Worcester City (part 53 of 58)

Before settling or even calling another minister, being jealous not only of ruling elders, but of the minister as well, the church voted not to settle any minister with power to negative its vote. At the same meeting when this vote was passed the church extended a call to Rev. Joseph Sumner as pastor, and his ordination took place June 23, 1762. For want of room in the old meeting-house, and because it was not considered safe to crowd the old house with a large audience, the ordination services were conducted in the open air on a platform erected on the Common. Rev. Joseph Sumner was born at Pomfret, Conn.,i June 30, 1740, being son of Deacon Samuel Sumner, of that town, and graduated at Yale College in 1759. The degree of D.D., was conferred on him by Harvard College in 1814, and shortly afterwards by Columbia College, S. G. Like his predecessor, he was a man of liberal views and tolerant practice, and if all the ministers of New England had been like them, no division of the churches on the basis of mere theological dogma would have ever taken place. During Dr. Sumner's time the Calvinistic additions to the covenant were erased by vote of the church - doubtless through his influence. He was a man of great authority with his people, and of great personal dignity and weight of character. Of colossal stature - six feet four inches in height - he presented a most imposing presence. To the last he wore the costume of the la^it century : knee-breeches, silver buckles, cocked hat, white wig and all. A child was once so awe-stricken at sight of Dr. Sumner, as to run away and tell his mother that he had seen God. A characteristic story is told of him and Dr. Samuel Austin, of the First Worcester Parish. In a conversation at the house of the former, in Shrewsbury, where the latter had made a call. Dr. Sumner said, " I was brought up in the orthodox faith, and have always lived in it, and I expect to die in it." "-But," said Dr. Austin, "you clipped off its corners." " Yes," was Dr. Sumner's reply, "and they need clipping more." Let me add another story characteristic of Dr. Austin as well as Dr. Sumner. At a meeting of the Worcester Ministerial Association Dr. Austin and Dr. Aaron Bancroft, pastors respectively of the First and Second Parishes in Worcester, were both proposed for membership. Dr. Austin having been admitted without objection, he vehemently opposed the admission of Dr. Bancroft, and a majority of the association voted against it, whereupon Dr. Sumner arose, and declaring that he would not belong to such

It was during Dr. Sumner's time that division of Congregational Churches into Trinitarian and Unitarian took place. In the last years of his ministry he had repeatedly suggested to his people the expediency of selecting a colleague pastor, and January 18, 1820, the church chose Rev. Samuel B. Ingersoll as colleague to Dr. Summer, and the parish concurring, the ordination took place June 14, 1820. This ordination being a sort of milestone in the history of the Congregational schism then in progress, I must give a brief account of it. Of the fifteen ministers who formed the ordaining council, five - namely : Dr. Aaron Bancroft, of Worcester ; Rev. John Miles, of Grafton ; Rev. Ward Cotton, of Boylston ; Dr. Joseph Allen, of Northborough ; and Rev. William Nash, of West Boylston - were Unitarians. At the examination of the candidate it appeared that he was a pronounced Calvinist. To his ordination on this account the Unitarian members of the council made no objection, but asked if he would fellowship with Unitarians. Mr. Ingersoll's reply was " I would not trust a Unitarian in my pulpit one hour." This was explicit enough for Dr. Bancroft, who arose and was followed by all the Unitarian members of the council, pastors and lay delegates, nine in number, down the long aisle out of the meeting-house. A majority of the council was still left, and the ordination proceeded. Such is the account of this ordination given to the writer nearly forty years ago by Dr. Eleazer T. Fitch, professor of divinity in Yale College, who was a member of the council.

Jlr. Ingersoll, after his ordination, preached but one Sunday, and died of consumption, November 14, 1820, at Beverly, where he was born in 1787. He graduated at Yale College in 1817, and was thirty years old at the time. He was at his death thirtythree. Before going to college he had been a sailor and shipwrecked at sea. It is said that as he lay floating and perishing on a piece of wreck in mid-ocean he heard a call to go and preach the gospel, and answered it with a solemn vow that if he were saved from perishing then he would obey the call. A funeral service was held simultaneously at Beverly and at Shrewsbury. " I preached and Dr. Bancroft and Mr. Cotton prayed." Such is Dr. Sumner's brief entry in the church records. I wonder if prayer or sermon contained any allusion to the drama played within the same walls only five months before. This ordination of Mr. Ingersoll was followed by important consequences both in Shrewsbury and elsewhere. In Shrewsbury, as we shall see later, a portion of the parish withdrew and formed a new S(jciety. Dr- Sumner was greatly annoyed at what had taken place- Doubtless he had hoped, by bringing together the clergy of the vicinity who were of opposing views, to do something towards healing the schism that was dividingand weakeningthe chuichesof New England.

After Mr. Ingersoll'* death Rev. Edwards Whipple was settled as a colleague to Dr. Sumner. He had previously been ordained and settled in Charlton, and dismissed at his own request. His installation took place September 20, 1821. He died September 17, 1822, of a fever after a sickness of only seven days, aged forty-four years. He was born in Westborough, November, 1778, graduated at Williams College in 1801, and studied his profession with the famous Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, of Franklin. Dr. Sumner continued in his ministry in Shrewsbury till his death, which occurred December 9, ]824, a period of more than sixty-two years, being at the time of his death nearly eighty five years old. His funeral sermon was preached by his life-long friend, Dr. Bancroft, pursuant to an understanding between them that whichever might die first, the other should preach his funeral sermon.

But before Dr. Sumner's death still another colleague to him had been settled in Shrewsbury. Rev. George Allen was ordained here November 19, 1823. He was the son of Hon. Joseph Allen, born at Worcester, February 11, 1792, and graduated at Yale College in 1813. He remained in his pastorate at Shrewsbury till June 18, 1840, when he was dismissed by advice of an ecclesiastical council. For sixteen of the seventeen years of his life here Mr. Allen's relations with his church and parish were exceptionally pleasant and amicable. At his funeral said Rev. Dr. Buckingham, of Springfield, formerly settled in MiUbury : "Years ago, when Mr. Allen was pastor of the church at Shrewsbury, we" (meaning the clergy of the vicinity) "remember to have thought that parsonage an ideal one. Looking off from that hill-top with his wife and chi dr^n about him and a large and intelligent congregation listening to him, it seemed as if such love and influence and happiness ought to satisfy any mortal. They did satisfy him so long as he was permitted to enjoy them." But in the seventeenth year of his ministry there arose in Shrewsbury one of the most implacable minister quarrels in the history of New England. It had its origin in a scandal about Mr. Allen's family, of which want of space, if no other reason, would forbid detail here. Indignantly denying the truth of the scandalous stories in circulation, Mr. Allen in the pulpit and out of it castigated their circulators with a severity of language such as few men can equal and none ever exceeded, and his unsparing denunciations of all who had talked about his family, which included probably the entire inhabitants of the town, had the efl'ect to estrange many of his warmest friends and to cause them to become disafiected. In a few months the disaflected party grew, so as to number full one-half the parish, "signed off," hired a preacher and a hall and had religious services on Sundays by themselves. It was a bitter feud, causing enmity between old friends and near neighbors, and finally resulted in an ecclesiastical council, before which the opposition to Mr. Allen, under leadership of Mr. Henry Dana Ward, laid charges against him. The council fully vindicated Mr. Allen from all intentional wrong and recommended him to the confidence of the churches; but, on account of the widespread disaffection which had impaired, if not entirely destroyed, his usefulness in Shrewsbury, they advised his dismissal with payment of full salary for the current year. These proceedings were directly followed by a slander suit brought by Mr. Allen against Mr. Ward. At the trial of this suit in the Supreme Court at Worcester, April term, 1841, the town of Shrewsbury turned out and packed the court-house. Nor was interest limited to the town. No trial at Worcester, for years, had excited such general interest. Verdict for plaintiff', damages $700, which, at the time, was regarded as heavy and exemplary.

