Historically Speaking

9/11/2001:…A SHATTERED WORLD

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:34:35 +0000

Rev. Sylvia Howe and Charles E Wainwright

A Sermon Delivered at First Parish Church in Beverly on September 16, 2001

As many of you know, each week Charlie Wainwright leaves his family in Topsfield and travels to Washington, DC where he works. His spouse, Candy tells me he is doing his part to make the Internal Revenue Service a kinder, more compassionate institution. Charlie was at work when the plane hit the Pentagon. I have asked him to be a part of this service. The words he speaks are ones he wrote while in his apartment in Washington.

I begin with the words of Loren Eiseley. They are from “Singers of Life”:

“…on the edge of a little glade with one long, crooked branch extending across it, I had sat down to rest with my back against a stump. Through accident I was concealed from the glade, although I could see into it perfectly. The light was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. The sun was warm there, and the murmurs of forest life blurred softly away into my sleep. When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing,…on an extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in its beak. The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling’s parents who flew helplessly in circles…The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. It gulped, whetted its beak on the dead branch a moment and sat still.

It is 9:04 AM, Tuesday 11 September 2001. I have just arrived at the parking lot of my office in Greenbelt Maryland to begin my working day. I notice my friend Pascal locking up his car and decide to park next to him. As I park, the DJ on the radio announces that there has been an unconfirmed report of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York. A breeze begins to stir in my soul.

We walk into our building, going our separate ways. I am skeptical that such an event could have actually occurred. I search the web for news. Though I try every site I can think of, none respond. I seek out my colleague Steve in his office. He has heard nothing. Then he gets a call from his wife: “A plane has hit the World Trade Center”, he repeats. “Probable terrorist attack”. A second colleague tells us another plane has crashed into the second World Trade Tower, and that yet another may have hit the Pentagon. Chills, like a turbulent wind whirl around my mind. I struggle to absorb the amount of damage and death such news represents. When the radio announcer describes the tower at the World Trade Center collapsing, the tempest in my mind becomes unmanageable. I can no longer stay at the office. I leave for my apartment in Bethesda.

I take side roads home, partly because of the increasing volume of traffic on the Beltway, but also because of the melee of my mind. As I drive, I learn more from the radio. I learn to my dismay that two of these planes originated in Boston. One, American Flight 11, I have taken no less than five times over the last eight years on my way to Sydney Australia. Another, United flight 77, is my normal flight to the west coast from Washington. At my apartment, I turn on the TV just in time to confront the horrible vision of the second World Trade Center tower collapsing in on itself. My mind storm is now in full force. I sit helplessly watching the unfolding story. I think I was in a complete state of shock and anguish.

The announcer suggests that those who feel a need should give blood. An excellent idea, I think. I know the Bethesda Naval hospital is not far from my apartment, so I walk to the subway and buy a ticket. As I wait for the train on the oddly empty platform, a faceless voice drones “The Metro is under an extreme security alert. Pentagon, and National Airport stations are closed”. It feels like wartime.

I leave the station and head for the Bethesda Naval Hospital. It could be a beautiful Sunday afternoon were it not for the roar of F16 Fighters streaking across the sky and the clatter of army convoys snaking along the road. At the entrance to the hospital, a line of cars and trucks wait patiently while a group of military police inspect each car with a Bomb detector and do an identification check. Before getting by this checkpoint I am challenged and searched. The MP directs me to building 10, where another MP challenges me at the main entrance. Without military ID, he says, I will not be allowed into the hospital. He directs me to the National Institute of Health across the street.

I wait about two hours to give blood, and then return home. The images of crashing airplanes and crumbling buildings continue to etch themselves indelibly into my mind. The gales grow ever stronger.

I stay in Washington for the next two days, though I accomplish little. Things are not as they should be; the constant roar of military jets, the lack of traffic, trucks loaded with caskets bound for the Naval Hospital are constant reminders that life has changed. The unearthly feelings I am experiencing continued unabated.

On Thursday, I board a train to Boston. As we pass lower Manhattan, I see smoke billowing from the hole where the World Trade complex used to rise. Traveling along Long Island Sound, I see a trail of smoke hanging low over the water. My winds return. There is nothing I can do but pray for the uncounted spirits of the people buried in the debris. I cry.

“Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.

“No one dared attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic that had been violated, that they knew. The raven was a bird of death.

“The murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there, glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.

“The singing died. It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged.

“For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush.

“And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and then another, the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing.

I am beginning to come to terms with this tempest in my mind. The Navaho people know it as the spirit of their braves killed in battle as they take to the sky and inhabit the canyons and mountains of their homeland. It is the deafening silence I experience in my silent moments on the cliffs of Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. It is the eerie peace I experience at the Gloucester Fisherman’s memorial. Now, it seems, it is the still winds I experience in Washington and lower Manhattan.

My internal anguish is subsiding. In its place I feel as if I am stumbling through endless spiritual debris. Instead of the concrete dust and bits of bodies at the Pentagon, I face layer upon layer of unraveling consequences that I must face and address: The safety of my wife and children, the future of my career, the state of my nation. Oh God, there is so much debris.

“The birds sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven”

“…for they were the singers of life, and not of death.”

And so are we.

The Role of Religion in the Creation of the U.S. Constitution

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:42:20 +0000

From a Sermon delivered at Dane Street Beach in Beverly Massachusetts July 3, 2011
by Kathryn Lordan, First Parish Church in Beverly, UU

Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of our country. We also honor the men who, during a hot summer with powdered wigs, waistcoats, and itchy woolen pants, closed the shutters on the windows to keep all conversation confidential allowing all in attendance to be able to speak freely. Despite all the disagreements amongst them, these men kept this pledge of silence.

Today let’s briefly visit the roll religion played in these discussions. The First Amendment of our Constitution states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Was our country established as a Christian country? There are those recently who have been stating that indeed that is the truth. Yes, many Christians came to this country to avoid persecution from the mandatory religions held by the rulers in Europe. What did these Christians do when Christians with different approaches arrived in their little towns in this new land? They persecuted THEM and this pattern continued from Christian faith to Christian faith. Quakers when persecuted, finally moved and established Rhode Island and permitted freedom of religion. These were not Christian faiths loving and tolerating each other. There was abuse and cruelty to those whom they saw as different.

Many years later when the Constitution was being thought through, discussed and struggled with, these Founding Fathers were aware of the friction amongst Christian faiths as well as the presence of other faiths that existed in our country. Many of the founding fathers were Deists which is defined as: The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

Some of the following remarks are somewhat hostile to Christianity. My purpose is not the discredit Christian faiths, but rather to show that there were many who would not have wished our country to be declared as “Christian”.

John Adams wrote:

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”

He writes again:

“Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?”

He also wrote:

“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been at the point of breaking out, “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”

I also want to say that within John Adams amazing library, Rev. Kelly [Asprooth-Jackson, First Parish Minister] tells me, there was a copy of the Koran.

Ben Franklin professed to be a Christian near the time of his death, but also said:

“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”  

in Poor Richard’s Almanac:

“. . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”

“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”

The next famous person I mention is Thomas Jefferson who was inclusive of other faiths. When the first Muslim Congressman was recently sworn in, a Koran from Jefferson’s library was used for the swearing in. The following is from Wikipedia regarding Jefferson:

“During his 1800 campaign for the presidency, he had to contend with critics who argued that he was unfit to hold office because he did not have orthodox religious beliefs. It is Jefferson who is credited with propagating the phrase “separation of church and state”. He cut and pasted pieces of the New Testament together to compose the Jefferson Bible, which excluded any miracles by Jesus. Though he often expressed his opposition to clergy and to Christian doctrines, Jefferson repeatedly expressed his belief in a deistic god and his admiration for Jesus as a moral teacher. Opposed to Calvinism, Trinitarianism and what he identified as Platonic elements in Christianity, in private letters Jefferson refers to himself as ‘Christian’ (1803),[2][3] ‘a sect by myself’ (1819),[4] an ‘Epicurean’ (1819),[5] a ‘Materialist’ (1820),[6] and a ‘Unitarian by myself’ (1825 .[7]. Historian Sydney Ahlstrom associated Jefferson with ‘rational religion or deism’[8].”

James Madison who became the fourth president and father of the Constitution writes;

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”

“Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”   -1803 letter objecting use of gov. land for churches

Now regarding George Washington.

