USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Chester > History of old Chester [N. H.] from 1719 to 1869 > Part 28
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The succeeding ministers have been, Messrs. MARSH, 1860; SPENCER, 1861 ; DEFORREST, 1862 ; H. B. COPP, from the Conference, 1863 ; R. J. DONALSON, 1864; A. FOLSOM, from the Conference, 1866.
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN CHESTER.
There was a church organized in 1851, by Rev. ELISHA ADAMS, the Presiding Elder for Dover District, and Rev. JAMES M. YOUNG, a member of the New Hampshire Con- ference, supplying. The same summer a church edifice was erected near the south line of No. 36, 2d P., 2d D., on the road from Chester to Candia. It was built under the
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direction of Joseph Smith, Amos Southwick, Samuel M. Edwards, John Maynard, Isaac L. Seavey and Simon Haselton, and dedicated in October. It cost about one thousand dollars.
The following are the names of the preachers who have ministered to the church and society :
James M. Young, two and one half years ; Charles U. Dunning, two years ; George M. Hamlin, of the Biblical Institute, one year ; Jesse Brown, two years ; Henry Nut- ter, of the New Hampshire Conference, one year ; C. Henry Newell, of the Biblical Institute, two years; Edwin S. Chase, one year ; Charles W. Harkins, one year ; Joseph T. Hand, one year ; Jolin Keogan, one year ; Truc Whit- tier, one year ; Ezekiel Stickney, local preacher, one year ; Abraham Folsom, of the New Hampshire Conference.
The average membership since 1854, has been about sixty.
THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT.
Drunkenness, or intoxication from the use of intoxicat- ing liquors, has prevailed since the days of Noah, and has been condemned by all good men. From the earliest time in the history of New England there has been legislation to regulate the sale of liquors to prevent drunkenness.
By an act of the General Assembly of New Hampshire, passed 5thi of George II., all taverners, innholders and retailers are required to procure a license. Taverners and innholders were required to pay an excise of eight pence per gallon on all wine, rum, and other spirits, and retailers to pay six pence per gallon.
By an act 4th of George II., nobody was allowed to sit tippling more than two hours, nor after ten o'clock at night; and no taverner was allowed to trust more than five shillings, or retailer more than twenty shillings.
By an act passed in 1715, no apprentice or negro was allowed to have any kind of drink without special allow- ance of his master ; nor any other person after ten o'clock at night, nor to sit more than two hours, nor to drink to
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drunkenness, or other than strangers to remain in any tavern on the Lord's day. Tything-men were to be chosen to " inspect licensed houses, and inform against offenders, and had power to bring them before the next Justice of the Peace, without making information," and all persons were required to assist them. The number of taverns or ale- houses in the several towns was limited to, Portsmouth, six ; Hampton, three ; Dover, three; Exeter, two; New Castle, two ; Kingston, one, and Newington, one.
By an act passed February, 1758, it is provided that no- body should be licensed in Londonderry without being recommended by the selectmen, and not more than three taverners and three retailers. In 1761 the selectmen of Londonderry petitioned the General Assembly, represent- ing that they had not so many taverners and retailers as the publie good required ; and an act was passed that the Ses- sion might license so many proper persons, well qualified, as will be for the advantage of the public, and no more. A stringent license-law was passed in 1791.
At a meeting of the Haverhill Association, held at the house of Rev. Nathan Bradstreet, in Chester, on the second Tuesday of June (the 10th), 1812, action was taken with a view to discountenance the improper use of ardent spirits ; and it was voted " that no brother shall be deemed wanting in generosity or hospitality if he neglects to provide ardent spirits for his brethren, when they meet at his house." Rev. Messrs. Smith and Church were also appointed a committee to confer with the Londonderry Presbytery on the subject, and to obtain their cooperation with them in measures calculated to prevent the intemper- ate use of ardent spirits.
The following preamble and rules of conduct were unan- imously adopted at the same time and place.
The Haverhill Association being deeply impressed with the numerous evils which grow out of the excessive use of spirituous liquors, and feeling themselves to be under sacred obligations to be patterns of sobriety, and to avoid every appearance of evil, do agree to adopt the following general rules of conduct :
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1. This association agree that they will consider the exhibition of spiritous liquors in their meetings as no part of brotherly entertainment ; and they agree in common cases of health to wholly refrain in their use.
