NOTES
Mr. Emerson did not wish to have his sermons published. All that was worth saving in them, he said, would be found in the Essays. Yet it seemed best, to Mr. Cabot and to Mr. Emerson’s family, that this one sermon should be preserved. A record of a turning-point in his life, it showed at once his thought and his character; for he not only gives the reasons why he believes the rite not authoritatively enjoined, and hence recommends its modification or discontinuance, but with serenity and sweetness renders back his trust into his people’s hands, since he cannot see his way longer to exercise it as most of them desire.
In the month of June, 1832, Mr. Emerson had proposed to the church, apparently with hope of their approval, that the Communion be observed only as a festival of commemoration, without the use of the elements. The committee to whom the proposal was referred made a report expressing confidence in him, but declining to advise the change, as the matter was one which they could not properly be called upon to decide.
The question then came back to the pastor, whether he was willing to remain in his place and administer the rite in the usual form.
He went alone to the White Mountains, then seldom visited, to consider the grave question whether he was prepared, rather than to continue the performance of a part of his priestly office from which his instincts and beliefs recoiled, to sacrifice a position of advantage for usefulness to his people to whom he was bound by many ties, and in preparation for which he hadspent long years. He wrote, at Conway, New Hampshire: “Here among the mountains the pinions of thought should be strong, and one should see the errors of men from a calmer height of love and wisdom.” His diary at Ethan Allan Crawford’s contains his doubts and questionings, which Mr. Cabot has given in his Memoir. Yet there was but one answer for him, and after a fortnight, he came back clear in his mind to give his decision, embodied in this sermon, to his people. On the same day that it was preached, he formally resigned his pastorate. The church was loth to part with him. It was hoped that some other arrangement might be made. Mr. Cabot learned that “several meetings were held and the proprietors of pews were called in, as having ‘an undoubted right to retain Mr. Emerson as their pastor, without reference to the opposition of the church.’ At length, after two adjournments and much discussion, it was decided by thirty votes against twenty-four to accept his resignation. It was voted at the same time to continue his salary for the present.”
Thus Mr. Emerson and his people parted in all kindness, but, as Mr. Cabot truly said, their difference of views on this rite “was in truth only the symptom of a deeper difference which would in any case sooner or later have made it impossible for him to retain his office; a disagreement not so much about particular doctrines or observances as about their sanction, the authority on which all doctrines and observances rest.”
In the farewell letter which Mr. Emerson wrote to the people of his church, he said:—
“I rejoice to believe that my ceasing to exercise the pastoral office among you does not make any real change in our spiritual relation to each other. Whatever is most desirable and excellent therein remains to us. For, truly speaking, whoever provokes me to a good act or thought has given me apledge of his fidelity to virtue,—he has come under bonds to adhere to that cause to which we are jointly attached. And so I say to all you who have been my counsellors and coöperators in our Christian walk, that I am wont to see in your faces the seals and certificates of our mutual obligations. If we have conspired from week to week in the sympathy and expression of devout sentiments; if we have received together the unspeakable gift of God’s truth; if we have studied together the sense of any divine word; or striven together in any charity; or conferred together for the relief or instruction of any brother; if together we have laid down the dead in a pious hope; or held up the babe into the baptism of Christianity; above all, if we have shared in any habitual acknowledgment of the benignant God, whose omnipresence raises and glorifies the meanest offices and the lowest ability, and opens heaven in every heart that worships him,—then indeed we are united, we are mutually debtors to each other of faith and hope, engaged to persist and confirm each other’s hearts in obedience to the Gospel. We shall not feel that the nominal changes and little separations of this world can release us from the strong cordage of this spiritual bond. And I entreat you to consider how truly blessed will have been our connection if, in this manner, the memory of it shall serve to bind each one of us more strictly to the practice of our several duties.”
