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THE TOWN CHURCH

MANCHESTER

rHOMAS CHALMERS

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THE

Town Church

Manchester

BY THOMAS CHALMERS
//

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

MANCHESTER, N. H.

MANCHESTER

PUBLISHED BY THE JUBILEE COMMITTEE

1903

LIBRARY of COIVGRESS
Two CoDies Received

MAY 26 1904

C«pyrigni Entry

'^^-Laj. 1.V- /^^3
CLASS 0^ XXo. No.

^ Z 0 U I

COPY A

Press of

The John B. Clarke Comininy

3fanr})ester I\\ H.

CONTENTS.

Page

Part I. The Approach 7

I. The Struggle for the Merrimac 9

II. The Indian Church at Amoskeag Falls 16

III. The Scotch-Irish at Amoskeag 20

IV. The Tyngstown Colony 22

Part II. The Town Church before the Disestablishment 29

Y. The First Era 31

YI. The Second Era 40

YII. The Third Era 48

Part III. After the Disestablishment 56

YIII. The Transition 59

IX. The Xew Organizaton 69

X. The Congregational Church at Amoskeag 78

Part lY. The Union, The First Congregational Church of

Manchester 89

XL Forty Years in the Old Church on Hanover Street 91

XII. In the New Church on Hanover Common 124

XIII. The Present Pastorate 128

Program Double Diamond Jubilee 132

Historical List of Church Officers 137

Annual Progress of the Church 139

Historical List of Society Officers 140

Tabular Statement of Keceipts from Pew Eentals 149-

Legacies and Endowment Funds 142

Legacies to the Society 143

Legacies to the Church 143

Form of Bequest 143

Index 145

6 PREFACE.

sides the original records of Derryfield and Tyngstown and the
complete records of church and society back to the first meet-
ings, a multitude of old documents — letters, subscription lists,
and newspapers — have been put in my hands. The docu-
mentary disadvantage under which some of the earlier local
histories were written is responsible for many of their inaccu-
racies. Among these local histories, however, I wish to express
my indebtedness to Potter's "History of Manchester," the
greatest of them all though the least accurate. I have also
made use of Clarke's "History of Manchester" and Willey's
"Book of Manchester." Though I am not aware of any in-
accuracies in this book, I am painfully aware of its omissions.
Many worthy names in the history of the church are not found
on these pages. They adorn the pages of a Better Book.

Thomas Chalmees.
Manchester, N. H., May, 1903.

PART I

THE APPROACH,

THE STRUGGLE FOE THE MERRIMAC.

''The Indians tell ns of a beautiful river far to the south
■which they call Merrimac." These words are to be found in
■a report from Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, the Huguenot
founder of Port Eoyal, to the French Government. They were
written in 1604 — three hundred and one years ago. The chiv-
alrous Henry of Navarre w^as then on the French throne. Thus
w^as this river introduced to the people of Europe. It was a
happy introduction, calculated to kindle expectancy. These
words are interesting because they establish the esthetic unity
of mankind. This Merrimac, far to the south, with its pure
water, swdft current, roaring falls, and fruitful intervales, was a
''beautiful river" to the Indians. They clung to its banks,
and long after they had ceased to hope to retain their lordship
of its fields and forests, they begged the conquering race for
permission to remain on its shores and islands. They retreated
slowly tow^ard its source, and left it only when they had been
reduced to a broken-hearted fragment of former days. And
the river that was beautiful to the Indian is beautiful to the
white man. He also has clung to it. A counter-current of
warfare flowing from the islands of Newburyport to the shores
of the Winnepisaukee left the river, wrenched from its former
lords, in the hands of the white race. This was followed and
accompanied in part by another up-current conflict for the pos-

10 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR V.

session of this river between the whites themselves. This sec-
ond struggle took the form chiefly of litigation. Its weapons
were charters and grants, deeds and dates, seals and signatures.
It extended over a period of more than a hundred years, and was
the direct cause of much anxiety, suffering, and bloodshed.
Perhaps no such struggle between different sections of the Eng-
lish-speaking race has been fought for the possession of any
other river in America. But the last echoes of the unfortunate
conflict have long since died away. A winding chain of popu-
lous cities, with immense industries, now extends along its
banks from ISTewburyport to Concord. Haverhill, Lawrence,
Lowell, Nashua, and Manchester are links in that chain. Here
are the three chief cities of New Hampshire. One of them —
Manchester — is the largest city in the northern tier of New
England states.

M. de Monts wrote his report in 1604. He never saw the
river of which he was the first to write the name, for he re-
turned to France and came to grief. But in the July of the
following year his fellow countryman, Champlain, sailed into
the harbor at the mouth of the Merrimac (Riviere du Gas).
That was nearly three centuries ago — a long time in the history
of us short-lived men. Fed by the melting snows from the
same majestic mountains, our beautiful river has gone on its
rushing way, plunging with much the same monotonous roar
over the falls at Amoskeag and Pawtucket as when Passacon-
away, the hashaba of the confederated tribes, sat musing in his
lodge on its banks. Three hundred years have passed us on
the wing. Events which are now ancient history, the perish-
ing records of which we gather and preserve with a tender
touch, with many details lost in oblivion, were then so far in
the foreground that their form and dimensions could not be

THE STRUGGLE EOR THE MERRIMAC. 11

discerned. They were to be the three most pregnant centuries
since the fall of the Roman empire. They were to be centuries
of travail and pain, and were to end in the birth of a new
world. The Reformation had spread over Germany, Hungary,
Bohemia, Switzerland, the ISTetherlands, England, Scotland,
and Scandinavia, and had become strong in France. But its
career of conquest had closed, and a mighty opposing power
in the new Society of Jesus had started on its resistless way to
regain the lost territory. The next fifty years were to witness
the bitterest, bloodiest struggle in European history, — the
Thirty Years^ War, — and with the issue of that struggle the
fate of the Protestant civilization on the continent of Europe
was to hang in the balance. Gustavus, whose enlightened
statesmanship and military achievements were to purchase the
permanence of Protestant principles, was a Swedish ten-year-
old boy when M. de Monts wrote his report. Oliver Cromwell,
who was to break the back of irresponsible monarchy and to
leave a name the mention of which would forever make pale
the face of the tyrant, was a six-year-old boy playing on the
banks of the Ouse. Shakespeare was still writing. "King Lear"
was published that very year. So also was the "Advancement
of Learning," the first of Bacon's great works, — works which
were to signalize the birth of modern science with all its won-
derful discoveries and achievements. Since that day we have
come into possession of a new heaven and a new earth. Galileo
was to construct the first telescope in the next three years.
Kepler had not yet discovered his laws of planetary motion.
Newton was not yet born.

On Easter Sunday, 1605, Captain George Weymouth sailed
from England, and after a six weeks' voyage found Cape Cod.
He coasted northward, passed the silent, forest-bound harbor

12 TO WN CHURCH HIS TOR Y.

where the city of Boston was to stand, rounded Cape Ann,
and sailed past the mouths of the Merrimac and Piseataqua.
He sailed up the Kennebec several miles. From the mouth of
the Penobscot where he had harbored, he seized five natives
and set sail for home.

After a. successful voyage, he cast anchor in the harbor of
Plymouth, Devonshire, where Sir Ferdinando Gorges was com-
mander of the garrison. He had visited the New England
coast in the summer, and was charmed with its beauties and its
commercial possibilities. His accounts were the theme of pub-
lic interest. Three of the captive Indians — Manida, Sketwan-
noes, and Tisquantum — were taken into the home of Sir Fer-
dinando, and their homesick descriptions of the beautiful land
they had left inflamed his imagination. As a direct result of
the enthusiasm following Weymouth's return with his captive
Indians, the Plymouth, or Korth Virginia, Company was or-
ganized and chartered the following year. Gorges was the
leading spirit of the enterprise. After conducting several
voyages he succeeded in 1620 in securing a new charter. The
Duke of Buckingham, the unpopular but all-powerful favorite
of James I, was interested in the scheme, and a charter was
obtained granting privileges of the wildest character. The
company was given the liberty to exercise powers which James
himself, with all his extreme notions of '^^divine right," dared
not exercise in England. They were given a monopoly of
trade within the extensive territory comprised in the grant.
This territory reached from the latitude of Philadelphia to
that of Newfoundland. The forty directors, or patentees, of
this company were called the Council for New England. The
chief motive that governed these men — Gorges, Mason, and
others of like character — was the vision of the commercial

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE ME R RIM AC. 13

fruits of colonization. Doubtless some thought of glory in
laying the foundations of a future empire was also in their
minds. But these ambitions are not the stuff that enduring
colonies are made of. There was another class in England of
the sterner, stronger sort. This class was m-ade up of the
gloomier members of the Puritan party. I say "gloomier^'
because that is what this hopeful age would call them if they
were with 'us yet. They were men of like mind with the Rev.
John White, Puritan rector of Trinity Church in Dorchester.
The great conflict between Episcopalian on the one side and
Presbyterian and Congregationalist on the other, was approach-
ing. To the mind of John White it was to be a new struggle
between Romanism and Protestantism. He felt by no means
sure of the outcome. He had before him the awful experience
of the Protestants of Rochelle and the Palatinate. I speak of
him and his friends, therefore, as the gloomier members of
the Puritan " party. It is well for us that they did take a
gloomy view of the immediate future. Otherwise we should
never have had the colony of Massachusetts Bay. It was
organized and sent out as a sort of "bulwark against the king-
dom of anti-Christ."

In 1622 Gorges and Mason had secured from the Council, of
which one was president and the other was secretary, a grant
of land between the Kennebec (then called Sagadahoc) and the
Merrimac rivers. This grant was to extend back between the
courses of these rivers to "the great lakes and river of Can-
ada."* This was six years before the hopes and prayers of
White and his friends came to fruitage in the grant of land
which was to become the permanent possession of the Gov-
ernor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England.

* Adams Anns. Portsmouth, p. 9,

14 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

This grant embraced the territory from three miles south of
the Charles river and every part thereof, to three miles north
of the Merrimac river and every part thereof. How such a
grant could have been given it is hard to understand. It made
a three-mile encroachment upon territory already granted to
Gorges and Mason. It was obtained from the Council for
New England. Gorges was president and Mason was secre-
tary of that Council. They must have consented to the en-
croachment. But what was three miles on one side or the
other of an unknown river in an unknown wilderness ? It per-
haps seemed like a small concession v/here an important bar-
gain was to be consummated. The contest would hardly come
in their day. It did not greatly affect their interests one way
or the other. It must be fought out by the generations whose
interests it did affect. This indifference, oversight, ignorance,
or whatever we may call it, was the cause of a conflict that
raged about the banks of the Merrimac and embittered the rela-
tions of New Hampshire and Massachusetts for a hundred
years. These grants were based on the theory that the soil
belonged to the English crown by the right of the Cabot dis-
covery. At this point an older principle asserted itself in a
certain instance and increased the confusion. It was the prin-
ciple of purchase from the original owners of the soil. In
the spring of 1629 the Rev. John Wheelwright, the founder
of Exeter, is alleged to have purchased from Passaconaway and
three other Sagamores, a tract of land extending from the
Piscataqua to the Merrimac and reaching to vague boundaries
in the unknown interior. In the autumn of the same year,
Mason and Gorges appear to have made an amicable division
of their joint claim. Gorges taking a tract from the Piscataqua
to the Kennebec in one direction, and Mason from the Pis-

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE MERRIMAC. 15

cataqua to the Merrimac in the other. Here, then, in territory
to be known as New Hampshire, were three conflicting claims:
(1) That of Mason, from the Merrimac to the Piscataqua,
obtained by grant from the Plymouth Company, and based on
the theory that the soil belonged to the crown by the right
of the Cabot discovery; (2) that of Massachusetts Bay, over-
lapping the Mason claim by three miles north of the Merrimac,
obtained from the same company and based on the same theory;
and, (3) the Wheelwright claim, based on a supposed purchase
from the Indian tribes. He who will understand the history
of New Hampshire or of the Merrimac valley must keep these
three claims perpetually in mind. It is in the justice of them,
as well as in the sweat of his face, that the New Hampshire
farmer still eats bread.

11.

THE INDIAN CHURCH AT AMOSKEAG FALLS.

The first Christian worship ever conducted within the pres-
ent limits of the city of Manchester was conducted in the lan-
guage of the native Algonquins — either by John Eliot himself
or one of the native preachers. That Eliot visited Amoskeag
and preached on the height overlooking the falls is based on
circumstantial evidence, but the evidence is so direct as to be
conclusive. In the first place, if his purpose was to reach the
Indian conscience with the gospel, there was the greatest possi-
ble reason for a visit to Amoskeag. During the fishing sea-
son it was the principal residence of the great chief Passa-
conaway and a rendezvous for all the tribes that acknowledged
him as their laslidba. We know also that Eliot planned his
missionary tours for the fishing season. As the Indians fol-
lowed the fish up the Merrimac in the springtime, from falls
to falls, so he followed the Indians, for he was a fisher of men.
We know that he was with the Indians during the fishing sea-
son at the falls of Pawtucket (Lowell). But the number of
Indians that gathered at Amoskeag was greater than at Paw-
tucket, since the fishing season here did not interfere, as it did
at Pawtucket, with the planting season. Namaoskeag,"^ the
Indian term, was in its very meaning par excellence, the "great

*This name has been spelled in eyeiy conceivable way : Namaoskeag,
Namaske, Naamkeke, Nimkig, et cetera, ad infinitum.

THE INDIAN CHURCH AT AMOSKEAG FALLS. 17

fishing place." Eliot himself speaks of it as "A great fishing
place Namaske upon the Merrimac which belongeth to Papas-
saconaway."

In one of his letters he leaves ns a picturesque description of
one of his missionary fields and of his first encounter with
Passaconaway:

"There is a great fishing place upon one of the falls of Merri-
mack Eiver called Pawtucket, where is a great confluence of
Indians every spring, and thither I have gone these two yeares
in that season, and intend so to doe next spring (if God will).
Such confluences are like Faires in England. . . . Whereas
there did used to be gaming and much evill at those great meet-
ings, now there is prayer to God and good conference, and ob-
servation of the Sabbath by such are well minded; and no
open prophanesse suffered as I hear of. . . . This last spring
I did there meet old Papassaconaway who is a great Sagamore.
. . . The last yeare he and all his sonnes fled when I came,
pretending feare that we would kill him.."

By the eloquence of Eliot, Passaconaway was converted and
lived and died a devoted Christian. It was, as Eliot himself
testified later on, "not only a present notion that soon van-
ished, but a good while after he spake to Capt. Willard, who
tradeth with them in those parts for Bever and Other Shins
&c that he would be glad if I would come and live in some
place thereabouts to teach there. . . . And if any good ground
or place that he had would be acceptable to me, he would
willingly let me have it."

Passaconaway's cordial invitation to the missionary was
effective, proof of which has been preserved in a letter of
Eliot's in which he mentions his purpose to visit Amoskeag
the following spring. It was to prepare for his visit that a

1 8 TO YVN CIIUR CH HIS TOR V.

path was cut through the woods to Amoskeag. Later on we
find the evidences of liis having been there. Daniel Gookin,
the Virginian who had been converted by the Rev. William
Thompson, from what John Fiske calls ^Vorldliness or perhaps
devilry rather than prelacy," and who had come to Massachu-
setts and spent a chief part of his life in work among the
Indians, tells us in his "Christian Indians" that Naamkeke was
one of the places where the Indians met "to worship God and
keep the Sabbath." We also learn from him that a teacher
and school had been established there. This first church in
this vicinity was an orthodox Congregational church of the old
Puritan type. Exactly where its meetings were held is not
definitely known, but it was probably on the bluff at the east
of the falls.

The Christian Indians have been more or less ridiculed by
historians. Their sincerity and intelligence have been dis-
credited. Their motives in accei^ting the white mian's God
have been explained on the ground of their childish supersti-
tiousness. Against the injustice of these charges, which have
their origin in the everlasting egotism of the Caucasian, there
is indisputable proof, not only in the sufferings for Christ's
sake which many of these groups of praying Indians underwent,
but in the keen spiritual discernment of the queries which
Eliot has taken down from their lips:

"If any talk of another man's faults and tell others of it
when he is not present to answer. Is not this a sinne?"

"If a man think a prayer, doth God know it and will he
bless him?"

"If a man be almost a good man and dyeth, whither goeth
hissoule?"

THE INDIAN CHURCH AT AMOSKEAG FALLS. 19

"Since we see not God with our eyes, if a man dream that he
seeth God, doth his sonle then see him?"

"Why doth God make good men sick?"

"Doe not Englishmen spoile their soules, to say a thing cost
more than it did? and is it not all one as to steale?"

"I see why I must feare Hell, and do so every day. But
why must I feare God?"

"If I reprove a man for sinne, and he answer ^Why doe you
speak thus angrily with me: Mr. Eliot teacheth us to love one
another,' is this well?"

These are not the questions of hypocritical or superstitious
men. Eliot's Indian preachers, like Simon Betogkom, whose
voice has mingled the warnings of the law and the promises
of the gospel with the roar of the falls at Amoskeag, were men
of God, whose Christian spirit was, in many instances, beauti-
ful in contrast with that of their palefaced brethren. With
the Indians, as with the English, not every one who named the
name of Christ' was possessed of the spirit of Christ. The
Indian church at Amoskeag left no records. Its misty exist-
ence was of uncertain duration. It shared the fate of the race.

III.

THE SCOTCH-IRISH AT AMOSKEAG.

The Scotch-Irish immigrants, some of whom had passed
through the awful siege of Londonderry, Ireland, in 1688-89,
and who crossed the Atlantic with the same impulse that had
brought the Pilgrims a century earlier, were among those who
were confused by the conflicting boundary claims between
Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They arrived in Boston
August 4, 1718, and secured a grant of what, for its profusion
of chestnut, walnut, and butternut trees, was known as Nut-
field, about fifteen miles northwest of Haverhill, Mass. Their
fi-rst grant was secured from the Massachusetts Bay Company.
Later on, doubting the right of Massachusetts to the territory
and considering the Wheelwright claim valid, they obtained a
deed of the section from the Wheelwright heirs. The Scotch-
Irish settlement was named Londonderry for their home in
Ireland. Their first minister, James MacGregor, preached his
first sermon in the new settlement underneath a large oak on
the east side of Beaver pond. His text was from Isaiah 32:2:
''And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a
covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The town
church was Presbyterian. It still exists as the First Congre-
gational Church at East Derry.

THE SCO TCH- IRISH A T AMOSKEA G. 21

Mr. MacGregor was the first man of the Londonderry colony
to visit the Amoskeag Falls, and was ever afterwards entitled,
by a regulation of the town, to the first fish caught there each
spring. As the minister of the town he would probably have
enjoyed this favor in those days regardless of his claim to be
the first man of the colony who had visited the famous fishing
place. The Scotch-Irish claimed the land clear up to the falls,
and some of their number settled on the neighboring territory
long before the confiicting claims were finally adjusted. These
squatters constituted the embryo of the future town of Derry-
field. The region was at that time known by the not very
flattering name of Old Harry's Town. Such a neighborhood
might be supposed to have been in need of a church if churches
are needed anywhere. But for more than a hundred years
organized Christianity in these parts was to be confronted by
persistent difficulties and hindered by frequent reverses.

IV.

THE TYNGSTOWN COLONY.

The first white church established in the present territory
of Manchester was the town chnrch of what is known as Tyngs-
town, or Tyng's Township. The experiences of these early
settlers were sufficiently tragic to entitle them to the enduring
sympathy of the people of this community. In the year 1703,
when there was hardly a white settler in the Merrimac valley
north of Dunstable, — the ancient name for Nashua, — Captain
William Tyng raised a company of volunteers "in the winter
season to go in quest of the Indian enemy." They made a
difficult march on snowshoes as far as Lake Winnepisaukee,
and brought back six Indian scalps. This was at the very
height of Indian sa,vagery, and was wholesome punishment for
outrages to which pioneer families had been ruthlessly sub-
jected by the Indians. For a long period more it was unsafe
for white men to push their settlements into the interior of
Hew Hampshire. But in 1725, John Lovewell, of the same
town of Dunstable, with forty-six companions, successfully
executed the most impressive piece of military vengeance to be
found in the annals of New England. The account of their
experiences, though authentic to the minutest detail, is grew-
some and awful. On the day of his departure Lovewell sent
the following brief note to the governor, and we hear no more

THE TYNGSTOWN COLONY. 33

of him or his company until we get the straggling reports of
the grim battle of Peqiiaket:

Dunstable, April ye 15, 1725.
Sir: This is to inform you that I march from Dunstable with
between forty or fifty men on the day abovementioned & I
should have marched sooner if the weather had not prevented me.
No more at present but I remain your humble seryt.

John Lovewell.

After several losses by sickness or other disablement, includ-
ing Toby the Indian, William Cummins of Dunstable and Ben-
jamin Kidder of ISTutfield, with ten others who were detailed
to take care of them, the remaining thirty-four pressed on to
Pequaket, the home of the tribe of Indians they were seeking,
in the present town of Fryeburg, Me., and there in the wilder-
ness, one hundred and twenty miles from home, cut off even
from their own packs, in the very lair of the Indians, by
whom they were greatly outnumbered, with their backs to
the lake, known henceforth as LovewelFs pond, they fought
the stubbornest bush-fight on record. At the first onset
they lost eleven men — nine by death, among whom was their
brave captain, two by disablement, one by cowardice and deser-
tion. The remaining twenty-two men, posted behind trees,
fought the battle of Pequaket, with diminishing numbers,
from ten o'clock in the morning of May 8 until the day closed
in darkness. Then they marched out of the bloody woods.
They left Jacob Farrah "expiring by the pond.'' Robbins and
Usher were not able to go with them, and waited in their
wounds for the awful approach of morning. "Charge my gun/'
said Robbins. "The Indians will come in the morning to scalp
me, and I'll kill one of them if I can." Of the thirty-three
heroes who opened the battle of Pequaket only nine came

24 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR V.

out without serious wound, and only seventeen returned to their
homes. "Elias Barron, one of that party, strayed from the
rest, and got over Ossipy river, by the side of which his gun
case was found, and he has ne'r been heard of since."

The effect of LovewelFs battle was that of a decisive victory
over the Indians. They deserted Pequaket, withdrew to Can-
ada, and left the interior of northern New England open to
the English settlements. This event was quickly followed by
a number of grants by Massachusetts in the Merrimac valley.
These grants were made chiefly to the survivors of the wars
against the Indians. The IsTarragansett townships, so called,
were granted by number to the survivors and the heirs of the
survivors of the war against the Narragansetts. Massachusetts
was anxiously willing to make these grants to her people, as,
under the principle that "possession is nine points of the law,"
she knew no better way to establish her claim to the whole
Merrimac valley. Therefore, at the close of "LovewelFs War,"
townships in this region of New Hampshire were given away
by Massachusetts with a lavish hand. New Hampshire, in
despair of reaching a settlement with Massachusetts over the
boundary dispute, had begun to do the same thing. In 1727
Major Ephraim Hildreth, Capt. John Shepley, and others,
soldiers under William Tyng in the famous "snowshoe expe-
dition" of 1703, petitioned for and obtained from the Massa-
chusetts legislature a grant of land "between Litchfield and
Suncook on ye Easterly Side Merrimack River," This was
supplemented by a smaller grant on the north side of the
Piscataquog. The tract on the east side of the Merrimac was
to be six miles square, "exclusive of Robert Rand's Grant and
the three Farms pitched upon" by Hon. Samuel Thaxter, John
Turner, and William Dudley, Esq. Thaxter, nine years later,

THE TYNGSTOWN COLONY. 25

sold his farm to Archibald Stark, the father of Gen. John
Stark. Two hundred acres of land "at the Most Convenient
place of Amoskeag Falls" was also reserved by the state.
Among the conditions of the grant, the grantees were to set-
tle their tract of land with sixty families within four years.
Each family was to have a house eighteen feet square and
"seven feet stud/' and four acres cleared and plowed and
stocked with English grass and fitted for mowing. It was
further required that they should lay out three lots, "one for
the first minister, one for the ministry, and one for the school,
and within the said Term Settle a Learned Orthodox Minister
and Build a Convenient House for the publick Worship of
God." The incorporators of the township lived in the vicinity
of Dunstable, Groton, and Chelmsford, where the preliminary
town meetings were held. The minutes of these meetings,
written in a handsome hand, were kept by Joseph Blanchard,
clerk. They are preserved in the office of the clerk of the
city of Manchester. At a meeting held at the home of Benja-
min Bancroft, in Groton, November 28, 1738, it was "voted
that there be assessed on ye prop'rs the sum of thirty pounds
(to be lay'd out in Preaching the Gosspel in the Said Township,
where that the proprietors that are now Settled there shall see
Cause to Agree upon) and Eph'm Hildreth Esq'r To take the
care and Procure Such preaching there." A little more than
a year later, at a town meeting held at the house of Isaac Far-
well, innholder, of Dunstable, the following action was taken:

Also Voted to Build a meetinghouse in Said Township of the
Following dimentions, viz.: forty two feet Long and thirty feet
wide, twenty feet between Joynts, and that the meeting-house
frame be Eaised at or before the Last day of August next, And
that the Eoof be boarded, Shingled, Weather boards put On the

26 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR V.

boarding, Bound, well Chamfered, the necessary Doors made
and Hung, A Double floor lay'd below with all Convenient Speed
After the sd Frame is up so that it be thus finished by the first
of december next. And that Eleazer Tyng and Benj'a Tompson
Esq'rs and Cap't Jonathan Bowers, or any Two of them be a
Com'tee fully Tmpowered in behalf of this Prop'ty to Lett out
S'd work, & in their S'd Capacity to Enter into Bonds or Articles
of Agreement for the fullfillment & Compleating the work as
afores'd. And the Said Com'tee Are directed to post up Noti-
fications of the time and place of their meeting to Let out the
S'd work, in the Several places that notifications Are posted for
Calling Prop'rs meeting ten days before the S'd Work be let Out
And the S'd Com'tee are further Directed in case of an Indian
Warr to prolong the time of Building S'd House.

