網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

VOL. LIV.

FEBRUARY, 1922

No. 2

The Oldest Church in New Hampshire and a Masque Portraying Its Early History.

By George B. Upham

The first parish of the Church of England in western New Hampshire was organized in Claremont in 1771. Its church is the oldest still standing in the state. It was built in 1773, on "the Plain," within the shadow of Twistback, a little south of Sugar River, and a little more than a mile from the Connecticut. The plans were sent from Portsmouth by that gracious Royal Governor, John Wentworth. It is designated on early maps as the "English Church."

More than a century ago water power on Sugar River, two miles to the eastward, gradually attracted the settlers away from this vicinity. Few of the old houses and none of the workshops that formerly clustered around the church now remain. (1) Today it stands almost alone, near its old burying ground under the pines. Services are, however, held here every Sunday, except in the severest months of winter.

Many recollections of the writer's childhood center around this church, especially of the going there on Christmas Eve; the swift-moving sleighs; the crunch of the snow under the horses' hoofs; the jingling sleighjingling sleighbells; the snow-laden pines. The church comes into view, its many paned windows brilliant with points

of light from row upon row of long, home-made tallow candles.

Within the church a small forest of young pines and hemlocks line the walls and mark the old square pews. Long festoons of evergreen cross and recross overhead. The candles shining through the green, and on the wonderful Christmas tree are seemingly increased a hundred fold. This fairyland, with the peals of the little wooden-piped organ-it was handmade within a stone's throw of the church door (2) the Christmas carols, and the beautiful service of the Church of England all contribute to a child's impressions still unfaded; impresssions more dear and lasting than any of later years, even those of really wonderful Christmas services in great cathedrals many centuries old.

An affection inspired by such memories led to the writing of a Masque, portraying something of the early history of this old church, so unique a monument among the hills. The characters are as follows:

Ranna Cossit, first pastor of the parish, born in Granby, Connecticut, December 29, 1744. He was educated for his profession at the cost of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, (3) and ordained in London in December 1772.

(1) The last of these was a wheelwright's shop which stood on the west side of the road and north of the burying ground. It was last used in the early sixties. (2) An advertisement appearing in the Claremont Spectator of September 19, 1823, reads as follows: "Organs, The Subscriber would inform the publick that he has engaged in Manufacturing Organs, a few rods north of Union Church in Claremont, where Church and Chamber Organs will be furnished on as good terms as can be obtained elsewhere, and as short notice as the complication of the work will admit. Will soon be completed an Organ well cased with Real Gilt Pipes in Front adapted to the use of a Church or Meeting-house. Stephen Rice."

The "Subscriber" was the son of Ebenezer Rice, Master Carpenter of the Church, and builder of the interesting pre-Revolutionary house for many years the home of the Rice Family, and later that of the Bancrofts. It was probably in one of their buildings, now used as a barn, that the organs were made. No power was available, so the work must have been done wholly by hand. (8) This Society was founded in 1701. Under the great seal of England it was created a corporation with this name. There were then probably not twenty clergymen of the Church of England in foreign parts. Its work, educational and ecclesiastical, in "spiritually waste places" of the earth has been extensive almost beyond belief, and still continues.

He came to Claremont in the Spring of 1773 (4) and remained until 1786. His house, which within the writer's recollection remained standing, was spacious and interesting; its second story overhung the the walls walls below. Traces of the cellar, and old appletrees of the garden, or what were sprouts from the original stock, may still be seen south of the road leading to the Upham homestead on Town Hill. The brook, a little to the west, at the foot of the terrace, is still called Cossit Brook.

Ranna Cossit was a strong character, a persistent Tory. He made no effort to conceal convictions, on the contrary seized every opportunity to make them known. At his examination by the Committee of Safety he asserted that the colonies were “altogether in the wrong;" that "the King and Parliament have a right to make laws and lay taxes as they please on America;" and that "the British troops will overcome (the rebellion) by the greatness of their power and the justice of their cause." In public services throughout the war he read the prayer for the safety of the King and Royal Family, also that for the welfare of "the High Court of Parliament." (5) Notwithstanding all this, and the fact that Cossit's preaching and influence had held several prominent parishioners loyal to the Crown, the Committee of

Safety restricted his movements merely to the Town boundaries-unless he should be called beyond them "to officiate in his ministerial office." (6)

We learn from his letter dated New York, January 6, 1779, that he was provided with "a flag." and under its protection visited loyalist friends in New York while that city was still in the possession of British troops.

