Worcester City (part 52 of 58)

September 24, 1728, not yet two months after the date of incorporation, the town voted "Two Hundred Pounds Money for y" building and finishing of a meeting-house in said town, so far as it will do or answer therefor." The site of the first meeting was where the orthodox church now stands. Concerning the progress and manner of building this primitive structure the records are silent until early in the year 1731, when money was raised and a committee appointed ''to build a pulpit and as many seats as there is convenient room for." In accordance with a recognized custom of the time, it was not intended by this sweeping vote to build " seats " in front of the pulpit and through the central part of the floor. This space was reserved for more dignified structures, denominated pews, which were constructed at the expense of the individual, and located by a conimiltee according to the wealth and dignity of the I'uiure occupant. Possibly through fear that their committee would not mauifest a proper regard for the dignity of their minister, our worthies took primary action in this particular. It was ordered in town-meeting that the" ministerial pew be located adjoining to y" foot of y" Pulpitstairs, at y" Right hand of y'" Pulpit." In the same spirit, they next promptly granted a request, and courteously recognized the dignity of Mr. Gardner, their former pastor, who still remained a resident of the town. For his accommodation it was ordered that there be reserved " a Place in y" meeting-house at y' Eight hand of y'= Great Doors to build a Pew." These proceedings toward the building and completion of the first meeting-house occupied the space of four years, and while they were in progress it is reasonably certain that the edifice had been occupied for public worship from and after the summer of 1729.

The names of the early and occasional preachers in the settlement are not known. The first settled minister was Rev. Andrew Gardner, who was installed over the church then organized, May 15, 1728. This date is over two months previous to the act of incorporation and a year or more before the building of the meeting-house. By the terms of the grant of the township, Mr. Gardner, at his settlement, came into possession of one right of land, which he subsequently sold, and enjoyed the benefit, if any, of the use of the ministerial lands, and in addition he was promised twenty pounds as a settlement and a salary of eighty pounds. Of the character of the ministry of Mr. Gardner and the causes which led to an early dismissal, little is known. The records are silent. Torrey's '- History of Fitchburg and Lunenburg," written after one hundred years had obscured the facts and weakened the voice of tradition, says :

Tlie reasons of his dismission, so fur afi I have been able to learn them, appear to be these: - He was not a man of that grave and sober demeanor, wliich the people of his time thought essential to the sacredness of his othce. He was apt to indulge in a levity of niaODer ou the Sabbath which was not in keeping with the solemnity of the day. He hail also quite a predilection for hunting, and, it is said, wild turkeys and other game, even on the Sabbath, sometimes bore evidence of his skill as a uiarksmaD. For the truth of these reports I cannot vouch.

This estimate of Mr. Gardner has been frequently quoted, and sometimes with the omission of the last sentence, which qualifies and mitigates the severity of the whole. One important fact demands attention. The first reference to any dissatisfaction found in the records appears in the letter of Mr. Gardner, asking a dismissal, and while he admits the existence of considerable indifference on the part of the people, he boldly assumes the initiative in reference to a dissolution of the pastoral relation. The letter bears date of September 18, 1730. It should be read in connection with the fact that the town, only three mouths previously, had voted him his annual salary, without any espres.sed hesitation or qualification.

Beloved Brethren: - I cannot but think, from what I have heard and also from what I have observed of the transactions and behaviour of tliis people, relating to me and my affairs, that there is not that affection borne towards me that there should be from a people to their Gospel minister; or that there is where a people are likely to profit under their minister. The consideration whereof has been very grievous and discouraging to me, and, therefore, think it best to separate. I do, therefore, propose a separation. And if effectual care betaken that my dues be hoTiesfly paid me, the first settled minister's lot with its appurtenances put upon record and attested, and a sufficient pew at the right band of going in at the great doors of the meetiug-house, - I shall be free to be dismissed from my pastoral relation, office and obligation to you, as soon as it can regularly be performed.

In the event the conduct of the pastor had grieved the faithful and either the church or the parish desired a separation, no recorded action appears until February 7, 1732, or nearly a year and a half after the suggestive letter of Mr. Gardner.

At this time the town in its capacity as a parish " voted and granted to Rev. Andrew Gardner a dismission from his pastoral or ministerial office, according to his request." At the same meeting the selectmen were instructed to pay Mr. Gardner whatever was his due. Possibly the money was raised with difficulty, but it was not paid until the following October. The sum paid at this time was three hundred and ninety-four pounds, twelve shilling.^ and three pence, which included twenty pounds due him for a settlement and the amount of his salary from the beginning. It was the first money the poor man had received from the aggrieved inhabitants of Lunenburg. If it is true, as alleged by Torrey, that he was frequently in pursuit of wild turkeys and other game, it is probable that hunger taught him " skill as a marksman," and "that he was oftener compelled by necessity than enticed by a love of the chase. However, the full sum was paid, and the church took the necessary action for the dismissal of their early pastor Xovember 3, 1732.

Rev. Andrew Gardner, the first minister of Lunenburg, was born in Brookline, 1694. He was a son of Rev. Andrew Gardner, the third minister of Lancaster, who began his ministerial labor in that town, 1701, and previous to an installation he was accidentally killed during an Indian alarm in October, 1704. His widow, Mary, however, became the wife of Rev. John Prentice, the fourth minister of Lancaster. A daughter of this marriage was the wife of Rev. Job Gushing, of Shrewsbury, and the mother of Rev. John Gushing, D.D., of Ashburnham. Rev. Andrew Gardner, Jr., was graduated at Harvard University, 1712, and was ordained the first minister of Worcester in the autumn of 1719, and was dismissed October 31, 1722. After preaching in Rutland, and possibly in other places, he was settled over the church in Lunen- burg, as heretofore stated, from May 16, 1728, to November 3, 1732. While a resident of this towu he built a house near Clark Hill, where Martin Johnson resides, which was considerably in advance of the dwellings of his time, and which, with its quaint windows and after-years of dilapidation, is remembered by many still living. After his dismissal he remained a few years in this town, and was at times employed by the town as " Grammar Scliool Master," the school being held at his house. In addition to the land granted the first settled minister, he acquired many acres by purchase and apparently maintained close business relations with Benjamin Bellows, Josiah Willard, Edward Hartwell, and his half-brother, Thomas Prentice. He was one of the grantees of Charlcstown, N. H., under the Massachusetts charter, which subsequently was vacated. In 1737 he removed to Earlington or Arlington, now Winchester, N. H., where he was a prominent citizen, receiving frequent and honorable mention in the records. Occasionally he was employed as chaplain at Fort Dummer, where he met many of his early associates from Lancaster and Lunenburg. About 1746 he removed to Charlestown, N. H. In 1761 his name was first in the list of the grantees of Bath, N. H., and thither he removed about 170.5, and became a controlling spirit in the new settlement. He lived between the Central and Upper Villages, and overlooking the scene of his declining years Gardner Mountain perpetuates his name and memory. He lived to an advanced age, but a record of his death has not been found.

At a meeting assembled November 10, 1732, one week after the dismissal of Mr. Gardner, the town chose " Dea. Samuel Johnson, Dea. Ephraim Peirce and Isaac Farnsworth a committee to provide a minister, from time to time, to supply the town with preaching." Kev. David Stearns was immediately employed, and that the first impressions of the can-' didate were not unfavorable is found in a record of a meeting on the -Ith of the following month, when it was ordered that the committee hire Mr. Stearns to preach two months, after an existing engagement had expired. The conditions attending the frontier settlements at this time reminded them that ihe approach of a winter season would defer the ordination until another spring. A call was extended in February, and the candidate was ordained April 18, 1733. The pastorate of Mr. Stearns was the continued succession of palmy days. The town increased in population, the people were prosperous in temporal aflairs, and the church, preserved from any serious contention, was increased in membei'ship. The town voted him £300 as a settlement, and a salary of £120 the first year and £5 added yearly, until itreached thesum of £110. In 1736, and a few subsequent years, an additional sum was voted to make good the depreciation of the currency in which his salary was paid. At the close of twentyeight years of successful labor he died, March 9, 17G1.

(Fiske) Stearns, was born in Watertown December 24, 1709; graduated at Harvard University, 1728. He married, April 7, 17.36, Ruth Hubbard, a daughter of Major Jonathan and Rebecca (Brown) Hubbard, of Lunenburg. She married (2d), November 9, 1768, Rev. Aaron Whitney, of Petersham, who died September 8, 1779, and she died in Keene, N. H., at the home of lier youngest daughter, November 1, 1788. Rev. David Stearns was intimately connected with many families of the town. He was a brother of Colonel Abijah, Benjamin and William Stearns, and the wives of Benjamin Bellows, Joshua Goodridge and Samuel Johnson, Jr., were his sisters. His wife was a sister of John and Jonathan Hubbard, Jr., and of the wife of Colonel Josiah Willard. Mr. Stearns lived north of and near the present Methodist Church, where William Howard now resides. There is remaining evidence that he was a man of good ability, a faithful and devoted minister, a i'riend of the people, and laborious for the public good. It is the testimony of Rev. Zabdiel Adams, who wrote with a full knowledge of his life and character, that " he lived gi'eatly beloved, and died no less lamented."

