By Muriel Bristol | February 27, 2022
Prior to its establishment as its own separate town, Rochester’s Northeast Parish, as Milton was then termed, had been served in religious matters by several neighboring Congregational ministers, such as Rev. Joseph Haven (1747-1825) of Rochester, NH, Rev. Isaac Hasy (1742-1812) of Lebanon, ME, and presumably other visitors. Church services were held in an unfinished upstairs room of Elijah Horn’s tavern. (See Milton Taverner Levi Jones (1771-1847)).
This town formerly made a part of Rochester, and, for a year after being separated from it, received the labors of their old pastor, Rev. Mr. Haven, with deep gratitude. They hailed his regular and occasional visitings with great interest. But they needed more constant, steady labors among them than their old minister with a large home parish could give them. They set their faces therefore to having religious institutions among them separate from Rochester. The children wished to set up for themselves in religious, as they had in municipal, matters (Lawrence, 1856).
At Milton’s very first annual town meeting, which was held in the same Horn Tavern as the church services, a tax was voted by a majority for the support of the ministry.
March 14, 1803. Voted that each poll pay twenty-five cents for preaching, and other ratable estate in proportion (Hayes, 1882).
At this time, the Congregational church had been for nearly two hundred years New England’s “established” church. Contemporary sources generally referred to it as being the “standing order.” Everyone in a New England town was subject to compulsory taxation for its support and that of its local Congregational minister.
Religious dissenters, such as Baptists, Free-Will Baptists, Friends (“Quakers”), Methodists, etc., had never been best pleased with this coercive arrangement and, with the advent of the Republic and its constitution, they began to make their displeasure felt.
Many, if not most, towns contrived a rather dubious solution, adopted also by a nascent Milton. They continued to tax everyone for support of ministers. But they then attempted to distribute the money collected according to the relative size of the various religious denominations.
The same [Milton ministerial] tax was voted to be raised March 12, 1805, and also voted to tax all denominations alike with the privilege of directing what teacher may have their money (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
Of course, to implement such a distribution, one would need to compile and maintain lists or at least head-counts of the taxpayers’ differing religious affiliations [!!!].
As Milton had as yet no settled minister, it paid still visiting or occasional ministers and preachers on an ad hoc basis. “Prior to 1805,” i.e., in the years 1803-04, it paid Reuben Nason $82 for preaching; Mr. Brown $4; Mr. [Gideon] Burt $24; and Mr. Pillsbury $55. Capt. Plumer received $33 for boarding them (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
Being titled “Mister,” “Rev.,” or “Rev. Mister,” versus being merely named in such a list usually depended upon one’s ordination status. Many who would preach in Milton in these initial years were licensed to preach by this or that denomination or missionary society – they had become a “licentiate” – but had not yet achieved full status. That came with being “ordained” as a settled minister by a convocation of neighboring ministers. The honorific could be applied then and might be retained even if one moved on to a new parish or occupation.
Mr. Gideon Burt (1773-1845) had accepted a Congregational pastorate in Effingham, NH, in 1803, at the rate of $300 per annum. But, due to Effingham’s inability to tax all of its denominations for his support, it had come up short in paying his agreed salary.
In 1803 [Effingham] voted to divide the ministerial land between the Baptists and Congregationalists according to the number of rateable polls belonging to each. This was not done at this time. At the same time Rev. Gideon Burt was invited to settle at a salary of $300. He accepted the call, and was the only settled pastor the Congregationalists have ever had. In July 1805, [Effingham] voted to tax the Congregationalists only. The same year, his salary being unpaid, he sued the town for what was due – about $420 – they paid it, he was dismissed, and [they] gave the Baptists a deed of one-third of the ministerial land (Lawrence, 1856).
After Rev. Burt’s departure from Effingham, NH, its defaulting church was said to have “lost visibility,” i.e., it became inactive and remained so, until 1835.
