History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 22

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis
Number of Pages: 1714


USA > New Hampshire > Strafford County > History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 22
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 22


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Witchcraft .- There is also but little about the sad delusion of witchcraft, which was then a common be- lief, and while only a score of miles away men em- inent for piety and learning were hurried into all kinds of errors, persecution, and bitterness, only a few instances occur where there were any accusations prosecuted for that offense here, and of these not one reached a tragical conclusion. The only case in our town had a singular and triumphant ending. It oc- curred in 1656, at Little Harbor, then a part of Ports- mouth. The testimony was that on Lord's day, 30th of March, at night, as Susannah Trimmings was going -


the freshet, next her house. On her return, between Goodmen Evens and Robert Davis, she heard a rust- fing in the woods, which she at first thought was occa- sioned by swine, and presently after there did appear to her a woman, whom she apprehended to be old Goodwife Walford. She asked me where my consort was? I answered, "I had none." She said, " Thy consort is at home by this time. Lend me a pound of cotton." I told her I had but two pounds in the house, and I would not spare any to my mother. She said, " I had better have done it, that my sorrow was great already, and it should be greater, for I was going a great journey but should never come there." She then left me, and I was struck as with a clap of fire on the back, and she vanished towards the water- side in my apprehension in the shape of a cat. She had on her head a white linen hood tied under her chin, and her waistcoat and petticoat were red, with an old green apron, and a black hat upon her head.


Her husband and others testified to strange things which apparently had been brought about by the bewitching of Goody Walford; but Goody Walford, traduced as a witch, boldly brought her defamers into court to answer for the slanderous words, and actually succeeded in recovering damages.


A New Church .- This was the first and last seri- ous instance of witchcraft in our town. The old South Church was now falling into ruins. It was deemed unfit for worship in 1711, when the whole town had voted to build a new one, but by reason of the separation the diminished numbers at the Mill Dam continued their services there until 1731, when the parish built a new church on a lot of land pre- sented by Capt. John Pickering. This was the South Meeting-house, standing until our own day on the site of the present South Ward Room, which was so im- portant a landmark for mariners coming into Pis-


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cataqua Harbor, and which, after repairs and remod- eling, was finally taken down a few years since. It must have been a great trial to the South Parish, that after the North Parish had their new meeting-house provided for them at the cost of the whole town, and had acquired the legal right to the glebe land and parsonage, it was necessary for the South Parish to depend entirely upon its own contributions ; but such was the success of the ministry of Emerson that it seemed to it not too serious a burden.


After the frame was raised, Mr. Emerson made a prayer upon a stage fixed in a frame for the occasion. That prayer was his last public service. He died in the sixty-second year of his age, and was buried in the Cotton burial-ground. The following is the inscrip- tion on his tomb : " Here resteth in Hope of a glori- ous Resurrection ye body of ye Rev. Mr. John Emer- son, ye late faithful Pastor of ye South Church, in 62d year of his Age. The memory of ye just is blessed."


The Rev. Wm. Shurtleff was a native of Plymouth, Portsmouth, who Died January ye 21st, 1731-2, in ye | Mass., where he was born in the year 1689. He grad-


One of the principal incidents of the ministry of Emerson and Rogers was the great accession of church- members by reason of the earthquake in Portsmouth in 1727, and both to keep in memory that alarming event, as well as alive the interest of the church and gratitude for its prosperity, Emerson ever after preached an occasional discourse on the evening of the 29th of October.


There is preserved a portrait of him painted in London in 1708, during his visit to that city, when his remarkable personal appearance commended him to the favor of the queen. With the great wig, the robe, and bands, it gives also a countenance of striking features, restful eyes, a mouth of rare beauty, and an expression of reverence, benignity, and gentle- ness. His gifts were equal to his graces, and he was, by all testimony, an agrecable companion, an inter- esting prencher, a faithful pastor, and a good man.


Shurtleff .- After the records of Mr. Emerson we find the following note: "The Church and congrega- tion In ye South Part of ye Town of Portsmouth, formerly under ye pastoral care of ye Rev. Mr. Jno. Emerson, having called ye Rev. Mr. Wm. Shurtleff to succeed him, he was installed in ye pastoral office on Feb. 21, 1732-3."