Eev. George Allen was unquestionably the ablest man whom Shrewsbury can boast to have ever had fbr a citizen. After his dismissal he returned to Worcester and lived there till his death, which occurred March 31, 1883. His age was ninety-one years. He had long survived his wife and children, of whom he once had four, two of whom had died within a year and a half before his dismissal at Shrewsbury, and one of whom was the subject of the scandal before referred to. For about thirty years Mr. Allen was chaplain of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. A man of great learning and accurate scholarship, and holding the pen of a ready writer, he became in Worcester a public and influential man. He was interested in and performed efficient service in all the reformatory movements of the times. In the anti-Masonic movement which followed the murder of Morgan in Western New York, where he preached a few years before he came to Shrewsbury, he took an active and prominent part. He was one of the earliest and most pronounced anti-slavery men, and on formation of the Free-Soil parly in 1848 he gave valuable aid to his brother, who, more than any other ' man, must be regarded as founder of that party. Though maintaining his connection from first to last with the Orthodox Congregational Church, he was a man of extremely liberal views, and had the honor to have his orthodoxy challenged many times in his life. Before settlement in Shrewsbury he was rejected by an ordaining council at Aurora, N. Y., where he had received a call, for " unsoundness on original sin.'' All his life he publicly repudiated the Westminster Catechism, and in 1865 at Plymouth, where the National Council of his denomination met, in eloquert words he solemnly protested against its reaffirmation as being too sectarian for the catholic spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers, over whose ashes they had met, and too narrow to comprehend the breadth of their principles of religious freedom.

Mr. Allen's successor in the ministry at Shrewsbury was Rtv. James Averill, who was born at Griswold, Conn., May 2'.\ 1815. He graduated at Amherst College in the class of 1837, studied his profusion at the Yale

Theological School and was ordained over the church and parish in Shrewsbury, June 22, 1841. He was dismissed at his own request November 15, 1848. Mr. Averill died in 1863 in the service of his country, chaplain of a Connecticut regiment.

Rev. Nathan Witter Williams was the successor ot Mr. Averill. He was the son of Rev. Joseph Williams, and born at Providence, R. I., March 12, 1816; graduated at Yale College in 1842; studied theology with Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia; was ordained at Shrewsbury, February 28, 1849, and dismissed at his own request April 27, 1858. After Mr. Williams' dismissal he was elected Representative from Shrewsbury to the General Court and served as a member of that body in the session of 1859.

The next minister of the Congregational Church and Parish iu Shrewsbury was Rev. William A. Mc- Ginley, who was ordained June 2, 1859, and dismissed by his request July 27, 1865. He was an accomplished scholar and eloquent preacher. He had originally selected the law for his profession and had read a year or more for admission to the bar before he studied divinity. He is now settled in Portsmouth, N. H.

Rev. Ebenezer Porter Dyer was the successor of Mr. McGinley. He was born at Abington, August 15, 1813, graduated at Brown University in the class of 1833, studied divinity at Andover and was first settled and ordained at Stowe, where he began preaching in 1835, and where he remained till 1846. Installed atHingham in 1848, he remained there till 1864. He was again installed here November 7, 1867, and resigned his pastorate June 19, 1877. Beginning at Stowe in his youth, afterwards at several other places, Boston, Winter Hill, Somerville and elsewhere, he performed missionary labor, founding, it is said, by his direct efforts, three churches, and indirectly cans- j ing to be founded three others. He was author of \ several books, among others a metrical version of " Pilgrim's Progress," published by Lee & Shepard, Boston, iu 1869, while he was in Shrewsbury. He died 1 at Abington, August 22, 1883, aged seventy years.

Scudder was a missionary of the American Board. He graduated at Y'ale College in 1874, and pursued his professional studies at Union Theidogical Seminary. Ordained here December 26, 1877, he remained till March, 1882, when he requested a dismissal and went to accept a call to Minneapolis. He is now settled at Jersey City.

The successor of Mr. Scudder was Rev. Frank H. Allen, a graduate of Amherst College in the class of 1874, and a classmate of his predecessor at Union Theological Seminary. He was ordained here October 25, 1882, and resigned his office as pastor August 23, 1888, to accept a call to Milwaukee.

Chapter Civ

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.

The French Wars, The Revolution, The War Of

Ok the two wars between England and France for possession of Canada (1744-63) the first was called by our fathers the Old War and the second the Last War. Only very meagre materials exist for showing the part taken by the people of Shrewsbury in these wars. That Artemas Ward, as lieutenant-colonel, Marshall Newton, as lieutenant, Nathan Howe, as ensign, and Dr. Edward Flint, as surgeon, all of .Shrew.sbury, served in expeditions to Canada in the last war is well known, but this implies much more. If there were officers to command there were soldiers to follow and obey. Doubtless from Shrewsbury there accompanied these officers the number of non-commissioned officers and privates appropriate to their rank. Colonel William Williams, whose diary and letters are quoted by Parkman, was commander of the regiment in which Lieutenant-Colonel Ward and Lieutenant Newton served. This regiment was in the disastrous campaign of the incompetent Abercrombie against Ticonderoga. Published extracts of a journal kept by Lieutenant-Colonel Ward fully bear out all that has ever been said or written of the disorder of the march, the lack of discipline of the army, the confusion of the battle and the folly of the retreat.

Dr, Edward Flint was chief chirurgeon of the regiment of Colonel Timothy Ruggles, which served in the expedition of 1758 against Crown Point. Ensign Nathan Howe, who was a brother-in-law of Dr. Flint, served in the campaign of 1756 at Lake George, and with bis regiment a.'sisted in building the ill-fated Fort William Henry, which the brave Lieutenant- Colonel Jlonro, a Scotch veteran, was forced to surrender to the French, who, after the surrender, abandoned their prisoners to be pillaged, tortured, murdered and eaten by their Indian allies. John Wheeler, of Shrewsbury, who was one of the prisoners, survived the massacre and returned home. Ensign Howe had been sent home before the siege and capture with a detachment of sick and wounded men. The town records of Shrewsbury show that the town granted him £5 16«. 9^'/. on account of his sickness. At the same time, and for like cause, to William Howe, brother of Ensign Nathan, an allowance was made by the town of £6 6d.; also to Ephraim Smith, on account of the sickness of liis son Aaron, £3 -is. -id., and to widow Sarah Smith for medical attendance of her late husband, Joshua Smith, upon sundry sick soldiers, £1 14s. 8(/. Caleb Parker, a youthful soldier from this town, of only sixteen years, was killed in this campaign.

romantic expedition in the old war against the Fortress of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island, built by the grand monarch of France to commemorate his grandeur in America, as well as to guard one of the avenues to New France, besieged and taken in fortynine days by raw levies of New England fishermen and farmers, under command of General William Pepperell, a Piscataqua trader, who had never had before the least experience in war - one of the most amazing exploits in all the annals of time. From the volunteering of the soldiers to surrender of the fortress the campaign has all " the cloud and glamour of romance,'' and was called a crusade. While CTOvernor Shirley was mustering his battalions like another Peter the Hermit, the eloquent Whitefield went up and down the land preaching the Holy War.

The heart of New England took fire and sent the flower of its youth, only sons not excepted, to assault the Dunkirk of America, garrisoned by the veterans of France. Away with the crusaders went Jonah Taylor, of Shrewsbury, only son of his father, William, and his mother, Elizabeth, only brother of nine sisters, and fell mortally wounded in the first assault upon the King's Bastion. He died on Cape Breton September 23, 1745.

