Category Archives: New Bedford, Mass.

Community clinic

I have new health insurance since the last time I visited the doctor, for some bureaucratic reason that I do not understand. But that meant that I am no longer tied to a primary care physician (whom I never saw) with an office in a suburban office park. I have to say, I never felt I got good care at that suburban medical center. I think they were more interested in building expensive new buildings than in actually providing good patient care.

When I decided I needed to see a doctor this morning, I walked two blocks up the street to the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center. I filled out the preliminary forms, which included the question: “What is your primary language? Check one: English. Portuguese. Cape Verdean/Cruiole. Spanish. French. Other.” I was pretty sure I heard all five of those languages being spoken around me in the bright, busy, slightly messy waiting room.

Everyone was friendly. The woman who set up my account apologized when my insurance company kept her on hold: “Sorry to keep you waiting, hon.” I was shown to an examination room, and sat there for about forty minutes until the doctor arrived. He was the nicest, most humane M.D. from whom I have received care for at least the past decade. He talked with me at length, told me that I probably had a viral infection, that a viral infection with symptoms similar to mine has been going around, that I probably started eating solid food too soon. His manner was reassuring and healing.

The doctor told me to eat only clear broth, jello, and apple juice; just a little as a time. When I feel ready, I’m allowed to graduate to weak tea, rice, mashed potatoes, and other bland food, “but” as the doctor told me, smiling, “with nothing that makes food taste so good.” It may be another week before things settle down.

As I say, it was the friendliest, best, most reassuring health care visit I have had in years. And this was not at a fancy suburban clinic, but at an inner-city clinic which provides free care to anyone who needs it. (Your remarks on the current moral crisis in American health care may be included in the comments below; Marxists, don’t hold back.)

Spring watch

A few of us went up to a gospel concert in Norton yesterday, and as we were walking back to our cars after the concert, we could hear the spring peepers singing away in the swamp next to the parking lot. We all agreed that the spring peepers haven’t yet started singing down along the coast, presumably because it’s cooler next to the ocean.

Most of the waterfowl have left the harbor, but I did see six pairs of Buffleheads this afternoon. I suspect these are not birds that wintered over here, but rather birds that are migrating north and just happened to stop here for a day; perhaps they got stranded due to the strong north winds that were blowing the past two days.

Standing at the end of State Pier today, I saw two Harbor Seals surface quite close to the pier. They stayed quite close to one another, and at one point they twined their necks together, then slipped under water together. I’ve never seen seals behave in quite this way. I don’t know anything about the mating behavior of Harbor Seals (the only reference work I have on mammals covers land mammals, including order Sirenia but leaving out pinnipeds), but I wonder if what I saw was mating behavior.

Your criticism requested…

I’m writing a revisionist essay about the Rev. Dr. Samuel West, one of the early liberal ministers in Massachusetts whom later Unitarians claimed as a sort of proto-Unitarian. I feel West has been slighted to by the standard Unitarian biographies (including the bio on the UU Historical Society Web site), in the sense that his intellectual accomplishments have been overshadowed by exaggerated claims of eccentric behavior. Now I know some of my readers are interested in this kind of thing, and you are good at picking holes in my arguments, so I’m hoping at least some of you will be willing to read and comment on the rather long essay below….

Samuel West was born on 3 March 1730 (Old Style), to Dr. Sackfield West and Ruth Jenkins in Yarmouth, Massachusetts. He was apparently something of a prodigy as a child. He went off to Harvard College, and was graduated in 1754, one of the top students in his class. He decided to enter the ministry, and was ordained and installed on 3 June 1761 in the established church in what was then Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Beginning in the 1760s, West became active in politics, affiliating himself with the Whigs, and he remained involved with the Revolutionary cause through the Massachusetts convention which ratified the United States constitution. West married twice: first, on 7 March 1768 to Experience Howland, who died 6 March 1789, and with whom he had six children; second, on 20 January 1790 to the widow Louisa Jenne, née Hathway, who died 18 March 1779. Due to loss of memory (and possibly what we would now term senile dementia) West “relinquished his pastoral charge” in June, 1803. He went to live with his son, Samuel West, M.D., in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and died there 24 September 1807. (1)

These are the bare facts of Samuel West’s life. Behind those bare facts was a man of good character and superior intellect, who participated in two revolutionary ventures: the political revolution which was the separation of most of British North America from the British Empire during the War for American Independence, commonly called the American Revolution; and in the quiet and slow theological revolution that eventually led to an open breach between the liberal and conservative factions in the established Massachusetts churches. However, because West’s accomplishments are often obscured by his reputation for eccentricity, I will deal with the allegations of eccentricity first, and then give an account of his revolutionary accomplishments. Continue reading →

The absent-minded minister

I’m currently writing an essay about Samuel West, my predecessor in the pulpit here in New Bedford from 1761-1803. He had the reputation for being absent-minded and eccentric. Back in 1849, John Morison, another one of my predecessors in the pulpit here, wrote the definitive biographical essay of West. Morison tells the following anecdote as evidence of West’s eccentricity, and I’m going to ask you to read it, and then tell me what you think….

