Return back to Unitarian Universalism../uusgs/uuism.html

History of the

Unitarian Universalist Society

of Greater Springfield

 

Historical Text - #2

written by Henry Morris
first published in 1875,
edited by the Rev. Richard Hasty in 1998


On the 8th of November, 1784, the congregation at First Church "voted unanimously to choose Mr. Bezaleel Howard to be their minister. On the same day the parish voted to concur in this choice, and to offer Mr. Howard one hundred and fifty pounds for a settlement, and one hundred pounds lawful silver money annually for his salary, together with the use and improvement of the parsonage house and lands, so tong as he should continue in the office of a gospel minister." The answer of Mr. Howard, accepting this call, was communicated on the 27th January, 1785. In the closing paragraph, he writes: "regard to temporalities, the offers you have made for my support, I believe, for the present, are generous and sufficient; but should any future change of times render them inadequate to that purpose, ‘tis the condition of my acceptance that you make such additions as may be necessary; for my comfortable subsistence among you. That kindness and respect which you showed your former pastor, and that happy unanimity which at present subsists among you, afford me the most pleasing prospect of spending my life in a very agreeable and useful manner among you." The satisfaction with which the new pastor looked forward to his future residence in Springfield was strongly in contrast with his first impressions of the place. He came here at first an entire stranger to the village and its inhabitants, sent by the president of his college, to supply the vacant pulpit for six Sabbaths. His journey was on horseback The road was solitary, and the approach to town from the east far from attractive. He rode down the hill to the main street. then the only settlement, and looked up and down the street. The buildings were mostly unpainted, and many of them dilapidated. The aspect was chilling to the young minister, and he said to himself that the day when the six weeks of his engagement should be ended, would be a happy day to him. Directly opposite the road by which he entered the village, he saw one white house of a more cheerful aspect. At the door of this mansion he presented himself, announced his name and errand. "You have come to the right place." replied the proprietor. and at once extended to him the hospitalities of his house. The six weeks were spent pleasantly. The call to settle followed, and in that white house the young pastor found his future wife. It was to him indeed "the right place." Mr. Howard was a native of Bridgewater. a graduate of Harvard College in 1781. where he was afterwards a tutor and was ordained pastor of this church April 27, 1785 The ordination sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Hilliard, from Titus. 2nd chapter, the last clause of the 15th verse Let no man despise thee." I have printed a copy of this discourse, from the title page of which it appears that it was printed at "Springfield, Massachusetts," by "Stubbiness and Russell, at their office near the great Ferry."
The condition in regard to the increase of salary, contained in Mr. Howard's letter of acceptance, eventually came to be of practical importance. In November, 1795, the parish had under consideration the subject of making an addition to his salary, in consequence of the high price of the necessaries of life, and voted him thirty pounds. Two years afterwards he sent to the parish a memorial setting forth the losses sustained by him in the manner of interest, by the delays in the payment of his salary, and its depreciation in value. The parish appointed a committee of eleven, of which George Bliss was chairman, to consider this memorial. The committee afterwards reported a satisfactory arrangement of this difficulty, and at every annual meeting afterwards a committee was appointed "to confer with Rev Mr. Howard and ascertain, as well as they can, what sum of money will be equivalent to his stated salary of one hundred pounds at the time of his settlement;" and such a sum was regularly granted him for the purpose, not always, however, without opposition.