The first overt act of Shrewsbury in the Revolutionary War was to send delegates to the first Provincial Congress, holden at Concord October 11, 1774. Artemas Ward had been chosen Representative from Shrewsbury to the General Court, which Governor Gage had ordered to meet at Salem October 5th. The Governor countermanded his order, but the Representatives met at Salem all the same and adjourned to Concord. Phineas Hey wood was chosen by Shrewsbury as a delegate to go with the Representative-elect to the Congress at Concord. The recommendations of this Congress to the towns were forthwith carried into effect by the inhabitants of Shrewsbury. 1. They organized three companies of militia, one in the North Parish, Captain Asa Beaman, and two in the South Parish, Captain Job Gushing and Captain Asa Brigham. 2. They voted not to pay taxes to Mr. Treasurer Harrison Gray, but to Henry Gardner, of Stow, whom Congress had de.-ignated as its new Receiver-General. 3. They adopted the nonconsumption agreement as to India teas and appointtd an inspection committee of fifteen, five to be a quorum, whose duty it was to be to find out all such persons as sell or consume so extravagant and unnecessary an article of luxury and post their names in some public place. The town also chose a committee of five to examine Rev. Ebenezer Morse, minister of the Second Parish, William Crawford and three others, all members of that parish, "as being suspected of Toryism." At an adjourned meeting the committee reported favorably as to the three others, but as to Rev. Ebenezer Morse, they said it appeared to them that he was not so friendly to the common cause as they could wish, and as to William Crawford, it appeared to the committee that he was wholly unfriendly and inclined rather to take up arnn for the King. Mr. Morse came before the town to answer fur himself. He had prayed with much fervor in his pulpit for the King and royal family, and this was well known before to all the town. He now, in open town-meeting, declared himself a loyalist and reproved his fellowtownsmen for disloyalty. The town thereupon directed the committee to take away the arms, ammunition and warlike implements of both Mr. Morse and Crawford, and voted that said Morse do not pass over the lines of the Second Parish on any occasion whatever without a permit, and that said Crawford remain within the bounds of his own land except on Sabbath-days, and then not go out of his parish without a permit. There is nothing in the town records, nor has anything come down to our time by tradition to indicate that any other inhabitants of Shrewsbury were ever " suspected of Toryism," and it was doubtless due to Rev. Ebenezer Morse, of the Second Parish, who was a strong man and had previously posiessed the entire confidence of his people, that there was any opposition in any part of the town to the prevailing spirit of resistance to the British Crown.

In the time of the Revolution, regiments in Massachusetts were territorial - so many towns to a regiment. The county of Worcester was divided into seven regiments, and Shrewsbury, Grafton, Northborough, Westborough and Southborough were the Sixth Worcester Regiment, Jonathan Ward, of Southborough, colonel. Artemas Ward, of Shrewsbury, formerly colonel of this regiment, was elected by the first Provincial Congress, of which he was a member, with two others, to organize and command the militia, and the next Congress issued to him a commission as commander-in-chief of all the forces of Massachusetts and the other colonies, and shortly afterwards he was appointed by the Continental Congress majorgeneral and commander-in-chief. Meantime the war had begun, and Captain Job Cushing, of Shrewsbury, had marched with his company to Lexington. About ten o'clock in the forenoon of April 19, 1775, passed like a flash through Shrewsbury a white horse, bloody with spurring and dripping with sweat, bearing a post-rider shouting as he rode : " To arms ! to arms ! the war has begun ! '" I have often heard my grandfather, Nathan Howe, the younger of that name, tell the story. He was then a boy fourteen years old, at work in the field with his father plowing, the team being a pair of oxen and a horse. His fiither, Ensign Howe, of the last war, now lieutenant of Captain Cushing's company, immediately detached from the team and mounted his horse and set off to rally the company.

There was hurrying to and fro and mounting in hot haste. The younger Nathan wanted dreadfully to go, too, and cried because his father would not let him.

Of course the company, like many others as remote, did not arrive in time to take part in the fight. Immediately after the Lexington alarm the principal occupation of able-bodied men in the province of Massachusetts Bay was organizing and drilling, and belbre the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, a large body of troops was at Cambridge, under command of General Artemas Ward, of Shrewsbury. Captain Ezra Beaman and Captain Job Cushing, with three companies from Shrewsbury, were both there.

Who commanded at Bunker Hill ? There was General Artemas Ward over at Cambridge, commander-in-chief - such was his sonorous title-^but this was before his commission by the Continental Congress, and all his authority was subordinate to that of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, nine in number, who occupied the same headquarters with him,' and " planned the battle." And there was Putnam, and Prescott, and Warren, and Pomeroy and Stark, each fighting the British on his own hook, and with very little regard to what others were doing. Plainly there was nobody in command - in the sense of giving direction to the battle as a whole - that is, to compare small things with large, as Meade and Lee commanded their respective forces at Gettysburg. If only there had been somebody in command - some competent body - wbo had ordered over from Cambridge Captain Beaman and Captain Cushing, with their companies, and put them where they could do the most good, the author of this history might have had something to say about the men of Shrewsbury at Bunker Hill. The reason why re-enforcements were not sent over from Cambridge is not far to seek. The Committee of Safety made a mistake in supposing the attack of the British at Charlestown was a mere feint, and held fast where they were, expecting that the real attack would be directly made at Cambridge. In his " History of Shrewsbury" Mr. Andrew H. Ward - evidently in defence of his ancestor from criticism - gives a prolix and not very satisfactory explanation, of which the substance seems to be that General Ward's order-book shows that Colonel Jonathan Wai'd, with his regiment, was sent over by way of Lechmere's Point to Charlestown during the battle. For some reason it never reached its destination. Captain Aaron Smith, of Shrewsbury, whom we met in the last war returning home sick from Crown Point, whom also we shall shortly meet again, and who, on the 17th of June, 1775, was a private in Captain Cushing's company, and ran away without orders from Cambridge over to Charlestown, and alone, of all the Shrewsbury men, actually fought at Bunker Hill, fighting on his own hook, as every body else did, is given as authority for the statement that Colonel Ward, on his march, was met and halted by Dr. Benjamin Church, a member of the Committee of Safety, who afterwards turned out to be a traitor.

General Washington arrived at Cambridge July 2, 1775, having been promoted over General Ward, and took command of the American army - about twenty thousand men. General Ward continued in the service as a subaltern under Washington till the evacuation of Boston by the British, May 17, 1776, when he resigned. The position of the British in Boston had become untenable by Washington's occupation of Dorchester Heights. Here Nathan Howe, of Shrewsbury, commanding a company, performed a service of great value, of great hardship also, working nights and in the cold rains of the spring months of 1776, throwing up fortifications on the heights, and contracted a severe cold that gradually developed into pulmonary disease and finally resulted in his death. In the latter part of the year 1777 he came home to die, but directly sent his son and namesake, then sixteen years old, to serve as a private in his regiment.

The cause of General Artemas Ward's resignation was a painful disorder,' which rendered all active exercise, particularly horseback-riding, an excruciating torture. At the request of Washington, who, after ihe evacuation of Boston by the British, went with the greater part of the army to New York, General Ward remained in command of the Eastern Department till DecemberSl, 1777, when his resignation was accepted by Congress. Notwithstanding the superhuman pinnacle now occupied by Washington in public esteem, certain it is that in his life-time he was quite human and not at all reticent in his correspondence of unworthy reflections upon the personal courage of the officer over whom, for reasons of public policy, he had been promoted, and between whom and himself he was obviously conscious of popular comparison. Some time afterwards, when Washington was President and Ward was a member of Congress, then sitting in New York, the latter having obtained one of Washington's letters containing offensive allusions to him, proceeded to the President's house and asked him if he was the author of the letter. Washington looked at it for Bome time without making any reply. While he was still looking at it. Ward impatiently said, " I should think the man that was base enough to write that would be base enough to deny it," and abruptly turning on his heel, left the house.^

Job Gushing, of Shrewsbury, was promoted from rank to rank in the Sixth Regiment till he became its colonel. This regiment was from time to time recruited partly from the towns where it was originally formed and partly elsewhere. I think most of the Shrewsbury soldiers served in this regiment. After the success of Burgoyne at Ticonderoga public alarm was at the highest pitch, and Colonel Gushing went with his regiment to reinforce General Schuyler and took part in the battles of Bennington, August 16th, and Saratoga, October 16, 1777, when Burgoyne surrendered to General Gates, who had superseded General Schuyler in command. Ezra Beaman, of Shrewsbury, was also present at Burgoyne's surrender (but in what rank I am unable to say), and probably also at Bennington. Colonel Job Gushing, of Shrewsbury, and his regiment were a part of the body of troops that General Benedict Arnold undertook to betray to Sir Henry Clinton at West Point. The materials for giving details of the service of Shrewsbury men in the Revolutionary War are as meagre as for the French Wars. Before the Government gave pensions, besides the many who had died or been killed in the service, many more had doubtless died in the course of nature. A list of pensioners, prepared by Nathan Howe, who for many years acted as agent for his comrades in the army in obtaining jjensions, contains exactly forty names. Of course, it is a mere remnant of the whole number who were in the Continental service from Shrewsbury.