2. The members of this Association, being acquainted with each other's determination, do decide that a brother of this body shall not be deemed deficient in the rites of hospitality, who omits in ordinary cases to set spiritous liquors before us in our common intercourse, but shall be considered as acting a decorous, brotherly and Christian part.
3. This Association do agree that they will, in their parochial visits, in their social interviews and circles, in their attendance on funeral and marriage solemnities, do all they deem consistent with Christian prudence to dis- countenance and suppress the common use of ardent spirits.
4. This Association, feeling a deep and tender concern for the temporal and eternal welfare of the people under their parochial care, beg leave to solicit their particular at- tention to this important subject. They unitedly and earn- estly recommend, that they would refrain from the use of ardent spirits in their friendly social intercourse ; and in particular on funeral occasions, when God is calling us to solemn thoughtfulness, that everything might be avoided which tends to weaken the impression and render us less mindful of our latter end. [Congregational Quarterly, April, 1864, p. 171.]
There was a Moral Reform Society formed in Chester, December 29, 1814, for the purpose of restraining profan- ity, Sabbath-breaking and intemperance. The members were pledged not to drink too much.
These movements were good in themselves ; they were setting the face Zion-ward, but being merely local and on a low standard they did not get the community far that way. I do not know what the Haverhill Association, or any other, did at their private meetings, but I think that long after this it was a custom, if not an indispensable one, to have ar- dent spirits at ecclesiastical councils and ordinations, and I know that it was at funerals and at weddings.
It is pertinent as a matter of history to describe the drink- ing usages of the times, and I will not go back of my own recollection. Chester was a farming town, and a large ma-
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jority of the people did not use ardent or distilled liquor constantly every day, though carpenters, masons and other mechanies expected to be furnished with it. The land sur- veyor could not run a straight line without it, and every farmer used it during his haying and reaping. On all pub- lie occasions, such as military trainings, raisings, and haul- ings, it was universally furnished. A guest was not cordially treated who had not the decanter placed before him. To get absolutely drunk was disgraceful, but not to get rather " tight." At the Long Meadows it was a custom for a por- tion of the men, especially in cold weather, Sunday noon to go to Captain Wason's bar-room and warm the outer man by a good fire, and many of them the inner man with a glass of liquor. I recollect one good deacon who would be- gin to cough as though there was something in his throat, and put one hand on his breast, observing that he did not feel very well, and reach out the tumbler for a glass of liquor. He apparently had much the same feeling when asked to make a prayer at an evening meeting. He did . not feel well and would rather join with somebody else.
The minister did not live near the meeting-house, and when a neighboring minister preached he, and some of the deacons to keep him company, went into what was called the session room and had a decanter of liquor placed be- fore them.
At Chester a considerable portion of the congregation re- sorted to Captain Richardson's tavern, and he stood during the intermission in his bar to serve customers. The same was true at Derry at Dr. Isaac Thom's store, and I saw the same operation at Windham as late as 1832.
Then cider was a common drink at the table and in the field. When a lad, if a neighbor happened in on an errand, I had to draw a mug of cider to treat him with ; and had to put up half a gallon or a gallon, according to the number of hands, to carry into the field morning and noon. The liquor itself, though drank alone, was supposed to be bene- ficial at all seasons and in all temperatures ; but certain mixtures and preparations were invented to adapt it to the temperature of the occasion.