I am reading the following from a Wikisource:

“During a visit to Newport, R. I. , 1790, a year before the Bill of Rights was ratified, President George Washington received a letter from Moses Seixas, warden of the Tuoro Synagugue , expressing joy in having the right of free citizens, rights which they had been deprived.

“With pleasure we reflect on those days — those days of difficulty, and danger, when the God of Israel, who delivered David from the peril of the sword, — shielded Your head in the day of battle: — and we rejoice to think, that the same Spirit, who rested in the Bosom of the greatly beloved Daniel enabling him to preside over the Provinces of the Babylonish Empire, rests and ever will rest, upon you, enabling you to discharge the arduous duties of Chief Magistrate in these States.”

There is more to this letter and the following that you can access online.

Following is a portion of the letter George Washington wrote back to Moses Seixas:

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part:

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

The treaty was written during George Washington’s administration, and sent to the Senate during the administrtion of John Adams. There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty. It was reprinted in full in three newspapers. There is no record of public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.

Many of our Founding Fathers may have believed in a God, but did not trust religious institutions and did not want a theocracy. They in no way, wished to recreate the repressive religious atmosphere of Europe from which so many fled; this was to be a country of freedom, especially religious freedom. That means that they were even open to protecting the rights of those who had no religion.

Our [UU] faith supports the principles on which this country is founded. It is a faith of great people throughout our history, people who have made important contributions to this country. I have a handout for you; it lists some of our Unitarian brethren from history.

This beach was named after one of our Unitarian-Universalist Founding Fathers who was primarily known for his wisdom for his work on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 but was also a highly respected lawyer, statesman, reader, writer, thinker. You are sitting in Dane Beach Park at the end of Dane Street named after Nathan Dane.

At this time, let’s listen to the seven Unitarian-Universalist principles, and think of them in terms of the Constitution:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Even though tomorrow we celebrate a very old document, we must remain vigilant; we must stay aware that there are those who feel our country should be a Christian theocracy.

We are a faith of study, contemplation and action; we believe that differences and diversity enrich us. Our faith continues to have a true and important purpose in this world.

Honoring our History; Forging our Future

Charles E Wainwright — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:51:47 +0000

by Charles E Wainwright

If you have driven or walked down Cabot Street in downtown Beverly recently you have undoubtedly noticed the newly painted yellow church building at the corner of Essex Street. You may not be aware of the long and fascinating story of this beautiful structure, or its intimate role in the history of the city of Beverly.

First Meeting House, 1656

Although the Church was gathered in 1667, the first meeting house was built for the Parish in 1656, with the permission of the Salem Church. It was located near the old cemetery, at the current location of the “White Whale” on Hale Street. It was a primitive structure of undetermined size, with a dirt floor, and no paint or windows. Upon its belfry, a bell given by Capt. Thomas Lathrop was rung to call members to service. Lathrop obtained the bell as a war prize from a Friary in Port Royal, Canada. The Church served both as a house of worship and the location of Town meetings.

Second Meeting House, 1682

In 1682 the meeting house was sold and a second meeting house was erected at the Church’s present location. The perimeter of the new building was 50 feet by 40 feet. While it was much more comfortable than the first structure, it was by no means an elegant one: The exterior was crudely finished, and all the interior beams and rafters were visible. The belfry of the Church was in the middle of the building and a new bell was rung by a rope located at the center aisle. Because it was the only building in town that did not have a chimney or stove, it was decided to store the Town’s reserve of gunpowder in its basement. While this satisfied the needs of the Town, there were many Sundays when services were cut short and the building evacuated in anticipation of a lightning storm. It was not until 1822 that two stoves were installed to heat the Church and congregants could finally worship in relative warmth and comfort. In 1713 the Second Parish was established in North Beverly and the seat of the town’s government moved to neutral accommodations. From this time on, First Parish was no longer considered a meeting house.

Third Building, 1772

The present building, at 225 Cabot Street, was completed in 1772 after it was determined that the growth in worshippers had outstripped the dimensions of its predecessor. During its construction, Church services were held under an elm tree located just outside the Minister’s residence at the easterly end of the Common. The new 70 by 53 foot structure was originally entered from the south side on Hale Street, and featured a long ramp running from the front door to an elevated pulpit on the north wall. Members sat in rows below the pulpit in seats assigned using a complex formula that took into account an individual’s gender, net worth, military service, role in the Church and age. Children and visitors sat in a gallery at the top of the south wall. Blacks were relegated to the southeast corner of the gallery.

British Attack, 1775

In the autumn of 1775, the British conducted raids along the coast of Massachusetts in retaliation for the incident at Concord and the siege of Boston. Pursuing a Beverly Privateer vessel that had just left port, the British Ship of War Nautilus anchored just outside the harbor and shelled the town. The Church was its target, based on the erroneous assumption that the Town’s ammunition and weapons were stored there. None of the volleys found its target.

First Renovation, 1795

In 1795, due to increasing membership, the Church was enlarged by cutting it in half and adding twenty feet to its long dimension. A second door was added as was a 30 foot portico. One curious artifact of this construction was a ship’s mast that was used as one of the main beams of the floor of the Church, which is visible today. A bell, cast by Paul Revere, was hung in the belfry, and was used to mark the Town’s curfew until 1931. This bell can be visited today outside the Emanuel Congregational Church on Bridge Street.

The Vestry, 1820

In 1820 Nathan Dane, widely regarded as the Father of American Law, gave the Church a parcel of land located on the corner of Federal and Chapman Street on which to build a Vestry where social gatherings could be held. Shortly after its construction, Dane asked for his land to be returned and the Vestry was moved to its current location on Hale Street where it continued to serve the needs of the Church and the Sunday school until 1921. Today we know this building as the “White Whale”.

On August 31, 1831 the Church hosted the Count de Lafayette, French champion of the American Revolutionary cause and good friend of President Washington. Robert Rantoul, the Parish Clerk delivered the address of welcome to a crowded Church.

Second Renovation, 1835

Soon after the newly renovated Church was opened, members assigned to pews at either end of the building began to complain that they could not hear the minister or enjoy the service. In 1835 the Church voted to renovate the building once again- this time, with greater care for its internal seating and external appearance. The layout of the Sanctuary was rotated 90 degrees so that the pulpit was at the East wall, and the pews were placed in semi-circular rows resulting in a much improved seating layout. In place of the gallery a balcony was hung along the west wall and seating accommodation was made for the Church Choir behind the Pulpit. A clock was installed in the tower. When completed, the Church was considered by many to be the finest example of Greek revival architecture in America.

In 1865, at the close of the Civil War, the interior of the Church was redesigned. Elaborately tooled hand crafted woodwork was added around the Pulpit, and a pump organ was installed. In 1880 this organ was replaced by the magnificent Hook and Hastings instrument seen today. With this exception, the interior of the church has remained fundamentally unchanged to this day.

In 1902 the Church was again refurbished. New windows were installed and the building was connected to the electric grid. Gas lights, however, remained in the Church for some time. A room was added at the back of the Church for the benefit of the Minister.

The Parish House, 1906

In 1906, the Church built a second building on Federal Street, popularly known as the Parish House.
This building served as the social heart of the City of Beverly for the next sixty seven years, hosting dances, Scout meetings, Sunday school services and other public events. The house was used by several Beverly Churches over the years for services when their own buildings needed renovation. In 1955, after a fire destroyed the Beverly National Bank, the Church permitted the bank to set up temporary operations in the Parish house, a favor that the Bank did not soon forget. The Bank bought the property in 1973 to make way for its new parking lot.

William Howard Taft, Guest Minister 1909-1910

In 1909 and 1910, President William Howard Taft attended summer services at the Church. A lifelong Unitarian, He always occupied the same seat (pew 84), near the front of the sanctuary left of center. Today, a silver plaque marks this location. On his last visit he conducted the Church service.

Sextons Philip and Carroll Morrill, 1913-2004

In October 1913, Philip Morrill began his duties as Sexton of the Church, only the tenth to fulfill this function since the founding of the Church. Mr. Morrill remained sexton until his son Carroll replaced him in 1973. Carroll retained his duties up until his death in 2004.

Butler Chimes, 1931

In 1928 Mrs. Mary Adelaide Butler, wife of Rev. Ellery Channing Butler bequeathed money to the Church for the installation of a set of chimes in the bell tower. The attorney for her estate was Roland W. Boyden, longtime devoted Parish Member and superintendent of the Sunday school. Boyden worked tirelessly to obtain chimes from England and have them installed in the Church tower. Just before the debut of the Chimes to the public, Mr. Boyden died during the Sunday service on October 18, 1931.