In the time of President Madison, when occurred the War of 1812, a large majority of the people of Shrewsbury were of the Federal party, and wholly disapproved of the war, and I cannot find that the town or any citizen thereof in any manner participated therein.

And the Mexican War was generally considered morally wrong by the people of the town, always very radical in their opposition to slavery. Not a single citizen of Shrewsbury volunteered to go to Mexico, and I think the views of Mr. Hosea Biglow as to the Mexican War and its recruiting service, then newly l^riuted for him in the Boston Courier, were exactly coincident with those of the whole town.

2 Thisstory, having been preserved only by tradition, and having passed for now fonr generations of men from one to another, has come to have slightly differing versions. The one above given is taken from "Keminiscences of Uev. George Allen, by F. P. Bice, 1883." Another, differing in some details, may be seen in " Drake's Historic Mansions and Fields of Middlesex," page 260.

The Shays' Rebei.I.Ion

Daniel Shay.s had a strong following in Shrewsbury - in numbers. The regulators, as the Shays' men were called, controlled the action of the town with irresistible majorities ; but its two most eminent citizens. Gen. Artemas Ward and Col. Job Gushing, were conspicuous by pronounced opposition, and had entered on the town-records, where one may read it to- day, their protest against the insurrectionary proceedings of the town adopted at a town-meeting in 1786. Wisdom may have been with the minority, but the men who took up arms with Shays were not unprincipled and aban- cloned wretches of the criminal class, and it was not for nothing that they took up arms. Shays himself, as well as Ward and Cashing, was a veteran of the Eevolutionary War, and so also were every one of his captains, so far as I have been able to ascertain. Adam Wheeler, of Hubbardston, who in Shays' absence acted in this county as commander of the regulators, was a captain of the Continental Line and deacon of the Congregational Church in Hubbardston. He was born in Shrewsbury and was the great-great-grandson of the famous Captain Thomas Wheeler, of the Indian fight at Brookfield in 1675, and the great-grandson of Thomas Wheeler, the younger, also a hero of the same fight, who, himself severely wounded there, rescued his more severely wounded father from the Indians, who were about to dispatch him, threw him upon the horse of the slain Shadrach Hapgood, and with his father escaped by flight. Captain Wheeler, of the Shays' Rebellion, was also on his mother's side a greatgrandson of the slain Shadrach, four of whose descendants settled in Shrewsbury.'

The leader of the Shrewsbury regulators was a brother-in-law of Wheeler, having married his sister, and a veteran whom we first met as a boy serving his apprenticeship as a soldier in the French War, and who fought for the independence of his coun(;ry from Lexington to Yorktown - Captain Aaron Smith, and the company which he raised for Shays in Shrewsbury were his foriiier companions-in-arms. They were the identical men who rallied to Lexington and Bunker Hill, Bennington and Saratoga. Their purpose was not to overthrow the government, but merely to restrain the courts temporarily from entering up judgments and issuing executions. The people of Shrewsbury were very poor. They had spent their little all for country. Acting under the advice of Governor Bowdoin and influenced by speculating Boston lobbyists, the General Court had laid an enormous tax with a view to pay oft' the public debt. Most of the public creditors were holders of State securities or soldiers' certificates purchased at less than twelve per cent, of their face value. Claims against the bankrupt citizens of the town were in the hands of lawyers and deputy-sheriff's, who held them under contracts for large percentages if collected. In the year 1784 and 1785 about four thousand suits were entered in the courts at Worcester. Lawyers' offices were thronged with suitors, and the neighborhood of them presented the appearance of a public fair. Real and personal property was sold on execution at ruinous prices, nobody having money to buy with at sales. And the jails were crowded with debtors. Only twelve years before exactly the same thing had been done at Worcester - with universal approval - which the regulators now attempted. In 1774 about five thousand men, mostly armed, had assembled at Worcester to prevent and did prevent the sitting of the courts, and no courts were held for two years. This thtn recent precedent suggested to the distressed people ol Shrewsbury the means of relief from their distresses.

The first demonstration of the insurgents at Worcester, in September, was successful in preventing the sitting of the courts. It was upon this occasion that General Artemas Ward, of Shrewsbury, then chief justice of both the Courts of Sessions and Common Pleas, performed the act which will go to posterity as the crowning act of his life. Wheeler's company, which had marched into Worcester on Monday afternoon, September 4, 1786, the day before the courts were to sit, took up quarters in the courthouse Mcjnday night, so as to be sure to be in possession when the judges should arrive next morning. Smith's company marched in from Shrewsbury early Tuesday morning, and was deployed and posted as sentries on Court Hill and around the court-house. An immense crowd of people had assembled thereabouts. Approaching the court-house, the judges were challenged by an armed sentry at the foot of Court Hill. At the order of his old commander, now chief justice, the sentry recovered his musket, presented arms, and the judges proceeded past him to the courthouse. There, upon the broad step at the south entrance, stood Captain Wheeler and Captain Smith, with drawn swords in their hands, and five soldiers with fixed bayonets. Right well did Artemas Ward know the men he had to deal with. Smith was his near neighbor, and lived on the opposite side to him of the Great Road through Shrewsbury. Wheeler, who was about Ward's age (nearly sixty years), had been his schoolmate in youth, and had formerly been a member of the same church. In his younger days, as a militia captain. Ward had drilled, in left foot and shoulder arms on Shrewsbury Common, the very men now in array against him. Smith and Wheeler had both served under Ward at Cambridge and at the siege of Boston, and long after his retirement as mpjor-general he knew that they had, in humbler rank, endured the hardships of the Revolutionary War like good soldiers to its very close, and had been paid off in Continental paper. And he knew, too, that they were both poor, deeply involved in debt and harassed with suits.

Proceeding to mount the court-house steps, the further progress of the judges was, by order of Captain Wheeler, ariested by the soldiers, who brought their bayonets to bear directly on the chief justice's breast, so that their points even penetrated his clothes. After a parley, the officers consented to allow him lo mount the steps and address the crowd. Though Artemas Ward, of Shrewsbury, had been much in public life, he was a man usually of slow and hesitating speech, had rarely taken part in debates and had never been accounted an orator. He was a graduate of Harvard College, but, though a judge, he was not a lawyer by profe.-sion. As soon as he had looked his audience in the face there seems to have come over him a sort of inspiration, and, with great fluency, fervor and eloquence, he forthwith proceeded to reason witli the i)eople, whose grievances he did not deny upon their mistaken metliod of relief. The newspaper man was not there to report, nor had the speaker in his pocket an extemporaneous manuscript to privately send to the press, and only by tradition has anj' word of what he said survived the more than hundred years since the event; but more than anything he did say or could say - more than anything the greatest of orators could have said - was the dauntless courage and dignity of his conduct as a magistrate,' of which to find a historical parallel you will have to make a far research - reminding one of Horace's " Just and determined man, unshaken in his firmness either by wrath of citizens commanding wrongful things or by tyrant's frown or raging seas or thunder-bolt of Jove, whom the ruins of a crumbling world would strike undismayed.'' - Carmina, III. 3. But Captain Wheeler was as unshaken as his old commander, and continued firm in his determination that the judges should not enter the court-house, and they did not. At the conclusion of the chief justice's speech, which had been interrupted by cries "Adjourn without day," the judges retired to the United States Arms, opened court there and adjourned.

