Chapter 11 - Portsmouth (continued-Religion) from History of Rockingham County, NH From: Ida Ransom - iransom@earthling.net Source: History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and Representative Citizens by Charles A. Hazlett, Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill., 1915 Page 141 CHAPTER XI PORTSMOUTH. -- (Continued) Re-establishment of Episcopacy -- Rev. Arthur Brown -- Dr. Burroughs -- Rulers until the Revolution -- Benning Wentworth -- Sir John Wentworth -- Principal Names in the Early Settlement -- Henry Sherburn -- John Pickering -- Samuel Wentworth -- Sir William Pepperell -- The Siege of Louisburg -- Champernowne -- A Church at the Plains -- Absence of the Spirit of Persecution -- Witchcraft -- A New Church -- Shurtleff -- Clerical Anecdotes -- Revival under Whitefield -- The North Meeting House -- The Successive Ministers of the South Parish Re-establishment of Episcopacy. -- The persistency with which persons for generations cling to their theological inheritances, even at times without being able to give any reason for them, is well illustrated in the re-establish- ment of Episcopacy in Portsmouth. This element never entirely died out here, but was cherished in a few families or individuals, ready to manifest itself at any opportunity which promised to give it an organization and a home. It was stronger in the Piscataqua than any of the historians have yet acknowledged. It was clearly a part of the early settlers' plan to make this a O1urch of England settlement, but the ascendency of the Massachusetts soon put all the interest here in the hands of the Puritans. The first minister, a strong defender of the Established Church, was banished simply for that reason, and for a long time Episcopacy seemed entirely destroyed. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century quite a serious trouble was brewing in regard to the boundary line between the Provinces of the Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire. As early as 1730, Col. David Dunbar was chair- man of a commission on the part of this province to meet a committee of the bay on the adjusting of this line. He was a native of Ireland, and appointed lieutenant-governor of this province in 1731, and also surveyor- general of the woods. While Dunbar had charge of the settlement of the boundary line, which threatened to bring the provinces into open war, one Capt. John Thomlin- son, a merchant of London well known in New Hampshire, was agent for the matter of the boundary at the court of Great Britain; and in this Thom- linson, Dunbar found a zealous friend of the new church movement. Theo- dore Atkinson, one of the most prominent citizens, and whose name con- stantly appears in all political matters, was also foremost in aiding it. It was begun in 1732, and the church was finished in 1735. This church was Page 142 a frame building, somewhat smaller than the present one, with a steeple like that of the old South, and two entrances, one on the west, the other on the south. On the north side the central of the wall pews was raised above the rest, a heavy wooden canopy built over it bore the royal arms, and red plush curtains were festooned around it. Previous to the Revolu- tion this was called the governor's pew, and in 1789 was occupied by Wash- ington when on a visit to Portsmouth. The most valuable of the many relics and ornaments of the church, the font, a beautiful piece of porphyritic marble of a brownish-yellow color, was plundered from a church in Senegal, Africa, by Col. John Tupton Mason, and presented by his daughters to Queen's Chapel. Rev. Arthur Brown. -- On the 18th of August, 1735, and chiefly through the earnest activity of his ardent admirer, Dunbar, an invitation to Rev. Arthur Brown was extended and accepted, and he became rector of Queen's Chapel, the salary being assured by the liberality of the English Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. His ministry was popular and successful and lasted until 1773, when, on a visit to Cambridge, he died, at the age of seventy-four, and was interred in the Wentworth tomb of Queen's Chapel graveyard. All the tributes offered to his memory show that he must have been a man of real culture, of unpretentious goodness, of eminent worth. It was not owing to his popular gifts and assiduous labors only that his success was so marked. The times were propitious and help- ful to second his own and the enthusiasm of a people gathered with all the interest attendant upon the establishment of a new church. Every official of the Government was expected to belong to the Established Church of England: the officers of the army and navy were all really compelled to choose that faith. The Rev. Mr. Brown was as fortunate in his death as in his labors, for it occurred just as the troubles were gathering with Eng- land, and the breaking out of the war promised for a time to crush every- thing which related to English customs and English worship; The parish, which had enjoyed great prosperity for nearly thirty years, suffered a sud- den and almost entire overthrow and extinction, and Episcopacy was reduced to a state almost as low as at the close of the ministry of Gibson, more than a century before, and for almost twenty-five years after the death of Mr. Brown the church was almost entirely neglected. After the Revolution, two or three successive rectors were not very successful in their ministrations, and in the winter of 1806 the church was destroyed by fire. At that time the South Parish was without a pastor, and the use of the church was offered to Queen's Chapel, now changed to St. John's, and for some time it was not unusual for the two societies to unite in public worship, the same clergyman frequently officiating for both parishes, reading the Book of Com- mon Prayer one part of