Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

Returning from this digression, Mr. Davis settled in Plymouth, and was appointed in 1844 aide with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on the staff of Governor George N. Briggs, and in 1850, 1851 and 1852, was chairman of the Board of Selectmen. From 1844 to 1852, he was Vice-President of the Pilgrim Society, and from 1848 to 1850 inclusive, a Director of the Plymouth Bank. He married December 2, 1849, Helen, daughter of John and Deborah (Spooner) Russell, and had Harriet Mitchell in September, 1850, who died in December, 1852, and William, September 27, 1853. He died February 19, 1853.

William H. Whitman, son of Kilborn and Elizabeth (Winslow) Whitman, was born in Pembroke, January 26, 1817. He studied law with Thomas Prince Beal of Kingston, and began practice in Bath, Maine, where his sister, Sarah Ann, the wife of Benjamin Randall lived. He moved to Boston in 1844, where he practiced law until 1851, a part of the time a partner of Charles G. Davis. In 1851 he was appointed clerk of the Courts of Plymouth County, and continued in office until his death. He married in 1846, Ann Sever, daughter of William and Sally W. Thomas, and had Isabella Thomas, Elizabeth H. and William Thomas. He married second, Helen, widow of Wm. Davis and daughter of John Russell, and had Russell, Winslow and Ann Thomas. He died August 13, 1889.

Jedediah K. Hayward was born in Thetford, Vt., August 14, 1835, and graduated at Dartmouth College in 1859. He studied law with Jesse E. Keith of Abington and Charles G. Davis of Plymouth, and was admitted to the Plymouth bar October 28, 1862. He practiced one year in Plymouth, then two years in Boston, and finally moved to New York in 1865, where he still lives.

William Harvey Spear came to Plymouth from Roxbury about 1845 to teach the High School, and while teaching, studied law. He was admitted to the Plymouth bar in 1848, and continued business in Plymouth until his death. He married May 1, 1831, Catherine Hinsdale, daughter of Nathan Allen of Medfield and Dedham, but I find no record of his death.

William F. Spear, son of Wm. H. and Catherine H. (Allen) Spear, was born in June, 1832, and was admitted to the Plymouth bar in 1853. He married Caroline Augusta, daughter of Elisha Whiting, and died in Plymouth, September 21, 1858.

There was an Edward L. Sherman practicing law in Plymouth about fifty years ago, but I know nothing about him. He may have been the Edward Lowell Sherman, a Harvard graduate of 1854, who was admitted to the Essex bar in 1856, and was practicing in Boston in 1860, and until his death in 1893.

Isaac Goodwin, son of William and Lydia Cushing (Sampson) Goodwin, was born in Plymouth, June 28, 1786. He studied law with Joshua Thomas, and began practice in Boston, afterwards removing to Sterling, and in 1826 to Worcester. In 1825 he published a book entitled “The Town Officer,” and in 1830 another on the duties of a sheriff, which was followed by a general history of Worcester County, written for the Worcester Magazine. At the 150th anniversary of the destruction of the town of Lancaster he delivered the oration. He married in 1810, Eliza, daughter of Abraham Hammatt, and had Lucy Lothrop, 1811, Elizabeth Mason 1813, Wm. Hammatt, 1817, John Emery, 1820, John Abbot, 1824, Mary Jane, 1834, who married Loring Henry Austin of Boston, and was the well known authoress. He died September 10, 1832.

Rev. Dr. Joseph Sylvester Clark, son of Seth and Mary (Tupper) Clark, was born in Manomet Ponds, December 19, 1800. Dr. Clark was born in a house nearly opposite the residence of the late Horace B. Taylor. His brother Israel, one of the purest of men, was on the board of selectmen with me in 1855, and lived at the time in the old homestead.

In 1818 Rev. Seth Stetson, the pastor of the Manomet church, became Unitarian, and in the temporary division of the church which followed, Dr. Clark’s father was one of Mr. Stetson’s followers. As late as 1819 it seems to be certain that the son had not been able to believe in the divinity of Christ, and he did not become a member of the church until June 9, 1822, after which time he was a member in full standing of the Orthodox Congregational church. At the age of seventeen Dr. Clark taught school in Manomet, and soon after in Hingham, and by his earnings as a teacher and the moderate assistance which his father could afford to render, he was enabled to enter the classical academy at Amherst on the 29th of July, 1822, and to enter Amherst college in September, 1823, where he graduated in due course with valedictory honors. In 1827, after a short service as tutor at Amherst, he entered the Andover theological seminary, and after intervals spent in teaching school, graduated in 1831. On the second of October, 1831, he preached at Sturbridge, Mass., and on the twenty-seventh was unanimously invited to become the successor of Rev. Alvan Bond in that town. His ordination followed on the twenty-first of December. On the twenty-eighth of May, 1839, he was appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Missionary Society, and severing his connection with the Sturbridge parish, he entered on the discharge of the duties of secretary continuing them until his resignation on the twenty-third of September, 1857. In 1858 he published “A Historical sketch of the Congregational churches of Massachusetts from 1620 to 1858.” Dr. Park said of him “his experience in the Home Missionary work convinced him that Congregationalists had sacrificed the spiritual welfare of their own churches to an ill-regarded zeal for harmony with other denominations. They had cultivated such a dread of sectarianism as induced them to abandon their own distinctive principles for the sake of living in peace with sectarians who became the more exclusive as Congregationalists became the more liberal.”

At the time of the formation of the Congregational Library Association, he was chosen its Corresponding Secretary in May, 1853, and its financial agent in June, 1857, and soon after united with Rev. H. M. Dexter, and Rev. A. H. Quint, in publishing the Congregational quarterly, the first number of which was issued in January, 1859. To his unremitting labors was largely due the consummation of the project to buy for the Association the Crowninshield building, which it long occupied on the corner of Beacon and Somerset streets in Boston. In 1851 he received from his Alma Mater the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and in 1852 was chosen a trustee of the college. He married December 27, 1831, Harriet B., daughter of Joseph Bourne of New Bedford, and died at the home of his brothers, Israel and Nathaniel, at Manomet, August 17, 1861.