And what with the drumming and fifing, marching and countermarching, tented fields and the ear-splitting fife of morning reveille breaking slumber, you would have thought it a garrison town. Col. Cushing, chairman of the selectmen, had prudently removed the town's stock of gunpowder from the powder-house and concealed it. The regulators surrounded and searched his house, but found neither powder nor selectman. The purpose of this assembling of the Shays' men was to prevent the sitting of the courts at Worcester on the first Monday of December, and both courts were adjourned to January the 23d. The crisis and climax of the rebellion was a week of unprecedented snow-storms ; without blankets, rations, quarters or money, in the public highways of Worcester, in the dead of winter, with the snow three feet deep under foot and more falling, what could the Shays' men do but disperse? It was the weather and the elements that put down the Shays' Rebellion, and not the distracted and inefficient Gov. Bowdoin and his militia, who, before the dispersement of his followers at Worcester, had

1 McMafiters says be cursed and swore, but an examination of the authorities he cites only shows that in his parley with Captain Wheeler, before he mounted the steps and commenced his speech to the people, the judge said he did not care a damn for their bayonets. Hist. People of the U. S., Vol. I., p. 307.

The Governor crowed lustily over his victory, arrested great numbers of the rebels and had fourteen of them convicted of treason and sentenced to death. But the Shays men shortly had their innings - at the spring election of 1787, when Gov. Bowdoin and his party were overwhelmingly defeated by the popular vote. In the previous year James Bowdoin had received a large majority of the votes of Shrewsbury ; this year his votes in that town bore the exact ratio of one to five to those for John Hancock, who, after taking his seat as Governor, pardoned all his predecessor's convicts.

Aaron Smith, of Shrewsbury, like Shays himself, and many of the more prominent of the rebels, went into exile in unknown parts - somewhere out of Massachusetts, doubtless - till alter passage of the amnesty act, when he returned, and spent the remainder of his days (not a few) in Shrewsbury. He died May 9, 1825, aged eighty-nine years, and to his last expiring breath gloried in the part he took with Daniel Shays. Less than a year before his death he walked to Worcester to meet his old commander, the Marquis Lafayette, who immediately recognized and greeted him with kisses and embraces, bringing tears into the eyes of all who witnessed the fraternal salutation. None of the regulators that I ever heard of ever took the attitude of repentant rebels. Within the recollection of the writer a considerable number of them were still living, among the rest his grandfather Howe, who was no more ashamed of his part in the Shays Rebellion than he was of his part in the Revolutionary War, and God forbid that his grandson should oft'er apologies for him and his comrades or tell their story otherwise than he told it himself.

Chapter Cvii The Sl.Weholders' Rebei,I,Ion

The news of Sumter taken came to Shrewsbury Saturday, April 12, 1861. Before the people of this town will feel such another shock as this news gave them, generations will come and go. Somehow or other the people of this town, until they heard this news, "had never really believed that the slaveholders actually meant war. When, on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, the post-rider |ust from Lexington Common, on his foaming steed, dashed through Shrew.sbury and rallied her minute-men to arms, it was just what everybody expected, - just what the minute-men were for. But when the news of Sumter came to town there were no minute-men listening for rallying cry to arms. Nevertheless, as soon as the news was duly authenticated, the people of Shrewsbury were just as resolved on what to do as their fathers had been eighty-six years before. And such a perfectly unanimous determination as there was ! When one looked in his neighbor's face he saw^ fight in his eye before he had time to speak. And Shrewsbury, in tills respect, probably did not much differ from other towns. But there is an aspect in which this town seems to me quite unique - different from other towns. In all the other towns that I know of, somebody, taking advantage of the war spirit so suddenly awakened, started round with an enlistment paper to raise a company and be captain of it. Here patriotic spirit was wholly unalloyed with any taint of self-seeking or personal ambition. Plenty of volunteers there were already to enlist as soon as they could find out how to do it and meet somebody willing to be an officer and take command of them.

May 2, 1861, was held in Shrewsbury a war-meeting, first of many. At this and subsequent meetings held during the four years of the war, money was appropriated to pay volunteers for drilling, to pay for uniforms, to support the families of volunteers, to pay bounties, to bring home the bodies of deceased soldiers, to refund money contributed by citizens for bounties, and for like purposes to the amount of about twenty-lwo thousand dollars. According to the "Record of our Soldiers," kept by the town clerk of Shrewsbury, pursuant to an act of the General Court of 1863 (ch. 65), this town furnished one hundred and forty-seven volunteers. No man was drafted in Shrewsbury during the war, the quotas demanded of the town being filled even before they were demanded, and at the close of the war it was found that the town had furnished twenty men above its requirement. The one hundred and forty-seven volunteers of Shrewsbury enlisted, a few in this regiment and a few in that, the earliest in the Thirteenth Massachusetts. They and their deeds are credited to companies raised in other towns and cities, largely to so-called Worcester companies, and the services of our soldiers reflect honor on our neighbors of Worcester and other places.

If the Shrewsbury volunteers had organized themselves into two companies and named six of their members for commissions as line oflicers, and one or two more for field or staff commissions, and insisted that they would only enter a regiment with these organizations and commissions, they would have done just what others did, and would have been gladly received and their requirements granted. Our soldiers might not have accomplished any more towards putting down the Rebellion then they did, and the town of Shrewsbury might not be entitled to any more credit or honor on their account than it now is. But what with the exploits of these companies, and their officers, and their promotions, and their record in published reports, letters and official documents, the writer of this history would have found better mate-

The early officers of the volunteers were mostly taken from the militia. Shrewsbury had no militia company. In 1861, as was natural, a little knowledge of the tactics, such as militia officers were supposed to have, was immensely overestimated. If one could say "Shoulder armsl" with the militia accent, he was accepted as a proper commander to lead a thousand men to an assault upon artillery. It was doubtless from an overestimate of the mystery of the tactics that none of the Shrewsbury volunteers sought positions as officers.' The writer himself, being a native of Shrewsbury, and though not, in 1861, a resident of the town, having inborn in him much of the native modesty of Shrewsbury men, declined a commission as captain. On entering the service in a lower rank, finding the army full of brigadiers not fit for second lieutenants, he plainly saw that he had been too modest. The real difference between the officers and men of the volunteer army of the War of the Rebellion was far less than has been commonly supposed. In 1861 two major-generals were wanted from Massachusetts, and two noted politicians, both Presidential aspirants, were appointed. They had both figured in the militia, and practiced the militia accent for the manual of arms at the dress parade of militia musters. Such was their preparation to cope with Lee and Jackson. When the President was looking for two men to trust with the fate of his country and the lives of his countrymen, he had much better have looked over those one hundred and forty-seven men from Shrewsbury and made his selection from them than to have looked where and selected what he did. I don't believe that Lee would have bottled one of them up with a great army at Bermuda Hundred, nor that Stonewall would have caught another napping and sent him skedaddling, pell-mell, helter-skelter, head over heels, panic-stricken, out of the Shenandoah Valley, nor that one would have been the hero of both Big Bethel and Fort Fisher, nor that the other would have both planned and executed the Red River campaign.

Twenty-nine soldiers of Shrewsbury gave their lives for their country in the War of the Rebellion, to whose memory the town has erected an enduring monument, with their names inscribed thereon, on the Common fronting close upon the public thoroughfare.

Several natives of Shrewsbury were officers of-rank in the War of the Rebellion, and their services for their country reflect lustre on their native town, though their residence was elsewhere.

1 Since this statement, which was based upon examination of the publislted rolls of Massachusetts Volunteers, was in priut I have learned that Will am E. Shaw, of Shrewsbury, served as a second lieutenant in the First North Carolina Volunteers, otherwise called the Thirty-sixth United States Colored Troops, Colonel Edward Beecher.

