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| Scituate Harbor |
Stower, Richard. A History of the First Parish Church of Scituate, Massachusetts: Its Life & Times, Scituate, MA: Converpage, nd
Page 51 - . . . The purpose of the Plymouth colony . . . was singular. It was an "experiment in Christian living." The Pilgrims came to New England to carry on their lives as the first Christians did. To be sure, the Pilgrims who came on the Mayflower and those who followed them to Plymouth sought a better life and economic [page 52] self-sufficiency. Still, no one can deny that the driving force for the emigration to the New World was "English Puritanism desiring to realize itself." They sought to restore the primitive, apostolic church "pure and unspotted by human accretions or inventions." . . .
The Pilgrims were following their theology that people by mutual consent "combine together" to form a governmental structure which gives its due to King James but nevertheless [page 53] exacts "laws . . . for the general good of the colony . . . " Thus, the Pilgrims expanded their view of their congregations toward a view of government.
Forty-one adult men of the original Plymouth settlers signed this understanding on November 11, 1620, and it provided a first step toward setting up a government that could claim legitimate authority over the conduct of Colony inhabitants. [William Bradford & Richard Warren were signers] . . .
The early Plymouth settlers were a mixture of poor and what today would be considered "middle class." They were wool combers and tailors; weavers and coopers; carpenters, tanners and farmers. Later arrivals brought doctors, lawyers and merchants. Life was harsh no matter what one's trade and the early settlers had more immediate concerns than matters of theology. . . .
Page 54 - . . . Being three thousand miles away from England, the Pilgrims and later their Puritan neighbors to the north were able to institute reforms in the church that they would never have been able to do back home. The "Congregational Way" was quite different from the structure of the Church of England and laid the groundwork for the manner in which civil society was governed in the Plymouth Colony. Congregations throughout the colony were a group of equals; each was equal in authority to each other, none being inferior to a higher body. The authority to make decisions on aspects of church governance rested with the congregation alone. Each local church was gathered by a covenant among its members, who, in order to become a member, had to express a conversion experience.
"The Congregational Way" suggested an independence of the individual churches from a superior and centralized authority. But, while churches governed themselves independently, their similar styles facilitated cooperation and consultation. The Cambridge Platform of 1648, a statement agreed to by many of the Pilgrim / Puritan churches in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, laid out an autonomous congregational organization with a [page 55] communal covenant: to care for each other's (congregation's) welfare; to offer advice on a point of contention within another church, to admonish a neighboring church for straying from doctrine or practice; by permitting members of one church visiting another to share in communion; to recommend members when they move from one community to another and; to assist churches in their tie of need. From this beginning arose an association of ministers who would attend ordinations, exchange pulpits and arbitrate disputes between minister and congregation an between separate congregations. As long as these arrangements and councils were just advisory and not authoritative, they provided the best means of keeping doctrine uniform among congregations and their ministers.
Fewer than twenty university-educated men came to Plymouth in its first thirty years and only three remained, all ministers. Because Plymouth was relatively poor it had a hard time attracting clergy of high stature and quality. Oddly, it took nine years to call its first minister and the first few ministers' tenures were brief. By 1665, most communities in the colony had to settle for lay leaders because they could not financially support ministers. Scituate was different on both counts. From the founding ministry of Lothrop to that of Charles Chauncy and Henry Dunster, Scituate's ministers were of great distinction and learning.
On September 18, 1634 John Lothrop, his family and some thirty members of the Southwark church arrived in Boston on the Griffin. Within ten days he and the others left Boston for Scituate, where a number of people, "the men of Kent" had already settled.
Page 56 - Lothrop's arrival was "long expected" by the Scituate residents. Lothrop may have known Timothy Hatherly who was from Southwark and had settled in Scituate after arriving in Plymouth in 1623. Hatherly made annual trips back to England and considering his status in Scituate and the Plymouth colony, he may have recruited Lothrop to come to Scituate.