This is in the handwriting of Mr. Shurtleff, and thereafter follow many pages of his records, being chiefly those of baptisms and of adoptions of the church covenant. Occasionally there is a record of a baptism in the North Church, during an exchange with Mr. Fitch, or of one by Mr. Fitch in the South Church, showing that the most cordial relations ex- isted between the ministers and parishes.


It was customary in that day for the church to ex- ercise a pretty strict watch over its members,-a cus- tom which, for sympathy or for censure, I fear we have too universally abandoned,-and it is no uncommon thing to find in the records ot all the older churches


frequent references to the faults and falls of the mem- bers and the decreed punishment of the offenders ; but during Mr. Shurtleff's ministry, a period of fifteen years, there is but one record of this character, which runs as follows: " Aug. 10, 1746, voted at a church meeting yt Abigail Tobie, a member in full commu- nion with the church, be suspended from communion on ye account of her scandalous Behavior in Boston. Having been convicted of stealing several things, and yt she stand suspended till she manifests her repent- ance of ye same."


Whether it is owing to the special emphasis which has always been laid upon the moral duties in the history of this parish, or whether it is owing to any lower discipline we cannot say, but this single in- stanee of ecclesiastical discipline is in striking con- trast to most church records of this period.


uated at Harvard College in 1707, and was ordained as pastor of the church at New Castle, which was then the aristocratic part of Portsmouth, the very year that Mr. Emerson was dismissed (1712). As he succeeded Mr. Emerson at New Castle, so he became his suc- cessor over the South Parish of this town, where he was installed Feb. 21, 1733. The new church for the South Parish had just been finished, harmony had been entirely restored between the two parishes, and Mr. Shurtleff entered upon his new field of labor with every promise of success,-a promise which was abundantly fulfilled and which ceased only with his death.


Clerical Anecdotes .- Some of the stories which are told of the contemporary ministers, neighbors, and friends of Mr. Shurtleff give us the only glimpses of ministerial life among the scanty records which are preserved to us. There was a clergyman at Newing- ton, Rev. Joseph Adams, who lived, I believe, to a greater age than any minister ever settled in New Hampshire. He is described as a man of fair talents, but of great self-complacency. In praying for a person dangerously sick, who had desired the prayers of the congregation, he prayed very earnestly that the man might be prepared to die, for, added he, " We, O Lord, who are skillful, know there is no possi- bility of his recovery." At a meeting of the associa- tion of ministers at Portsmouth, Mr. Adams made the prayer, in which he took occasion to introduce the horses mentioned in the Book of Revelation ; but becoming suddenly embarrassed while speaking of the white horse he closed the exercises abruptly, where- upon one of his brethren observed to him that at this time of life he should be particularly cautious in mounting strange horses if he would avoid a fall.


The Rev. John Tneke, settled at the Shoals, was also a contemporary of Mr. Shurtleff. The Shoals was at that time quite flourishing, and Mr. Tucke's salary was one of the highest at that time paid in New England. He was a scholarly and faithful pas-


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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.


tor, and, as it reads on his tombstone at Star Island, " a useful physician, both to the bodies and souls of his people." These islands had before and after Mr .. Shurtleff two or three quite eminent as well as eccen- tric men. There was one Rev. Mr. Rooch, whose prayers were so touching and whose lite was so pure that it was said of him, " He dwelt as near heaven as any man on earth." His congregation were fisher- men, and they usually assembled one day in the month, besides the Sabbaths, for public worship. On one of these days he was requested to postpone the meeting to a future time, as it was a fine season for their business, and they must go out with their boats. He endeavored to persuade them, but in vain, and then addressed them: "If you are resolved to neglect your duty to God, and will go away, I say unto you, catch fish if you can; but as for you who will tarry and worship the Lord Jesus Christ, I will pray unto Him for you that you may catch fish till you are weary." Thirty went, toiled all day, and caught fonr fishes; while the five who attended divine worship, and afterwards went out, caught as many hundred. After that they all regularly at- tended any meetings the pastor appointed.