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To clear the cobwebs from the throat in the morning and give an appetite for breakfast in summer, green tansy or wormwood was pounded, and the juice squeezed into the liquor. Flip was a favorite drink for cold weather. To make it, a " loggerhead" was needed, which was a piece of iron about six inches long and an inch square, with a slank or handle about three-eighths thick and two feet long. This was put into the fire and heated red-hot. A quart mug or pewter quart three-fourths full of malt or hop beer sweetened, and the hot loggerhead thrust in to heat it and make it foam, when half a pint of rum was poured in, and a mug of flip was produced, which was drank quickly while foaming. In taverns of good business one or more logger- heads were continually in the fire in winter. Take half a pint of rum, and add lemon juice to sour and sugar to sweeten, and water sufficient, and you had a mug or bowl of punch, good to cool you in hot weather. The rum sweetened and hot water added made sling. Another mix- ture was toddy. The rum was put into a glass tumbler and a quantity of loaf sugar added. They had an instru- ment called a toddy-stick. It was seven or eight inches long and about an inch in diameter at the lower end, with which they crushed the sugar and stirred it up, and water was added and a little nutmeg grated in. The ringing noise of the toddy stick against the sides of the tumbler was very musical in the ears of the drinker. It was some- times poured into a bowl and the bowl filled with milk, which was milk-toddy. Still another mixture was egg-nogg. One or more eggs were put into a bowl with sugar. To beat up and thoroughly mix the eggs and sugar, they used a piece of wood about eight inches long, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, with a transverse piece two or three inches long inserted in the lower end. This was taken between the palms of the two hands, by rubbing which, gare a revolving motion. The half pint of rum and milk being added and mixed, made a bowl of egg-nogg.
During the war of 1812 spirits were very dear, and dis tilleries were erected and potatoes were distilled ; and po-
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tato whisky was produced, which was a very nauseous ar- ticle, but was drank with avidity by confirmed topers, and more or less by all. The great wonder is, that all were not drunkards. I do not suppose that the people of the Long Meadows were very much worse than other people.
The store-keepers had license to retail spiritnous liquors, but not in less quantities than one pint, and that not to be drank on the premises ; but all the traders in town, I think, excepting John Bell, did sell by the glass. Capt. Benj. Fitts did a large business at shoeing oxen, and it was a custom for every owner of the oxen shod to go to Sweet- ser's store and get a pint of New England rum, which made the shop the resort of loafers.
At a town meeting held April 28, 1817, the selectmen were instructed to prosecute all persons who should violate the law relating to retailers.
At the June session of the Governor and Council in 1817, Samuel D. Wason, who had commanded the militia . company at the Long Meadows, was promoted to the office of major. He called out the company to fill the vacancy and treated the company and spectators to as much punch as they would drink. Among the spectators were some of the most respectable men of the parish, including church members and deacons. They did not keep the pledge of the Moral Reform Society, but many of them were a good deal intoxicated. The next Sunday the Rev. Clement Parker delivered a discourse advocating total abstinence instead of moderate drinking, maintaining that ardent spirit was entirely useless ; that a man could do more work without it than with it. This is the first discourse, so far as 1 know or believe, ever delivered taking so high a ground. It caused a great deal of talk. One old man asked for its publication, saying that he wished the world to know how great a fool Mr. Parker was. Young men said that it was the greatest folly to suppose that a man could work at haying and harvesting without rum, and that so long as they were able to purchase a gallon of rum they would have it. It is possible that Mr. Parker's practice
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was not always as good as his preaching, but the writer was a convert, and has never tasted ardent spirit since. There were two other young men who soon after abandoned its use, David Currier and Pike Chase ; and there is one man in town over seventy years of age (Amherst Coult) who never drank any.
Since the foregoing was written a book has come to hand entitled "History of Temperance in Saratoga County," which gives an account of forming a temperance society there on the principle of total abstinence, in 1808, which, though not relating to the history of Chester, may be in- teresting to preserve. The prime mover was Dr. Billy J. Clarke, who was born at Northampton, Mass., Jan. 4, 1778, and removed with his father, first to Williamstown, Mass., then to Pownal, Vt., where his father kept a store, and Billy was a clerk, dealing out liquors, against which his moral sense revolted, and he studied medicine, and commenced · practice in Moreau, Saratoga county, N. Y. At the winter term of the Court of Common Pleas, at Ballstown, in 1808, he attempted to organize a County Temperance Soci- ety, but it was regarded by both bar and bench as visionary and impracticable. But on a stormy night in March, 1808, after a day of toil, visiting his patients, and wet and mud- dy, he entered the parsonage and accosted its occupant, Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong, and said, " Sir ! We shall become a community of drunkards unless something is done speedily to arrest the progress of intemperance." Dr. Clarke personally solicited a meeting of his neighbors, which was convened at Mawney's tavern, April 13, 1808, at which time it was resolved to form a temperance society, and " that the members of this meeting wholly abstain from all spirituous liquors." There are thirteen names re- corded as members. The book gives a biographical notice of Dr. Billy J. Clarke, Rev. Lebbeus Armstrong, Hon. Gardner Stow, and James Mott, the only survivors of the original members when the book was printed, in 1855.
