Part 9

“Mr. Hull,” says Savage, “came over in the Episcopal interest,” and his sympathies appear to have leaned in that direction, although while in America he was professedly a non-conformist, or Independent; hence, probably, the jealousy and petty persecution which followed him with more or less virulence, during the greater part of his residence on these shores. He was a man of worth and learning by the admission of Hubbard. He must have been a popular man from his success in securing followers to make up his company of emigrants, and his selection by the voice of his constituents at three different elections as deputy to the General Court, twice at Hingham, and once at Barnstable. He must have been an acceptable preacher from the eagerness with which his services were sought. Dr. Mather places him among our “first good men;” and Pike, his successor at Dover, remembers him as a reverend minister, while Gov. Winthrop says he was “a very contentious man.” Possibly the worthy Governor may not have been quite free from prejudice against the free-spoken, Independent minister, with Episcopal antecedents and tendencies, yet the frequent removals, numerous troubles, vexations and lawsuits, certainly give room for the Governor’s opinion. No fault seems to have been found with his moral or religious character, but he was certainly unfortunate while in this country by having circumstances so often against him, or in having so many bad neighbors. It is somewhat doubtful whether he was ever settled over the church in Weymouth.

Rev. Thomas Jenner was in Weymouth in the early part of 1636, and took the freeman’s oath in December of that year. According to Mr. Savage he was in Roxbury a year or two previous to that. Soon, in 1637, he received a call from the Weymouth people. The same year, according to Winthrop and Hubbard, “divers of the ministers and elders went to Weymouth, to reconcile the differences between the people and Mr. Jenner, whom they had called for their pastor, and had good success.” We find, also, from the General Court records, that this course was ordered by the court. He remained there for several years, and in 1640 represented the town in the General Court. He retired from the ministry there for some reason unexplained by the records, although we may get a hint at what it was, and went to Saco, Maine. Not much is known of him, further than this: that he came to Weymouth as early at least as the year following the arrival of Mr. Hull, and that he came in the interest of the ministers and authorities of the Massachusetts Bay colony, and was sustained by them through the troubles that ensued.

And now a third minister appears upon the scene, Rev. Robert Lenthal, who was in Weymouth as early as 1637, where “he disseminated his new doctrines, made proselytes and collected a strong party to oppose the new organization of the church, which took place 30 Jan’y, 1638,” according to notes appended to a sermon preached by Rev. Josiah Bent at the dedication of the new meeting-house in North Weymouth, 28 November, 1832. These notes were prepared by Hon. Christopher Webb, who was deeply interested in Weymouth history and had been long engaged in collecting materials for historical purposes. Mr. Savage also states that Mr. Lenthal was in Weymouth in 1637, “but not pleasing the Governor was forbid to be ordained.” Matters in the church, instead of growing better after the council of 1637, which met with such “good success in reconciling the differences between Mr. Jenner and his people in Weymouth,” became so much worse that it was deemed necessary to call a second council or conference, which was held at the house of Capt. Israel Stoughton, in Dorchester, a magistrate of the colony, 10 February, 1639. Notes of the proceedings were taken by Capt. Robert Keayne (brother-in-law of Rev. John Wilson), which have been preserved among the Stiles manuscripts in Yale College Library. From these notes much valuable information has come to light. The council must have been considered a very important one, since we find among its members, Rev. John Wilson, pastor, and Rev. John Cotton, teacher, of the church in Boston; Rev. Zechariah Symmes, teacher, of the church in Charlestown; Rev. John Weld, pastor, and Rev. John Eliot, teacher, of the church in Roxbury; Rev. Samuel Newman, (who went to Weymouth the same year); Rev. Thomas Jenner, of Weymouth; Mr. Edward Bates and Mr. Stephen French, of Weymouth, the former of whom, and not the latter as Mr. Trumbull has it, was then, or soon became, a ruling elder of the church in that town; also a private man, perhaps Capt. Keayne himself.

In those days one of the surest and most expeditious ways of disposing of a troublesome competitor, and one which has not yet been entirely abandoned, was to accuse him of heresy, and it was a very poor use of favorable circumstances that failed to convict, and thus dispose of the difficulty. The points which Mr. Lenthal was called to answer, and upon which he was supposed to differ, were, the constituents of the real church, and justification by faith. The churches of New England at that time very tenaciously held to the necessity of a covenant for giving “essential being” to the church, while Mr. Lenthal believed that baptism and not the covenant constituted this “essential being,” as it was termed. He also objected to reordination after a new election. The real point of difference seems to have been the relative merits of the church and parish systems, perhaps, as at present illustrated in the settlement of ministers by ordination or installation, or in their employment as “stated supply;” settling or only hiring; a matter of purely church polity. The churches believed strongly in the antecedence of election to ordination of church officers. The second point was justification by faith, as held by these churches against the construction put upon it by Mrs. Hutchinson and her adherents; a difference rather metaphysical than doctrinal, as it would appear to us. Both of these questions were satisfactorily settled, as far as the session of the council was concerned; Mr. Lenthal being sincere enough, or politic enough, not to differ too strongly from his judges.