Mr. Edward A. Pratt, late of this town, was born here in 1827. A practicing lawyer in the city of Kew York in 1861, he laid aside his practice to recruit a regiment and had it all ready for muster in June. As colonel of this regiment, which was the Thirtyfirst New York Volunteers, he was commissioned June 20th to rank as of May 21st. With his command he took part in the first battle of Bull Run ; with it also he served in the Peninsula campaign of 18G2and participated in the Seven Days' Fight before Richmond. At the battle of Gaines' Mills he was severely wounded. He was promoted brigadier-general September 13, 1862. General Pratt studied law in Worcester in the office of the late Judge Henry Chapin, was admitted to the bar in this county in 1853 and practiced his profession in Worcester till about a year before the war, when he removed to New York city. He has been for many years and still is a justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

John Baker Wyman, of Chicago, 111., son of the late Seth Wyman, of Shrewsbury, was born here November 18, 1816. He had been engaged in railroad business for several years and was, at the breaking out of the Rebellion, superintendent of the Illinois Central Railway Company. With the Chicago Light Guard, a military organization of which he was commander, as the nucleus, in the spring of 1861 he recruited the Thirteenth Illinois Infantry and was mustered into the United States service with that regiment as its colonel May 24th of that year. After a series of the most gallant and meritorious services he was killed at the siege of Vicksburg.

Charles Edward Hapgood, born in Shrewsbury, December 11, 1830, and son of Captain Joab Hapgood, was at the breaking out of the war engaged in mercantile business at Amherst, N. H. He recruited a company for the Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers, and was mustered into service with it October 12, 1861. He served with his regiment till October 14, 1 864, when, on account of severe wounds, he resigned, having been promoted lieutenant-colonel, December 14, 1862, and colonel July 3, 1864. The Fifth New Hampshire was one of the famous regiments of the army of the Potomac and did distinguished service. Its first commander, Colonel Cross, was killed at Gettysburg July 1, 1864.

Dr. Henry Putnam Stearns, son of the late Asa Stearns, and born in Shrewsbury in 1827, entered the service of the United States April 18, 1861, as surgeon of the First Connecticut volunteers, a three months regiment, and was mustered out August 1st of the same year, when he was appointed surgeon of volunteers and ordered to report to General Grant in the Department of the West. The next spring he was assigned to duty as Medical Director of the Right Wing of the Array of the Tennessee, was afterwards Inspector of Army Hospitals at St. Louis, also medical director of the general hospitals of the Northern Army of the Mississippi. He was afterwards in the same position at Nashville, Tenn., where he remained till the close of war when (August, 1865,) he was mustered out of service with rank of brevet lieutenant-colonel. Dr. Stearns graduated at Yale College in the class of 1853, studied his profession in the medical schools of Harvard and Yale, and also at Edinburg, Scotland, and received his degree as M.D. at Yale in 1855; practiced medicine in Marlborough, Mass., till 1860 when he removed to Hartford, Conn., where, with the exception of the period he was in the United States service, he practiced till January, 1874, when he wax appointed superintendent of the Hartford Retreat for the Insane, which position he still holds. He has also been lecturer on insanity in the medical department of Yale College since 1877.

Charles Grosvenor Ward, who was the son of the venerable Thomas W. Ward, Esq., and born in Shrewsbury December 30, 1829; was mustered into the service of the LTnited States September 2, 1861, as second lieutenant in the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, the favorite regiment of the city of Boston, where he had resided for some years previous. He was promoted first lieutenant June 27, 1863, and assigned to duty as adjutant of his regiment. After participating unharmed in sixteen of the great battles of the war and without having ever received any promotions at all commensurate with his long and meritorious service, he was killed in the battle of Drury's Bluff May 11, 1864. His name is on the soldiers' monument.

All the above, except Colonel Wyman, were about the writer's age and companions of his youth, and he takes pride in this opportunity for brief memorial here of their honorable and patriotic services. He will leave to others to recount his own humble eflbrts to save his country. He cannot claim to reflect honor upon his native town by high rank or great exploits, and it would be presumptuous to name himself in a list of natives of Shrewsbury who performed distinguished service.'

Chapter Cviii And Currying Business

Agriculture hasalwaysbeen the leading industry of the people of Shrewsbury. According to tradition, or, perhaps, it were better to say according to the btst information that can be obtained from living men as to what their grandfathers told them,

1 Major Harlow recruited a company in 1861, in Spencer, Mass., where lie was then practicing law, for the Twenty-first MasBachnsettfl Volunteers, with which he was mustered into the United States service, and participated with that regiment in its engagements at Roanoke Island, New Berne, Camden Court House, second Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, .\ntietam, and Fredericksburg. - Editor.

which covers a period of more than one hundred years, most of the lauds now in use for pasture and tillage was cleared of wood before the Revolutionary War and then used for pasture and tillage. In the earliest times all meadows whicli, without improvement or any kind of tilling, produced grass, though of the coarsest quality, were considered " valuable," and farmers often bad a few acres of " valuable meadow '' quite remote from their farms. These meadows, to begin with, were generally free from wood, or, at any rate, from large trees, and the quantity of natural meadow was much increa.sed and a much better kind of hay produced by bringing water whenever it could be done, by ditches upon uplands. Down until within the memory of living men, farm products in Shrewsbury were chiefly consumed within the town. Families were large and home consumption was large. Nor was there any market t > buy or sell in, nor much money in farmers' pockets to trade with. But early in the present century it was discovered by Shrewsbury farmers that, there was a market in Boston for butter, cheese, eggs, chickens, veal and pork, and for beef on the hoof in Brighton, and a class of middle men called drovers and market men, began to pass and repass back and forth from Shrewsbury and the market. From this time farming began to improve. Farmers were not so absolutely destitute of money. There were better tools, better methods of farming, better cattle and better crops, and with industry and economy it was possible for the Shrewsbury farmer to rise a little above the chill penury of the beginners. Rye, oats, Indian-corn and hay were the chief crops. Appletrees were planted at the very outset, and, before 1776, nearly every farm had its orchard, and if good fruit was not abundant, there was no lack of cider. About 1820 market-wagons began to run regularly every week from Shrewsbury to Boston, and returning they hauled for the storekeepers the groceries and dry-goods that they dealt in. This continued till about 1845, when it was found that the town of Worcester was a belter market than Boston as well as much nearer, and everybody could be his own market-man, and so put in his own pocket the commissions on sales. Before the use of coal became common in Worcester, the Shrewsbury farmer had a near and growing market for wood as fuel, and before the great forests of Canada and the.we=t were connected by rail with the east, the demand of Worcester ior Shrewsbury lumber was beyond the supply. But times in recent years, with the Shrewsbury farmer have greatly changed, and there is but one farm product in respect to which he is not obliged to compete with producers of remote States. On acciunt of its quickly perishable nature, milk, which is in demand the year round, is in no danger of remote competition. It is to-day the chief product that goes to market from Shrewsbury farms. Except milk, and possibly apples, of which in alternate years the orchards of Shrewsbury produce a large quantity and of famous quality, I do not suppose there is any other farm product of sufficient amount to supply more than the home market.

In recent years the salable value of farm lands in Shrewsbury has been steadily diminishing, and, in fact, they cannot be sold at all. Nobody will buy and many want to sell. There is not, probably, a farm in the town that would sell for enough to pay the cost of the buildings and fences standing on it. The reasons are not far to seek. " To diversify industry " the manufactures of Massachusetts have been so favored at the expense of agriculture that the natives of Shrewsbury have been enticed away from the homes and occupations of their fathers to enter shops. The " home markets " which the cities and manufacturing centres of the State are reputed to furnish, are flooded with the farm products of other States, and the Shrewsbury farmer has to p.ay tribute not only to other occupations for every article of clothing he wears and every tool that he uses, but even for farm products CO farmers of sunnier climes and more fertile soils than his own living within his own country. Not a pound of sugar or rice can he buy without paying the fiivored growers of these necessities of life double pricts. Protection /or everybody else's products and free trade against his have ground the Shrewsbury farmer like upper and nether millstones, and no wonder he wants to sell his farm and no wonder nobody wants to buy it.

In 1800 was formed in Shrewsbury a Farmers' Club, for the purpose of promoting the best methods of farming. The club holds occasional meetings in the winter season for discujsion of agricultural topics, and its annual cattle shows, held in October, have become lamous and the favorite resoit of the people of neighboring towns. In 181.5 was formed in Shrewsbury a like association, called the Agricultural Associates of Shrewsbury, and the next year another, with the name of the Agricultural Associates of Worcester, was formed in Worcester. In 1818 the two societies were merged in a county society and incorporated under the name of the Worcester Agricultural Society, which directly took and has ever since maintained a prominent position in the esteem, not only of the farmers, but of all the people of Worcester County of whatever occupation.