In the year 1803, the health of Mr. Howard failed, and the parish was obliged to provide for the supply of the pulpit by other clergymen. His disability proved to be of a more serious and permanent character than was at first anticipated, and, at its meeting in April l805, a committee was appointed to confer with him, and consider the expediency of dissolving his relation to the parish and he terms upon which it should be done. At an adjourned meeting in May, 1805, this committee. through their chairman the Hon. John Hooker, reported that they had made an agreement with Mr. Howard, by which he was to be relieved from pastoral labor, relinquish all claim for his salary, and for the use of the parsonage house and lands, and was to be paid the sum of two thousand dollars in three annual installments The pastoral relation, however. was to continue until the settlement of another minister, and then be dissolved without further terms or conditions. This agreement was (Duly confirmed by the parish; and Mr.. Howard continued to b~ nominally the pastor of the church until the ordination of his successor in 1809 It would appear from his record that he officiated at marriages, baptisms and funerals, but the services of the pulpit were performed by other clergymen. The ministry of Mr. Howard in this parish does not appear to have been an eventful one. His style of preaching is said to have been smooth and pleasing, rather adapted to instruct and comfort his people than to rouse them to energetic action. He was eminently a social man, gifted in conversation, and fond of exercising the gift. These qualities made him familiar with his people, without impairing the respect with which they entertained for him. I have heard it said that in one of his sermons he quoted a passage from St. Paul with the words, "as the wise King of Israel said." One of his parishioners, who was in the habit of calling on his pastor frequently to discuss the subject of his discourse, soon called to see him. and rallied the minister upon his mistaken quotation, with a "I never knew before that St. Paul was a king, although I always thought he was fit to be one." Mr. Howard received the honorary degree of doctor of divinity from Harvard College in 1824, and was usually spoken of as Dr. Howard in the later years of his life. lie died in 1837, at his house on Elm Street, close by the church, the same now owned and occupied by Mr. Henry Fuller. At the commencement of his ministry in 1785, the membership of the church was one hundred and seventeen. At the time of the settlement of his successor in 1809, it was not far from one hundred and seventy seven, showing an increase of fifty in twenty-four years.
The deacons, at the commencement of Mr. Howard's ministry. as already stated, were Nathaniel Brewer, Daniel Harris and Moses Bliss. The vacancy caused by the death of Deacon. Harris, in 1785, was filled the same year by the election of William Pynchon, Esq., to that office. Mr. Pynchon was a lineal descendant from the original founder of Springfield and from his distinguished son, John Pynchon. He was for thirty years the parish clerk, and most of that time its treasurer. He also held the offices of town clerk and treasurer, and register of deeds. He died March 4, 1808, at the age of sixty-eight years. Chauncey Brewer, son of Deacon. Nathaniel Brewer, and grandson of Rev. Daniel Brewer, was a deacon of the church during the pastorate of Mr. Howard I have not been able to ascertain the date of his appointment, as no record of any proceedings of the church was kept by Mr. Howard, except of admissions to the church. It is probable that he was elected to fill the vacancy caused by the death of his father in 1796 He was a physician, and attained considerable eminence in his profession. He died in March, 1830, at the advanced age of eighty-seven. His venerable form is well remembered, as he appeared when he occupied his pew on the Sabbath, on the south side of the pulpit, in the present meeting- house.
On the 24th of November, 1808, the church by a unanimous vote, invited Mr. Samuel Osgood to settle with them in the work of the gospel ministry, and Chauncey Brewer, George Bliss and John Hooker (then the deacons of the church in active service) were appointed a committee to inform him of the vote. This call was given after he had preached here two Sabbaths, and, considering the fact that he was the thirty-seventh minister, who had been preaching here, either as a candidate or a supply, since the resignation of Dr. Howard, it was certainly a very complimentary vote. Mr. Osgood, or, as he is more frequently called, Dr. Osgood was born at Fryburg, Maine, February 3, 1784. He completed his studies preparatory to entering college under the instruction of Daniel Webster, who, in after years, was accustomed, whenever in this town on the Sabbath, to attend this church, and listen to the preaching of his former scholar and life-long friend. Dr. Osgood graduated at Dartmouth College in 1805, having joined his class during its junior year. He at first inclined to the ~w as profession, and actually commenced the study in a lawyer's office. He soon, however, abandoned it. and commenced a theological course with Rev. Dr. Harris of Dorchester. He was licensed to preach in 806, and preached his first sermon in Roxbury; his second in Quincy, where he had for hearers Ex- President John Adams, and his son, afterwards President John Quincy Adams. He soon after went to Princeton, where he completed his theological studies. Returning to Massachusetts, he was a candidate in three different places for settlement, including this, toward which the scale eventually turned. He was ordained here on the 25th of January, 1809. His former theological instructor, Dr. Harris, preached the sermon from 1. Timothy 4:16; Dr. Lathrop of West Springfield gave the charge, and Rev. Ezra Witter of Wilbraham the right hand of fellowship.