Rev. Burt evidently made up some ($24) of his loss through hiring out as a “supply” preacher, i.e., an ad hoc preacher, in Milton.
Rev. Gideon Burt, born in Longmeadow, Mass., 1773, was graduated at Williams College, 1798, had been three years settled at Effingham, N.H., and was now [1814] supplying pulpits here and there (Robbins, 1886).
An instance of congregants cooperating to hire preaching services privately was recorded regarding this same Rev. Gideon Burt. He would be hired in 1814 for eight weeks’ worth of “supply” preaching through a collection taken up at Gilsum, NH.
About the year 1814, Mary Wilcox, not then a member of the church, was moved to make an effort to secure preaching, and herself went to the sisters of the church asking them to give something for that purpose. The women raised money enough to hire the Rev. Gideon Burt of Long Meadow, Mass., eight weeks. As a result of his preaching the church became more engaged and four persons united by profession, among them the one who started the movement (Hayward, 1881).
Reuben Nason (1779-1835) had graduated from Harvard College in Cambridge, MA, with its class of 1802. He studied further with Rev. Jesse Appleton (1772-1819) of Hampton, NH. He was approved then for religious teaching by the Piscataqua Association of Ministers in 1803, and by them “recommended for the use of the churches.” And so he preached for a time in Milton as a licentiate. He did so initially in the Horn Tavern and would seem to have been among the first, if not the very first, to preach in the newly built Milton meetinghouse.
An attempt was made in Milton in 1804 to “settle” Nason as Congregational pastor for the Milton meetinghouse. The terms asked by him were quite similar ($300 per annum and use of a parsonage) to those that Effingham, NH, had offered Rev. Burt but on which it had then defaulted.
But immediately after the completion of the meeting house in 1804 an effort was made to settle a minister, as a regular town minister. At a meeting held Aug. 27, 1804, it was: “Voted to choose a committee to treat with Rev. Mr. Nason, and see on what terms he will agree to settle in town.”
At a meeting on the 5th of November the committee rendered the following report: “Milton, Nov. 5, 1804. Gentlemen, We have, according to your desire, talked with Mr. Nason, and we find that if the town are agreed to give him the use of a decent parsonage during his ministry and $300 yearly, that he would settle with us on these conditions. Committee { RICHARD WALKER, BENJAMIN SCATES (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
Not mentioned, but usually a part of such arrangements in some way, was access to a wood supply. Sometimes cords of cut wood were delivered to the parsonage, perhaps in partial payment of the minister’s salary, and sometimes the parsonage had merely access to its own wood lot.
Nason’s offer was not taken up. He preached some in 1805 but became then preceptor (principal) at Gorham Academy in Gorham, ME, in 1806. (The Academy would pay him $600 per annum, i.e., double his Milton proposal). He was remembered there as “a man of marked individuality.” He would be ordained finally in Freeport, ME, in 1810 (McLellan, 1903). He was the settled minister there until 1815, when he and his parish parted company due – in his own words – to a “prevalence of sectarian spirit, in part, and partly from the diminution of the means of paying his salary” (Nason, 1816). He returned then to Gorham Academy, again as its preceptor, and finally took a similar post in Clarkson, NY, dying there in 1835 (McLellan, 1903).
The basic (and perhaps insoluble) problem, for both Milton and other towns of a similar size, was that none of its denominations had sufficient resources to separately settle and support a minister of their own. (This would eventually be addressed in later years through forming instead more ecumenical “union” churches).
At the third annual town meeting (March 1805) Milton doubled its “ministerial tax.”
March 12, 1805. In town meeting, voted to raise 50 cents on a poll, and other ratable property in proportion, for support of the ministry (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
In that year Milton paid Reuben Nason $34.15 for preaching; and Christopher Page $84. Capt. Plumer received $26 for boarding them. In 1806 it paid John Dorrance $54 for preaching.