In 1736 the town " voted and granted all that Room behind y" sects in y" Front Gallery in y° Meeting- House in Lunenburg to Jonathan Wood, Samuel Reed, Phinehas 0-good, Ezekiel Wyman, David Page, Stephen Boynton, John Fitch, Jonathan Abbit for to Build a Long Pew or Seet for themselves and wives forever to set in." The vote savors of a protracted meeting, and in it and in other measures of a similar character providing for an enlargement of its seating capacity is read the doom of the first meeting-house of Lunenburg, which already was too small for the accommodation of the growing settlement. The building of the second meeting-house was a prolific subject of town legislation. No less than forty-three votes concerning the location, manner of building, appropriations and disposal of the pews were passed and recorded within the space of three years, and doubtless an equal or greater number of motions were made and seriously debated that did not pass and were not recorded. Omitting reference to many votei that were reconsidered at a future meeting, the narrative is abbreviated. May 22, 1749, the town " voted that they will Build a new Meeting-House in said Town," and May 25, 1752, it was ordered " that they will meet in the new Meeting-House Next Sabbath day come fortnight to attend the public worship there." It was finally determined that the building should be located " in the end of the lane by the school-house," which was within the limits of the present Common and opposite the residence of the late Sawyer Kimball. The necessary land was donated in part by Benjamin Bellows, and the remainder was purchased of Thomas Prentice. It was a spacious house, sixty by forty-five feet, having porches on the east, south and west, and containing fortyeight pews on the floor and twenty-one in the galler- ies. The frame w;is raised in tlie summer of 1750, and it was demolished in 1831, and many relies of the second meeting-house in Lunenburg are still preserved.

Immediately after the decease of Mr. Stearns Rev. Jo.siah Bridge, who was subsequently settled over the church in E ist Sudbury (now Waylaud),was employed a few SabbathE. He was succeeded by Rev. Samuel Payson, a brother of Rev. John Payson, of Fitchburg. He was ordained September 8, 1762, and died February 14, 1763.

The fourth pastor was Rev. Zabdiel Adams, who was ordained September 5, 1761. He died in the thirty-seventh year of a successful ministry March 1, 1801. Mr. Adams was born in Braintree(now Quincy), Mas-f., November 5, 1739. He was a son of Ebenezer and Ann (Boylston)Adams and a double cousin to President John Adams, their fathers being brothers and their mothers being sisters. He graduated at Harvard University in 1759. He was a thoughtful and impressive preacher, and among the clergy of his time he was held in high esteem. At the inauguration of Governor John Hancock, in 1782, he preached the first election sermon before the E.iecutive and both branrhes of the Legislature. This discourse was printed. He married, June 5, 171)5, Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. David Stearns. Their descendants are numerous and distinguished in many callings.

Succeeding a brief season of temporary supply Rev. Timothy Flint was ordained October 6, 1802. He was a son of William and Slariha (Kimball) Flint and was born in Reading, Mass., June 17, 1780. He graduated at Harvard University, 1800. At the time of his ministry here and often at subsequent periods he was in feeble health. At times there was only one service on the Sabbath, and occasional evidence of dissatisfaction is found in the records. He was dismiss.ed June G, 1814. He removed from this town to Alexandria, La., where he established a young ladies' seminary and subsequently lived and traveled extensively in the West until he returned to his native town, where he died April 18, 1840. Mr. Flint was the author of a geography and of several standard works of fiction and once was editor of the Knickerbocker 31agazine. He married in 1802 Abigail Hubbard, a sister of a later minister in this town.

Soon after the dismissal of Mr. Flint a call was extended to Rev. David Damon, who was ordained with the customary solemnities February 1, 1815. He was born in Wayland, Mass., September 12, 1787, and was graduated at Harvard College in the class with Hon. Edward Everett, 1811. He was a man of great simplicity of manner and an equal strength of character. An earnest faithful minister, he secured the respect and love of the church and the parish. He was dismissed at his request December 2, 1827. Subsequently he was settled at Amesbury and at West Cambridge (now Arlington), Mass., where he died.

June 25, 1843. The greater part of the time covered by the ministry of Mr. Damon was a memorable era in the religious history of New England. The Trinitarian and the Unitarian were engaged in a hot dispute and many churches were divided. Mr. Damon was a Unitarian, yet his pacific nature invited no contention, and finding a majority of his church and congregation were not In full sympathy with him, he withdrew before any serious d;scussion had begun. The controversy and the establishment of two churches was only deferred. In 1819 and during the peaceful ministry of Mr. Damon the First Congregational Parish was organized, and after ninety years of loyal service the town was relieved from a further control of parochial affairs. For several years the society was vigorous and prosperous. In 1830 a new meetinghouse, sixty-four by fifty feet, was erected and was dedicated December 25th of that year. The cost was nearly three thousand dollars, which was fully met from a sale of the pews. The land for its accommodation was presented by Daniel Putnam, Esq., and a bell was procured by subscription. The entrance, with a recess and two imposing pillars, was at the east end, and in all respects it was a fair expression of the architecture of the time.

Rev. Ebenezer Hubbard was the next minister. He was installed December 10, 1828. Compared with the closing scenes, the first three years of this ministry were uneventful, yet in the records appear the mists of a gathering cloud that soon obscured the horizon of their former prosperity. In the rapid progress of events, numerous personal differences developed into open hostility, which, like an infection, spread throughout the town. In the mean time the society suffered in membership. Of one hundred and fifty-eight members in 1831, only forlyitwo remained at the end of two years. Apparently only the most pugnacious remained, who found a lively exercise and an equal combat in the fighting qualities and skilled parries of their irritated pastor.

An acrimonious correspondence between the committee of the parish and the minister was succeeded by ecclesiastical councils, lawsuits and arbitration. In the mean time Mr. Hubbard continued to preach to a decreasing congregation, even after the society had voted that they considered his relations with them terminated, and that they would no longer pay his salary. After the door of the meeting-house was locked he regularly went to the steps on the Sabbath, displayed a sermon and continued to demand his salary and damages for the treatment he had received. A full account of this unfortunate controversy, employing all the interesting material at hand, would fill a volume. The end was found in a compromise, in M.iy, 1834. Rev. Ebenezer Hubbard, son of Rev. Ebenezer and Abigail (Glover) Hubbard, was born in Marblehead, Mass., November 12, 1783. He graduated (as did all his predecessors in the ministry in Lunenburg) at Harvard University, 1805. He read divinity in this town with Rev. Timothy Flint, was ordained over the Second Church in Newbury, May 11, 18U9, and dismissed October 1(5, 1810. He was installed over the church in Middletowu, November 27, 1816, and was dismissed April 29, 1828. After his residence in this town he was engaged in teaching and in farming in Tennessee an J in Kentucky. He died from a disease of the brain in an asylum near Nashville, Tenn., September 2, 1858. Immediately succeeding these troublous times, and possibly hastened by them a considerable number of those entertaining Trinitarian proclivities organized an independent church and society. Without action on their part, tbe Unitarians, formerly in the minority, but including families of influence, remained in succession and continued to be the First Parish of Lunenburg. The decade was an era of temporary supply. Rev. Thomas H. Pons and a score of others appear in the list of those who were briefly employed.

May 12, 1847, Rev. William G. Babcock was installed, and was dismis^^ed at his own request, April 7, 1855. During the succeeding ten years Rev. James Thurstun, Rev. Charles B. Josselyn, Rev. Jacob Caldwell, Rev. William Farmer, who died in this town June 24, 1862, and Rev. John B. Willard supplied the desk, and their minislry completed a chapter in the annals of Lunenburg, fragrant of the religion and suggestive of the customs of former generations. The clo-ing act was not long deferred. In 1867 the parish sold the meeting-house to the town, when it was removed about seventy yards north of its original site and remodeled into a spacious and convenient town-hall.

The Evangelical Congregational Church was embodied June 10, 1835. The first pastor was Rev. Thomas Bellows, born in Walpole, N. H., September 23, 1807, a son of Thomas and Eleanor (Foster) Bellows, and a grandson of Colonel Benjamin Bellows, prominent in the early annals of this town. He graduated at Dartmouth College, 1827, and pursued a course of study at Andover and New Haven Theological Seminaries. Succeeding a pastorate in Greenfield, he began to preach in this town early in 1835, and through his etfurts a church was organized. On account of failing heahh he was not installed, and the following year he retired to a farm in his native town. The society '".connected with this church was organized in May, 1835. It purchased, and for a season occupied, the meeting-house of the First Parish. An influential minority of the old society was dissatisfied with the disposal of the house, and, after a few scenes of boisterous contention, the sale was rescinded, and the meeting-house was returned to the control of the First Parish. In the autumn of 1843 the society was reorganized, and while plans for building a new meeting-house were maturing, services were held in the hall of a private house. The present meeting-house «'as built on land purchased of Daniel Putnam, E q., aad completed in 1844.

Early in 1837, and during the time in which services were held in the old meetinghouse. Rev. Eli W. Harrington began a successful ministry. He was ordained April 26, 1837, and dismissed, at his request, April 8, 1847. He vyas born in New Braintree, November 28, 1804, and was a son of Nathaniel and Nancy (Townsend) Harrington ; graduated Amherst College, 1833; Andover Theological Seminary, 1836. Subsequently he preached in Mason, N. H., Rochester, N. Y., and in Beverly, Mass. He now resides in Pepperell, Mass. The next pastor was Rev. Asaph Bouielle, who was installed in the spring of 1848, and remained tliree years. He was a son of Asaph and Anna (Stearns) Boutelle, of Fitchburg, where he was born October 7, 1804; graduated Amherst College, 1828 ; Andover Theological Seminary, 1831. Previous to his faithful ministry here he had preached in Ohio sixteen years, and subsequently he was fifteen years pastor of the church in Peacham, Vt., where he died January 12, 1S66.