Of other branches of business, such as the manufacture of guns, of watches and of boots and shoes, which, to some extent never large, was formerly carried on here, the limits of this work do not admit of more specific mention. But I cannot omit some brief account of the famous stage business, whose founder and manager lived here, and with Shrewsbury as his headquarters, carried it on to places far remote ; nor of the tanning and currying business which, begun here in an humble way more than a century ago, has grown to a very extensive business.

in this country, moved from Boston to Shrewsbury in 1793. He was a son of Nathauiel Pease, born at Enfield, Conn., in 1739, and was by trade a blacksmith. His father was a sailor, and reported to have been lost at sea. His mother married a second husband, named Parsons, after which her first husband returned. After one glance at the situation Nathaniel Pease went off to sea, and was never heard of at Enfield again. Levi's title as captain was earned in the Continental line. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War he was living at Blandford, Mass. He served with General Thomas in Canada, and later with General Wordsworth in the Commissary Department, - often employed in perilous enterprises, to bear dispatches and obtain supplies, - a resolute and tireless man, up early and down late. After the war he kept a tavern for some years at Somers, Conn. Afterwards he kept the Lamb in Boston, whence he removed to Shrewsbury, where he bought the tavern stand of Major John Farrar.

But more than ten years before Captain Pease came here, he had projected and was running a stage line from Boston to Hartford. Farrar's Tavern in Shrewsbury had been from the beginning a night stopping-place on the line, and after becoming familiar with his route, he selected it as the best point from which to operate his business. He took into partnership with him a young native of Somers named Reuben Sykes, who was also a blacksmith. No man of capital would invest a dollar with Pease and Sykes in their visionary stage line. Said a solid man of Boston to Captain Pease : " The time may come when a stage line to Hartford will pay, but not in your day." The partners commenced business with an outfit of eight horses and " two convenient wagons," and their first trip was performed October 20, 1783. Pease drove one wagon from the Lamb, Tavern in Boston at six o'clock Monday morning, and reached Hartford on Thursday ; and Sykes drove the other, leaving Hartford at the same time, and arriving also in Boston in four days. Two of the night stoppingplaces were Farrar's, in Shrewsbury, and Pease's, in Somers. The other - when Tuesday night they met - was at Rice's, in Brookfield. And they ran in fair weather and in foul, in mud and in snow, passengers or no passengers, punctual as the stars in their courses. In two years this stage line was a great success, and was extended to New York. In 1786 Pease and Sykes established a line of stages from Portsmouth to Savannah, and carried the mails. They also had, for several years, an exclusive contract with the government to carry the malls for all New England, re-letting to numerous others, who on branch lines collected and distributed the mails. It was Pease and Sykes that made punctual as the mail a proverb.

when he was at Cambridge in 1776, wanted to buy a pair of horses, and made an appointment with Pease, who had a pair of horses to sell. Pease was a few minutes too late for the appointment, and Washington did not wait for him. It was the last time Levi Pease ever got left.

The founder of stage lines was also the first projector of turnpikes. Of all the many companies chartered in Massachusetts about the beginning of this century to build turnpikes, it was the First Blassachusetts Turnpike Corporation whose charter (1796) was to Levi Pease and his associates, authorizing them to build a turnpike through Palmer and Western.' He put in his earnings and savings, and made a good road where there was a very bad one; but the turnpike never paid, and in consequence of his investments in its stock Captain Pease died a poor man. But he lived and ran his stages many years. His death took place in Shrewsbury January 28, 1824, and his age was eighty-four years. His honor and integrity, which were as famous as his punctuality, were inborn, and therein Washington himself could have taught him nothing. Often in the army, often in his business as tavern-keeper and stage-driver trusted with uncounted money, the trust was sacredly inviolate.

For many years four stages a day, two going east and two going west, passed through Shrewsbury on the Great Road. In 1806 the Worcester Turnpike Association was chartered to build a turnpike from Worcester to Roxbury. Its course was as straight as possible, and ran through the south part of Shrewsbury. After its completion in 1808, four stages - two each way also - ran daily on the turnpike. Another turnpike, having Shrewsbury for one of its termini, and Amherst for the other - the Sixth Massachusetts - sometimes called the Holden Turnpike - was built in 1800. A line of stages also ran daily on this turnpike. Both of these turnpikes were abandoned many years ago by the corporations that built them, and were laid out by the county commissioners as highways.

Col. Nymphas Pratt, whose father, Capt. Seth Pratt, was the founder of the tanning and currying business in Shrewsbury, was born April 5, 1786, in the old house owned by Henry Harlow, standing near the brick house in which he lives. The tannery was on the south side of the road opposite the houses, and was sold in 1796 with the old house then comjiaratively new, and about twenty-two acres of land, by Capt. Pratt to the writer's grandfather, Thomas Harlow, who came from Duxbury, when he was twenty-one years old, to buy it, and paid $1000 for it. Here was the place where, and Seth Pratt was the man by whom the tanning business was begun in Shrewsbury. After sale of his tannery he moved to Barre, dammed the Ware River, built woolen-mills and founded the vil- lage of Barre Plains. Deacon Thomas Harlow, who was a farmer as well as tanner, carried on the tannery for nearly fifty years in connection with his farm, which he bought piece by piece of his neighbors.

Col. Pratt, Capt. Seth's son (military titles both derived from militia commissions), about the year 1810 built a new tannery in the Loner Village in Shrewsbury, where the business or the currying branch of it has been continued to tlie present day. Here Col. Pratt did the business, both tanning and currying, till from a small beginning it grew into a very large and prosperous one, and the owner of it became a man of great influence and was accounted to possess immense wealth. People said he was worth one hundred thousand dollars, which sounded bigger than a million does now. Col. Pratt was one of the principal founders of the Citizens' Bank in Worcester, incorporated in 1836 with a capital stock of $250,000, and was its first president. In 1839 he failed in business and this bank, which had discounted a large amount of his paper, was a heavy loser. But the failure of Col. Pratt was due cot so much to his own business as a tanner and currier as to his courageous and honorable though rash attempt to sustain through such a financial crisis as that of 1837-40, the firm of S. H. Allen & Co., of which the partners were his son, William Pratt, who was a lawyer and lived in Worcester, and his son-in-law, Simon Hapgood Allen, who was the active manager of the firm business and lived in Shrewsbury. The business of this firm, which was formed in 1833 and carried on at the brick store in the Lower Village in Shrewsbury, was mainly the manufacture of ready-made clothing. Mr. Allen may be said to have been the founder of the ready-made clothing business. The firm employed a large force of tailors, who cut out the garments, which were taken home and sewed by women at their houses. Many of the sales of the firm were on credit at places far remote - in the South and West. In such a crisis as that of 1837 no wonder the firm failed. If Col. Pratt had allowed this firm to go down into its inevitable bankruptcy, probably he might have saved himself and his own proper business.

Upon the winding up of Col. Pratt's affairs in bankruptcy, Lucius H. Allen, who was his foreman, bought of his assignees the tanning business, and continued to carry it on till 1862, and Jonathan H. Nelson and Thomas Rice, who had learned the trade of curriers in Col. Pratt's shop, took the currying business. With no capital except their trade to begin business with, by industry, laboring untiringly with their own hands they, by degrees, built up a very large and profitable business. In 1862 Mr. Allen, who had also done a large and profitable business, sold out to Nelson & Rice his tannery. During the war the business of this firm became enormous and its profits immense - many times exceeding anything that Col. Pratt had ever done or dreamed of. Mr. Nelson died in 1872, leaving a large estate, and his partner, Mr. Rice, has recently died, leaving, doubtless, a much larger. The business is still carried on by Mr. Charles O. Green, who, after the death of Mr. Nelson, was associated with Mr. Rice as partner. Col. Pratt, Mr. Allen, Mr. Nelson and Mr. Rice were all men of public spirit, and deeply interested in all that concerned the town of Shrewsbury and the Congregational parish ; and they were, all of them, honored with the public trusts of selectmen and representatives to the General Court. Mr. Rice was also, in 1869, a member of the Massachusetts Senate, and, having been for many years a director of the First National Bank of Worcester and president of the Northborough Na- . tioual Bank, he had an extensive acquaintance among business men.

