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 HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 FIRST CHURCH 
 
 ROXBURY. 
 
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 AN 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 FIRST CHURCH 
 
 ROXBURY. 
 
 1896. 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
 
 There stands in the middle of Eliot Square, Rox- 
 bury, a venerable edifice, perhaps the finest specimen 
 of the Puritan meeting-house remaining in New Eng- 
 land. All the religious associations of this colony 
 from 1 63 1 to 1773 cluster around this spot; and for a 
 long time it was the place of worship for the inhabit- 
 ants included in what is now Roxbury, Jamaica Plain 
 and West Roxbury, together with many of the settlers 
 in Brookline. 
 
 Within the last twenty-five years the population of 
 Roxbury has increased so rapidly that great numbers 
 are living within a circle of a mile or two from the 
 old church, knowing nothing of its history, — thou- 
 sands of whom, we think, might come to be interested 
 in its past, its present, and its future. 
 
 The first house of worship, like so many of its kind 
 in the new colonies, was built of logs, with a thatched 
 roof and a clay floor. It was about twenty by thirty 
 feet, and twelve feet high; and the settlers at Brook- 
 line paid one-fifth of its cost. The first houses were 
 built along the street now bearing the name of the 
 town, and there was a regulation that every one must 
 build within half a mile of the meeting-house. This 
 
building stood from 1632 until 1674. The second 
 house of worship was much larger, and answered its 
 purposes until 1741. 
 
 A new and larger one was then erected, but it was 
 destroyed by fire in 1746. The fire caught, the 
 records say, from a foot-stove; and some thought it was 
 a divine judgment upon the love of ease and luxury 
 which was creeping into the settlement. For until 
 this time the fire of devotion was the only warmth 
 the old meeting-house had through the long services, 
 although some of the worshippers would take their 
 dogs to lie on the floor, while they put their feet upon 
 them, the better to endure the winter's cold. Many 
 of the customs of these early days seem very strange 
 to our generation. As there was no fire, the church 
 was regarded as the safest place to keep the powder of 
 the settlement, and sometimes it was stored in the 
 steeple, sometimes on the beams of the roof; and occa- 
 sionally, if a thunder-storm came on during the time 
 of public worship, the congregation would leave the 
 altar, and take shelter in the neighboring woods for 
 fear of an explosion. Sometimes, in seasons of abun- 
 dant harvest, the farmers were allowed to store their 
 grain in the loft of the meeting-house; while notices 
 of every kind of meeting, orders and resolutions of the 
 town, summonses to town meetings, intentions of mar- 
 riage, copies of the law against Sabbath-breaking, an- 
 nouncements of vendues and sales, lists of the town 
 officers, rules about the Indians, were posted on the 
 house, sometimes covering it well over, while it was 
 
5 
 
 no unusual thing for the freshly severed head or heads 
 of wolves to be nailed under the windows to attest the 
 skill of the hunter or prove the reward due him. 
 Close in the rear of the meeting-house were those 
 guardians of the peace and terrors of evil-doers, — the 
 stocks and pillory, — where the offenders were placed 
 within full view of the innocent. There was no bell, 
 but the willing congregation gathered at the call of 
 a drum or shell. As an old verse has it: — 
 
 " New England's Sabbath day- 
 Is heaven-like, still, and pure, 
 When Israel walks the way 
 Up to the temple's door. 
 The time we tell 
 When there to come 
 By beat of drum 
 Or sounding shell." 
 
 The prayers were frequently an hour long, the ser- 
 mons of even greater length, measured by an hour- 
 glass, when clocks and timepieces were rare; and it 
 is told of one of the ministers of New England that, 
 when the sands were run out, he would look over his 
 sleepy congregation, and say, " Come, friends, let's 
 take another glass." 
 
 The fourth house of worship was built in 1746. Of 
 this we have a plan; and, as it was like the preceding 
 one, we know the precise style of the meeting-house 
 in which our fathers worshipped a hundred years ago. 
 The entrance was from the south side, and the pulpit 
 opposite upon the north. Directly in front of the 
 
pulpit was a goodly number of free seats; and among 
 the names of the occupants of the square pews we read 
 these, still frequently met with among our citizens or 
 perpetuated by our streets : Curtis, May, Seaver, 
 Bowles, Crafts, Williams, Heath (of Revolutionary 
 fame), Ruggles, Dudley, and Joseph Warren, who 
 fell at Bunker Hill. 
 