After him came the eccentric Moodey, son of the minister of Portsmouth of that name, of whom is told that familiar story, that once addressing the congre- gation on the occasion of a shipwreck, he inquired, "Supposing, my brethren, any of you should be taken short in the bay in a northeast storm, your hearts trembling with fear, and nothing but death before you, whither would your thoughts turn ? What would you do?" He paused, and a sailor, supposing he awaited an answer, and attracted by his description of the storm at sea, replied, "Why, in that case, d'ye see, I should immediately hoist the foresail and scud away for Squam."


Revival under Whitefield .- The most remark- able ecclesiastical event during the ministry of Mr. Shurtleff was the great revival under Whitefield, of which Mr. Shurtleff has left an extended account. It is interesting for the description he gives of the townsmen, as well as of the revival. He says, "You are doubtless in some measure acquainted with the character which the People of this Town have here- tofore generally sustained. They have, I think, been remarkt by strangers for their Politeness in Dress and Behaviour; have been thought to go beyond most others in equal circumstances, if not to excess themselves in their sumptuous and elegant Living, and Things of a like nature; & while they have been justly in Repute for their generous and hospitable Disposition, and for many social habits. Diversions of various kinds have been much in Fashion, & the vices that have been usual in Sea Port and trading Places have been common and prevalent among us. We have, I trust, never been without a number of sincere and serious Christians; but even these wise virgins have slumbered and slept; and as to the gen-


erality of Professors, they have seemed for a great while to content themselves with an empty Form, and there has been but little of the Life & Power of Religion to be seen."


Mr. Whitefield came here and preached in the old South Church on the 25th of February. 1745, and while Mr. Shurtleff seems to have disapproved of a good many excesses of the revival, he testifies that he thought " his traveling this way was a favorable Provi- dence, and his preaching was instrumental in making many shake off their heavy slumbers."


As the result of the revival he gives us his opinion that there is not the profane cursing and swearing that was formerly usual; that the Sabbath was more strictly observed ; that family worship was set up; that many dishonest dealers had made restitution ; that music and dancing were wholly laid aside.


He mentions in all seriousness an incident which, he says, was overruled by God to serve great and good purposes :


" Late in the evening, after services had been held all day, and just as the people were leaving the church, the chimney of an House that stood near to it happened to take fire and blaze out to an uncommon Degree. Upon the sudden appearance of the light breaking in at the several windows there was a cry made that Christ was coming to Judgment, which being really believed by a great many, some that were not before so much affected as others were put into the deepest Distress, great numbers had their convictions hereby strengthened and confirmed. And however distasteful the relating such low occurrences may be to some wise and curious Palates now, I make no doubt but things of a like nature will afford an infinite satisfaction to the Saints hereafter; that it will give them a vast and inconceivable Pleasure when they get to Heaven to have the Beauty of Divine Providence laid open to their view ; to hear and see how some events that are seemingly insignificant, and appear perfectly casual, have been ordered out in in- finite Wisdom and made subservient to very great and excellent Designs, and how a bare Imagination and mistaken Apprehension of Things has been so far set Home and made such impressions upon a great many as to be a means of their saving conversion to God."


Mr. Shurtleff married the sister of Hon. Theodore Atkinson, whose only mission seems to have been to develop his patience and weakness. The story is told that once she fastened the door of the room where he was finishing his sermon for church, went to her pew and sat quietly there, while a committee of the church went to see what was the matter. She even left the worthy pastor to prepare his own dinner. "Has this been salted, Mr. Shurtleff?" she said, while he was broiling a piece of fish. "It has," was the meek re- ply. "Well, then, it needs peppering too," she said, as she threw a shovelfull of ashes upon his ruined meal.


She made some reparation for her treatment of her


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husband by leaving to all succeeding ministers of the Sonth Parish a fine old silver tankard, which is pre- served unto the present day.


Mr. Shurtleff published five sermons, together with a long account of the revival during his ministry, and these show him to be a man of no common gifts. He was "long to be remembered," writes one of his suc- cessors, " for his uncommon meekness and patience under great trials, and for distinguished piety as well as pastoral fidelity."