Rev. Christopher Paige, Jr. (1762-1822), was a Dartmouth graduate (Class of 1784), “and became a preacher of the standing order,” i.e., he was a Congregationalist. He was ordained in Pittsfield, NH, in 1789. He had “… preached for a brief season in Hopkinton and in Pittsfield,” NH (Lawrence, 1904). He was settled at Deering, NH, in 1796. Its church had been formed as a Congregationalist one, which then switched to Presbyterian, and then back to Congregationalist. After his ad hoc preaching stint in Milton in 1805, he preached in Washington, NH. He became for a time the settled minister at Roxbury, NH, in 1816, but died in Salisbury, NH, in 1822.
(Rev. Curtis Coe (1750-1829), resigned his parish in Durham, NH, in 1806, over similar sectarian and financial disputes. He became instead a Congregational missionary and would help establish Milton’s Congregational Church in 1815).
John G. Dorrance (1777-1825), who preached in 1806-07, was a Brown University graduate (Class of 1800). (He was a namesake for an older uncle who was the settled minister at Windsor, MA, 1795-1834). John Gordon Dorrence was admitted to membership in the church at Windham, CT, November 7, 1802, and dismissed from there on an unspecified date.
In 1807 Milton paid John Dorrance $21 for preaching; and Daniel Hayes received $20 for boarding him. In 1808 it paid Mr. Preston $5 for preaching; and in 1809 it paid Mr. Papkin $30 for preaching (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
The Mr. Preston who preached in 1808 might have been Willard Preston (1785-1856). He attended Brown University, where he initially studied law but then switched to theology. He graduated in 1808 and was licensed to preach. He would go south for his health for a time but could have preached briefly in Milton before he left. He would be “settled” later in Milton, VT, in 1811, where he was ordained in 1812, followed by St. Albans, VT, Providence, RI, in 1816, and Burlington, VT, before becoming president of the University of Vermont in 1825. He “settled” finally at an Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, GA, in 1833. He was remembered there for the aid he rendered during its yellow fever epidemic of 1845.
The Mr. Papkin who preached in 1809 might have been Rev. Dr. John S. Popkin (1771-1852). (His brother, William Popkin (c1782-1827), was also a minister). Rev. John S. Popkin was at this time the settled minister at Newburyport, MA.
His sound, intellectual, impressive and truly Christian preaching drew many occasional hearers; and his well-known character as a man and a scholar, as well as minister, induced a number of respectable families in Newburyport, with several professional gentlemen, to become his parishioners (Popkin, 1852).
His own church building was torn down in 1806, so that another might be constructed in its place.
MASSACHUSETTS. NEWBURYPORT. May 6. On the last Sabbath a valedictory Sermon was delivered by the Rev Mr. Popkin, to a crowded assembly, at the old town Meeting House, (Newbury,) that society being about to pull down the house, and erect a new one in the same place. This ancient fabric has stood 107 years, probably the oldest meeting-house in New England (Burlington Sentinel and Democrat (Burlington, VT), [Wednesday,] May 21, 1806).
He would join Harvard College as a professor of Greek in 1815.
In 1810 Milton paid Asa Piper $30 for preaching; and in 1811 it paid Asa Piper $2.50; and Mr. Goding $5 (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
Rev. Asa Piper (1757-1835) had been the first settled minister at neighboring Wakefield, NH, from 1785 to 1810. At that time he went into a sort of semi-retirement in which he did missionary work, mostly in Maine, but including also his preaching in Milton in 1810-13 (Edwards & Cogswell, 1839). During Milton’s 1820 militia dispute he would suggest calling the proposed new town – to have been composed of northern Milton and southern Wakefield – “Milfield.”
DIED. In Wakefield, Rev. Asa Piper, aged 74 (Vermont Phoenix (Brattleboro, VT), June 12, 1835).
Rev. Wiliam Goding (1761-1848), who preached in 1811, was the Baptist minister at neighboring Acton, ME. He was said to have been “a man of large stature and an eloquent and persuasive speaker.”