Third Renovation, 1974

In 1973 with the sale of its Parish House on Federal Street, the Church voted to excavate the basement and build a new area for the use of its Sunday school. This was a complicated engineering challenge that revealed many frailties of the ancient structure. The back of the Church was enlarged with the addition of two offices and two additional offices were built on either end of the front foyer under the balcony. Construction was completed by the fall of 1974.

Fourth Renovation, 2009

Over the ensuing years, the Congregation came to realize that their building was deteriorating at an alarming rate. Leaks from the roof into the organ were accompanied, on rainy days, by backups in the plumbing. Heating bills were astronomical and the exterior looked decrepit. In 2007 they launched a capital campaign to raise money but, while many generous donors came forward, it was not enough even to begin renovations. To assist in funding, the Church sold much of its beloved Colonial silver Communion collection. A long term, three phase plan was developed with the aid of an architect and the first phase of construction began in June of 2009. The sills were reconstructed, much of the clap board and roof were replaced and the beautiful arched windows were lovingly restored by hand. Insulation was blown into all exterior walls to improve the building’s energy footprint. Perhaps the most visible improvement, a handsome coat of yellow paint was added last. Work was completed by the end of 2009.

Forging our Future

What is in store for the Church? Plans call for more attention to be paid to the interior: an elevator, a conversion of the balcony to an observation area, and some additional improvements to the basement. The building will continue to serve the Beverly community as a meeting house, performance center and house of worship for many years to come.

First Parish Ceebrates 300 Years- 30 September 1967

Charles E Wainwright — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 02:54:47 +0000

Three Hundredth Anniversary Service, First Parish Church in Beverly Massachusetts, September 1967.

Whatever Happened to Brother Morgan?

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:16:07 +0000

As a genealogist, I have often suffered the frustration of being unable to locate a record of an ancestor’s birth, marriage or death in the notoriously inconsistent records of early New England. So it was with some sympathy that I read recently of a request from a genealogical researcher from Maine to find a record of the death of Robert Morgan, one of the founders of First Parish. I spent several hours scrutinizing the first volume of our Parish Records for references to Robert Morgan and his family, and found some fascinating information that I thought I would share with other Parishioners.

The original record book, kept by Rev. John Hale, is under lock and key, but we have both a Xerox copy of it made in the 1970s and a printed transcription made by William B. Upham for the Essex Institute (now the Philips Library) in 1905. Robert’s name appears frequently within its pages until December 1668, but no mention of him occurs after that. We know from Essex County Probate Court records that Robert died between 1672 and 1673, but there is no mention of his death in Parish records. Why was it that a co-founder of the Church- one referred to by Rev. Hale as “Brother Morgan” was not officially mourned by his Congregation at his passing? The answer reveals that the reality of everyday life in Puritan Beverly differed little from that we all experience today.

Robert Morgan and his wife Margaret (Norman) first appear in New England records on 23 June 1650 with the Baptism of their four children- Joseph, Benjamin, Luke and Samuel at the First Parish Church in Salem, suggesting that the family arrived in Salem shortly before this time. On 15 December 1650 Robert Jr. was baptized, followed by Bethiah on 29 May 1653. Robert Sr. owned about 20 acres of land with an orchard on the Cape Ann Side of Salem (now Beverly) next to Rev. Hale’s farm between what is now Hale Street and the ocean.

In 1667 Robert and several others petitioned the Church in Salem for permission to set up a new church at Cape Ann Side. Robert’s name appears next to Rev. Hale’s on the list of original members of the First Parish Church in Beverly. Robert recorded the description of the Ordination proceedings of Rev. Hale in 1667, and signed his name below it. On 17 November 1667, his wife Margaret was admitted to the Covenant. On 24 July 1668, his children- Joseph, Benjamin, Robert, Bethiah and Moses were admitted. Clearly, Robert was regarded as an important personage at the Parish.

An entry dated simply [1668] describes an incident involving Robert Morgan’s son Benjamin.

“Benjamin Morgin, sonne of Bro. Morgin, a childe of ye covenant in this Church, having in partnership with another stole two horses and several oxen & added to his highhanded boldness ye hayness sin of lying to cover his sinne, was apprehended and convicted thereof in Cambridge Court and ye fact being so notorious and evident was sent for by this Church ye 16:10:68 [16 December 1668] by two of ye brethren to shew his repentance for this haynous and publickly scandalous sin but he not then appearing was sent to againe to appeare 27:10 Mo. But then, he not only refused to come, but spake very reproachfully of ye Church and ye publick worship of God. This answer being returned, it was propounded by ye Pastor & consented to by ye brethren that two other messengers should bee sent to him with this message: that unless the next Lord’s Day he appeared before ye Church & manifested something of repentance not only for his former sins of theft and lying, but for his presumptuous contempt of ye worship of God & of this Church he would be proceeded with as a Scandalous and Impenitent sinner.

“This was accordingly done, & ye next Sabath viz: ye 3:11:68 [3 January 1669] hee made his appearance. But by his irreverend carriage and dumbe silence manifested himself to be A lamented spectacle of A stupefied sinner & forsaken of God & no signes of repentance manifested either for his former sins or late presumptuous behavior; hee was by ye Censure of Excommunication delivered to Satan for ye destruction of ye flesh yt ye soul might be saved in ye day of Christ.”

My guess is that Robert was not happy with the actions the Church took against his son. He may have been ostracized by the Congregation, or he might have decided not to be an active member of the Church afterwards. Because his attendance at Church was mandatory and his family could not attend another Church without written recommendation of good moral character from Rev. Hale, he probably performed only minimum Church service until his death. It is significant that Rev. Hale did not make note of Robert Morgan’s death in 1673, though he did recognize and mourn many other founding members when they died.

Members of the Morgan family remained in Beverly for generations. Many of Robert’s children and grandchildren are buried in the First Parish Cemetery. Robert’s wife Margaret married Samuel Fowler of Salisbury Massachusetts and moved there. Benjamin survived 8 years after being passed into the hands of Satan by the Church: He inherited the three acres of land nearest Rev. Hale’s farm from his father’s estate (One wonders whether this selection was intentional). He was killed with his brother Moses during an Indian attack near Cape Porpoise Maine in 1677.

Benjamin was what we might today call a juvenile delinquent. The Church felt that the dishonor of excommunication was more of a deterrent than prosecution in the civil courts. Benjamin apparently did not agree, and his dishonor was absorbed by his father. I wonder how many of us have been in this situation with our children, absorbing the shame that they refuse to acknowledge?

The Beverly Sunday School 1810-2010

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:10:35 +0000

(From a sermon Delivered by Charles E Wainwright 28 November, 2010)

For years, the children of First Parish Church have engaged in a weekend ritual that represents the very essence of a childhood family rite: They attend our Sunday school. Our Religious Education Director, Deb Sweet is the latest in a long line of education leaders engaged in a pioneering America institution. Our children perpetuate, through their participation, a tradition that is 200 years old this year and that began within this Church. The bronze plaque on my left testifies that our Sunday school, established in 1810 is the oldest continuously operating Sunday school in New England. At the back of the sanctuary is a banner that attests ours to be the oldest Sunday school in America. To honor its 200^th birthday, I would like to take a few minutes to tell you the story of the First Parish Church Sunday School.[1]

The person generally acknowledged as the inventor of the Sunday school and, indeed the public school system as we now know it was Robert Raikes of Gloucester England. In 1781, Raikes sought to provide basic education to children who worked in local mills, and for whom school was not available. He employed volunteer teachers to deliver to the children basic literacy instruction on their day off (Sunday) using the Bible as the primary text. In 1786 the first of this type of school in America was formed in Virginia. In 1791 a Raikes-inspired Sunday school was established for the benefit of children employed at a cloth manufactory in Roxbury Massachusetts. These schools were only focused on teaching reading skills to their young charges. The first school sanctioned by a Church for religious education was established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 22, 1809 “for the suppression of vice, reformation of manners and propagation of useful knowledge”. So while our Sunday school cannot claim to be the first in America it is definitely the first such institution in New England.

