USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > Little Compton > The Two-hundredth anniversary of the organization of the United Congregational Church, Little Compton, Rhode Island, September 7, 1904 > Part 5
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ADDRESS
BY MR. HORACE G. SHAW.
ON this interesting occasion it affords me very great pleasure to be present and to offer a few words as represent- ing two of the old families of Little Compton. The two, however, have become many; and so I may be pardoned if I make personal allusions.
Here for generations was the home of my ancestry. Here I passed my childhood and school days. To this town I have turned for the short vacation periods that I have been permitted to enjoy since I left to engage in the mercantile business nearly fifty years ago.
The population of this town in the first quarter of the 19th century was larger than at the present, they tell me; and in the same breath I am informed that there are but few changes. And I concluded the latter statement true as I visited my old haunt along the shore that is unchanged at the eastern end of the town. But on returning to the old homestead, to reply to a telephone call, I said, My grand- father lived seventy-five years on this farm. So did four great grandfathers. And they had no telephone; and I said, The town has changed-certainly in its customs.
To turn to this old and time-honored church, permit me to draw a picture of the past: Parson Beane enters the pulpit, then at the other end of the audience room. Ezra Coe, his head whitened with the snows of many winters, is in the front pew. George Cook Bailey occupies a seat near. Capt. Benjamin Seabury and Gen. Nathaniel Church enter their pews opposite. John Seabury is on the opposite side of the house; also the venerable pedagogue who on week- days tried to instill into our minds the mysteries of Brown's grammar. Deacons Wilbor and Richmond now enter. It was here that my mother during a period of grace in 1850
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confessed faith in Christ and chose that better part. Others could be mentioned, who long ago joined the great majority, and still others of a younger generation with many of whom the steps begin to falter and the shadows are lengthening.
I have heard from those who preceded me of the men who have gone out from this town; and I am glad that I also can claim Little Compton as the place of my birth. And if I can look back two hundred years and see my grand- father, by the seventh generation, as the first recorded mem- ber of this church, it mattereth less, as perhaps forty now before me are in about the same way related. And were my cousins just now to withdraw from this room, a small audience would be left.
I thank your committee and the members of this congre- gation for remembering me in far off New Jersey, and for giving me a place among such honorable and reverend gen- tlemen, as well as for the opportunity to be among my rel- atives and friends on this important occasion.
This church has had a grand history. May the coming years be the brightest and best; and in the great work of the church I bid you God-speed.
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ABSTRACT OF SERMON
BY REV. ALBERT H. PLUMB, D. D.
" Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these ? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." Ecclesiastes VII. 10.
IT would appear that the unwisdom of this inquiry lies in its groundless assumption that the former days were bet- ter than these, when a spirit of faith in God's plan and promise should preclude all such assumptions.
If we would be "men who have understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do," we must cherish a grateful recognition of the onworking of God's plan and the fulfilment of his promise in the past. "In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths."
Historical commemorations greatly aid us in cultivating a spirit of grateful confidence in the development of God's plan according to his promise. For these commemorations help us to a due appreciation of the value of the modest vir- tues of ordinary life. While we acknowledge our indebted- ness to great leaders and the deeds wrought in some great crisis and in some conspicuous field, yet it is the virtues of the common people of the rank and file in the Christian Church, the character of our American homes, as generally found in our communities at large, on which the nature of our civilization and the prosperity of the nation depend.
There are certain manifest features of modern life which very clearly indicate the merciful character of the divine purpose in ordering the progress of the race.
1. There is the general concession in behalf of almost all systems of philosophy or schemes of reform that, in order to command popular approval, they must conform to the
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true spirit and teaching of Christ. Contrast this with the attitude of the ancient Pagan culture as manifest in the treatment of Paul on Mars' hill. "Then certain philoso- phers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say?"