But liquor continued to be drank to great excess. About the first of December, 1821, a new store was opened, and
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by way of dedication, the owner treated free of charge, all who called on a certain day. One individual imbibed rather freely, and bought a jugful to carry home, but he never arrived there, having been found dead in the road the next morning. At the funeral it was thought that some of the family were not as sober as they should be. This aroused the Rev. Mr. Arnold to preach and talk against intemper- ance. Things however went on in the old track. In 1826, Dr. Lyman Beecher preached his six sermons against intemperance, which were printed and widely distributed.
Nearly if not the first organized movement on the principle of total abstinence was at Andover, Mass. The Rev. Jonathan Clement, afterwards of Chester, who was then a teacher in the academy there, was one of the first to sign the pledge. The first organized action in Chester was in 1829. Dr. Justin Edwards, one of the formers of the first society, came to Chester and spoke on the subject. A call was issued for a meeting to consider the subject. One deacon refused to sign the call on the ground that a little did him good, and he did not wish to deny himself of a good thing because others abused it. He, however, afterwards signed the pledge and became a warm advocate of the cause. He said that he found all of the drunkards in town hanging to his skirts. The meet- ing was held and a society formed, pledging its members to total abstinence from all distilled liquors. I have not been able to find the records of that society. But meetings were held and the pledge was circulatel, and the community were aroused as never before on the subject. Among other things enquiries were addressed to the retail- ers as to the quantity they sold, and the result was that about ten thousand gallons of New England rum were re- tailed in Chester that year, at a cost of at least four thou- sand dollars, besides the West India rum, gin, &c.
In April, 1835, the Session of the Presbyterian church passed a preamble and resolution, adopting a pledge to abstain from ardent spirits as a drink, and requesting the present members of the church to sign it, and requiring its
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signature by all candidates for admission. (See History of the Presbyterian Church, in this work.)
There was an idea prevalent that the whole evil lay in distilled liquors, and that it was best rather to encourage the use of fermented liquors as a remedy, rather than a part of the disease. But the idea was soon found to be falla- cious, and the most active friends of the movement changed their base, and adopted a pledge of abstinence from all in- toxicating liquors. A society was formed and a constitution adopted on that basis at Chester, Feb. 13, 1838, called the " Chester Washington Total Abstinence Society." There are the names of ninety-one males and one hundred and seventy-four females attached to the pledge.
March 17, 1858, another society, called the " Chester To- tal Abstinence Society," was formed, and the pledge circu- lated by a committee of females, and the names of two hundred and twenty-nine males and two hundred and fifty- six females are attached to the pledge.
In April, 1849, the " Auburn Total Abstinence Society " was formed. The pledge was afterwards circulated by a committee of females, and the names of eighty-one males and one hundred and one females are attached to it. These female committees were nets which caught quite a number who did not stay caught.
In the winter of 1858 and '59, Auburn was canvassed by Rev. James Holmes and Rev. Joseph Scott, meetings held in the different school-houses, and names of children up to sixteen years of age obtained to a pledge to abstain from all intoxicating liquors, tobacco, and the use of pro- fane language. Jan. 18, 1859, they were organized into the " Auburn Band of Hope." There are the names of one hundred and fifty-eight males and one hundred and thirty-seven females attached to the pledge.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT.
In order to duly appreciate the formation of an anti- slavery society it will be necessary, for the benefit of those not acquainted with the history of the time, to relate some
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facts showing the state of public opinion on the subject at the time. Very nearly everybody, South as well as North, had professed to believe slavery to be a great evil, some time and in some way to come to an end. Benjamin Lundy had advocated gradual emancipation without making any disturbance. But when Mr. Garrison started the " Liber- ator," January 1st, 1831, advocating immediate and uncon- ditional emancipation, without compensation or expatria- tion, it produced a great excitement through the whole country. The excitement was at its height in 1835. The American people have never been so well united on any question as that abolition must be put down. The most eminent saints and the most eminent sinners were for once united. The jarring sectarians for the time forgot the other heresies in view of the greater one that the negro was a man within the meaning of the golden rule. Eccles- iastical bodies passed resolutions denouncing abolition, and religious newspapers and tlicological quarterlies published long and labored articles defending slavery from the Bible. The most conflicting and contradictory reasons were brought against emancipation. In one breath the negroes were a lazy and indolent race, and if free would either live by theft or starve ; in the next they would all come North and would come into competition with white laborers and wages would be down to the starving point. One moment God himself had made such a line of demarcation between the races that civilization or education or religion itself could not remove it -- that they could never dwell together in peace ; and the next moment that if emancipated universal amalgamation of the races would ensue.