Page 18, note 1.The doctrine of the offices of Jesus, even in the Unitarianism of Dr. Channing, was never congenial to Mr. Emerson’s mind. He notes the same with regard to his father, and even to his Aunt Mary, in spite of her Calvinism. Any interposed personality between the Creator and the created was repugnant to him. Even in March, 1831, he is considering in his journal that his hearers will say, “To whatpurpose is this attempt to explain away so safe and holy a doctrine as that of the Holy Spirit? Why unsettle or disturb a faith which presents to many minds a helpful medium by which they approach the idea of God?” and he answers, “And this question I will meet. It is because I think the popular views of this principle are pernicious, because it does put a medium, because it removes the idea of God from the mind. It leaves some events, some things, some thoughts, out of the power of Him who causes every event, every flower, every thought. The tremendous idea, as I may well call it, of God is screened from the soul.... And least of all can we believe—Reason will not let us—that the presiding Creator commands all matter and never descends into the secret chambers of the Soul. There he is most present. The Soul rules over matter. Matter may pass away like a mote in the sunbeam, may be absorbed into the immensity of God, as a mist is absorbed into the heat of the Sun—but the soul is the kingdom of God, the abode of love, of truth, of virtue.”
Page 19, note 1.In the hope of satisfying those of his people who held to the letter of the Scriptural Law, Mr. Emerson made the foregoing clear statement with regard to the authority for the rite, from the professional point of view. It seems quite unlike his usual method, and there is little doubt that in it appears the influence of his elder brother, William, whose honest doubts had led him to abandon even earlier the profession of his fathers. In the introductory note to the chapter on Goethe, inRepresentative Men, is given an account of his unsuccessful pilgrimage to Weimar, in hopes that the great mind of Germany could solve these doubts. There is a letter still preserved, written by William, soon after his return, to his venerable kinsman at Concord, Dr. Ripley, in which he explains with great clearness hisown reasons for not believing that the Communion rite was enjoined by Jesus for perpetual observance. The argument on scriptural grounds there clearly stated is substantially the same as that which his younger brother makes use of in the beginning of this sermon. Thus far he has spoken of outward authority; from this point onward he speaks from within—the way native to him.
Page 25, note 1.Mr. Emerson left the struggles of the Past behind, and did not care to recall them. Thus, writing of Lucretia Mott, whom he met when giving a course of lectures in Philadelphia, in January, 1843, he said:—
“Me she taxed with living out of the world, and I was not much flattered that her interest in me respected my rejection of an ordinance, sometime, somewhere. Also yesterday—for Philadelphian ideas, like love, do creep where they cannot go—I was challenged on the subject of the Lord’s Supper, and with great slowness and pain was forced to recollect the grounds of my dissent in that particular. You may be sure I was very tardy with my texts.”
Mr. Emerson’s journal during the period of trial and decision, in the mountains, shows that he was reading with great interest the life of George Fox. The simplicity of the Society of Friends, their aversion to forms and trust in the inward light, always appealed to him.
In his essay on The Preacher he says:—
“The supposed embarrassments to young clergymen exist only to feeble wills.... That gray deacon, or respectable matron with Calvinistic antecedents, you can readily see, would not have presented any obstacle to the march of St. Bernard or of George Fox, of Luther or of Theodore Parker.” This hints at the help he had found in the Quaker’s history in his time of need.
Mr. Emerson’s Discourse was printed soon after its delivery, and with it, in an Appendix, the following notice of the celebration of the second centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town, sent to him by “a friend who thought it desirable to preserve the remembrance of some particulars of this historical festival.”