The records of Tyn^stown contain an interesting account
of the expense of the raising of the meetinghouse. The first
two items are —

"To Joseph Blanchard for Eum & Provisions 2 15 3

To the Rev'd M'r Thomas Parker 2 0 0"

After all our respect for the piety of the fathers^ preaching
seems to have been a secondary matter when it came to ^^rum
and provisions.'' Eum was an important factor in that raising,
for it constituted both the first and the last items in the bill
of expenses. The last item is —

"Had of William McClinto for Eaiseing 6 g'lls of Ehum

at 18s per G'll @ 5 8 0"

Another item in this account is —
"To Archebald Stark for a Salmon 0 9 0"

Tyngstown never had a settled minister, though it was
supplied with more or less preaching. We find a vote taken
September 25, 1740, "that the treas'r be Directed to pay to

THE TYNGSTOIVN- COLONY. 37

M'r Benj'a Bowers, for his Preaching in Tyng's Town, Thirty-
two Pounds of the first money that Comes into the treasury."
At the same meeting the treasurer was ordered to pay "Mr
Dunlap" thirteen pounds and fifteen shillings for preaching.
When this vote was taken, the day of their discomfiture was
at hand, for the British Government had decided the boundary
dispute against Massachusetts in the March of this very year.
That boundary was defined as "beginning at the Atlantic
ocean and ending at a point due north of Pawtucket Falls and
a straight line drawn from thence due west till it meets with
His Majesty's other dominions." The haughty Tyngstown
settlers, w^ho had hitherto tolerated the Scotch-Irish as tres-
passers on their claim, now found themselves shut off in the
enemy's country. Their township was without legal founda-
tion, and they were driven from their claim. Individual fam-
ilies remained, but only by the sufferance of the triumphant
Scotch-Irish. The sufferers petitioned Massachusetts for relief,
and April 17, 1751, they were granted the township of Wilton,
Me. Four and one half months later, their rivals in this terri-
tory incorporated the permanent township of Derryfield. The
settlers of Tyngstown had been compelled to surrender a grant
that had cost them about forty thousand dollars. They had
wasted the best years of their lives, had cleared fields w^here
others would reap, and built homes in which others would
dwell. They ha,d placed their meetinghouse near the Scotch-
Irish neighborhood with the praiseworthy hope of securing
their support of its services. The overture was not successful.
The two races were, as yet, too distinct to mix well. At last
the meetinghouse was burned by a forest fire. Its location
is still pointed out. It stood not far from the Chester corner,
on the old AVeston farm. The graveyard is still dimly discern-

28 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR Y.

ible. So ended the first attempt by the white man to estab-
lish an orthodox church in this region. The attempt was given
up in 1740. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians were not yet
ready to merge their ecclesiastical identity with that of the
New England Congregationalists. It was to take them just
one hundred years to reach that pointy when the Presbyterians
of Manchester Center and the Congregationalists of Amoskeag
were to join destinies in settling a common pastor in their
united church on Hanover street. The cleavage between the
Tyngstown settlers and the Scotch-Irish immigrants^, who had
settled the territory under the protection of New Hampshire,
was based on dilferences in nationality, ill-defined boundaries
between the states, and loose methods of surveying. The
Tyngstown people carried a chip on their shoulder when they
came on the ground. They assured Massachusetts that they
would settle their town with "English" families, and that the
"people claiming a right under New Hampshire," referring to
the Scotch-Irish, "will be hindered from encroaching thereon."
A glance into the anxieties that occupied the minds of the early
settlers of this section of New England is furnished by the
closing passage of a letter written on one of the fly-leaves of
the old book in which the records of Tyng Township were kept.
It bears the signature of William Parker and Matthew Liver-
more:

"But Inter Arma Silent Leges— What does it avail to Perplex
ourselves about Profits of Land or Eights of that kind when we
see or hear the French are Like to Come and Take all" —

PART 11.

TIE TOWN CHURCH BEFOEE THE DISES-
TABLISHMENT.

V.
THE FIRST ERA.

In 1751 some of the inhabitants of Londonderry, Chester,
and what was then called Harrytown, though no such legal
township ever existed, petitioned Gov. Benning Wentworth to
be incorporated into the township of Derry field. Lieut. John
Hall, who kept an inn in what we know as Manchester Center,
was the moving spirit in this affair, as he seems to have been
the most influential personality in the town politics for nearly
the first fifty years of its existence. The petition was granted,
the town was incorporated September 3, 1751, and the first
town meeting was held at John HalFs inn three weeks later.
John Hall was elected the first town clerk, and John Goffe,
William Perham, Nathaniel Boyd, Daniel McNiel, and Eliezar
Wells, selectmen. The second meeting was held at the same
place twelve weeks later, and "voted twonty fore Pounds old
tenor to be Eesed to paye fore priching for thies present yiear."
This may be considered the birth date of the town church of
Derryfield. There had probably been preaching in the neigh-
borhood at different times in private houses, but there had
been no organized provision for it. One chief motive in the
incorporation of the town was the religious motive — the need
of regular worship. "To pay for the Charges of the Charter
and to pay for Preaching and to pay all other Charges that

33 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

may arise this year^' — this is the order in which the first war-
rant assessing the inhabitants of Derryfield is issued. The
religious wants of the community are to be provided for as
the first business after settling up the expenses of the incorpo-
ration. However negligent of religion the inhabitants of
Derryfield seemed to become in later years, they started right.
Their intentions were good in the beginning. This warrant,
however, was severe in execution, and sowed the seed of future
disturbance. It was declared in the warrant that "if any per-
son or persons shall neglect or refuse to make payment of the
sum or sums whereat he or they are respectively assessed or set
down in Sd Lists, to Distrain the Goods or Chatties of the Sd
Delinquent or Delinquents to the Valine thereof and the dis-
tress or distresses so taken you are to keep by the spase of four
Days at the cost and Charges of the owner, and if the owner
do not pay the sum or sums so assessed upon him or them
within the Sd four days the distress or distresses so taken you
are to expose and openly sell at an outcry for payment of the
tax and charges, notice of such sale being posted in some pub-
lick place in said town twenty four hours beforehand, and the
overplush, if any there arising By Sd sale besides the Sd assess-
ment and Charges of taking and keeping the Distress or Dis-
tresses to be Immediately restored to the owner, and for want
of goods and Chatties whereon to make distress you are to
seize the Body or Boyds of him or them so refusing and him
or them Commit unto the Common Coal of Sd Province there
to remain untill he or they pay and satisfie the several sum or
sums whereat he or they are assessed respectively."

This warrant was dated at Derryfield January 14, 1752, in
the twenty-fifth year of the reign of George II. It was signed
by John Goffe, William Perham, and Daniel McMel, and

THE FIRST ERA. 33

recorded by John Hall, "town Clark/' It was unfortunate for
the church that it appeared to be the chief beneficiary of these
drastic proceedings. These methods of collecting taxes have
long since been repudiated. Human nature would not endure
them in the collection of ecclesiastical debts. Human
nature is singular in this respect. It is long-suffering and
patient under tax sales and foreclosures, when the civil power is
the exacting force, or is to be the beneficiary of its own severity.
But let the church be the beneficiary, even in an indirect
degree, and how men will rage! Our Derryfield fathers peace-
ably paid their taxes to meet the tavern and drink bills of its
representatives here and there, but let those taxes go for Pres-
byterian preaching in the town church, and the dissenters and
atheists made the air blue with their righteous wrath. Be-
hold, how strange a thing is the human conscience! And
3^et, in so far as human nature has revolted against
enforced taxation for the support of the church, it has
been fighting a battle for the church itself, and for its place in
the affectionate devotion of men. It is not becoming that the
church, whose sway over men should be the mild and stern
sway of love and conscience, should receive the fruits of civil
oppression — of seizures, sheriff's sales, and imprisonments.
And it is to the enduring honor of the church that she has
rejected such methods of support. The state, on the other
hand, has not rejected these methods — with the one exception
of imprisonment for debt. The state taxes the people yet with
a stern hand, and exacts the last farthing of the tax. If it is
delayed beyond a certain point, interest or fines are added.
Property on which the civil taxes are not duly paid is, in the
stern course of time, seized and sold in the interests of the
civil power. In the incorporation of Derryfield, it was in-

M TO IVN CHURCH HI ST OR V.

tended that the chief object and the largest recipient of tax-
ation should be the church. Next to the church came the
secular administration. In other words, the largest part of a
citizen's taxes went to the support of the church — a smaller
part to the support of the town in its civil concerns. Accord-
ing to that principle, public taxes ought now to be a half less
than they were before the church threw itself upon the vol-
untary support of the people.

The incorporators of Derryfield have been accused of indif-
ference to religion. No impression can be more incorrect.
Though somewhat testy and quarrelsome, they were God-fear-
ing men in their way. If any conclusive proof of the fact were
needed it may be found in an interesting petition from the
town of Derryfield, signed by John Hall and John Goffe,
selectmen, addressed, October 3, 1784, to the New Hampshire
senate and house of representatives. It made complaint —

"That a breach of the sabbath is become so frequent that
few hours of the day passes but repeated instances of it is to be
seen upon any of our public roads. Not only travelling upon
foot and Horse, but driving loaded teams as if they pursued
their secular busnes upon that day with more alacrity than
any other."

But no such proof is needed outside of the Derryfield town
records, for at a special town meeting, held six weeks after issu-
ing the above-mentioned tax warrant, one hundred pounds, old
tenor, was voted "for priching," and John Eidiel and Nathaniel
Boyd were appointed a committee to provide for it. This meet-
ing was held March 2, 1752. The next meeting was held July
20, following. An article had been put in the warrant "to see
where the town will keep publick worship for the season.''
In those daj^s, when roads were bad and the inhabitants widely

THE FIRST ERA. 35

scattered, the summer was the most favorable season for church
going. The town was poor, or felt poor, and at this meeting
it did not venture on the expense of church building, but —

"Vouted that the Placieses of Publick Worishep be held at
Banjmien Stivenes and William McClintos the first sabouth
at Banjmien Stivenes & the nixt at William McClintos and
sow sabouth about till the nixt town meetien/'

The force and originality of John HalFs character are
strikingly illustrated in his spelling. His free-hand spelling
is especially interesting in the touches of Irish brogue which it
has preserved, as in "nixt,'' "Stivenes," and "firest." You can
catch the Scotch-Irish burr of the r sound in "firest" and
"Worishep.'' The Puritans and their descendants, on the
other hand, make no use of the r sound in such situations.

Thus Benjamin Stevens's and William McClintock's barns
were the first places of public worship authorized by the town.
They were so located as to be well within reach of all the
inhabitants of the town. The services were held in these places
throughout the summer and fall of 1752. The one hundred
pounds voted at the previous March meeting had not yet been
expended, and in February, 1753, at a special meeting held at
Benjamin Stevens's barn, it was voted to continue the arrange-
ment till the money was spent. It was also voted "that the
minister be kept at William McClintos." The minister was
Alexander McDowell, Avho had preached with such satisfaction
both in Derryfield and Bedford that each town was ready to
give him a call. The Derryfield call came first. John Riedell,
Alexander McMurphy, and John Hall were a committee "to
prosecute the giving of Mr. McDowell a call to the work of
the ministry to join with the town of Bedford or separate and
distinct by ourselves." Three weeks later, Bedford voted him

36 TO WN CHURCH HIST OR V.

a imanimoiis call. There is a tradition that he did not accept
the call to Derryfield. The annual report of the New Hamp-
shire Missionary Society for 1838 — seventy-five years after this
first call was given — contains this interesting, but not alto-
gether accurate, account of the transaction:

"Manchester is an old town, on the east side of Merrimack river,

16 or 18 miles below Concord. It contains, probably, about 800
inhabitants, and has been incorporated 77 years. Within about

17 years after the incorporation of the town [within three years
rather] the inhabitants, in the spirit of our puritan fathers, de-
termined to enjoy the privileges of the Gospel, invited a Min-
ister to preach to them as a candidate, and after suitable trial of
him, presented him a call to become their Pastor. To this call,
for reasons unknown to us, he gave a negative answer; and it is
said that no Minister of Jesus has since been invited to settle in
that place. Here is a desolation of sixty long years which stands
forth a solemn warning to the servants of Christ, to take heed how
they give a negative answer to the calls which they receive."

Though the religious desolation of Derryfield was great
enough, it had been by no means so great as in 1828 it appeared
to have been. Derryfield had probably listened to a greater
number of ministers than any other town in the state during
that time. That Alexander McDowell did not accept the call
is a tradition which must be correct. We have no present
means of verifying it. The facts took place just a hundred
and fifty years ago. The tradition is based upon such state-
ments as the one above quoted, which was written within the
reach of human memory from the event. But Mr. McDowell
held the call under consideration for nearly two months, and the
town felt sure enough of his acceptance to vote him a yearly sal-
ary of two hundred pounds, old tenor, provided he accepted the
joint call from the two towns. If the Bedford end of his dual

THE FIRST ERA. 37

parish would do as well as Derryfield^his salary would be a cred-
itable one for that day. Potter tells us that "the name of no
other minister employed in this town is found in our records
to this time." Potter has placed the people of this vicinity,
and of New Ham])shire in general, under a heavy debt of grati-
tude for his history of Manchester. His historical learning
was vast, and his memory prodigious. But he was not enough
of a plodder to be accurate. He was either too busy with his
other numerous duties, or too impatient to pursue a steady,
sleuth-hound chase for facts in musty records. This only can
account for the amazing statement that the name of no other
minister is mentioned in Derryfield records. The records fairly
bristle with the names of ministers employed by tlie town down
as late as 1814. We surmise that Mr. McDowell's reason for
declining the Derryfield call, not to mention the unattractive
prospect of preaching Sunday about in Stevens's and McClin-
tock's barns, may have been found in the factional spirit that
disturbed the peace of the town. Perhaps he lacked the cour-
age to undertake the task of bringing harmony out of chaos.
His declining the call was a grievous disappointment, if we
may jud^c by the traditional impressions. It was a calamity
from .which old Derryfield never recovered. He little realized
how much depended on the answer he hesitated so long to
give. But the town by no means surrendered to its disap-
pointment.

September 5, 1754, the location of the prospective meeting-
house was fixed "by the side of the Highway that leads from
Londonderry to Amoscheeg Falls, some place betwixt William
McClintock's and James Murphy's.'' This vote was apparently
the result of a hot contest, and was certainly the cause of one
which was to disturb the peace of the town for a half-century

38 TO WN CHURCH HI ST OR V.

or more. The location was the issue that split the town poli-
tics into the two universal parties — the powers that be, and the
opposition. The opposition in this case was heterogeneous, as
oppositions usually are. A chief element in it was the Massa-
chusetts or English part_y, made up of the remnant of the
Tyngstown settlement and a few others. It rallied around
the person of Col. John Goffe, who was the most important
and prominent personage in the town, though not as influ-
ential in town politics as John Hall. Goffe was a marked
figure in the political history of Derryfield, and by force of
character held important offices, even while the Hall faction
was dominant. Though he disliked the location chosen for
the meetinghouse he loyally supported the church and took
a leading part in its management. Five months after the
vote fixing the location of the meetinghouse, a petition signed
by thirty voters was given the selectmen for the calling of a
special meeting "to reconsider the vote of locating the meeting
house and raiseing money for building.-^ The selectmen re-
fused. The petitioners appealed to the court of the province,
and the constable, Benjamin Hadley, was enjoined to call such
a meeting. It was held March 1, 1755, and the vote relative
to the location and building of a meetinghouse was rescinded.
This was stormy navigation for the little church, but it held
up. Preaching continued, especially during the summer season.
At a special meeting held at John Hall's barn it was voted
"to pay Conol John Goffe sixtey poundes old tenor to pay the
Revernt Binjimen Buteler for priching.'^ Sixty pounds repre-
sented considerable preaching in those days, and though Ben-
jamin Butler was never settled as the permanent minister of
the parish, he evidently spent some time and labor in the
Derryfield vineyard. No traditions of his ministry have come

THE FIRST ERA. 39

down to US. What manner of man he was we do not know,
unless we may be permitted to judge him by his famous name-
sake. The same meeting that ordered Colonel Goffe to pay
Benjamin Butler sixty pounds for preaching voted seven
pounds, two years overdue, to Rev. Samuel McClintock, for
like service.

THE SECOND EEA.

The arrested meetinghouse project was set in motion again
by the following touching petition, dated August 27, 1T58:

"To the selectmen of the town of Derryfield, Gentlemen, Free-
holders and Inhabitants of said town, We the undersiibscribers,
looking upon ourselves as under a great disadvantage for want
of a place of Public Worship, as we have rising fameleys which
cannot atend at other places, and as it would be encouragement
for Ministers to Com and preach unto us if we were forward in
getting a place for the public worshipe of God ourselves."

This petition is signed by Capt. Alexander McMurphy, John
Hall, Eobert Anderson, James Eiddell, Samuel Boyd, John
Dickey, Benjamin Stevens, John Eiddell, James Humphrey,
Hugh Stirling, Michael McClintock, Eobert Dickey, John Mer-
rill, James Pitirs (?), Vfilliam Petiers (?), William Nutt, Jame&
Peirse, John Harvey, William Perham, Jr., Thomas Hall.

This petition deserved to be effective, and it was, for on
the 21st of the following month a special meeting was held
which undertook the building of a meetinghouse in earnest.
Here is the record:

''Voted to build the meetien Houes on John Hall's land joyening
the road leading to Thomas Hall's ferry and the Ammacheag
Falls.

THE SECOAD ERA. 41

"Voted to raise six hundred pounds to carry on the building
the said meetien Hones.

-Voted to raiese Said meetien Hones forty feet in lenth thirtey
five feet in Brenth.

"Voted, Capt. William Perham and Levt. Hugh Stirlen and John
Hall ye Commitey to carey on the builden of above said Meetien
Hones."

These measures, though essential to the well-being of the
town, were opposed by a considerable number of malcontents.
The Tyngstown remnant had not forgotten the unfriendly
aloofness of the Scotch-Irish in the days when they were en-
gaged in the trying task of building up a town and securing
support for their parish church. They returned evil for
evil. Some refused to pay their church taxes. Some
of them suffered for their refusal. Some did not refuse,
but delayed, and the building went on by jerks and starts.
By July 15, 1759, it had been framed and raised, for on that
date it was voted to collect five hundred pounds "toward
Borden and Shingelen of our Meetien Houes," this sum to be
taken out of the six hundred pounds that had been voted the
previous year. Capt. William Perham, Lieut. Hugh Stirling,
and John Hall were the building committee. It was voted
that John Hall apply for financial help for the building of the
meetinghouse to non-resident "gentlemen" having uncultivated
or unimproved lands in the town. It was also voted that
"whoever pays any money to the above said meetien Houes
shall have their names and the sums of money they pay re-
corded in Derryfield town Book of Records."

The factional fight continued. The building committee's
honesty was questioned and a committee consisting of Michael
McClintock, John Harvey, and David Starrett was appointed

43 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

to examine the accounts. No crookedness was discovered,
and the arrested enterprise was resumed. It was voted at this
meeting, November 15, 1759, "not to underpin our meeting-
house at present, but to make one door this year.'^ The town
was either beginning to feel the drain of the undertaking, or
the opposition had grown in strength as the building pro-
gressed, for at a meeting held December 3, 1759, it was voted
"not to collect any more money from the town this year towards
the meeting house." The town was bonded to pay off the debts
that had been incurred up to date. The building committee
were given full power to borrow the necessary money at such
interest as they could obtain it for, securing the loan by the
credit of the town. In the following August, 1760, the select-
men were instructed to underpin the meetinghouse and to put
in two doors. Finally, December 15, 1760, the house was con-
sidered near enough complete to order that the names of the
donors be recorded. This was the closing year of the French
and Indian War, and the mighty men of Derryfield had
returned from the blood-curdling experiences of that brutal
conflict to the peace of their home firesides. This list of donors
to the building of the town church of Derryfield begins with
the names of twelve officers in the Indian wars. Here are the
names of "Col. John Goffe,'^ heading the list, and "Capt. John
Stark," fourth in the list, fresh from the frontiers. The largest
amounts are from Abraham Miral (Merrill), £72 — 18 — 4,
and John Goffe, £71—18—10. John Stark is credited
to £40 — 0 — 3. These amounts represent the church taxes of
the years 1758, 1759, and 1760. Here is the name of Ezekiel
Stevens, the most interesting name in the list when we pause
to realize what he had just gone through. He had been one
of the victims of the massacre that followed Montcalm's cap-

THE SECOND ERA. 43

ture of Fort William Henry in the snmmer of 1757. When
the British marched out of the surrendered fortress, the pro-
vincial, or American, troojDS were in the rear. They had
defended the fort till their ammunition had failed, and were
defenseless save for the assurances of Montcalm. How empty
those assurances proved to be is attested by one of the blackest
horrors in American history. How the waiting saA^ages, at a
preconcerted signal, burst like a cyclone of death on the un-
protected rear of the retreating garrison has been graphically
told in the fiction of Cooper and the history of Parkman.
Some few of the attacked provincials escaped to the woods.
One of them was overtaken by the savages and stripped of his
clothing, but not without a severe struggle. A blow from a
tomahawk leveled him to the earth. His scalp was taken, and
with one more finishing blow from the tomahawk his body was
left as food for the beasts and birds. But he came of a stock
that dies hard, and after a time he awoke to consciousness. He
had streng-th enough left to crawl to a log, where he seated
himself. While he was engaged in the task of recalling his
mind from its bloody bewilderment, he was suddenly set
upon by another Indian, who claimed him as a prisoner.
He resisted the claim and clung to the log. While this
was going on he was fortunately taken in charge by a pass-
ing company of French soldiers. He was well cared for at
the fort, and in a few months was permitted to return to his
home. His home was Derryfielcl, and his name was Ezekiel
Stevens. "His scalp," says Potter, "was removed almost from
the entire head, save a line around it about the limit betwixt
the hair and the smooth skin of the face and neck. To protect
his head thus exposed, he always wore a close knit cap upon it.
This memento of the '^Massacre of Fort William Henry' is well

44 TO WN CHUR CH IIISTOR Y.

remembered by many of the original citizens of Manchester at
the present day, who have often heard from his own lips an
account of his thrilling adventure.'^ The savage that left him
for dead probably never realized how little reason he had to
boast of the scalp that Inmg from his belt. In the list of
tax-donors to the town church, Ezekiel Stevens in his scull-cap
is credited to £12—8—4. This list was recorded by John Hall,
"Town Clark/' March 2, 1761.

Still the meetinghouse was unfinished and the strife which
it had caused had now divided the town into two bitter fac-
tions. One was headed by John Hall, the first political boss
of Derryfield. The opposition was led by John Gofle. The
long course of this strife is tedious and unedifying. Who-
ever desires to retrace its steps is commended to the town
records of Derryfield, or to Potter's "History of Manchester."
It was a most unfortunate conflict for the early welfare of
Derryfield. It ultimately drove many of the best citizens
from the town, Colonel Goffe among them, and gave it a
repellant reputation. The fault, as usual, was almost equally
shared by the two factions. It may be said to have begun
with the inhospitable purposes of the "English" to crowd
out the Scotch-Irish from the Merrimac valley. It was ]Dro-
longed by the testy, unyielding temper of the Scotch-Irish
themselves, after they came into control of the destinies of
the territory. The conflict reached its height in 1766, when
the town elected two sets of officers, and the state was
compelled to intervene to restore order. And the order that
was restored was an order of litigation. John Hall was called
to account for the funds he had collected from non-resident
taxpayers for the meetinghouse. He showed a clear record,
only to be accused in turn for having embezzled a part of the

THE SECOND ERA. 45

four hundred pounds which had been borrowed to pay off the
meetinghouse debts. He replied by bringing in a bill for extra
expenditure. The bill was rejected. He sued the town. John
Goife and William McClintock were chosen as agents to defend
the town. The suit was begun at Portsmouth, but the town
offered settlement out of court, and came out a heavy loser in
the game of litigation. The prosecuting agents brought in an
account of their expenses. Among the items in William Mc-
Clintock's expense account against the town is the following:

^'1771 Feb 4th

At Chaster, to a mess of otes and

a jU of Ruin a Coming- hom 6. [Shillings]"

He also charges the town for a ^^Bowl of Todey" which he
had at Greenland, and sundry other drinks at Exeter, Kings-
town, and elsewhere. The John Hall party usually came out
on top in the end, though the opposition scored several tem-
porary victories. For instance, April 2, 1764, they carried a
vote not to raise any money for preaching that year. Six
auonths later they were strong enough to carry the vote a step
further, and appropriated the money that had been raised for
preaching to the paying of the town debts:

''Voted that the monej' that wase Raised in the j^ear 1763 for
I'riechien & not Expended for the use Intended should g-ow to
pay the towns Detes for money Borowed and was formerly voted
to Repeair the meeting" House."

William McClintock, John Stark, and John Moor were town
selectmen at that time, and John Hall was town clerk. It is
not certain that this vote was carried by one faction over the
heads of another faction. It is possible that it was dictated by
the town's financial extremities. During the most of this

46 10 WN CHURCH HISTOR V.

period of warfare the town was supplied witli preaching at
irregular intervals. iVs the result of the town meeting held
March -l, 1T65, more preaching was provided for in the town
that year than ever before. But the evil temper of the inhab-
itants had been so profoundly stirred that it would take more
than one year's preaching to allay it. It was at the following
March meeting that each faction elected its own set of town
officers. The Hall party was dominant in the town, for even
after a new election had been ordered by the state, and every
element of the opposition would be expected to show itself, the
Hall party was triumphant, and John Hall was elected to two
of the most important offices in the town^clerk and selectman.
N'ine months later, however, the dissenters rallied and voted
not to raise any money for preaching tlie coming year.