Rev. William Goding, of Watertown, Mass., was one of the earliest Calvinist Baptist preachers of central Maine. He was licensed by the church in Jay in 1800, ordained an evangelist in 1802, and preached in Wayne the most of the time for the four following years. He then removed to Shapleigh, and received the pastoral care of the church now known as the Acton Baptist church in 1807, over which he presided until 1835 (Cochrane, 1894).
In 1812 Milton paid Asa Piper $23 for preaching; and Mr. Thurston $3; and in 1813 it paid Asa Piper $4.50 for preaching and Israel Briggs $33 (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
Rev. James Thurston (1769-1835), who preached in 1812, had been ordained in South Newmarket, NH, in 1800, and was settled there until dismissed in 1808.
For more than twenty years subsequent to the dismission of Mr. Thurston (1808) there was little if any preaching of the Congregational order in the parish [of South Newmarket, NH]. And for ten years more, there were only occasional supplies. Besides, during more than ten or fifteen years from 1808 the “tables were turned” and the Methodists became the “standing order.” The town employed their preachers – voted them the use of their parsonage, the Meeting house and more or less salary year by year. And they lived on the Congregational parsonage, occupied their Meeting house and used their church service for some twenty years. It is a wonder that Congregationalism under such circumstances had not become entirely extinct (Lawrence, 1856).
Rev. Isaac Briggs (1775-1862), who preached in 1813, was a Brown University graduate (Class of 1795) who studied further under Rev. Dr. Sanger. He had been ordained at York, ME, August 2, 1798, and was the settled minister at the Second Congregational Church in the “Scotland” district of York, ME, for seven years, i.e., 1798-05. (He had no successor there for nearly twenty years). He resided in Portsmouth, NH, in 1807. He was installed as the settled minister at Boxford, MA, September 28, 1808, where he remained for many years (French, 1809). He would seem to have preached in Milton in 1813 as a visiting missionary.
At Milton’s 1813 annual town meeting, the proposed ministerial tax was not approved.
March 19, 1813. Voted not to raise any money for the support of the ministry (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
Seeking other sources, a town committee was chosen in May of that year to determine what, if any, property in town had been allocated by the parent town Rochester for support of the ministry. Milton historian Charles C. Hayes (1822-1893) observed that this committee does not seem to have ever returned a report (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
Milton’s Congregationalists decided finally to go their own way. They petitioned the NH legislature to have themselves incorporated as a religious society so that they might directly fund their own settled minister – or at least better supplement their share of any ministerial tax – through private levies on their own congregants.
Petition of sundry Inhabitants (of B. Plumer & others) of Milton Praying to be incorporated into a Religious Society
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives to be convend at Concord, New Hampshire on the first Wednesday in June A.D. 1814 ~
The petition of the subscribers, inhabitants of the town of Milton, respectfully shews that they experience many inconveniences by reason of being in an unincorporated state. That they have been at considerable of expense to erect and complete a meeting-house and provide for themselves convenient pews on privileges in said house under the expectation of settling a minister to preach the gospel to them, but owing to a variety of different religious sects or denominations in said town they find by experience that they have not power to obtain that desirable object, nor even a vote to tax themselves towards the support of the ministry ~ they therefore pray that they and their associates may be incorporated into a religious society by the name of the Congregational Society in Milton ~ This we conceive would have a tendency to harmonize and moralize us, and finally have the happy effect of making us better citizens and better men ~ as we in duty bound do pray ~
[Column 1:] Moses Paul, James Hayes, Jr, Daniel Dore, Timo Roberts, Gershom Downs, Ira Fisk [Fish], Wm Scruten, Benjamin Dore, David Courson, Wm Adams, Caleb Wingate, Isaac Hayes, John Remick,
[Column 2:] Gilman Jewett, Nat Pinkham, Ichabod Wentworth, David M. Courson, Thomas Wentworth, Zebah Hanscom, Samuel N. Chamberlin, Elijah Horn, Peter Horn, John G. Remick, Daniel F. Melcher, Aaron Twombly, Jonathan Dore, John Dore, John Nutter,
[Column 3:] Beard Plumer, Joseph Plumer, Wm Palmer, Isaac Scates, Samuel Wallingford, Josiah Willey, Daniel C. Palmer, John Palmer, Barnibus Palmer, John Scates, James Pinkham, Edward Eles, Benjamin Scates, Norton Scates.