 The population had so increased that it was thought 
 the time had come to provide meeting-houses in the 
 more remote parts of the town, so that in 171 2 a 
 second church was gathered in what is now West Rox- 
 bury; and in 1773 was erected the present old church, 
 now standing on Centre Street, near South, although 
 partly destroyed by fire a few years since. This is 
 the church that was made famous by the ministry 
 of Theodore Parker. From this, as well as from the 
 mother church, still another parish was formed in 
 1769, which is now the First Congregational Society 
 of Jamaica Plain, quite near to the Soldiers' Monu- 
 ment. 
 
 It may be some reassurance to those who think that 
 the interest in public worship is declining that a 
 record in 1820 says: " The interest in religion had so 
 far declined that, although there are in the first parish 
 in Roxbury, completed and building, three churches 
 within the compass of a few rods, those who prefer to 
 spend their Sabbaths in regular worship to lounging 
 about taverns and pilfering in the fields but half fill 
 a single one. " 
 
 The fourth house of worship of the First Church, 
 
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from 1746 to 1804, saw the stormy days of the Revo- 
 lutionary War. The lawn was the camping ground of 
 our forces. Here Washington came to review the 
 troops. General Thomas had his headquarters in the 
 house long occupied by the eminent teacher, Mr. 
 Dillaway, the gambrel-roofed building still standing 
 on Roxbury Street. The steeple was shattered by 
 British cannon-balls. And Whitefield preached to one 
 of his immense congregations in front of the church. 
 Early in the present century a movement was begun 
 to build a new church, the fifth on the historical spot. 
 The records tell us that the committee was to consult 
 the plans of the church in Newburyport, then just 
 finished; and the tradition is that Bulfinch, the archi- 
 tect of the State House, had something to do with 
 them. Whoever were the architect, the builders, and 
 the committee, the result was one of the most satisfac- 
 tory, commodious, and beautiful of all the old meet- 
 ing-houses in New England ; and with its massive 
 timbers it gives good promise of fulfilling the purposes 
 of worship for another century. Its fine proportions 
 deceive one as to its great size; while its large, roomy, 
 and comfortable pews, its most gracefully hung and 
 spacious galleries, — above all, its perfect acoustic 
 properties, in such marked contrast with almost all 
 modern churches, — and the simplicity of its whole 
 finish, together with the associations of devotion for al- 
 most a hundred years, make every one feel at once that 
 this is no hall, no lecture platform, but a church of the 
 living God, fragrant with the sentiment of worship for 
 
8 
 
 generations. The house was dedicated on the 7th of 
 June, 1804; and the first Sunday services were held on 
 the 10th of June. Fortunately, all schemes of re- 
 modelling, by which many old churches have been 
 defaced if not ruined, have always been defeated here 
 by a wiser judgment. There was a good deal of objec- 
 tion on the part of some to so costly and elegant a 
 structure, as is shown by a note in a private journal, 
 which, under date of April 18, 1803, says: " This day 
 the meeting-house in the first parish of this town was 
 begun to be pulled down. It was not half worn out, 
 and might have been repaired with a saving of $10,000 
 to the parish. It has been sold for $600. Whether 
 every generation grows wiser or not, it is evident they 
 grow more fashionable and extravagant." 
 
 But the church knew what it was about ; and when 
 the sale of pews took place in the new house, after 
 all the building expenses were settled, there was a 
 surplus of nearly $8,000, which was divided pro rata 
 among the tax-payers of the parish, and from that time 
 until the present the church has not had a cent of 
 debt. 
 
 At this time the population was increasing, so there 
 was a demand for churches of other sects ; and on 
 Nov. 1, 1820, the Baptist church in Roxbury, which 
 is now called the Dudley Street Baptist Church, was 
 dedicated. This was quickly followed by the dedica- 
 tion of the Universalist church on Jan. 4, 1821; and 
 so, one after another, as adherents of the various faiths 
 settled here, churches have been built to meet the 
 
needs of a hundred thousand inhabitants. In 1S46 
 a second Unitarian church was gathered on Mount 
 Pleasant, which is now the flourishing All Souls' 
 Church on the corner of Warren Street and Elm Hill 
 Avenue. 
 