In 1773 the disturbed state of feelings was found to be
quieted enough to justify the town in another attempt to settle
a minister. Eev. George Gilmore had preached occasionally
in the meetinghouse, and on the 20th of August four articles
were inserted in the warrant for a town meeting: to see if the
town would vote him a call; to see what yearly salary they
should vote him in case he accepted; to see how much settle-
ment money they should vote him; and to see if they should
send a committee to negotiate with him about the matter. The
meeting which was held September 6 was not yet prepared to
extend a call, but Mr. Gilmore was sent for to come and preach
two Sundays on further trial. He was evidently found accept-
able, but the movements of the town were unaccountably slow,
for it was not till December 30 that the call was voted. He
was offered the insignificant yearly cash salary of thirty pounds,
besides thirty pounds in cash and sixty pounds in labor, as set-
tlement money. David Starrett, Samuel Boyd, John Perham,

THE SECOND ERA. 47

and Lieut. James McCalley were appointed a committee to
communicate with him. At an adjourned meeting held two
months later they had received no answer from Mr. Gilmore.
The reason for his silence is unknown. It would probably be
doing him an injustice to say that he did not think it worth
while to waste the expensive postage of those days on such a
penurious, procrastinating town. He may have been ill, or the
letter miscarried. At any rate, this second attempt to settle
a minister in Derryfield ended in failure. This brings the
story of the old town church down to February 21, 1774. The
long and bloody struggle for independence had already begun
with the "Boston Tea Party'^ a little over two months before,
December 16. From this time until the close of the Eevolu-
tion the patriotic town of Derryfield had little time or money
for anything but war.

VIL
THE THIRD ERA,

The meetinghouse had been left in its incomplete condition,
growing old and needing repair. May 22, 1780, an effort was
made to raise money for its repair by selling the "pew ground." •
At the close of the war, June 2, 1783, the town voted to raise
one hundred dollars, one half in money and the other half in
labor, for the repair of the meetinghouse. Major John Web-
ster, Lieut. Daniel Hall, and Samuel Stark were the committee
that directed the repairs. The amount voted was found to be
insufficient, and on the following September the allowance was
increased by fifty dollars. In 1790 a successful effort was made
to raise money for the completion of the meetinghouse by sell-
ing the pew ground. The sale was conducted at public auction
June 22, by Major John Webster, John Green, and John Hall.
The ground on which each pew was to be built was struck off to
the highest bidder. The purchasers were to pay two thirds of
the purchase price in glass, nails, marketable clapboards or
putty, and one third in money. The name of each purchaser,
with the number of his pew and the amount paid for it, was
to be recorded in the Derryfield town book. Here are the
names as recorded by John Goffe, town clerk: Major John Web-
ster, Daniel Davis, Daniel Hall, Capt. John Perham, James
Gorman, John Green, John Hall, Lieut. David Merrell, John

THE THIRD ERA.

P-O

PULPIT.

1 P-

P. 3

wtsr

DOOR

EAST

2 5

p. 1

^.J. I

.^-^'

TH E

-^TRANIC

Plan Of pewSf»<PRE5BYr£RMN Church, East MA^iCKESTER ,^ )7S2

/^NAI^C HESTER CENTER^)

50 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

Stark, Jr., Jonathan Greeley, Asa Haseltine, David Webster,
Joseph Haseltine, William Nutt, Dr. John Duston, Abraham
Amjny, Israel Young, John Dickey, Capt. Samuel Moor,
Joseph Farmer, Peter Emerson, Archibald Gamble, Joshua
Perse, Samuel Moor, Thomas Griffin, John Goffe.

It would appear from this list that the Eevolutionary strug-
gle had brought the ecclesiastical factions of Derryfield into
harmonious agreement for once. The purchasers of the pew
ground built their pews immediately. So successful had been
this transaction that the town decided to go on and sell the
pew ground for the galleries. March 5, 1792, the selectmen
were instructed to expend forty dollars in building the galleries.
Eight months later the sale was effected under John Stark,
Daniel Davis, and Samuel Moor, selectmen. The highest
bidder was to be the purchaser. N'o bid was to be accepted less
than sixpence. The purchasers were William Perham, David
Stevens, John Stark, Able Huse, James Majorey, Samuel
Smith, Capt. John Perham, Capt. Samuel Moor, Green Simons,
William Stevens, Daniel Davis, John Hall, Jr. But for some
reason the gallery pews were never built.

This sudden revival of interest in the church is not explained
by the town records. We would be at a loss to account for it
if it were not for the old traditions that earlier local historians
have been thoughtful enough to preserve. By the assistance
of these traditions, verified by the cold facts of the town rec-
ords, we learn that a preacher of striking eloquence and per-
sonal power had been preaching in Derryfield. His name was
William Pickles. Relying on Potter as our authority, we learn
that he "was a native of Wales, where he married Margaret
Tregallis. After emigrating to this country he preached for a
time in Philadelphia. He came into the neighboring town of

THE THIRD ERA. 51

Bedford somewhere about 1787. He preached in Bedford some
years, a portion of the time. At first he was very popular as a
preacher, and it was proposed to settle him, but for some rea-
sons not easily accounted for, an opposition sprang up against
him in Bedford, and became so violent as to forbid the idea of
a settlement. His enemies charged him with dissolute habits
in Philadelphia, but the charge was stoutly denied by his
friends. At length the strife waxed so warm and became so
pointed that Lieut. John Orr offered to lay a wager of fifty
dollars that the charge was true. The wager was taken by Mr.
Pickels's friends, and Mr. William Riddle was agreed upon as
the agent of the parties to proceed to Philadelphia and in-
vestigate the charge. His report was to be final. Mr. Riddle
went to Philadelphia on horseback, investigated the matter,
found tlie charge untrue in eA^ery particular, returned, and
reported the result. There was great exultation on the part
of the winners, and they met at the store of Isaac Riddle,
Esquire, to rejoice over the victory. Mr. Riddle was desig-
nated as their agent to go to Mr. Orr's and get the wager. He
accordingly waited upon Mr. Orr and made known the result
of the investigation. AYithouFmaking a remark, Lieutenant
Orr went to his desk and paid over the money. Mr. Riddle
took the money back to the winners, and it was spent at the
counter in liquor for the multitude! But the result did not
stay the opposition against Mr. Pickels, and he was forced to
abandon the idea of a settlement. He however continued to
preach in Bedford a portion of the time for some sixteen years.
His friends would pay their money for no other man, as long
as he was in the neighborhood; and as they constituted near one
half of the people in Bedford, and among them some of the
most influential, Mr. Pickels continued to 'supply the pulpit'

52 TO WN CHUR CH II IS TO R V.

about one half of the time. The remaining part of the time
he preached in the vicinity, mostly in Derryfield."'

Mr. Pickles preached in Derryfield at least as early as 1791.
There is a town record of April 2, 1792, that Joseph Farmer
is paid ten shillings "for Keeping Wilham Pickles the Last
year." It was this William Pickles who relinked the i^eople of
Derryfield for their neglect in not repairing and completing
the meetinghouse. 'Tf yon don't repair the honse of God/'
said he, ''the devil will come in and carry yon out at the
cracks." It was perhaps to escape such an uncanny experi-
ence that the town had carried on such a successful sale of
pew ground for the re])air of the meetinghouse. Mr. Pickles
had no permanent engagement at Derryfield. He was sent for
when wanted. An interesting vote is recorded in the town
hook in 1791, to 'Giv an order to John Ray for Fifteen Shil-
lings on Capt. Perham Collector, it being voted to General
Stark for going to Amherst & to Bedford to hire Mr. Pickles to
preach in the year 1793." Other preachers were also employed
more or less, but Mr. Pickles seems to have been the general
favorite. June 16, 1797, Enoch Whipple receives twelve dol-
lars and fifty cents, the balance due him "for supplying the
Desk in Derryfield in 1796." March 24, 1798, widow Eliza-
beth Hall is voted -fifty cents "for entertaining the minister
for years past." The following May "Archibald Gamel" re-
ceived ten dollars for money he expended in hiring preaching
in the previous year. In August twenty-four dollars is voted
to "Revt Mister Ordway for his preaching six days at four dol-
lars pr day." In December "Mister Andrews" receives four
dollars for one day's preaching service. Then we come to
Mr. Pickles again, who appears to have been paid at the rate of
six dollars a Sunday. By vote of July 19, 1799, he received

THE THIRD ERA. 53

forty-two dollars for supplying the pulpit during that year.
The"^ town, during this period, took reasonably good care
of the meetinghouse. October 8, 1798, James Young was
voted twenty-eight dollars for repairing the meetinghouse.
The following March he was voted a like sum for the like ser-
vice. November 5, 1803, Mr. Pickles receives an order on the
town treasury for sixty-six dollars for preaching. Six weeks
later a Mr. McGregor receives an order for eighteen dollars
"for preaching three days." July 20, 1804, Lieut. Daniel Hall
receives an order for fifteen dollars "for Boarding Mr. Pickels
in the year 1803.'^

We now enter upon the period of dissolution of the bonds
between the church and the town. Hitherto the town has
been divided into two parties. Henceforth the town is to
free itself gradually of any corporate connection with the
church. The first step in this direction is to abate the
church taxes of those who for one reason or another prefer
not to pay them. March 12, 1805, the town votes to abate-
Peter Emerson's and Stephen Moor's "minister tax." The
town, however, as a whole, continues to support the church
for several years to come. March 1, 1806, David AYebster is
voted an order for forty-two dollars "for paying Mr. Pickets,""
Mr. Pickles not only acted as parish minister, but for a time
also conducted the town school. March 29, 1806, David Web-
ster received an order for three dollars and seventy-five cents
for boarding ]\Ir. Pickles while teaching school. Among the
other ministers whose names are found in the town records
down to the year 1811 are Joseph Goffe, Mr. Harris (probably
the Walter Harris who held a long and notable pastorate in
Dunbarton, and whose name we shall meet again), "Mr. Lord
the minister," Mr. Chapin, Mr. Colby, Josiah Richardson^

54 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

Mr. Merrill, Mr. Leonard, Mr. Ambrose, Mr. Farwell, "Elder
Stone,'' Mr. Herrick, Mr. Brown, Josiah Convers, and Sabastian
Streeter. Mr. Streeter makes his first appearance in the town
records by a vote October 1, 1810, giving "an order to Isaac
Hnse on Town Treasurer for twelve Dollars due to him for
paying Mr. Streeter and Mr. Farwejl for one days preaching
each." This was the year when the unique name of Derry-
field was changed by the fancy of Thomas Stickney to the
commonplace name of Manchester. Mr. Streeter was paid out
of the town treasury for preaching as late as February 22, 1813.
In the previous year, March 10, the town had "voted to raise
one hundred dollars to hire preaching," and John Dwinnell,
James Xutt, and Isaac Huse were appointed a committee to
provide it. At the same meeting it was "voted that each
religious denomination shall Injoy the Benefit of their own
money as it respits the preachers they may chuse to hire."
Here enters the denominational conception of Christianity,
and the end of the period of town establishment is at hand.
At the same meeting it was voted to sell the vacant parsonage
lot. For the meeting of February 2, 1813, an article was in-
serted in the warrant "to see if the town will raise any money
for preaching and how much." Xone was voted. There were
two parties in the town — ^^the town church party, and the dis-
establishment party. The former had been up to this time
strong enough generally to carry their purposes. March 8,
1814, marks the important point in the history of Derryfield-
Manchester — when the church party ceased to be able to con-
trol the policies of the town. From that day on they were
for a time strong enough to insert articles in the warrants for
the town meetings, but not strong enough to vote them into
effect. The boisterous character of that meetins: is reflected

THE THIRD ERA. 55

from the placid pages of the town records. The fourth arti-
cle in the warrant was "to see how much mone}^ the Town
will raise for preaching the present year and employ Mr. Smith
as minister." Mr. Smith was on hand at the meeting, and
the church party scored the first point by carrying a vote that
"Henery T. Smith make a short prayer." But the dissenters
were deaf to eloquence whether of prayer or plain speech, and
when the time came, "motion was made to dismiss the forth
article in the warrant, but did not carry at that time." Then
the contestants took a breathing spell. We can only guess
what was said and done, for there is not the slightest recoi^d
to direct us. It resulted, however, in disaster to the church
party, for the very next item reads as follows:

"Afterwards motion was again made to dismiss the fourtli
article, and) teas voted to dismiss th-e same.''

The church party realized the meaning of such a vote. It
meant the disestablishment of the town church of Manchester.
They could not reconcile themselves to any such awful action.
It seemed like an abandonment of God, for as yet they could
not conceive of the maintenance of the worship of God without
the assistance of the civil power. They considered such a vote
a disgrace to the town. The boisterousness was quieted and
the discussion became serious, solemn, and prophetic. We read
this between the lines, for there is no minute to aid us, except
the vote that immediately follows. It was —

"Voted that the two last votes be arrased out and begun
annew on the forth article — and on motion being made to dismiss
the fourth article it was voted to dismiss the same."

One can almost hear the sigh of despair that arose from the
little meeting when that last vote was declared. Henceforth

56 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR K

the old town church of Manchester is cast adrift on the world.
The waves that break over it at first seem to overwhelm it
entirely. For a few years it is altogether lost to view. But
it emerges again as the Presbyterian Church and Society of
Manchester in 1828, and again, by union with the Congrega-
tional Church in Amoskeag, it rises in the First Congregational
Church in Manchester to pursue a strong and triumphant
course.

Though the votes we have just mentioned mark the dis-
establishment of the church in Manchester, they do not blot
out the existence of the church. The church party henceforth
constituted the church, and the church party did not cease to
labor for the reinstatement of the church for several years yet
to come. In the warrants for the annual town meetings of
1815, 1816, and 1817 they kept the ecclesiastical issue to the
front by inserting the article "to see how much money the
town will raise for preaching." Evidence of the existence of
a town church party is found in the town records as late as
March 12, 1822. It was five or six years later, when all hope
of restoring the corporate union between church and town had
entirely vanished, that the scattered fragments of the church
party came together to organize themselves into an ecclesi-
astical society, in accordance with the necessities of the volun-
tary principle. The men who were to organize this Presby-
terian society in March, 1828, were the same men who had
striven earnestly but in vain to preserve the connection
between the church and the town. The separation did not
annihilate either member of the partnership. The town that
was incorporated in 1751 has had an uneven but continuous
history. So also has the church. The church has changed
its name. So also has the town.

PART III.

AFTER THE DISESTABLISHMENT.

VIII.

THE TRANSITION.

The ancient Presbyterian church of Derryfield, whose begin-
nings were coeval witli tlie incorporation of the town in 1751,
never really ceased to exist. The old meetinghouse, the build-
ing of which was such a bone of contention in the early history
of the town, still stands on the same ridge, the fathers who
quarreled about it sleeping peacefully in the churchyard at its
side. It was the meetinghouse for the town from the time
it was built in 1759, in the closing year of the French and
Indian War, until about 1810. Eeligious worship was held in
it at indefinite intervals during the whole period. It had
passed through great tribulations. During the French and
Indian War, the Starks, the Goffes, the Stevenses, and other
chief spirits of the place were fighting for the preservation of
their homes and guarding the frontiers. Many had never
returned. War is not a good school for religion, and some
who did return seemed to give less concern than ever to the
religious welfare of the town. Then had come a short interval
of peace before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The
interval was too short to allow the current of the religious life
to cut out a channel for itself in the community. The long
struggle for independence absorbed the energies of old Derry-
field. There was no restraint to her patriotism. Her able-

60 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR V.

bodied men rushed to Boston with the first report of the fight-
ing at Lexington. The community lived only a waiting exist-
ence till the Eevolution was complete. Then had come the
period of national construction based on a new set of princi-
ples, the chief of which was that of the separation of church
and state. The Constitution of the United States had denied
to Congress the enactment of any law relative to the establish-
ment of religion. The French Eevolution, coming on the eve
of our own, had exerted a powerful influence in the same
direction. The civil authority ceased to concern itself with
the religious wants of the people. The fate of the church was
committed to the voluntary principle. The church was turned
out into the cold. It was severe usage, but the American
church has adjusted itself to the separation and would refuse
now to return to the older principle. This is what had hap-
pened in Derryfield in the closing years of the eighteenth cen-
tury and the first quarter of the nineteenth. The town in
its civil capacity gradually cast off all responsibility for the
maintenance of the church. It left the church to the fate of
the voluntary principle. And the church had life enough in it
left to organize itself in accordance with the demands of that
principle. Here is sufficient proof that the old church at Der-
ryfield had not ceased to exist. It had not died. The men who
had striven in vain to uphold the claim of religion to the town's
support constituted the church that had been and that was
to be. AA^ien it l)ecame apparent that they could no longer
hope for material aid from the town, they had recourse only to
the organization of a voluntary corporation for the purpose. In
the very beginning of this century, the New Hampshire Mis-
sionary Society had been organized. Its chief task had been
to provide for the religious destitution that followed the dis-

THE TRANSITION. 61

establishment of the churches. This organization did more
than any other institution to awaken the slumbering churches.
It helped them to adjust themselves to the voluntary prin-
cipk% and cared for the weaker ones while they passed through
the transition. This was the service it performed for the old
church of Manchester. In Februar}', 18,28, Eev. William K.
Talbot began a four weeks' "mission" in Manchester, It was
during this mission that ''^Joseph Moor, Daniel Watts, Samuel
Hall and others'' met at the old meetinghouse of Derryfieid
(Manchester since 1810) and "formed themselves into a Ee-
ligious Society Known by the name of the first Presbyterian
Eeligious Society in Manchester, X. H." The minutes of that
meeting in the handwriting of the secretary, Amos Weston,
Jr., are preserved in the first record book of the First Congre-
gational Society. The First Presbyterian Society of Manches-
ter, by absorption with the First Congregational Society of
Amoskeag, passed into the First Congregational Society of this
city, and these records have been in its continuous possession to
this day. They are the oldest records of any religious society
within the present limits of Manchester, the records of the
church in the old Derryfieid days being a part of the old town
records in the possession of the clerk of the city of Manchester.
The old Presbyterian church of Derryfieid survived suffi-
ciently to organize itself in harmony with the new princijole
and in accordance with the provisions of the act of the legis-
lature passed in 1827. It made no change in its faith or its
ecclesiastical polity. It declares that "the object of this asso-
ciation is to support and enjoy more effectually the Institu-
tions of our Holy Eeligion." They had not been destitute
of church worship. A church is a company of believers.
Such a company had existed in Derryfield-Manchester from

62 TO IV N CIIUR CH HIS TOR Y.

the incorporation of the toAvn. It had supported and enjoyed
religions worship more or less, with frequent interims during
that time. In the meantime, a religious revival had swept
over the country. It was a revival that began with the G-reat
Awakening under Jonathan Edwards at Northampton. The
tide of this revival had been swelled to overflow by the match-
less evangelistic eloquence of George Whitefield. His last ser-
mon had been preached at Exeter, on Saturday, September
29, 1770.

'^Sir,^^ said Mr. Clarkson, "you are more fit to go to bed
than to preach."

"True, sir," said Whitefield. But turning aside he clasped
his hands, and looking up, said:

"Lord Jesus, I am weary in thy work, but not of thy work.
If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for
thee once more in the field, seal thy truth and come home and
die."

So he did. His bones are resting at the mouth of our own
Merrimac, underneath the pulpit of the old church in New-
buryport. It was Whitefield, Edwards, and others, with their
apostolic earnestness, who had fanned the dying embers of
ecclesiasticism into flame and had enabled the church to sur-
vive the severe period of reconstruction when it was first
called upon to maintain itself by the voluntary principle. The
evangelistic ferver of these men was the most potent religious
influence in this country during at least the first half of the
nineteenth century. It more or less affected every town and
hamlet in the whole land. It was the wave that lifted the
church from the sandbar of disestablishment and non-support.
It was a feeble wave in some parts. It had well nigh spent
its force before it reached Derryfield-Manchester. But it

THE TRANSITION. 65

reached us, and it was just sufficient to lift our bark from the
bar. It did for us what it did for other towns where the
church had been previously supported by town tax but was
compelled henceforth to provide for its support by the volun-
tary principle. What happened here in Manchester happened
also in every other old, established parish in the country.
The church that had been supported by the town was com-
pelled to organize itself for its support by other methods.
The neighboring church at East Derry dates its history legiti-
mately from the organization of the town with the settle-
ment of the Scotch-Irish colony in 1719. It has been com-
pelled to readjust itself to the new principle. It has at times
been pastorless, and without the privileges of regular worship,
but its history has been continuous from the time the little
colony resolved by vote to support the preaching of the gospel,
and the Eev. James MacGregor began his labors underneath
the old oak. In fact, the church antedated the preaching, for
it was the church that called the minister. The church in
those days was the town acting in a religious capacity. It was
not long after the da3's when the civil suffrage was limited to
church membership. The colony that settled Concord in 173U
became incorporated into a town and as such provided for
the preaching of the gospel and the maintenance of the min-
istry. That old town church of Concord still survives in the
First Congregational Church of that city, which correctly dates
its organization from 1730. The old town church of Derry-
iield, dating from 1751, having survived as the First Presby-
terian Church and Society of Manchester, organized in con-
formity with the voluntary principle in 1828, still survives in
the First Congregational Church and Society of Manchester.
By the same method of reckoning by which the church in

^4 TO WN CHURCH HISTOR V.

Plymouth^ Mass., dates from 1606, the First Congregational
Churcli of Manchester dates from 1751. If it be said that for
several years after 1751 there was no meetinghouse in Derry-
field, we may also reply that for a longer period after 1606 the
Church of the Pilgrimage had no meetinghouse, and they
had no resident minister for several years after the landing.

The first church of the white race that ever took visible
form on territory within the present limits of Manchester was,
as already related, the old church of Tyngstown. But as the
colony that organized Tyng's Township was expelled from its
territorial claim, their church ceased to exist in this commu-
nity. But this was not the case with the church in Derryfield.
The church was coexistent with the town. The town re-
mained, and the church remained with it. The names most
familiar among the founders of Derryfield are the names that
are signed to the constitution of the First Presbyterian Ee-
ligious Society of 1828. The most prominent names in the
records of old Derryfield are those of Hall and Stark and Goffe.
They were the most prominent names in the ecclesiastical
affairs of Derrj^field. The Goffes had moved to Bedford. So
when we turn to the records of the First Presbyterian Church
and Society in 1828, the names that are the most prominent
are the old names of Hall and Stark, with many other names
almost equally prominent or venerable — like those of Gamble,
Blodgett, Moor, Noyes, Griffin, Harvey, Emerson, Greeley,
Young, Dickey, Davis, and others.

Samuel Hall, grandson of the John Hall who obtained from
George II the incorporation of Derryfield, was one of the three
men who met "with others" to form themselves into "a Ee-
ligious Society'^ in 1828. He was the first vice-president of this
society. Two brothers, Daniel and John, were also among the

THE TRANSITION. 65

first signers of the constitution of the society. The last men-
tioned of the three was not the John Hall, Jr., who in 1793
had purchased pew ground No. 13 in the gallery of the meet-
inghouse. An interesting proof that the Presbyterian Society
was really a continuation of the town church of Manchester in
its effort to adjust itself to the principle of disestablishment,
seems to appear in the minutes of a meeting of this society
"holden at the old meetinghouse" Saturday, May 21, 1831. It
was voted at that meeting "that Moses Noyes be authorized to
receive of the Town Treasurer all money or monies that may
be in his hands due to or belonging to the aforesaid Society."
This is the link by which the church of 1828 is found to be still
united to the old town church of Derryfield. The continuity
is established. The old town church of Derryfield, which be-
came a fact when the town was incorporated in 1751 and the
vote was passed to raise twenty-four pounds for the preaching
of the gospel, has had a disturbed, but continuous history.
From the old town church of Presbyterian affiliation it passed
in 1828 into the First Presbyterian Church and Society of
Manchester. From the First Presbyterian Church and Society
of Manchester it passed in 1839 into the present First Congre-
gational Church and Society of Manchester.

The change in denomination is only apparent, for at that
time the Congregational and Presbyterian churches of Xew
Hampshire were one denomination. They were united in the
Xew Hampshire Missionary Society, and were bound together
in the same ecclesiastical organizations, as they continue to be
even to this day. The Congregational and Presbyterian min-
isters of this region have, from the early history of the
churches in these parts, been united in the Derry Association.
The Hillsborough Association of Congregational and Presby-

-66 TO IV N CHUR CH HIS TOR Y.

terian Churches is the local ecclesiastical body for the churches
of both denominations in the county, and the churches of both
denominations are entitled to like representation in the state
association. The Congregational and Presbyterian churches
are one religious body within the limits of New Hampshire.
They have since the early history of the state been bound to-
gether by an Organic bond. It is only when they go outside
of the state or when they carry their ecclesiastical relations
outside of the state, that they become two separate denomina-
tions. Within the limits of New Hampshire they are tradi-
tionally and organically one. There have appeared in recent
years unfortunate signs of a breaking away from this grand
old traditional union. They have been due to the advent of
ministers and laymen from outside the state, where Presbyte-
rian and Congregational churches were supposed to have no
more to do with each other tha,n Baptists and Methodists.