Mr. Boutt-lle was succeeded by Rev. Edwin R. Hodgman, who was installed February 8, 1852. On account of failing health he asked a dismissal, which was approved by a council, March 26, 1855. He is a .son of Buck ey and Betsey (Pratt) Hodgman, born in Camden, Me., October 21, 1819; partial course at Amherst and a graduate of Dartmouth College, 1843 ; Andover Theological Seminary, 1844. His next pastorate was in Lynnfield and later in Westford and Townsend. He is the author of a " History of Westford."

Rev. William A. Mandell was installed January 2, 1856. In an eminent degree he enjoyed the merited esteem of the parish and of the town. He was dismissed at his request November 16, 1865, and supplied the pulpit until the close of the year. He is a son of Daniel and Eliza (Patrick) Mandell and was born in Hardwick, July 13, 1811 ; graduate Amherst College, 1838; Union Theological Seminary, 1841. He was city missionary in Philadelphia, Pa., and pastor at Dartmouth, Mass., from 1846 until he removed to this town. Since 1868 he has re-ided without charge at North Cambridge. Succeeding Mr. Mandell, the desk was supplied by Rev. Alfred Goldsmith and others about four years. Rev. William H. Dowden was installed February 2, 1870, and was dismissed February 22, 1875. He is a son of Thomas and Eunice (Simons) Dowden and was born in Fairhaven, January 15, 1836 ; graduate Andover Theological Seminary, 1866. His earlier pastorates were in Pelham and Carlisle and later he has supplied at East Jaftrey, N. H., and Rowley. Mr. Dowden was succeeded by Rev. Walter Rice, who was installed in May, 1875, and remained about five years. He is a son of Silas and Almira (Corey) Rice, born in Ashburnham, December 25, 1836; graduate Beloit College, 1862 ; Newton Theological Seminary, 1865 ; Andover Theological Semiuary, special course, 1874. He has been a successful pastor in Brandon, Vt., since

Methodist preachers have been stationed here, and a society has been maintained since 180.3. The first preacher was Kev. Joshua Crowell, who was followed by the Revs. Thomas Rawling, Hezekiah Field, William Stevens, John Tinkham, Benjamin S. Hill, and to the present time about seventy-five names in all. The school-house in which the tervice was held several years failed to accommodate the increasing congregation. In 181.3, and during the ministry of Rev. Barzillai Peirce, a native of this town, a meeting-house was built upon a frame of a building presented by Jonathan Peirce. It was situated on the old Northfield road, and beyond the North Cemetery. Previously the building had been used for the storage of bark, and after it had been dedicated to a more sacred use it was called by the profane the " Lord's Bark-house." Under the provisions of recent law a society was organized in 1825. In 1829 the present house was built on land purchased of Daniel Putnam, Esq. It is recorded by George A. Cunningham, Esq., that the frame was raised sixteen days after the first tree was felled in the forest. It was dedicated May 1, 1830. In 1870 it was thoroughly repaired. There were seasons of unusual religious interest - in 1821, when a camp-meeting was held here ; in 1857, under the ministry of Rev. John Goodwin ; and in 1871, under the ministry of Rev. J. F. Bassett. With hope and with courage this society has been continuously maintained, and s-ometimes under embarrassments that have overcome more populous organizations. In 1842 Josiah Litch, a native of this town, delivered a series of discourses announcing the second advent of Christ, and Rev. Samuel Heath, the Methodist minister, embraced the faith. From the puljjit, with the ardor of a new convert, he began to preach the doctrines of Millerism. Many of the congregation became affected, and while he remained the steadfast attended church elsewhere. The world, however, was preserved, and with it the church in Lunenburg, but it was a season of trial and anxiety to many. William Harlow, in early life a sea-captain, and later a zealous steward of the church, in reference to these events has written : " The Millerite seceders from the Methodist Church in Lunenburg, after having worked themselves up to such a pitch as to believe they could not be saved while they remained on board the old ship ' Zion,' and thinking her unseaworthy, jumped overboard at the risk of their spiritual lives, and desired to have their names erased from the shipping papers, but notwithstanding their fears, and the storms of fanaticism, the old ship has weathered them all and has since landed many souls in the broad bay of Heaven, and has a full freight of others bound to the same place."

Schools were established in this town at an early date. From December 11, 1732, when it was "voted that Col. Josiah Willard, Capt. Edward Hartwell and Mr. Benjamin Gqodrldge be aCom"° to Provide a School and School-Master for to teach children and youth to read and write," down to the last annual appropriation of .?1S50 for school purposes, the education of the youth of the town has been a subject of earnest legislation. In general features, the recorded history is like that of other places and presents no feature not common to the records of a New England town. In March, 1733, Nathan Heywood, Benjamin Goodridge, Hilkiah Boynton and Josiah Willard, Jr., were granted seven pounds and one shilling " for keeping of school in said town." There is a tradition that Mr. Gardner, the early minister, was the first school-master. It may be the truth, but his name does not appear in the records as a schoolteacher until the following vote, December 31, 1733 : " Voted and chose Mr. Andrew Gardner to be y" School-Master to Keep y' School y" Term of Three monf^is, and voted that y* School shall be Kept at y"^ House of Mr. Gardner." The following year it was ordered that three schools be held at the houses of Lieut. James Colburn (near Clark Hill), Jonathan Willard (a short distance southerly from the centre) and Edward Hartwell, on Lancaster Road (about three and one-half miles from the centre), and for this purpose forty pounds was appropriated. In 1735 the selectmen were instructed to provide a school " according to the best manner for the town's .safety and interest," and the following year they were instructed " to hire school-dames as they shall see meet." A vote in 1739 directed that one school be kept either in the house of Mr. Dowse, or of John Jennison (at the <entie), and ano.her at the old house of Ephraim Peirce. The house of Mr. Peirce was nearly two mile-s south or southeasterly from the centre of the town. When the first school-house was built is not revealed. In 1740 the town voted to build "two school-house.s," hut beyond this expression of a good resolution nothing was accomplished ; but soon after there was a vote to build one schoolhouse, to be located near the meeting house. It was built without delay, and probably in 1741. In 1783 five school-houses were built, and in the progress of years the number has been increased to nine. Nearly fifty years ago an academy was sustained several years. The building was erected by Daniel Putnam, Nathaniel F. Cunningham, Thomas Wiley and Dr. Otis Abercrorabie. John R. Rollins was the first and a very successful principal, and while a resident .of this town was the town clerk several years. He was succeeded by Rev. Jacob Caldwell, a native of this town, William H. Boynton, James J. H. Gregory, now of Marblehead ; Charles A. Goodrich, an esteemed citizen of this town, and George E. Dunlap. In 1806 the academy building was sold and removed to Fitchburg. The town has a valuable public library, and one of its institutions is its Farmers' Club, which was organized in 1848.

pers relating to the early history of Lunenburg have been printed. Upon the open records, easily accessible, a constant draft has been made by previous explorers. The quaint and curious and many striking incidents in the records are familiar to the local reader, and are not here repeated. In the preparation of this sketch the writer has been crowded out of the accustomed paths of research, and has found the ordinary fountains drained by earlier and vigilant gleaners of material. And while dates and certain facts of necessity have been drawn from the original and worn records, very much of the material incorporated into the narrative of the early grants - of the proceedings of the proprietors, f)f the military record of the past century and many incidents connected or explanatory - have been drawn from the State archives and from records which have escaped earlier notice. Many facts in the earlier history of the town are here printed for the first time. From an historical standpoint, Lunenburg, the mother of towns and the ancestral home of many families, occupies an important position among the older towns of Northern Massachusetts. For many years with the line of defense on the outer side, Lunenburg was on the border between the settlements and the wilderness. Many, pursued by the mania of immigration, were often temporarily delayed upon the borders within this town, and a few years later, when the younger and outer settlements for a season were abandoned, the fugitives from danger found safety and a temporary home within the defences of this town. By frequent intermarriage, these sojourning strangers became allied to Lunenburg families, and at their departure, were often attended by many to the manner born. And, in addition to this accidental overflow from the town and during the burning fever of immigration that warmed the blood of the older towns, and which was only briefly allayed by the French and Indian War, there was a swelling tide of immigration from Lunenburg to the growing settlements in New Hampshire and elsewhere. In such numbers and in such types of sturdy men did the living current flow, that Winchester, Walpole and, in less degree, Charlestown, in New Hampshire, were New Lunenburgs on the border of the receding wilderness. In these vigorous movements the blood of the mother-town was widely disseminated. Two-thirds of the early population of Kindge were descendants of the early families of Lunenburg. It is impossible to find a town within an extended radius or to name a State in. the Union that does not contain many who trace their ancestry through the records of Lunenburg. For the pleasure and benefit of the multitude, the genealogical records of the parent-families have not been published. Continuous inquiries by interested persons have been kindly answered by obliging town clerks until the originsil records were defaced and restored by new copies. In a comprehensive study and arrangement of the genealogical records of the Lunenburg families, George A. Cunningham, Esq., was laboriously engaged many years. In its scope, completeness and accuracy, his manuscript copy is not excelled by any published woik of a similar character. The vigor of an intelligent mind and the earnest labor of a life-time were exhausted in this treasury of genealogical knowledge. Mr. Cunningham also completed a manuscript history of the town. It is a voluminous supplement to the Torrey sketch, and quotes that work for the early history of the town. The supplement is brought down to the time when death stilkd his tireless pen. The names of the soldiers in the War of Rebellion, enumerated in this paper, are drawn from his work. To Mr. William E. Cunningham, through whose generous favor the.'ie valuable manuscripts have been consulted, I extend a grateful acknowledgment.