 When the first settlers came to this neighborhood, 
 they found their way for a few months to the church 
 which had already been gathered in Dorchester; but 
 in 1 63 1 they formed their own church, under the lead 
 of William Pinchon, of whom the record says, in 
 1630, " He was one of the first foundation of the 
 church at Rockesborough" ; and perhaps the church 
 was gathered in that year, for Eliot came in 163 1, and 
 before he left England he had promised friends who 
 had preceded him to be their minister in Roxbury. 
 However, we have not been accustomed to speak of 
 our church as established at an earlier date than 1631. 
 In July, 1632, Thomas Welde was invested with the 
 pastoral care of the church in Roxbury. In Novem- 
 ber of the same year John Eliot was ordained as 
 teacher with him. No matter how small the parish, 
 it was customary to have pastor and teacher ; but very 
 often it was hard to separate their offices and duties. 
 Mr. Welde was the first minister of this church, and 
 remained until 1639. He was very prominent in all 
 the ecclesiastical affairs of this and the surrounding 
 colonies, a stern Puritan, a good fighter for his own 
 views, and an uncompromising antagonist of those who 
 differed from him, and, as he thought, threatened the 
 faith, peace, and purity of the church. It was the 
 
10 
 
 spirit of the age to enforce by every argument or legal 
 enactment the religion which the reigning party re- 
 garded as true. There was but one true religion, and 
 the true one for those days was extreme Puritanism. 
 
 The ministry of John Eliot from 1632 to 1690 so 
 overshadowed that of Welde that, while the latter was 
 no inconspicuous figure in the early history of New 
 England, the former is often spoken of as our first 
 minister, almost to the entire neglect of the able, 
 faithful, scholarly, but extremely bitter and dogmatic 
 Welde. 
 
 John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, is the most 
 commanding figure among all the noncomformists of 
 England who came to this country for freedom of wor- 
 ship. His name and ministry are the glory of our 
 church, as they would be of any church in Christen- 
 dom ; and his life is one about which every young per- 
 son should know something. He was born in 1604, 
 at Widford-upon-Ware, a typical English village not 
 far from London, educated at Jesus College, Cam- 
 bridge, and for a time was an inmate of the house of 
 Thomas Hooker, afterward the founder of the State 
 of Connecticut. His early years were, as he says, 
 " seasoned with the fear of God, the Word, and 
 prayer"; and in the family of the pious Hooker he 
 " saw, as never before, the power of godliness in its 
 lovely vigor and efficacy." The struggle between the 
 Puritans and the English church was growing so bitter 
 that Eliot made up his mind to come to this country; 
 and in November, 1631, he arrived at Boston. In 
 
II 
 
 spite of the earnest desire of the church in Boston, 
 which had been gathered in 1630, to settle him as its 
 minister, he determined to keep his promise to his 
 friends at Roxbury ; and here he began in 1632 his 
 long, eventful, and remarkable ministry. He watched 
 over his flock, small indeed, but rapidly increasing, 
 like a faithful shepherd. The atmosphere of every 
 home was well known, and any lapsing brother or 
 sister was brought to the open confessional or ban- 
 ished from the settlement. No papal inquisition was 
 ever keener than the Puritan's watch for heresy or for 
 sin, but a tender love was mingled with the careful 
 scrutiny. If you read between the lines of his records, 
 you see what a yearning sympathy breathed in all his 
 official or private ministry. Here was a man to whom 
 the unseen things of the Spirit were more real than 
 all that could be handled or touched. In homes 
 where he was a familiar and welcome guest, he would 
 say: " Come, let us not have a visit without prayer. 
 Let us pray down the blessing of Heaven upon your 
 family before we part." Finding a merchant with 
 only books of business upon his table and books of 
 devotion upon a shelf, he said : " Sir, here is earth on 
 the table and heaven on the shelf. Pray don't sit so 
 much at the table as altogether to forget the shelf. 
 Let not earth, by any means, thrust heaven out of 
 your mind." Mather says he heard him utter these 
 words upon the text, " Our conversation is in 
 heaven": "In the morning, if we ask, Where am 
 I to be to-day ? our souls must answer, In heaven : in 
 
12 
 
 the evening, if we ask, Where have I been to-day? our 
 souls may answer, In heaven. If thou art a believer, 
 thou art no stranger to heaven while thou livest, and, 
 when thou diest, heaven will be no stranger to thee : 
 no, thou hast been there a thousand times before. ' ' 
 Here comes out in his record the stern hope of the 
 church about erring brethren who publicly confess 
 their wrong in the church: "And we have come to 
 hope that the full proceeding of discipline will doe 
 more good than theire sin hath hurt." And here is 
 his watchfulness over the morals of trade: "The 
 wife of William Webb, she followed baking, and 
 through her covetuous mind she made light waight, 
 after many admonishions flatly denying that after she 
 had weighed her dough, she never nimed off bitts from 
 each loaf, which yet was four witnesses testified to be 
 a comon, if not a practis, for all which grose sins she 
 was excommunicated. But afterward she was recon- 
 ciled to the church, lived Christianly, and dyed 
 comfortably." He had also the first Sunday-school in 
 the New World ; and his interest in education led to 
 his founding our Latin School, now for two centuries 
 and a half one of the best fitting schools for our neigh- 
 boring university. 
 