“At a meeting of the town of Concord, in April last, it was voted to celebrate the Second Centennial Anniversary of the settlement of the town, on the 12th September following. A committee of fifteen were chosen to make the arrangements. This committee appointed Ralph Waldo Emerson, Orator, and Rev. Dr. Ripley and Rev. Mr. Wilder, Chaplains of the Day. Hon. John Keyes was chosen President of the Day.“On the morning of the 12th September, at half past 10 o’clock, the children of the town, to the number of about 500, moved in procession to the Common in front of the old church and court-house and there opened to the right and left, awaiting the procession of citizens. At 11 o’clock, the Concord Light Infantry, under Captain Moore, and the Artillery under Captain Buttrick, escorted the civic procession, under the direction of Moses Prichard as Chief Marshal, from Shepherd’s hotel through the lines of children to the Meeting-house. The South gallery had been reserved for ladies, and the North gallery for the children; but (it was a good omen) the children overran the space assigned for their accommodation, and were sprinkled throughout the house, and ranged on seats along the aisles. The old Meeting-house, which was propped to sustain the unwonted weight of the multitude within its walls, was built in 1712, thus having stood for more thanhalf the period to which our history goes back. Prayers were offered and the Scriptures read by the aged minister of the town, Rev. Ezra Ripley, now in the 85th year of his age;—another interesting feature in this scene of reminiscences. A very pleasant and impressive part of the services in the church was the singing of the 107th psalm, from the New England version of the psalms made by Eliot, Mather, and others, in 1639, and used in the church in this town in the days of Peter Bulkeley. The psalm was read a line at a time, after the ancient fashion, from the Deacons’ seat, and so sung to the tune of St. Martin’s by the whole congregation standing.“Ten of the surviving veterans who were in arms at the Bridge, on the 19th April, 1775, honored the festival with their presence. Their names are Abel Davis, Thaddeus Blood, Tilly Buttrick, John Hosmer, ofConcord; Thomas Thorp, Solomon Smith, John Oliver, Aaron Jones, ofActon; David Lane, ofBedford; Amos Baker, ofLincoln.“On leaving the church, the procession again formed, and moved to a large tent nearly opposite Shepherd’s hotel, under which dinner was prepared, and the company sat down to the tables, to the number of four hundred. We were honored with the presence of distinguished guests, among whom were Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong, Judge Davis, Alden Bradford (descended from the 2d governor of Plymouth Colony), Hon. Edward Everett, Hon. Stephen C. Phillips of Salem, Philip Hone, Esq., of New York, General Dearborn, and Lieutenant-Colonel R. C. Winthrop (descended from the 1st governor of Massachusetts). Letters were read from several gentlemen expressing their regret at being deprived of the pleasure of being present on the occasion. The character of the speeches and sentiments at the dinner were manly and affectionate, in keeping with the whole temper of the day.“On leaving the dinner-table, the invited guests, with many of the citizens, repaired to the court-house to pay their respects to the ladies of Concord, who had there, with their friends, partaken of an elegant collation, and now politely offered coffee to the gentlemen. The hall, in which the collation was spread, had been decorated by fair hands with festoons of flowers, and wreaths of evergreen, and hung with pictures of the Fathers of the Town. Crowded as it was with graceful forms and happy faces, and resounding with the hum of animated conversation, it was itself a beautiful living picture. Compared with the poverty and savageness of the scene which the same spot presented two hundred years ago, it was a brilliant reverse of the medal; and could scarcely fail, like all the parts of the holiday, to lead the reflecting mind to thoughts of that Divine Providence, which, in every generation, has been our tower of defence and horn of blessing.“At sunset the company separated and retired to their homes; and the evening of this day of excitement was as quiet as a Sabbath throughout the village.”
“At a meeting of the town of Concord, in April last, it was voted to celebrate the Second Centennial Anniversary of the settlement of the town, on the 12th September following. A committee of fifteen were chosen to make the arrangements. This committee appointed Ralph Waldo Emerson, Orator, and Rev. Dr. Ripley and Rev. Mr. Wilder, Chaplains of the Day. Hon. John Keyes was chosen President of the Day.
“On the morning of the 12th September, at half past 10 o’clock, the children of the town, to the number of about 500, moved in procession to the Common in front of the old church and court-house and there opened to the right and left, awaiting the procession of citizens. At 11 o’clock, the Concord Light Infantry, under Captain Moore, and the Artillery under Captain Buttrick, escorted the civic procession, under the direction of Moses Prichard as Chief Marshal, from Shepherd’s hotel through the lines of children to the Meeting-house. The South gallery had been reserved for ladies, and the North gallery for the children; but (it was a good omen) the children overran the space assigned for their accommodation, and were sprinkled throughout the house, and ranged on seats along the aisles. The old Meeting-house, which was propped to sustain the unwonted weight of the multitude within its walls, was built in 1712, thus having stood for more thanhalf the period to which our history goes back. Prayers were offered and the Scriptures read by the aged minister of the town, Rev. Ezra Ripley, now in the 85th year of his age;—another interesting feature in this scene of reminiscences. A very pleasant and impressive part of the services in the church was the singing of the 107th psalm, from the New England version of the psalms made by Eliot, Mather, and others, in 1639, and used in the church in this town in the days of Peter Bulkeley. The psalm was read a line at a time, after the ancient fashion, from the Deacons’ seat, and so sung to the tune of St. Martin’s by the whole congregation standing.