Whoever would correctly understand the ecclesiastical his-
tory of New Hampshire, or of New England for that matter,
must remember that Congregationalism and Presbyterianism
historically, stand for the same great facts and principles. As
far as ecclesiastical polity is concerned, there are really but
two fundamental theories. By one of these theories the eccle-
siastical unit is the bishop. Its maxim is: Nullus episcopus,
nulla ecdesia. Where there is no bishop there is no church.
This is the theory of the Eoman and Anglican churches. We
may call it the episcopal theory. By the second of these the-
ories the congregation of believers is the ecclesiastical unit.
Wherever there is a congregation of Christian believers, what-
ever their officers may be, whether bishops, presbyters, minis-
ters, or neither, there is a church. And where there is no con-
gregation there is no church. Nulla congregatio, nulla ecdesia.

THE TRANSITION. 67

This may be called the Congregational theor}' of the church.
It is held hy nearly all the religious bodies in this country and
in the Protestant state churches in Scotland and on the conti-
nent of Europe. It was in support of this theory and in protest
against, the hierarchical theory that the battles of the Eeforma-
tion were fought. It never made its conquest of the church
of England complete. It was the effort to do so that aroused
the Puritans to the heroic struggles of the seventeenth century.
The sturdiest blows to unrivet the episcopal theory of the
church from the religious establishment of England were de-
livered by the Presbyterians of Scotland. They were power-
fully seconded by the Independents, or Congregationalists, of
England. Their purpose was to deliver 'the church and the
kingdom of England from the Lauds and the Wentworths,
and in order to do that they must deliver it from the episcopal
principle. They succeeded; and for one brief period the estab-
lished Church of England was Presbyterian. The bishops
were overthrown and the congregation became the unit of
the ecclesiastical organism. If Eichard had been Oliver it
would have remained so to this day. In New Hampshire,
therefore, the differences of denomination were solely differ-
ences of race. The settlements from Massachusetts were Con-
gregationalists. The Congregational church was the town
church. There was no other church. There was not much
denominational fastidiousness in those days. One church for
the town was enough, and it usually received what for that
day w^as a handsome support. The Scotch-Irish were Presby-
terians. The Presbyterian church therefore was, as a matter
of course, the established church of their towns. So in Lon-
donderry, Bedford, Derryfield, the town church was Presby-
terian. But there was nothing said about denomination. The

68 TO I VN CHUR CH HIS TOR Y.

denominational bugaboo had not A^et come to overawe tlie-
ecclesiastical conscience of America. They had ''rising fam-
eleys," and wanted a church — a real churchy orthodox and
regular. Beyond that they made no childish demands. Their
concern was not the individualistic concern — every man for his
own souFs salvation — which has been a chief cause of the
multii^lication of denominations. It was the concern for the
Christian welfare of the community and its rising children.
To them a churcli was a church, so long as it was neither
Eoman Catholic nor Episcopal. When the Presbyterian.
Church of Manchester, therefore, united with the CongTega-
tional Church of Amoskeag to form the First Congregational
Church of Manchester, it made no real change in its creed or
afhliations. It had been for some 3Tars more or less associated
with the church in Amoskeag in support of a common ministry
and was a ward of the same missionary society. The history
of these churches is like two streams that rise from different
mountains, and flow through different valleys until they mingle
their waters in one common channel. The stream that started
in Derryfield one hundred and fifty-two years ago and the
one that started in Amoskeag seventy-five years ago followed
winding courses through sluggish swamps where scarcely any
current could be detected, until they united in the one chan-
nel in 1839. From that day the united stream has flowed
onward v.'ith a strono- current and an increasing volume.

IX.

THE NEW OEGANIZATION.

'•1828 ^Iarc]i 2nd Joseph Moor, Daniel Watts, Sanniel Hall
and oihers met and formed themselves into a Eeligioiis Society
Known by the name of the first Presbyterian Eeligious Soci-
ity in Manchester, N. H. and adopted a constitution which is
here nnto annexed. The Society then proceeded to the choice
of a Secretary, and Amos Weston, Jr., was elected to that
ofldce.

'•Recorded by Amos Weston, Jr., Clerk."

This is the oldest record on the books of the First Congre-
gational Society of Manchester. All earlier records of trans-
actions in the history of the church are to be found in
the records in the office of the clerk of the city of Man-
chester, and belong to the days when the church and the
town weie united. This is the oldest record of any religious
organization in Manchester since the civil union between the
church and the town was dissolved. And since the date of
that action the records have been continuous until now. The
minutes of every meeting and apparently of every vote of the
society are to be found in one of the four books in which the
society's proceedings have been recorded up to the present
time. In the preamble to the constitution it is stated that
*'the object of this association is to support and enjoy more

70 TO IVN CHUR CH HIS TOR Y.

effectually the Institutions of our Holy Keligion. Our belief
is in the reality of Divine Eevelation. Our desire is to know
its truths; zealously to maintain them is our fixed purpose; we
unite in the fear of God; for success our hope is only in the
riches of his mercy. . . . Banishing party feelings and sec-
tarian ])rejudices from our heai'ts and praying for Divine
assistance, and mutual affection and love for the truth and a
holy concern for our best interests, we unite for the further-
ance of our object under the following constitution."

This preamljle remains practically unchanged through the
later revisions of the constitution, and the articles are still
substantially what they were in 1828, even to phraseology.
Article YII of the original constitution is interesting as show-
ing the effect on the new corporation of the long civil connec-
tion with the town. It declares that —

"This Society shall be empowered at any regular meeting- for
the purpose, by a vote of two thirds of the Members present, to
raise any snm of money they may think proper by levying a
direct tax on each member in proportion to his property, and
according as he is taxed or rated by the Town authoritj^ in which
Town he lives."'

This clause in the constitution marks the transition from
the days of town support to the era of the voluntary principle.
Another article of the constitution declared that —

"This Society shall devote their funds to the support of no min-
ister of the Gospel who Shall not receive either the approbation
of the Londonderry Presbytery, or the Trustees of the New
HamjDshire Missionarj^ Society."

The New Hampshire Missionary Society is now a Con-
gregational body, and was chiefly so then.

THE NEW ORGANIZATION. 71

The fact that the Presbyterian Society of Manchester was
willing to trust the Congregational eqiially with the Presby-
terian authorities for direction in the support of a minister,
illustrates the cordial relations on which the two churches have
traditionally dwelt. The first signers of the constitution were
Amos Weston, Jr., Josej^h Moor, Daniel AYatts, Samuel Hall,
John Pay, Thomas Cheney, James McQueston, James Ray,
Daniel Hall, Johnson Morse, Jonas Harvey, Isaac Blodgett,
Jacob Whittemore, Samuel Gamble, John Calef, Pranklin
Moor, John Hall, Moses Noyes, Robert P. AVliittemore.

The first meeting after the adoption of the constitution was
held in the old meetinghouse March 26, 1828. Daniel Watts,
Samuel Hall, and Amos Weston, Jr., were appointed a com-
mittee "to procure a minister to preach so much as shall be
denied expedient by the Society." Franklin Moor was sec-
retary at this meeting.

The following subscription paper was immediately circulated
by the committee:

"'We the Subscribers agree to pay the Treasurer of the
Presbyterian Society of Manchester annually the sums perfixed
to our names, for the space of three years, for the support of
the Ministry provided that a sufficient subscription is obtained
to furnish the Society with as much preaching as one or two
Sabbaths in each Month for that time. The above to be paid
in Semianual payments, first to be on the 1 of Sept. 1828."

There are forty-four names on this subscription list. The
amounts subscribed ranged from one five-dollar annual sub-
scription by Joseph Moor to one twenty-five-cent subscription.
Judging by the original list signed by the subscribers them-
selves, the total amount subscribed was about sixty dollars.
Appended to this are the names of twelve ministers, each of

72 TO WN CHURCH HI ST OR Y.

whom offers to contribute one Sabbath^s preaching on condi-
tion that the local parish subscribe for ten Sabbaths. These
ministers are William K. Talbot, Thomas Savage, Ephraiin P.
Bradford, E. L. Parker, D. McGregore, John M. Whiton, Abel
Manning, Jonathan Brown, Stephen Morse, William Whitte-
more, Henry Wood, and Leonard Jewett. All of these names,
excejjt that of Mr. Talbot, are written with lead pencil, and
some of them are almost illegible.

In the month of May we find the Eev. William K. Talbot on
the ground and the religious interest of the people markedly
awakened. A letter of his addressed to the trustees of the K'ew
Hampshire Missionary Society has been preserved among the
papers of that society. To the citizens of Manchester it is
an interesting and valuable document. It is perhaps the oldest
extant epistolary account of the religious condition of Man-
chester.

"On my entering Manchester,^^ says he, "I found the re-
ligious state of things truly deplorable. The meeting house
which was old and shattered, w^ithout a Bible or a Hymn book,
and would not shield from storm, was forsaken.''

The old meetinghouse had not improved with age, and it
was twenty-four years older than when the Eev. William
Pickles had told his hearers that if they didn't repair the
house the devil would come and carry them out at the cracks.
Mr. Talbot's letter further informs us that "the Methodist
brethren were preaching a part of the time to a very few."
Their meetings were held in a private house. "In answer to
my enquiries respecting the religious state of things, the ]\Ieth-
odist who preached there once in four weeks told me they had
almost become discouraged (having labored there eight or nine
years); that the last year they had serious thoughts of leaving

THE NEW OKGANIZATIOX. 73

the Town; and should the next year, should the Congregation-
alists or Presbyterians afford them preaching; that they knew
not of one anxious sinner in the Town/' Where Methodists
get discouraged and despair in the search for an "anxious
sinner/"' it is safe to conclude that the situation is desperate
enough. Mr. Talbot's letter, however, throws a stream of
hope on the situation.

"The first week I endeavored to awaken them to the im-
portance of having the preached Gospel. The second week
I found some souls had been awakened, and many had become
anxious for the stated preached word. But the enquiry was
^What can so few as are willing to do do alone?' I encouraged
them to hope for assistance provided they would do all in
their power, and we organized a Religious Society which en-
gaged to employ no minister who should not gain the appro-
bation of the Londonderry Presb. or Trustees of the New
Hamp. ]\liss. Soc. The third Sabbath it was evident the Lord
had begun a vrork of grace in the Town. Some were rejoicing
in hope and others were inquiring what they should do to be
saved. Some of my Church [at Nottingham] had visited the
place and assisted me in the good work. Others were desirous
of accompanying me, as on those days my own people were
destitute except such as attended. After consulting my Ses-
sion I concluded to invite my Elders and Church to attend at
Manchester, as I would break bread to them there on the next
Lord's day. This was peculiarly gratifying to some Church
members residing in Manchester as well as my own Church.
AVe attended, and tho' the day was very unfavorable we had
a Crowded and solemn assembly. Some who had been bap-
tized and were pious, after a satisfactory examination, which
was voted sustained by the Session, were permitted to come

74 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

to the Table. The Lord set his seal to the services & great was
the effect. Souls were awakened & converted & a mighty im-
pulse was given; & Christians went on in the work of dut}^ with
fresh courage. A Council was called as soon as possible & a
church of [blank] was organized, which has since increased
to about 30." Mr. Talbot goes on to say that they have since
hired a young man from ilndover three weeks and himself
four weeks. "And during all this time very few sermons if
any have been preached which some soul can not date his
first awakening or conversion from." He tells us that they
had formed a religious library and tract society and a Sabbath
school. He reports that the people of Manchester earnestly
request him "'to implore some further aid." He speaks of
their uncommon and ardent efforts, and closes his letter with a
gracious compliment to the people of Manchester which ought
even now to strike a tender response from the chords of our
hearts. He says:

"The respectable & affectionate reception I have universally
met with from that people, gives me very elevated views of
their character. Xor do I know of any place more deserving
the attention of Xew Hamp. Miss. Soc."* His letter, written
in a free, manly hand, is in a good state of preservation. I
have handled it with care, with my mind on the historian un-
born who may be pleased to read it a hundred years from now.

The organization of the church of which Mr. Talbot speaks
was solemnized by an ecclesiastical council held May 21, 1828.
The vote by which this council was called was taken "at a
meeting regularly assembled at the Hall of Mr. Jackson's and

* Talbot's letter was written at Nottingham West August 5, 1828, and was
mailed at HoUis, N.H., August 6. It was folded into envelope form and
sealed with wax. It was not stamped, the number 10 in the top right-hand
corner, written in red ink, indicating the amount of postage. The postmark
was also written in red ink.

THE NEW ORGANIZATION. 75

opened witli prayer by the Rev. William K. Talbot Mod."
This meeting was held in April. It was unanimously voted
that a council be invited to assemble in the old meetinghouse
"on the third Wednesday in May next to organize all such as
give evidence of personal piety in this place and who are
solicitous for the same into a regular Christian Church." The
churches invited were those of Goifstown, Pembroke, Hook-
sett, Bedford, Dunbarton, New Boston, Litchfield, Derry, Lon-
donderry, Nottingham West, Dracut, and the Bedford-street
church in Boston. The letter missive is signed by Daniel
Watts, Jacob Whittemore, Polly Watts, Rheni Gillis, Abby
Stark, Betsey Hall, Sarah Davis, Lucy Ray, Elizabeth Stark,
Mary Clark, Abigail Gillis, and Sarali Stark.

The council convened at the meetinghouse on the date
named. The clerical members of the council were Abraham
Burnham, William K. Talbot, Thomas Savage, Sylvester G.
Pierce, Henry Wood, and Stephen Morse. The lay members
were Daniel Knox of Pembroke, John M. Bartley of Notting-
ham West, David McQueston of Bedford, Thomas Smith of
Goffstown, Joseph Chase, and Joseph Long. After due delib-
eration the council proceeded to organize the church with a
membership of eight persons. Li the "solemnities" that fol-
lowed, Mr. Burnham made the introductory prayer, Mr. Pierce
preached the sermon, Mr. Savage read the covenant and pro-
nounced the organization complete, Mr. Talbot gave them the
right hand of fellowship, and Mr. Wood made the concluding
prayer. Mr. Talbot was chosen moderator, and Daniel Watts
clerk of the newly organized, or perhaps we should say reorgan-
ized, church. The church was left free by the council to
chose what form of government it pleased. As it had always
been Presljvterian under the town, altliough no hard and fast

76 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

lines were drawn, so it continued to be; and it "voted to adopt
the Presbyterian form of Chnrch government/' and Daniel
Watts was appointed to meet the Londonderry Presbytery to
apply for admission. The church grew in a few weeks till
it numbered thirty members. Additions came slowly after
that time. In October, 1829, Moses Noyes, with his wife and
daughter, were received by letter from Newport. In 1829
the church received fifty-five dollars from the Xew Hampshire
Missionary Society "to be laid out by Eev, Dr. Church" of
Pelham. In the same year the parish in Manchester gave
five dollars and twenty-five cents to the Missionary Society.
In September, 1830, Rev. Josiah Prentice reports thirty-five
members, a good interest, enquiring minds, and gratitude for
the privileges of worship. He spent four weeks with the
church, for which he received twenty-eight dollars. He tells
us that a man one hundred years old died in the town while
he was present. That unnamed man had lived through stir-
ring times.

In March, 1832, Benjamin Franklin Foster, a licentiate,
employed partially by the Home Missionary Society, was en-
gaged to serve the two churches in Manchester and Amoskeag.
His report is not very encouraging. Speaking of both places
he says that "religion is low and a refreshing from the pres-
ence of the Lord is exceedingly desirable." On the 20t]i of
the following January the church met at Gilbert Greeley's and
voted to call a council for the ordination of Mr. Foster. The
council convened at the home of Deacon N'oyes, and after the
examination held the public exercises of ordination in the
newly built Methodist meetinghouse. From this time until
1839 the career of the Manchester church is on a descending
scale. It never had more than thirty-eight members at one

THE NEW ORGANIZATION. 77

time. The churches at Amoskeag and Manchester were so
near together that when they had alternate services they at-
tended each other's churches in considerable numbers. Xo
records of the ]\Ianchester church later than 1833 have been
preserved. But the records of the Presbyterian Society in
Manchester are complete up to March 29, 1837. This was
apparently their last annual meeting, and one year later we
find the First Congregational Society of x4moskeag incorpo-
rated with practically the same constitution. It is this society
that interests us henceforth. Though officered by other men,
it absorbed the remnants of the society at Manchester. The
last officers of the Manchester society were Moses Noyes, pres-
ident; Amos AVeston, Jr., clerk; Daniel Hall, vice-president;
John M. Xoyes, Joseph M. Eowell, and Thomas Cheney, di-
rectors. We have now followed the Derryfield-Manchester
stream from its source in the middle of the eighteenth century
to the point of its union with the stream from xlmoskeag. We
shall now cross over to the head waters of the stream from
Amoskeao'.

THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AT AMOSKEAG.

Of the two streams that united in the First Congregational
Church in 1839 the one that had its spring in Amoskeag was
the younger but the stronger. It was the dominant force in
determining the direction of the current of the united church.
It was blessed in the possession of a few strong men, the in-
fluence of whose Christian personality is still a. potent factor
in our church life. This can hardly be said of the Presby-
terian branch. Deacon Moses Noyes appears to have been
the only man among them whose personality exerted much
influence on the church after the union.

Facts concerning the religious history of Amoskeag previous
to the organization of the church are very meager. Congre-
gational preaching had been heard in Amoskeag at least as
early as 1825-26. The Eev. Henry Wood, pastor of the Goffs-
town church, held occasional services in the home of Colonel
Farmer, and ^^a sainted man named Eand living near the
McGregor place, held meetings in the schoolhouse." This in-
formation comes from Dr. Wallace, who spent eight months in
Amoskeag in 1826 as a laborer. He was twenty-one years old
at the time. It was five years before his conversion, and he
had no thought of ever being the minister of the church
which was to be organized there, two years later. He had had

f V

CONG REG A TIOXAL CHURCH A T AMOSKEAG. 79

his first sight of Amoskeag the year before, when he passed
through on his way to Concord to assist in doing escort duty
to General Lafayette. He tells lis that "a large number of
.those who attended the meetings at 'Skeag at this time would
retire to an adjoining hall at intermission and drink liquor/"

The Congregational Church of Amoskeag was organized
December 2, 1828, at the home of Col. Daniel Farmer, still
occupied by his daughter, Elizabeth A. Farmer. An ecclesias-
tical council had been called "for the purpose of organizing an
orthodox congregational church." The council was organized
with Walter Harris, D. D., of Dunbarton as moderator, the Eey.
S. H. Tolman of Dunstable as scribe. John Hubbard Church,
D. D., of Pelham, who was at that time president of the Xew
Hampshire Missionary Society, invoked the divine blessing.
Henry Woods of Goffstown and Daniel Lancaster of Windham
were the other clerical members of the council. The church
in Pembroke was represented by Deacons Joseph Gale and
Moses Hazelton. The articles of faith and form of covenant
were approved, and the church was constituted with ten origi-
nal members, one of whom, Mr. Stephen Atwood, was examined
by the council as to his religious experience, and received
on the public profession of his faith. Those who were re-
ceived by letters from other churches were Col. Daniel and
Mrs. Betsy Farmer, from Goffstown; Mr. James X. and ]\Irs.
Lucy Davidson, from Windham; Mr. Gilman Knowlton, from
Hopkinton; Mr. Enoch P. Sargent and Mr. Alonzo Dinsmore,
from Goffstown; ]\Iiss Catharine French, from Dunstable, and
Miss Sarah Davis, from Chester, west parish. At the public
services the sermon was preached by Dr. Church, the consecra-
ting prayer was offered by Dr. Harris, and the right hand of fel-
low^ship was extended by Mr. Woods. The report of the coun-

80 TO IVN CHURCH HI ST OR Y.

cil declares that "tlie clnircli was accordingly formed as the
Congregational Church of Christ at Amoskeag." The con-
fession of faith of the Amoskeag church was the extreme of
conservative orthodoxy even for that day. Two of the articles
exhibit in all their lurid colors the awful theories which at that
time seemed to furnish the Unitarians and Universalists with
an effectual reason for their existence. Here is the last article
in the creed:

"You believe there will be a resurrection of all the dead, the
just and the unjust, the small and the great, and a tinal judgment,
when the Lord Jesus Christ shall judge the world, and receive
the righteous into his everlasting Kingdom, and sentence the
%vicked to endless punishment. Do you thus believe?"

This is an excellent and improved method for the manufac-
ture of Universalists. If any better method has ever been
proposed it has not been reported. The conception of the
Lord Jesus Christ as the judge who comes to sentence the
wicked to endless punishment may have some elements of
truth in it which only eternity can reveal, but it is very safe
to say that it is an unedifying picture, and one which so little
resembles the picture of our Lord which we get from the gos-
pels that we are compelled to reject it as a caricature. This*
article and another referring to the effect of Adam's fall on his
descendants were subsequently greatly altered. The alteration
might with profit have been carried still further. Much of
the old phraseology, however, which was adopted seventy-five
years ago in the parlors of Colonel Farmer's home has remained
in the confession of faith. Colonel Farmer was born in Goffs-
town in 1783-. He had joined the church there when a young
man. In 1823 he had built the house which is still in the
family possession and in which the church was organized.

CONG RE GA TIONAL CHURCH A T AMOSKEA G. 81

This house became the "minister's tavern." He was a man
of strong Christian personality. He was the father of the
church in Amoskeag and it was due to his effective initiative
that the consolidation between the two churclies was brought
about and the consolidated church planted in the growing
village which was in time to become the heart of the city of
Manchester. He is said to have been "an active, earnest man
with a strong will." And it is intimated that this fact ac-
counts in some measure for the result by which the consol-
idated church became Congregational rather than Presbyterian.
He was one of the wealthy men of the community and led in
the financial support of the church.

Nevertheless, the little church in Amoskeag had an uphill
course. It never had a settled minister, nor a building of its
own. Dr. Oliver Dean was at that time agent of the Amos-
keag Company. He was an earnest Universalist, and it was
by his efforts that Universalist services were started in Amos-
keag in 1825. Under his agency a hall was built on what is
now Amoskeag street, to afford a place where religious services
might be held. The down-stairs part was used as a store,
while the hall above was open to Christian churches of any
denomination. This hall served as the home of the Congrega-
tional, Baptist, and Universalist churches. The Congrega-
tional and Baptist churches each had it one quarter of the
time and the Universalists one half tlie time. Allien it burned
down in 1839, the Congregational church held its services in
the schoolhouse, the little building which is now used as a
hose house. This little schoolhouse had been painted by a
young man named Cyrus W. Wallace in 1826. There was no
bridge then over the Amoskeag Falls, but so destitute of re-
ligious privileges was the neighboring part of Manchester that

82 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR V.

a considerable portion of the congregation was composed of
people who crossed the river from the east side by stepping or
jnniping from rock to rock, or by walking on planks where the
spaces were too wide. We have members still, among whom
are Miss Betsy Butler Shepherd and Mrs. Bradbury Poor
Cilley, who can well remember when they leaped from rock
to rock on their way to worship in Amoskeag.

"When thou passest through the waters,

I will be with thee;
And through the rivers,

They shall not overflow thee."

The first annual meeting of the church was held December
15, 1828, thirteen days after its organization. Gilman Knowl-
ton was elected moderator for one year, and James N. David-
son clerk. On the 18th of the following February "the
Church convened at House of James N. Davidson for purpos
of Chosing two Deacons. Voted by ballot. Col. Daniel Far-
mer and James N. Davidson were chosen.^' This is the brief
and sole account of the meetinsf. In this same February and
probably at this meeting Mr. Talbot was with the church and
baptized two adults, George and Hannah E. Blake. These
were the first baptisms after the organization of the church. It
is interesting and prophetic that their first officiating minister
is the same man who had awakened the slumbering Presby-
terian church of Manchester. The next record bears the date
of June, 1829, and states that the Eev. Abraham Burnham of
Pembroke, a great uncle of Senator Henry E. Burnham, bap-
tized one adult and seven children. Six of the children be-
longed to Stephen Atwood, the first person who had joined
the church by public profession of faith.

CONG RE GA TIONA L CHUR CH AT A MOSKEA G. 83

In 1831 it became apparent that the church could not main-
tain itself in vigor without assistance. In that year the fol-
lowing appeal for aid was made:

"To the Xew Hampshire Missionary Society.

"Gentlemen and Friends of Zion:

"We the subscribers and elders of the Congregational Church
in Amoskeag- are sheep without a Shepard and feeling anxious
to have a man after God's own heart to go in and out before us,
and break unto us the bread of life, and having made considerable
efforts to raise subscriptions to support a Minister, find we must
fail unless assisted from some other source, we now lay our
care before you praying that you will afford such help as* will
enable us to have the preached word.

"Daniel Farmee.
"James N. Davidsons-.

"Amoskeag Sep't 5, 1831."

This letter reflects the greatest honor on the church and the
men who wrote it. They had tried to sustain themselves
alone, and had felt considerable pride in the hope that they
would be able to do it. They had in the previous year sent in
a small contribution to the Missionary Society. They shrank
now from the necessity of asking for aid, but they shrank more
from the thought of a godless community. They found they
''must fail unless assisted from some other source." They
put their pride in their pockets and wrote this earnest, manly
letter. The church that claims their feeble efforts as a pre-
cious legacy may well be proud of this letter. The letter was
accompanied by a subscription list amounting to $228.50, and
a postscript saying that "probably 25 or 30 dollars more may
be had from the females working in the factories." The sub-
scription list was headed with the following statement:

84 TO WN CHURCH HI ST OR Y.

"We the iindersignecl under consideration of the benefit
which may be derived from the stated and constant administra-
tion of the preached word in this vicinity, promise to pay the
snms set against onr names for the purpos of supporting Rev'd
Simeon Sanlsbery as our minister for the term of one year to
preach at Amoskeag and Piscataquog [now known as West
Manchester] and divide the time between the two places in
such manner as may be thought best by the subscribers/'
The subscribers represented l)oth villages, although the
responsibility for the undertaking was borne by Colonel Far-
mer-and James N. Davidson of Amoskeag. The subscriptions
ranged from twenty dollars to one dollar. Singularly enough
the largest subscription was made by Caleb Johnson, who was
not connected with the church. Deacon Farmer, besides keep-
ing "minister's tavern,"subscribed fifteen dollars. A like sum
was subscribed by Daniel Mack of Piscataquog. Other large
contributors were Robert Hall, James N". Davidson, James M.
Clark, and Catharine French. The inhabitants of the village
seem to have taken considerable interest in the proposal, as
nearly one half of the whole amount was subscribed by per-
sons "not members of any church." Nevertheless, the plan
failed, and the Rev. Simeon Salisbury never became minister
of the church. There is something almost pathetic in the
numerous vain efforts the early fathers of this city made to
obtain a resident minister. The right kind of men, however,
were settled in other and more permanent pastorates, and.
shrank from the hire of "one year" on the uncertainties of a
sul)scription paper, in a parish without a meetinghouse or a
parsonage.