the day, and following the simple congregational order of services for the other. The extremely feeble condition of this sect in this part of New England at that period is shown by the fact that there was no Episcopal visitation of the Portsmouth parish from 1791 to 1812. In this 1atter year we have the first record of the administration of the rite of confirmation. Dr. Burroughs. -- Mr. Charles Burroughs, then in deacon's orders had Page 143 been the minister of the parish for three years, but never had the oppor- tunity of being confirmed. The records show that on the day preceding his ordination to the priesthood he received confirmation, together with 150 of his congregation, and in order to be ordained as deacon he had been obliged to journey to Philadelphia. With the establishment of peace and liberty of conscience, and under the attractive ministrations of Dr. Burroughs, St. John's again took its place among the flourishing churches of Portsmouth. Dr. Burroughs was born in Boston on the 27th of December, 1787, and there his early boyhood was passed. He enjoyed and improved the best opportunities of that day for a classical education, in which he made great attainments, and all through life enriched a mind of fair proportions with all the elegant literature of ancient or modern times. He came to Portsmouth as a reader in 1809, and such was his reputation for entering into and rendering the beauties of the church service, and the entire satisfaction he gave as a writer, that many from other parishes, being occasional listeners, confessed to a willingness to remain permanently if Mr. Burroughs could be induced to take the care of the parish. Among all the distinguished men of Portsmouth in his long ministry, Dr. Burroughs was still eminent for his rare gifts of conversation, for his ample culture, for his elegant hospitality at his beautiful home, for his inborn and acquired grace of manner, for his unfailing liberality, for his daily walk in hannony with his altar professions. He was rector until the year 1857, a citizen of Portsmouth until the 5th of March, 1868, when he became a fellow-citizen with the saints. Rev. Mr. Burroughs was succeeded by Revs. Hitchcock, Armitage, Davies, Bingham, Clark, Holbrook, Hovey and the present minister Rev. Harold M. Folsom. The cornerstone of the present church was laid June 24, 1807, by the grand master of the Masonic Fraternity of New Hampshire. Cast in relief in the bell which hangs in the belfry is the following: "This bell brought from Louisberg by Sir William Pepperrell, A. D. 1745. Recast by Paul Revere, A. D. 1807; again recast 1896." An interesting pamphlet has been written by Franklin W. Davis entitled "Old St. John's Parish." The chapel on State Street was erected in 1832. It contains the old Brattle organ made in 1709. Rulers until the Revolution. -- In 1717, after a good deal of rivalry arid disturbance between the governor, the lieutenant-governor, and the assembly, the king removed Vaughan from office, and John Wentworth was appointed lieutenant-govemor in his place. John Wentworth. -- John Wentworth was the grandson of William Went- worth, the first of the name in this country, whose son, Samuel Wentworth, of Portsmouth, has been already referred to. William was an elder of the church at Dover, and occasionally preached there. John was born in Ports- mouth in 1671. Under his rule the town had a period of peace and steady prosperity until 1730, when again a disturbance arose from the appointment of Belcher as governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, who from some petty displeasure turned out of office the friends of Wentworth; but the lieutenant-governor died in this same year and Dunbar was appointed in his place, and retained the place under constantly-increasing opposition Page 144 until 1741, when the great dissatisfaction against him as well as Governor Belcher resulted in the erection of New Hampshire into a separate province, with the appointment of Benning Wentworth as governor in 1741. Benning Wentworth. -- Governor Wentworth was a son of the former Lieutenant-Governor John Wentworth, and was born in Portsmouth in 1696. He became a merchant of prominence and a person of much influ- ence in the colony, and his appointment was received with great satisfac- tion by the people. He married for a second wife Martha Hilton, his house- keeper, upon which incident is founded Long fellow's story of Lady Went- worth. The expedition against Louisburg was the principal and exciting event during his term of office, which ended in 1766, just as the Stamp Act was arousing the indignation of the American people. Sir John Wentworth. -- Sir John Wentworth, a nephew of Benning, was appointed as governor in 1766, and also as surveyor of all the king's woods in North America. He was born in Portsmouth in 1736, and, while on a visit to England, became a favorite of the Marquis of Rockingham, through whose influence he received his important offices and entered upon them in 1768, landing at Charlestown, and crossing from that port by land to this town. But the times were growing troublesome for all the English officials; the sense of oppression and the desire for liberty were rapidly spreading, and in 1774, because of the aid the governor rendered to General Gage, the excitement of the people was so great that he was compelled to take refuge, first, in the fort at New Castle, and then upon an English man-of-war in the harbor. He remained in England until peace was declared, became lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, arid died in 1820. He was a friend to education, and gave 46,000 acres of land to Dartmouth College, and also a grant to each member of the first graduating class. After he left the country and the War of the Revolution secured the independence of the United