“Ten of the surviving veterans who were in arms at the Bridge, on the 19th April, 1775, honored the festival with their presence. Their names are Abel Davis, Thaddeus Blood, Tilly Buttrick, John Hosmer, ofConcord; Thomas Thorp, Solomon Smith, John Oliver, Aaron Jones, ofActon; David Lane, ofBedford; Amos Baker, ofLincoln.
“On leaving the church, the procession again formed, and moved to a large tent nearly opposite Shepherd’s hotel, under which dinner was prepared, and the company sat down to the tables, to the number of four hundred. We were honored with the presence of distinguished guests, among whom were Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong, Judge Davis, Alden Bradford (descended from the 2d governor of Plymouth Colony), Hon. Edward Everett, Hon. Stephen C. Phillips of Salem, Philip Hone, Esq., of New York, General Dearborn, and Lieutenant-Colonel R. C. Winthrop (descended from the 1st governor of Massachusetts). Letters were read from several gentlemen expressing their regret at being deprived of the pleasure of being present on the occasion. The character of the speeches and sentiments at the dinner were manly and affectionate, in keeping with the whole temper of the day.
“On leaving the dinner-table, the invited guests, with many of the citizens, repaired to the court-house to pay their respects to the ladies of Concord, who had there, with their friends, partaken of an elegant collation, and now politely offered coffee to the gentlemen. The hall, in which the collation was spread, had been decorated by fair hands with festoons of flowers, and wreaths of evergreen, and hung with pictures of the Fathers of the Town. Crowded as it was with graceful forms and happy faces, and resounding with the hum of animated conversation, it was itself a beautiful living picture. Compared with the poverty and savageness of the scene which the same spot presented two hundred years ago, it was a brilliant reverse of the medal; and could scarcely fail, like all the parts of the holiday, to lead the reflecting mind to thoughts of that Divine Providence, which, in every generation, has been our tower of defence and horn of blessing.
“At sunset the company separated and retired to their homes; and the evening of this day of excitement was as quiet as a Sabbath throughout the village.”
Within the year, Mr. Emerson had come to make his home for life in the ancestral town, and had become a householder. Two days after the festival, he drove to Plymouth in a chaise, and was there married to Lidian Jackson, and immediately brought his bride to her Concord home.
His aged step-grandfather was the senior chaplain at the Celebration, and his brother Charles, who was to live with him in the new home, was one of the marshals.
In preparation for this address Mr. Emerson made diligent examination of the old town records, and spent a fortnight in Cambridge consulting the works on early New England in the College Library. I reproduce most of his references to hisauthorities exactly, although there are, no doubt, newer editions of some of the works.
Page 30, note 1.This story is from Bede’sEcclesiastical History(chapter xiii., Bohn’sAntiquarian Library). Mr. Emerson used it in full as the exordium of his essay on Immortality, inLetters and Social Aims.
Page 30, note 2.The poem “Hamatreya,” wherein appear the names of many of these first settlers, might well be read in connection with the opening passages of this address.
Mr. Emerson’s right of descent to speak as representative of Peter Bulkeley, who was the spiritual arm of the settlement, as Simon Willard was its sword-arm, may here be shown: Rev. Joseph Emerson of Mendon (son of Thomas of Ipswich, the first of the name in this country) married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Edward Bulkeley, who succeeded his father, the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, as minister of Concord. Edward, the son of Joseph of Mendon and Elizabeth Bulkeley, was father of Rev. Joseph Emerson of Malden, who was father of Rev. William Emerson of Concord, who was father of Rev. William Emerson of Harvard and Boston, the father of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Page 31, note 1.Neal’sHistory of New England, vol. i., p. 132.