Until the year 1832 the church received no outside assist-
ance. Such occasional preaching as it had, it paid for. In

COXGRE GA TIONA L CH UR CI I AT A M OSKEA G. 85

1830 it contributed three dollars to the Xew Hampshire Mis-
sionary Society. Up to 1832 the church had at times received
the ministrations of William K. Talbot, who was with the
church immediately after its organization and with whom we
are already acquainted, Abraham Burnham of Pembroke, at
that time secretary of the Xew Hampshire Missionary Society,
Dr. Church, and others. In March, 1832, Mr. Benjamin
Franklin Foster, a missionary already mentioned, is employed
to divide his time between the churches at Manchester and
Amoskeag, and one hundred dollars is granted by the Mis-
sionary Society to both churches. In the- first six months of
his labors two members join the church at xA.moskeag and
three at Manchester. The report he sends to his society is
that an interesting Sunday school has been established, but that
religion is very low. At the end of the year the church had
twenty-two mem]:)ers, seven of which were males. A Sunday
school is maintained during the "warm season'^ and a Bible
class through the rest of the year. In 1831 the condition of
the chuich and the community is discouraging. Mr. Samuel
Harris. ;! missionary, received twenty-five dollars in that year
from the Missionary Society for work in Amoskeag. The
membership had fallen ofi", no new members had been added,
and his disheartening report is that "little can be done here
at present.^^ The situation remained unchanged for the bet-
ter during the two following years. In 1836 Mr. H. L. Deane,
a student in Andover Theological Seminary, puts in several
weeks in Amoskeag in the employ of the Missionary Society.
An interesting letter written l)y him under the heading
"Amoskeag Tuesday 13 Sept. 1836*' and addressed to the
secretary of the Xew Hampshire ^lissionary Society, has been

86 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR \ '.

preserved in good condition. It is at the close of his minis-
try in Amoskeag, and he is to "take leave of this place to-
morrow morning.'^

"Col. Farmer will settle with me for my services during the
time I have labored here, at the rate of $7.00 per. sabbath, which,
If I mistake not, was the sum agreed upon. In compliance with
your request I saw brother Noble and the result of our interview
w^as a promise on his j>art that he would come on & 'enter into my
labors.' He will be here either the last of this week, or sometime
in the course of next. In regard to the importance of sus-
taining missionary operations here, I have but a word to say. If
the Amoskeag Company g"o on, as it is expected thej' will, I
should say, by all means let this feeble church be sustained.
But if on the other hand the place is to remain in statu quo, I
should feel it my duty before expending much time or money
here, to enquire whether there are not other opening' fields which
promise a more plentiful harvest. Since I came into the place, I
have done but little, except to preach on the sabbath, and I have
not done so much even at tJiat as I expected when I came here.
I have had a third service but twice since I came. The truth is,
they have their sabbath school at 4 o'clock, and a third service,
coming on immediatel3' after finds them so fatigued that tliey
will not turn out to meeting, or. if they condescend to do that,
they appear so exhausted, and consequently restless, that it is
truly i)ainful to preach to them."

Consequently, after consulting Deacon Farmer and Eobert
Hall, another prominent member of the church, Mr. Deane de-
cided to omit what he called "the 3d service,^' which was really
the second preaching service, the Sabbath school being then
reckoned as the second service. Mr. N'oble served the church
for some time. So also did Eev. Timothy Dwight Porter
Stone, who was still preaching more than a half-century
later. A young man by the name of French, who after-

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AT AMOSKEAG. 87

wards Vent as a missionary to Siam, supplied the pulpit for a
short time, and the church was again left without a shepherd.
These young men were mostly theological students. In the
spring of 1839 a young man stopped over night at Amoskeag
at the home of an acquaintance. The term Amoskeag was
then applied to hoth sides of the river. The home in which
he was stopping in this case was on the east side. He was
on his way to his home in Bedford. He held a license from
the Londonderry Presbytery, the ink of which was hardly yet
cold. He was the young man who had spent eight months
in Amoskeag eleven years before. He was now thirty-four
years old. His name was Cyrus Washington Wallace. In
the course of the conversation with the family, his hostess,
Mrs. Nahum Baldwin, asked him how he would like to be
settled in the church at Amoskeag. This was the first sug-
gestion of his connection with the parish which was to be the
field of his thirty-three years' pastorate. Mrs. Baldwin's sug-
gestion was effective. It was made good when her husband
seconded it by an invitation to supply the pulpit. His first
sermon was preached in the hall on Front street, which had
been built by Dr. Dean.

On a bright Sunday in the spring of 1839 Samuel D. Bell,
afterwards chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme
Court, came into the house and said to his wife:

"There is a young man going to preach over at Amoskeag
this morning. Get ready and let us go over."

It was an attractive invitation, and in a few minutes they
were walking through the sand on their way to the river.
Four times on the way was Mrs. Bell compelled to stop and
empty the sand from her shoes. On reaching the hall where
the service was held they found an interested group of men

88 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR V.

about the doors, a larger congregation than usnal on the
benches, and a new face at the desk. It was to become per-
haps the most familiar face in the city of Manchester for the
next quarter of a century. It was the young licentiate from
Bedford.

"At the close of the sermon/' says Dr. Wallace, "we went
to Col. Farmer's to dinner. At that meal I remember Col.
Farmer remarked that his church was going to call a minister
as soon as they got something to look at. The deacon said he
wanted a man who could cut a double swath right straight
through, . . . and I wish to leave it on record that Deacon
Farmer was a man who could assist a minister in cutting a
double swath."

PART IV.

THE UNION.

THE PIEST CONGREGATIONAL CHUECH
OF MANCHESTER.

FOETY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH ON HANOYER

STREET.

"In the sinniiier of 1839 it became apparent that the inter-
est of reh"gion demanded that the preaching of the gospel
shonld he regrdarly established at the Xew Village in Man-
chester. For the furtherance of snch a plan, and as the best
means of accomplishing so desirable an object, it was thought
expedient by the meml^ers of the Congregational Church at
Amoskeag and also by many of the members of the Presby-
terian Church at Manchester that a union of the two churches
had better be efiected, and the Church thus constituted to be
located in the new village at Manchester. Accordingly, at the
request of many members of both the above named churches,
letters were sent to several Ministers in the neighborhood to
call a council of Clergymen to consider the feasibility of such
a plan and if thought expedient, to effect the contemplated
union.'' We find this statement of the motive which led to
the union of tlie two churches in the first record book of the
consolidated church, and written in the hand of Dr. Wallace
at the close of the council which declared the union complete.
We are glad also that this statement settles the fact that it was
a union of the churches, and that neither of the churches
ceased to exist nor lost its identity, but that the two churches,

92 rO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR \ \

like two streams, were merged liencefortli into one common
channel. Xo vote of dissolution was taken by eitlier church
in preparation for the union. That each church continued
to exist up to the 15th of August, 1839, which was the day the
council met to consummate the union, is shown by the record
that the council w^as convened "by the mutual invitation of
the Congregational Church in Amoskeag and the Presbyterian
Churcli in Manchester." The council chosen "to consider the
expediency of uniting the aforesaid churches assembled at 10
o'clock, agreeable to request, at the home of Phineas French."
The Eev. John H. Church, D. D., whom we met in the home
of Colonel Farmer eleven years previously, was chosen moder-
ator, with the Eev. P. B. Day scribe. The other clergymen
present were Messrs. Burnham of Pembroke, Bradford of New
Boston, Willey of Goffstown, and Cyrus W. Wallace, as a
representative of the two uniting churches. It was Mr. Burn-
ham who made the motion, so fraught with happy results,
"to proceed to make the necessary arrangements to unite the
Congregational Church in Amoskeag and the Presbyterian
Church in Manchester provided the said churches shall renew
their request in the afternoon." The council adjourned for
its afternoon session to Franklin hall, a building that had
recently been erected on Amherst street, standing in the rear
of the site of the present opera house and owned by William
Abbott. It was here that the last meetings of the two
churches in their separate capacity were held. Their re-
quest to be united was unanimous, for the record tells
us that "agreeable to the unanimous request of the two
churches, a union was effected." Henceforth they are no more
twain, but one church. "What God hath joined together let
never man put asunder." According to the ]\Ianual of 1875,

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 93

ecicli church gave fourteen members to the consolidation.
Here they are:

From Amoskeag: Deacon Daniel Farmer, Mrs. Daniel Far-
mer, 3Ir. George Perry, Mrs. Mary C. Perr}-, Mr. Samnel Poor,
Mrs. Samuel Poor, Mr. Xahnm Baldwin, Mrs. Nahum Bald-
win, Mr. Henry Peacock, Mrs. Lettice McQueston (afterward
Bunton), Miss Harriet Jones, Miss Betsey Flanders, Miss
Catharine French, Mrs. Sarah Kimball.

From Manchester: Dea. Moses ^oyes, Mrs. Moses Xoyes,
Pobert P. Whittemore, Mrs. Robert P. Whittemore, Mrs. Jen-
net Dickey, Mrs. Daniel Hall, Miss Sally Whittemore, Miss
Eliza A. Moor, Mrs. Jerusha Griffin, Miss Maria Xoyes, Miss
Elizabeth Stark, Miss Abby Stark, Mrs. F. G. Stark, Mr.
Isaac Blodgett.

It was this united church that proceeded to decide upon its
iuture name. In this respect as in others, it acted upon the
advice of the council. The record informs us that after the
union was eifected ''the Church voted to adopt the name as
recommended by the council by which they are hereafter to
be known, viz.: The First Congregational Church of Amos-
keag."' By the same recommendation they also adopted the
articles of faith and covenant of the Amoskeag church. The
impression might very naturally be gotten that when the
Presbyterian Church of ^Manchester adopted the Congrega-
tional name, it lost its identity and ceased to exist. But
churches very frequently change their denominational names
and character without losing their identity or breaking the
continuity of their history. A very interesting proof that the
old Presbyterian Church of Manchester continued to exist
in the consolidated church is furnished by the following vote
taken at a meeting held July 3. 1811 — nearly two years after
Ihe union:

94 TO WN CHUR CH I/IS TOR } .

"On motion of Dea. Moses Xoj'es to withdraw Christian fellow-
ship from Thomas Cheney, Josex^h Rowel, Samuel Gamble and

Mrs. Hall, they being members of the Presbyterian Church

of Manchester before its union with this Church, but who have
refused to sign our covenant, or walk with us as becometh saints.'*

The ehitrcli that passes this vote of exclusion is therefore
the same church these delinquent members had joined at Man-
chester Center, or this vote would have been meaningless.

From the date of the union to the present, the ecclesiastical
historian has clear sailing. Up to this point there are many
intricacies, and the period so reuiote that the vision is uncer-
tain and cloudy. The first meeting of the united church was
held in Franklin hall August 15, 1839, at the close of the
council wliich declared the union complete. Its first act was
to receive eight persons into its membership. Two of them,
Henry Lancaster and Capt. Hiram Brown, who joined with
their wives, were afterwards prominent officials of the church.

The first meetings after the union, while the new church
was being built on Hanover street, w^ere held, some of them in
the Amoskeag schoolhouse and some in Franklin hall. At
that time there were very few houses on this side of the river,
although they were rapidly increasing. At the second of these
meetings it was voted "expedient to settle a Minister immedi-
ately,^' and Mr. Cyrus W. Wallace was given a unanimous
invitation to preach as a candidate for settlement. The judg-
ment of the chinx'h was not approved by the society, which
voted September 6, ''that it is not expedient at this time to
concur with the vote of the church pas.sed last night to invite
Eev. I\fr. Wallace to preach as a candidate." The future of
Manchester was assured. Every move in the commercial and
religious life of the town was to be made in the certain con-

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 95

fideiice that this little village was in a few years to l3e one of
the chief cities in tlie state. The streets and the parks were
laid ont with that end in view. The chnrehes should be bnilt
and manned wiili that end in view. This was the feeling of
men like William G. Means and Hiram Brown,* builders not
only of tlie church, but of the city of Manchester. Mr. Wal-
lace was not a yonng man. He was thirty-fonr years old, and
was not yet ordained. His education had been limited. He
was not a college graduate, and had. taken only a short sem-
inary course. He had been born on a farm in the neighbor-
ing toM-U' of Bedford in 1805, the fifth of seven children.
His father had died of consumption when he was six years old.
The long, sad procession to the burying ground a mile and a
half away, the dull, hollow sound of the clods falling on the
coffin lids, the return to the desolate home for the grim strug-
gle with poverty, when ''the howling of the wolf might be
heard not far from the door' — this was the boy's awakening
to the stern realities of life. Ten or twelve weeks a year in
the old wood-colored schoolhouse with Adams' arithmetic and
Webster's spelling book covered the educational privileges of
his early years. From the age of eighteen he had worked as
a cabinet maker and painter. In 1831, a memorable re-
vival was held in Bedford under the preaching of Thomas
Savage, pastor of the church. Mr. Wallace, then twenty-six
years old, came forth from those meetings with a new heart.
He was seized with the desire to preach the gospel. ''Woe is
me if I preach not the gospel." This constraining desire
that came to Paul, and that has come to so many since and
will to the end of time, was henceforth the controlling passion

* Hiram Brown was the first mayor of Manchester. His residence stood
on the square now occupied by the First Congregational church and the
Catholic institutions. It was built over and still exists in the Old Ladies'
Home.

^6 ro WN CHUR CH HIS TOR \ '.

of his life. But he was without money, books, or encourage-
ment, and it was not till the fall of 1834 that his desire took
form, and he journeyed forth to the frontiers of Ohio, where the
little college of Oberlin was then entering upon the second year
of its wonderful history. He worked in the college workshop
and on the rising college buildings. At Oberlin he came under
the spell of that mighty evangelist and theologian. President
Charles G. Finney. It was here also that he learned to hate
slavery with all the hat^^ed of his Scotch-Irish nature. "If
you were to seek a fine illustration,'^ said Mr. Sperry in his
memorial address, "of the truth that ^the steps of a good man
are ordered by the Lord,' you may find it in that providential
ordering which sent Mr. Ayallace to Oberlin. For, no doubt,
God needed here in Xew Hampshire, in authoritative place,
one abolitionist with prophetic voice, who by the sheer inten-
sity of his convictions, should command the respectful atten-
tion of all who heard him, and who by the sternest impulsions
of duty was compelled to speak with unfaltering courage,
whether men would hear or whether they would forbear." He
did not return to Oberlin after the first year. He continued
his studies with his pastor, Mr. Savage, and Dr. "Whiton of
Antrim until 1836, when he entered the newly organized
seminary at Gilmanton. He was graduated from Gilmanton
in 1838. If men could only look into the future they could
save themselves much uncertainty and anxiety. The society
was not yet willing to concur with the church in calling Mr.
Wallace, but they liked him and continued to engage him for
the supply of the pulpit while the new meetinghouse was
approaching completion on Lot Xo. 135 on Hanover street.
This society had been incorporated as the First Congrega-
tional Society in Amoskeag Village in the spring of the pre-

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 97

vioiis year. The first act of tin's society after its incorporation
was to vote, April 18, 1838, "that a committee be appointed
to take into consideration the subject of a place for Public
Worship — to make estimates and plan for a cheap & convenient
house to be built for the society and to make enquiries respect-
ing the location of the same." Timothy Carter, Jr., and David
A. Bun ton were the committee. In their report tbey recom-
mended as "the most ecimomical & convenient form for the
present purpose," a one-story building sixty-eight feet long
and thirty-one feet wide, with eleven-foot ]:)0sts. It was pro-
posed to divide the building into a room sixty feet long and
an entry eight feet deep. The building was to be lighted by
fourteen windows with twenty-four eight-by-ten light? in each
window. Frequent meetings of the society were held during
the spring and summer of 1838 while the building plans were
being projected, but no effective move was made until January,
1839. On the 5th of that month a committee was appointed
to take a deed of the land offered by the x\moskeag Company,
and was empowered to forin a joint stock company "for the
purpose of building said House and paying for the same."
The stock of this company was to l)e transferable to the First
Congregational Society in preference to any other purchaser,
at its par value, and the rate of interest was not to exceed eight
per cent per annum. This company was to be known as "The
Amoskeag Joint Stock Company for the purpose of Building
a House for Public Worship for the use of the 1st Congrega-
tional Society in Amoskeag Village." It was, however, never
organized; in March the vote was rescinded, and it was voted
that the society go forward as a society to build the meeting-
house. Amory Warren, Timothy Carter, Jr., George W. Kim-
ball, David A. Bunton, and Xahum Baldwin were a committee

^8 TO IVN CHUR CH HIS TOR \ \

to carry the vote into effect. This action was taken on the
basis of the assistance which the Amoskeag Company and the
Stark Mills had offered toward tiie proposed building. About
a fortnight later the committee reported that the companies
liad withdrawn their offer of assistance, ''and instead thereof
had determined on building a church themselves which would
be put into the market for sale.'' The committee was em-
powered to purchase the proposed house and the land "if the
same can be done at a cost not exceeding $3000" — and to
take a deed for the society. The arrangements were made
through William Amory, then treasurer of the Amoskeag
Company and agent of the Stark Mills. The society was
required to deposit one thousand dollars in the hands of
Mr. Robert Eeed, agent of the Amoskeag Company, as a
guarantee that the purchase would be consummated and
the companies reimbursed for their outlay. Mr. Amory
pays the men of the society a happy compliment by say-
ing that such a deposit as an earnest for the fulfillment of
the contract is superfluous in their case, and so long as they
or those whom they represent conduct its affairs, yet "upon
the whole wise and necessary as a precautionary measure and
likewise a precedent." The land was practically contributed
by the Amoskeag Company. Before the building was com-
pleted the faith of the society had gTOwn and it was decided
to enlarge it. The complete cost of this first meetinghouse
•on Hanover street when first finished was about fift}^-
four hundred dollars, but it is almost impossible to believe
that a building of such capacity and beauty could be built for
any such sum. It was a fine example of the old New England
meetinghouse architecture at its best. With its later enlarge-
ments it seated nine hundred people. The companies ran no

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 99

risk in Ijiiikling such a meetinghouse in that location. The
town was growing rapidly. AYithin two years from that time
a half-dozen churches were huilt in the new Tillage. The new
Universalist meetinghouse, built of brick, on Lowell street, was
to be dedicated the following February. The First Baptist
Church was to be erected on Manchester street the following
year. So also was the Elm-street ^Methodist Church. The
Free Baptist Church was to be built on Merrimac street in 1841.
These were to be followed in quick succession by numerous
other churches, until in five years the list was to include the
Unitarian, Episcopal, Franklin-street Congregational, and Mer-
rimack-strcet Baptist churches.

The erection of the Hanover-street church by the two busi-
ness corporations was not, however, a speculation. The offi-
cers of the companies took a deep interest in the welfare of
the society, and dealt generously with it through the whole
transaction. Their ap]3arent purpose in taking the matter in
their own hands was to build a better church than the society
had planned on. If that was true, it was fortunate, for the
building as completed was none too large for the needs of the
church. The newly completed church came into the hands of
the society in October, 1839, and was dedicated at once. A
committee consisting of Capt. Hiram Brown, Joseph Moody,
and Robert D. Davidson arranged for the dedication services,
and Parson Wallace was invited to preach the dedication ser-
mon. 'Tarson,'' ^Triest," and "Father' were the terms of
affection and respect that were applied to Dr. Wallace during
his ministry in Manchester. The first two were frequently
used in the earlier years. The last remains forever associated
with his name.

The dedication of the new church, markino^ the beainnins:

100 TO WN CIIUR CII HISrOR V.

of regular religioiis worship in what is the main part of the city
of Manchester, was a great day, and served to greatly in€rease
the confidence of chnrch and comninnity in the yonng man
who had been acting as pastor of the chnrch since May. At
a meeting held Friday evening, November 22, in Franklin
hall, the chnrch voted to give him a call to the permanent pas-
torate. TJie society by a ballot of thirty-three yeas and one
nay concurred with tlie vote. Though Manchester looked
forward to an assured growth, it must not be imagined that
it was the city it is now. It was still one of the smallest
towns in this part of the state. By the previous census of
1830 it had had a population all told of only eight hundred
and eighty-seven — but little more tlian half the population
of Bedford, and much less than half the population of Goffs-
town. Pembroke, Derry, Amherst, Antrim were larger and
more important towns. These facts will better enable us
to understand the vote by which the society fixed Mr. AVallace^s
salary at six hundred dollars, to be increased at the rate of
fifty dollars a year until it amounted to eight hundred dollars.
The last figure represented at that time an average salary in a
small tov/n such as Manchester was then. Mr. Wallace was
also an unmarried, unordained, and untried man. The ex-
traordinary powers which were to make him the greatest per-
sonal force in this city for a generation had not yet reached
their development and were not known. It is necessary to
take these considerations into account in order not to feel
that the society was niggardly to its pastor. The church had
never had a settled pastor. It was a tender blade emerging
from home missionary soil in which its two roots had been
nourished. From the date of the union, and the incorporation
of the new organization, it was not to receive henceforth a dol-

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 101

lar of missionary aid. It was itself an infant learning to walk.
The First Congregational Society always dealt generously with
Dr. Wallace, as it has with all its pastors. It advanced his
salary eight times during his pastorate— $600, $650, $700,
$750, $800, $900, $1,200, $1,600, $2,000— this is an unusual
record, and one cannot help wondering what the figure would
have been if Dr. Wallace had stayed another thirty years!
But he was a workman well ''worthy of his hire," and the
society never invested its funds to better advantage than these
figures represent. Besides this, they granted him frequent
additional periods of vacation, and supplied the pulpit at their
own expense. It April, 1850, he was voted a special vacation
of six weeks. Four years later, on motion by Dr. Parker, it
was "Resolved that this society grant permission to Eev. C. W.
Wallace to suspend his pastoral labors during six months of the
present year without reduction of salary." During the war in
1864 he was granted a special leave of absence of six weeks,
but he spent it in the hard but congenial labor of the Christian
Commis.'^ion. Two years later it was "voted to tender our
beloved pastor three months vacation" and to supply the pulpit
by subscription. At the same meeting at which this vote was
taken four hundred dollars was added to his salary. Four
years later, by Dr. Wallace^s request, he was cheerfully granted
-three months' vacation. This is the manner in which the
society cared for its minister and by which they guaranteed to
the church and the city the longest and most notable pastorate
in Manchester. Though I feel some natural delicacy in prais-
ing the society for that method of dealing with its minister, I
cannot restrain the impulse to do it. It was a broad, high-
minded policy, and could only have been followed by men of
large hearts and sound judgments. It not only relieved the

102 TO WN CHURCH HI ST OR Y.

anxieties of the pastor and kept his magnificent energies in
good preservation, but it was an untold blessing to the parish
which he was permitted for so long a ]:»eriod in the full tide
of life and health to serve.

We return to the date of Mr. Wallace's call. Capt. Hiram
Brown, G. B. Swift, and Henry Lancaster were the committee
that communicated the call to Mr. Wallace. The call granted
him two Sabbaths' regular vacation every year. It was also
specified that either party to the contract should be free to
dissolve the relationship by giving three months' notice. Mr.
AVallace's letter of acceptance was written from Barnet, Vt.
He first expressed a modest opinion of his qualifications. He
was not certain that he was equal to the needs of so important
a charge as Manchester was likely to become. "I fear that I
am not ///e man whose labors are now called for as the minister
of your church and society." In lieu of the "three months'
notice" clause, which was hardly in keeping with the dignity
of the relationship, he proposed that he become simply their
ordained rather than their installed minister. "The above
are the reasons for the answer which I now return. It may
be thought that they imply a want of confidence on my part.
I acknowledge they do so. But, beloved brethren and friends,
my want of confidence is not in you but in myself — here I
hope I may be indulged without suspicion." The church ap-
pointed Hiram Brown, George Perry, and Eobert D. Davidson
to unite with G. B. Swift, ^^ahum Baldwin, and James Wallace
from the society to arrange for the ordination. The council
of ordination was held January 8, 1840, in what the records
call "the Congregational meetinghouse in Amoskeag." The
name Amoskeag has been a term of shrinking significance.
The Indians applied it to a stretch of several miles on the Mer-

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 103

riiTiae river above and below the falls. Later on it was applied
to the region ronnd about the falls on both sides of the river.
At present it applies to the village on the west side of the river
at the falls. To speak of the church on Hanover street as the
Congregational meetinghouse in Amoskeag village did not
sound so strange in 1840 as it would today. Up to that time
when anyone spoke of Manchester he had Manchester Center
chiefly in mind, or the township as a whole, and not this vil-
lage in the neighborhood of the Amoskeag falls.

