The New England Historical & Genealogical Register, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 1847

Part 8

Chapter 83,695 wordsPublic domain

The disputes of heirs relative to the distribution of estates have frequently occasioned difficulty in our civil courts. In some cases property has been carried to collateral heirs, because lineal descendants could not sufficiently prove their derivation, and in other cases, those who would have inherited at law as the representatives of a deceased parent, are excluded by the intrigues of living co-heirs. Frauds, as the reports of our courts attest, have been perpetrated by those, who, from a similarity of name, though unrelated, have emboldened themselves to step in and exclude others who were legally entitled to the property, but who were unable to furnish sufficient evidence to establish their claim.

The steamers from England often bring news of the extinguishment of European resident heirs to estates in that country; and much money has been expended in the research of ancestry, by our own citizens, who have imagined themselves to be the true heirs to this property. The families, from which the greater number of these estates descend, are old families; branches of which came to this country prior to the commencement of the eighteenth century, and the trans-atlantic branch of the stock has run out. When this is the case, it is of high importance that the American descendants of these families should be able, clearly and conclusively, to prove their derivation. In this view, is it not a matter of surprise, that until the present year, the publication of a journal which could furnish information of so important a character as that which now demands so great a share of the public attention, has been delayed?

A Register which shall contain "Biographical Memoirs, Sketches, and Notices of persons who came to North America, especially to New England, before Anno Domini 1700; showing from what places in Europe they came, their Families there, and their descendants in this country;" which shall give "full and minute Genealogical Memoirs and Tables, showing the lineage and descent of Families, from the earliest dates to which they can be authentically traced down to the present time, with their branches and connections," cannot but be invaluable. If properly conducted, if the severest scrutiny is exercised by the writers over the materials which come under their notice, in the preparation of genealogical articles, the Register will become an authority in our courts, and will save immense amounts of money to the large number of individuals, who are attempting to trace their descent from European families. The policy of the law which invests, first, lineal descendants with intestate estates, and in the absence of lineal descendants, carries the estates to collateral heirs, in preference to an escheat to the State, is generally admitted. Were it not so, one great incentive to industry would be destroyed. The desire of securing their offspring against want, is a prevalent characteristic of New England parents. Assiduity and energy in the pursuit of wealth, which have overcome so many obstacles in our inhospitable climate, have their origin in the desire to advance the interests of posterity. How desirable, then, in order to carry out these views, does the Genealogical Register become! Such a publication affords the only permanent depository for such records as will serve to insure the correct distribution of the property of deceased persons; and no parent who wishes the avails of his labors to be transmitted to his remote descendants can fail to perceive the utility of such a work, or can decline to furnish such information for its columns, as will enable those who come after him to prove their descent.

The frauds continually practised by those who assume to be heirs to every unclaimed estate, have become a matter of notoriety in English legal practice; and though there are many estates now in abeyance in England for want of discovered legal heirs, the bar and the bench in England are exceedingly distrustful of the evidence forwarded by claimants in this country. No doubt many of these claimants are sincere in the belief that they are true heirs to those estates; but the evidence upon which that belief is founded generally proves to be of too unsatisfactory a character to procure a judgment of the English tribunals in their favor; whereas, had materials been previously collected and given to the world through the columns of an authoritative periodical, the evidence thus furnished would be almost irresistible to any court of law.

We can ask with confidence the attention of all travellers to this journal. Communications relative to the antiquities of the countries they may visit; descriptions of monuments which exist, with the inscriptions thereon; and such information as they may communicate respecting themselves which may be interesting to the families to which they belong: all these will be within the scope of this work. It needs but an announcement of these facts, to obtain from those interested, communications which will not only throw light upon the pedigree of families, but will contain many accounts interesting to genealogists, biographers, and historians, which otherwise would be swept into oblivion; and in this department of the periodical, the public will find amusing, entertaining, and instructive pages. In this view of it, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register should be extensively patronized; and we are happy to learn that thus far it meets with the decided approbation of the community.

OUR ANCESTORS.

"Our ancestors, though not perfect and infallible in all respects, were a religious, brave, and virtuous set of men, whose love of liberty, civil and religious, brought them from their native land into the American deserts."--_Rev. Dr. Mayhew's Election Sermon_, 1754.

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"To let the memory of these men die is injurious to posterity; by depriving them of what might contribute to promote their steadiness to their principles, under hardships and severities."--_Rev. Dr. E. Calamy's Preface to his Account of Ejected Ministers._

COMPLETE LIST OF CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS IN THE EASTERN PART OF ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE, FROM ITS SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME; TOGETHER WITH NOTES ON THE MINISTERS AND CHURCHES.

BY THE REV. JONATHAN FRENCH OF NORTH HAMPTON.