States, this settlement, whose history we have sketched in its most important events, became, with New Hampshire, a part of the American Union, and entered upon that marvelous prosperity which has won for this country the admiration and envy of the world. A FEW OF THE PRINCIPAL NAMES IN THE EARLY SETTLEMENT Henry Sherburne. -- Among those who were very prominent in the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of this colony was Henry Sherburne; from the begin- ning an active churchman and a warden of the first church of the Piscataqua settlement. His associate warden, Walford, appears some years later as the husband of the witch Goody WaIford, and there may be some reason for the supposition that the charge of witchcraft had a connection with the ani- mosity existing between the Independents and church party. Sherburne appears in this settlement as early as June, 1632, when the Bay Colony came into rule here and it was evidently no longer possible to maintain Episcopacy. Sherburne still took an interest in supporting public worship, as approved by the majority, although by no means to his own mind. We find him appointed by the town to go in search of a minister, and also engaging to entertain the minister when he came. All this was in the faith that the re-establishment of Page 145 Episcopacy might occur at an early day, and in this faith it doubtless was that we find him in the first list of the subscribers to the support of Moodey while officiating at the old South in 1658; but when his faith by force of circumstances grew less, and it was evidently the intention of the Bay to establish their ecclesiastical system here, with all its vigor, then Sherburne refused altogether to contribute towards the support of doctrines he did not accept, for in a list of subscribers to the maintenance of Moodey in 1671 we find annexed to the names of Henry Sherbume and Richard Sloper, his son- in-law, the note "will not subscribe." John Pickering. -- In the list of inhabitants of Portsmouth who, in 1640, made a grant of fifty acres for a glebe land for the use of the ministry we find the name of John Pickering, who in himself and his descendants was to play a conspicuous part in town matters, both civil and ecclesiastical. The first John Pickering appears in Portsmouth as early as 1635, perhaps as early as 1630. He came here from Massachusetts, and probably was the same person spoken of as being at Cambridge soon after that town was settled. He died on the 18th of January 1668-69, leaving a large family. It was his son John who became so prominent in church and town affairs. He was born about 1640, and died about 1721. He first comes into notice as a military man, for which his character and talents seem eminently to have qualified him. As captain, he had a command in Portsmouth for a number of years. When John Cutt was appointed first president of the separate government of New Hampshire, in 1680, Capt. Pickering was a representative for the town of Portsmouth, and he was also a member of the assembly called by Cranfield and dissolved in great wrath because it would not raise the money he desired. It is mentioned in the early records that during the suspension of govern- ment consequent on the imprisonment of Andros in 1689, Capt. John Picker- ing, a man of "a rough and adventurous spirit and a lawyer," "went with a company of armed men to the home of Richard Chamberlain (who wrote the book called Lithobolia, or Stone-throwing Demon at Great Island), who had been secretary of the province under Andros & clerk of the Superior Court, & demanded the records & files wh were in his possession, & upon refusing to deliver them up without some warrant or security, Pickering seized them by force, carried them off, and concealed them, and in turn was by force compelled to deliver them to Lieutenant-Governor Usher." Voluntarily or by selection he seems to have been engaged in several such enterprises about records of both church and state. He was a member of the convention which in 1690 recommended a reunion with Massachusetts, and was chosen a member of the assembly which met at Boston for a number of successive years, and was several times chosen its speaker. As a lawyer he could not have been without popularity and confidence, for in 1707, when the great cause of Allen vs. Waldron, involving Allen's title to the Province of New Hampshire, was tried for the last time, and all the strength of each side was brought out, embracing some of the first men in the province, Captain Pickering was selected as one of the counsel to defend the houses and lands of the inhabitants. In the affairs of the church it was this Captain Pickering who was appointed to build the stocks and pillories for the punishment of offenders, and on account of his Page 146 remarkable strength, of which stories apparently fabulous were handed down, was chosen at the time of Mr. Moodey's settlement to keep the congregation in order, reserve seats for the distinguished guests; but he let all in before the time, on the theory that at church one person was just as good as another. When the difficulties began in regard to the site for the new church, which ended in the formation of a new parish and animosities which disturbed the peace of the whole province for a generation, Captain Pickering was the leading spirit in the old South Parish, who carried everything as he willed at the town-meetings, either by persuasion or by force, strenuously opposed building the new meeting-house so far up as the site of the North Church, carried the matter again and again to the General Court, and generally with success for his side; was foremost in all matters concerning the old parish. and when at last the old church could be no longer repaired he devised to the South Parish a lot of ground for a convenient site for another