Lothrop's records begin in 1634 before the Scituate church was formally gathered. A small group met for a day of humiliation prayer and fasting on November 6, 1634 at James Cudworth's house, and they had another fast on Christmas day before they joined in a formal covenant on January 8, 1634 - during yet another fast. This is the date that is recognized as the gathering of the Scituate congregation. . . . On January 19th the congregation called Rev. Lothrop as its minister and ordained him by the practice of laying on of the hands of the elders of the congregation.
John Lothrop was born in Etton, Yorkshire in 1584. He founded one of the most distinguished families in American history. Among his descendants are Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush; poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his brother, Unitarian minister, Samuel; Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.; artist Georgia O'Keefe; presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson; banker J.P. Morgan; and Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon).
Page 57 - Lothrop began his studies at Christ Church College at Oxford in 1601 and then went to Queens' College at Cambridge with a BA in 1605 and an MA in 1609. The cause of Lothrop's transfer from Oxford to Cambridge may have been the religious climate at both universities. Although Oxford had at one time taken a tolerant position toward the Puritans, by the time Lothrop arrived the mood had changed. Cambridge, on the other hand, was moving toward a more liberal view of dissenters against the Church of England and, as a result, became the intellectual center of this dissension. Although he was to become an Anglican minister, it may have been at Cambridge that Lothrop first developed his Puritan leanings and disposition. When he was twenty-three, he began his church service as a deacon in the Church of England at Bennington, Hertfordshire. By age twenty-five, after receiving his master's degree, he moved to Kent, where he became curate, or minister, at the parish church in Egerton, forty-eight miles southeast of London.
Kent being the center of religious dissention, was fertile soil for Lothrop to explore his ideas on tehology and church governance. For fourteen years he tended to his flock while harboring growing doubts about the authority and authenticity of the Church of England. To be sure, as a parish curate, he had security and status, both financial as well as emotional, but it appears he voluntarily gave that up when he left Egerton for London. In 1624 he replaced Henry Jacob as he pastor of the first Independent congregation in Southwark. There, as we have seen, Lothrop faced poverty, ridicule and prison forcing him and his family to leave for New England.
Page 58 - Among the early colonial settlements, Scituate might have been the most contentious parish in the Plymouth Colony. . . . In most places the minister was held in high regard not only because of his position but also because of his being learned. Not so in Scituate. From the very beginning the [page 59] Scituate congregation was in turmoil during the ministries of Reverends Lothrop and Chauncy.
Since First Parish Scituate was among the earliest churches to gather, the process of its founding was probably the model for those that came after. As they had in Southwark, men were the "pillars" of the church and would question each other to satisfy themselves that they were "visible saints," all of high character and sound in their beliefs in addition to recounting their religious epiphany. Once chosen, the "pillars" agreed to a covenant and then examined others who sought to become members of the church who, in turn, joined in agreeing to the covenant. Women were allowed to become members of congregations even is their husbands were not and they were the most of the "visible saints" in the seventeenth century.
Scituate was fortunate that many of the early settlers were educated, intelligent mena nd it was expected that their minister would be of the same character. . . .
Page 60 - [1634 description of Scituate] The buildings were a "compact cluster of homes" in a "defensive arrangement" along Kent Street, south of the Satuit Brook that gave the village its name. The village was, for the most part, neatly laid out with house los of four- and five-acres. As the town quickly grew, so did the lots. All paled in comparison to [Timothy] Hatherly's 200-acre farm. . . . Through his generosity, Hatherly made it possible for the Scituate church to seek out like-minded clergy and sustain them by providing a salary, land and a parsonage. After his arrival, Rev. Lothrop was given land by Hatherly that was located on the southeast side of the Colman's Hills section of the settlement (where the transfer station and the Widow's Walk Golf Course are presently located). Lothrop later sold the twenty-acre lot with "one dwelling house with barn and other outhouses, uplands, marsh ground" back to Hatherly in 1640.