Page 31, note 2.Neal, vol. i., p. 321.
Page 31, note 3.Shattuck’sHistory of Concord, p. 158.
Page 32, note 1.On September 2, 1635, the General Court passed this order:—
“It is ordered that there shalbe a plantac̃on att Musketequid & that there shalbe 6 myles of land square to belong to it, & that the inhabitants thereof shall have three yeares im̃unities from all publ[ic] charges except traineings; Further, thatwhen any that plant there shall have occac̃on of carryeing of goods thither, they shall repaire to two of the nexte magistrates where the teames are, whoe shall have the power for a yeare to presse draughts, att reasonable rates, to be payed by the owners of the goods, to transport their goods thither att seasonable tymes: & the name of the place is changed & here after to be called Concord.”
Page 32, note 2.Shattuck, p. 5.
Page 33, note 1.In his lecture on Boston (published in the volumeNatural History of Intellect) Mr. Emerson gives an amusing enumeration of some troubles which seemed so great to the newcomers from the Old World: he mentions their fear of lions, the accident to John Smith from “the most poisonous tail of a fish called a sting-ray,” the circumstance of the overpowering effect of the sweet fern upon the Concord party, and the intoxicating effect of wild grapes eaten by the Norse explorers, and adds: “Nature has never again indulged in these exasperations. It seems to have been the last outrage ever committed by the sting-rays, or by the sweet fern, or by the fox-grapes. They have been of peaceable behavior ever since.”
Page 34, note 1.Johnson’sWonder-Working Providence, chap. xxxv. Mr. Emerson abridged and slightly altered some sentences.
Page 35, note 1.Mourt,Beginning of Plymouth, 1621, p. 60.
Page 35, note 2.Johnson, p. 56. Josselyn, in hisNew England’s Rarities Discovered, speaks with respect of “Squashes, but more truly squontersquashes; a kind of mellon, or rather gourd; ... some of these are green; some yellow; some longish like a gourd; others round, like an apple: all of them pleasant food, boyled and buttered, and seasoned with spice.But the yellow squash—called an apple-squash (because like an apple) and about the bigness of a pome-water is the best kind.” Wood, in hisNew England Prospect, says: “In summer, when their corn is spent, isquotersquashes is their best bread, a fruit much like a pumpion.”
Page 36, note 1.Nashawtuck, a small and shapely hill between the Musketaquid and the Assabet streams, at their point of union, was a pleasant and convenient headquarters for a sagamore of a race whose best roadway for travel and transportation was a deep, quiet stream, the fish of which they ate, and also used for manure for their cornfields along the bluffs. Indian graves have been found on this hill.
Page 36, note 2.Josselyn’sVoyages to New England, 1638.
Page 36, note 3.Hutchinson’sHistory of Massachusetts, vol. i., chap. 6.
Page 36, note 4.Thomas Morton,New England Canaan, p. 47.
Page 37, note 1.Shattuck, p. 6.
The old Middlesex Hotel, which stood during the greater part of the nineteenth century on the southwest side of the Common, opposite the court- and town-houses, had fallen into decay in 1900, and was bought and taken down by the town as an improvement to the public square to commemorate the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of Concord Fight. It is probable that Jethro’s Oak, under which the treaty was made, stood a little nearer the house of Rev. Peter Bulkeley, the site of which, about one hundred paces distant on the Lowell road, is now marked by a stone and bronze tablet.
Page 38, note 1.Depositions taken in 1684, and copied in the first volume of the Town Records.
Page 39, note 1.Johnson’sWonder-Working Providence.
Page 39, note 2.New England’s Plantation.
Page 39, note 3.E. W.’s Letter in Mourt, 1621.
Page 40, note 1.Peter Bulkeley’sGospel Covenant; preached at Concord in New England. 2d edition, London, 1651, p. 432.
Page 41, note 1.See petition in Shattuck’sHistory, p. 14.
Page 41, note 2.Shattuck, p. 14. This was the meadow and upland on the Lowell road, one mile north of Concord, just beyond the river. On the farm stands the unpainted “lean-to” house, now owned by the daughters of the late Edmund Hosmer.