The ministry of Mr. Osgood commenced under most auspicious circumstances. He was then in the vigor of youthful manhood, with a constitution that gave promise of uniform health - a promise, that had a remarkable fulfillment for more than half a century of his after life. His mental powers were solid and strong, rather than showy. He had a church of 225 members. His parish (then territorial) embraced the whole population of the town, from Chicopee river on the north, to Longmeadow on the south, and from Wilbraham line on the east, to the Connecticut river, comprising about 2,200 souls. The officers of the church were men of fervent piety and cultured intellect, and held stations in the church and in the world of wide and commanding influence. One of them, Judge Moses Bliss, had reached an advanced age, which disqualified him in a measure from the active duties of the deaconship. Dr. Chauncey Brewer. not to yet threescore and ten, was still able to officiate at the Lord's table on communion Sabbaths and to perform other services pertaining to the office.
George Bliss and John Hooker, both men of large culture. high standing and influence, were then in the full vigor of middle life. Of the times of their election to the office of deacon the record makes no mention. But there can be no question that they held the office at the very beginning of Mr. Osgood's pastorate, and probably before. They were both of the legal profession, and ranked among the first of its members. Mr. Hooker was for eighteen years the Judge of Probate for this county, and one of the original corporators of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
At the time of Mr. Osgood's settlement. many of the ministers and churches in the Commonwealth were drifting away from Trinitarian Orthodoxy toward Unitarian views. Mr. Osgood, although holding in the main with those who adhered to the Trinitarian doctrine, was at first regarded as more liberal than many of his ministerial brethren; but, as the breach widened between those who claimed the appellation of Liberal Christians and those who held to the old Orthodox standards, Mr. Osgood had no hesitation in ranging himself with those who adhered to the tenets of John Calvin. In fact, he was one of the first ministers in this region who refused ministerial exchanges with the disciples of a laxer faith To this step he was impelled by conviction that it was necessary in order to preserve the church true' to the faith of the fathers It was a measure that at once alienated From him many who had been his warm friends It brought him directly into collision with much of the wealth and influence of his church and parish. It even shook at first the confidence of some of his ministerial brethren in this region in his prudence and ]judgment. They thought he was carrying his scruples too far. When the old meeting-house was found too strait and too uncomfortable for the congregation, and the parish decided to build the present edifice, the storm, which had been for some time gathering, burst. In August, 18192, about twenty-five members of the church, comprising some of its most respectable and influential members, including the venerable ex-pastor [Dr. Howard], made application for a certificate of their regular standing, and a recommendation to the people of God as in full communion, that they might be formed into a separate church. ~ was known that there were others who stood ready to Join in this movement when it should be successfully inaugurated. The result was a secession, formidable, not in numbers [53], but in the standing and influence of those concerned in it. In the language of Dr. Osgood, uttered thirty years afterwards, " This was a trying time to me and to many of my parishioners. Families, who had long worshiped in the same sanctuary, and who had enjoyed most familiar and delightful intercourse, and some of whom were united in the tenderest bonds of consanguinity, were sundered for a time. If no speeches of recrimination were made, there were bitter feelings with some on both sides." In this crisis, it was fortunate for the stability of this church and its pastor that the officers of the church were not only good men, but wise men. They stood firm, and the pastor felt that his hands were strengthened. It was also fortunate that the minister, who was settled over the new Unitarian Society [The Rev. William Bourne Oliver Peabody], was a gentleman of peculiar amiability and disposed to peace. The era of ill-feeling gradually passed away, and forbearance and courtesy eventually characterized the intercourse of the parties.