Upon receipt and consideration of the petition, the legislature voted to hold a public hearing on the matter at the next June session, i.e., a full year later, in June 1815. (This explains why the proposed Congregational Society would not be organized until September 1815).
State of New Hampshire
In the House of Representatives, June 7th 1814
Upon reading and considering the foregoing petition and the Report of the Committee thereon Voted that the Petitioners be heard on their petition before the General Court on the first Tuesday of the next June Session and that previous to the first day of February the Selectmen and the Town Clerk of Milton be served with Copies of their petition and the order of the Court thereon and that a Copy of said petition and Order of Court be posted up at the Meeting house in said Milton and some other public place in said town previous to the said first day of February, that any person or persons may then appear and shew cause, if any they have, why the prayer should not be granted.
Sent up for Concurrence. Thoms [Thomas W. Thompson (1766-1821)], Speaker.
In Senate the same day Read and concurred. Peter E. Farnum, Asst Clerk.
State of New Hampshire. In the House of Representatives, June 13th 1815
Upon hearing and considering the foregoing petition Voted that the prayer be so far granted that the Petitioners have leave to bring in a bill.
Sent up for concurrence. Geo. B. Upham, Speaker.
Con. In the Senate the same day Read and concurred. S.A. Trumbell, Clerk
The petitioners brought in a bill, which was approved a week later, June 21, 1815.
State of New Hampshire }
AN ACT TO INCORPORATE BEARD PLUMER ESQUIRE AND OTHERS INTO A SOCIETY BY THE NAME OF THE CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN MILTON.
[Approved June 21, 1815. Original Acts. vol. 23. p. 13; recorded Acts, vol. 20, p. 321].
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General court convened, that Beard Plumer, Benjamin Scates, Caleb Wingate, John Scates, Joseph Plumer, and their associates, with such others as are or may be hereafter admitted into said Society, be and they hereby are made and erected into a body politic and corporate to have continuance and succession forever by the name and style of the Congregational Society in Milton, and by that name may sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, prosecute and defend to final judgment and execution, and hereby are vested with all the powers and privileges of corporations of a similar nature, and may enjoin penalties of disfranchisement, and may make, purchase and receive subscriptions, grants and donations of real and personal estate not exceeding Seven thousand dollars, for the use and benefit of said corporation, and may have and use a common seal, and the same at pleasure may break, alter and renew, and may ordain and put in execution such bye laws and ordinances, as to them shall appear necessary and convenient for the government of said Corporation. Provided such bye laws and ordinances are not repugnant to the laws & constitution of this State.
And be it further enacted that said Corporation be and they hereby are authorized and empowered to keep in repair the meeting house in said Milton, in which said association now worship, and to erect build, finish and keep in repair at any future period a house for public worship, and may assess and collect taxes for that purpose, and for the maintenance and support of the gospel Ministry.
And be it further enacted, that the first meeting of said corporation shall be holden in said Milton on the third Monday of July next, at two o clock in the afternoon, and notice thereof shall be given by a notification to be posted at two public places in said Milton, under the hands of the persons before named or any two of them, at least fifteen days prior to said meeting, who shall preside in said meeting until a moderator shall be chosen; at which, or any subsequent meeting, duly warned, said corporation may choose all such officers as may be necessary for the orderly conducting of the affairs of said corporation, who shall be duly sworn and continue in office until others are chosen and sworn in their room; and may fill up any vacancies that may happen in said offices, and do & transact any other business necessary to be done and transacted except the raising of money, which shall be done at their annual meeting and at no other time; at which annual meeting they shall vote to assess and collect all sums of money proper for carrying the designs of the corporation into execution, and for defraying the contingent expences of the same, and shall do and transact all other business necessary to be transacted for the benefit of said Society.