We have three persons to thank for Beverly’s Sunday schools:

Hannah Hill was born in 1784 aboard the ship Rambler, Hugh Hill, Captain, in Delaware Bay[2]. Hugh Hill commanded several ships from Salem and Beverly during the Revolution and is regarded as one of the most successful Privateers of his time. His vessels were owned by a consortium of Salem and Beverly merchants who became rich from the spoils of his odd trade. As a reward for his services at the end of the war, he was permitted by the owners to travel to Ireland to bring his family to America. Hugh’s brother James and James’ pregnant wife Elizabeth joined other family members on board. The birth of Hannah occurred just as the Rambler made the US coast. She became an adult member of the First Parish Church on August 4, 1804[3]. Characterized by those who knew her as a passionate Christian and an outstanding teacher with an outgoing personality, she could boast a noble heritage: She was a cousin of our seventh President, Andrew Jackson.[4]

Joanna Batchelder Prince was born in Castine Maine in 1789[5]. Miss Prince was characterized as shy and quiet, but no less pious and engaged in the well being of children in her charge. She lived with her mother across the street from the Hill family at the corner of Front and Davis streets.

Robert Rantoul was born in Salem in 1778, the son of a sea captain. Having lost his father to the sea at an early age, the young Rantoul was entirely self-taught. He apprenticed at an apothecary on Washington Street that he later purchased. He taught himself law and accounting. He was the first Superintendent of Schools in Beverly, a Justice of the Peace and chaired of the Town’s Overseers of the Poor. As Parish Clerk, Rantoul became one of the most influential persons in our Church, leading its efforts towards social responsibility and a liberal theology. His son Robert S. Rantoul occupied a US Senate seat and was famous for his Abolitionist legislation.

Hannah Hill was troubled, we are told, by the sight of children of Beverly fishermen playing around the wharves on Sunday mornings and was determined to engage them more productively. On 30 December 1809, according to Rantoul, she rented a room in a house on Davis and Front Street to accommodate a Sunday school for 3 months. Miss Prince joined her endeavor and by spring of 1810, the two teachers had about 30 male scholars in their charge each Sunday[6] . By 1822, that number had increased to 214 boys and girls[7].

Now, you might think that this idea of a school for the religious enlightenment of the Town’s youth would be an immediate winner- but you would be wrong. The Sunday school was not widely accepted by the families of Beverly in 1810. It was thought by parents and clergy that such education should be the responsibility of the parents and that the school overstepped permissible boundaries. Enrolling children was, therefore, a very delicate affair. Hill and Prince would visit the homes of children and obtain permission of the parents to instruct them on Sunday. Often, they even made suitable clothing for the children so they could attend the school.

Initially, the work of the two women was carried out without funding. Their requests for aid to the Town were refused, and they relied on the generosity of individuals. Their application for aid in 1811 to the Salem Bible Society caught the attention of Robert Rantoul, who was its business manager, and on the 18^th of July he facilitated a gift of 6 Bibles and 6 Testaments to the Sunday school. He also wrote a warm letter of encouragement to the teachers. Rantoul later wrote that he felt the gift was the encouragement the women needed to persevere in their work despite substantial opposition. Rantoul, Hill and Prince became close friends and Rantoul eventually took over management of the school.

Very quickly, the Sunday school idea caught on in Beverly, and the roster of students grew rapidly. Soon enough the destitute children of the wharves were accompanied in their studies by middle and upper class children from all over Beverly.

The Sunday school phenomenon spread quickly across America, too. In 1814 Sunday schools were founded at Churches in Salem, Boston and New York City. In 1817 the Pennsylvania legislature provided for funding of Sunday schools in that state, and a report published by the Essex Register on April 5, 1817 indicated some 3000 scholars were regularly attending sessions.

The Beverly Sunday school was held at several private homes between 1811 and 1814. In 1814, it moved to the Dane Street Church, though it retained its independence under the direct control of the two teachers.

In 1818 the Beverly Sunday school met at the Briscoe Hall with teachers drawn from the three Churches operating in Beverly. It was then referred to as the Beverly Union School, having become part of the American Sunday School Union.

In 1819, Dane Street Church withdrew its children and organized its own Sunday school, followed immediately by the Baptist Church. The school of Miss Hill and Miss Prince began that year to meet at the First Parish Church. It remained an independent Sunday school for multiple denominations until at least 1822. During its first years at First Parish, the school was overseen by our minister, Rev. Abiel Abbot. He developed a Sunday school catechism that was used for many years[8].

In 1819 Joanna Prince married Ebenezer Everett of Brunswick Maine. She became a Sunday school teacher there and maintained her duties right up until her death in 1859.

Hannah Hill remained affiliated with the First Parish Sunday school until her death in 1838[9]. In her later years, she was often seen watching over the students at the Vestry.

Robert Rantoul remained closely aligned with the Sunday school for the remainder of his life, and devoted a whole section of his autobiography to its founding.

The first mention of the Sunday school in the records of our Church is its inclusion in 1821 as a permissible use of the newly constructed Vestry[10]. The first record book of enrollments is dated 1822[11], the year that Robert Rantoul was chosen as Superintendent. Attendance in 1822 was 214 students and 44 teachers. Rantoul left his position in 1830.

The system used for instruction at the Sunday school was one taken directly from the Raikes system, consisting of memorization and recitation of Bible passages. Scholars were graded on their ability to recite assigned verses, and prizes were given to those with the best memory. In 1822 one young lad, Matthew Leslie, received a prize for committing to memory 3948 verses of scripture and 29 hymns, a feat that was never equaled (and will likely never be equaled) in our Sunday school.

Robert Rantoul was justly proud of the Beverly Sunday schools, and sought every opportunity to publicize it. His first attempt to organize a celebration, in 1838, was vetoed by the Minister of the Baptist church, who refused to allow his students to participate. On 4 July 1842 Rantoul was finally successful in organizing the first town-wide celebration. 1123 scholars participated, representing all Beverly churches.

In 1860 the 50^th anniversary of the Beverly Sunday School was celebrated in Beverly. All major Churches participated in a parade that stretched for a mile and ended at the Common. Some 1500 students participated in the ceremony, held on the Town Common. A former student of Hannah Hill, Rev. Dr. Andrew Preston Peabody, Chaplain of Harvard College in Cambridge was a featured speaker. A young scholar, James A. Marsters carried the First Parish banner in the parade. Mr. Marsters later became Parish Clerk, Historian of the Church and organizer of its 100^th anniversary.

In 1870 Charles Davis, Sunday School Superintendent from 1854-1869, left a legacy of $5000 to the First Parish Sunday school. The primary purpose of the money was to celebrate Church anniversaries. For many years, the money funded a New Year’s Festival and an annual picnic, as well as a succession of anniversary celebrations.

Other legacies, received over the years contributed to a substantial endowment fund for the Sunday school. The legacies cemented (as money often does) a schism within the Church: The Sunday school (operated as the “Parish”) and the Church (operated as the “Church”) that required two boards and two annual meetings until well into the 1950s.

Charles Davis was a remarkable character because his maternal grandfather, Dr. Israel Woodbury sponsored Privateering expeditions from Beverly during the Revolutionary War. Near the end of her life in 1854, Davis’ mother revealed to him a secret room in the family home in which Dr. Woodbury had hidden bean pots full of Spanish dollars, and which he, Charles Davis, would eventually inherit. Hence, at least a part of our Sunday school endowment can be traced to Beverly’s swashbuckling reputation.

On 2 October 1910, in what became the social event of the year, the one hundredth anniversary of the Sunday school was commemorated almost totally by adults. It was a 3 day event beginning Sunday morning with special commemoration service, a dinner at City Hall on Monday, and a show by members of the Sunday school on Tuesday. During the Sunday service the plaque was dedicated, a gift of James A. Marsters.

Annual celebrations continued to be held for many years, conducted as local Church affairs. In 1960 the Church celebrated the 150^th anniversary of the Sunday school that did not involve other churches in the City.

Today, the plaque is the only visible reminder of the historic institution operating in our Church. However, our Church archive has a remarkable collection of artifacts and records that document its long and distinguished history. I have put a few of these out on the table at the back of the Sanctuary. I would be pleased to show these to you after the service.

Even if its history has been largely forgotten, the importance of the institution of the Sunday school cannot be denied. It offers spiritual education to millions of children and is a big part of the reason many families choose to attend worship services. Being one of the first such schools in America provides me, and I hope you, a great feeling of pride in our Church.

Happy Birthday, Beverly Sunday School!