The Congregational churches of Nashua, Pembroke, Chester,
Derry, Merrimack, and Goffstown, and the Presbyterian
churches of Bedford, New Boston, Chester, and Derry, besides
the First Congregational and Appleton-street churches of
Lowell, constituted the council of ordination. The Rev.
Ephraim P. Bradford of New Boston was moderator and Revs.
Jonathan Clement of Chester and E. L. Parker of Derry were
scribes. The candidate was examined as to his religious belief
and "experimental acquaintance with the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.*' The examination was satisfactory, and after recom-
mending that the society rescind the "three months' notice"
clause the council proceeded to the ordination. Several of the
men who took part in the public exercises have already become
familiar to us. Abraham Burnham, of Pembroke, offered the
opening prayer, and Mr. AYallace's former nastor, Thomas
Savage of Bedford, gave him the right hand of fellowship.
M. C. Burnap of Lowell preached the sermon.

The history of the parish since 1840 is a history of pros-
perity— sometimes rapid and sometimes slow, but steady and
sure.' The quarter of a century from 1840 on was to be one
of the most eventful periods in the history of the nation. Mar-
tin Van Buren was President of the LTnited States. John

104 TO IVN CHURCH HISTOK Y.

Page was governor of New Hampshire. In the memloership of
the United States Senate of that year are found the greatest
names in our political history. Daniel Webster, Henry Clay,
John C. Calhoun, Thomas H. Benton — these are names enough
to make any senate famous. They sat there together in the
chamber in 1840. Together Avith them were other men of
fame — James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, and John J. Crit-
tenden. In the House of Eepresentatives sat John Quincy
Adams, Caleb Gushing, Millard Fillmore, John Bell, Thomas
Corwin, and Joshua R. Giddings. The abolition movement
was at its height. William Loyd Garrison had started the
Liberator ten years before. The Anti-Slavery Society had
been organized seven years before with headquarters in Xew
York, and now had nearly two thousand auxiliaries scattered
over the country, and was issuing more than six hundred thou-
sand publications annually. Seven years before, Wendell Phil-
lips had started on his marvelous career of abolition eloquence.
The First Congregational Church of this city joined its voice
in the roar of anti-slavery protest which had begun to rise
from the land as from far away. We find this resolution on
the records of January 2, 1843:

"Whereas the institution of slavery, as it exists in the southern
states of this union, is, in the opinion of this church a heinous sin
fig-ainst Almighty God, and a direct violation of the rights of
the enslaved, demoralizing and debasing' to the white population
where it exists, and a barrier to the fulfilment of the command
of our Savior, 'to ])reacli the Gospel to every creature — ^and where-
as manj^ of the members of professed evangelical churches in the
south are slave-holders, and defenders of the institution of
slavery — and whereas the Churches of our denomination in the
free states are living on terms of Christian fellowship and free
communion with churches the members of which hold slaves, —

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 105

and whereas our silence may be and we have reason to believe is
construed into an approval of the system . . . Therefore, Ke-
solved, That this church do regard man holding his fellowman
in bondage, the buying and selling of man made in the image of
God, as a gross violation of the spirit and principles of the Gospel
of Christ, and a sin that will bring blindness and hardness of
heart upon those who engage in it. And that we do hereby
most earnestly, and afeectionately, admonish our brethren of the
South of this, their sin, and entreat them for the love of Christ,
to forsake it, and do all in their power for its utter abolition.
Eesolved that we cannot receive as members of this church any
slaveholder or person who asserts and defends the claim of the
slaveholder to a right to hold his fellowmen in bondage. Ee-
solved that our pastor be requested not to invite into his pulpit
any minister who is a slaveholder or a defender of slavery as a
right. Eesolved that the foregoing preamble and resolutions be
published in the Congregational Eccord printed at Concord, and
that other papers, friendly to the subject be requested to copy
them from that paper."

Dr. Wallace reinfort-ed tliese resolutions by a steady, sus-
tained onslaught on the citadel of slavery for twenty-five years.
Those resolutions never became a dead letter till Lee sur-
rendered to Grant at Appomattox court house. His slavery-
sermons are mighty, prophetic utterances. "The nation is
at school,'^ said he, in the second year of the Rebellion. "The
discipline is war; God, the mighty God, the teacher; the les-
son, righteousness.'^ "Society at the South is composed of
elements vrhich unless the laws of mind change, must give
birth to anarchy. Their favorite institution makes slave
owners proud, conceited, overbearing, indolent, immoral.
Every plantation is a perfect despotism."

Hand in hand with the anti-slavery agitation went the tem-
perance reform. The ten years from 1840 were to mark some

106 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

of its most notable victories. It was to culminate in legal
prohibition in all the New England states and many states out-
side of New England. In 1855 New York and Indiana were
to adopt prohibitory laws. In those years the liquor problem
became the cause of almost as much excitement as slavery.
Eiots and disturbances, in which the military were called out
and men were shot, occurred in more than one city of the
country. Generally speaking it was an era of hot blood.
Those were the days of fiery eloquence. The country was in
dead earnest. In May, 1843, the church adopted a resolution
discountenancing the use of intoxicating liquors as a bever-
age. During the period of his pastorate. Dr. Wallace was per-
haps the leading temperance orator in the state. He did yoe-
man service in both these reforms. Let me give one illustra-
tion of the power of his appeal as told by one who heard him.
He was delivering a temperance lecture. ^^Have you ever seen
a blacksmith make ready to shoe an ox? He fastens a rope
around his horns, runs the rope through a pulley in the wall,
attaches it to a windlass, and begins to wind. The ox holds
back, but the blacksmith winds away at the windlass, the irre-
sistible windlass, until the beast bellows in his pain and help-
lessness. So with the drunkard. The rum seller turns the
windlass; the rope tightens mercilessly on his powers of resist-
ance. Watch him, as he is drawn lower and lower to his ruin.
How shall he escape?'^ Then after a pause of deathlike
silence, he raised his voice to a shout of electric power: '"Cat
the rope! Cut the rope!"

A period of intense agitation for the reform of great wrongs
is sure to unearth a certain number of fanatics. It would be
unreasonable to expect otherwise. The anti-slavery agitation
was prolific of fanatics. There was one woman in New Hamp-

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FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 107

shire, Abby Foster, who exhibited her hatred of slavery by
lecturing against it, and occasionally by cursing the church
for its indifference. Her favorite time for attending to the
latter duty was in the midst of the Sal^bath worship. All
churches were alike to her. One bright Sunday morning she
came to prophesy in the Hanover-street church. At a quiet
moment in the service she arose and proceeded with her rail-
ings. The congregation sat paralyzed for a moment. Then
two officers of the society, Deacon Brown and William G.
Means, regained suflficient equilibrium to proceed to dismiss
her from the church as a disturber. They did so. Afterwards,
one of them, :\Ir. AYilliam G. Means, remarked that when they
took hold of her to lead her out, "she moved like a bag of salt."

A long period of indebtedness followed the building of the
meetinghouse. When the church was finished, the society
was not able to raise subscriptions enough to pay for it. The
practice of giving large sums of money to the church was only
then beginning to become general. These men who were to
do the g'iving were of the first generation of the era of voluntary
l^arish support. They were learning the lesson. When the
society took the new church in their own hands, they appear
to have solicited no contributions. They sold fifty-dollar
shares of stock among themselves and friends, the principal
and six per cent interest being secured by a mortgage on the
property.

On tlie next page is a facsimile statement of the subscrip-
tions taken from the society records:

Some of the most interesting names in the history of Man-
chester are on this list. I want to call attention to that of
John H. Maynard. He was one of the characters of Manches-
ter, long to be remembered. He had a good heart, but was not

108

TOWN CHURCH HIS TOR Y.

^^*<:^

r^^

^i^

Facsimile Sui;s( riptiox List.

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 109

religious. He was greatly given to profanity. One day
Father AYallace reproached him for his weakness, and tried to
show him not only the wickedness but the folly of it.
'Tather Wallace," said Maynard, ^'don't you be anxious about
my profanity. I don't mean any more by my cussin' than
you do by your pray in'.''

The growth of the church after the union was rapid and sure.
Twenty-eight members were added in that year to the miited
church. Among them were Henry Lancaster and Hiram
Brown, already mentioned, who were to become prominent and
active deacons, AVilliam Hartshorn, who was to be the first
church clerk elected after the incorporation of the consolidated
church, and whose memory is preserved by the Hartshorn
legacy to the society. Dr. Moses C. Greene, who was to be clerk
of the society in the years following the building of the church,
Dr. George B. Swift, William G. Means, and Robert D. David-
son, three of the most prominent members of the society in
the early years. One of these twenty-eight members, Mrs.
John L. Bradford, is still living. Thirty-one members were
added to the church in 18-10, thirty-one in 1841, and sixty-five
in 181:2. Among those received in 1842 Mrs. Benjamin Kin-
sley and 31rs. Clementine Bassett are still living. Thirty-four
wei-e added in 1843 and twenty-five in 1844. In 1844 the
little village on the east side of the Merrimac had grown with
such lea])s and bounds that the meetinghouse on Hanover
street was not adequate to supply the demand for sittings.
There were enough Congregational people in the city to main-
tain two churches. So the church swarmed. The happy
result ^^■as the organization in May of that year of the Second,
or Franklin-street Congregational Church, a church with a
noble and prosperous history. The first move toward the or-

110 TO VVN CHUK CH HIS TO R V.

ganization of a second church was made immediately after the
annual meeting in April. Dr. Wallace was the chairman of
the committee which reported the advisability of the project.
May 7, at a puhlic meeting called for the purpose, the second
Congregational Society was organized with Josiah Crosby,
M. D., as president, and iVbram Brigham as clerk and treasurer,
and a constitution adopted and signed by sixteen people.
Seven weeks later the Second Congregational Church was or-
ganized with twenty members by an ecclesiastical council which
met at the home of Dr. Wallace. On the 6th of the following
November Mr. Henry M. Dexter was ordained as its first pastor.
The First Church elected Deacon Moses Xoyes to act with the
pastor in representing it at the ordaining council. The coun-
cil sermon was preached by the celebrated E. N. Kirk, D. D.,
of Boston. ]\[r. Dexter's experience m being called to Man-
chester, related by him at Dr. Wallace's quarter centennial
celebration in 1865, show^s how unknown the town of Man-
chester then was. He said that in May, 184:4, a gentleman
came to Andover, and told him that he had been enquiring
about his character. ''He wanted me to preach in Manches-
ter; asked if I knew where it was; I told him I did not.'* This
gentleman was William C. Clarke, afterwards the attorney-gen-
eral of the state.

The career of the First Church continued with unal;)ated
vigor and prosperity. Dr. Wallace had publicly and magnan-
imously requested his people at the time of the organization
of the Second or Franklin-street Church not to ask anyone
to remain with the First Church v»^hom the leaders of the new
enterprise could persuade to join the Second. This broad-
minded policy was the basis of the perfect harmony that has
existed between these two churches from that day to this, and of

FORTY YEARS IN THE OED CHURCH. Ill

the prosperity which tliey have enjoyed alike. Three years
after tlie organization of the Franklin-street Church the two
chnrches united and organized the City Missionary Society.
The membership of the chnrch grew steadily if not rapidly
during these years. The net gain in 1845 was nine. It was
only one in 18-16, five in 1847, five in 1848. The whole num-
ber of members August 21, 1848, was 232, more than two
thirds of whom were females. In 1849 there was a net loss
of four. That brings the church to the middle of the last
century with a membership of 228, a thriving daughter at her
side, and prosperity and peace within her palaces. Those were
not days for great accessions to the membership of the church.
Xo such national agitation as that over slavery is conducive to
the peaceful growth of the institutions of religion.

The meetings of the society in the early days were rather
more interesting than they are now. The society records are not
as monotonous as those of the church. The records of the
church state the additions and removals, births and deaths,
with occasional elections of deacons and other officers, but the
very harmony of its councils leave slim picking for the eccle-
siastical historian. The society records, on the other hand,
are full of interest. The pulse of -the parish may here be felt
at any meeting. If the size of the congregations justify it, they
increase the pew rents. If Mr. Horr, the chorister, has had
trouble with his choir, we hear of it. When an extra vacation
is given to the pastor Ave know he has been weary or ill. Three
years after the commencement of Mr. Wallace's pastorate the
prosperity of the parish is indicated by a vote, on motion of
Samuel D. Bell, to increase the pew rentals to eighteen hundred
dollars. Four years later the pew rentals on the floor of the
meetinghouse are again increased twenty per cent. The elo-

112 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

qiienee of the pnlpit and the cordiality of the pew attracted
large numbers of new arrivals to the church on Hanover street.
A young man who came to Manchester to work in the mills in
1812 gives this interesting pen picture of the church at that
time :

"I left my country home in Boscawen, and took up my abode
in this cit3^ My mother had heard Dr. Wallace preach at a series
of meeting's held in that town, and she earnestly requested me,
on leaving- home, to be sure and become a regular attendant at
the Hanover-street church, under his pastoral care. On the Sun-
day after my arrival I went to the church. On entering I was met
by Mr. Moulton, the sexton. I informed him I had come to stay
awhile and wanted a regular seat. He replied that he would
find a seat for me for that day, and during- the week would see
if he could secure a regular seat. On the second Sunday I was
shown into a pew occupied by an old g-entleman and his family.
His name was Eben Foster. The pew was the first on the east
side of the church next to the pulpit. In order to properly
engage in the service it became necessary to iirocure a hymn
book which I found at a bookstore on Elm street. I had my name
printed in gold letters on the cover. I have carefully kept the
book until this time. It was what was known as 'Watts and
Select.'

"I had a friend who desired a seat with me. He was from
Gilmanton, and as Dr. Wallace prepared for the ministry at the
seminary there, my friend had known of him. His name was
Xehemiah Sleeper Bean. I had another friend who attended the
same church. He occupied a seat in the choir and played a
brass instrument to assist in the music. He was from Canter-
bury. His name was Thomas Ham.

•"I occasionally attended evening- meetings which were held in
the southwest corner of the church (there was no chapel), as the
stove which was used for heating- the church was located there.
Generally there were not more than twenty or thirty present.
Deacon Hiram Brown was usually there. He was a man easily

FORTY VEAKS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 113

approached and always had a kind word for strangers. He was
the first mayor of the city. The last time I met him was in
the citj' of Washing-ton. He had charge of the grounds around
the executive mansion during the administration of President
Johnson. Anotlier brother was Deacon Nahum Baldwin, who
generall}" took charge of the meetings. Had I met him in Can-
terbury^ I should suppose he would be classed as a Freewill Bap-
tist. When the si)irit of the meeting would lag a little the
deacon would sing a hymn commencing', 'Gome blooming youth,
and seek the truth, and on to glory go,* etc.

"On entering the church and walking up the east aisle I passed
the pew of Samuel D. Bell, who was a constant attendant. He
was afterwards chief justice of the supreme court of the state.
One of the prominent men who was a constant worshiper was
Robert Eeed, agent of the Amoskeag Company, a particular friend
of the pastor, also David Gillis, agent of the Manchester Mills,
and William G. Means, father of the late Hon. Charles T. Means.
His voice was frequently heard in the prayer-meeting. I was
particularly pleased with Mr. Means, because he was the pay-
master of the Amoskeag, where I met him every four weeks. I
early made the acquaintance of Frederick Smyth. He was prom-
inent in all church matters.

"I will mention onl}^ one more, Brother Charles Hutchinson, in
whose family I resided. Mis. Hutchinson was a decided Meth-
odist, so to make all harmonious they attended the Hanover-street
church in the forenoon and the Methodist church in the after-
noon. It was Mr. Hutchinson who invited me to join a Sunday-
school class. I was introduced to Mr. Paj^son, who was a teacher
in one of the public schools. His class was in the gallery. :Mr.
Payson said I must provide myself with a copy of Barnes' Xotes
on the Gospels and a question book to match. In all my sixty
years of Sunday-school woi'k I never knew a better teacher than
Mr. Payson."

This Yoiiiig man was John Kiinball, now a deacon in the
South Chureli in Concord, X. H. Another young man, Horace

1 14 TO WN CHUR CH HI ST OR Y.

Pettee, who came to Manchester in 1843 to become a perma-
nent resident and a prominent and influential member of the
parish, has given ns an account of his first impressions of the
chiu'ch. He had come from tlie country church of Frances-
town and was surprised by contrast to find on entering the
Hanover-street church that the vast majority of the congre-
gation were young people. Very few gray heads were to be
seen. He mentions Deacon Moses Noyes as one of the old
men. He tells us an interesting incident about Deacon Hiram
Brown. "It was one Sunday afternoon in summer in the ves-
try, with windows open out into the back street, where an
Irishman was at work driving nails in repairing his back-yard
fence. Deacon Brown, looking out of the window called out
vigorously: 'Mike, stop that pounding; you disturb the meet-
ing.' The pounding stopped.''

Perhaps the most active man in the church during those
years was Deacon Nahum Baldwin. He was superintendent
of the Sunday school, was a good singer and an able helper in
the midweek prayer-meeting. He was deacon of the church for
more than thirty-one years. Up to the present time the church
has had three generations of deacons. Noyes, Farmer, Baldwin,
Brown, Lancaster, and Holbrook Chandler belong to the early
order. Crould, Foster, Abbott, Clough, French, P. K. Chandler,
?^ewell, Marden, Pattee, Herrick, and Sweatt belong to the
second order, most of whom have passed away. The third
generation is now in service. Among the other notable men
of the parish from the '40's to the '60's were William Harts-
horn, clerk of the society for many years, John N. and T. B.
Brown, Jacob Sawyer, Charles Richardson, paymaster for the
Amoskeag Corporation, Israel E. Herrick, "sedate and quiet,
always sitting in the front pew in church," and Jacob G. Cilley,

FORTY YEARS IX THE OLD CHURCH. 115

for mail}' years clerk of tlie society. Amono- the prom-
inent men whom the parish lost when the Franklin-street
Church was org'anized were Deacon David Brigham, Asa 0.
Colhy, and Dr. IN'athaniel Wheat. Other names that appear
frequently in the records of the society in the '50's are David
Hill, Samuel Fish, George W. Pinkerton, D. C. Gould, James
0. Adams, John Prince, William M. Parker, David Cross, E. A.
Jenks, Hervey Tufts, and S. P. Chase. In 18-16 Manchester
had hecome a city. In 1851 the hundredth anniversary of the
incorporation of Derryfield was ohserved by the city in an elab-
orate celebration, which was held in the city hall Wednesday
afternoon and evening, October 22. The principal address was
delivered by Dr. Wallace, and an interesting poem was written
and read by William Stark. In his address Dr. Wallace
alluded to the w^orthlessness of the soil in the town for farmins:
purposes. He quoted an old man who had been born in the
town but had left it because the land "was not worth ninepence
an acre,'' and who "related the old story of the grasshopper
which was found by the traveler on some of the Manchester
pine plains wiping the tears from its swarthy cheeks, and when
enquired of about the cause of its grief, replying 'the last
mullen leaf is wasting, and I see nothing but certain death by
starvation.' " It w^as in Mr. Stark's poem that appeared the
striking characterization of the early men of Derryfield, that

"Their 01113^ wish and their only praj^er,
For the present world and the world to come,
Was a string- of eels and a jng- of rum."

The first choir leader of whom we find mention in the rec-
ords of the society was Charles D. Horr. The choir was the
cause of considerable anxiety in the early days. The minutes

116 TO IVN CHURCH HISTOR Y.

of the society meeting of January 22, 184:7, tell us that ^'after
considerable discussion on the sul)ject of the Singing and the
Leaders of the Choir, the following resolution was introduced
and pass\l A^iz

" ^Eesolved as the expression of this society that the Action
of Certain members of the Singing Choir in Voting to Expel
Mr. Chars. D. Horr from their Society while he was their legal
A'ice President was irregular and uncall'd for, And that we like
and approve of Mr. Horr's style of Singing. But owing to the
present state of feeling in the Society, do not deem it Expe-
dient that he should sing in choir at present.^ "

The annual appropriations for music began in that year
when the society voted one hundred dollars to be used for sing-
ing "if called for before next annual meeting.'' In 1849 two
hundred dollars was appropriated for music. In 1851 and
1853 three hundred dollars was appropriated for music. These
appropriations seem to have been made every second year. In
1856 four hundred and fifty dollars was appropriated for music.
In May, 1857, Mr. E. T. Baldwin began his career as organist
of the church, the only organist the church has had since that
time. It is a remarkable record. Mr. Baldwin can have the
satisfactiorf of knovring that he has, without doubt, outstripped
all the oroanists of Xew England in continuous service at one
church. He had had six years' experience as organist at the
Eirst Baptist and Franklin-street churches before coming to
the Ilanover-street church. In 18G0 the old organ was sold
and a new one bought. The appropriation for music in 1865
was raised to seven hundred dollars. In 1869 it was increased
to one thousand dollars. This remained the regular annual
appropriation until very recent years.

The fact has already been mentioned that the pew rentals

EDWIN T. BALDWIN.

ORGANIST AND DIRECTOR OF MUSIC.
MAY, 1857, •

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 117

on the floor of the house had been raised twenty per cent in
1848. They had been raised before. In 1865 they were
raised ten per cent higher again. Two years later they were
dropped back five per cent. But in 1870, on motion of Horace
Pettee, they were reappraised so as to yield four hundred dol-
lars extra revenue. The following account of the pew rents
during the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth
years of Dr. Wallace's pastorate is interesting. It gives evi-
dence of the vitality of the pulpit and the growth of the parish
and the city. Though these amounts are small when compared
with our present receipts, they were large for that day. Pew
rental receipts: 1862, $2,454; 1863, $2,480; 1864, $2,741.

In 1865 the parish made elaborate preparations to celebrate
the quarter centennial of Dr. Wallace's pastorate. The ser-
vices began with his commemorative discourse on Sunday
morning, January 8. On Monday evening "not less than two
thousand persons" assembled in Smyth's hall to celebrate the
event. Peter K. Chandler, as president of the society, pre-
sided. Sj.eeches were made by the venerable Thomas Savage,
who had i'oen forty years minister of the Bedford parish, and
under whose ministry Dr. Wallace had been converted; by
Nathaniel Bouton, the historian, pastor of the First Church in
Concord; John P. Newell, Henry M. Dexter, S. D. Farns-
worth, Henry E. Parker, and others. A poem of considerable
merit was written for the occasion by Mrs. Nancy B. T. Green-
ough. Particularly happy is her picture of the sisterhood of
the First Congregational and Franklin-street churches:

"As green beneath the Indian skies
The spreading banyan's branches rise,
And downward bends the vigorous shoot
Till, interlaced, both branch and root,

118 ro WN CHUR CH HIS TOR J '.

Its green-wreathed arch and colonnade
Have there a wildwood temple made,
Divided, yet one beauteous tree
That woos the soft winds from the sea —
Thus did we part, — yet but in name.
Our hearts and hopes are still the same,
Our faith and love still intertwine."

Among the other speakers on the occasion were John D.
Patterson, William H. Fenn, at that time pastor of the Frank-
lin-street Church, William G. Means, and John B. Clarke.

The early '60's was a period of excitement in the church. A
host of the yoimg men offered themselves in the great struggle
for liberty and union. The pulpit of the First Congregational
Church on Hanover street felt and convej^d every throb of
the conflict.

January 12, 1873, Dr. Wallace, with the pathetic reluctance
of the veteran who lays aside his armor, no more to respond
to the bugle call to battle, handed in his resignation as pastor
of the First Congregational parish. There is sadness but no
bitterness in his words. "When this resignation takes effect,
I can anticipate no other pastorate. The step therefore which
I now take is not for my sake, but for your welfare. . . . My
generation are almost gone. The living are behind me. The
vigor and working force of the church, as well as its pecuniary
support, are drawn from those far younger than myself, while
those for whose salvation we labor are mostly separated from
me by a distance of many years. . . . The old routine needs
to be broken up; an increased personal responsibility needs to
be awakened, for a work is demanded here which cannot be
performed without it. In a vrord, this church and society
need the freshness, the vigor, the young life, the magnetism

QpLaa^^J^^^^.

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 119

of another pastor. . . . That this step costs me a sacrifice, I
will not deny. It is a sacrifice to leave the scene of my life-
work — turning away from that altar upon which though with
great imperfection, I have laid the vigor of my youth, and the
strength of my manhood. It is a sacrifice to leave the only
people I could call mine, whom I had the wish or the right to
love as mine. It is a sacrifice to drift out upon the wide world
and feel I have no church, no congregation, no pastorate, no
spiritual home."

The sad regret which is the undertone of this letter was
shared also by the church. A\^iat he said about the need of
a younger man was no doubt felt to be true. The whole trans-
action was harmoniously and beautifully carried through.
The resignation was accepted with becominig solemnity. The
pastorate closed with May, and the parish, with its eyes toward
the future, started on its quest for a new pastor.