(Continued from page 46.)

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NOTES.

EXETER. The settlement of Exeter commenced in 1638. The founder and first minister of the place was the _Rev. John Wheelwright_, mentioned by Dr. Belknap as "a gentleman of learning, piety, and zeal." He came from Lincolnshire, England, and landed at Boston, Ms., May 26, 1636. "He and Mary, his wife, were admitted to the Boston church, on the 12th of June." A settlement had been made, as early as 1625, at Mount Wollaston, afterwards Braintree, Ms. In 1634, Boston was enlarged, so as to include Mount Wollaston. Mr. Wheelwright became preacher to the people at that place. These circumstances account for his being mentioned in some publications, as having removed to New Hampshire from Braintree; and in others from the church in Boston. Antinomian sentiments were imputed to Mr. Wheelwright. He was a brother of the famous Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, whose Antinomian zeal brought her into public notice. At a Fast in Boston, in December, 1636, Mr. Wheelwright preached one of the sermons. It gave offence, as it was judged to reflect on ministers and magistrates. He was said to have asserted, "that they walked in such a way of salvation as was no better than a covenant of works:" and also, that "he exhorted such as were under a covenant of grace to combat them, as their greatest enemies." [_Neal's New Eng._, Vol. I. p. 186.]

Mr. Wheelwright was summoned, by the civil court, "to give in his answer explicitly, whether he would acknowledge his offence, in preaching his late seditious sermon, or abide the sentence of the court." His answer was, "that he had been guilty of no sedition nor contempt; that he had delivered nothing but the truth of Christ; and, for the application of his doctrine, that was made by others, and not by himself, he was not responsible." [_Neal's N. E._, I. 190.]

Not being inclined to comply with the request of the court, that he would, "out of a regard to the public peace, leave the Colony, of his own accord," he was sentenced "to be disfranchised, to be banished the jurisdiction, and to be taken into custody immediately, unless he should give security to depart before the end of March." Appeal not being admitted, and declining to give bail, he was taken into custody, but released the next day, on "declaring himself willing to submit to a simple banishment." [_Neal's N. E._, I. 191.]

Mr. Wheelwright, having purchased lands of the Indians at Squamscot Falls, with a number of his adherents began a plantation in 1638, which, according to agreement made with Mason's agent, they called Exeter. "Having obtained a dismission from the church in Boston, _they formed themselves_ into a church; and judging themselves without the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, they combined into a separate body politic," &c. [_Belknap_, I. 37.] This combination continued three years. The names of those dismissed from Boston were John Wheelwright, Richard Merrys, Richard Bulgar, Philemon Purmont, Isaac Gosse, Christopher Marshall, George Baytes, Thomas Wardell, William Wardell. [_Dr. Belknap from Boston Chh. Records._] "When Exeter came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, Mr. Wheelwright, being still under sentence of banishment, with those of his church who were resolved to adhere to him, removed into the Province of Maine, and settled at Wells. He was soon after restored, upon a slight acknowledgment, to the freedom of the Colony; and in 1647 accepted an invitation from the church in Hampton, and settled as colleague with Mr. Dalton." "After his dismission from Hampton church he went to England, where he was in favor with Cromwell, with whom he had in early life been associated at the University of Cambridge in England. After Charles II. came to the throne, Mr. Wheelwright returned to New England, and took up his residence at Salisbury, where he died, November 15, 1679, aged, probably, about 85 years." [_Dow's Hist. Address at Hampton._]

Neal, although his sympathies were with the opponents of Wheelwright, mentions him as being "afterwards an useful minister in the town of Hampton." Dr. Cotton Mather, while he justifies the proceedings of the court against Mr. Wheelwright, accounts him "a man that had the root of the matter in him." Having quoted at large Mr. Wheelwright's address to the government, Dr. Mather says, "Upon this most ingenious acknowledgement, he was restored unto his former liberty, and interest among the people of God; and lived almost 40 years after, a valued servant of the church, in his generation." Referring to some publications of the day, in which Mr. Wheelwright was charged with being heretical, Dr. Mather said, "_this good man_ published a vindication of himself, against the wrongs that had been done unto him." In this vindication were quoted the words of Mr. Cotton--"I do conceive and profess, that our brother Wheelwright's doctrine is according to God, in the points controverted." Mr. Wheelwright also produced "a declaration from the whole general court of the Colony, signed by the secretary," in which "they now signify, that Mr. Wheelwright hath, for these many years, approved himself a sound orthodox, and profitable minister of the gospel, among the churches of Christ." [_Magnalia_, II. 443.]

Dr. Mather's own opinion of Mr. Wheelwright was expressed in a letter to G. Vaughan, Esq., in 1708. "Mr. Wheelwright was always a gentleman of the most unspotted morals imaginable; a man of a most unblemished reputation." "His worst enemies never looked on him as chargeable with the least ill practices." [_Belknap's Biog._, III. 338.]

