History of Trinity Church, Lenox, Massachusetts, 1763-1895
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F ~::1895 ~~3 ~~~m'i~T~m~~~~~~0231 00079 7485 1enox. TRINITY CHURCH, LENOX. ! 888 HISTORY OF TRINITY CHURCH, CAl\fBRIDGE: J 0 H N WI L S 0 N AND S 0 N . ~mbcrsit)l tBrcss. CONTENTS. PAGE PREFATORY ToTE 7 HISTORY OF TRI:-<ITY CHuRCH, LENox, MAss. 9 APPENDIX. SKETCH OF THE REV. HENRY ALBERT YARDLEY 37 " " " THOMAS RuGGLES PYNCHON • 43 " " " WILLIAM HENRY BROOKS 46 " " " JUSTIN FIELD 49 BRIEF MEI'<"TION CO:'<CER~"1NG OTHERS OF THE CLERGY 5 I LIST OF CHURCH \VARDENS 53 LIST OF VESTRYMEN 53 PREFATORY NOTE. THE year 1763 has been taken as the starting- point of the history of our Parish ; not because it was the time of the organization, but as the earliest date of the holding of the Church service in the to\vn of Lenox. Taking that date for the beginning, we have now reached the good old age of one hundred and thirty-two years. These have been years full of many vicissitudes. At times the parish has had little more than an existence; for many periods of its life it has been dependent on temporary rectorships, and rector ships shared with Lanesborough and Stockbridge. At other times it has only been able to secure occasional services as opportunity offered. It is for this reason that there have been found gaps in the records which it has been impossible to fill ; but through every experieqce the con 8 tinuity of the life of the Parish has never been lost. Surely that fact gives us great hope, and makes us believe that she has been kept through all the years, to do her own peculiar and essen tial work in the life of Lenox. This history is entirely the work of the Rev. C. J. PALMER, Rector of St. Luke's Church, Lanes borough, Massachusetts. His long and careful study of the history of Berkshire County, and of the ancient and honorable Parish of which he is Rector, made him peculiarly fit to tell the story of this Parish, so .Jong and inti111ately related with the history of his own. He has received the valuable assistance of a number of people, but he desires to acknowledge the services of the Rev. JOSEPH HooPER, of the Diocese of Connecticut. W. M.G. THE RECTORY, August, 1895· •, ·. HISTORY OF TRINITY CHURCH, LENOX, MASS. WHEN the first service according to the Book of Common Prayer was held in Lenox, it is impos sible to state. In the early settlements of Berkshire County. there was far less dependence upon the pres ence of an ordained clergyman than is now the case. Much as the clergy were valued for the purpose of the due administration of the sacraments, the people were by no means wholly dependent on their presence for the holding of public services; and as there appear to have been about forty families in Lenox attached to the order of the Church of England not long after the settlement of the town, it is likely that many services were held. The first clergyman to officiate was, in all probability, the Rev. Roger Viets, of Simsbury, Connecticut, in October, 1763. About this time what is now called Berkshire County was opened up for permanent settle ment by the definite establishment of the frontier line 10 and the final expulsion of the Indians. Favorable terms being offered to settlers, considerable numbers from Connecticut ascended the Housatonic River, and settled the various grants in Western Massachusetts. Among these were many Church people; the friends of these naturally followed them with the warmest interest, and allowed their old pastors occasionally to visit them and administer the sacraments. The first of these clerical visitors was the Rev. Roger Viets. He appears to have followed his visit of 1763 by other visits. It is interest ing to note that he had a prominent share in the educat ing of his nephew Alexander Viets Griswold, afterwards Bishop of Massachusetts, and the first bishop to visit Berkshire County. The next visitor was the Rev. Samuel Andrews, of Wallingford, Connecticut, who made an important visita tion in October, I 767, visiting Vermont at that time, and being the first Church of England minister to visit that State. Mr. Andrews then returned to his Connecticut Parish, where he stayed till 1785, when, with many others of the clergy who had sympathized with Great Britain during the war, he found it desirable to remove, and went to Digby, Nova Scotia, where he remained for thirty-three years, dying at the ripe age of eighty-one. The next clerical visitor was the Rev. Richard Mans field, celebrated as well for his learning and ability as I I for the fact that he was the first clergyman of the Church to