In addition to Hatherly, there were others who warmly greeted Lothrop upon his arrival.
- James Cudworth, a salter, born Somerset, deputy to Plymouth General Court, general in King Philip's War, removed to Barnstable in 1639, but returned to Scituate at some point
- William Gilson, miller, served in colonial government
- Anthony Annable, born Kent 1599 - moved to Barnstable in 1639 with Lothrop
- Henry Cobb, elder in the Scituate church - removed to Barnstable
- Humphrey Turner, a tanner born 1594, constable, surveyor, juryman - removed to Barnstable & ran the tavern
- Edward Foster, lawyer born in Kent 1590, Timothy Hatherly's agent
Page 61 - According to Samuel Deane, there was a "cheerful union" between the Southwark people and the Scituate settlers and so it "therefore may safely be concluded that they entertained nearly the same religious sentiments, and agreed in the main, in practice." However, the peace and harmony Lothrop sought in the New World was not to be. As Deane puts it, the church was not "perfectly united." When John Lothrop traveled across the Atlantic he brought not only many parishioners from the Southwark congregation but also a dispute that had cause great concern in Southwark and was to bedevil Lothrop and his successors, particularly Charles Chauncy. Amidst the turmoil and disputes surrounding dogma, the supremacy of the Bible and the authority of the bishops, there arose in England a controversy regarding the mode of baptism. Many radical Puritans and Separatists, relying on the authority of the Bible, saw no biblical example of infant baptism in [page 62] the scriptures. They cited Mark 16:16: "He that shall believe and be baptized shall be saved." Where, they asked, was there a direct instruction in the Bible for the baptism of children? . . . Until the dispute was settled, the definition of who was a member of a congregation hung in the balance but in the meantime the Southwark and Scituate congregations (and their successors in England) were stuck "in a conflict of contradictory loyalties. . . .
At least in the more liberal Plymouth Colony the dispute could be aired. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he more conservative Puritans required orthodoxy, causing Roger Williams, a believer in adult baptism and an early proponent of religious freedom, to be banished for sedition because of his criticism of the Kings James I and Charles I and the church . . .
In the midst of the controversy over the manner of baptism another dispute arose. Scituate was growing in population. When Rev. Lothrop arrived in 1634 there were nine houses. Four years later there were fifty-one. It didn't take long for settlers to move further inland, many along the banks of North River. With the population growing and moving inland there were calls for moving the meetinghouse to a more central location. This added to tensions in Rev. Lothrop's congregation.
The meetinghouse, a town's only public building, stood at its center and was the "most significant mark" the people would make [page 63] on the local landscape. It declared to all that religion was the fundamental purpose of the community and its highest priority. In Scituate, according to Deane's History, a meetinghouse had already been erected by the time Lothrop had arrived, but this is not likely, since the founders of the congregation gathered at Cudworth's house on January 18th, 1634. When a meetinghouse was built, probably around 1636, it was about a half-mile from Scituate harbor hill on what is now called Meetinghouse Lane close to the Men of Kent Cemetery. That first meetinghouse stood for the ministries of John Lothrop, Peter Saxton, Christopher Blackwood, Charles Chauncy, Henry Dunster and Nicholas Baker. It probably was like most meetinghouses in the Plymouth colony in style and construction. The building was unheated. It was almost square in area and, in keeping with Puritan simplicity, it's interior was plain with no ornamentation, no statues or stained glass windows. This practice continues today, as i is rare for a Pilgrim/Puritan church that later became a Unitarian church to have stained glass windows. . . . There is a belief, not substantiated but plausible, that the clear windows in the meetinghouse had another purpose. For the Pilgrims and the Puritans, the emphasis in worship was not on rituals or ceremony; what was important in their services was the Word of God. Reading the Bible made New England the most literate British Colony. People would bring their Bibles to worship or the Thursday lecture. The clear windows provided as much natural light as possible into the meetinghouse making the reading of Scripture easier. Only ordained ministers gave the sermon and the sermon's source was not the minister's wisdom but Scripture. Not only were sermons given on Sunday they were delivered on every significant occasion in the community. Wooden benches were the pews and were owned by church members or, if one could not afford a family pew, then the [page 64] church would assign one to a member. It is most probable that the well-to-do families had the seats closest to the pulpit.