It appears, on the whole, that, officially at least, he was treated with consideration, and that his "confinement," "trials" and "persecutions" have been grossly exaggerated. (7)

In 1786, at the instance and cost of the Society, he removed to Sydney, Cape Breton Island, to become rector to St. George's church, also "Missionary to the Island." In 1788 he returned to Claremont to bring his family to this new abode.

Deprived by the Revolution of assistance from his patron Societywhich by charter was restricted to using its funds in British Dominions and with a large family to support, it is doubtful whether Cossit could have remained in Claremont had he desired to do so. He died at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, in 1815. A few of his letters have been preserved in the archives of the Society in London. Some of their language. is used in the Masque.

Asa Jones was a young farmer, patriot and member of the church.

(4) Cossit was appointed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel a missionary to Haverhill, New Hampshire, on March 19, 1773, and to Claremont at about the same time, for he arrived there some weeks, or months, before July 5, 1773. Until 1775 he "officiated at Claremont half this time, and half at Haverhill." See Journal of the Society, Vol. 19, pp. 399. 472. Vol. 20, p. 123.

(5) See a statement to this effect in Cossit's letter to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, dated New York, January 6, 1779, but in a letter dated January 10, 1781, as condensed in the Society's Journal, Cossit reported "That he is sorry to acquaint the Society that, upon some occasions, when his church has been frequented by people from the Dissenting parishes in the neighborhood. who have been very inimical and have threatened his life, he has been necessitated to omit the prayers for the King in the Liturgy; but when his own Parishioners only are present, he uses the whole Liturgy. He hopes the Society will not be displeased with this prudential step, by means of which alone he apprehends the Church of England has any existence in New England." Journal of the Society, Vol. 22. p. 269.

(6) On December 26, 1774, Cossit wrote to the Society describing "the doings of the Liberty Men at Haverhill-he managed to escape from them to Claremont, where he has been ever since, 'with forty armed men' ". Journal of the Society, Vol. 20, pp. 349-351. In his letter dated New York, January 6, 1779, Cossit wrote, "I have been by the Committees confined as a Prisoner in the Town of Claremont ever since the 12th of April, 1775"; a day just one week before the fight at Concord and Lexington, S.P.G. M.S.S. B. 3, No. 352.

(7) Notably in the letter of Col. John Peters to his brother, the Rev. Samuel Peters, in London, dated Quebec, July 20, 1778. See Waite's History of Claremont, pp. 97, 98.

[blocks in formation]

Benjamin Tyler walked from Farmington, Connecticut, to Claremont in 1767. The next year he built a sawmill on Sugar River just east of the northerly end of the present West Claremont highway bridge; here the boards for the church were sawed. Tyler also built a forge and slittingmill (9) at a small water power a few rods above the site of the present "High Bridge." These supplied These supplied the iron and nails used in building the church. The iron was reduced from bog deposits found in "Charlestown, Number Four." The frame of the forge building was moved to the Upham homestead, nearly a century ago, and used for a barn. This has ever since been called "the forge

barn."

Between 1770 and the end of the century Tyler built saw and grist mills for many miles around; he shaped mill stones from biotitegranite which he quarried on the southeastern slopes of Ascutney, sending them to nearly all parts of New England, New York and Canada. He invented and patented improvements in water-wheels, also a process for dressing flax. He called himself a millwright. He was, in fact, a highly competent, self-educated, mechanical engineer.

(8) See Waite's History of Claremont, p. 236. (9)

Tousa. Tradition is to the effect that the sole Indian living in Claremont when the settlers arrived, came to the raising of the church, and objected to the erection of so large a building on his hunting grounds. Its size certainly presaged the coming of many more white men. (10) Tousa, so named by the settlers, finished with the threat that he would kill any white man who came near his wigwam on the north side of Sugar River. This challenge was accepted by one Timothy Atkins, hunter and trapper of local fame. Tousa was seen no more. A skeleton, pronounced to be that of an Indian, was dug up near the supposed site of his wigwam three quarters of a century later.