The sermon of Mr. Wheelwright which gave offence in 1636, is still preserved in manuscript. The Hon. Jeremiah Smith, late of Exeter, N. H., who had read it, and who was fully competent to judge of its legal bearings, said that he found in it no ground for a charge of sedition. The charge was "wholly groundless, there was not the least color for it." [_Judge Smith's MS._]

Mr. Wheelwright was settled over the first church in Salisbury, Ms., Dec. 9, 1662. [_Rev. J. B. Felt._] In 1671, at the ordination of Rev. Joshua Moody, at Portsmouth, Mr. Wheelwright gave the Right Hand of Fellowship. One of Mr. Wheelwright's descendants, of the ninth generation, Rev. Rufus Wheelwright Clark, is now pastor of that church in Portsmouth. Mr. Wheelwright's last will "names his son Samuel, son-in-law Edward Rishworth, his grandchildren Edward Lyde, Mary White, Mary Maverick, and William, Thomas, and Jacob Bradbury." [_Farmer's Geneal. Reg._] Thomas Wheelwright of Wells, was also a son of Rev. John Wheelwright. For an interesting account, containing other facts respecting Mr. Wheelwright, see "Collectanea" by Hon. J. Kelly, in Exeter News Letter, May 24, 1842.

Two of the descendants of the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright, of the seventh generation, are now living in Newburyport. Abraham Wheelwright, Esq., and Ebenezer Wheelwright, Esq., both merchants. The first is the oldest man in the place who is still able to walk abroad, having attained to the age of 90 years. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and was distinguished for patriotism and bravery. He was in the field with Washington in most of his actions, and was several times taken prisoner by the British, but always effected his escape.

"The first church formed in Exeter became extinct a few years after its formation." [_Dow's Hist. Address; Farmer & Moore._] "An attempt was made by the remaining inhabitants of Exeter to form themselves into a church, and settle Mr. Batchelder, who had been minister at Hampton." This the general court prohibited, on account of their divisions; and directed them to "defer gathering a church, or any other such proceeding, till they, or the court of Ipswich, upon further satisfaction of their reconciliation and fitness, should give allowance therefor." [_Belknap's Biog._, I. 58.]

The _Rev. Samuel Dudley_ was the _second minister_ in Exeter. It does not appear that there was any formal church organization there, during his ministry. In some circumstances, a minister labored with a people several years, before a church was formally organized. Rev. Joshua Moody was ten or twelve years in the ministry at Portsmouth, before a church was gathered in that place.

Mr. Dudley was son of Gov. Thomas Dudley, who came to New England in 1630, and of whom Farmer speaks, as "a man of approved wisdom and godliness." Gov. Dudley was, however, among the most zealous of those who effected the banishment of Wheelwright. Cotton Mather says, "His orthodox piety had no little influence unto the deliverance of the country, from the contagion of the famalistical errors, which had like to have overturned all." [_Mag._, I. 122.]

A short passage from Farmer should be introduced here, not merely as relating to the persecution, which led to the settlement of Exeter, by Wheelwright, but as it gives a just representation of the Puritan character in those times. "Through the whole of his life, Governor Dudley opposed and denounced what he deemed to be heresy with an honest zeal, which, in these days of universal toleration, is sometimes referred to, as a blot upon his fame. But the candid and judicious, who are acquainted with the history of the Puritans, and the circumstances under which 'they came into a corner of the new world, and with an immense toil and charge made a wilderness habitable, on purpose there to be undisturbed in the exercise of their worship,' will never be found censuring and railing at their errors. They will rather wonder at the wisdom of the views, the disinterested nobleness of principle, and self-sacrificing heroism, displayed by these wonderful men, to whom the world is indebted for the most perfect institutions of civil and religious freedom known among men." [_Am. Quar. Reg._ Vol. XV. 301.]

Mr. Dudley of Exeter is noted in Fitch's MS. as "a person of good capacity and learning." [_Belknap_, I. 53.] He was born in England in 1606. In New England, he resided in Cambridge, in Boston, and in Salisbury. He was Representative of Salisbury in 1644. His ministry in Exeter he commenced in 1650, and died there in 1683, aged 77. In 1656 the inhabitants of Portsmouth voted "to give an invitation to Mr. Samuel Dudley, son of Thomas Dudley, the Deputy Governor of Massachusetts, to be their minister, and to give him a salary of eighty pounds a year." He accepted the proposition, and agreed to visit them the next spring; but it does not appear that he ever came. [_Adams's Annals of Portsmouth._] Mr. Dudley's first wife was Mary, daughter of Governor Winthrop. She died at Salisbury, April 12, 1643. He had a second and a third wife. Besides his descendants of the name of Dudley, there are numerous families in New Hampshire, and elsewhere, who trace their descent from Mr. Dudley of Exeter. Among his descendants were the wife of Gen. Henry Dearborn; the wife of Rev. John Moody; the wife of John Burgin; the wife of Gov. James Sullivan; the grandmother of Tobias Lear, Washington's secretary; and also the mother of Gov. Langdon. For a long list of descendants of Rev. Samuel Dudley, see Exeter News Letter, Aug. 31, 1846.