Chapter Xcix Early Land Grants

Thk history of Shrewsbury properly begins with certain land grants of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, located within the territory of which the town was afterwanls formed. These grants, called farms, named after the grantees and five in number, were: (1) Davenport's Farm, 650 acres; (2) Haynes' Farm, otherwise called Quinsigamond Farm, 3200 acres; (3) Maiden Farm, 1000 acres ; (4) Rawson's Farm, 500 acres, and (5) Sewall's Farm, 1500 acres. But the quantity of land in these grants was, in fact, greatly in excess of the number of acres named, and the aggregate was, doubtless, more than 10,000 acres,

1. The Davenport Farm, granted to Captain Richard Davenport, commander of Castle Island, in Boston Harbor, in consideration of public services, was laid out to him in the valley of the Nashua River, in that part of Shrewsbury now West Boylston and BoyUton, and included very valuable millsites, as well as the finest parcel of intervale land lying in a body to be found in Massachusetts east of Connecticut River. Its final confirmation to thegrautee was May 28, 1659.' Capt. Davenport came to Salem with Gov. Endicott in 1628, and after many years of public service was killed by lightning (" tooke away by ye solemne strooke of Thunder''), while sleeping by his magazine, w-ith only the wainscot between him and the powder. His son Richard, with his two sons, William and Nathaniel, came to Shrewsbury about 1736 and settled upon this grant.^

2. The grantees of the Haynes' Farm, who did not themselves give their own name to their grant, but called it by the more euphonious title gii'en by the Indians to " ye Greate Pond that lyeth West Pointe to ye sd farm," were the brothers John and Josiah Haynes, of Sudbury, and their brother-in-law, Nathaniel Treadway, of Watertown. The Haynes brothers, with their sisters, Sufferance and Mary, were the children of Walter Haynes, a Wiltshire linenweaver, who, with his wife E izabeth and children, all under sixteen years, came in the good ship "Confidence'' from England in 1038, and settled in Sudbury. This grjnt was originally made to Isaac Johnson in consideration of " £400 adventured by the said Mr. Johnson in the comon stock of The Governor and company of ye Massachusetts Bay in New England," which, to begin with, was little else but an incorporated trading company founded on the East India plan. Johnson dying, this grant, as yet unlocated and accounted personal estate, came into the possession of his executor, Increase Nowell. .Johnson and Nowell were both original patentees of the colony charter of 1628 and had part wiih Winthrop in importing it to New England. Nowell also dying before location of the grant, his executor sold it to John Haynes and his brother Josiah and their brothers-in-law - Nathaniel Treadway, who married their sister Sufferance and Thomas Noyes, who married their other sister, Mary. It was finally laid out to the Haynes brothers and Treadway (Noyes having died), and confirmed by the General Court May 27, 1664.' The southwest corner of Haynes' Farm was at the going out of the Nipnapp River from the southernmost end of Quinsigamond Ponds, and both the islands there belonged to the farm and so to the town of Shrewsbury to this day. Another corner was where the town bound between Northborough and Shrewsbury now stands, by the Great Road near the house of Mr. William U. Maynard. The northwest and southeast corners of the grant cannot be fixed with exactness, but cannot have been very remote from where the two school-houses, Nos. 3 and 5, now siand. The northern boundary curved northward and crossed the Boylston road near where Mr. Lowell Walker now lives, and thence passed on to the Northborough line. I have been thus particular to trace the origin and show the location of the Haynes Farm, because it was much the largest of the five grants, because it was the owners of this large tract of land that formed the nucleus of the Marlborough colony that settled Shrewsbury, and because the facts are not well known.

3. One hundred of the one thousand acres of Maiden Farm were in Worcester. Its southern boundary line was three hundred and seventy rods long, and the southernmost point of West Boylston was the centre of this line, and the line running northerly for about two miles from this point, bet.ween the two towns of Boylston and West Boylston, divided this farm into two equal parts. Its northwest c.iruer is said in the lay-out to be about a mile distant from the Davenport Farm. The original grant to the town of Maiden, made May 9, 1662, was on condition that "ye ministry of Maulden do cause it to be bounded out and puc on improvement wiihin three years next ensewing." The location of the grant by metes and bounds was duly made and confirmed within the time prescribed. May 3, 1665, but the only improvements made were marking forest trees, at the corners, with the letter M.^ On this ground, want of improvements within three years, the validity of the grant was disputed by the proprietors of Shrewsbury, and their records contain frequent references to this grant as the "pretended Maiden Farm." In 1736 Rev. Joseph Emerson, of Maiden, and minister of God's Word there, brought suit in the Worcester Common Pleas against Ephraim Wheeler and David Crosby, of Shrewsbury, for possession of the nine hundred acres of this grant which lay in Shrewsbury. This suit was defended by the proprietors, by whose direction Wheeler and Crosby had taken possession of the land, and Nahum Ward, one of the proprietors, acted as their counsel in the suit. On trial in the Common Pleas the verdict and judgment were for the defendants, but Mr. Emerson appealed and prevailed in the Superior Court, final judgment for the plaintiff, October Term, 1736. But the proprietors were not content, and the next year Mr. Ward was sent to the Great and General Court to re-open the question determined in the suit, and for four years Mr. Ward continued to press petitions for a new trial and for re-location of the grant, in vain. Maiden Hill and Maiden Brook were both named from this grant, though neither hill nor brook is in it. From uncertainty about the location of the grant, it may have been supposed or claimed that its location was so as to include the brook and hill.

4. Secretary Edward Rawson received from time to time grants of several parcels of land to eke out his pitiful salary, and among the rest a rectangle of five hundred acres lying between Marlboro', Lancaster and Worcester, about half a mile north of Haynes' Farm, and Deacon John Haynes located it for him. It was one mile (three hundred and twenty rods) long by two hundred and fifty rods wide. Rawsoii's Hill, called in the grant by its Inilian name of Ashant's Hill, was in it and Cold Harbor Brook ran through it. Some years before this grant to him the secretary had spent some money to no profit in experiments with saltpetre or something he thought was saltpetre, and the General Court, to encourage such patriotic experimenting and compensate him for his los<es thereabout, granted him five hundred acre-s of land " near Pequot,'' but afterwards gave him thirty pounds instead oi" the land. As no consideration is expressly named in the grant which was located in Shrewsbury, and the quantity is the same, it is probable tiiat this grant was a renewal of the other, modified so that it might be "layd out in any free place not prejudicing a plantation." The lay-out and confirmation of this grant was May 13, 1(386.'

5. Sewall's Farm lay on the westerly side of Shrewsbury, with a narrow strip between it and Worcester line. Its south boundary line was a little south of the Great Road, its southwest corner near the head Quinsigamond Pond. Its given dimensions were seven hundred and eighty rods long, south to north, and three hundred and forty rods wide, east to west, or not quite two miles and one-half long by a little more than a mile wide - extending from its south line, before mentioned, beyond and including Grass Pond, (once so-called, but for three generations last past known as Sewall's Pond), in Boylston. It was bounded for a considerable distance on its west side by Maiden Farm, and also for a less distance on the east by Haynes' Farm, and so connected the two. It had on it two mill-sites, - one a little below Sewall's Pond, where Banister's Mills were built, and the other, now unoccupied, but much the better water-power of the two, near the house of Mr. Frederick E. Abbott, where once stood Harlow's Mills, burned nearly forty years ago. Sewall's Hill, as well as Sewall's Pond, is within the farm limits, and both took their name from the grantee, Samuel Sewall, chief justice of the old Superior Court of Judicature, one of the judges who tried the Salem witches and the only one of them that is known to have repented thereof; author of Sewall's Diary, etc.

The south part of Sewall's Farm - one thousand acres - was laid out and confirmed November 20, 1695, to James Russell, sometime colony treasurer, to whom the grant (originally made to Deputy-Governor Francis Willoughby, in consideration of public service) came, unlocated, by descent from his father, Richard Russell, also sometime colony treasurer, who had bought it of the Deputy-Governor. Chief Justice Sewall's title to this part of his farm in Shrewsbury was by purchase of Treasurer James Russell. His title to the north part - five hundred acres - was in right of his wife, who was the only daughter of Miutmaster John Hull, who "by minting made a mint of money " for himself, as well as for the colony, and became the richest man of New England. Hannah Hull married Samuel Sewall long before he was chief justice, or hung the witches, or had made much progress in his famous diary, or was famous for anything, and brought her husband a marriage-portion of £30,000, all duly counted out to him on the weddingday in "pine-tree" shillings, fresh from her father's mint.' This grant, which had come to Madam Han. nah Hull Sewall through her father, in some way that I have not yet been able to trace, was CDnfirmed to her and her husband, May 27, 1696. A rude plan of Sewall's Farm may be seen in the Worcester Registry of Deeds,^with a deed, dated June 1, 1732, of a moiety thereof from William Pepperell, of Kiltery, et ux. et ah. to Nahum Ward, of Shrewsbury. This was thirteen years before the famed exploit of Louisbourg, and the thrifty trader of Kittery was then only a hero in posse, and tenant, in common with others, of fifteen hundred acres of real estate in Shrewsbury, in right of his wife, who was Mary Huist, and one of Chief Ju.stiee Sewall's three granddaughters, and so coparcener of the real estate aforesaid. This plan was made, as appears from the deed, from a survey made in November, 1714, by David Haynes, youngest son of Deacon John, of Sudbury, and one may read in the Sewall Diary the following entry, under date " 1714, 8' 6. Mr. David Hayns dines with us. . . . Gave him the Bounds of Quanssicamon Farms, that he may review and refresh them." Whereby one may note that the Indians' name for Long Pond (whatever may be the Indians' spelling of it) was once applied to Sewall's Farm, as well as to Haynes'. Probably it was to distinguish the two that at a later period they were called after their respective grantees.^

It will aid to a better understanding both of what precedes and what is to follow to give a brief account of the road through Shrewsbury anciently called the Connecticut Road, - in later times the Country Road, the Stage Road, Post Road and Great Road. The original road from Massachusetts Bay to the Con-

^So HutchiDSon i. 1G5, to which tradition adds that the bride, being set io tlie scalt-s, exiictly balanced the silver pine-trees. Blerely suggesting to the reader that a pine-tree shilling's prescribed weight was Ihreo pennyweights, Troy, I leave bini to compute "exactly" what was Mrs. Sewall's weight on her wedding-day.