The search for a new pastor was eminently successful, and
Mr. Edward Gr. Selden of Norwich, Conn., fresh from the sem-
inary, was called October 21, 1873, at a salary of two thousand
dollars, which was the salary the society had been paying Dr.
Wallace. Mr. Selden .had won the hearts of the people, and
was favorably inclined toward the church, but he declined the
call on account of the inadequacy of the salary offered. One
week later, the call was renewed, and on motion of J. D.
Patterson, seconded by S. P. Jackson, the salary was
placed at twenty-five hundred dollars. This was more in
keeping with the ability of the parish at the time, and the
worth of the man. Dr. Wallace was dismissed and Mr. Selden
ordained by the same council, December 16, 1873. January
1, 1874, Dr. Wallace was constituted pastor emeritus. Among
the most prominent nam.es, beyond those already mentioned

120 TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

in the history of this period, was that of John P. Newell, who
is now the honored minister of Litchfield. Mr. Newell, at
various times, held all the most important offices in the parish.
He was president of the society when Mr. Selden was called,
and carried the record of the call to him in Norwich. He was
elected a deacon in December, 1872. He was principal of the
high school and at one time mayor of Manchester. Another
prominent and efficient member of the parish at this time was
Dr. Leonard French. He was received into the church by let-
ter April 3, 1864, together with forty-five others. Many of the
most valuable memljers were among the number. Dr. French
w^as elected deacon two years later, and from that time on, the
concerns of the church shared his time and energies with the
demands of his profession. When absent from his office, his
slate usually directed his patients to seek him either at home
or at the vestry of the Hanover-street church. Other active
men of the parish, whose names have not been mentioned, were
Judge Charles R. Morrison, Henry B. Moulton, Holmes R.
Pettee, for several years superintendent of the Sunday school,
and H. P. Watts, son of the Daniel Watts who was one of the
organizers of the Presbyterian society at Manchester Center
in 1828. There were ten or a dozen men who, during
these years, pledged themselves to allow no deficit to be
reported at any annual meeting of the society. Their agree-
ment has become a fixed tradition of the parish. No deficit
has been reported at any annual meeting of the society for a
quarter of a century or more. These ten or a dozen men are
mostly dead or gone, but another generation has arisen to take
their places. It would not be within the scope of this history
to mention the names of all the profitable servants in this
vineyard.

FORTY YEARS IN THE OLD CHURCH. 131

AVe have noticed that the Franklin-street church was or-
ganized in 1844 as the result of the overflow at the older
church. The places of those who went out were soon filled,
and in order to secure more room, the church was cut in two
in the middle. The north half was pulled further toward the
back street, the breach was joined, and the added space was
secured. Earlier a building had been purchased and moved to
the rear of the church and fitted up as a vestr}^ The popularity
of the new pastor brought increased congregations, as shown
in the increased pew rentals, and in the course of time, with
the old church needing extensive repairs, the desire for a new
church in a better location began to make itself felt among the
more progressive minds in the parish. Early in 1879 the
society held several meetings to discuss the project. The advo-
cates of the new building were not able to carry their wish
over those who favored repairing the old church. The con-
servative section finally secured the agreement that nothing
should be attempted till twenty-five thousand dollars was
pledged. On motion of A. G. Stevens, a committee was ap-
pointed to secure the subscriptions. The committee con-
sisted of the president, Horace Pettee, Horace P. Watts, Alfred
Quimby, and Michael Gilbert. Joseph B. Sawyer was at that
time clerk of the society. The committee went immediately to
work and secured about eighteen thousand dollars. That
seemed to be the limit. Discouragement began to set in. It
was well for the old parish that it had strong men at the helm.
They had put their hands to the plow. They would not turn
back. The president, Deacon Pettee, called a council of war.
There was to be no retreat. It was arranged, with the approval
of the pastor, to secure the remainder of the necessary amount
at a Simday morning service. A brief sermon and statement

122 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TOR Y.

by Mr. Selden, followed by the report of the canvassing com-
mittee, and the work was begun. "Pledges were called for,"
says Deacon Pettee, "when the first one to respond was old
Mrs. Buchanan, the one least expected to give anything, who
left her pew, and came forward to the desk and layed down a
bank note. This was a good starter. Pledges were then
announced from all parts of the house with great enthusiasm."
After an hour's work and the columns had been footed up. it
was found that $27,533 had been pledged. The new church
was assured. Later the sum was increased to over forty-five
thousand dollars, which with the price received for the old
church made about sixty-seven thousand dollars. The prompt
and hearty generosity of such persons as Horace P. Watts, Mrs.
Mary E. Elliot, the founder of Elliot Hospital, G. W. 0. Teb-
betts, D. K. Mack, Dr. Leonard French, Alfred Quimby, Henry
B. Moulton, Michael Gilbert, Alvin Pratt, and others, furnished
the needed enthusiasm at the outset. The enthusiasm in-
creased in momentum as the army of nearly four hundred loyal
parishioners came forward to lay their gifts on the altar. The
gifts for the new edifice were numerous and moderate. The
largest Avas three thousand dollars. There were several gifts
of one thousand dollars and more, a large number of five-hun-
dred-dollar gifts, and a multitude ranging from three hundred
dollars to five dollars. It was a noble enterprise and nobly
crowned. An edifice which is still the worthy pride of the
community was erected on the best location in the city.

The lot was purchased for twenty-five thousand dollars from
the heirs of David E. Leach. The committee for the selection
of the lot consisted of Horace P. Watts, Thomas Dunlap, Gil-
man Piddle, Leonard French, J. L. Bradford, Daniel Farmer,
J. B. Sawyer, and the president of the society. Horace Pettee,

THE PRESENT FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH,

ERECT€D 1879.

FORTY YEARS IX THE OLD CHURCH. 123

as president of the society, sold the old church property Sat-
urday, April 5, ]88(), to Alfred Quimby and John B. Smith
for $23,100. J. B. Sawyer, Allen X. Clapp, J. T. Fanning,
and Mr. Selden had been appointed a committee "to procure
plans and estimates for a new house." J. T. Fanning was
chosen as the architect. His work stands as a monument to his
good taste. The architecture is Gothic. The ground plan is
cruciform. The total length of the building is 156 feet. The
width at the transept is 96 feet. The height of the spire is
160 feet. The ridgepoles of both transept and nave are 70
feet from the ground, and the pediments 74 feet. Turning to
the interior, the dimensions of the nave are 84 by 60 feet.
The length of the transept is 93 feet. The side walls have a
height of 22 feet, and the apex is 60 feet away. The audi-
torium contains 1,204 sittings.

The last service in the old church was held March 28, 1880.
The new church, with its profile toward Union street and the
park, its front on Hanover street, and its rear on Amherst
street, was dedicated debt free six weeks later. The value of
the property today is not less than one hundred thousand dol-
lars. It was one of the crowning victories of the old parish, and
marks the opening of the new or recent era in its long ex-
istence, and fixes a fitting close for this history. The events
that follow are too recent, and too many actors in them are still
living, to require historical research, analysis, or interpretation.
Dr. Wallace is the only settled, permanent pastor the church
ever had who is not still living. The other former pastors,
Drs. Selden, Sperry, and Clapp, are still making history.
What remains, therefore, to the finishing of this narrative is
simply such a statement of familiar facts as will bring the
story on down from the building of the new church to the
present day.

XII.

IN THE NEW CHURCH ON HANOVER COMMON.

The pews in the new church were thrown open for rental
Thursday evening, May 19. The average rental for the pews in
the old church had heen $6.10. For some unknown reason the
pews in the new church were reduced to an average of $4.90.
The prices ranged from $58 to $4. With the announcement
that pew No. 139 had been set apart for the pastor, and No. 71
for the pastor emeritus, the sale began. Charles H. Bartlett bid
in the privilege of a first choice, and selected the pew which still
remains in his family. The first service was held on the follow-
ing Sunday, when the church was dedicated. Dr. A. J. F.
Behrends of Providence preached the sermon. The pew rent-
als for the first year in the new building were $4,577. It was at
that time that Mr. Selden's salary was raised to three thousand
dollars, and he was voted by the society a leave of absence for a
journey abroad. At the close of that year the membership
of the church was 553. Twelve members had been added
during the year, five by confession and seven by letter. The
number of removals had been thirty-four. The membership
of the Sunday school was 580, with an average attendance
of 263.

In August, 1884, Mrs. Mary E. Elliot's home at 590 Beech
street, which she had bequeathed to the society, besides a

124

■ '%^^^^; ; ,? ^ ;^ -T^?^^^ '

{^^^^:r-^^

THE NEW CHURCH ON HANOVER COMMON. 125

legacy of two thousand dollars for the paying of the last bills
on the new church, was turned over to the use of the pastor.
In the spring of 1885 Mr. Selden, with the profound regret of
the parish, presented his resignation, to accept a call to the
South Church, Springfield, Mass. A farewell reception, with
numerous presentations, was given him May 4, 1885. The
church and society proceeded at once to find a new shepherd.
They appointed a committee of fifteen for the purpose. A
sub-committee consisting of Dr. Leonard French, Horace
Pettee, and James W. C. Pickering went on the successful
quest, and at a meeting of the church held August 12, recom-
mended Willard G. Sperry of Peabody, Mass., to the vacant
pastorate. Their recommendation was unanimously adopted,
and Mr. Sperry was called at a salary of twenty-five hun-
dred dollars and parsonage. He accepted and was installed
October 6.

Willard Gardner Sperry was born in Boston, Mass., August
10, 1847. He was one of a family of five boys. His father,
Henry Sperry, came from Cabot, Me. His mother^s maiden
name was Mehitable Preston Berry. She was a native of
Danvers, Mass. Mr. Sperry was educated at Phillips Academy
at Andover, and at Yale College and Seminary. He graduated
from the college in 1869. He accepted a call to the South Con-
gregational Church in Peabody, Mass., before the close of his
seminary course. In the first year of his pastorate at Peabody
he was married to Miss Henrietta Learoyd of Danvers.

It was during his pastorate and due to his inspiring
initiative that a strong Christian Endeavor Society, which
continues in its triumphant career, was organized. It was
also during his pastorate and at his recommendation that the
parish made choice of Miss Mary F. Dana as parish visitor and

126 TO IV N CH UR CH HIS TO R V.

pastor's assistant. The office has been nobly filled and ha&
greatly relieved the pastors of a multitude of duties which she
is fully as competent as they to perform. Mr. Sperry took a
deep interest in the moral welfare of the city, and gave vig-
orous support to the cause of municipal righteousness. He was
an intimate friend of the venerable Dr. Wallace, and con-
templated writing his biography. Much of the material he
collected for that purpose has been used in this work. He
pronounced a masterly eulogy on Dr. Wallace at a memorial
service held shortly after his death in 1889. The following
year he laid to rest another bosom friend of tenderer years,
Mr. Thomas C. Baldwin, clerk of the church, whose youthful
service had been full of rich promise. In November, 1892, Mr.
Sperry laid down his charge to accept the presidency of Olivet
College. His farewell sermon is a model of its kind, and a
farewell reception, with numerous testimonials of affection and
regret, speeded him on his way.

The search for a new pastor began at once. The sub-com-
mittee that carried on the search consisted of E. T. Baldwin,
W. H. Huse, George Winch, Charles H. Bartlett, Allen N.
Clapp, Miss Isabel Gr. Mack, and Miss Mary F. Dana. The
committee found the pastor of their choice in E. A. Lawrence,
D. D., of Baltimore. The church and society unanimously
concurred in their recommendation and he was called. But
before he had an opportunity to visit the church he was
stricken with a fatal illness, and died November 9, 1893. The
sad news cast a cloud of gloom over the parish. The work
of the church had been ably sustained under the supply of
Eev. Burke F. Leavitt. The committee took up its work again,
and in the course of a few weeks united in recommending
T. Eaton. Clapp, D. D., of Portland, Oregon, to the vacant

(^^^^L^riVVS^

^t^^

THE NEW CHURCH ON HANOVER COMMON. 127

charge. The recommendation was promptly adopted by the
church and society, and Dr. Clapp was installed April 19. His
coming was accompanied with testimonials of a high order.

T. Eaton Clapp was born near Philadelphia in 1844. He
was prepared for the ministry in Crozier Theological Seminary.
His first charge was in a Baptist ghnrch at Williamsport, Pa.
After a successful pastorate, he was called to the First Baptist
Church of Syracuse, N. Y. It was in Syracuse that he decided
to enter the Congregational ministry. His purpose in this step,
as he said in answer to a question at his installation in Man-
chester, was "to get on dry ground." In 1885 he accepted a
call to the First Congregational Church in Portland, Oregon,
where he did a large and successful work. He is a yeteran of
the Civil War, having served in the Fifteenth Pennsylvania
Cavalry. He was married in 1869 to Miss Caroline H. Cham-
berlain.

Dr. Clapp entered at once upon a pastorate of great industry.
In the first year he was instrumental in securing the union of
the evangelical churches in a great series of evangelistic meet-
ings under B. Fay Mills. The meetings were held in the First
Congregational Church, and resulted in a large accession to its
membership. Dr. Clapp also played an active part in the
effort to secure the enforcement of the prohibitory law in the
city. In the spring of 1899 he resigned his charge, and has
since been engaged in the work of the Anti-Saloon League.
The following autumn the church and society extended a call
to the present pastor. He began his work January 7, 1900.

XIII.

THE PRESENT PASTORATE.

By Mart Frances Dana.

Another chronicler here takes up the pen, for the reason
that our historian had ended this little volume where many-
were not satisfied to have it end, that is, with no other mention
of the present successful pastorate beyond the fact that it
began at a certain date. A man might well be forgiven for
thinking himself unfitted to write the history of his own work,
and modesty would very likely interfere with his doing full
justice to it. This pastorate has only extended over three or
four years, but they have been busy and eventful ones, and
are well worthy of being recorded in this book of deeds, which
will tell to succeeding generations of those who love our
church the story of the past.

Immediately upon the resignation of Dr. T. Eaton Clapp, a
committee was appointed to fill the vacancy thus made in the
pastoral office. This committee consisted of Edwin Hill,
George H. Brown, Will C. Heath, Norwin S. Bean, Alfred
Quimby, Mrs. John Cle worth, and Mary F. Dana. Their
choice fell upon the Eev. Thomas Chalmers, pastor of the First
Congregational Church, Port Huron, Mich., to whom a unan-
imous call was extended November 1, 1899. He began his
work January 7, and was installed February 14, 1900. The

128

(hwou^

vIJCax4iA

ju^

THE PRESENT PASTORATE. 131^

wisdom of this choice has been abundantly justified by the
increasingly happy and harmonious spirit which has ruled in
church and parish. The knowledge that a recent tempting
offer to remove to another field has been declined, serves to
strengthen the feeling of affectionate esteem in which he is
held by his people.

Mr. Chalmers was born January 8, 1869, near Grand Rapids,
Mich., of Scotch-Irish parentage. He belongs to a large fam-
ily of eight children, and is the youngest of four brothers, all
of whom are filling positions of influence either as ministers
of the gospel or educators. After being trained in the
schools of his own state, he went to Harvard University, and
subsequently carried his studies still farther in the universities
of Marburg, Germany,' and St. Andrews, Scotland. June 20,
1894, he was married to Miss Maude Virginia Smith, of Colum-
bus, Ohio. The Port Huron pastorate extended over a period
of six years, and shows a remarkable record. Mr. Chalmers
has won recognition as an earnest advocate of the revival of
religious training for the young. "An EvangeHcal Cate-
chism" has been prepared by him and used with marked re-
sults. Several articles from his pen have appeared in leading
religious journals, and he has also written a book on Alexan-
der Campbell, and another entitled "The Juvenile Eevival."
In conjunction with Eev. J. Bunyan Lemon, he has published
a course of Bible study called "The Eainbow Series," which
has met the approval of well-known Sunday-school workers,
and is in use in several schools.

Under his wise and vigorous leadership, the parish has
grown to include seven hundred families. The church mem-
bership is over eight hundred, two hundred and twenty hav-
ing been added during this pastorate. The benevolences for

130 TO WN CHUR CH HIS TO R Y.

the three full years have amounted to $12,415.93, while the
increasing annual income enabled the society to add five hun-
dred dollars to the pastor's salary on January 30, 1901.

These last years have seen the passing away of many, both
men and women, who were closely identified with the early
church memories. Perhaps Deacons Horace Pettee, A. Ward
Waite, Moses E. Currier, and ex-Presidents Judge Charles H.
Bartlett and Allen N. Clapp, might be mentioned as having
been long officially connected with either church or society.

In December, 1900, the church assumed the support of a
foreign missionary pastor, the amount necessary for the
same being procured by individual subscriptions, and Rev.
John Peter Jones, D. D.^ of Madura, India, became our repre-
sentative in that far-away land. During his recent furlough
in this country, the church received three visits from him, on
two of which he was accompanied by his wife, and on one
occasion also by five of his six children. Personal affection
for the*missionary family and more general interest in the work
were fostered by these visits.

In the summer of 1901, extensive renovations and improve-
ments were made in the interior of the church, all being the
munificent freewill offering of Dr. and Mrs. L. M. French, in
acknowledgment whereof the following resolutions were passed
by the society:

Wheeeas, During the past summer, Dr. and Mrs. L. Melville
French, of their own good impulses were moved to beautify the
interior of our church, furnishing new carpets for the floors and
new cushions for the pews to harmonize with the tints of the
newly decorated walls and ceilings; and,

Whereas, The generous manner with which the work was car-
ried to completion, and the rare taste employed in its execution

THE PRESENT PASTORATE. 131

have added joy to the worship of the church, and honored Him
in whose name it stands; therefore, be it

Resolved, That we, the First Congregational Society, express to
Dr. and Mrs. French onr most grateful appreciation, and that
Ave recognize also in their gift an example which cannot help
making ns more loyal, ready, and uncomplaining toward any
financial demands npon ourselves which onr parish ma3^ need to
make from time to time.

The credit for the inception of an idea, the fiilfinment of
which means much to this entire state, helongs to the pastor
of this church. In harmony with his wish the chnrch voted,
October 19, 1902, to invite the American Board to hold its
next annual meeting in Manchester. The concurrence of the
other Congregational churches in the vicinity was secured, and
such an invitation was sent and accepted by the board. It will
be the first time that this great body has been entertained in our
state, and, while it is a vast undertaking, it is still more an
esteemed honor and privilege. The following committee, ap-
pointed by the three churches, is already at work making the
necessary arrangements for this great event:

Rev. Thomas Chalmers, chairman; George Winch, Charles
B. AVingate, Frank H. Hardy, Charles E. Holbrook, Will C.
Heath, George H. Brown, Walter G. Jones, L. Melville French,
K'orwin S. Bean, from the First Congregational Church; Rev.
B. W. Lockhart, I). D., David Cross, William C. Clarke,
Thomas AValker, Jr., Clarence M. Edgerly, John G. Thorne,
Frank W. Sargeant, J. A. Graf, J. W. Johnston, A. F. Emer-
son, from the Franklin-street Church; Rev. Charles A. Bid-
well, Warren J. Ayer, Walter M. Fulton, Mitchell Ward, Wal-
ter B. Mitchell, from the South Main-street Church.

Another interesting occasion to which the church is looking

132 TO WN CHUR CII HIS TOR V.

forward in the immediate future is the celebration of the
double Diamond Jubilee. Nothing can better show the antici-
pated pleasures of that week than the program itself, which
we here insert:

THE DOUBLE DIAMOND JUBILEE

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH,

Manchester, N. H.
REV. THOMAS CHALMEKS, PASTOR.

One Hundred and Fifty Years since the First Call to a Minister.
1753—1908.

Seventy-Five Years of Organized Independence of the Town.
1828—1903.

SUNDAY, MAY 17.

10.30 A. M. Historical Address by the Pastor.

Appropriate Jubilee Music by the Choir.
5.00 P. M. Communion Service with Reception of Members.

THE NEW PASrORATE. 133

TUESDAY E VEXING, MAY 19.

7.30. The Jubilee Banquet in Masonic Hall.
8.30. After Dinner Speeches.

Rev. Thomas Chalmers, Toastmaster.

THE EARLY FATHERS. Rev. John P. Newell.

"There is
One great society alone on earth.
The noble living, and the noble dead."

— WilUam Wordsworth.

THEIR WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS. Judge David Cross.

" When I should be her lover forever and a day,
And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray."
—James Whitcomb RUey.

THE FORMER PASTORS. Henry W. Herrick.

" God gives to every man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste.
That lifts him Into life, and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordained to fill."

— William Coivper.

CHRISTIANITY IN RURAL NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Governor Nahum J. Bachelder.

" When the church is social worth,
When the state-house is the hearth.
Then the perfect State is come."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson,

134 TO WN CHURCH HIST OR Y.

OUR FAIR CITY Mayor Eugene E. Reed.

•' AVhatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens."

—-Daniel Webster.

PISCATAQUOG AND NAMASKE. Edward J. Burnham.

" Whence these legends and traditions.

With the odors of the forest,

With tlie dew and damp of meadows,

With the cnrling smoke of wigwams,

With the rushing of great rivers?"

— Henry Wadsworth Lowjfellov.

THE MERRIMACK ; NATURE'S PROPHET AND PRIEST.

Dr. Daniel S. Adams.

" Once more by tlie grace of Him

Of every good the Giver,

We sing upon its wooded rim

The praises of our river."

—John Greenleaf Whittier.

GENERAL JOHN STARK. Senator Henry E. Burnham.

" And sliould the nation mark
In marble memory these mighty men,
Or cast in bronze their deeds, or paint their scroll
To deck her halls of state, what stauncher soul.
More chivalric or dauntless, hath she then.
Than gallant old John Stark? "

—Allen Eastman Cross.

THE PRESENT GENERATION. Rev. Charles A. Bidwell.

" Progress is
The Law of life ; man is not Man as yet."

—Robert Browning.

THE FUTURE. Hon. John C. Bickford.

" The King is dead; long live the King."

THE NE W PA S FOR A TE. 135

THE VALUE OF STRONG BASIC PRINCIPLES.

Rev. Burton W. Lockhart, D. D.

" O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart, and weariless brain.
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong.
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain."

—James Russell Lowell.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY W.

.00. The Jubilee Address, by Edward G. Selden, D. D., of Al-
bany, New York, Pastor of this Church from 1873 to 1885.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING, 3IAY 21.

2.00 to 6.00 and 7.30 to 10.00.

Reception in the Church Parlors, and Exhibition of the Portraits
of the Fathers.

Tea served from 4 to 5.30.

Old Time Songs.

FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 22.

7.45. The Mid-week Service.
Prayers for the Future.

136 TO WN CHUR CII HIS TOR \ .

The following persons comprise the jubilee committee:
Eev. Thomas Chalmers, Henry W. Herrick, Jasper P.
George, William H. Huse, John Cleworth, Cyrus H. Little,
Mrs. Horace Pettee, Mrs. John C. Bickford, Isabella G-. Mack,
Mary M. Tolman, Mary F. Dana. Jasper P. George was
made secretary of this committee. Cyrus H. Little having re-
signed, Norwin S. Bean was chosen to fill the vacancy.

And so this history closes with a backward glance toward
those small beginnings, which nevertheless were great and
strong in that they received the impulse of great souls. "Great
souls are portions of eternity," and so their work partakes of
the imperishable character of the Eternal. In this time of
retrospection many will find it in their hearts to say,

"The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction."

HISTORICAL LIST OF CHURCH OFFICERS.

Pastors.

Installed. Dismissed.

Cyrus W. Wallace January 8, 1840.... December 16,1873

Edward G. Selden December 16, 1873 .... May 19. 1885

Willard G Sperry October 6, 1885 ... January 1, 1893

T. Eaton Clapp April 18, 1894.... July 12.1899

Thomas Chalmers February 14, 1900

Deacons.

Apx>ointed.

Ceased to act.

Moses Noyes
Daniel Farmer *

* October,

October

Nahum Baldwin February 29, 1840. .

Hiram Brown February 29,1840..

Henry Lancaster July 10,1848..

Holbrook Chandler July 10, 1848. .

Daniel C. Gould December 31. 1857. .

Ebenezer C Foster September 4, 1858 . .

Theodore T. Abbott July 5, 1862. .

Henry Clough January 29, 1866. .

Peter K. Chandler February 13, 1866 . .

Leonard French February 13, 1866. .

John P. Newell December 10, 1872. .

Horace Pettee December 10, 1872. . . .January

Simeon S. Harden December 10, 1872. .

Taylor G. Sweatt February 19, 1875..

1860
30, 1865

27. 1871
1. 1869

19. 1858

1, 1857

3, 1872

18, 1865

23, 1874

17. 1872
23. 1885
14, 1892
26, 1888
18. 1901

January 10, 1902
September 22, 1894
..April 19,1889

..January 19,1900
..January 16,1903
..January 13,1899
..December 23, 1901

.October
..May
. August
. April

. . November
, . February
. April
.November
. . January
. . February
. . August

Josiah W. Stetson January 20, 1888 .

Edwin T. Baldwin January 18, 1889 .

Henry W. Herrick April 26,1889.

WilhamH. Huse May 13,1892

A. WardWaite January 25.1895

* Moses Noyes, who had held the office of deacon in the Presbyterian churcli
and Daniel Farmer, who had held the same office in the Congregational churcb
retained the office after the union.

137

138

TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

Joshua B. Estey January 25, 1895. .

George Winch January 25, 1895. .

George H. Brown January 22, 1897 .

William C. Heath January 13, 1899. .

Moses R. Currier January 19, 1900. .

Jasper P. George January 19, 1900.

Frank H. Hardy January 18, 190J .

George Winch April 12,1901.,

Charles R. Holbrook January 10, 1902 .

Edward R. Chamherlin February 7, 1902 .

William H. Huse Februai-y 20, 1903.

. January
.January

22, 1897
19, 1900

February 5, 1901

Clerks.

ApiMinted. Ceased to act.

James N. Davidson December — 1828 .... October 19, 1833

19, 1833.... October 5,1841

5, 1841.... June 23,1854

23, 1854.... May 5,1860

5, 1860 .... January 4, 1863

4, 1863 ...May 31, 1864

31, 1864.... June 19,1874

19, 1874 .... January 28, 1887

28, 1887... June 17, 1888

17, 1888 .... January 18, 1889

18, 1889 .... September 3, 1890

.November 30, 1894

George Perry October

Cyrus W. Wallace October

William Hartshorn June

George W. Pinkerton May

Charles A, Daniels January

Thomas B. Brown May

John D. Patterson June

Thomas C. Baldwin January

Roger E. Dodge June

Thomas C. Baldwin January

Charles E. Wason Septemb'r 19, 1890 .

Walter G. Jones November 30, 1894.

Treasurers.

Axipointed.

William G. Means

John Prince

Thomas B. Brown July 16,1867.

