Worcester County, Massachusetts - Chapter 104, 1889

From December 17, 1742, to November 1, 1786, there were two parishes in Shrewsbury, and the separate history of both is part of the history of the town. Both were territorial, and included all the inhabitants, - nolentes vnlenfes. The South or First Parish was identical with the present town of Shrewsbury. The North or Second Parish included most of Boylston and West B.iylston and all of the original town not within the limits of the South. The church in the North Parish was organized October 6, 1743, Rev. Job Gushing and his deacons going over to "assist y'' Bretheren in the north part to gather a church." A meeting-house was built, and Rev. Ebenezer Morse was ordained in the same month (October) of the same year. The house was of the rudest and cheapest pattern, and at the ordination had neither floor, door nor window. It was completed later by voluntary contributions of labor and materials, and the interior being apportioned off into spaces for pews, each one built him a pew to suit himself. Mr. Morse was a man of varied learning and superior capacity, graduate of Harvard College 1737, and master of all the learned i)rofes5ions, - law and medicine as well as divinity. He was a native of Medfield, born March 2, 1718, and twenty-flve years old at his settlement in Shrewsbury. The relations of pastor and people appear to have been mutually satisfactory till the popular dissatisfaction about taxation of the Colonies, in which Mr. Morse did not participate, being a pronounced loyalist from first to last. The trouble between him and his parish be^an in 1770, and culminated in 1775. Of the action of the town in regard to Mr. Morse, an account will be given elsewhere. The parish, June 12, 1775, voted (thirty -seven yeas to twelve nays) " to dissolve the pastoral office of Rev. Ebenezer Morse." November 10, 1775, six minister.-^, being pi'esent attending a day of fasting and prayer, recommended dismissal of Mr. Morse, and the parish voted to dismiss him "agreeably to y'^ advice of the Council." Of course, these proceedings were irregular and revolutionary ; but they were sustained by an irresistible public opinion, and Mr. Morse submitted under protest. He continued to live in the Second Pari^h and in the town of Boylston after it was incorporated as such to the end of his life, making a livelihood practicing medicine and fitting boys fur college. It has been said derisively of Mr. Morse that he continued to style himself "settled minister of God's word in Boylston" as long as he lived, and ofien so signed marriage certificates. But nothing is clearer than that, according to law and congregational theory, he had a right to so style himself and so sign his name. In 1775 the parish appointed a committee " to notify Mr. Morse of his dismissal and to see that he do not enter the desk any more." He died at Boylston in 1802, aged eighty-three years.

Before incorporation of the Second Parish as the town of Boylston, two other ministers were called in that parish, - Rev. Jesse Reed and Rev. Eleazer Fairbank, and the latter was settled there March 27, 1777. He was born in Preston, Conn., graduated at Brown University, and was dismissed at Boylston at his own request, April 22, 1793; afterwards settled at Wilmington, Vt., and again dismissed. He removed to Palmyra, N. Y., where he died in 1821.

The founder of the Baptist Society in Shrewsbury was Luther Goddard, grandson of Edward, the proprietor. Simon Goddard, who so troubled the peace of good Mr. Gushing about ruling elders, was a brother of Edward and so great uncle of Luther. The latter, called captain from his rank in the militia, later in life called also Elder Goddard, from his powerful gift as a Baptist exhorter, was by trade a watchmaker and carried on his trade with thrift and profit, first at Shrewsbury and later at Worcester. I mention his kinship to Simon on account of his marked resemblance to him. What with speaking in meeting and endless letter-writing, Simon had kept church and pastor in hot water upwards of ten years, and now fifty years afterwards Mr. Cushing's successor hath a like trouble. Captain Luther also can speak in meeting, likewise he can write letters, and he did both. He could not find in the blessed Scriptures either precept or example for baptism of infants, and he talked about it in meeting and out of meeting, and wrote long letters to the church and pastor about it, subscribing himself "your poor unworthy Brother, L. Goddard." This began before, and reached a climax in 1808, when Capt. Goddard was baptized by imnier- * sion and organized himself into a Baptist Church. He even requested by letter Dr. Sumner to allow him the use of his meeting-house for such organizing, &c. Mild Dr. Sumner's reply, lately printed,' is the most remarkable instance of mildness on record, and is witty as well as mild. He could not see the necessitv or propriety in the use of the meeting-house when there was no place within two miles where baptism by immersion could be administered.