*Since the above was in the hands of the publishers, I have discovered, under date of June 20, 171.'5, another gl'ant of si-vteen hundred and eighty-three acres to the heirs of John Haynes, lying in the southerly part of Shrewsbury and adjoining "Haynes' Old Farm " on the south side. Tins is what is ciUed in the I'roprietors' Records "RobUins' Farm," so named from .Toseph Robbins, a " Praying Indian" of Ilassanimisco, whose title Deacon Haynes in his life-time had bought, of which title this grant was a contirmation. See Court Records, 1715, and Maps and Plans, Vol. 5, page 3, Secretary of State's oflice. See also a plan of the original grant to the Shrewsbury Proprietors, vol. 16, paso 518, on which this grant, under the name of " Haynes' Indian Farm," is laid down.

necticut River did not pass through Shrewsbury at all, but to the south of it. It was merely the old trail of the Indiana. The new Connecticut Road was laid out by Major John Pynchon, whose father William had founded a town at either end of it.' The " worshipful " major's authority was an order of the General Court, under date March 30, 1G83, in these word.s :

"Whereas the way to Kornecticut, now used, being very hazardous to travelers hy reason of one deepe river that is passed fower or tive times over, wliicli may be avoided, it is referred t > Major Pynchon to order ye said way to be layd out & well marked. He having hyred two injins to gu de him in tlie way for filty rfhillinge, it is ordered that the Treasurer pay them the same in country pay towards effecting this workc."-

The principal change of the old way consisted in passing north instead of south of Quinsigumond Pond, and so through Shrewsbury. Departing from the old way, it passed northerly of Little Chauncey Poud in Northborough into Shrewsbury exactly where the Great Road enters the town to-day, and thence through the town to the head of Quinsigamond Pond, on substantially the same line as the present road. But in 1726 it was re-located by a jury sent out by the Middlesex Court of Sessions, whose accepted return, so far as relates to the re-location in Shrewsbury, is as follows (what immediately precedes relates to the way in Worcester): "And thence in Shrewsbury, keeping the old nay, crossing the Brook, running into Long Pond, and so keeping the old way south of Gershom Wheelock's house, and between the house and barn of Daniel How, & so still keeping the old road till it comes out of the woodland east of said How's, on the edge of the Great Rocky Plain, and so keeping very nigh a straight line a little south of Mr. Cu^hing's house, on the east side of the aforesaid Plain, and then in the old way till it come to Capt. Keyes' fenced land, and so crossing a small corner of said Keyes' fenced ground, and then in the old way running between said Keyes' house and barn, and so keeping the old road south of Widow Blair's, and so to the Westborough ' line in the old road, passing between Daniel Barnes' house and barn," etc.

That is to say, the re-located road crossed the town line in exactly the same place where the old road crossed it, nor has there been any change had, either in the road or the town line from that time (1726) to this day, and the town bound by the road here stands precisely where it was established in 1717 by the viewing committee's report " at a heap of stones, called Warner's Corner, which is the most easterly corner of Haynes' Farm by the Country Road." Daniel Barnes occupied the sixteenth house-lot of ihe proprietors' records, " bounded easterly by the town line, northerly by Haines' old Farm . . . and" {the lot) " lyeth where Mr. Warner formerly improved." This is the place where Mr. William U. Maynard now lives, and is without doubt the earliest place in Shrewsbury occupied by a white man.*

Whoever Mr. Warner may have been, and whatever may have become of him, certain it is that he had no title to the land " where he formerly improved." His corner makes a very noticeable and unexplained jog into the boundaries of Haynes' Farm laid out in 1664, and he was probably some daring pioneer who was either driven out or perished during King Philip's War. Widow Mary Blair, mentioned also in the relocation of 1726, lived with her children on the place where Mr. Samuel Johnson now lives. It was houselot No. 12, " situated near where Warner formerly improved, bounded northerly on Haines' old Farm, easterly by the 16th House-Lot,'"' etc. The widow's hu.-ibaud, William Blair, died shortly after coming to Shrewsbury, and the Barnes and Blair families both certainly here in 1726, not long afterwards returned to Marlb(jrough.

The germ of the movement for settlement of Shrewsbury is described in a deed of pv.rtitiou' of Haynes' Farm, dated April, 1717, which, after reciting the "orderly" meeting of the owners, twenty-three ia number, heirs and purchasers of the rights of Deacon John Haynes, Lieutenant Josiah Haynes and Mr. Nathaniel Treadway,all deceased, the appointment of a committee to go with John Brigham, surveyor, and divide the farm into three parcels ready to draw lots, and a second meeting of said owners December 10, 1716, at David How's house in Sudbury, then sets out the committee's report that they had divided the farm by east and west lines into three parts or squadrons - whereupon, lots being drawn, the North Squadron fell to the heirs and purchasers of the right of Deacon John Haynes, the South Squadron to the heirs of Lieutenant Joshua Haynes and the Middle Squadron to the heirs and purchasers of the right of Mr. Nathaniel Treadway. Of the twenty-three signers of this deed, the following or their children settled in Shrewsbury : John Keyes, Joseph Noyes, Moses Newton, Daniel How, Elias Keye-", Samuel Wheelock, Thomas Hapguod, Edward Goddard and William Taylor.

Samuel Wheelock's sou Gershom is reputed to have been the firot permanent settler of Shrew'sbury, and the place where he settled was on the share of his lather in Haynes' Farm - on the north side of the Great Road, between where Mr. Levi Prentice and Mr. William Fitzgerald now live. Tradition represents

4 Distinguished also by a recent archwulogical iind of much interest. Ditching in his meadow in 1884 Mr. Maynard came upon the fossil molai-8 of a mastodon, and the next year, in the margin of the ditch, which it was known was to be explored by the amateurs of the Worcester Natural History Society was found a human skull, doubtless the plant of a practical joker, of which not only the amateurs, but a learned professor of Harvard became eager victims.

him as sleeping aloft in his cabin during the winter nights of 1716-17, and drawing up his ladder after him, " whistled an air did he," doubtless to keep up his courage. How long he continued to live there I have not ascertained, but certain it is that he was .still there in 172(5, as appears from the re-location of the Great Road at that time. In 1720 his father gave him a deed of this lot, and February 10, 1729, houselot No. 26, which '' lyeth near the west bounds of Hains' old Farm," was in possession of Samuel Wheelock.' Gershom Wheelock, the first settler, who had both a son and a grandson of the same name, was commonly called in his life-time Captain Wheelock, from his militia rank, and his father was called the deacon from his office in the church, of which he was one of the founders. Deacon Wheelock was a member of the first Board of Selectmen and a very active man in church and town affairs for many years.

John Keyes, whose house, barn and fenced land is referred to in the re-location of 1726, son of Elias Keyes, of Sudbury, and grandson of Robert Keyes, of Watertown, who came from England in 1633, had his share of Haynes' Farm assigned to him on the south side of the Great Road, nearly opposite where the currier's shop stands in the Lower Village. In 1723 he built a new house a few rods east of the rude and primitive cabin that he first lived in, but before it was finished both houses were burnt in the night and Mr. Keyes' three sons and two apprentices of Ebenezer Bragg, the carpenter, who was building the new house, perished in the flames. Mr. Bragg, aUo sleeping in the same hou e, barely escaped. The old house was also burned, but the inmates, Mr. Keyes and wife and four daughters, were awakened by Mr. Bragg just in time to flee out of it.

John Keyes held commissions as captain and major in the militia, and is traditionally known as the famous Major John Keyes. He is not to be confounded with Deacon John, his cousin, who settled in the North Parish. In 1726 he evidently had built another house, as the relocated Great Road passed between it and his barn. A very active and energetic man, member of the first and many subsequent Boards of Selectmen. He bouglit a moiety of Sewall's Farm, and thus became tenant in common with Nahum Ward, who was his uncle, of that large tract of land.

» Ward, pp. 20 and £6fi-2fi8, and Fee the deacon's deed of 1720 to his son in " Worcester Registry," Book 23, page 214. Mr. Ward is very wide of the fiict in supposing tliis deed to relate to lioiieelot No. 2G of the proprietoi's' records, and in supposing this lot (26) to he the place where Erastus Wheelock, greatrgreat-grandB(}n of the tirst deacuD, now lives.

his cousin's, but, in 1741, with his family, joined another colony that swarmed out of the Marlborough hive and followed the star of empire on its westward way to New Marlborough, in far-off Berkshire. The surname of Keyes is now extinct in Shrewsbury. But the Flaggs, of Boylston, are descendants of famous Major John, by his daughter Hannah, who married Gtrshom Flagg.

Daniel Noyes, of Sudbury, who settled on the South Squadron of Haynes' Farm, was descended both from Ensign Thomas Noyes and Lieutenant John Haynes. He was the son of Joseph, who signed the partition deed. His grandfather, also named Joseph, was the son of Ensign Thomas, and his grandmother was Ruth Haynes, daughter of Lieutenant Joshua.