receive the degree of D.D. from Yale College, and for the unprecedented length of his Rectorship at Derby, Connecticut, of seventy-two years. It also deserves notice that he was one of the little band who elected the Rev. Samuel Seabury as the first Bishop of the United States, and was in fact also himself elected bishop, which office his modesty led him to decline. This eminent divine made a visitation to Berkshire in May, 1768. He speaks in his report of how even then many of the roads were little better than Indian trails, rendering progress on horseback exceedingly difficult. He also says: "The people express themselves very thankful to me for coming among them, but being new settlers and generally poor were not able to contribute to me half enough to pay the expenses of my journey." That he was a man who estimated so highly the services of the Church as not to be deterred by any inadequacy of compensation, is evinced by the fact that on one occasion he travelled two whole days in a storm over a very bad road to perform a marriage service for a fee of twenty cents; and that it was his frequent custom to travel thirty or forty miles on holydays to conduct the service in towns unsupplied by regular ministrations. The day had, however, come for having a resident mis sionary in Berkshire County, and for ceasing to de 12 pend on visitors at so long a range. In 1770 the Rev. Gideon Bostwick took up his residence in Great Bar rington, and ministered to no less than forty-five towns, among which was Lenox. In a letter written September 25, 1771, he expressly states that in Lenox there have been regular services established, Morning and Evening Prayer being said every Sunday, and sermons read, together with fre quent week-day services. The most prominent men attached to the Church in Lenox at that time can be gathered from the subse quent appointment by Mr. Bostwick, May 20, 1774, of David Perry Clerk, John Whitlock and Eliphalet Fowler Church Wardens, Royce Hall and John Whitlock choristers. A rapid growth of the Church in Lenox plainly appears from Mr. Bostwick's register. The extent of his labors may be inferred from a letter of his which states, "My work obliges me to ride a vast deal (more perhaps by considerable than any one Missionary in America). But I thank God that through the strength of a good constitution and the pleasing pros pect of being the instrument of some good to my fel low creatures, I am enabled cheerfully to perform it." As the result of his untiring labors, there was such growth that a further degree of subdivision of the fi eld was called for, and in 1793 Lenox and Lanesborough, with the im IJ mediately adjoining towns, were set apart as a field under the charge of the celebrated Rev. Daniel Burhans. By this time the Lenox station had so developed as to apply to the Legislature for incorporation as a regular Parish. The Articles of Association read as follows: The great duty which requires all men in society to support the public worship of the Supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver of the Universe, in that mode of worship vvhich is most agreeable to the dictates of their consciences, induce the undersigned to associate for the purpose of exercising that privilege as reserved to them by the Constitution and Laws of their Country; and they hereby mutually agree to support in future in the town of Lenox or the adjoining towns the public wor ship of Almighty God according to the rules and regu lations of the American Protestant Episcopal Church, as established by the Convention of said Church regu larly appointed and held at Salem in the County of Essex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the fifth day and sixth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety. And the more effectually to establish our views and purposes, we do .hereby further agree and promise to and with each other and each for himself that we will subscribe such sum and sums of money to each of our names from year to year as is in proportion to our temporal circum stances, and pay such sums by each of us so subscribed to the proper officers of the Church who shall be ap pointed to receive the same. And we further mutually agree and promise that we will adhere to. all rules and by-laws (provided the same are not repugnant to the established ordinances of the Church aforesaid) which shall from time to time be agreed to by a majority of this association; and it is hereby understood that no rules or by-laws shall be made, or, when established, be repealed, except at the Vestry meeting annually held in Easter.