2. There is the growing and intense conviction of the great mass of practical Christian men that in God's revealed will in the Gospel of redemption by His Son we have the only and absolutely indispensable cure for the appalling evils of our time, the only remedy for the inveterate sinful- ness of the human heart. The widespread corruption in financial and political life, the shameful moral indifference and immoralities of many of the luxurious classes, the deg- radation and violence of the less favored classes, the cruel- ties and oppressions of organized labor and capital, class animosities and industrial warfare, together with the utter loss of faith in the Bible on the part of many, by reason of the destructive higher criticism, temporarily rife, and the consequent neglect of religious worship furnish alarming evidence of the futility of all endeavors for human progress which are not dependent on the supernatural presence and power of the Holy Spirit taking the things of Christ and showing them unto men. "For this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." The continual outpouring of gifts of toil and of money, the heroic sacrifices and consecrated lives of innum- erable Christian disciples attest the truth of Christ's words, "Ye are the light of the world" and "ve are the salt of the earth." If there was ever a futile endeavor, it is the effort to make earnest spiritual men believe that the Book which has wrought such wonderful changes and built up such no- ble characters is a mere human composition, an untrust- worthy mixture of fiction and fraud. With a more intense conviction than ever, men are holding to the need and the fact of an inspired revelation, "a piece of information given by God to man for the salvation of the race."
3. There is a comprehension growing more and more clear that the world owes to the distinctively evangelical
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truths and facts of the Gospel the mightiest motives for transforming human character, elevating the condition of society and fitting man for the heavenly world. The fact that he who made man himself became man and tasted death for every man more exalts the idea of the worth of the individual man and the sacredness of his rights than any other fact in the history of the universe. And the par- allel revealed truth that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin and that Christ gave Himself a ran- som for us more exalts the inviolability of law and the majesty of government than any other truth revealed to man. In the exaltation of these two evangelical facts and principles lies the secret of the wonderful advance in the protection of human rights and the establishment of free and popular government.
4. When we consider the peculiar type of American civ- ilization and its conspicuous and potent exhibition of the democracy of Christianity before the nations of the world, we are led to look with amazement upon the providential development and vast increase of the resources of our na- tion as a world-power.
5. The increased dignity of man's position in nature, his deeper insight into its mysteries, and his greater control of its powers vastly enlarge the scope of his spiritual influence and give cheering promise of his coming triumphs in the realm of religious thought and character. There is a be- neficent trend in the amazing progress of invention and dis- covery. These inventions and discoveries are the scaffold- ing around the spiritual temple which God is building and are valuable chiefly for their ministry in that higher realm where spiritual character and the welfare of the soul are the great objects of the divine care.
6. There is a more general recognition of the fact that economic law and moral law are from the same hand. This is God's world, and not Satan's. True success can only come by conformity to God's will. Rapacity is never sa- gacity. There is a growing predominance of Christian principles and Christian men in the management of affairs. There is no use in fighting against nature. "He that sin-
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neth against me wrongeth his own soul." "Godliness is prof- itable for the life that now is and for that which is to come." There is an arousing of the public conscience in be- half of righteousness in all social relations and industrial affairs. There is a demand for publicity in the complicated problems of modern life. Let in the light. Find out what is fair and then demand what is fair. High authorities in finance say that men do not want to do and do not dare to do the acts of injustice that were common not long ago.
In view of these and other manifest tokens of God's pres- ence with his people, we may confidently anticipate the promised hour when the voices in heaven shall be heard saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the King- dom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF LITTLE COMPTON. 61
HISTORICAL ADDRESS. THE TOWN OF LITTLE COMPTON.
BY ROSWELL B. BURCHARD.
As we stand and look from the elevation which is crowned by this venerable place of worship and view the surround- ing country, we should be insensible to the 'best blessings of bounteous Nature if we were not joyous that our lines had fallen in a place so pleasant. The eminence of Windmill Hill to the north, the encircling woodland to the east, old Ocean's band of blue to the south and the broad Sakonnet to the west are the confines of a truly delectable country .. One is prone under this influence to enter this sanctuary, open his hymn-book and sing with all his heart and all his- lungs, as the Fathers did when this old church was new :
" My willing soul would stay In such a frame as this."