[1] Much of this material comes from the scrapbook of the centennial of the Sunday school in 1910, compiled by James A. Marsters. Prominent in the references is an article from the September 15, 1860 Sunday School Times on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Beverly Sunday Schools. The article includes transcriptions of several speeches made at the ceremony held at Beverly Common. The first speaker, Rev. A.B Rich of the Washington Street Church in Beverly, acknowledged, in his address, the importance of Robert Rantoul as a primary Sunday school reference source.

[2] R.R. Endicott, “First Parish Sunday School Superintendent’s Report” October 1885 (hereafter SSSR 1885), p.1. First Parish Archives (hereafter FPA) Item 5062

[3] FPCR V2 p209.1

[4] “Some Notes on Chipman Hill”; Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. viii, (1868), pp120-123

[5] SSSR 1885,, p.4. FPA Item 5062

[6] SSSR 1885, p2

[7] SSSR 1885 p6

[8] “Notes on how to Conduct Sunday School”, FPA, item 143

[9] FPCR, Vol 4 p126

[10] “Papers relating to the building of the Vestry”, FPA, item 1718

[11] “Records of the Sunday School”, FPA, Item 5103

Owning the History of First Parish

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:03:37 +0000

From a sermon delivered 28 September, 2008 by Charles E Wainwright

Saturday, September 20, 2008 marked the three-hundred-forty-first anniversary of the day that Rev. John Hale and fifty members of the Salem Church owned their covenant and thereby established our beloved Church as “The Church of Christ at Bass River Side”. Did you attend the party? Maybe you sent a birthday card? No matter, no one else did either.

Maya Angelou wrote “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you”. I stand here before you this morning because I have an untold story to share.

I am a genealogist and historian by avocation. Each Sunday morning, I drive to the center of this City. I climb the stairs at the front of our Church’s elegant, weathered edifice. I walk through those the front doors into our old Sanctuary, past those curious ancient articles arrayed in the back, past these worn stone plaques and take my seat in pew 11, just behind the plaque commemorating where President Taft sat when he attended our Church, in front of this beautiful hand crafted pulpit and this magnificent organ. As an historian and a member of First Parish Church, I love it!

The First Parish Church and its congregation are quite simply the oldest things in Beverly. Our original membership came from Salem, the second oldest settlement in the Massachusetts Bay colony. Even though we claim our gathering year as 1667, the Church was functioning as a viable teaching institution as early as 1656. This building, erected in 1770, is actually a comparatively recent addition, being our third house of worship. Our Church served as the seat of Government until 1734. Members of this Congregation helped to write the US Constitution, founded one of the earliest Sunday Schools in America, pioneered religious and social reform in Massachusetts and contributed the original volumes of the Beverly Public Library. Our Congregation’s theology has run the gambit from a creed far more conservative than any of today’s Fundamentalist sects to one of the most liberal religious agendas in the world, all the while maintaining the roots of its worship tradition. Members of our Church founded the First Baptist Church, the Dane Street Church, the Second Parish Church in North Beverly and the first Church at Beverly Farms. Our parishioners were, at the beginning of the 20^th century, amongst the wealthiest and most influential people in Beverly. If you ponder these facts for a moment you ought to start to feel pretty good about the role our Church has played, and continues to play, in the Beverly community. And yet, how much of this is generally known?
As a new member of the Church in 2001, I was asked by Rev. Howe to clean up the balcony and figure out what we should do with the junk up there. Amongst this “junk” was a footlocker containing historical records and early photographs of the Church. Upon further snooping, I found a book case in the Prince Room and a storage rack in the basement and a bank vault that contained a substantial volume of records chronicling the Church’s operation since its formation.

Now, many of you have been aware of these records for a long time, but for me, it was like waking up on Christmas Morning to a brand new electric train set running around the Christmas tree. Working with David Shawn, we embarked on the lengthy process of assessing, preserving and cataloguing the records culminating in an inventory of about four thousand individual books, documents and artifacts relating to all kinds of activities carried on in our Church over the years. In the process, we co-formed the Beverly Archives Project, a community organization dedicated to preserving the ancient records of Beverly Churches and other local institutions. We obtained grant funding and secured the services of a professional Archivist who performed an assessment of our documents and trained us in techniques of archival preservation. We organized the material and developed an index catalog of its contents. Most importantly, we began studying some of the documents in detail. We are certainly not finished, but we are now in a position to appreciate and communicate to you the significance of our Church’s long history as represented by our records. They show that this Church has been functioning and making an impact on Beverly for over three hundred and forty years. Throughout this time the Church has seen annual parish meetings and regular worship services: great music and influential sermons; auctions, fairs and building projects; calls to war and pleas for peace; times of great confusion and times of great clarity- an almost infinite number of little event threads that, taken individually, betray no particular fabric; but when woven with other events and the context of their time, provide us a tapestry that illustrates what it was like to live in Beverly past. The men and women who once lived here and worshipped at this Church, your ancestors by blood or tradition, struggled to establish the framework of the Church we know today. It was their efforts and their strength that makes it possible for you to sit here now All the accoutrements you see before you- the pews, the pulpit, the chimes, the choir, the organ, the organist, even the building itself are still here because of the efforts of these “people of the hour” . Each has a unique and fascinating story to tell. There are so many stories; it sometimes seems to me agonizing.

It is agonizing as well that so few Beverly residents are aware of the history of our Church. A historical tradition as long and honorable as ours should be celebrated every year in Beverly with a parade and brass bands. Yet, when I ask for directions to this Church I am likely to be greeted with a blank stare. One lifelong Beverly resident even told me recently she thought this building had been abandoned and condemned! Our Church, which gave birth to Beverly and has been involved in so many of the social innovations of this city deserves better than that.

At our recent Leadership Retreat, we discussed the value our history as a Church asset, and how we could capitalize on it. We determined that it is an underutilized possession of our Church that had great potential and needed to be exploited. This is not to suggest that as a venerable institution we should simply sit on our laurels and expect some kind of special treatment from the City. Rev. Cressey, in a sermon delivered in 1917, called on members of First Parish to be “men of the hour”. By this he meant that all First Parishioners ought to do whatever they can to better our Church, just like the earliest First Parishioners did in their turn. By leveraging our past, I believe that we can influence the future both our Church and our community.

There is much that we can do with the knowledge of our history but it requires that we all take part. We are, each of us, ambassadors of this Church, and should always represent our pride in our Church’s critical role in the formation on Beverly and remind our neighbors and friends at every opportunity.

Moreover, we can leverage this information for the benefit of our Church: We will start of course by refurbishing our old building, referred to on its completion in 1835 as “the best example of Greek Revival architecture in the US”. The Capital Campaign Committee is pursuing construction grant funding available to institutions of established historical significance. I think it is safe to say that we qualify on that account.

But it cannot end there. Here are some additional things to consider:

As a way of making our heritage more public in the community, the Church will host the premiere of a movie about this Church’s history. The movie is the product of four years of work by the students and faculty of Montserrat College of Art, along with Jim Mitchell and Doug Baumoel from our Church. We have advertised the premiere in the newspapers and in Community bulletin boards throughout the City and are hopeful that residents will come away with a new appreciation for our Church. We would love a good turnout amongst our Parishioners as well, as this will be an excellent opportunity to share our pride with our neighbors.
In October of 2010, we will celebrate the two-hundredth anniversary of our Sunday school. In the late 19^th and early 20^th century, this occasion was a major annual event in Beverly. The story of Hannah Hill and Joanna Prince working at great odds to save the poor children of Beverly never ceased to delight and inspire residents. I suggest we begin planning for a bicentennial, and invite the community to the party.
We now have a First Parish History web page, http://history.firstparishbeverly.org and are looking for ideas and material to put there. If you enjoy writing and researching, we would love for you to research snippets of our history from our records and uncover the story behind them.
It has been suggested that members of the Parish might write a regular column on Beverly History in the local newspaper. This has been done successfully before in Beverly, mostly written from the perspective of church histories.
In the coming months, members of the Historical Committee plan to do an irregular series of lay services that will highlight aspects of our History. Our purpose is to inform the Congregation on some of the origins of our rich traditions. Some of the themes we are considering are: The story of our communion Worship Service, early worship traditions, and biographical sketches of past Ministers and other notable Parishioners.