Page 42, note 1.Concord Town Records.
Page 43, note 1.Bancroft,History of the United States, vol. i., p. 389.
Page 44, note 1.Savage’sWinthrop, vol. i., p. 114.
Page 44, note 2.Colony Records, vol. i.
Page 44, note 3.See Hutchinson’sCollection, p. 287.
Page 46, note 1.Winthrop’sJournal, vol. i., pp. 128, 129, and the editor’s note.
Page 46, note 2.Winthrop’sJournal, vol. ii., p. 160.
Page 48, note 1.Town Records.
With the exception of the anecdotes in this and the following sentence, almost the whole of this account of the theory and practice of the New England town-meeting was used by Mr. Emerson in his oration, given in December, 1870, before the New England Society in New York. The greater part of the matter used in that address is included in the lecture on Boston, in the volumeNatural History of Intellect.
The New England Society of New York recently published the Orations delivered before it previous to 1871, including Mr. Emerson’s, as far as it could be recovered from the scattered manuscript, and the newspaper reports of the time.
Page 50, note 1.Hutchinson’sCollection, p. 27.
Page 51, note 1.Shattuck, p. 20. “The Government, 13 Nov., 1644, ordered the county courts to take care of the Indians residing within their several shires, to have them civilized, and to take order, from time to time, to have them instructed in the knowledge of God.”
Page 52, note 1.Shepard’sClear Sunshine of the Gospel, London, 1648.
Page 52, note 2.These rules are given in Shattuck’sHistory, pp. 22-24, and were called “Conclusions and orders made and agreed upon by divers Sachems and other principal men amongst the Indians at Concord in the end of the eleventh Month (called January) An. 1646.”
The following are interesting specimens of these:—
Rule 2. “That there shall be no more Powwawing amongst the Indians. And if any shall hereafter powwaw, both he that shall powwaw, and he that shall procure him to powwaw, shall pay twenty shillings apiece.”
Rule 4. “They desire they may understand the wiles of Satan, and grow out of love with his suggestions and temtations.”
Rule 5. “That they may fall upon some better course to improve their time than formerly.”
Rule 15. “They will wear their haire comely, as the English do, and whosoever shall offend herein shall pay four shillings.”
Rule 23. “They shall not disguise themselves in their mournings as formerly, nor shall they keep a great noyse by howling.”
Rule 24. “The old ceremony of a maide walking alone and living apart so many days, [fine] twenty shillings.”
Page 53, note 1.Shepard, p. 9.
Page 54, note 1.Wilson’sLetter, 1651.
Page 54, note 2.News from America, p. 22.
Page 54, note 3.Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 2.
Page 55, note 1.Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 90.
Page 55, note 2.Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 112.
Page 55, note 3.Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 21.
Page 55, note 4.Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 94.
Page 55, note 5.Bulkeley’sGospel Covenant, p. 209.
Page 55, note 6.Winthrop, vol. ii., p. 94.
Page 56, note 1.Gospel Covenant, p. 301.
Page 57, note 1.Shattuck, p. 45.
Page 57, note 2.Hutchinson, vol. i., p. 172.
Page 57, note 3.See his instructions from the Commissioners, his narrative, and the Commissioners’ letter to him, in Hutchinson’sCollection, pp. 261-270.
Page 58, note 1.Hutchinson’sHistory, vol. i., p. 254.
Page 58, note 2.Hubbard’sIndian Wars, p. 119, ed. 1801.
Mr. Charles H. Walcott, in hisConcord in the Colonial Period(Estes & Lauriat, Boston, 1884), gives a very interesting account of the Brookfield fight.
Page 58, note 3.Hubbard, p. 201.
Page 59, note 1.Hubbard, p. 185.
Page 59, note 2.Hubbard, p. 245.
Page 60, note 1.Shattuck, p. 55.
Page 60, note 2.Hubbard, p. 260.
Page 61, note 1.Neal’sHistory of New England, vol. i., p. 321.
Page 61, note 2.Mather,Magnalia Christi, vol. i., p. 363.