After his baptism Capt. Goddard wrote another letter to Joseph Sumner, pastor, wishing him "to pointe out some way for him to leave the church in this town and joyn to another of a different denomination." And shortly afterwards he wrote another letter of great length to the church, to which the church by a committee replied that Mr. Goddard's connec- tion with it was dissolved by his own act. From this time Elder Guddurd preached in Shrewsbury and elsewhere as occa-ion offered. In 1813 a society of thirty-three members, called the Shrewsbury and Boylston Baptist Society, was formally organized, and the next year built a house of God. And there Elder Goddard often exercised his gifts, but no regular preacher was employed till 1818, when Rev. Elias McGregor)' was ordained over the church and society, and remained its minister till 1821, after which no other was ever regularly settled over it. Rev. Samuel W. Vilas was hired to supply the Baptist pulpit, and did so for about two years, when July 15, 1823, he died. About this time Elder Goddard removed to Worcester, and the Boylston Baptists withdrew and organized a society of their own.

The Shrewsbury Baptists, however, kept up their organization and continued to hold services at their house for several years with more or less regularity, but had no regular minister. The Baptist clergy of the vicinity, who regarded the church here, as a sort of missionary outpost in the midst of the Gentiles, frequently came here and preached. This continued till 1835, when the church and society were formally dissolved. The Baptist house of worship is still standing, though so altered as to be no longer recognizable. It stands where it was built, on the Worcester Road, and is now owned and occupied by Mr. George G. Dowe as a dwelling-house.

I have before referred to the ordination of Rev. Samuel B. Ingersoll as a milestone in the history of the Congregational schism. And now we run against this stone again, April 11, 1821, a religious society was formed in Shrewsbury under the name of the First Restoration Society. One of the main factors that contributed to the formation of this society was the avowal of extreme Calvinistic opinions by Mr. Ingersoll, and his refusal to exchange with the neighboring clergy of more liberal views. Among the solid men who formed this society were the Knowltons, Dr. Seth and his brothers, Asa and Joseph Hastings, who were sons of Deacon William, and grandsons of Deacon Ezekiel Knowlton, and had been brought up on the Westminster Catechism. Dr. Knowlton was chairman of most committees and boards of officers of the new society during his life. Full one-half of the members of this society were re-idents of other towns. The Universalist Society in Worcester was not formed till twenty years later, and the Shrewsbury society had among its members several strong men from Worcester, among others Mr. Joseph Pratt and Mr. David Sargent, the latter of whom was one of the deacons of the Restoration Church. The other deacon was Joseph H. Knowlton, before named. There were also several members who lived in Sutton, more still who lived in Grafton, and a few who lived in Boylston. The first business committee of the society were Dr. Seth Knowlton, Captain Thomas Harrington, Sr., Gershom Fiagg, of Boy Iston, Abner Slowe, Jr., of ( irafton. Captain Silas

Allen, Jr., Lyman Howe and John Richardson. The cliurch building was located at the junction of the Grafton Road with the Worcester Turnpike, as a central point of a rather scattered parish.

This society was organized under the statute of 1811, whicli guaranteed most of the advantages of incorporation to societies so organized, and made them, as was afterwards held by the Supreme Court, (^iiasi corporations. The house of worship, begun in 1822, was completed and publicly dedicated to " Our Father which is in Heaven,'' June 17, 1823, at which time also was installed Rev. Jacob Wood, who served as minister of this society till 1829. For the next ten years there was no settled minister. Rev. Thomas J. Greenwood, who was settled in Marlborough, for about three years supplied the pulpit here on alternate Sundays, preaching also in his own pulpit in a similar way. During this period, 1829-39, several other ministers, for longer or shorter terms, were employed, but I have not been able to ascertain even their names. In the spring of 1839 Rev. Jacob Baker was ordained over this society, and preached regularly for three years. After 1843 the society had no settled minister nor regular preaching. There were, however, occasional services in the church till about 1864. In 1868 the few surviving members met and voted to sell their house and dissolve the society.

If organization of the First Restoration Society had been delayed till after the death of Mr. Ingersoll, it probably would never have been organized at all, and if Dr. Knowlton and others, who withdrew from the Congregational Society, had remained in it, there can be little doubt that that society would have taken the Unitarian insteadof Trinitarian sideof the schism that was then taking place. The fate of the First Restoration Society in Shrewsbury is substantially the same as that of all the other Universalist Societies of the smaller towns. The one idea of the Universalists, seemingly an inadequate foundation for a separate denomination, has unquestionably permeated and leavened the whole lump of religious thought of the p-esent age, and though in Shrewsbury and elsewhere the dogma of wretched doom for all but an elect few of our race may still linger in creeds, not even heathen congregations will tolerate its preaching. When the American missionary for whose outfit Shrewsbury Christians have contributed, goes to far India's coral strand to bear the lamp of life to men benighted, he has to graft the infernal tenet of his written creed with the scion of future probation - a version of restoration heresy taken from Buddha himself And straightway all Andover takes up the cudgels to champion the Light of Asia. Shade of John Calvin! methinks the smell of a burning Andover professor would be scarcely less grateful to thy nostrils than was that of Servetus himself.