Old Friends: Robin Mingo and Nathan Dane

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:51:16 +0000

(From a Lay Service delivered by Charles E Wainwright on 19 May, 2002)

Look around you today. Chances are, if you attend services at this Church regularly, that you know or are at least acquainted with the persons sitting around you. You are the Congregation of today’s First Parish. But, there are additional members of this Congregation. I refer to those who lived in Beverlyand worshipped in this Church over the past 335 years. This is the Timeless Congregation of the First Parish. It includes worshipers of Puritan, Anglican, Congregationalist, Unitarian, and Unitarian Universalist faiths. In total, its membership far outnumbers that of our present congregation, It comprises parishioners from the founding of the Church in 1667 to the present day. You may know some of its parishioners- or, rather, remember them because their names adorn our streets, schools and history books. Most, however, are forever forgotten. It is for these fellow parishioners that I dedicate this service.

Mingo’s Beach by George E. Woodbury

We trusted beauty- ‘t is the element

Wherein the soul unfolds her poising wings,

And heavenward soars, and sings;

But in the dawn and by the star-swept tides,

In dim melodious aisles of lonely pines,

We felt the heart of sorrow none devines

That in all things abides

When I was a small boy, I experienced my first funeral- that of my grandmother Lottie. My mother calmed my fears over this new concept of death by explaining that Nanny would never really be dead as long as there were people still around who remembered her. This eased my young heart, and for years I would repeat mother’s words to friends and family at other memorial services. It wasn’t until a few years later that I asked myself “what happens AFTER all those people that remembered Nanny are gone?” What then? The pursuit of this question has driven me to become a student of history, and genealogy. Over the years I have come to appreciate that most people do die after all those who remember them are gone, their memory lost to the ages. Most, but not all. Some leave their mark for subsequent generations. Some write books. Some do memorable deeds. Some simply are active in Church. The tragedy is that the memory of so many people is lost only because no one has taken the time to look at the artifacts of their legacy. And so it is with this in mind that I would like to acquaint you with two people who are a part of our Timeless Congregation. Two People who sat in the same seats that you are sitting in today. Who cherished their spiritual principles as you do today. Who left a mark on our Church.

If you look up in the gallery, through the lens of four lifetimes, you will see Mr. Robin Mingo sitting in the back row. In 1702, Robin was a Black slave, the property of Mr. Thomas Woodbury, who sat here in the front row. We know very little of Robin’s early life: He may have been the person named Mingo who was deposed in a lawsuit brought in 1680 by one Roger Derby against John and Mary Dutch. You may recognize Robin because he lent his name to Mingo Beach, located near Pride’s Crossing. And he was a member of our Church.

If you were a member of the congregation of the First Parish Church in 1702, your church-going routine would be different indeed. Although the fanatical Puritan ethic fostered by the teachings of the late Reverend Hale had subsided, you would still have been expected to attend Sunday worship under penalty of law. The Church, you see, was at that time the principal instrument of Colonial political life. All decisions concerning the town were decided within the sanctuary at Town Meetings held after Sunday Services. And the service itself was no picnic. It was not uncommon for Reverend Blowers to address his Congregation for over four hours without break- this on hard wooden benches specifically designed to be uncomfortable in order to discourage falling asleep. Just in case this happened, the Sexton roamed the aisles with a long wand. One end was used to prod a sleeping man by rapping him on the head. The other end, adorned with a foxtail, was used to gently tickle the nose of a snoring lady.

The seating in the Church was very carefully established. Men sat to the right and women to the left of the pulpit. Slaves, itinerants, and children were relegated to the gallery. One’s position relative to the pulpit was determined by the amount of assessable worth, age, and military rank- the more you had the closer to the front you sat. Thus, Thomas Woodbury sat in the front row, while Robin Mingo sat in the last row of the gallery.

In 1707, Robin Mingo asked Woodbury to permit his marriage to Deborah Tailer, a free Native American woman. Deborah and Robin accepted Woodbury’s terms, which were recorded in the Town records as follows:

“Deborah Tailer and Robin Mingo, Negro slave of Thomas Woodbery, were after legal publishment and Deborah’s promise before me to live with her said husband’s master and mistress so long as her husband Mingo lived, and then to be dismissed with only two suits of apparel suitable for such a person, whereon said Thomas Woodbery did consent and agree to their said marriage and so they were joined together June 20 1707”

The popular legend goes that Robin Mingo was fond of a stretch of beach in town. Woodbury, probably thinking he was being very clever, promised Mingo his freedom when the tide at the beach went low enough to permit him to walk out to the most distant rock. Well, thanks to a full moon and an extremely low tide, the event occurred, and Mr. Woodbury, true to his word, gave Robin his freedom. I cannot speak to the veracity of this story, but there are artifacts that attest to at least some truth. Robin Mingo was admitted as a member of this congregation in 1722, at the age of 61. On the fourth of February 1728, in return for a mortgage of twenty six shillings, Robin Mingo was deeded that portion of land encompassing Mingo Beach from Joshua Byson and Jonathan Woodbury where he built a house for himself and his wife. Robin died in 1748, apparently a free man. His wife Deborah died in 1753.

Here in Pew 7, fifty years after Robin’s death, sits Nathan Dane. You may remember his name because of Dane Street. Mr. Dane was one of the most accomplished men of the post-revolutionary war period. He was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature and a noted jurist. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, he framed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory west of the Ohio River, and he was a member of our Church.

Nathan Dane was born in Ipswich Massachusetts in 1752, one of eight children on a large farm. He attended Harvard College, graduating in 1778 and shortly thereafter set up a Law practice in Beverly. In 1779, Nathan married Polly Brown of Beverly. He shortly afterward joined the First Parish Church and became an active member.

If you were a member of the First Parish Congregation in 1802, your religious experience would be yet again different. While you were now allowed to sit with your wife and children, where you sat depended on which pew your family owned. Pews were bought and sold and at times fetched a handsome price. The most valuable, of course, were those closest to the pulpit. Visitors and those who did not own a pew were relegated to the gallery area. The First Parish Church at this time was nominally Congregationalist, the officially sanctioned Church denomination of Massachusetts. But the heady experience of the Revolutionary war had stimulated liberalized attitudes within the Church, a period known as the Great Awakening. First Parish, like all other Churches in Massachusetts at this time was a state-subsidized institution, dependant on the collection of taxes from Town residents for the maintenance of the Church and minister. Since only about fifteen percent of the town’s population was active members of the Church, tensions inevitably developed between the Church and the townspeople. First, the Freewill Baptists petitioned the legislature to be allowed to leave First Parish to establish their own church in 1801. In 1802, citing an alarming trend within First Parish against temperance and the abandonment of the Congregational concept of the Trinity, a group of First Parish members petitioned to be allowed to form the Third Parish Congregational Society, what we now know as the Dane Street Church. Nathan Dane was appointed a member of First Parish’s Committee to make recommendations about these petitions. In 1809, the Massachusetts Legislature finally set off the Third Parish as a legal entity with power of taxation.

Dane was well known for his devout religious beliefs. It was said that he constantly read the Bible in its Hebrew form all day every Sunday except during the service. He believed that the Church was a vital ingredient in the good moral character of successful Americans. But as a great legal mind he also recognized that government support of this Religious experience was fundamentally contrary to the principles of American democracy. In 1811, he was named to a commission to revise the Massachusetts Constitution. One of the key articles under scrutiny was Article Three, which authorized a general religious tax. Dane argued strongly to eliminate this tax, and the article was finally amended in 1821. It is startling to think that Massachusetts, where many of the most liberal religious minds of the time lived, was the very last state in the Union to eliminate the State tax to support Religious institutions.

In his later life, Dane was involved in the Federalist movement. He was in 1814 a delegate to the Hartford Convention, said to have been convened to consider involvement of the New England States in the War with England.

In 1829 he endowed the Dane Professorship at Harvard University. He also divided a huge donation amongst the four Churches in Beverly. Dane died after a long illness in 1835. He remained an active member of the Church to the end. His wife inherited Pew 7, in the third row. She died in 1840.

We know these things partly because we can examine the early records of First Parish. Whenever a member of our Timeless Congregation was baptized, dedicated, attended Sunday School, married, paid taxes, served on a committee, or died, the fact was duly recorded by the minister, or the Recording Secretary of the Church. The record books have long been relegated to obscure locations in the Church, and now stand in great need of cataloging, protection and preservation. As usual, the major obstacle is money, but it is also a matter of awareness. The First Parish Historical Committee, responsible for the records, needs your support to find ways of preserving them while maintaining their accessibility. Only then can the Congregation of today continue to be acquainted with the Timeless Congregation of our past.

