in this book. On the 16th of March, 1836, Rev. Drury Fairbank was at his own request dismissed from the church and people in Littleton, having been their pastor nearly sixteen years ; and on the following day, to wit, on the 17th of March, 1836, Rev. Evarts Worcester was ordained over the same church and people.
" When Mr. Fairbank was settled, the church consisted of thirty-five members. The whole number added while he was pastor was sixty- nine. When dismissed, the church consisted of about one hundred. He baptized 146 persons, 106 of whom were children, and 40 were adults.
" It may be recorded, in addition, that in the above specified time there were 255 deaths in the town, more than half of whom were under fourteen years of age."
Drury Fairbank 1 was noble born. The clergy may continue to be true to the inspired volume in pressing the claims of the new birth ; nevertheless we are coming to appreciate in these latter days the advantages of the first birth.
In the record of the Fairbank family printed by the Hon. Thaddeus Fairbanks in 1885 we read that the father of Christopher Fairbank, the woollen-waste dealer at Milreve, Scotland, used to speak of his " Uncle Jonathan who went to America."
Jonathan Fairbank came from Somerby, Yorkshire, England, in 1633, and settled in Dedham, Mass. Soon after John and Richard came ; the latter was admitted to the First Church in Boston in the eighth month of 1633. Richard Fairbank was appointed first postmaster of the whole colony. The records show that he owned the land where Music Hall, Boston, now stands and five acres adjoining the south side of the Common.
Of the second generation we mention Jonas Fairbank, who was fined in 1652 for wearing great boots before he was worth two hundred pounds. The third generation furnishes John, Joseph, George, Eleasur, and Jonathan Fairbank, the first physician of Sherborn. Among those of the fourth generation were George, Captain Eleasur, and George Fairbank, who married Rachel Drury, of Framingham. Hence comes the Christian name of the man of whom we write. The fifth generation chronicles the birth of Drury Fairbank, October 13, 1772, at Holliston, Mass. His
1 The memoir of Mr. Fairbank was prepared for this work by Rev. John H. Hoffman, pastor of the church from 1894 to 1898.
REV. DRURY FAIRBANK.
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Ecclesiastical History.
father's name was Drury Fairbank, and his mother's Deborah Leland.
Were we to follow out the history of the sixth, seventh, and eighth generations of the Fairbank family, we should come upon names well known and illustrious the world over. We should find clergymen, scholars, and men of industry, philanthropists, and benefactors of the human family.
They were an educated, enterprising, and notedly a religious people.
We regret that we are not able to furnish a chapter on the boy Fairbank. This most interesting period of a man's life is always instructive. Doubtless he rolled hoops, played " four-year- old cat" on the Common, plagued his sisters, and lent the neighboring boys a hand in breaking their steers. In his later boyhood we find him a scholar; evidently the characteristic family trait, a thirst for knowledge, held a place in his boyhood aspirations.
At twenty-five years of age he is a graduate of that famous institution, Brown University, at Providence, R. I. Whether or not he indulged in any mischievous or semi-naughty things in college the records do not show. We may well suppose, first of all, that he was there to store his mind with great thoughts for his future life work.
Mr. Fairbank is described as tall, large, erect, well propor- tioned, and in later years as having white hair and being bald, which was formerly supposed to be a mark of great erudition, and among the school children of his charge he was considered as stalwart in character as he was formidable in person.
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