Strong .- After a ministry of fifteen years he died on the 9th of May, 1747, and was buried beneath the pulpit of the old South. At the destruction of that building his remains were removed to the South Cemetery, and a simple tablet erected by the parish.


In the very year that Mr. Shurtleff died there was visiting in the family of the distinguished Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton, Mass., the devoted Ameri- ean missionary, David Brainerd. He had entered Yale College to prepare himself for the ministry, but was expelled for saying of one of the tutors "that he had no more of the grace of God than a chair." Soon after he began his work as a missionary among the Indians, first near Stockbridge, Mass., then in Pennsylvania, and then in New Jersey, where he met with great success,


At Northampton Mr. Brainerd met and was pleased with a young man named Job Strong, and particu- larly recommended him to the commissioners at Boston as a suitable person for missionary labors among the Indians, a work which greatly interested young Strong, who had that year graduated at Yale. He set out in the latter part of the year 1747 for a settlement in New York, but having gone as far as Schoharie, he was taken ill and was unable to com- plete his journey. But he had spent about six months on this tour, and returned full of expecta- tions and resolves of a work of future usefulness among the wild men of the wilderness. The South Parish had, however, heard such excellent accounts of Mr. Strong and of his fitness and gifts for the ministry that Matthew Livermore and Henry Sher- burne were sent to Northampton to invite him to this place. Jonathan Edwards felt that Mr. Strong was especially fitted to carry on the work which Brainerd, who had just died at his house, had so well begun, and protested against Mr. Strong's going to Portsmouth unless upon the express condition that it should be for a temporary engagement, after which he was to resume his missionary labors, and the gen- tlemen were obliged to promise Mr. Edwards, who was then the spiritual head of the Church of New England, that they would not use their influence for his establishment here. It was probably with this understanding that Mr. Strong came to the South Parish. Whether the committee faithfully kept their promise or not they did not persuade the parish not to take any interest in Mr. Strong, for his preaching and himself were evidently well pleasing, and he


soon received a call to become its pastor. This he declined, and went back to the commissioners at Boston to receive directions about his father's labor among the Indians, Ilis health, however, seemed insufficient to the task, and they thought it best he shoukl relinquish his cherished plans, which involved so much exposure and toil. The parish renewed the invitation, which he now accepted, and the first notice concerning him on the church records is as follows: "The Church and congregation in ye South part of the Town of Portsmouth, formerly under the Pastoral Care of ye Rev. Mr. William Shurtleff, having called Mr. Job Strong to succeed bim, he was solemnly set apart to yo pastoral office amongst them on the 28th day of June, 1749."


Jonathan Edwards .- The 28th of June, 1749, must have been a day of great interest, not only to the South Parish, but to the whole town of Ports- mouth, for, added to the fact of the old parish of the town being about to ordain a new pastor, Jonathan Edwards, then regarded as by far the most eminent theologian in Christendom, was to preach the sermon. Mary Edwards, his danghter, then about fifteen years of age, afterwards Mrs. Dwight, of Northampton, was at the time making a visit to some of her father's friends here. The uncertainty of travel in those days made it necessary to leave a substitute, in case the appointed preacher did not arrive in time. The Rev. Mr. Moodey, of York, able and eccentric, had accepted the place. On the morning of that day, Mr. Edwards not having arrived, the Council delayed the ordina- tion as long as they well could, and then proceeded to the church, where Mr. Moodey had been regularly assigned to offer opening prayer. That gentleman, knowing that a numerous and highly respectable audienee had been drawn together by a strong desire to hear Mr. Edwards, rose up to pray under the not very pleasant impression that he must stand in his place, and offered a prayer which was wholly char- acteristie of himself, and in some degree also of the times in which he lived. In that part of it in which it was proper to allude to the exercises of the day he besought the Lord that they might be suitably hum- bled, under the power of his Providence, in not being permitted to hear on that occasion a discourse, as they had all fondly expected, from "that eminent servant of God, the Rev. Mr. Edwards, of Northampton," and proceeded to thank God for having raised him up to be such a burning and shining light, for his un- common piety, for his great excellence as a preacher, for the remarkable success which had attended his ministry in other congregations as well as his own, for the superior talents and wisdom with which he was endowed as a writer, and for the great amount of good which his works had already done, and still promised to do, to the church and to the world. IIe then prayed that God would spare his life, and endow him with still greater gifts and graces, and render him still more eminent and useful than he had been, and