The facts brought out were, that Mr. Lenthal had previously been a minister in good repute in England; that in the preceding years several of his people had come to America and were settled at Weymouth, and he expected more to follow. Mr. Jenner was now at Weymouth; Mr. Hull had not yet preached his farewell sermon, and there was not absolute harmony among the people. Upon Mr. Lenthal’s appearance in New England, his former people who had settled in Weymouth, with probably some others, enough to form quite a strong party, urged him to come to that place and be their minister, to which he willingly consented.

In attempting, however, to carry out this arrangement, Mr. Jenner being in possession, and having a strong official support, trouble ensued, so great that the salary of Mr. Jenner failed to be paid; hence the conference, although the plea was unsoundness in doctrine, on the part of Mr. Lenthal. Mr. Jenner and Mr. Newman, as previously stated, were both members of this council, the former to be a judge in his own case, and the latter a party in interest, as we find him, almost immediately, upon the ground, and within a short time in full possession of the field; Mr. Hull preaching his farewell sermon the same year; Mr. Jenner a resident of Saco, within two years; while Mr. Lenthal goes to that refuge for the persecuted, Rhode Island, where he was admitted as freeman, 6 August, 1640, and employed by the town of Newport in teaching a public school. It is said that he returned to England in 1641 or 1642. The trouble seems to have been that Weymouth was considered a public manor upon which any minister had a right to poach, and the difficulties that ensued in consequence, although satisfactorily settled, would not stay settled, but were continually breaking out afresh.

In this connection, J. Hammond Trumbull, in his notes upon the Stiles paper, published in the Congregational Quarterly for April, 1877, from which the report of the council of 1639 was taken, quotes from Winthrop as follows: “It is observable this church and that of Lynn could not hold together, nor could have any elders join or hold with them. The reason appeared to be because they did not begin according to the rule of the gospel.” Was this a church formed by Mr. Hull, or was it an attempt to form a second? The vigorous repressive measures of the General Court seem to have prepared the way for a permanent settlement of the difficulties, the prominent actors in the Lenthal faction being quite summarily dealt with. John Smith was fined £20 and committed during the pleasure of the court; Richard Silvester was fined £2 and disfranchised, for “disturbing the peace by combining with others to hinder the orderly gathering of a church in Weymouth, and to set up another there,--and for undue procuring the hands of many to a blank for that purpose.” Mr. Ambrose Martin, “for calling the church covenant a stinking carrion and a human invention, etc., was fined £10 and ordered to go to Mr. Mather to be instructed by him.” Mr. Thomas Makepeace, “because of his novile disposition was informed that we are weary of him, unless he reform;” and James Britton, “for his not appearing was committed, and for his gross lying, dissimulation and contempt of ministers, churches and covenant was openly whipt.” Thus promptly was heresy and insubordination crushed by our fathers, and freedom of speech, action and conscience protected,--in their way.

The way having been thus prepared, Rev. Samuel Newman came to Weymouth in 1639, where he remained for four or five years, but the seeds of former troubles had not yet ceased to sprout; the difficulty was not wholly overcome; the spirit of unrest that had for some years so possessed the people would not so soon be quieted. He found his position anything but a bed of roses, and he was glad to emigrate to escape the labor of so hard a field; therefore, in 1644, he, with some 40 families, sought refuge in Seekonk, which, in memory of the occasion and its cause, he called Rehoboth, “The Lord hath made room for us.” Not because Weymouth had become too narrow in territory for them, for probably not a quarter of its acres had been taken up, but for the same reason that separated Abraham and Lot. The pressure was on the spirit and not upon the body; and so, rather than continue the quarrel, they sought a new home further in the wilderness. Common tradition, which most of the historians have followed, says that he took with him a majority of his congregation, but with the facts relative to the population that we have already before us, it will be easy to prove that this could not have been correct, for we have seen that at the date of the first meeting held by the original planters of Seekonk, which by the way was held in Weymouth, 24 October, 1643, the latter town had at least 130 families, probably a good many more, while of these only 23 names are found in the list of the original proprietors of Seekonk, four of whom certainly remained in Weymouth, leaving but 19 out of which to manufacture a majority of 130. This emigration was indeed a serious loss, but its general effect was hardly perceptible, and the business of the town apparently went on as though nothing important had happened.