Page 61, note 3.“Tradition has handed down the following anecdote. A consultation among the Indian chiefs tookplace about this time on the high lands in Stow, and, as they cast their eyes towards Sudbury and Concord, a question arose which they should attack first. The decision was made to attack the former. One of the principal chiefs said: ‘We no prosper if we go to Concord—the Great Spirit love that people—the evil spirit tell us not to go—they have a great man there—hegreat pray.’ The Rev. Edward Bulkeley was then minister of the town, and his name and distinguished character were known even to the red men of the forest.”—Shattuck’sHistory, p. 59, note.
Page 61, note 4.On this occasion the name of Hoar, since honored in Concord through several generations, came to the front. John Hoar, the first practitioner of law in Concord, an outspoken man of sturdy independence, who, for uttering complaints that justice was denied him in the courts, had been made to give bonds for good behavior and “disabled to plead any cases but his oune in this jurisdiction,” who had been fined £10 for saying that “the Blessing which his Master Bulkeley pronounced in dismissing the publique Assembly was no more than vane babling,” and was twice fined for non-attendance at public worship, proved to be the only man in town who was willing to take charge of the Praying Indians of Nashobah, whom the General Court ordered moved to Concord during Philip’s War. The magistrates who had persecuted him had to turn to him, and he made good provision on his own place for the comfort and safe-keeping of these unfortunates, and their employment, when public opinion was directed against them with the cruelty of fear. Soon, however, Captain Mosley, who had been secretly sent for by some citizens, came with soldiers into the meeting-house, announced to the congregation that he had heard that “there were some heathen in town committed to one Hoar,who, he was informed, were a trouble and disquiet to them;” therefore, if the people desired it, he would remove them to Boston. No one made objection, so he went to Mr. Hoar’s house, counted the Indians and set a guard, Hoar vigorously protesting. He came next day; Hoar bravely refused to give them up, so Mosley removed them by violence and carried the Indians to Deer Island, where they suffered much during the winter. See Walcott’sConcord in the Colonial Period.
Page 62, note 1.Sprague’sCentennial Ode.
Page 62, note 2.Shattuck, chap. iii. Walcott, chap. iii.
Page 63, note 1.Hutchinson’sCollection, p. 484.
Page 63, note 2.Hutchinson’sCollection, pp. 543, 548, 557, 566.
Page 63, note 3.Hutchinson’sHistory, vol. i., p. 336.
The month of April has been fateful for Concord, especially its nineteenth day. On that day the military company under Lieutenant Heald marched to Boston to take part in the uprising of the freemen of the colony against Andros. On that same day, in 1775, the minute-men and militia of Concord, promptly reinforced by the soldiers of her daughter and sister towns, marched down to the guarded North Bridge and returned the fire of the Royal troops in the opening battle of the Revolution. Again on the nineteenth of April, 1861, the “Concord Artillery” (so-called, although then a company of the Fifth Infantry, M. V. M.) left the village for the front in the War of the Rebellion; and yet again in the last days of April, 1898, the same company, then, as now, attached to the Sixth Regiment, M. V. M., marched from the village green to bear its part in the Spanish War.
Page 64, note 1.Town Records.
Page 64, note 2.The following minutes from the Town Records in 1692 may serve as an example:—
“John Craggin, aged about 63 years, and Sarah his wife, aet. about 63 years, do both testify upon oath that about 2 years ago John Shepard, sen. of Concord, came to our house in Obourne, to treat with us, and give us a visit, and carried the said Sary Craggin to Concord with him, and there discoursed us in order to a marriage between his son, John Shepard, jun. and our daughter, Eliz. Craggin, and, for our incouragement, and before us, did promise that, upon the consummation of the said marriage, he, the said John Shepard, sen. would give to his son, John Shepard, jun. the one half of his dwelling house, and the old barn, and the pasture before the barn; the old plow-land, and the old horse, when his colt was fit to ride, and his old oxen, when his steers were fit to work. All this he promised upon marriage as above said, which marriage was consummated upon March following, which is two years ago, come next March. Dated Feb. 25, 1692. Taken on oath before me. Wm. Johnson.”