meeting- house to be set off to the said parish, "on the highest part of his neck." He was a large real-estate owner at the south end of the town, and what was called "Pickering's Neck" was a part of the land on which the fourth place of worship for the Town of Portsmouth was built, being the church of the South Parish until the present stone church was built in 1824. Samuel Wentworth. -- In the list of subscribers to the support of Mr. Moodey, and so, of course, among the worshipers at the old South, we find the name of Samuel Wentworth. This is the first of the family, afterwards so prominent in public affairs, who appears in our town. At that time the vicinity of Point of Graves was the principal part of Portsmouth. For a while Samuel Wentworth lived at Great Island, and afterwards built by Puddle Dock, on the south side of the dock, at the north end of Manning Street, the first Wentworth house, still in good preservation. It was in this house that the first lieutenant-governor, John Wentworth, his son, lived, and here was married in 1693, and owned all that part of the town as far as the South Church. After the gathering of North Parish some of the family of Samuel Went- worth are found in that, while to others belonged an active part in the forma- tion of the Episcopal Parish. When Great Island became a town, under the name of New Castle, in 1693, several of the prominent parishioners at the old South became identi- fled with the church at New Castle, and some still retained a nominal connec- tion and even an active interest in the old parish, as well as in the North after its establishment in 1714. Among these were Cranfield and Barefoot, Robert Cutt and Pendleton, Stileman and Fryer, Atkinson and Story, Sheafe and Jaffrey. Sir William Pepperell. -- I have now to notice two persons who in a day when titles of nobility or birth in the aristocratic families of Old England conferred a real eminence upon men were conspicuous figures in our early history. William Pepperell became a communicant at the old South, Novem- her 5, 1696; and his son, who was afterwards created a baronet for the taking of Louisburg, was the last baptism recorded by Mr. Moodey, May 9, 1697, I am indebted to a careful and valuable manuscript life of Sir William Pepperell, by the Rev. Dr. Burroughs, which is far better than the printed Page 147 life of the distinguished merchant by Parsons, for much of the following biographical and Historical matter. William Pepperell was born in 1647, in Cornwall, England, and became a settler at the Shoals in 1670, attracted to the commercial advantages of Appledore and the prominence of its fisheries. Here, about 1680, he married a daughter of Mr. John Bray, one of the leading islanders, who had for some time refused the offer of marriage from Pepperell, but, says Dr. Bur- roughs, "relented in proportion to the increase of his property." As his business increased the Shoals offered too small a field for his enterprise, and he and his partner, a Mr. Gibbins, resolved to leave the weather-beaten islands, and to resort to chance and determine their separate destination. The story runs that they each set up a long pole and left it to fall as Providence should direct. Pepperell's fell towards the northwest, Gibbins' towards the north- east. Following with obedience and enthusiasm the plan they had adopted and the course pointed out by the fallen sticks, Pepperell established himself on the Kittery side of the mouth of the Piscataqua, and made large purchases of land there, while Gibbins obtained that tract on the Penobscot afterwards known as the Waldo patent. As early as the year 1681 we find the name of Pepperel1 and his father-in-law, Bray, on the town records of Kittery, then a province of Massachusett$, and here Pepperell spent the remainder of his days. His business enterprises were so successful that in 1712 there were but three persons in Kittery, then including Eliot & Berwick, whose property was estimated to be of more value than his. In this year Pepperell interested himself in organizing a church at Kittery, whose inhabitants attended worship under serious inconveniences of distance, weather, and tide at Strawberry Bank. He was chiefly instrumental in the settlement of the Rev. Mr. New- march at Kittery, not far from his own mansion, in 1714, and was one of the first signers of the covenant. Up to this time, William Pepperell, at age of almost seventy, and his son, afterwards Sir William, at the age of eighteen, had been constant worshipers at the old South. William Pepperell died in Kittery, in 1734, leaving Sir William the principal heir, and with the care and responsibility of a large property. But even before this he had mani- fested remarkable enterprise and sagacity as a merchant, and his ships were found in all parts of Europe and the West Indies. One of the first things he did was to build the family tomb, still standing in that open field not far from the old family mansion. In 1722, at the age of twenty-six, Sir William married Miss Hirst, of Boston. Sir William had no opportunities for an education, except such as came from a multiplicity of relations with men in all ranks of society; but Dr. Stevens, his pastor, who preached a sermon upon his character soon after his death, says, "Such were his abilities and virtues, so distinguished and admirable his social qualities, that" he soon drew the notice and engaged the affections of all." "So elevated were his principles and disinterested his views, and so active was his benevolence, that his fellow-citizens considered him as their patron and friend, and bore towards him the sentiment of filial venera- tion and affection." To the various duties and large responsibilities of one of the greatest merchants of New England, Sir William had added a number Page 148 of important civil offices, but it was reserved for his military success to give to him his title of nobility. Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William, was married to Nathaniel Sparhawk, in 1742, and here is her father's letter ordering from England a part of her wedding outfit : PISCATAQUA, in NEW ENGLAND, October 14, 1741. "Sir: Please send me by first opportunity, for this place or Boston, silk to make a woman a full suit of clothes, the ground to be white paduroy and flowered with all sorts of colours suitable for a young woman. Another of white watered taby and gold lace for trimming of it; twelve yards of green paduroy: thirteen yards of lace, for a woman's head dress, two inches wide, as can be bought for 13s. per yard; a handsome fan, with leather mounting, as good as can be bought for about 20 shillings; two pairs of silk shoes, and clogs a size bigger than ye shoe. "Your servant to command, "WILLIAM PEPPERELL." The Siege of Louisburg. -- The siege and capture of Louisburg were the great warlike achievements in our early history, and the command and success. of the whole enterprise belonged to Sir William. Upon his return he was received at Portsmouth, entertained, and escorted to his boat, as it departed from our shore to his mansion at Kittery, with an outburst of enthusiasm from the inhabitants and an oration, both civil and military, even greater than were paid to Washington. As in our late war, there were in this adventure some rivalries and jealousies as to whom belonged the credit of the expedition, and Col. William Vaughan, a grandson of Maj. William Vaughan, who came to Portsmouth about 1650, is said to have first prepared a plan of the capture and proposed it to the Government, and Governor Wentworth and others were disappointed, not being given the charge of the enterprise; but all eyes turned to Colonel Pepperell, as of well-known and eminent moral worth, of acknowledged military skill, of tried statesmanship, of elevated rank in the confidence of the community, and the best fitted to command the expedition. If the success of an engagement might be always predicted from the char- acter of the principal supporters, we might have foretold the capture of Louis- burg, for the number of persons prominent in Portsmouth, under the command of Pepperell, was certainly large. While Pepperell had the matter under consideration, Whitefield, the cele- brated Episcopal and itinerant clergyman, and founder of the Calvinistic Methodists, was on a visit to Maine, and Pepperell became well acquainted with him, and asked Whitefield's advice. "Your scheme," said the great preacher, "I think not very full of encourage- ment. The eyes of all will be upon you, and should you not meet with success the widows and orphans will utter their complaint and reflection, and if it be otherwise numbers will look upon you with envy and endeavor to eclipse your glory. You ought, therefore, in my judgment, to go with a single eye, and then you will receive strength proportioned to your necessities." White- field furnished the motto for the flag of the expedition, "Nil desperan4ttm Christo." Page 149 New Hampshire furnished 500 men, one-eighth of the whole land force. Among these was the Rev. Mr. Langdon (once the grammar school teacher, and then pastor of the North Church), as chaplain, and Jacob Sheafe, son of Sampson Sheafe, of Great Island, as commissary. There was Nathaniel Meserve as lieutenant-colonel; there was Samuel Hale with the rank of major; there was John Storer, grandfather of George Storer, of this town; there was Rev, Ammi R. Cutter, of the Massachusetts Regiment, whose eldest son was Dr. Ammi R. Cutter, of Portsmouth; there was Rev. Samuel Moodey, of York, son of our Mr. Moodey, remarkable for his eccentricities, and private chaplain to Sir William. The expedition was completely successful, and Pepperell was rewarded with an English knighthood. One by one he was compelled to give up his duties and enterprises, and died at his mansion at Kittery on the 6th of July, 1759. Champernowne. -- There remains for us to notice briefly still another important character, whose life has been so carefully written by C. W. Tuttle, Esq., of Boston, that beyond his thorough researches no one need desire to go. In his sketches of this prominent person, printed in "The Historical and Genealogical Register," may be found authority for most of the following. Among the early settlers of our province more persons perhaps came from Devon and Cornwall than from all other counties in England, and of all the noble families in the west of England, few if any surpass in antiquity and splendor of descent the family of Champernowne, being connected with the Plantagenets, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Capt. Francis Champernowne, one of that family, came to New England in 1636. In 1636, Sir Ferdinando Gorges granted to Champernowne's father two tracts of land bordering on the eastern shore of the Piscataqua and at the mouth. One embraced what has been for the last hundred years and more known as the Gerrish and the Cutts Islands, and the stream now known as Chauncey's Creek for a long time bore the name of Champernowne. To this grant came Capt. Francis Champernowne in 1636, at the age of twenty-two. About 1640, and at the time of the granting of the glebe land, Champernowne bought 400 acres in Greenland, where he built a house and lived for twenty years. Afterwards he added three hundred acres more, including the farm of Colonel Pierce, and seems to have lived in a baronial style. At a later date he preferred his residence on Cutts Island, and went there to live. He was a councillor in the government of Gorges, and for a few years, with his asso- ciates, had the sole authority in Maine, and opposed strenuously the usurpa- tion by the Massachusetts Bay. He was