Neither of the Newtons, Moses nor Thomas, settled in Shrewsbury. They sold their shares in Haynes' Farm to Nahum Ward, who was their cousin, but their children came to Shrewsbury at an early day and settled here. Elisha Newton, son of Moses, was grandfather of the late Calvin Newton, of this town, and settled on the place, part of Sewall's Farm, where Peter Gamache now lives, where also Mr. Newton (Calvin), whose three sons, still living in this town, were all born there, lived and died. Elisha Newton's brother, Aaron, also settled in the North Parish (Boylston), and .so also did Thomas Newton, son of Thomas, who signed the partition deed.

Nahum Ward, who bought the Newtons' share of Haynes' Farm, though not one of the twenty-three owners in 1717, was one of the first comers here and his purchase, a large tract, lay on the south side of the road opposite the Cummon, extending thence both easterly and westerly. His great-grandson, author of a history of Shrewsbury, supposes he was here before 1718, and living near the Jonas Stone house (now owned by Mr. Frederick Stone, of Boston), but William Taylor at that time owned the land where that house stands, and Mr. Ward owned no land nearer than the south side of the Great Road. Mr. Ward was colonel of a militia regiment in the Provincial Line, and chairman of the first and member of many subsequent Boards of Selectmen ; many times representative to the General Court, and a justice of the Worcester County Court of Common Pleas, 1746-62. He was admitted to the Worcester bar in 1731, but I have not found a case of his acting as coun.-el except in tbe Maiden suit elsewhere mentioned. He was father of General Artemas Ward and ancestor of all who ever bore the ^Va^d name in Shrewsbury. William Ward, who came from York, England, to Sudbury, about 1640, was his grandfather. The Ne«tons, of Shrewsbury, also are descended from William Ward.

bury Poor-House formerly stood, on land now belonging to Mr. George H. Harlow. He was son of Josiah How, of Marlborough, and grandson of John How, who came from England and settled in Sudbury in 1G3S, or earlier, and on his mother's side he was grandson of Deacon John Haynes, one of the original grantees of Haynes' Farm. His mother, whose maiden-name was Mary Haynes, was in 1713 owner of a share of the " farm at Quinsigamond," and under the name and addition of Mary Prescott, of Lancaster, conveyed it to " her true and well beloved son, David How, of Marlborough." The North Squadron, by lot, ^ as we have seen, fell to the heirs and purchasers of the right of Deacon John. In explanation of his mother's name and addition, it should be added that her first husband, Josiah How, Daniel's father, dying young, she afterwards married John Prescott, of Lancaster, son of the famous blacksmith, miller and Indian fighter, who was the first settler and founder of the first town in the county of Worcester. Daniel How was the first town treasurer, and held the office several years, and he was many years a member of the selectmen, and let the reader note the re-location, in 1726, of the Great Road between his house and barn as showing where he lived and kept tavern, and also where the road then was. From his militia office he usually went by the name of Captain How.

Thomas Hapgood was great grandson of Nathaniel Treadway, one of the original grantees of Haynes' Farm, to whose heirs fell the Middle Squadron, and he settled in Shrewsbury and built his house near where Mr. Albert, Clai)p now lives, and Mr. Clapp's farm is part of Thomas Hapgood's share of the Middle Squadron. He was son of Thomas Hapgood, of Marlborough, who lived to see his great-great-grandchildren, and had three hundred and thirteen descendants living at his death, and his (the said Thomas, of Shrewsbury) grandfather was Shadrach Hapgood, of Sudbury, who married Treadway's daughter Elizibeth, and was killed in the Indian fight at Brookfield, in 1675. Thomas Hapgood's name is twice signed to the partition deed with a cross - once for himself and again as attorney for another. He was a militia captain, and commonly called Captain Hapgood, town treasurer ten years and often a selectman. His three sisters, Mary,' Elizabeth and Hepzibah, who were, of course, of the same descent with him, married and settled in Shrewsbury.

Edward Goddard, who married the said Hepzibah Hapgood, was born in Watertown, where his father and grandfather - both also named Edward - lived, and where the latter, who married Elizabeth Miles and came with her from England about 1650, first settled. He settled in the North Squadron, on the place which Edward Howe now owns, and built the house in which Mr. Howe still lives, and which, under its modernized exterior, I suppose, retains the frame of the oldest house in Shrewsbury. The Goddard farm extended to and was bounded on the northernmost boundary line of Haynes' Farm. Mr. Goddard, who is distinguished from most of the other new-comers to Shrewsbury by having no military title, was an active man in church and town, held the office of selectman and other town officers, and was a man of considerable means-

William Taylor, who married Captain Hapgood's other sister, Elizabeth, was also a man of considerable means for his day, but did not wholly escape, like his brother-in-law, militia honors. His name in town and church-records, I believe, has the uniform prefix of sergeant. He settled on a lot of the North Squadron, adjoining Goddard's, being the place where Mr. Charles A. Holman now lives, and where the late Amasa Howe, great-grandson of Taylor, lived ; where lived also Amasa's father, Nathan, and his grandfather, also named Nathan, who was son of Captain Daniel How, and married Sergeant Taylor's daughter, Hepzibah. The house which William Taylor built was taken down by Amasa Howe in 1849. The Taylor farm or share which he had in the North Squadron extended south to the Great Koad, and included the site of the house in which his great-greatgrandson, Thomas Harlow, now lives, and all the other land to and including the Common and the site of the Sumner house. The Great Koad was substantially on the line between the North and Middle Squadrons, and this was Taylor's south line. The name Taylor as a surname died in Shrewsbury with the first comer, but his descendants, by six daughters, are very numerous. His father and grandfather both lived in Marlborough, and were both named William Taylor. He was many years a selectman of Shrewsbury.

Chapter Ci

In colony and provincial records and early deeds recorded at Cambridge and Worcester one meets frequent reference to a tract of land, larger than any -existing town of this Commonwealth, as " lying between Marlborough, Worcester and Lancaster,'' or " joyning ye west side of Marlborough town bounds," or "lying east pointe to Quonsigamon Ponds," or as " Quonsiccamon Farms," or a " meete place for a plantation near Quansiggamog," the Indian name in our times uniformly written Quinsigamond, one to two hundred years ago, being differently spelt almost every time it was written, and being applied to the vicinity of Long Pond as well as to the pond itself - much oftener, too, as it were quite easy to show, to the east side, notwithstanding the complacent appropriation of it by our neighbors of Worcester, than to the west aide of the pond. The question why formation of this large tract of land into a town was delayed till after all the other territory in the vicinity was formed into towns has been often asked, but the answer is not far to seek, and in truth has been already given. The choicest portions of it had been already granted, and in the language of the report of a viewing committee sent out to find a meet place for a plantation at Quinsigamond, it had been " spoiled by the granting (if farms."

After the death of the original grantees of the Haynes' Farm, several of their heirs sold their rights or shares therein, and in 1716 the owners of it, twentythree in number, living mostly in Marlborough, but some of them in Sudbury and other towns, with a view to division and settlement of their three thousand two hundred acres at Quinsigamond, caused it to be surveyed and divided uj). Their surveyor was John Brigham, of Marlborough, who was the grantee of a large " farm " in the West Parish of that town, and was at that very time pushing a scheme for setting off that parish as a new town, to be called Westborough, and the owners of the Haynes' Farm employed Mr. Brigham to draw up and present to the General Court a petition for the grant of the whole of the large tract between Marlborough and Worcester as a township. This petition, which was signed by John Brigham himself and thirty others, is said to have been lost, and it is not known who all of the petitioners were nor exactly what they asked for, but it was referred, together with another petition of which also John Brigham was the first signer, for incorporation of his new town of Westborough, to the same viewing committee, who reported favorably on both petitions. But it is easy to see that Mr. Brigham and his committee, of which John Chandler, of Woodstock, was chairman, and to which the reference of both these petitions was of course no accident, were looking mainly to the interest of the new town and less to those of the new township. A good slice from the latter - to wit, a strip between the former boundary of Marlborough and Haynes' Farm - was added to the former by the committee, who thought that the petitioners for the township were competent members and likely to make a speedy settlement, and that the slice proposed to be taken would not so disadvantage the township but that it might make a good town - that is to say, if the owners of all the five farms at Quinsigamond would make common cause with the petitioners, there would be plenty of land left after parting with the slice in question.

November 2, 1717, the General Court accepted the committee's report and " ordered that the tract of land protracted and described, together with the farms heretofore granted to particular persons contained in the plot, be made a township, excepting" the slice referred to, and appointed a committee to lay out the whole of said lands (except the lands before granted) to persons most likely to advance settlement of the place, who were to pay not exceeding twelve pence per acre to the use of the Province and the committee's charge for laying out.