 It was, however, as the apostle to the Indians that 
 he has honor throughout the Christian world. Eliot 
 had hardly begun his work in the ministry here, and 
 mingled with the red men whom he saw every day in 
 the village streets or skulking behind the trees as he 
 walked along the paths, when the thought came to him 
 
13 
 
 that these men as well as the English were children 
 of God, and to them also the gospel should be 
 preached. He believed — and it was not an uncommon 
 opinion in his day — that these Indians belonged to the 
 lost tribes of Israel; and he also believed that in their 
 language he would find some traces of the Hebrew, 
 which Eliot believed was the language of heaven by 
 which God had spoken to Israel. We cannot here 
 trace that wonderful missionary life; but no human 
 labors were ever more earnest, devoted, and self-sacri- 
 ficing. In his house, a modest mansion which stood 
 just back of where the People's Bank now stands, he 
 had an evening school for the Indians; and during the 
 week, or when he could have a spare Sunday for longer 
 journeys, wherever the Indians could be gathered in 
 wigwams or under the spreading trees, down along the 
 Cape, all through Western Massachusetts and up to 
 the borders of New Hampshire, there Eliot was to be 
 found. In journeyings, in perils, in fastings, no diffi- 
 culties seemed too great, no thought of self came to 
 the surface, every personal comfort was surrendered, 
 every sacrifice gladly borne ; and then he would come 
 back, and through the long night, by his tallow candle, 
 give himself to the translation of the Scriptures into 
 their language with a diligence which shames almost 
 all records of scholarship. His charity became a 
 proverb, so that Cotton Mather says, "he that will 
 write of Eliot must write of his charity or say noth- 
 ing. " Thus he labored on until with the burden of 
 years he could hardly make his way up to the old 
 
14 
 
 meeting-house; and once, with feebleness and weari- 
 ness, leaning upon the arm of his deacon, he said : 
 "This is very like the way to heaven, 'tis up hill; 
 the Lord by his grace fetch us up," and, spying a bush 
 near by, he added, " and truly there are thorns and 
 briars in the way, too." So says one of his biogra- 
 phers: "I might suggest unto the good people of Rox- 
 bury something for them to think upon as they are 
 going up to the Pfouse of the Lord." His missionary 
 zeal was not less than Saint Paul's, his charity was 
 as sweet as that of St. Francis d' Assisi, and his 
 whole life a testimony that the call to saintliness has 
 not ceased and the possibility of it has not died out. 
 
 Eliot had two colleagues during his long ministry, 
 — Samuel Danforth, 1650-1674, and Nehemiah Wal- 
 ter, 1688-1750. Danforth died at the early age of 
 forty-eight, yet he had become a preacher of some 
 repute and of acknowledged force. Walter's ministry 
 exceeded even Eliot's in length. He was one of the 
 most distinguished scholars and preachers of New 
 England, and Dr. Chauncy regarded him as one of 
 the most brilliant of Americans. There is probably 
 no church in New England where through so long 
 a line of preachers the standard of scholarly and pulpit 
 gifts has been so high, and none which has had such 
 a proportion of acknowledged leaders in the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Thomas Walter, son of Nehemiah Walter, was his 
 colleague from 171 8 to 1725, and Oliver Peabody had a 
 very brief ministry, from 1750 to 1752. Then came 
 
15 
 
 Amos Adams, the patriot minister during the stormy 
 days preceding the Revolutionary War, from 1753 to 
 1775. He had a very plain way of telling the people 
 of their sins, so that they grew restless under his per- 
 sonal attacks. The unsettled condition of the country 
 during the war seems to have reached the church ; 
 and there was no minister until 1782, when Dr. 
 Porter was ordained. He was an acceptable and 
 devoted pastor for fifty-one years. It was during his 
 settlement that a great change in theology swept over 
 the New England churches; and Dr. Porter, following 
 the preaching of Dr. Channing, led this church into 
 that movement with hardly a dissenting voice. In 
 common with all the Unitarian churches of America, 
 it has no creed, regards fidelity to duty as more impor- 
 tant and saving than assent to a prescribed belief, and 
 accepts the faith of Jesus, holding with him that the 
 essential religion is love to God and love to man. 
 