councillor to Cranfield, to Dudley, and to Andros. Strange to say, when some examinations were made, a few years since about this almost forgotten character, traditions in Greenland were brought to light of the descent from royalty of one Champernowne who used to live there, and in Kittery of one who was "the son of a nobleman." He was a thorough royalist and churchman, and about ten years before his death married the widow of Robert Cutt, of Kittery. He lived a retired and dig- nified life was reserved in disposition, and took little interest in matters which tradition says that he forebade any monument to be erected in his that day of prominence on account of his high birth, and altogether respected. He was doubtless one of the most active supporters of Episcopacy, and from Page 150 his residence at Greenland a constant worshiper at the first chapel, and there- after, unless too strict a churchman to take any interest in the services of Puritanism, at the old South for thirty years. He died on Cutts Islarid in 1687. Nothing marks Champernowne's Island grave save a heap of stones, which tradition says that he forebade any monument to be erected in his memory. Among the writings of John L. Elwyn we found the following: "Here rest the bones of Francis Champernowne; The blazonry of Norman kings he bore; His fathers builded many a tower and town, And after Senlac England's lords. Now o'er His island cairn the lonesome forests frown, And sailless seas beat the untrodden shore." A Church on the Plains. -- Quite a little village had grown up at and about the Plains, of so much importance that in 1725 a meeting-house was built on the rise of ground east of the training-field, and worship regularly maintained for nearly two years, when, in 1727; it was voted "to free and exonerate them from any tax or charge towards the support of the gospel ministry (at the North Church), or any parish at the Bank for the future, provided they have frequent preaching more for accommodation than at the Bank." The meeting-house blew down in 1748. Absence of the Spirit of Persecution. -- It has often been remarked that our early settlers were singularly free from religious bigotry, and in an epoch fruitful of dogmatism and persecution but few instances of fanatical zeal can be laid at their feet. Themselves strictly of the Church of England, when they could not maintain their own form of worship, the Non-conformist clergyman of the Bay found no hindrance here except when Cranfield instituted proceedings against Moodey for refusing to administer the Sacrament accord- ing to the order of the Church of England. There has come down to us an account of but a single instance of the infliction of violence in the province for heterodoxy, and that was under the law of Massachusetts (for New Hamp- shire as a separate government never authorized such a penalty) , when in 1662 Richard Waldron ordered three Quaker women to be led at the cart's tail through New Hampshire and Massachusetts out of the jurisdiction and whipped in each town; but Walter Barefoote, afterwards a royal governor of New Hampshire, by a pious stratagem, obtained the custody of the women in Salisbury, and saved them from further cruelty by sending them out of the province. The refuge of Quakers and Anabaptists in these days was Rhode Island, a state from the beginning to the present day remarkable for its hospitality towards various opinions, but at that time regarded as the drain or sink of New England for the shelter it gave the heretics, so that it has been said of Rhode Island, "If any man had lost his religion he might find it there among such a general muster of opinionists." We have, in 1656, under rule of the Bay, the several enactments against "a cursed sect of here- ticks lately arisen up in the world which are commonly called Quakers, who took upon them to be immediately sent of God." (Pages 151 and 152 have photographs which are not here reproduced.) Page 153 Witchcraft. -- There is also but little about the sad delusion of witchcraft, which was then a common belief, and while only a score of miles away men eminent for piety and learning were hurried into all kinds of errors, persecu- tion, and bitterness, only a few instances occur where there were any accusa- tions prosecuted for that offense here, and of these not one reached a tragical conclusion. The only case in our town had a singular and triumphant ending. It occurred in 1656, at Little Harbor, then a part of Portsmouth. The tes- timony was that on Lord's day, 30th of March, at night, as Susannah Trim- mings was going home with Goodwife Barton, she separated from her at the freshet, next her house. On her return, between Goodmen Evens and Robert Davis, she heard a rustling in the woods, which she at first thought was occasioned by swine, and presently after there did appear to her a woman, which she apprehended to be old Goodwife Walford. She asked me where my consort was? I answered, "I had none." She said, "Thy consort is at home by this time. Lend me a pound of cotton." I told her I had but two pounds in the house, and I would not spare any to my mother. She said, "I had better have done it, that my sorrow was great already, and it should be greater, for I was going a great journey but should never come there." She then left me, and I was struck as with a clap of fire on the back, and she vanished towards the waterside in my apprehension in the shape of a cat. She had on her head a white linen hood tied under her chin, and her waist- coat and petticoat were red, with an old green apron, and a black hat upon her head. Her husband and others testified to strange things which apparently had been brought about by the bewitching of Goody Walford; but Goody Walford, traduced as a witch, boldly brought her defamers into court to answer for the slanderous