The committee, of which Jonathan Remington was chairman, laid out forty-five lots of about seventy acres each, with a fifty-acre right to each, by which I understand a right in the settler to have fifty acres more in the undivided lands, and also laid out for each lot about six acres of valuable meadow often quite remote from the lot. The " valuable meadow " was swamp land, and is at the present day less highly valued than it once was. And the proprietors, March 28, 1722, granted " the committy to settle the town" fifteen hundred acres for laying out the lots. The Committee's Farm, so-called, was a parcel of good land in the northwest corner of the township, called the Leg, on the Stillwater River, now a part of Sterling. Many persons have been misleil by Ward's "History of Shrewsbury " into sujiposing that it was upon the lots laid out by the Remington committee that all the first-comers to Shrewsbury settled, and such appears to have been the belief of Mr. Ward himself. The number of the proprietors in 1718, as appears from the apportionnientof a tax, was forty-five, and a lot was laid out for each one, and a few of the men to whom lots were assigned no doubt settled upon them personally. But it was upon the Haynes' Farm, which covered all the land on both sides of the Great road, extending southerly beyond where the Worcester turnpike was afterwards laid, that most of the new-comers from Marlborough settled. The lots numbered one to sixteen, were laid out on a strip of land extending along the south and east boundary lines of the town - that is between Haynes' Farm and the town of Grafton on the south, and the towns of Westborough and Northborough on the east - and if one will carefully examine the description of these lots, as taken by Mr. Ward from the proprietors' book, he will find frequent recurrence to the " town lines" and "Haines' Old Farm" as boundaries. Lots Nos. 17, 18 and 19 lay east of Rawson's Farm, whose locality has been before given, and Nos. 21, 22 (which was the minister's lot) and 23 lay between Haynes' Farm and Rawson's Farm, and the description of all these lots refer to these so-called "farms" as boundaries. The other lots are more diflBcult to locate with exactness. Most of them were in that part of Shrewsbury now Boylston and West Boylston. No. 24 is " bounded westerly by Judge Sewall's Farm ;" No. 20 " lyeth near the west bounds of Haines' Old Farm ;" No. 30 " Lyeth near the North End of Davenport's Farm;" Nos. 31, 32 and 34 are bounded by the " pretended Maiden Farm," etc., etc. Mr. Ward has copied these descriptions containing these references to the farms without inquiry as to what or where they were.

Shrewsbury was incorporated - not by a formal act, but by an order upon application of the inhabitants for incorporation dated December 19, 1727. Mr. Ward thinks it was so called from the English town of that name, whence may have come the ancestors of some of the proprietors. Before Saxon scholars gave the true etymology of the name it was said to mean the borough of shrews, which may be either a kind of moles or a kind of wives. The Saxons, who took the English town in the fifth century, derisively changed its Welsh name to Scrobbes-Byrig (scrub town), of which the name Shrewsbury is a euphonious corruption. But there is neither evidence nor reason for supposing any of the proprietors' ancestors came from the English Shrewsbury. Like many other towns, probably Shrewsbury took its name from a prominent man of the time when it was in want of one. Our neighbor on the south is well known to have been named from the Duke of Grafton, damned to everlasting fame in the letters of Junius. Charles Talbot, titular Earl of Shrewsbury by birth, was one of the Seven who signed the declaration inviting over the Prince of Orange on the abdication of James II., and became Secretary of State to King William, with title of Duke of Shrewsbury. On account of his winning manners Talbot is said to have been named by William of Orange King of Hearts, and habitually called by this pleasant title by the whole royal court. Under Queen Anne he held the offices of First Lord Chamberlain and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and finally with her dying breath the Queen gave him the staff of Lord High Treasurer, that a sure hand might hold the helm of state at her death and safely transmit the Protestant succession. As soon as the Queen had drawn her last breath Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, August 14, 1714, proclaimed George Lewis, Elector of Hanover, King of England and Ireland. The Duke died 1718, between which time and Queen Anne's death our town was settling, and as a child born in some historical crisis is named from a prominent actor in it, so the town of Shrewsbury took its name from the statesman who, notwithstanding public apprehension of the Pretender, had safely transmitted the English crown in the Protestant line. But if the same partiality for Indian names had existed in early times as now, probably Shrewsbury and Grafton would have continued to be called Quinsigamoud and Hassanimisco to this day.

Origin And Growth

near the Pines, and if the said spot cannot be obtained on reasonable terms, that then the meeting-house be set on Meeting-House Hill," whereby it appears that the hill laid down on maps and known to this day as Meeting-house Hill was so called as early as two years and a half after the first comers were here - doubtless because public opinion had designated this hill as the site of the house of worship that was to be. It belonged to the proprietors - which Rocky Plain did not - and it was nearer to the centre of the township. Rocky Plain was part of Haynes' Farm and the portion of it which the proprietors wanted belonged to one of their number, William Taylor. Its name. Rocky Pine Plain, indicates the boulders and forest trees that the pioneers had to deal with. On the 4th of May, 1721, the very month when the first meeting-house in Shrewsbury was built, William Taylor conveyed to the proprietors, of whom he was one and retaining an equal right therein with any one single proprietor, fifteen acres of land situate on Rocky Plain and lying within the bounds of a fiirm purchased by him of one of the heirs of John Haynes, bounded westerly by land of John I'.alcom, northerly by land of Edward Goddard, southerly by the [squadron line and every other way by the remaining paits of said Taylor's own land. The squadron line here was the Connecticut Road, then so called. In making this conveyance Sergeant Taylor was actuated mainly by public spirit, though no doubt he expected advantages from having the meeting-house, which was sure to be the village centre, near where he had settled. On the 20th of May, sixteen days after his conveyance to them, the proprietors granted to him in satisfaction of his fifteen acres "5 acres and 24 rods of land on Pine Plain, westerly of Haynes' Farm on the south side of the country road," remote from the centre and of trifling value - a mere make-weight or nominal quid pro quo granted from some supposed legal necessity for a consideration. This fifteen acres, called "the common," beside the church site, the land around it and the graveyard, contained several other parcels, some of which were sold by the proprietors and some of which were appropriated without sale. The lot on which the Sumner house stands, and which was the southwest corner of the original Common, was sold in 1754 to Artemas Ward, who afterward sold it to Dr. Joseph Sumner. The house where Mr. A. J. Gibson lives, where formerly stood the old Crosby house, occupies the southeast corner. Both the Town House and the High School house are on the Taylor grant. Nor can any record of any conveyance or grant of the proprietors be found of the sites of these public buildings. The site of the Andrews house and the field in rear of it are entirely within the old Common limits; so also is a part of the site of the Jonas Stone house, but the sites of these two houses and the fielil were sold by the proprietors, as by their records appears.'

Under date May 13, 1766, the day of raising the second ineeting-house of the First Parish, Dr. Sumner has a memorandum of the fact, accompanied with a note, that "The first meeting-house iu Shrewsbury was Erected in ye niounth of May, 1721." The site of tlie first meeling-house, according to tradition, was ji little northerly and easterly of where the present liouse now stands. lis dimensions, given in the proprietors' records, were " 40 feet in length by 32 in brcadtli, 14 feet stud." And the proprietors voted, June 22, 1720, to lay an assessment of five pounds on each, - aggregate of forty-two proprietors, two hundred and ten pounds. Tliis house had neitiier steeple nor bell. The first sermon ever preached in Shrewsbury was by Rev. Robert Breck, of Marlborough, June 15, 1720, and the record of the meeting of the proprietors, when the assessment before referred to was voted, contains also the proprietors' vote ti» apply to Mr. Brecl^ for the notes of his sermon, in order to have them printed.'

For forty-five years (1721-60) the first meetinghouse served its original purpose, but during the last five years or more there had been a growing feeling grandeoiis tile comers and boundaries of tbe Taylor grsmt, and told tbeiii tbut they were pointed out to bim wlien a boy by bis grandtatber Taylor. These grandsons were then scliool-hoys, of the age of seven teeu years, studying surveyiug in tbe Shrewsbury High School, and one of them, a youth of rare promise and mathematical capacity, surveyed and plotted tbe old Common .as bis great-great-grandfatlier originally granted it, and bis plot lies before me on my desk while I write. His field notes are " Began at S.W. corner on the road and ran east 31 rods, N. 4° W. 721^ rods, .S. 7U° W. 4:iU rods, S. 17° E. (ISH rods, to where we began, - area, 16 acres, 42 rods." Tbe other boy was the writer, who alone, of all William Taylor's descendants, has the honor to bear bis name. His cousin, who made tbe survey, and whose name was Nathan Howe, so called after his grandfather, untimely died at the age of twenty-one years of a malignant typhus, I have recently di-covered in the files of tbe Supreme Judicial Court, October Term, IS 12, at Worcester, Fitut Parish iu Siirewsbury rs. Daniel STuitb, a carefully made plan of the " MeetingHouse lands," by Henry Snow, for the use of the court on trial of that case, showing all the roads, buildings, hoi'se-sheds, tombs and fences, and tbe site of tbe meeting-house as it was in 1832, and I am both gratified and surprised at tbe almost exact coincidence of tbe survey of this accurate and painstaking surveyor with that of my youthful cousin,

A history of Shrewsbury ought not to omit some notice of tbe famous lawsuit of the parish with Daniel Smith, and I must crowd in somewhere a brief account of it, - bore perhaps as well as anywhere. In 1S31) Daniel Suiitb, who was a grandson of William Taylor, claimed title to the Common as his heir, plowed it up and sowed it with rye, whereupon the parish brought an action of trespass against bim. Of course Taylor himself bad no title after his conveyance to the proprietors, except as one of them, and even this title, since the proprietors were a corporation, did not descend to Taylor's heirs; and, even if Taylor h.ad never conveyed tbe Common at all, Smith would have had no other title than as one of Taylor's many descendants. But tbe proprietors were all dead, and their quasi-corporate organization w.os extiuct. And tbey had never, either personally or corporately, conveyed the t'ommon to either the town or the parish, nor to anybody. In the action brought against bim by tbe parish. Smith's lawyers, Rejoyce Newton and Levi Lincoln, finding be had no title to stand on, boldly challenged tbe title of tbe parish. But the Court held that the pai-isb was tbe legal successor of the proprietors to at least so much of tbe Common as bad been actually used for parochial imrposes, and, being in actual possession, could maintaiu its action against a stranger. Tbe case is a leading authority upon parish law, 14 Pick., 2H7.

that a new house of worship was needed. The town had grown, and, notwithstanding it had been divided into two parishes, the old house was too small. The building of the second meeting-house was long debated at town-meetings. Finally resolved upon, in the spring of 1766, it w.ts commenced in earnest and speedily completed. It was not jobbed off to the lowest bidder, but built by a building committee, who employed Daniel Heminway, of Shrewsbury, the famous meeting-house builder, who built the Old South, in Worcester, and many other meeting-houses and public buildings, to frame it. The committee was instructed, by vote of the town, in employing labor and in purchase of materials, to give the preference to inhabitants of the town. All the carpenters of Shrewsbury worked upon the meetinghouse. All the lumber grew in Shrewsbury woods, and was sawn in Shrewsbury mills. All the nails were made by Shrewsbury blacksmiths. The record of a townmeeting immediately preceding the meeting-house raising reveals the muuicipal estimate of the magnitude of the undertaking. The question whether the town would procure a ginn to raise the meetinghouse with was debated, and "determined in ye negative." But the committee were directed to procure a lot of new spike poles; also " voted that ye committy provide Drinks & Provisions," and " voted to commence the raising at six o'clock in the morning." And lest ye committee should mistake their instruction-', and also probably to encourage a good attendance and make everybody stay till the last rafter was in place and the last pin driven home, it was further " voted to provide a Good Supper, and to send to Boston for a Barrel of Rhum."