The _Rev. John Clark_ was the _third_ minister in Exeter.

A church, which continues under the style of the First Church in Exeter, was _organized_ in September, 1698. In the Hampton Church Records is the following entry: "1698. Sept. 11, Dismissed, in order to their being incorporated into a church state, in Exeter, Mr. Moses Leavitt, Mr. Henry Wadley, Jno. Scribner, Mrs. Elisabeth Clark, Mrs. Elisabeth Gilman, wife of Cap. Gilman, Mrs. Tipping, Mrs. Deborah Coffin, Goodwife Bean, Mrs. Mary Gilman, Mrs. Elisabeth Wadley, Mrs. Sarah Dudley, Sarah Sewal, Deborah Sinclar. And Mr. Wear and Cap. Dow were chosen, messengers of the church, to assist in the ordination of Mr. Jno. Clark, at Exeter." The persons who have been mentioned, as having been formerly admitted to the church in Hampton, (most or all of whom lived in Exeter,) constituted nearly half the number, who entered into a church state at Exeter.

The most ancient volume extant of the records of the present "First Church of Christ in Exeter" commences thus, "The order of proceeding in _gathering_ a particular Church in Exeter."

"After conferring together, and being mutually satisfied in each other, we drew up a confession of faith, and the terms of the covenant, which we all signed, the sabbath before ordination. And having sent for the Rev. Mr. J. Hale, (who preached the ordination sermon,) Mr. Woodbridge, Mr. Pike, Mr. Rolfe, Mr. Cotton, and Mr. Toppan, who accordingly came; and on the twenty-first of September, 1698, Mr. Hale, Woodbridge, Pike, and Cotton, laid on hands, Mr. Pike praying before the imposition of hands; Mr. Woodbridge gave the charge; Mr. Cotton gave the right hand of fellowship; and we were, by the elders, and messengers, of the several churches, _owned as a Church of Christ_, and John Clark declared to be a minister of Christ Jesus." No doubt Mr. John Hale, of Beverly, was the preacher. He had recently married the widowed mother of Mr. Clark. The other ministers mentioned were undoubtedly Rev. Messrs. Benjamin Woodbridge, minister first at Bristol, R. I., who preached at Kittery in 1688, and, as early as 1699, in Medford; John Pike of Dover; Benjamin Rolfe of Haverhill, Ms., who was killed by the Indians; John Cotton of Hampton; and Christopher Toppan of Newbury. The father of Rev. John Clark of Exeter was Nathaniel Clark, a merchant of Newbury, and one of the early settlers of that town, who married, Nov. 25, 1663, Elisabeth Somerby, daughter of Henry Somerby, one of the grantees of Newbury. Nathaniel Clark was in the expedition to Canada in 1690, and died there, Aug. 25, aged 46, having been wounded on board the ship "Six Friends." His widow, Elisabeth Clark, married Rev. John Hale of Beverly, Aug. 8, 1698. Mr. Hale was chaplain in the expedition in which Nathaniel Clark was mortally wounded. A particular account of Mr. Hale does not belong to this article. Of his views and influence in the affairs of the "Salem Witchcraft" see Amer. Quar. Reg. Vol. X. pp. 247, 248. In that account there is, however, doubtless a mistake as to the original name of the widow of Nathaniel Clark. See also Magnalia, II. 408, and Coffin's Newbury, p. 298. Rev. Mr. Clark of Exeter was born at Newbury, June 24, 1670, gr. H. C. 1690, and ordained at Exeter, Sept. 21, 1698; "married Elisabeth Woodbridge, a daughter of the Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, already mentioned, and granddaughter of Rev. John Woodbridge, first minister of Andover, and also of Rev. John Ward, first minister of Haverhill, June 19, 1694,--Rev. John Clark died July 25, 1705," aged 35. His children were Benjamin, Nathaniel, Deborah, and Ward, who was the first minister of Kingston. The mother of Elisabeth Woodbridge was Mary, daughter of John Ward.

The Woodbridge family has furnished a number of ministers distinguished for talents, learning, piety, and an excellent spirit. Were the notices of them collected, which are scattered in various publications, they would form an interesting memoir.