words, and actually succeeded in recovering damages. Clerical Anecdotes. -- Some of the stories which are told of the contempo- rary ministers, neighbors, and friends of Mr. Shurtleff give us the only glimpses of ministerial life among the scanty records which are preserved to us. There was a clergyman at Newington, Rev. Joseph Adams, who lived, I believe, to a greater age than any minister ever settled in New Hampshire. He is described as a man of fair talents, but of great self-complacency. In praying for a person dangerously sick, who had desired the prayers of the congregation, he prayed very earnestly that the man might be prepared to die, for, added he, "We, O Lord, who are skillful, know there is no possibility of his recovery." The Rev. John Tucke, settled at the Shoals, was also a contemporary of Mr. Shurtleff. The Shoals was at that time quite flourishing, and Mr. Tucke's ~ salary was one of the highest .at that time paid in New Engl -- and. He was a scholarly and faithful pastor, and, as it reads on his tombstone at Star Island, "a useful physician, both to the bodies and souls of his people." These islands had before and after Mr. Shurtleff two or three quite eminent as well as eccentric men. There was one Rev. Mr. Rooch, whose prayers were so touch- ing and whose life was so pure that it was said of him, "He dwelt as near heaven as any man on earth." His congregation were fishermen, and they usually assembled one day in the month, besides the Sabbaths, for public worship. On one of these days he was requested to postpone the meeting Page 154 to a future time, as it was a fine season for their business, and they must go out with their boats. He endeavored to persuade them, but in vain, and then addressed them: "If you are resolved to neglect your duty to God, and will go away, I say unto you, catch fish if you can; but as for you who will tarry and worship the Lord Jesus Christ, I will pray unto him for you that you may catch fish till you are weary." Thirty went, toiled all day, and caught four fishes; while the five who attended divine worship, and afterwards went out, caught as many hundred. After that they all regularly attended any meetings the pastor appointed. After him came the eccentric Moodey, son of the minister of Portsmouth of that name, of whom is told that familiar story, that once addressing the congregation on the occasion of a shipwreck, he inquired, "Supposing, my brethren, any of you should be taken short in the bay in a northeast storm, your hearts trembling with fear, and nothing but death before you, whither would your thoughts turn? What would you do?" He paused, and a sailor, supposing he awaited an answer, and attracted by his description of the storm at sea, replied, "Why, in that case, d'ye see, I should immediately hoist the foresail and scud away for Squam." Revival under Whitefield. -- The most remarkable ecclesiastical event during the ministry of Mr. Shurtleff was the great revival under Whitefield, of which Mr. Shurtleff has left an extended account. It is interesting for the description he gives of the townsmen, as well as of the revival. He says, "You are doubtless in some measure acquainted with the character which the People of this Town have heretofore generally sustained. They have, I think, been remarkt by strangers for their Politeness in Dress and Behaviour; have been thought to go beyond most others in equal circumstances, if not to excess themselves in their sumptuous and elegant Living, and Things of a like nature; & while they have been justly in Repute for their generous and hospitable Disposition, and for many social habits. Diversions of various kinds have been much in Fashion, & the vices that have been usual in Sea Port and trading Places have been common and prevalent among us. We have, I trust, never been without a number of sincere and serious Christians; but even these wise virgins have slumbered and slept ; and as to the generality of Professors, they have seemed for a great while to content themselves with an empty Form, and there has been but little of the Life & Power of Religion to be seen." Mr. Whitefield came here and preached in the old South Church on the 25th of February, 1745, and while Mr. Shurtleff seems to have disapproved of a good many excesses of the revival, he testifies that he thought "his travel- ing this way was a favorable Providence, and his preaching was Instrumental in making many shake off their heavy slumbers." As the result of the revival he gives us his opinion that there is not the profane cursing and swearing that was formerly usual; that the Sabbath was more strictly observed; that family worship was set up; that many dishonest dealers had made restitution; that music and dancing were wholly laid aside. North Meeting-House. -- In 1657 there was some objection at the time to building the old South Church beyond the milldam, at the fork of the roads going to New Castle and the cemetery, and the matter was settled only Page 155 by the appointment of a committee by the General Court, which finally located it there. All the time there had been a small party wanting it farther up Pleasant Street. Since the building of that first old South more than fifty years had passed. away, and from the building of the first chapel near the Universalist Oturch nearly seventy-five. The population, which in 1657 was not far from five hundred, had increased to at least twelve hundred in 1693, and yet they were all included in one parish, and their only place of worship was the old South Church beyond the mill bridge. From some old records this number, according to the same calculation, Great Island had about two hundred, when a separate parish was established there in 1693. There must still have been in the old parish, wide as its limits still were, allowing for the same rate of