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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.


concluded this part of his prayer by supplicating the divine blessing on the daughter of Mr. Edwards (then in the congregation), who, though a very worthy and amiable young lady, was still, as they had good reason to believe, without the grace of God and in an uncon- verted state; that God would bring her to repentance and forgive her sins, and not suffer the peculiar frivol- ities which she enjoyed to be the means of a more aggravated condemnation.


Mr. Edwards, who traveled on horseback and had been unexpectedly detained on the road, arrived at the church a short time after the commencement of the exercises, and entered the door just after Mr.


all his movements, and particularly in the house of God, he ascended the stairs and entered the pulpit so silently that Mr. Moodey did not hear him, and of course was necessitated before a very numerous au- dience to listen to the very high character given of him- self by Mr. Moodey. As soon as the prayer was closed Mr. Moodey turned round and saw Mr. Edwards behind him, and without leaving his place gave him his right hand and addressed him as follows: "Brother Ed- wards, we are all of us much rejoiced to see you here to-day, and nobody probably as much so as myself; but I wish that you might have got in a little sooner or a little later, or else that I might have heard you when you came in, and known that you were here. I didn't intend to flatter you to your face, but there's I'll tell you one thing : they say that your wife is going to heaven by a shorter road than yourself," alluding to Mr. Edward's lengthened and metaphysi- cal explanation of the doctrine of the church. Mr. Edwards bowed, and after reading the psalm went on with the sermon.


The text was John xiii. 15, 16: " For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you the servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him."


The subject is " Christ, the example of ministers." It is not a very long sermon according to the custom of that day, for it could hardly have occupied much more than an hour in delivery, and, according to the abilities and reputation of Mr. Edwards, it would have been a disappointment to the distinguished and expect- ant congregation, if indeed congregations were then disappointed in anything their preachers did. With all due acknowledgment of the vast abilities Jonathan Edwards certainly possessed, and of the logical power manifested in his writings, his sermon at the ordina- tion of Mr. Strong has very little to commend it. It has neither any very great doctrinal nor practical merits, neither depth of feeling, nor strength, nor beauty of expression to make it edifying to a congre- gation or inspiring to the young minister; it is com- monplace and tedious, and wanting in any moral or spiritual fervor.


It may hardly he out of place in this connection to


include a part of a letter which Jonathan Edwards wrote to his daughter Mary, while continuing a visit in Portsmouth for some weeks after the ordination, which shows the all-pervading piety of this godly man :


" MY DEAR CHILD :


" Though you are at so great a distance from us, yet God is everywhere. | You are much out of the reach of our care, but you are every moment in His hands. We have not the comfort of seeing you. but He sees you. Ilis eye is always upon you. And if you may but live sensibly near to God and have His gracions presence, it is no matter if you are far distant from ns. I had rather you should remain hundreds of miles distaut from us, and have God near to you by his Spirit, than to have you always with us and live at a distance from God. . . .


" I hope that you will maintain a strict and constant watch over your- Moodey began his prayer. Being remarkably still in ' self against all temptations, that you do not forsake anil forget God, and particularly that you do not grow slack in secret religion. Retire often from this vain world, from all its bubbles and empty shadows and vain amusements, and converse with God alone ; and seek effectually for that diviue grace and comfort, the least drop of which is worth more than all the riches, gayety, pleasure, and entertainments of the whole world.


. . . "And if the next news we should hear of you should be of your death, though that would be very melancholy, yet if at the same time we should receive such intelligence concerning you as should give ns the best grounds to hope that you had died in the Lord. how much more comfortable would this be, though we should have no opportunity to see you or to take our leave of you in your sickness, than if we should be with you during all its progress and have much opportunity to attend upon you and converse and pray with you, and take an affectionate leave of you, and after all have reason to apprehend that you died without the grace and favor of God."




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