In the spring of 1845 a Methodist preacher and temperance lecturer, held some religious meetings, interspersed with a temperance lecture or two, at

School-house No. 5, in the western part of Shrewsbury, which were attended by Alonzo Stiles and Amasa Hyde, both members of the Congregational Church in Shrewsbury. Mr. Hyde, who lived to be known to the younger as well as the older of the three generations of living men, has recently died, at an advanced age. He was an excellent man and a leading member of the Methodist Church for many years. Mr. Stiles died nearly forty years ago while crossing the Isthmus of Panama on his way to California. He had formerly been an intemperate man and was at variance with the church of which he was a member on the score of temperance. He objected to and remonstrated against the use of intoxicating liquors in the comnmniou service because it excited his appetite and tempted him to return to his former habit of intemperance. It was a common zeal for temperance that first brought Mr. Stiles in contact with the preacher and lecturer aforesaid - whose name I am unable to give - which contact resulted in the school-house meetings, where a Methodist class was formed, of which Mr. Stiles and Mr. Hyde were both members. Then and there was planted the grain of mustard seed out of which grew the fair tree of Methodism in Shrewsbury.

In the fall of the same year came from Holliston Rev. (rardner Rice, a Methodist clergyman, to teach a high school in Shrewsbury. He was a graduate of Wesley an University, and taught school in Shrewsbury for many years, and more than one generation of children bless the memory of Master Rice. Directly on coming to town Mr. Rice took charge of the Methodist movement, which before had lacked guiding and organizing leadership, and preached Sundays in a hall in the Haven tavern, which stood where the Town House now stands; in the spring of 1846 the Methodist Society was formally organized and connected with the Worcester Conference, and Rev. John W. Wheeler came to Shrewsbury under a regular assignment to duty here according to Methodist usage, and held services Sundays at the tavern hall till completion of the Methodist house of worship. The building of this house was said by an irreverent jester to have been the greatest instance of something made out of nothing since the Creator made the world. Neither jester nor laughers at his jest knew the history of the Methodist Church. True it was, none of the original Methodists in Shrewsbury were rich men, nor had a single one of them any visible treasure laid up where moth and rust doth corrupt. But what the Methodists did in Shrewsbury is only a single instance of what the denomination has done all over the United States. Everywhere it has organized its churches and built its houses of worship in very literal imitation of the way the Creator is commonly supposed to have made the world.

It was during building of the Methodist Church (1847-48) or immediately afterwards that Rev. Jefferson Hascall, presiding elder of the Worcester Conference, whose discerning eye saw a field here white for the harvest, moved into town and thrust in his sickle. Under his labors there was a great revival of religion, and over one hundred persons professed conversion. Mr. Hascall was born in Thompson, Ct., November 6, 1807, and died at Medford November 6, 1887. He graduated at Wilbraham Academy about 1829, and immediately entered upon the ministry. He lived in Shrewsbury about twenty years in all, and most of the time was in the presiding eldership. He was a man of great ability, energy and influence, a powerful preacher of his faith and a public-spirited citizen of the town. Interested in and favoring education and all public improvements, and an earnest advocate of a vigorous prosecution of the war to suppress the slaveholders' rebellion, he was universally respected and beloved by the people of the town. I should be glad to add here some brief separate mention of each of the Methodist pastors who have ministered to the church in Shrewsbury, and regret my inability to do so. According to the itinerant usage of the denomination, only ministering here for two years or less each, they have come and gone, and after considerable unsatisfactory inquiry I reluctantly abandon my purpose to notice them separately and merely subjoin a li.st of their names with times ot service :

January 16, 1872, the Catholics of Shrewsbury bought three-eighths of an acre of land lor three hundred and fifty dollars and built a church thereon. The deed of this parcel of land runs "to Patrick T. O'Reilly, of Springfield, To Have and To Hold the same to him, the said O'Reill}', his heirs and assigns, to their own use and behoof forever." ' Patrick T. O'Reilly, of Springfield, is a Right Reverend Bishop of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and his diocese includes the town of Shrewsbury. Nor does his tenure of the church property in this town difTer at all from that of all other property of the Catholic Church in his diocese. He is tenant in fee simple ot it all. The local (?) pastor of the Catholic flock here, as well as the Right Reverend Bishop, is a non-resident of this town.

If the reader be not content with this history of the Catholic Church in Shrewsbury, and shall attempt to pursue it farther, I hope he may be more successful in his inquiries than I have been.