Dr. Meiggs. Abner Meiggs was the first of the medical profession to This come to Claremont. was in 1773 or earlier. He was a member of this church, and practiced his profession in Claremont for more than twenty years.

Goody Cole is an imaginary character, but might have been the sister, cousin or aunt of Samuel Cole, the first schoolmaster in the town.

The Hermit of the Mountain is, manifestly, an imaginary character, created to supplement the scant dramatic material to be found in the early years of a sparsely settled, frontier

town.

[blocks in formation]

In 1794 the church was incorporated with the name "Union Church." At that time it had been proposed to form a union with the Congregationalists, the pastor of that church receiving Episcopal ordination. This proposal came to nought, but the name remained. The service has always been, as it began, that of the Church of England, after the Revolution call

A mill in which iron was hammered or rolled into plates and then slit into roda. These were cut into desired lengths, headed and pointed, by hand labor, to make nails. This was commonly winter's evening work for the settlers.

(10) James Truslow Adams in his excellent recent work, "The Founding of New England," page 39, estimates that one Indian required to sustain his life approximately as many square miles as the English settler, with his domestic animals, needed acres.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]

God, and the Glory of the whole Earth.

I feel it to be my duty to God, and to you, to warn you against using language disrespectful to his Majesty, or cavilling at the wise enactments of Parliament; for whosoever so offend will be called to account and made to suffer; unless, forsooth, they separate themselves from their misdemeanors, and henceforth speak lovingly, yea, reverentially of their Sovereign, and strictly obey every letter of the laws provided for the regulation of their conduct and affairs.

Asa Jones: Ranna Cossit

Cossit: It would be more respectful, Asa Jones, were you to address your pastor as Reverend Sir.

Jones: I yield to no man in respect for the clergy when it speaks of matters spiritual or of affairs of the church, but when one of that profession attempts to meddle with affairs of state he is to me as any other citizen of the colony.

I am a plain farmer, but a member of the Church of England which I love and revere. That being as I have said, is it any reason why I should love and respect a King who has done us grievous harm, or a Parliament which has done us grievous wrong? Never would the Stamp Act have been repealed had we failed to make it clear that it could never be enforced. Other laws made by Parliament will be resisted. For, Taxation without representation is Tyranny

Goody Cole: (interrupting) What do you know about Taxation, Asa Jones? Much as you know 'bout the stars, which is nothing. But I know now why you made your scarecrow look, 's much as you could, like Parson Cossit you don't like him. Well, I must say, I'm sometimes skeered of him myself when he tells us what's likely to be coming to us hereafter.

Cossit: Be silent, Goody Cole. You should not interrupt your betters.

Goody Cole: He ain't no better'n I be.

Benjamin Tyler: Now to my way of thinking, Taxation ain't the worst. of it—

Cossit: And you, Benjamin Tyler, Iron Master, you too, disloyal to the Crown? I mistrust you have disobeyed the law, for, as you know, Parliament has provided that no iron is to be made, forged or manufactured in the colonies, but all is to be brought from England.

Tyler: I'm no Iron Master; I'm just a plain millwright, who has to make his own iron or go without. I'm loyal to the King and always have been, but, in truth, I can't be loyal to his fool Parliament.

You say I've disobeyed the law. That's right, I have, but if I hadn't whence would have come the millcranks and saws to saw the boards for this church building? If it weren't for my slitting-mill whence. would have come the nails to fasten those boards to the frame?

Your wise Parliament may know much about some things, but it seems not to know that we, here in America, have few roads, except'n horse tracks, and that we can't pack a mill crank or a barrel of nails like a lady on a pillion.

Those gentlemen of England don't know how we have to toil in the bogs to get the mud for our iron ore, or how it often takes more'n a bushel of burnt mud to make the iron for three or four nails.

There's lots of things those gentlemen in Parliament don't know; and for all his Harvard College education and travels over seas, there's lots of things our Governor, John Wentworth, don't know

Goody Cole: (interrupting) I jes' won't stan' here and listen to no slurs on our good Governor, John Wentworth. I saw him when I was down to Portsmouth, and he's jes' the handsomest man I ever saw-not except'n

« 上一頁繼續 »