 Next to Dr. Porter came the crowning ministry of 
 Dr. Putnam, from 1830 to 1878. A whole generation 
 treasures the sacred inheritance of his word ; and by 
 common consent he stands unsurpassed, hardly 
 equalled, for impressive eloquence among the clergy of 
 New England. John Graham Brooks was his col- 
 league and successor, from 1875 to 1882, and James 
 De Normandie became the minister of the church in 
 1883. 
 
 Of the rural characteristics of Roxbury, as well as 
 the central interest held in the First Church, even so 
 lately as at the ordination of Dr. Putnam, a glimpse 
 
i6 
 
 may be obtained from what he says of that event: "It 
 occurred on a week-day, and occupied the entire day. 
 There was a procession, an array of marshals and 
 ushers, and a dinner or banquet at the close. A 
 numerous council was organized of ministers and lay 
 delegates from far and near. ' ' 
 
 Thus in a period of two hundred and sixty-five years 
 this venerable and distinguished church has had eleven 
 ministers, and four of them cover the unusual term of 
 two hundred and nineteen years. It is a record of 
 which the whole community has just reason to be proud. 
 What a beautiful story of how for so many generations 
 worshippers have here sought and rested upon the 
 eternal realities ! 
 
 " We love the venerable house 
 Our fathers built to God : 
 In heaven are kept their grateful vows, 
 Their dust endears the sod. 
 
 " And anxious hearts have pondered here 
 The mystery of life, 
 And prayed the eternal Spirit clear 
 Their doubts and end their strife. 
 
 " From humble tenements around 
 Came up the pensive train, 
 And in the church a blessing found 
 Which filled their homes again." 
 
 The real value of the church, however, is not in its 
 past, but in its desire and ability to minister to the 
 religious needs of to-day. One of the serious [difri- 
 
i7 
 
 culties of the religious world at the present time is 
 the struggle not so much for purity of doctrine or life 
 as to support the numerous churches of the various 
 sects, which makes the expense of worship a burden 
 and cripples many needed philanthropies and charities. 
 The remedy is not in building small sanctuaries, which 
 even by the most generous gifts of their worshippers 
 cannot support an able ministry, but in larger houses, 
 where, by reason of accommodation for greater numbers, 
 the burden may be slight for each one. Most of all 
 is it necessary that the real life of a Christian church 
 should be free from all sensationalism, from all that 
 stimulates unwholesome excitement, and that it should 
 rest upon the decency and dignity of worship, and the 
 constant presentation of the few great spiritual realities 
 which have ever been and must ever be the refuge and 
 support of the human soul. 
 
 This is the church we would have ours to be in the 
 centuries to come, as it has been in the past ; and we 
 think there are hundreds of new families among this 
 large and growing population of Roxbury who would 
 be glad to become sharers in all the tender and hal- 
 lowed associations of the past and fellow-workers for 
 its best life in the present and the future. 
 
i8 
 
 Note. — The foregoing historical sketch has been pre- 
 pared as a means of bringing to the attention of those to 
 whom it may be sent the past history and the present char- 
 acter, condition, and aims of the First Church in Roxbury. 
 The illustrations which accompany the sketch show the ex- 
 terior and the interior of the church edifice ; the appended 
 order of Sunday services shows the character of the weekly 
 meetings for worship ; and the monthly bulletin, enclosed 
 in the pamphlet, indicates, in a general way, the nature of 
 the religious, social, and philanthropic activities of the 
 church and society. The seating capacity of the church 
 building is large, its acoustic properties are perfect, and the 
 society is wholly free from debt. 
 
 In sending out this pamphlet, we desire to say, in behalf 
 of the First Church in Roxbury, that visiting strangers will 
 be welcomed to our Sunday services, and that we shall be 
 glad to receive into permanent association with us any who 
 find these services helpful and attractive, and who feel 
 themselves to be in sympathy with our views and aims. 
 
 Dependence S. Waterman, 
 
 James C. Davis, 
 
 S. Everett Tinkham, 
 
 Standing Committee. 
 Roxbury, March 20, 1896. 
 
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ORDER OF MORNING SERVICE AT THE FIRST 
 CHURCH IN ROXBURY. 
 
 Beginning precisely at eleven o'clock. 
 
 Anthem. 
 
 Invocation. All rise. 
 
 Anthem or Chant. 
 
 Scripture Lesson. 
 
 Hymn. Congregational. 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 Organ or Choir. 
 
 HYMN. By choir. 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 Short Prayer. Concluding with, the Lord's Prayer^ 
 
 which all repeat together. 
 Hymn. Congregational. 
 Benediction. Amen by the choir. 
 
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BX7150.R8F5A3 
 
 A "^tonca ( sketch of the F,> st church 
 
 1 1( ^12 00036 9357