increase, although there is every reason to suppose it was much more rapid, at least twelve hundred inhabitants, whose only home for worship was the old South, and all the time the settlement had been growing away from the church and towards the Bank, as this upper part of the town was generally called. The old church was not only in constant need of repairs, but was entirely too small to accommodate the large and rapidly increasing parish. The following vote is copied from the records: "At a generall town meeting held at Portsmouth this 24th day of Septem- her, 1711, voted, that the new meeting-house be built on the corner of the minister's ffield and that it be the stated meeting-house of ye town. Voters for the meeting-house are sixty-five, against forty-five, -- and the selectmen were empowered to raise money by way of a town rate for said house. "The minority deemed the parade too far north and continued to worship in the old meeting-house; when the house was completed it was voted January 7, 1714, that Nathaniel Rogers, minister of this church, should come to the new meeting-house erected at ye Bank, on ye next Sabbath, seven night, and preach there, and continue preaching there as formerly at ye old Meeting House, and perform all other offices which appertain to his function." The people at the South End claimed that the vote for locating the house in this place was obtained unfairly; and they were not willing to submit to it. After Mr. Rogers began to preach in the new house, they obtained Rev. John Emerson to preach in the old house. The controversy ran so high, that it was referred to the Legislature; and the following vote was passed by the Council and General Assembly of the Province of New Hampshire, at Ports- mouth, May 11, 1714: "Upon the hearing of all parties referring to the meetinghouses of this Town, and having seen the grants, agreements and votes of the said Town of Portsmouth, referring to the settlements of the Rev. Mr. Rogers, the present minister of the said Town or Parish, -- voted the said Mr. Rogers be established the minister of the said Town, and be con- firmed in the possession of the Gleeb land or Parsonage Lands according to the agreement with the Town." Provision is also made in the same act for the support, by the town, of the minister at "the other Meeting House at the Mill Damm." -- Provincial Papers of N. H., iii -- 559. But this did not bring peace; for we find, that, two months later, there are two sets of town-officers in Portsmouth, -- one elected by a town-meeting Page 156 at the old meeting-house, the other chosen at the new; and the interposition of the Legislature is again requested, with the following result: House of Representatives of New Hampshire, July 28, 1714, "Voted a concurrence with the order of the Governor and Council, and considering the Regularity of the Town Meeting at the New Meeting House the seventh of June, confirm the Town clerk and all other officers then chosen, and the votes then passed about the new Meeting House." The majority retained the minister and removed the church records and the plate, which included the silver flagons presented by Thomas Wibird in 1766 and six cups dated 1705, to the new meeting-house, calling themselves the "North or First Parish." The result of the whole trouble was that the two parishes were declared to be the two parishes of the town, and went on with a prosperity which has hardly known a pause. For a long time the history of the two parishes was the same, that of the church of Portsmouth, and when it flowered into two channels it was fortunately to witness a prosperity for each of which neither need be jealous. The first difficulty was in regard to .the location of the church, the next was doctrinal. Successive Ministers at the Old South Parish. -- John Emerson, the fourth minister of the South Parish, was the third minister of that name settled in New England. The ministry of Mr. Emerson lasted from the 23d of March, 1714-15, to the 21st of February, 1732-33, a pastorate of eventeen years, and, after the settlement of the difficulties with the North Parish, of undis- turbed tranquility and unexampled prosperity. The ministry of the South Parish has been as follows: Rev. William Shurtleff, installed February 21, 1733, died May 9, 1747; Rev. Job Strong, ordained January 28, 1749, died September 30, 1751; Rev. Samuel Haven, D. D., LL. D., ordained May 6, 1752, died March 3, 1806; Rev. Timothy Alden (college), 1799-1805; Rev. Nathan Parker, D. D., ordained Septem- ber 14, 1808, died November 8, 1833; Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, D. D., ordained 1833, died March 10, 1893; Rev. James DeNormandie, ordained 1883; Rev. Alfred Gooding, ordained 1884, the present minister. A New Church. -- The old South Church was now falling into ruins. It was deemed unfit for worship in 1711, when the whole town had voted to build a new one, but by reason of the separation the diminished numbers at the Mill Dam continued their services there until 1731, when the parish built a new church on a lot of land presented by Capt. John Pickering. This was the South meeting-house, standing on the site of the present South ward room, which was so important a landmark for mariners coming into Piscataqua Harbor, and which, after repairs and remodeling, was finally taken down in 1863. The stone church on State Street was built of Rockport granite in 1824-26. The Unitarian Chapel on Court Street was erected in 1857 on the site of the old Paxson Walton meeting-house. ********************************************************************** * * * NOTICE: Printing the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files t other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIORto uploading to any other sites. 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