October 20th, 1835, the Rockingham Western Confer- ence met at Candia, and Stephen Chase was a delegate and on the business committee, and brought forward a resolution saying that it was the duty of Christians to examine every moral question and engage in every right one. It was ad- mitted, with the supposition that it meant temperance merely ; but when it was found to mean abolition also, it threw the Conference into a great excitement. One mem-
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ber, generally very quiet, said that if this question was to be mooted in the Conference he would leave it. The minis- ter of Candia (who was one of the business committee and had consented to the introduction of the resolution) se- verely rebuked Mr. Chase in private, saying, "You knew I did not want my people to hear one word on the subject."
Members of the Londonderry Presbytery argued by the hour in favor of taking evidence to convict a minister of saying something derogatory to the doctrine of a particular election, because it was against the " standards of our church," and then opposed the passage of a very weak milk-and-water anti-slavery resolution, because it was de- rogatory not to the " standards " alone, but to the church itself. The resolution, however, passed, and the editor of the "New Hampshire Observer," the Congregational paper, re- fused to publish it. At the meeting of the General Associa- tion at Plymouth in 1835, a request was made that they hear George Thompson of England, on Anti-Slavery. The mo- tion was negatived by Dr. Church saying, " We won't hear one word on the subject."
Mr. Thompson went to Concord and took lodgings with George Kent, and was there mobbed. The " Observer" apologized for the mob, saying that they only wanted a little sport. The " Statesman " said that it was as harm- less as a military muster. The "Patriot " contradicted both, saying that it was the determination of the people of Concord that the Abolitionists should not be heard there.
The politicians were equally devoted to stopping the heresy as the ministers, -the heresy that a negro is a man within the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. In Concord they held a great meeting, and Isaac Hill, the very soul of Democracy in New Hampshire, and Dea- con Samuel Fletcher, a leading Whig, stood shoulder to shoulder and made speeches.
In Portsmouth they also held a meeting, at which Abner
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Greenleaf, the quintessence of Democracy, and a leading Whig, Mr. Hackett, I think, valiantly faced the enemy.
August 21, 1735, there was an " immense gathering " at Faneuil Hall, in Boston, and great speeches made to put down the heresy. This resulted in a great mob, October 21, 1835, of five thousand gentlemen of property and standing to quell a meeting of the Female Anti-slavery Society, com- posed of thirty or forty inoffensive women ! Like meetings were held in all the principal cities and villages.
The abolition heresy did not take much root in Chester until 1834. About the first of January of that year a copy of the declaration of the convention which formed the Amer- ican Anti-slavery Society strayed into town. Mr. Henry Abbot, who owned the Dinsmore saw-mill, had the " Lib- erator " that year, and the leaven spread. Early in 1835, the " Herald of Freedom" was started in Concord, and some half-a-dozen copies were taken in town.
September 12th, 1835, a meeting was called at the Pres- byterian meeting-house to discuss the subject of slavery. The Rev. Mr. Clement had a special invitation to attend. But a few weeks before he had preached at Haverhill, and the Rev. Samuel J. May preached to the Unitarians and was to deliver a lecture in the Christian Union Chapel in the evening ; Mr. Clement went to the meeting, but it was entirely broken up by the mob outside throwing stones and gravel against the windows, breaking the glass. A loaded cannon was being drawn to the spot, to add to the noise of the mob, if nothing more, and it was understood to have been the intention to have removed the stairs leading into the chapel, so that those inside rushing out should be plunged headlong some eight feet. Mr. Clement deemed discretion the better part of valor, and declined. Rev. Mr. Sargent had agreed with the Rev. Mr. Peckham for an ex- change to have him speak at the meeting, but he deemed it prudent to stay at home. The meeting, however, was held, and a society formed.
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