The Archives of the First Parish Church in Beverly

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:47:08 +0000

Receipt for Paul Revere Bell, 1803

Ever since it’s founding in 1667 the First Parish has been continuously operated as a legal entity, and has generated records that document the actions of its committees and bodies. The archival collection we have today is all that remains of those early records. Their relevance reaches across all the major social, legal and administrative aspects of the Church and, in many cases, comprise the only proof we have of its history.

View the Archives Catalogue by Clicking Here

Brief History of the Archives

Originally, the Church’s records were kept in the hands of the Minister. John Hale kept his own journal of Church meetings as well as births and deaths amongst parishioners. As time went on, and records became more numerous, they were maintained and kept by a Clerk, who was appointed for the task. One of our more famous Clerks was Robert S Rantoul, in whose hand many of the archival documents of the early 19^th century were written.

The records were kept in various states until the mid 1970s when a committee headed by Mary Dinardo, a Parishioner, organized an archival committee to organize and catalog them. A fine locked wooden book case was purchased and the records were stored in the Prince Room on the first floor with little disturbance until about 2000 when Charlie Wainwright, a parishioner, reinvigorated the Historical Committee and took an interest in their preservation. The efforts ongoing at the current time represent the efforts of that committee.

The Historical Committee, working with otherBeverlyChurchesstarted the Beverly Archives Project in 2003 to promote the preservation and protection of the records ofBeverlypublic organizations. In 2004, with grant funding throughBAP, a formal archival survey was performed on the First Parish records to determine their condition and how best to maintain and protect them. The recommendations included moving the records out of the old wooden book case and placing them in protective enclosures. After obtaining training provided throughBAP, the Historical Committee acquired space on the second floor in the Controller’s Office and began to process (conserve) the records

Initial processing efforts were focused on assessing the archival collection and developing a finding aid. When we started, the archives were spread throughout the Church with the major portion in a locked, wooden book case in the Prince Room. Additional records were stored in trunks in the Balcony and in the basement. The archives had been catalogued about 1975 by the predecessor committee, who had assigned numbers to the items and created an index card file summarizing their contents. Unfortunately, the acid in the wooden book case contributed to the deterioration of many of the older documents, and the collection itself fell into a state of neglect and disuse until the advent of the current committee. In 2006 the Committee requisitioned additional space on the second floor and inserted a steel shelving system to house the archives.

Archival Policy

The care and maintenance of the Archives is governed by an Archives Policy, drafted by David Jones of the Historical Committee and approved by the Parish Board. This policy includes guidelines on what should be placed in the archives (accession), how an archival item should be removed from the archives (de-accession), who should be allowed access to the archives and who should be notified in the event of an emergency that has an impact on the collection. This policy can be found in the Historical Committee Manual, in possession of the chairman (NB where else?).

As processing of the archives continues, items will be reorganized to make them easier to locate. An online finding aid has been developed to permit rapid searching of the material and limit the handling of the items. Our goal is to make this finding aid available online via the Church Web Site.

Organization

Logical Organization of the Archives (Provenance)

The archive includes items whose provenance correlates to the organization of the Church as it existed at various times through history. In spite of its lengthy life, the Church’s structure has remained surprisingly stable over the years mostly due to its alignment with the Municipal organization model. After some analysis, the Historical Committee developed a logical organizing scheme consisting of multiple collections each divided into sub groups and, within subgroups into series. The scheme is at this point relatively flexible and can be modified if the need arises at least until all archival items have been processed.

The organizational structure of the archives is as follows:

Church Records Collection- organized primarily by committees
1. Worship- items relating to the religious activities of the Church

i. Bibles

ii. Religious Papers

iii. Records of the committee who Seated People

iv. Religious Service Records

Religious Education- Items relating to the Sunday School as well as adult education

i. Sunday School Service Books

ii. Sunday School Membership Rosters

iii. Sunday School administration records

Deaconate- Items relating to the Deaconate committee
Births, Marriages and Deaths- Primary vital records of the parishioners

i. Births Marriages Deaths

ii. Burials

Financial- Items relating to the finances of the Church

i. Church Account Books

ii. Collection Records

iii. Tax Assessments and Estimates

Ministerial- Items relating to the various ministers who served in the church

i. Minister’s Calendars

ii. Ministerial Fund

iii. Ministers Papers

iv. Sermons

Parish Committee- Items relating to the activities of the Parish Committee or Parish Board.

i. Annual Meetings

ii. Bylaws

iii. Correspondence

iv. Covenants

v. Parish Committee Meetings

Music- Items relating to music in the church

i. Choir Records

ii. Music Books

iii. Church Organ and Piano

Historical- Items that are noteworthy from a historical or genealogical perspective in the church

i. Church Events

ii. Church History

iii. Estate Papers (i.e. wills and bequests to the Church)

iv. Genealogy research requests

Social Action- Items relating to the Social organizations of the Church

i. Social Organizations’ Papers

Building- Items relating to the physical infrastructure of the church

i. Building Records (renovations, plans, maintenance, etc)

Membership – Items relating to Church membership

i. Membership Lists

ii. Visitor Logs

Other Committees
Donated Records- organized by donor
1. Gifts of Robert Endicott
2. Gifts of Ruth Lewis Standley
3. Gifts of Martha Southwick
4. Other miscellaneous donations
Media – organized by medium
1. Photos
2. Audio
3. Video
4. Electronic
5. Other media
Artifacts
1. Antiques
2. Service objects
Special Collections
1. Donated non-Church Records of (Martha Southwick)

Physical Organization of the Archives

Although the records are logically organized as described above, they must be physically stored such that we can place each item in an ideal storage medium and provide it as much protection as possible. Within the Archive, each item, storage enclosure, and box is recorded with a number. The type of storage enclosure used to store an item depends on its ability to provide protection from moisture and temperature variations, as well as from manipulation. It is important that storage enclosures be acid free and not be prone to decomposing or disintegrating over time. Items are stored in successive wrappers- into enclosures and then into boxes to establish a microclimate around each item that insulates it from the variations of temperature and humidity of the outside area.

Hierarchy of Storage Enclosures

Items

An item is the lowest level of item that is catalogued in the Finding Aid. An item may be a book, a folder, or an individual piece of paper. Folders in the archive contain multiple individual pieces, each of which is worthy of individual catalogue but this is for now not feasible. Instead, they are processed based on the subject of their content and catalogued in the finding aid as items.

Enclosures

An enclosure is the first level of storage for one or more items. Each enclosure is catalogued with its own unique enclosure number

The most common enclosure in the archive is the manila folder. Because our folders are being treated (for now) as items, each folder item is stored and catalogued as a single folder enclosure.
Books are considered enclosures and may include items within their pages, such as photographs or pasted attachments:

Recent books (less than ~150 years old) that are not considered to be fragile do not need to be placed into boxes. These books will be placed directly on a bookshelf, either vertically if the spine is strong or horizontally otherwise.
Books of great age (more than ~150 years old) or fragility are stored in a 2-piece cardboard box that is wrapped around the book and died with a string. This protects the edges of the book and minimizes the effects of handling.
The most fragile books are enclosed in a custom-fitted clamshell box. Clamshells are custom made for the book and provide maximum protection. Because of its cost, only the most fragile and important books are stored this way.

Many newer items are enclosed in 3 ring binders. While not an ideal enclosure medium, binders provide a way to store large numbers of continuous pages of financial records. Binders are not to be used for any items of great age and items enclosed in binders should be assessed periodically for removal. For the most part, binders will not be stored in boxes.
Individual papers of great age (older than ~150 years) or fragility will be enclosed in Mylar enclosures to provide extra protection. Mylar is a relatively expensive item, and this process will have to be done over several years.

Boxes

Enclosures are themselves placed into boxes, and each box is catalogued with its own box number. There are three sized boxes planned for the archives-

Drawers from a five-drawer legal sized filing cabinet contain the majority of loose paper materials.
10”x12”x6” Half Height boxes used to store folders
Special document boxes (Docbox) to store Mylar enclosures.

There are also three large steamer trunks located outside the archive that currently contain Sunday School Records, photographs and some more recent books. This is a temporary arrangement due to space and we hope to eliminate these boxes from the archive.