Jasper P. George ... July 17,1874.

John A. Goodrich January 20, 1876 .

Robert D. Gay January 18, 1878.

G. AV. O. Tebbetts January 23, 1884.

John A. Goodrich January 28, 1887.

Francis H. Clement January 10, 1902

Ceased to act.

.June
. January
.January
.January
. January
.January

19, 1874

20, 1876
18, 1878
23. 1884
28, 1887
10, 1902

ANNUAL PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH.

FROM THE DATE OF THE UNION IN 1839.

DATE.

1839.
1840.
1841.
1842.
1843.
1844.
1845.
1846.
1847.
1848.
1849.
1850.
1851.
1852.
1853.
1854.
1855.
1856.
1857.
1858
1859.
1860
1861.
1862 .
1863.
1864.
1865.
1866.
1867.
1868.
1869.
1870.
1871.

SIO^

fS.

•ji

1-1

■A

56
87
113
168
192
195
204
205
210
215
211
226
239
255
255
251
266
275
291
352
365
363
379
379
375
447
449
458
462
465
466
473
475

ADMISSIONS.

DATE.

>. 1

M 1

1872

1873

1874 ■. .. .

1875

1876

1877

1878

1879

1880

1881

1882

1883

1884

1885

1886

1887

1888

1889

1890

1891

1892

1893

1894

1895

1896

1897

1898

1899

1900

1901 (Jan. 1.).

1902

1903

T9 ,

24 !

12 '

15 '

19
22
29
95
12
23

107
9
21
12
31
14
28
24
44
28
24
26
19
19
19
26
39
52

111
17
29
18
14
78
61
48

18 476
15 ' 483
412
487
478
478
556
552

553
554
543
548
540
554
543
556
561
556
555
554
566
581
612
703

667

759

788

The membership of the Church at the date of the publication of this boolv

is over 800.

139

HISTORICAL LIST OF SOCIETY OFFICERS.

Presidents.

A%)jioi)itecL Ceased to act.

JosephMoor March 26, 1828.... March 28,1832

Moses Noyes March 28, 1832. . . .March 25, 1835

Daniel Hall March 25, 1835. . . . March 30, 1836

Joseph M. Rowell March 30, 1836 .... March 29,1837

Moses Noyes March 29,1837 April 27,1838

Daniel Farmer April 27, 1838. . . .April 20, 1840

David A. Bunton April 20, 1840. .. .April 24,1844

Hiram Brown April 24. 1844. . . .April 17, 1854

Nahum Baldwin April 17, 1854. . . .April 18, 1864

Peter K. Chandler April 18, 1864 .... April 20, 1868

John P. Newell April 20, 1868. . . .April 30, 1877

Horace Pettee April 30, 1877 .... April 27, 1881

Horace P. Watts April 27, 1881 . . . April 24, 1889

Charles H. Bartlett April 24, 1889. . . . April 27, 1892

Joshua B. Estey April 27, 1892. . . .April 25, 1894

Allen N. Clapp April 25, 1894. . . .January 31, 1900

Charles A. Adams January 31, 1900

Clerks.

Ap2)oi)ited. Ceased to act.

Frankhn Moor March 26, 1828. . . .April 22, 1829

Samuel Gamble April 22, 1829 . . .March 28, 1832

Amos Weston, Jr March 28, 1832. . . .March 26, 1834

John M. Noyes March 26, 1834 .... March 25, 1835

Eobert P. Whittemore . . , March 25, 1835 March 29, 1837

Amos Weston, Jr March 29, 1837. . . .April 27, 1838

George W. Kimball April 27, 1838 .... April 27, 1839

Moses C. Greene April 27, 1839 .... April 14, 1841

Paul Cragin, Jr April 14, 1841. . . .April 20, 1842

William G. Means April 20, 1842. . . .April 17, 1854

William Hartshorn April 17, 1854 .... April 18, 1864

John P. Newell April 18, 1864. . ..October 3,1864

Jacob G. Cilley October 3, 1864.... April 20,1808

140

LIST OF SOCIETY OFFICERS.

141

Joseph B. Sawyer April 20, 1868.

John T. Fanning April 27,1881.

John Dowst April 21, 1886 .

Joseph B. Sawyer April 25, 1893 ,

Will S. Adams April 29, 1896.

Lewis W. Crockett January 29, 1902

Treasurers.

Apxtoxnted.

Amos Weston, Jr March 26, 1828

Moses C. Greene January 3, 1840

Paul Cragin, Jr April 14, 1841 .

William G. Means April 20, 1842.

William Hartshorn April 17. 1854.

John P. Newell April 18, 1864.

Jacob G. Cilley October 3, 1864

Joseph B. Sawyer April 20, 1868

Suneon S. Marden April 27, 1880.

Holmes R. Pettee April 19, 1882

Harvey B. Sawyer April 27, 1892

John Cleworth April 25, 1895

....April

27, 1881

. ..April

21, 1886

....April

25, 1893

....April

29, 1896

. . . . January

29, 1902

Ceased to act.

.... April

14, 1&41

....April

20, 1842

— April

17, 1854

....April

18, 1864

. ..October

3, 1864

....April

20, 1868

. . . . April

27, 1880

....April

19, 1882

....April

27, 1892

....April

25, 1895

142

TOWN CHURCH HISTORY.

TABULAR STATEMENT OF ACTUAL RECEIPTS FROM
PEW RENTALS FROM 1862 TO 1903.

Year ending
April.

Actual

Pew
Rentals.

Year ending
April.

Actual

Pew
Rentals.

Year ending
April.

Actual

Pew

Rentals.

1862

$2,669.11
2,655.55
2,741.62

1879

1880

$4,253.60
4,312.97
4,577.29
4,628.55
5,243.94

5,462.90
5,074.97
4,668.42
5,015.72
4,650.52
4,725.22
4,761.70
4,853.85

1892 . .

.^4,765.65
4,684.10
4 715.10

1863

1893

1864

1881

1894

1882

1895

1896

Year end'g Jan.
1897

4,976.86

5,109.58
,~9 mos.
3,453.56

4,846.66

4,749.96

1870

3,613.40

3,490.24
4,158.13
3,817.09
3,831.96
4,365.46
4,278.56
4,515.94
4,361.86

1883

1871

1884

1872

1885

1886

1898

1873

1899

1874

1887

1900

1901

4,345.07
4,962.83
5,035.22
5 479.76

1875

1888

1876

1889

1902

1877

1890

1903

1878

1891

These figures do not represent the total annual income of the society. That
for last year, 1903, Avas $7,499.63.

LEGACIES AND ENDOWMENT FUNDS.

By the generous remembrance of past members of the parish the society has
gradually accumulated a small endowment fund. It is the hope of the society
that this fund may grow to such proportions as to equip the parish for a mightier
service to the community, and to enable the church to turn its energies more
freely toward outside objects of benevolence. A hundred thousand dollar en-
dowment fund would multiply the beneficent powers of the parish. Every
legacy or gift, however small, will help toward that end.

LEGACIES AND ENDOWMENTS. 143

LEGACIES TO THE SOCIETY.

Mary E. Elliot, March, 1880 S2,000.00

Also house and land on Beech street.

Adaline Hartshorn, January, 1893 '. 1,000.00

Henry M. French, June, 1893 500.00

Allen N. Clapp, December, 1901 1,000.00

Harriet K. Prince, February, 1902, house and land on Pine street.

LEGACIES TO THE CHURCH.

Hannah B. Kenniston, March, 1885 $1,000.00

Clara A. Stanton, June, 1895 100.00

Edward W. Forsalth, February, 1899 500.00

The church has also a residuary interest in the house and lot of the late
Ebenezer Ferren on Walnut street.

FORM OF BEQUEST.

I give, bequeath, and devise dollars to the First Congrega-
tional Society of Manchester, N. H.

Signature

The word "Church" maybe substituted for that of "Society" if the gift
is so intended.

INDEX.

Page

Abbott, William 93

Abbott, Theodore T 114

Adams, James O 115

Amherst 52, 100

American Board 131

Ammy, Abraharn 50

Amory, William 98

Amoskeag- 10-102

Amoskeag- Company 81, 86, 97, 98

Amoskeag" Joint Stock Company 97

Amoskeag- Schoolhouse 94

Anderson, Robert 40

Andrews, "blister" 52

Andover Theological Seminary 85

Annual Progress of the Church 139

Anti-Slavery Eesolutions 104

Anti-Slavery Sermons 105

Anti-Slavery Society 104

Antrim 96, 100

Appropriations for Music 116

Atwood, Stephen 79, 82

Baldwin, E. T 116, 126

Baldwin, Mrs. Nahum „ 87. 93

Baldwin, Nahum 93, 97, 102. 113

Baldwin, Thomas C 126

Bancroft, Benjamin 25

Barron, Elias 24

Bartlett, Charles H 124* 'iV6 130

Bartley, .John M '.,..' 75

Bassett, Mrs. Clementine ,, 109

gean, K S 112; 128. 131

Beaver Pond 20

Bedford 35, '36,* 5l','64,' 67,' 75," 95. 100

Bedford's Call to a Pastor 36

Bedford-street Church, Boston *. ". 75

Behrends, Dr. A. J. F 124

145

146 iNDEX.

Page

Beli, Samuel D 87, 111, 113

Betogkom, Simon 19

Bidwell, Rev. Charles A 132

Blake. George 82

Blake, Hannah E 82

Blanchard, Joseph 25, 26

Blodgett, Isaac 64, 71, 93

Boscawen 112

Bouton, Xathaniel 117

Bowers, Capt. Jonathan 26

Bowers, Benjamin 27

Bovd, Xathaniel 31, 34

Boyd. Samuel 40, 46

Bradford, Ephraim P 72, 92, 103

Bradford, J. L 122

Bradford, Mrs. John L 109

Brigham, Abram 110

Brigham, David 115

Brown, Capt. Hiram 94, 95, 99, 102, 109, 112, 114

Brown, George H 128, 131

Brown, J. H. & T. B 114

Brown, Jonathan 54, 72

Bunton, David A 97

Burnap, M. C •. 103

Burnham, Abraham 75, 82, 85, 92, 103

Butler, Rev. Benjamin 38,39

Calef, John 71

Carter, Timothy, Jr 97

Chamberlain, Caroline H 127

Chandler, Holbrook 114

Chandler, P. K. 114, 117

Chapin, Mr 53

Charge Ag'ainst Mr. Pickles 51

Charles River 14

Chase, Joseph 75

Chase, S. P 115

Chelmsford 25

Cheney, Thomas 71, 77, 94

Chester , 27, 31, 45, 79

Christian Endeavor Society 125

Christian Indians 18

Church Indebtedness 107

Church. John Hubbard 76, 79, 85, 92

Cilley, Jacob G 114

Cilley, ]\[rs. Bradbury Poor 82

City Missionary Society Ill

INDEX. 147

Page

<Iapi), Allen X 12:!, l:3(>, 130

Clapp, T. f:aton 123, 126. 127, 128

Clark. James V^ 84

Clark, Mary 75

Clarke, John P. 118

Clarke. William C 110. 131

Clement, Jonathan 103

Cleworth, Mrs. John 128

Clongh, Henry 114

Colby, Asa O^ 53, 115

Concord 10, 36, 63

Congregational Clinrch in Amoskeao- 56, 61, 68, 77

78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 91

Congregational Chnrch of ^fanchester 56, 61, 63, 64, 65

68, 69, 76. 77, 78. 85. 89. 92. 93, 104

Con vers, Josiah 54

Council of Clergymen 91, 92,, 93

Council of Ordination 103

Council for New England 12, 13, 14

Creed of Amoskeag" Church 80

Crosby, Josiah 110

Cross.*^ David 115, 131

Cummins, William 23

Currier, :N[oses K 130

Dana, Miss Mary F 125, 126. 128

Davidson, James N 79, 82, 83, 84

Davidson, Airs. Lucy 79

Davidson, Eobert d' 99, 102, 109

Davis, Daniel 48, 50

Davis. Sarah , 75, 79

Day, Eev. P. D 92

Dean, Dr. Oliver 81

Deane, H. L 85

Dean's Hall 81, 87

De Monts 9, 10, 11

Derry 75, 100

Derry Associal ion 65

Derrytield 21-77

Dexter, Henry :\r 110, 117

Dickey, Mrs. Jennet 93

Dickey, John 40. 50

Dickey, Eobert 40

Dimensions of the Xew Church 123

Dinsmore, Alonzo 79

Dissolution of Church and Town 53, 60, 69

Disestablishment Party 54

148 INDEX.

Page

Double Diamond Jubilee 132

Dunlap, Mrs 37

Dunlap, Thomas 122

Dunstable 22, 23, 25, 79

Duston, Dr. John 50

Dwinnell, John 54

East Derry First Congregational Church 20

Eliot, John 16. 17, 18

Elliot Hospital 122

Elliot, Mary E 122. 124

Emerson, Peter 50. 53

English Party 38

Expense Items for Kaising a Meetinghouse 26

Exeter 14. 45. 62

Fanning, J. T 123

Farmer, Betsy 79

Farmer, Col. Daniel 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 86, 88, 93, 114. 122

Farmer, Elizabeth A 79

Farmer, Joseph 50. 52

Farmer, Mrs. Daniel 93

Farnsworth, S. D 117

Farrah, Jacob 23

Farwell, Isaac 25

Farwell, Mr 54

Fenn, William H 118

First Congregational Church 118, 131

Fishing Season at Amoskeag- 16

Fish, Samuel 115

Finney, Charles G 96

Fiske, John 18

First Baptist Church 99

First Meetinghouse on Hanover Street 98

First Warrant Assessing Derryfield 32

Flanders, Betsey 93

Fort William Henrv 43

Foster, Abby 107

Foster, Benjamin Franklin 70, 85

Fostei-, Eben 112, 114

Franklin Hall 92, 94. 100

Franklin-street Church 117, 118, 121

Free Baptist Church 99

French and Indian W^ar 42. 59

French, Dr. Leonard 120, 122, 125, 130, 131

French, Catharine 79. 84, 93

French, Phineas 92, 114

Gamble, Archibald 50. 52

INDEX. 149

Page

(iambie, Samuel 71, 1)4

(larrisoii, Williair. Lo\ d 104

(ieorge 11 ;;2, i\-\

Cilbert, Michael 121, 12:3

( iillis, Abigail 75

(iillis, David li;?

( Jillis, Pheni 7")

( iilmore, Eev. George 46, 47

(iilnianton 90

(Joffe, John 81, ;]2, 34, H8, 39. 42, 44, 45, 48, 50

(ioft'e, Joseph 53

Coffstown 75, 79, 100

( Jookin, Daniel 18

(iorges, Sir Ferdinand 12, 13, 14

(lornian, James 48

Conld, D. C 114, 115

(Ireeley, Gilbert 70

Greele^', Jonathan 50

( Jreen, John 48

( Jreene, Dr. ]\Ioses ( ' 109

( Jreenland .• 45

( Jreenongh, INIrs. Nancy B. T 117

(Jriffin, Thomas 50

(Jriffin, Mrs. Jernsha 93)

Hadley, Benjamin 38

Hall, Betsey 75

Hall, Daniel 48, 5 !, (54. 71, 77

Hall, Elizabeth 52

Hall, John, Jr 50, ()5

Hall. Lieut. John 31-71

! tail, Robert 84, 8(5

Hall, Samnel 01. (U, 09, 71, 85

Hall, Thomas 40

Ham, Thomas 112

Hardy, Frank H 131

Harris, Walter 53, 79

Hartshorn, William 109, 114

Harvey, John 40. 41

Harvey, Jonas 71

Haseltine, Asa 50

llaseltine, Joseph 50

Haverhill 10. 20

Ha;^elton, Moses 79

Heath, Will C 128, 131

Henry of Navarre 9

Herrfek, Dea. H. W 114

150 INDEX.

Page

Herrick, Israel E 114

Herrick, Mr 54

Hildreth, Maj. Kphraim \l\, 2o

Plolbrook, Charlt'K Jl. . . - l.'.l

Horr, Charles D 1 1 1, 1 15, 110

Humphrey, James 40

Huse, Abel 50

Huse, Isaac 54

Hiise, W. H 12G

Indian Church at Amoskeag- 10, 19

Indians 15, 16, 17, 18, 1<), 22, 23, 24

Jackson's Hall 74

Jackson, S. P 11*)

Jenks, E. A 115

Jewett, Leonard 72

Johnson, Caleb . 84

Jones, Miss Harriet 0:>

Jones, John Peter, D. D 1.10

Jones, Walter G 1:51

Kidder, Benjamin 2:5

Kimball, George W 07

Kimball, John 11

Kimball, Mrs. Sarah S)?.

Kingstown 45

Kinsley, Mrs. Benjamin 109

Kirk, E. N., D. D. ; 110

Knowlton, Gilman 79, 82

Knox, Daniel 75

Lancaster, Daniel 79

Lancaster, Henry 94, 102, 109, 114

Lawrence, E. A.," D. D 120

Leach, David E 122

Learovd, Miss Henrietta 125

Leavitt, Rev. Burke F 126

Leonard, Mr 54

Letter of Appeal for Aid , . 8:>

Liquor Problem 106

Litchfield , 24, 75

Livermore, INIatthew '. 28

Lockhart, Rev. B. W 1^1

Londonderry 20, 21, 31, 37, 67, 75

Londonderry Presbj'tery 73, 76, 87

Long-, Joseph 75

Lord, "Mr." 53

Lovewell, John 22, 23, 24

Lovewell's Pond 23

INDEX. 151

Page

^^^_^^.^\X 10, 16

MacGregoV/james - 20, 21, 53, 03

Mack, Daniel Jz

^^ack, D. K tj;;.

.Mack, Miss Isabel G ^f

Maiorev, James ■ • *\

Manchester, X. H ^^-^i^

Manning', Abel . . .* \

Mardeii, Dea. S. S -^^j

.\iassacliusetts Grant at Amoskeag •■•;••,, , -

-\r . .12, l.>, 11, 1<>

Mason ■""' ' '

Maynard, John H ^^1

McCallev, Lieut. James ^

McClintock, Michael -^''' ^l

McClintock, Samuel "^-^

:McClintock, William

>6, ?>5, 37, 45

McDowell, Alexander "^'-^^ ^^^' ^^

McGregore, D • '"

McMurphy, Alexander f^ ^^

McNiel, Daniel ■^^' ^t

^IcQueston, David l^

>.tcQueston, James '^

McQueston, Mrs. Lettice -^/^

Means, Charles T ••••-: AA ' •/.o .To

Means; William G 95, 107, 109, 113, 118

:\rembership of Church • HI' 1^^

Merrill, Abraham ^^

Merrill, David ^°

Merrill, John fl

^lerrill, Mr • ^4

Merrimac, The ''^J^^

Moody, Joseph ^^

2>roor, Eliza A X^^

^Moor, Franklin ^

Moor, Capt. Samuel ^^^

Moor, John Ai" ro 7i'

:yroor, .Joseph 61, 69, ^1

Moor, Stephen ^;^

Morrison. Charles E i;"

Morse, Johnson -^ ^.

Morse, Stephen ipo'l'^^

Moulton, Henry B ^'^"' l;-

:\rurphy, James • "^'^

Namaoskeag i n' 99

Nashua ^"' ::~

Xetherlands -

]o2 INDEX.

Page

New Boston 75, 10,]

Newburypoi't 9, 62

New Eng-lantl 10-106

Newell, Dea. John V 11 !. 1 1 7, 120

Xew Hampshire 10-96

New Hampshire ]\Iission;n'v Soeiet\- ('O-S")

Noble, Mr " " 86

Northampton 62

Notting'ham 7.1. 75

Noves, John M 77

Noyes, ]\[iss Maria 9?.

Noyes, Moses (5 l-ll-l

Noyes, jNIrs. Moses 93

NutheM 20, 23

Nutt, James 54

Nutt, William -JO, 50

Old Harry's Town 21,31

Ordway, '"Revt Mr." 52

Orr, Lieut. John 51

Page, John 104

Parker, E. L 72. 101 , 103

T*arker, Henry E 1 IT

Parker, Rev. Thomas 26

Parker, William 28

Parkman 43

Parsonage 124, 125

Passaconav.ay 10, 11. 16. IT

Patterson, John D 118. 119

Pawtncket 10, 16. 17, 27

Payson 113

Peacock, Henry 93

Peirse, James 40

Pelham 76

Pembroke 75, 79, 100

Pequaket 23,24

Perham, Captain 52

Perham, John \^^, 48

Perham, William 31, 32. 41. 50

Perham, William. Jr 10

Perse, Joshna 50

Perry, George 93. 1 02

Perry, Mrs. \\^x\ C 93

Pettee, Horace .". 114, 121, 122. 125, 130

Pettee, Holmes P 120

Pew Ground 48, 50, 52, 65

Pew Rentals 1 11, 116

TAW EX. 153

Page

Pickeriiio. .Tames W. C 125

Pickles. William .M). :>!, :)2. 5;!, 72

Tierce, Franklin 104

Tierce, Sylvester (1 T.")

Pinkerton, (>eorpe W ll'>

Piscataqna 12. 14. 1 :>. 24. 84

Tlymoiith 12. 6r,

T'lyniouth Company 12, 15

Poor, Mrs. Samuel 03

Poor, Samnel 0?.

Potter, C. E 37. 43. 44. 50

Pratt, Alvin 122

Prentice. Eev. Josiah 76

Presbyterian Chnreh and Society of Tifanchester 56-94

Presbyterians ." 13. 20, 2S. 33. 59. 66, 67

Prince, John 115

Protestantism 11. 13

Pnritan Part v T!, 35. 67

Qnimby. Alfred 121, 122. 123. 128

Pand ^. 78

Pand's Grant 24

Pay, James 71

Pay, John 52. 71

Pay, Lucy 75

Peed, Eobert 98. 113

Pesig-nations 118, 125, 127

Pevolntionary War 47, 50, 59, 60

PiedeU. John 34. 35, 40

Piddle, Oilman 122

Piddle. Isaac 51

Tviddle, William 51

Pichardson. Charles 114

Pichardson. Josiah 53

Powell. Joseph M 77

Sag'amores 14.17

Salisbnrv. Simeon 84

Sargent,' Enoch P 79

Savag-e, Thomas 72. 75, 95, 96, 103

Sawyer. Jacob 114

Sawyer. Joseph P 121. 122, 123

Scotch-Irish and Their Claims 20. 21. 27. 28. 41. 44. 63, 67

Scotland 11. 67

Selden, Edward G 119, 122. 123. 124. 125

Shepherd. Betsy Pntler 82

Shepley. Capt. John 24

154 INDEX.

Page

Simons, Green 50

Smith, iVIaiide \'iroinia 129

Smith, Henry T 55

Smith, Samuel 50

Smith, Thomas 75

Sjuyth, Frederick li:!

Siiowshoe Expedition 24

Society of Jesns 11

Sperry, W. G Oa. 12:'., 125, 120

Stark^ Abby 75, 93

Stark, Archibald 25, 20

Stark, Elizabeth 75, 9:",

Stark, Gen. John 25, 42, 45, 50, 52

Stark Mills 98

Stark, Mrs. F. (i 93

Stark, Samuel 48

Stark, Sarah 75

Stark, William 115

Starrett, David 41, 40

Stevens, A. G _ 121

Stevens, Benjamin 35, 37, 40

Stevens, David 50

Stevens, Ezekiel 42. 43, 44

Stevens, William 50

Sticknev, Thomas 54

Stirling-, Hugh 40, 41

Stone, Elder 54

Stone, T. D. P 86

Streeter, Sebastian 54

Suncook 24

Sunday School 120, 124

Sweatt, Deacon 114

Swift, G. B 102, 109

Talbot, Rev. William K 61, 72, 73, 75, 82, 85

Tebbetts, G. W. O 122

Temperance Eef orm ' 105

Thaxter, Hon. Samuel 24

Thompson, Benjamin 26

ThomiDSon, Rev. William IS

Thorne, John G l-"!^

Tolman, Rev. S. H 75J

Tov^n Church Party 54, 55, 56, 63, 65

Tufts, Hervey H''

Turner, John 24

Tyng-, Capt. William 22, 24

IXDEX. 155

Page

Tyng, Elcazer 2(5

Tyng'stowii 22. 2(i, 27, 28, ;J8, 41, (vl

Union of Churches <)1

IJniversalist ^Nleetingliouse Ui)

Waite, A. Ward i;;0

Walker, Thomas, Jr 1 ;! 1

Wallace, Cyrus \V 7S, 81, 87, 88, <j1, 92, i»4, <):), <*()

!M), 100, 101, 102, 105, 11.-), 118, 119, 120

Wallace, James 102

Warrants :J2, 56

Warren, Amory 97

Watts, Daniel " (51, (ii), 71 . 75, 70, 120

Watts, H. P 120, 121, 122

Watts, Polly 75

Webster, Daniel 104

Webster, David 50, 5:5

Webster, JNIaj. John 48

Wentworth, Gov. Penning- ?A

Weston, Amos, Jr .(>1, 09, 71

Weston Farm 27

Wheat, Dr. Nathaniel 115

\Vheelwrig-ht, Pe v. John 11, 15, 20

Whipple, Enoch 52

Whitefield, George G2

White, Pev. John 13

Whiton, John ]M 72, 96

AVhittemore, Jacob 71, 75

Whittemore, Miss Sally 9;>

Whittemore, Mrs. Robert P 95

Whittemore, Robert P ?1, 93

AVhittemore, William 72

\Villey, ":Mr." , 92

Winch. George 126, i:51

\Vindham T^E)

Wingate, Charles P i:;i

Wood, Henry 72, 75. 78. 79.

Young, Israel 50

Young, James 5.'5

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Full text of "The town church of Manchester"

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