The new house was fifcy-flve feet in length by forty-three in breadth, and had entrances on the east and west ends and on the south side. Like its predecessor, it had neither steeple nor bell. If one take a lantern and go up into the attic and look at the enormous plates and roof-timbers, resting where they were raised by the new spike-poles one hundred and twenty-two years ago, he cannot but wonder how they were ever got there with the use of no other machinery.- The original site where the house was raised, and stood till 1834, was about fifty feet south of its present location, and its longest dimension was east and west. Many hands make quick work, and jnst two months after the raising Dr. Sumner says, "July 16, 1766, Being Lord's day, we met ye first time in the New House, upon wh. occasion I Preached from Genesis 28 chapter & ye 17 verse."

2 Unless "rum done it ?" Itwasattbis raising that Artemas Ward, whose active drilling of his regiment directly after passage of the Stamp Act bad come to the ear of Royal Goveruor Bernard, received the revocation of bis commission as colonel. The reply which the reduced officer sent the Governor that he bad been twice honored is worthy of inscription on his monument - where it is.

for a clock. The bell, for which the money was raised by subscription, was not hung until next year. The clock was added still later. Why the steeple was built OQ the west end, thereby giving the building the appearance of facing Dr. Sumner's back-yard, it is difficult to say ; but so it was and so it stood until 1834, when the house was swung quarter round so as to face the south and moved to its present site, raised up so as to construct a vestry underneath and remodeled. Its porches were taken off so as to conform, outside and inside, to the then prevailing style of church architecture.

In ISul Jonah Howe and eight others were incorporated as trustees of a fund for the support of a Congregaiional minister in the town of Shrewsbury, by an act of the General Court passed February 18th of that year. The act recites the former appropriation of certain securities and moneys, amounting to niue hundred and twenty dollars, by the town, and the recent subscription of 1^2,243 for support of the minister, limits the fund to a maximum of eight thousand dollars, the interest of which only is to be applied to the minister's salary, provides for an annual meeting of trustees in April, each year, to elect a treasurer and clerk and fill vacancies in trustees, and makes the trustees responsible to the town. If the interest should ever amount to more than enough to pay the salary of the minister, it was to be applied to the schools of the town. Dr. Sumner has left a memorandum that shows the origin of the fund :

April, 1792. - According to a vote of ttie town of Shrewsliiiry, tlie hinder seats in the meeting-house was taken up, and six pews built, which sold fur about £1-10, which is to remain as a fund, the interest of which to be appropriated for support of the Gospel.

Sundry contributious have, from time to time, been made by difterent persons to this fund, and the amount of it is now more than double the maximum prescribed in the original act. By chapter TiO, Acts of 186(5, its name was changed to a " Fund for the Support of a Congregational Minister in the First Congregational Parish and Religious Society in the Town of Shrewsbury," and the limitation of the original act to eight thousand dollars was raised to twenty thousand dollars, and the trustees are made accountable to the parish, instead of the town. Jonathan H. Nelson, who died in 1872, gave this fund a legacy of five thousand dollars, the largest contribution given by any donor at any one time, but less than the aggregate sums given by Amasa Howe, who in his lifetime (1869) gave eighteen hundred dollars, and who, dying in 1883, was found by his will, made in 1872, to have given a legacy of twenty-two hundred dollars to this fund, and also by a codicil made in 1882 another legacy of two thousand dollars,' making a total of six thousand dollars.

1 The writer, who was the testator's nephew and one of his executors, being consulted by his uncle about tliis legacy, advised him against it. Ilia reply, characteristic wf the whole life uf the man - then eighty-eight years old - will interest all who knew him : "I want the same kind of preaching kept up in Shrewsbury after I am dead and gone that there

And Thomas Rice, who died May 29, 1888, has left a legacy of one thousand dollars in trust with the trustees of this fund, one-half of the interest of which is to be applied by the trustees to the care of the testator's lot and monument in the cemetery, and the other half to be applied to the payment of the salary of the minister of the Congregational parish. I am unable to give the amounts of any other donations or the names of the donors. The present total of the fund is about eighteen thousand dollars and its income about nine hundred dollars.

The three years within which Shrewsbury was required to have at least forty families and an orthodox minister began to run November 2, 1717. The forty fiimilies were here in due season, but the first minister. Rev. Job Cushing, was not settled till December 4, 1723, - more than six years after the time began to run. It would seem from the church records that the church was organized and a covenant adopted at Mr. Cushing's ordination. Let us note in pas^ing that this covenant does not contain any credi) - unless the following be regarded as such :

" We resolve to make the blessed Scriptures our platform, whereby we may discern the blessed miml of Christ and not the new-framed inventions of men," - a favorite form of words with those who did not wi.sli either to commit themselves to dogmatic theology nor to repel others from uniting with them by an iron-clad creed. This liberal covenant, probably drawn up by Mr. Cushing himself, closely resembles that of many of the early churches of New England, commencing with the earliest, whose platform, brought in the " Mayflower'' and landed in 1620 on Plymouth Rock, remains unchanged in any clause or letter, the creed of the liberal First Church of Plymouth, to this day.

It does not appear that at Mr. Cushing's ordination or afterwards any question was raised as to his being an "orthodox minister," within the meaning of those words in the act of the General Court, but tradition is that some of the brethren suspected him of favoring the Arminian heresy. During his ministry only one controversy arose of which any memory has reached our times. This was not theological.

always haa been, no matter how many rum-sellers and Roman Catholics come into the town." And he brought his aged fist down upon the table at which we were sitting with a vigor that silenced all further advice of that kind.

One Simon Goddard, who came to Shrewsbury in 1731, from Framingham, with the aid of his two brothers, who were here before him, and five or six others, whom he converted to his views, kept Mr. Gushing and the whole church in hot water for more than ten years about ruling elders. According to Brother Goddard, it was indispensable that every Christian church should have two elders to rule both it and the minister, and he wrote to Mr. Gushing and the church long letters about it and talked about it till one wonders at the long-suffering patience of pastor and people with such a crank and such a bore as he was. This contemptible controversy finally resulted in an ecclesiastical council, but what was the "result" of the council was unknown at the time and has never been discovered to this day.

Rev. Job Gushing, whose father and grandfather were both named Matthew Gushing, and the latter of whom came from Norfolk, England, in 1088, was born at Hinghara, July 19, 1(394, and graduated at Harvard College in 1714. He was a farmer as well as minister, and at the moment of his death he was at work in his field binding sheaves of grain, where, without sickness or premonition, he fell dead. The minister's lot, No. 22, laid out on Meeting-house Hill when it was expected that the meeting house would be built there, being found after it was builton Rocky Plain too remote for the minister to live on, Mr. Gushing bought twenty acres and one hundred and fifteen rods of William Taylor, adjoining on the east side the meeting-house lot or Common, and built his house where Mrs. Arunah Harlow now lives. Mr. Gushing also bought of Nahum Ward fifty-six acres and seventy-one rods on the south side of the road opposite his house.' What with these purchases and his lot (No. 22), " made up the full of ninety acres," and second and third division lands received "in right of his lot " he became in time the owner of considerable real estate, which he cleared and tilled as well as any of the other original farmers of Shrewsbury. A portion of Mr. Cnshing's land on both sides of the Great Road, together with a moiety of Jordan's Pond laid out to him as second division land " equal," say the records, " to six acres of valuable meadow," has descended to his great-grandson, Mr. .losiah G. Stone, and still remains in his possession. At the time of Mr. Cnshing's settlement in Shrewsbury he was twenty-nine years old, and at his death, which occurred August 0, 17G0, he was sixtysix.

In the interval between the decease of Mr. Gushing and settlement of his successor, the church covenant was re-enforced by the addition of the Calvinistic tenets. After the words in the extract before given, " new-framed inventions of men," were added the following, " And yet we are of the jtidgment that the whole of the well-known Westminster Gatechism, as explained by Calvinistic divines, contains a just summary of Ghristian doctrine as revealed in God's Holy Word," and after the name of Christ was in.^erted the words, " whom we believe to be God, equal with the Father and the Holy Ghost." Among the minority who protested and voted against these additions to the fair original, as incongruous therewith as patch of sow's ear upon silk purse, I note the name of Colonel Job Gushing, true t& the teachings of his sainted father.