Historic Towns of New England

by Unknown

That first winter at Naumkeag was a severe test of the fortitude of the Puritans. They suffered from lack of sufficient food and adequate shelter, and many died from disease. In their great need Governor Endicott wrote to Governor Bradford and asked that a physician be sent to them from the Plymouth settlement. Soon Dr. Fuller came and not only ministered to the sick, but in many conversations with Endicott and his companions doubtless prepared the way for their adoption of the Congregational or Independent form of church. The Pilgrims had withdrawn from the Church of England, averse to its ritual and discipline, and were known as Separatists. Even before their arrival at Plymouth they instituted the Congregational form of worship and discipline which they had already practised in England and Holland. But the Puritans at Naumkeag had intended to reform and not to give up the Anglican liturgy to which they were attached by tradition and sentiment. The Episcopal or the Congregational order of service was a momentous issue in these formative months and it is significant that on Dr. Fuller’s return to Plymouth Endicott wrote to Bradford: “I am by him satisfied, touching your judgement of the outward form of God’s worship; it is, as far as I can yet gather, no other than is warranted by the evidence of truth.”

In the following spring four hundred immigrants and four Non-conformist clergymen, among them Francis Higginson and Samuel Skelton, arrived and steps were then taken for the formal organization of the church. In the contract the English company made with the Rev. Francis Higginson there is another evidence of its generous and enlightened policy. He was to receive £30 for his outfit, £10 for books and £30 per annum for three years. In addition, the company was to find him a house, food, and wood for that period, to transport himself and family, and to bring them back to England at the expiration of the time if it should then be his wish. He was also to have one hundred acres of land, and if he died his wife and children were to be maintained while on the plantation.

At this time the Indian name Naumkeag was given up and the settlement took its present name of Salem, an abbreviation of Jerusalem and meaning, as every one knows, Peace. The important event was the organization of the church. Services had been held during the winter, perhaps in that “faire house” of the Governors, and doubtless the whole or parts of the Anglican liturgy had been used. A radical change now occurred. After suitable preparation by prayer and fasting the ministers were examined to test their fitness for the office, and then by a written ballot, the first use of the ballot in this country, Samuel Skelton was elected pastor and Francis Higginson teacher or assistant pastor. Then Mr. Higginson and “three or four of the gravest members of the church” laid their hands upon the head of Mr. Skelton, and with appropriate prayer installed him as minister of this first Puritan (as distinguished from the Pilgrim) church in America. Afterwards, by a similar imposition of hands and prayer by Mr. Skelton, Mr. Higginson was installed as teacher. The Plymouth church had been invited to send delegates, and as one of them Governor Bradford came, delayed by a storm, but in time to offer the right hand of fellowship. Thirty names were signed to the following covenant and the First Church of Salem was organized: “We covenant with the Lord and with one another, and do bind ourselves in the presence of God, to walk together in all His ways, according as He is pleased to reveal Himself unto us in His blessed word of truth.” The deed was done. The Congregational creed and polity were adopted and the church that for more than two centuries dominated New England thought and life was established in Salem.

For several years the youthful church met in a private house. But in 1634 the colonists were ready to build the “meeting-house” and the small, bare edifice, built of logs and boasting a thatched roof and stone chimney, was soon erected. “A poor thing, but mine own,” the Puritan might have said as he recalled the venerable and beautiful cathedrals of the mother-country. But the Puritan doubtless never quoted Shakespeare. It is more probable that he thought of the tabernacle with which the chosen people journeyed in the wilderness, long before Solomon’s temple crowned Mount Moriah, and rejoiced that the House of the Lord was at last set up in their midst. The sinewy oak timbers of this ancient building, within modern roof and walls, still remain, one of the most impressive monuments of this ancient town. Its size, 20 x 17 feet, makes one somewhat skeptical of the familiar statement that everybody went to church in the good old times. But I doubt not that both floor and gallery were well filled Sundays and at the great Thursday lecture, although on both days the preacher had the privilege, to modern divines denied, of reversing his hour-glass after the sand had run out and, secure of his congregation, deliberately proceeding to his “Finally, Brethren.” On one side sat the men, on the other the women and small children, each in his proper place, determined by wealth or public office. Even in that religious age four men, it appears, were appointed to prevent the boys from running downstairs before the Benediction was pronounced, while the constable, armed with a long pole tipped with a fox’s tail, was always at hand to rouse the drowsy or inattentive. There was at each service a collection. Only church-members could vote at the town-meetings, held at first in the new meeting-house, but every householder was taxed for the support of the church.

In 1630, John Winthrop, the newly appointed Governor of the Colony, accompanied by several hundred persons, came to Salem. Disappointed in the place, they soon moved to Charlestown, and there established the seat of government. From that date Salem took the second place in the Colony, but always maintained, then as now, an independent, public-spirited life.

Hither came, in 1634, Roger Williams, after the vicissitudes in those days experienced by an original and outspoken man. After the

death of Mr. Higginson, he became the minister of the First Church. The original timbers of his dwelling-house, dating from 1635, are still to be seen, more ancient than the ancient roof and walls that cover them, and reveal faded characters of the Puritan palimpsest. A double interest attaches to this venerable building, since as the residence of Judge Corwin tradition has made it the scene of some of the preliminary examinations in the witch trials. But the wanderings of Roger Williams were not yet ended. His attacks upon the authority of the magistrates as well as his controversies with the ministers brought him under the condemnation of the General Court. Though the Salem church resisted, it was obliged to part with its minister who quitted Massachusetts under sentence of banishment, to become the Founder of Rhode Island. A remarkable man was Roger Williams, of great gifts and singular purity of conscience, but his inflexible spirit, opposed to the theocratic rule of ministers and magistrates, was wisely set at constructive work in another colony.

This was the eventful age of Puritanism in the mother-country and in the colonies. All that we read of the austere piety and social restraints of the Puritan theocracy is found in this period from 1629 to 1700. Much might be said of the growth of Salem in population and wealth and influence in this century, but there is no time to tell the story in a single chapter. We come at once to the close of the century when the old town earned an unenviable notoriety by the tragic affair known as the Witchcraft Delusion.