Rev. Mr. Newman was born in Banbury, England, in 1600; graduated at Oxford, in 1620; came to Dorchester, Mass., in 1636, and to Weymouth, in 1639; whence he removed to Rehoboth, where he died 5 July, 1663. “He was a hard student, an animated preacher, and an excellent man, ardently beloved and long lamented by his people. He compiled by the light of pine knots, a concordance of the Bible, the third at that time in the English language, and the best. While living he was defrauded of the pecuniary profits of his work, and when dead, he was robbed also of the name, the work being afterwards known as ‘Cruden’s Concordance.’”

With the withdrawal of Mr. Newman, and the settlement of Mr. Thomas Thacher, who was ordained 2 January, 1644, the perplexing trouble of the Weymouth church came to an end, and an era of extended prosperity dawned upon it. From this time forward the history of the church can be traced quite fully and accurately, although it has no records of its own previous to the time of Rev. William Smith, those for the first hundred years of its existence being missing.

So much for our brief record of facts. Some of them, however, and those among the more important, need to be accounted for or explained, in order to make the narrative consistent and satisfactory. The intense difficulties of the eight years from the arrival of Mr. Hull in 1635, to the departure of Mr. Newman in 1644, must have had an origin that is not revealed to us in the records at our command. What were the causes that produced them and contributed to keep them alive during this period? Why is it that contemporaneous writers have so little to say about this settlement and its events during its first twenty years? Perhaps a closer look at the facts we have may throw some light upon the subject.

Rev. Mr. Morrell, it is admitted, came to this town in the Episcopal interest. He was a clergyman of the Established Church, clothed with extraordinary powers to form, govern and perpetuate churches of that communion. Whatever influence he exerted was in favor of the extension and strengthening of that organization. His people were in sympathy with him in this matter, and if he founded a church here it was of that denomination; if he did not, he left influences behind him that would naturally work towards the accomplishment of that purpose, and these influences would as naturally continue to operate while these settlers formed an important element in that community; they would of necessity oppose the ecclesiastical systems of the Plymouth and Bay colonies, then or soon to become their near neighbors. While the settlement was one, before the arrival of Gov. Winthrop and the rapid increase of settlements around the Bay, there was nothing to call up this feeling of opposition, for the few emigrants who came from time to time, even if their sympathies were at variance with the previous settlers, had enough to do to look after their own affairs; besides, the colony was not strong enough to quarrel. The arrival of Gov. Winthrop, the establishment of the colonial government, and the large tide of emigration that set in immediately after, had its effect upon the little plantation of Wessaguscus. The favorable situation, and the already established community, drew in many new settlers from other points, and the influence of the government, and the religious system it supported, soon made itself felt, and with the assistance derived from these sources, became at length predominant. Still the old feeling of loyalty to the Church of England and to the Gorges company, was powerful enough to form a strong party.

Such was the position of affairs, when, in the summer of 1635, the arrival of Mr. Hull and his score of families introduced a new element of discord into the already divided community. The new comers, not in full sympathy with either faction, deemed themselves strong enough and of sufficient importance to have at least an equal voice in the councils of the town, and as there was no minister at their coming, and as they brought one ready-made at their hands, what better could they do than accept him for all? This at once aroused the opposition of the older settlers, and measures were immediately taken to prevent such a result. The friends of the government seem to have been the strongest and most energetic. They select Mr. Thomas Jenner, a recent emigrant to Dorchester, and invite him to take the field in opposition, which he was very ready to do, for we find him here in the year following. Success appears to have followed the movement, for Mr. Hull virtually retires from the contest, as the records show him in 1636 and 1637 as a candidate for the ministerial position in other places, and soon, with a sufficiently permanent location in the neighboring town of Hingham, to become its deputy to the General Court. Still he does not appear to have wholly relinquished his claim upon the Weymouth pulpit, for it was not until 1639 that his farewell sermon was preached.

The jealousy of the original settlers of any authority below the crown, outside of their own patent, may have prevented as close an intimacy with the neighboring plantations as would otherwise have existed; and this would furnish a reason why it is so seldom mentioned by them in connection with their own affairs. However this may be, the authority of the colonial government was gradually extended over the settlement, and the people submitted with the best grace they could, but not without an occasional exhibition of the old spirit by way of protest. The town was reorganized, its name changed, and the privilege of a deputy to the General Court granted to it in the summer and fall of 1635. At once the three opposing elements show themselves, and the little town chooses three deputies, instead of the one to which it was entitled. Capt. John Bursley represents the original settlers, Mr. Wm. Reade those who favor the colonial government, while Mr. John Upham is the selection of the Hull emigrants, and, as has been sometimes the case in later days, the patronage of the ruling power proves the most powerful, and Mr. Reade retains his seat, while his two competitors quietly retire.