Standing, too, upon the altitude of the Twentieth Cen -- tury, and turning where "the centuries behind us like a fruitful land repose," we should be ungrateful for the best blessings of Divine Providence if we failed to-day to do homage to those generations of men, who, through toil and prayer and blood, drove the furrow of civilization that we might enjoy its fruitage.
The motive of the hour is retrospection. The older peo- ple, contemplating the farms, the homesteads, and the friendships of their youth, observe regretfully the remorse- less work of time, the relentlessness of change. During my short residence here how many friendships have been made and lost, how many places have been made irremedi- ably vacant! Charles Edwin Wilbour, Benjamin F. Wil-
NOTE. At the request of the Committee all that was prepareu for this address is herein published, though portions were omitted in the delivery-Ed.
.
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bour, George A. Gray, Isaac C. Wilbour, Warren Kempton, Follen Bebee, Frederick R. Brownell, George S. Burleigh,- what amiable associations are summoned at the mention of these names !
There are here but three things which are immutable : the sea and its bulwark of rocks, the sky with its everlasting glory of stars, and the tabernacle of the changeless God which is set up in the hearts of a Christian people. The primeval forests are gone. Of the aboriginal race not a ves- tige remains save an occasional relic picked up like a strange sea-shell on Time's shore. Canonicus, Metacomet, Wamsutta, Awashonks, Weetamoe,-I am afraid we know better as the names of mills and merchandise, yachts and steamboats than as personages who have influenced our own lives.
Generation after generation of people as worthy, as gen- erous, as clever as ourselves,-our immediate ancestors, have passed away and have left scarcely any tangible sou- venirs of their belongings or any written memorials of their lives. The probate records contain long inventories of household treasures,-silver, pictures, swords, watches, buckles, canes, family bibles,-Where are they? That is the question vainly asked by our industrious Committee on the Historical Exhibit. How sacredly we treasure their every written word, no matter how commonplace or homely. The lesson is: Go home and make up your family record and write your biographies for the delectation of your pos- terity. Or, if reticence restrains, then write something about your fathers and grandfathers. Among my most val- ned possessions is a long letter written to the Rev. Ezra Stiles of Newport1 by the grandson of Col. Benjamin Church, in which he gives a personal description of his grandfather and an account of his fatal fall from his horse.
In view of this universal modesty, or lack of foresight, shown in the scanty nature of family records, it is fortunate the early American colonists introduced the practice of re-
(1) Pastor 2d church, Newport, 1756-1777 ; President Yale College, 1778-1795; Editor of Benjamin Church's King Philip's War.
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cording all conveyances of land,-a system not previously in vogue in the old country.
The fruitage of this antique seed one may find to-day in the dingy folios enshrined within the iron doors of the town hall safe. To the local antiquarian this is a treasury like that of Atreus. Here are copies of the deeds of Awashonks and her tribesmen to the first proprietors; the original rec- ords of these proprietors, and a complete registry of deeds quaintly entitled, "Land Evidence Books." There is a genealogical record of families covering certain periods, with registers of births, marriages and deaths, and finally the records of all the town meetings, from the earliest times to the present day.1 There is also an ancient map of the town as it was laid out in the latter part of the seventeenth cen- tury. A map, which, to my mind, is equally valuable though not so ancient, is one owned by Mr. P. H. Wilbour, that was made by Otis Wilbor about 1842. In this map the names of the original landholders are substituted for the names of the later ones which are entered on the older map. These maps, taken together, show first, those to whom the original lots fell at the first drawing, and second, those who really settled on the land or owned it after con- siderable selling and exchanging had taken place.
I shall not attempt a connected historical sketch of this town. That has been carefully prepared by Mr. H. W. Blake in the history of Newport County, to which you all have access.2 I shall simply recall certain scenes, incidents and persons, each typical, I think, of their several epochs.
ORIGIN.
You are aware that we were not a part of Roger Wil- liams's colony,-not a part of Rhode Island at all, but of
(1) Records of town meetings and vital records before 1747 are still in possession of the town, but the " land-evidence " and probate records before that date, in ac- cordance with the Massachusetts system, are at the ancient county-seat, Taunton.
