ST. MICHAEL'S, MARBLEHEAD.ST. MICHAEL'S, MARBLEHEAD.
St. Michael's, as originally built, must have been an antique gem. According to the account given me by the rector, it had seven gables, topped by a tower, from which sprung a shapely spire, with another on the north and one on the south side. The form of the building was a square, with entrances on the south and west. The aisles crossed each other at right angles; the ceiling, supported by oaken columns, was in the form of a St. Andrew's cross. The present barren area of pine shingles was built above the old roof, which it extinguished effectually. Cotton Mather—he did not allude to the Church of England—styled the New England churches golden candlesticks, set up to illuminate the country; but what would he have said had he lived to see the Puritan Thanksgiving and Fast gradually superseded by Christmas and by Easter?
The interior of the old church well repays a visit. Its antiquities are guarded as scrupulously as the old faith has been. Suspended from the ceiling is a chandelier, a wonderful affair in brass, the gift of a merchant of Bristol, England. The little pulpit, successor to an earlier one of wine-glass pattern, belongs to an era before the introduction of costly woods. Above the altar is the Decalogue, in the ancient lettering, done in England in 1714. Manifestly St. Michael's clings to its relics with greater affection than did that parish in the Old Country, which offered its second-hand Ten Commandments for sale, as it was going to buy new ones. In the organ-loft is a diminutive instrument, going as far back as the day of Snetzler. Notwithstanding the disappearance of the cross from its pinnacle, and of the royal emblems from their place (save the mark!) above the Decalogue, St. Michael's remains to-day an interesting memorial of Anglican worship in the colonies. It was the third church in Massachusetts, and the fourth in all New England, those of Boston, Newbury, and Newport alone having preceded it.
The names of famous people are perpetuated in the place of their birth in many ways. I noticed in Marblehead the streets bore the names of Selman, Tucker, Glover, etc. Academies, public halls, and engine-houses keep their memory green, or will do so until the era of snobbery ingulfs the place, and pulls the old signs down. Its future, I apprehend, is to become a summer resort. When that period of intermittent prosperity shall have set in in full tide, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to preserve the peculiar quaintness which now makes Marblehead the embodiment of the old New England life.
ELBRIDGE GERRY.
Elbridge Gerry was born in Marblehead. He was of middle stature, thin, of courteous, old-school manners, and gentlemanly address. He has the name of a strong partisan, and of standing godfather to the geographical monstrosity called the Gerrymander, which has added a word to our political vocabulary.[163] A more effective party caricature has never appeared in America. It is admitted it has given its author a notoriety that has somewhat obscured eminent public service, and made his name a by-word for political chicanery.