This of course did not tend to soothe the troubles, for, as we have already seen, they grew so rapidly, developing mainly in the church, the civil powers being too powerful for open resistance, that in 1637, the General Court deemed it necessary to interfere and ordered a council of prominent officers and ministers to settle the differences. This was followed by a second, neither party being willing to submit to an adverse decision. And, as if this difficulty were not enough, about the same time, 1637, appeared another discordant element in the person of Rev. Robert Lenthal, who had already some partizans in the divided parish. He needed but little solicitation to join in the fray, and we have seen the result of his interference, as far as the public records show. And now, in 1638, Mr. Samuel Newman becomes a fourth aspirant for the Weymouth pulpit. Truly there must have been a wonderfully attractiveness in this place for people to draw so many illustrious teachers thither at the imminent risk of woeful discomfiture. Yet nothing can be more certain than that about the year 1638-9, there were no less than four ministers urging their claims to the pastorate of the Weymouth church, and that each of them had a strong following; nor can it be doubted that the causes that produced this state of affairs were deep-seated and some of them of long standing.

The question of the existence of the church through all of these eventful years cannot be definitely settled with the evidence we now have. We have proved a permanent and comparatively prosperous settlement during the whole of this period, and this fact argues a strong probability of a church organization, for in those days it was hardly reputable for a community to be without one. We are certain of Mr. Morrell, and we have important testimony in favor of Mr. Barnard, previous to 1635,--another argument in favor of the existence of a church, for ministers without churches were not so common in those days as at the present time. The coming of Rev. Joseph Hull in 1635, a regularly ordained minister, and of three others in the three following years, without any record of tradition of the formation of a church during that period, while there are many references to a church already existing, furnish perhaps the strongest argument in favor of a prior organization.

Negative evidence, or lack of positive statement, should not be forced, but since it has been employed to prove the formation of a church here at a given date, perhaps we may be permitted to urge it a little more strongly in favor of an earlier date for the same event. If there were, as is admitted, ten other churches in existence on the shores of the Bay at the arrival of the Hull company in 1635, and that company proceeded immediately to form the eleventh, in accordance with the universal custom, several of the preceding ten must have been called to assist in its organization, in which case we can hardly conceive it possible that some one at least of the number should not have made the transaction a matter of record, or that their records should not in some way allude to it, for the formation of a new church was then a matter of some importance, but nowhere, in church or state or private records, do we find the slightest intimation of such an event; whereas, had there been a church formed at an earlier date, when there was no other existing on the shores of New England, besides that at Plymouth, and that not in sympathy, we have a very good reason why we hear nothing of it.

The material needs of the new settlement and other causes before alluded to might prevent its own record, while the distractions afterwards existing, and the consequent jealousies between the contending parties might easily forbid any subsequent one. The theory of a regular succession of pastors beginning with Mr. Hull in 1635, and following down through Mr. Jenner, Mr. Lenthal and Mr. Newman, until Mr. Thacher is reached, has been a favorite one, but is hardly admissible in face of the evidence already produced, which would rather go to show the attempted formation of a second church by some of the conflicting interests in opposition to one already in existence. We may hope at some time to discover further testimony with which to settle this vexed question, but for the present we must be content to allow it to rest upon no firmer basis than probability, yet with that strongly in favor of a much earlier organization of the church, reaching back perhaps to 1623.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] The Old North Church of Weymouth was organized Jan. 30, 1638/9. The diary of the Rev. Peter Hobart, the minister at Hingham, Mass., from 1635 to 1679, reads: “Jan. 30, 1639, [N. S.] A church gathered at Weymouth.” (From a paper on “The Organization of the Old North Church of Weymouth,” read before the Weymouth Historical Society, Feb. 24, 1904, by George W. Chamberlain, and published in the _Weymouth Gazette_, March 18, following.)

WEYMOUTH THIRTY YEARS LATER

A PAPER READ BY

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

BEFORE THE WEYMOUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AT THE FOGG OPERA HOUSE, SOUTH WEYMOUTH, ON THE EVENING OF TUESDAY, THE 23D SEPTEMBER, 1904.

It is already five months since your Society celebrated the completion of its twenty-fifth year. It may be said to have then attained its majority. Yet, perhaps, this middle period of September is more appropriate for your anniversary than a day in April; for towards the middle of September, 1623, that is, two hundred and eighty-one years ago at this time,--possibly on what was then the thirteenth of the month, now the twenty-third,--Captain Robert Gorges, at the head of a little company of adventurers, sat down at Wessagusset. Thus, as nearly as can now be ascertained, the permanent settlement of a part of what has for hard upon two whole centuries and three-quarters of another been known as Weymouth,--the second permanent settlement in Massachusetts,--dates from this season, and, possibly, from this day of September. The Weymouth Historical Society commemorates the event to-night. It might well commemorate it annually.