For a list of town records preserved in Little Compton town-hall made by C. S. Brigham in 1903, see Annual Report of American Historical Association 1903, vol. 1, page 600.
(2) History of Newport County. Richard M. Bayles, New York, L. E. Preston & Co., 1888. The chapter on Little Compton, written by H. W. Blake.
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Massachusetts; and all our early government was from Plymouth, all our early associations Puritan. It was not till 1746 that Tiverton and Little Compton were set off as part of Rhode Island, and the boundary line was a fruitful source of dissension until it was finally established by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1862.
Although the actual beginning of Little Compton was in the lonely settlement of Colonel Church in 1674, it would seem that the legal and political formation of our town sprung from a sort of western land speculation,-a real es- tate deal on the part of the good Puritans of Plymouth that invites interesting investigation.
As far as Plymouth is concerned the lands lying between Cape Cod Bay and Narragansett Bay were a sort of great unexplored West. After a half century of settlement Ply- mouth had passed the infant period and its men of affairs began "to look around" for profitable investments.
"It would appear." says Mr. Blake,1 "by implication, at least, from the Plymouth record that there were two classes embraced in the population, and that to the one lands were granted by the other in recognition of services rendered." Whether these "services" were rendered in war, or pesti- lence, or road building, or domestic labor, I am unable to ascertain.
The earliest record known to relate especially to Little Compton, that is Saconet, bears date of June 4th, 1661, and shows "Libertie is granted unto some who were for- merly servants whoe have land due unto them by covenant, to Nominate some persons to the Court, or to some of the Magistrates, to bee deputed in their behalf to purchase par- cell of land for their accommodation att Saconett." 2
When this "authority" came to be exercised a good many "got aboard" who were by no means servants. In fact a sort of supplementary enabling act was passed in 1662 un- der which "Captain Willett is appointed by the court to purchase the lands of the Indians which is granted unto such that were servants, and others that were ancient free-
(1) Bayles' History, p. 975.
(2) Ibid .; also Dexter's Church's King Philip's War, 1865, Vol. I. p. 2, note.
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men, which the court thinks meet to add to them that have an interest in the said grant " etc.
The lands of Tiverton and Fall River were taken up about the same time by two similar companies: The Pur- chasers of Pocasset and the Proprietors of Puncatest.
The town of Little Compton was laid out in plots on pa- per before any white man had settled in it, and it is inter- esting to note that its external boundaries are retained more closely to-day than any other town in Rhode Island with, as someone has remarked, the single exception of New Shoreham.1 With possibly two or three exceptions the original grantees never saw the land until after the allot- ments were made.
On the 22d day of July, 1673, twenty-nine men appeared at Plymouth and claimed their respective shares. The de- serving "servants" I fear were in the minority for the twen- ty-nine comprised mostly prominent men: His Excellency Governor Josiah Winslow, Constant Southworth, Daniel Wilcox, William Merrick, and Simon Rouse,-these with thirteen others, proved title in their own right; John Wash- borne claimed a share as a freeman, and fourteen others, in- cluding Benjamin Church, Joseph Church, John Richmond, William Pabodie, claimed in the right of others, which right they had doubtless secured by purchase from the servants aforesaid.
These twenty-nine were the original proprietors of Sa- conet, whose records our worthy Town Clerk, Mr. John B. Taylor, so sedulously guards in his big safe, and upon whose title, thus conferred, all our landed interests in Little Compton are dependent at law. They were mostly resi- dents of Duxbury (the home of Standish and Alden), and Marshfield (where Governor Winslow and Peregrine White lived), and the adjacent country.
Although title at English law was complete by the grant of the Plymouth Colony there were still the moral rights of the Indians to be considered.
At the first meeting of the proprietors it was agreed that
(1) Block Island.
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a committee of three be appointed to go and purchase these lands of the Indians. The first tract, comprising most of the township west of the Common, was secured for the sum of seventy-five pounds sterling, in the fall of 1673.
Mr. Blake recalls' that only forty years before this oc- currence Roger Williams was compelled "for the sake of public peace" to burn a paper in which he advanced the doc- trine that no English grant, though from the King himself, would be valid unless the natives had been fully recom- pensed.