Storage areas

The boxes are stored on shelves and as part of a filing cabinet. The primary shelving system is located in the Treasurers office on the second floor next to the Church Balcony with 5 file drawers, 4 large shelves each 24 inches high and capable of storing about 12 square feet. Three steamer trunks are located in the balcony and one trunk is located at the vault in the Beverly National Bank across the street from the Church, which contains our most precious documents as well as the Church Communion and Baptismal silver.

Funding- The Historical Committee

The First Parish Historical Committee is the body that governs the policies around the Archival collection. Since about 2004 almost all of its attention has been focused in this area. The Historical Committee is represented in the Church Council by its Chair person and presents an annual budget, some of which it spends on the maintenance of the Archives. Additional funding may be secured by grants from the Mass Historical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities and other organizations.

Other Organizations-BAP

A principal funding mechanism for the Church’s archival preservation efforts has been the Beverly Archives Project, collaboration between many religious, public and private institutions in Beverlyand the immediate vicinity. BAPhas developed common expertise in document preservation and has obtain grants to assist its member organizations in this work. The First Parish is one of its founding members, and currently provides space for its website http://bap.firstparishbeverly.org. ThroughBAP the Church has benefited from the services and training of a professional archivist, Christine Kobialka from theFirstUnitarianChurch inSalem.

The Finding Aid

With so many items of great value and interest stored in our archive, it is important to be able to find an item quickly. The Historical Committee has developed a computerized finding aid to help in this area. The finding aid is a database application which runs on Microsoft Access 2003. It contains entries for all items, enclosures, boxes and shelves housed in the archival collection as well as information on the logical organization of series, sub groups and collections. In addition, it includes a keyword search that makes finding items of a particular topic easier. The Finding aid is currently available only through the Chairman while it is being completed. Plans call for it to reside on the computer of the Church Administrator with shared network access to the computer in the Treasurer’s office.

The Process of Processing Archives- an Introduction

Due to the great age of the archives, preservation has been our priority for several years. The science of document preservation has advanced greatly, and we today benefit from agencies like the New England Document Conservation Center as well as the expertise of document repositories around New England for knowledge in this area. As part of the Church’s latest efforts in conservation, members of the Historical Committee attended several seminars sponsored by the Beverly Archives Project that were funded through grants to obtain the necessary training in preservation techniques.

The task of conserving and protecting items in the archives is known as processing. There are many specialized techniques and guidelines involved with processing that vary with the kind of item, its age and condition. The processing of an item in the archives requires a careful assessment of an items age, condition, subject matter and source. This information is recorded and the item is prepared for long term storage. Several principles apply when processing an item in the archive:

Only items of direct relevance to the Church or its members should be retained and processed.
Items should be unfolded and stored flat
Items should have all staples, paper clips and other metal retainers removed
Items of great age (older than, say 1850) or very delicate condition should be placed in protective Mylar enclosures to afford extra protection and stored separately in document boxes
Items should be stored together with other items of similar origin
If an item is a copy or duplicate of another item, only one or at most two copies of that item should be retained
If an item cannot be processed without damaging it, it should not be processed without an archival expert

Processing Principles for the Archives

One box in the Archives includes all processing materials and should be kept handy whenever you process items in the archives.

Although we order our supplies on an annual basis, we do have a small inventory of supplies at the BAP office at the Beverly Library.

Since this is a working document, the items below will contain high level information only until we can be more certain of the process.

Whenever you work on a box, enclosure or item make sure you mark what you do in the Finding Aid, particularly if you move it,

Boxes

For the most part, our boxes consist of the half-height cardboard boxes stored on our shelving system. However, there are other types of boxes that we keep:

Clamshell boxes are custom made clamshell boxes used for our most precious books. It provides a tight sealed fit for the book for maximum support t and protection. (we currently use Gaylord Brothers as our supplier)
Small bits of old paper and very fragile items are stored in our DocBoxes. These are actually enclosed photo albums with three ring clasps to hold Mylar storage sheets.
Some boxes are custom sized for oddly shaped items.
The Church has several trunks in which are stored large items and framed photographs. These trunks are not ideal storage because they are made of wood and contribute acid.

Enclosures

Books are considered enclosures.
Manila folders are prenumbered as enclosures. Each item within a folder is assigned an enclosure number where it resides.
Folders are arranged in half height boxes. Currently these folders are arranged alphabetically by subject but this may change to series.

Items

Wear gloves when working with very old or fragile items. The gloves found in the processing box are disposable but should be used for as long as possible due to their cost.
Enclosures contain items of varying dimensions, and pages. The rule is to remove any staples, metal paper clips or anything else that may corrode or cause accelerated deterioration. Look for the general condition of the item. If it is folded, consider flattening it out (unless doing so would cause it to tear). Use a pH pen to determine acid content and, if acidic, place acid free papers around the item or place it in plastine. Papers may be reconnected using plastic clips but only if the paper can withstand the stress. Sometimes, folding an acid free sheet of paper around a collection of papers is all that is necessary.
Newsprint items are very acidic must be placed in plastine at a minimum. Newspaper is only designed to last about 50 years, and so unless it is processed correctly it will disintegrate. Make a Xerox copy of the article contained in the newspaper and discard it (no matter how old it is!)
Many enclosures contain items made up of individual papers. Those of great age or fragility should be placed in plastine protection. Those that are small and most fragile should be removed from the enclosure and place into Mylar and stored in a Docbox.

Photos and Art

The archive is sprinkled throughout with photos and artwork, and currently these are not fully inventoried. They should be catalogued as items. If possible, scan the photograph so that it can be referenced later without having to access it directly (but only if this can be done without damaging the photo or the underlying page). Photographs that are taped or pasted into books or other items should be left there. Otherwise, they can be moved if necessary to improve their storage situation.
Photographs and art that are currently stored in frames present a problem. The frame protects the object but takes up excessive space. Presently we have not removed art from frames but this may become necessary especially if the frame is damaged or is causing storage problems.

Media

The archive includes a small but growing number of media items such as disks, tapes, CDs or video. These items should be catalogued as items for now (although we may want to change this in future). We currently have no special storage provisions for these items.

The Legacy of Rev. Joseph McKeen (1773-1801)

Charles E Wainwright — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:34:26 +0000

As if to secure final closure between Bowdoin College in Maine and the City of Beverly, Robert Gregory, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship Advisor to the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship, delivered a sermon on 22 May, 2011 at First Parish church, Unitarian-Universalist that was first given 1 May, 1796 by the Rev. Joseph McKeen, 5th minister of the Church and, later, the first President of Bowdoin College.

Reverend Joseph McKeen stands apart in the annals of Beverly history for his raw intellect and life’s mission of service to others. He was born in Londonderry New Hampshire on 15 October, 1757, the third generation of one of its founding families. In 1770, at the incredible age of thirteen he entered Dartmouth College as a Seminarian and graduated four years later, one of only eight in its first graduating class. He taught school in Londonderry for several years before entering military service as a Sergeant in the Revolutionary War under General John Sullivan. After the war in 1783, McKeen studied Mathematics and astronomy at Harvard College and wrote several papers for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1785 until his invitation to become the first President of Bowdoin College in 1802 he served as the fifth Minister of the First Parish Church in Beverly.

The years immediately following the end of the Revolutionary War were difficult ones for The First Parish Church. Its previous minister, Rev. Joseph Willard had, in November of 1781, resigned to accept a position as President of Harvard University, and the Congregation had been without a minister for three and a half years. It was with some desperation that the Church extended an invitation to the 25 year old McKeen to serve as their minister and on 11 May, 1785 he was Ordained. In spite of his youth, he quickly developed a reputation as a passionate, knowledgeable and eloquent speaker. His message of “service to others” was quite different from the predominantly Calvinistic messages delivered from other pulpits.

On 21 June, 1802 the Church reluctantly accepted Rev. McKeen’s resignation as Minister to accept the position as Bowdoin College’s first President. As was the custom of the time, McKeen brought his portfolio of some 400 sermons with him to Maine, and delivered many of them to his students there. Upon his untimely death on 15 July 1807, the sermons were placed in the College Library where they remain today.

During his ministry, Rev. McKeen transformed the First Parish Church from an institution focused on a Puritan/Congregational doctrine to one that sought to embrace more universal forms of worship. He was the last minister of a unified Church in Beverly’s South Side- Within a year of his departure, the Beverly Baptist Church had gathered, and fifty members of First Parish left to form the Third Parish Church (now known as the Dane Street Church).