In a New England congregation, the church leaders consisted of the minister, who would visit members and tutor the youth; the "teacher" who was to emphasize doctrine (Scituate never had one) and the elders who were responsible for the discipline of the members of the congregation. Along with the pastor, the elders would visit congregation members and warn those who were misbehaving by not coming to church, or drinking too much, or being ostentatious in clothing and home furnishings. Another officer of the church was the deacon who handled the business affairs of the congregation. Finally, there were the "tithing men" who kept order in the meetinghouse. They would keep members awake by poking them with a long rod with a feather at one end and a ball on the other. Apparently in deference to gender differences, a brush of the feather on their face awakened women, while men were struck on the head with the ball end.
The town of Scituate was granted incorporation by the General Court of Plymouth in late 1636. To mark the occasion, Rev. Lothrop called for a day of humiliation and prayer. Despite his blessings and prayers for the prospering town and the growth of the congregation, Lothrop was looking to remove himself from the congregation's contentiousness. Over a period of months Lothrop would call for days of humiliation and prayer to provide guidance for the congregation to find an answer to its dispute. He noted in his diary on February 22, 1637 that his call for such an occasion was done to ask for two more deacons, "but especially for our removal." When prayer was not enough, Lothrop petitioned the governor and General Court. He wrote to Governor Thomas Prence, "Many grievances attend me, from them which I would be [page 65] freed, or at least have them mitigated, if the Lord see it good." Lothrop asked Prence for permission to move to what is now Rochester, Massachusetts, then known as "Sepican." Court documents indicate that James Cudworth, William Gilson, Anthony Annable, Henry Cobb, Edward Foster, their families and others would join Lothrop in the move.
Seipican was known to be "haunted" by pirates and French privateers along the coast. Hostile natives also were a cause for concern. Scituate's Lawrence Litchfield explored the area to determine the need and extent of defense planning. Almost certainly based on Litchfield's report, Lothrop and the others changed their minds and petitioned the court to move to the safe harbors and valuable salt marshes of Mattakeese (now Barnstable on Cape Cod), where Lothrop and a majority of the Scituate congregation removed themselves in 1639.
As he could not resolve the baptism controversy in London, Lothrop couldn't settle it in Scituate either. The new Barnstable congregation was also divided on the matter, so much so that Lothrop felt compelled to publish a treatise in 1644 titled, "A Short Form of Catechism of the Doctrine of Baptism. In Use in These Times That Are So Full of Questions." Barnstable was split three ways with many members holding to immersion, others to adult immersion only and a third party belived in the immersion of both infants and adults."
The fact that the majority of congregants moved to Barnstable with Rev. Lothrop would have consequences for the ministry of Charles Chauncy. Rev. Lothrop, knowing that those who remained in Scituate would be left without a church, sought and received permissiono from the General Court to gather the remaining [page 66] members into a new church body. . . . Nathaniel Morton, the contemporary chronicler of life in the Plymouth Colony, described Rev. Lothrop as being "a man of . . . humble hear and spirt - lively in dispensation of the word of God, studious of peace, furnished with godly contentment, willing to spend and be spent for the cause and Church of Christ." Before Lothrop left he gathered those who would remain in Scituate (about eight men) and asked if they agreed to become a church and covenant "to walk together in the ways of God, according to His revealed will." The men agreed to separate from Lothrop's chruch and become their own. . . .
Page 68 - When Lothrop left Scituate he sold his home back to Timothy Hatherly, who then sold it to [Rev Christopher] Blackwood.
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