THE TOWN'S CHANGE OF NAME.
The name Little Compton soon supplanted the native name, following the prevailing custom of naming settle- ments after English towns, though generally no appropri- ateness is evinced in the naming.
The records of the Court of Plymouth show that, upon the petition of Mr. Joseph Church and the other Proprie- tors, the name Little Compton was given and the place le- gally constituted a township on June 6, 1682;2 though pre- vious to that, in the original book of records of the Propri- etors of Saconet, there is an entry relating to "Saconet or Little Compton" dated February - 1682.3 For a long time after that the names were employed interchangeably, sometimes the double expression "Little Compton alias Sa- conet" being used for definiteness.+
The Rev. William Emerson, father of Ralph Waldo Em- erson, and brother-in-law to Rev. Mase Shepard, suggested omitting "Little" from the name in the first published arti- cle about Little Compton, as though it were belittling the
(1) Bayles' History of Newport County, page 978.
(1) Bayles' History of Rhode Island, page 994, transcribes date July 7. The Genea logical Dictionary of Rhode Island, J. O. Austin, p. 43, gives the date June 6, 1682, correctly.
(') "February, 1682. As many of the Proprietors as could conveniently be treated, were willing to accommodate John Price with Ten Acres of Land at Saconet or Little Compton in order to his Dwelling there," etc. (The editor hopes that the ancient word " treated " will not suffer any modern misconstruction.) Original records of the Proprietors, part 2 (i. e., the back part of the book, the volume being reversed) page 6; Otis Wilbor's copy of the records Vol. 1, page 190.
(') Records of Proprietors, May 18, 1686, Otis Wilbor's copy, p. 74; May 17, 1693 Ibid p. 80.
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town's dignity.1 This heresy has been repeated in later years. I hope the suggestion may never be adopted.
LITTLE COMPTON IN THE OLD COUNTRY.
Little Compton in England is a very ancient though un- important village in the Edge Hills on the southern boun- dary of Warwickshire. Nearby is a "four-shire stone" lo- cated where the counties of Oxford, Gloucester, Warwick and Worcester meet.
Little Compton boasts the stately manor-house of Arch- bishop Juxon, who was a boon companion to Charles I, and his attendant on the scaffold at Whitehall. The town con- tains, besides ancient Roman remains, some interesting relics of the time; and curious stories are recorded of how the Archbishop's sporting proclivities roused the ire of the Cromwellian soldiers.
The village is mentioned in Domesday Book, 1086 A. D. At the time of our settlement it contained only 180 inhabi- tants and thirty-five houses; and at the time of our Revolu- tion, it having increased to only 282 inhabitants, was thus early outdistanced by its American namesake, which then boasted of 1,232.
The history and description of Little Compton in Eng- land may be found in the Memoirs of Archbishop Juxon, one of its later ministers. 2
THE INDIANS.
You are all aware that Little Compton was occupied by the small tribe of Saconet Indians, while the Pocassets lived in what is now Tiverton and Fall River. The Indian names of these localities were Little Compton, Saconet; Tiverton Four Corners (or rather the neck of land to the southwest), Punkatest, and Tiverton, Pocasset.3 The latter names have come down to us in Pocasset Neck and Puncatest Neck. Into the etymology of the word Saconet it seems useless to
(1) Massachusetts Historical Society Collections. 1st Series, vol. 9, p. 199.
(2) Memoirs of Archbishop Juxon, London, James Parker & Co., 1869. Copy in Boston Public Library.
(3) Pocasset included all the land from Fall River to Pachet Brook.
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inquire, as every authority who has tried it has either hon- estly given it up, or endeavored to frame some fanciful con- nection with the sound of certain Indian words. Thus we have "wild goose," "haunt of the black goose," "conquered territory," "widening of the stream," etc .; "black goose" seems to have been the accepted meaning for a long time, but the learned annotator, Dr. Henry M. Dexter, in his edi- tion of Church's Indian War, repudiates that derivation. 1 For myself I am inclined to think the whole question is a "wild goose" chase at best.
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