Chapter Cix

The first physician in Shrewsbury was Dr. Joshua Smith, 1719-56, who practiced here from about 1840 till his death. He held the offices of town clerk, selectman and assessor for several years, and specimens of his elegant chirography are preserved in the town archives. But he set the example, followed by so many of his successors, of cavilling at sound doctrine, and Deacon Isaac Stone laid a complaint before the brethren of the church " that y° sd. Smith was defective in y" fundamental article of original sin." And therefore a committee of three Orthodox divines was appointed to discourse with him. Now, Dr. Smith was son-in-law of Rev. John Prentice, of Lancaster, and brother-in-law of Rev. Job Cushing, of Shrewsbury, and I strongly suspect that the ecclesiastical discipline of Dr. Smith was aimed less at him than at his kindred by marriage, whose defectiveness upon the Calvinistic fundamentals Deacon Stone did not choose to directly attack. All the same, to argue original sin against three learned divines all at once was nuts for " ye sd. Smith,'' who according to tradition, unhorsed his antagonists as completely as he had his neighbor, the deacon.

Dr. Zachariah Harvey, who lived in "Shrewsbury Leg," now a part of Sterling, pi'acticed here from about 1740 to 1750, when he removed to Princeton, and was directly chosen there moderator, clerk, selectman, assessor and delegate to the General Court. He is said to have been the introducer of the Harvey apple.

Dr. Edward Flint, 1733-1818, came here from Concord about 1756, shortly after Dr. Smith's death. Besides his service in the French War, elsewhere mentioned, he also served as an army surgeon in the

Revolutionary War. He was a famous doctor, had a large practice, and lived where Mr. George H. Harlow and his wife, who is Dr. Flint's grand-daughter, now lives. He was several years town clerk and one of the selectmen. His son. Dr. Austin Flint, 1700-1850, born here, practiced in Leicester many years and rose to eminence in his profession. At the age of seventeen years he enlisted iu the Revolutionary War, marched to Bennington and served till the close of the war. Dr. John Flint, 1779-1809, another son of Dr. Edward and a native of this town, practiced in Petersham.

Of Rev. Ebenezer Morse's practice as a physician mention has already been made. His son, Dr. Elia- 'kim Morse, 1759-1840, also practiced in the North Parish.

Dr. Samuel Crosby, born here 1732, lived on " Boston Hill," in the southeast part of the town, and practiced here till the Revolutionary War, when he entered the Continental service as an army surgeon. After the war he removed to Winchendon.

Dr. Paul Dean came here from Franklin about 1790 with his father. Captain Ebenezer Dean, who settled in the southeast part of the town on the place afterwards known as the Balch Dean Place, so called after Captain Ebenezer's nephew, who lived and died there within the memory of the present generation. Here in 1792, when the small-pox appeared in town, Dr. Dean opened a hospital, where people resorted to be inoculated and treated for that malady. He was a musician, taught singing-schools and led the church choir. After practicing here some years he went South and never returned.

Dr. Silas Wheelock, 1769-1817, came here from Northbridge about 1800, and practiced till his death. He lived on the place now owned by Mr. Lewis E. Colton, whose wife was Dr. Wheelock's grand-daughter. He had the reputation of a skillful physician and surgeon.

Dr. Seth Knowlton, 1781-1832, a native of Shrewsbury whom we have seen leading the heretical revolt of 1821, practiced here about thirty years. He was a man of strong intellect and great influence in the town, and he was noted as much for his positive opinions and his ability to maintain them against all opposers as he was for his skill as a surgeon and physician. He built and lived in the house where his successor. Dr. Adolphus Brigham, afterwards lived.

Dr. William Workman (Harvard College, 1825), came to Shrewsbury about 1826, and continued in practice here till about 1830, when he removed to Worcester, where he became eminent in his profession and had a large practice.

Dr. Azor R. Phelps practiced here from about 1835, to 1843, when he died. He lived in the house now owned by Mr. Lcander Ware, and was proprietor'of Phelps' Arcanum, once a famous panacea.

Dr. Adolphus Brigham came here from Marlborough in 1827, lived in the house built by Dr. Knowlton, on Grafton Street, and succeeded to his practice. He was, in his time, "the Doctor of Shrewsbury," and his practice extended to adjoining towns. A good man, and well skilled, both as a surgeon and physician, he had the respect and confidence of all who knew him, and died much lamented.

Dr. Joel B. Fay came from Northbridge about 1850, and practiced here till his death, in 1860. He lived in the house now the congregational parsonage.

Dr. John T. Wetherbee, a native of Marlborough, came here from California in 1860, and continued in practice till 1863, when he entered the United States naval service as acting assistant surgeon. He died after a brief term of service on board the United States ship "Currier," in the Gulf of Mexico, and his name is on the Soldiers' Monument.

Dr. Franklin Whiting Brigham, born here in 1841, and son of Dr. Adolphus, studied his profession at Harvard Medical School, and, after serving two years as acting assistant surgeon in the United States navy, settled here in 1865, and remains in practice. He lives in the same house, built by Calvin R. Stone, where his'predecessor. Dr. Warner, lived.

Dr. Jeremiah C. Foster, who was an army surgeon in the United States volunteer service during the Rebellion, settled here in 1867. In 1873 he removed to Barre, and died there.

Dr. Charles Sumner Pratt, a native of Shrewsbury, and son of the late Nathan Pratt, Jr., opened an ofl3ce here in 1879 in the "Old Store Block," and remains in ijractice. He is a graduate of the Medical Department of Michigan University.

Rev. Jacob Gushing, 1730-1809 (Harvard College, 1748), son of Rev. Job Gushing, was settled in Waltham. In 1807 Harvard conferred on him the degree of D.D.

Rev. John Gushing, 1737-1823 (Harvard College, 1764), another son of Rev. Job Gushing, was settled in Ashburnham. He also received (1822) the degree of D.D. from Harvard.

Eev. Lemuel Hedge, 1734-77 (Harvard College, 1759), son of Elisha Hedge, who came to this town from Boston about 1730, and built a mill-dam and grist-mill, called in later times Harlow's Mills, after a successive owner, and removed to Hardvvick in 1738, was settled in Warwick. He was the father of Professor Levi Hedge, over thirty years an instructor in Harvard College, and grandfather of the eminent Rev. Dr. Frederick H. Hedge, of Cambridge.

Eev. Nehemiah Parker, 1742-18U1 (Harvard College, 1763), sou of Stephen Parker, who came here from Roxbury in 1740 or sooner, was the first settled minister in Hubbardston.

Rev. Frederick Parker, 1762-1802 (Harvard College, 1784), son of Amos Parker, who removed from Lexington to this town about 1763, was settled in Canterbury, N. H., where, in the midst of his services as minister on a Sunday, he fell dead in his pulpit.

Rev. Aaron Crosby, 1744-1824 (Harvard College, 1770), son of Samuel Crosby, who lived on " Boston Hill," and was one of the first comers to Shrewsbury, was settled in Dummerston, Vt. Before his settlement there he had spent several years as a missionary among the Indians.

Rev. Otis Crosby, 176G-95 (Dartmouth College, 178G), nephew of the preceding and son of Dr. Samuel Crosby, was called to settle at (Jloucester, Me., but died before ordination.

Rev. Samuel Sumner, 1765-1836 (Dartmouth College, 1786), son of Rei?. Dr. Joseph Sumner, was first settled in Southborough, and afterwards at Bakersfield, Vt.

Professor Benjamin Stone, 1756-1832 (Harvard College, 1776), son of Jasper Stone, was the first preceptor of Leicester Academy, subsequently also of Westford Academy. Later in life he returned to this town, and died here.