And be it further enacted, that the annual meeting of said Corporation, shall be holden in said Milton on the first Monday of October forever. ~
And be it further enacted, that those who are and may hereafter become associated in this Society and who are or may be at the same time proprietors and owners of pews in said meeting house, shall be liable to pay such taxes as shall be assessed thereon, for the purpose of repairing, and keeping in repair, said meeting house, and for other purposes connected with the well-being of said association, and on refusal or neglect to pay such taxes, the pew or pews of such delinquent owner or owners may be exposed to sale, under the rules and bye laws of said Corporation (NH Secretary of State, 1920).
Former Milton teacher Sophia ((Cushing) Hayes) Wyatt visited the Plummer “mansion house” on Plummer’s Ridge in Milton in the mid 1820s. Her host, an ailing son of the late Sen. Beard Plummer (1754-1816) – probably Joseph Plummer (1786-1826) – wished that his father and other town founders had been more religious men. (See Milton Teacher of 1796-1805).
I heard him a short time afterward remark, “If my father [Beard Plummer] and my uncle Joseph [Plummer], and Esq. [William] Palmer, had been religious men, what a good influence they would have exerted over this town.”
His assessment seems a bit harsh, given that all three signed the above petition. On the other hand, none of them were among the nine founding Congregational church members of the following year. (Although Palmer’s father and daughter were among them).
Rev. James Doldt (1809-1888), who would become Milton’s settled Congregational minister of 1848-70, described how some visiting preachers had been paid in the early days (presumably based on what he found in Congregational church records or had related to him by older parishioners).
… In some cases a single individual would pay for a Sabbath’s preaching, then his neighbor would do the same. After this they would all unite to get one or more. Beyond this, they sought the aid of the New Hampshire Missionary Society then recently formed [1801]. This Society responded to their call, and sent them among some others, Rev. Curtis Coe, formerly pastor of the church in Durham. He superintended the formation of a church in Milton (Lawrence, 1856).
Milton’s Congregational church continued to employ visiting ministers and missionaries, such as the Rev. Curtis Coe and Rev. Dyer Burge, until it settled Rev. James Walker, Jr. (1778-1826), on a “half-time” basis, in 1819. (See Milton’s Congregational Ministers of 1815-26).
This church worshiped in the old meeting house until 1835, when the house was built at Three Ponds, which has since been transformed into a “Classical Institute.” After this time for several years the meetings were held alternately at the Three Ponds and Milton Mills. The present meeting-house of this church was built in 1860, and is a spacious and elegant edifice (Hayes, 1882; Scales, 1914).
And other denominations followed much the same course. Visiting Christian Baptist Elder Mark Fernald (1784-1851) preached in Milton as early as 1818, and a Christian congregation would organize itself in Milton in 1827. They met initially in private homes or barns, and, in season, held larger “general meetings” in the open. (See Milton’s Christian Church Elders – 1827-1845).
The Free-Will Baptists organized themselves at South Milton in 1843. They too met initially in private homes. (See Milton’s Free-Will Baptist Ministers of 1843-50).
The Milton town government continued to wrestle periodically and fruitlessly with ministerial taxation and its “ministerial fund” – evidently a non-lapsing one – for at least another sixty-six years. (But that is another story).
References:
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Thayer, Elihu. (1801). A Sermon Preached at Hopkinton, at the Formation of the New-Hampshire Missionary Society, September 2d, 1801. Retrieved from books.google.com/books?id=XyZdAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover
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Milton Observer 