Page 64, note 3.Town Records, July, 1698.
Page 64, note 4.Records, Nov. 1711.
Page 65, note 1.Records, May, 1712.
Page 66, note 1.Records, 1735.
Page 66, note 2.Whitfield in his journal wrote: “About noon I reached Concord. Here I preached to some thousands in the open air; and comfortable preaching it was. The hearers were sweetly melted down.... The minister of the town being, I believe, a true child of God, I chose to stay all night at his house that we might rejoice together. The Lord was with us. The Spirit of the Lord came upon me and God gave me to wrestle with him for my friends, especially those then with me.... Brother B—s, the minister, broke into floods of tears, and we had reason to cry out it was good for us to be here.”
Page 67, note 1.Church Records, July, 1792.
Page 67, note 2.The Rev. Daniel Bliss has left the name of having been an earnest, good man, evidently emotional. His zealous and impassioned preaching gave offence to some of the cooler and more conservative clergy, and indeed bred discord in the church of Concord. The “aggrieved brethren” withdrew, and, for want of a church, held public worship at a tavern where was the sign of a black horse, hence were called “the Black Horse Church.” Their complaints preferred against Mr. Bliss resulted in councils which drew in most of the churches of Middlesex into their widening vortex. Yet he remained the honored pastor of the town until his death. His daughter Phebe married the young William Emerson, his successor; he was therefore Mr. Emerson’s great-grandfather.
Page 67, note 3.Town Records.
Page 70, note 1.Town Records.
Page 71, note 1.Town Records.
Page 71, note 2.The spirited protest of this County Convention, presided over by Hon. James Prescott of Groton, is given in full in Shattuck’sHistory, pp. 82-87.
Page 72, note 1.General Gage, the Governor, having refused to convene the General Court at Salem, the Provincial Congress of delegates from the towns of Massachusetts was called by conventions of the various counties to meet at Concord, October 11, 1774. The delegates assembled in the meeting-house, and organized, with John Hancock as President, and Benjamin Lincoln as Secretary. Called together to maintain the rights of the people, this Congress assumed the government of the province, and by its measures prepared the way for the Revolution.
Page 72, note 2.This eloquent sermon to the volunteersof 1775, still preserved in MS., is very interesting. The young minister shows them the dignity of their calling, warns them of the besetting sins of New England soldiery, explains to them the invasion of their rights and that they are not rebels, tells them that he believes their fathers foresaw the evil day and did all in their power to guard the infant state from encroachments of unconstitutional power, and implores the sons to be true to their duty to their posterity. He fully admits the utter gloom of the prospect, humanly considered: would Heaven hold him innocent, he would counsel submission, but as an honest man and servant of Heaven he dare not do so, and with great spirit bids his injured countrymen “Arise! and plead even with the sword, the firelock and the bayonet, the birthright of Englishmen ... and if God does not help, it will be because your sins testify against you, otherwiseyou may be assured.”
Page 74, note 1.Journal, July, 1835. “It is affecting to see the old man’s [Thaddeus Blood] memory taxed for facts occurring 60 years ago at Concord fight. ‘It is hard to bring them up;’ he says, ‘the truth never will be known.’ The Doctor [Ripley], like a keen hunter, unrelenting, follows him up and down, barricading him with questions. Yet cares little for the facts the man can tell, but much for the confirmation of the printed History. ‘Leave me, leave me to repose.’”
Thaddeus Blood, who was only twenty years old at the time of Concord fight, later became a schoolmaster, hence was always known as “Master Blood.” He was one of the Concord company stationed at Hull, in 1776, which took part in the capture of Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell and his battalion of the 71st (Frazer) Highlanders as they sailed into Boston Harbor, not being aware of the evacuation of the town. They were confined at Concord until their exchange. SeeSirArchibald Campbell of Inverneill, sometime Prisoner of War in the Jail at Concord, Massachusetts. By Charles H. Walcott, Boston, 1898.
Page 74, note 2.In his poem in memory of his brother Edward, written by the riverside near the battle-ground, Mr. Emerson alluded to