“The following story was told me by his daughter, and is unquestionably true. He had gone to Boston, and, a violent shower coming up on Saturday afternoon, he did not get home that evening, as was expected. The next morning his family were very anxious, and waited till, just at the last moment, he was seen hurrying his horse on with muddy ruffles dangling about his hands, and another large ruffle hanging out upon his bosom, through the open vest which he usually had buttoned close to his chin. He never had worn such embellishments before, and never afterwards could tell how he came by them then. It was too late to change — the congregation were waiting. His daughter buttoned up his vest, so as to hide the bosom ornaments entirely, and carefully tucked the ruffles in about the wrists. During the opening services all went very well. But probably feeling uneasy about the wrists, he twitched at them till the ruffles were flourishing about, and then, growing warm as he advanced, he opened his vest, and made such an exhibition of muddy finery as probably tended very little to the religious edification of the younger portion of his audience. ‘That,’ said his daughter, in telling the story, ‘was the only time that I was ever ashamed of my father.’  ”

So here’s my question: The poor man had a rough ride back home, was probably riding all night, got muddy and dirty, didn’t have time to change his clothing, but made it into the pulpit in time to preach. I don’t get it — this is eccentric how? I readily admit that I don’t pay much attention to my own personal appearance, and have been known to wear a suit on Sunday morning but forget to put on a tie (since I don’t wear a robe in the pulpit, this does not look good). I also admit that I have been asked by Beauty Tips for Ministers to submit a photograph to demonstrate how not to dress if you’re a minister. And I admit that it would be better if people like me and Dr. West had it in us to pay attention to our personal appearance.

But by all accounts, West was an amazing preacher, and can’t we put up with dirty ruffles for the sake of good preaching? And yeah, you don’t have to tell me, if the answer is “no,” I had better find another line of work….

Moses George Thomas, minister-at-large

This is the second in a two-part series on the ministers of Centre Church, New Bedford. Part One.

Rev. Jonathan Brown, of Naples, N.Y., was the second minister of Centre Church, from 1845-1848. Following his unsuccessful ministry, the congregation “voted not to employ any but Unitarian ministers.” (13) They then called Rev. Moses George Thomas as their next minister.

Moses George Thomas was born on January 19, 1805, in Sterling, Mass. He was graduated from Brown University in 1825, and from there went directly to the divinity school at Harvard. (14) While he was still a student at Harvard Divinity School, the American Unitarian Association (AUA) hired him to travel through the Western frontier, to find out where the AUA might fruitful ground in which to plant new Unitarian churches. From 1826-1827, Thomas traveled some 4,000 miles on horseback, through Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, going as far west as St. Louis. (15)

Following his graduation from divinity school in 1828, Thomas served as minister of the Unitarian church in Concord, N.H., from 1829 to 1844. He was ordained there, and he was the first Unitarian minister settled in that city. He laid the cornerstone of the first Unitarian church building, and gave the sermon at the dedication of that building. In his early years at Concord, N.H., he became good friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had supplied the pulpit there before Thomas arrived. (16) While serving in Concord, N.H., Thomas officiated at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first marriage, to Ellen Tucker. (17) The next year, 1830, Thomas himself was married, to Mary Jane Kent. Thomas’s time in Concord was later reported to be perhaps the happiest time of his life. (18)

Thomas was settled at the Broadway Church in South Boston in 1845, soon after the church was organized; here again, Thomas was the founding minister of the church. This congregation never owned its own building, but met in rented space; it seems to have dissolved by about 1853. (19)

After leaving the Broadway Church, Thomas came to New Bedford and was installed as the minister of Centre Church in 1848. Continue reading →

Rev. Charles Morgridge, a not-quite-Unitarian

Charles Morgridge was born in Litchfield, Maine, ion August 28, 1791. He attended Bowdoin College, from about 1817 to about 1820. (1) I have been able to find out nothing about his early life.

He entered Bowdoin College as a sophomore when he was 26 (i.e., probably in 1817), and probably was graduated in 1820 or 1821. At some point, he decided to become a minister in the Christian Connection (or Christian Connexion) denomination. He was ordained as a Christian Connection minister in Fairhaven on September 14, 1821; (2) and thereafter he led a peripatetic life, moving frequently from church to church.

While at Fairhaven, his salary as a minister was inadequate, so he also taught in the Fairhaven high school. After spending a year or two at the Fairhaven church, he went to serve for a year as a minister in Portsmouth, N. H., then perhaps two years as a minister in Eastport, Maine, and then he served at the Christian Connection Church on Summer Street in Boston. He left Boston and was settled at the North Christian Church (later called First Christian Church) in New Bedford from 1827. He left New Bedford in 1831 to become the minister of the Christian Connection church in Portland, Maine, at that time the largest church in that denomination, and stayed there until 1834. He returned to New Bedford to serve North Christian Church in New Bedford from 1834 to 1841. (3) Here’s a first-hand account by one Eleazar Sherman of what North Christian Church was like in 1834:

“This house will seat about fifteen hundred people. — In the time of the great reformation in 1834, this house was opened every day for more than three months, day and night; scores of weeping souls came out of their pews for prayer, and bowed before the Lord and the gazing multitude; and the prayers of God’s people prevailed; the angel of the everlasting covenant presented the humble prayer of the penitent before his Father; the angel of mercy descended and pat the cup of salvation to the lips of the dying sinner, and bade him drink the wine of the kingdom and live forever. Oh, what shouts of praise flowed from young converts, whose hearts were filled with hearenly love at this day of God’s power. Continue reading →

“And only four kids came…”

Maggi Peirce gave a talk today at the church about how she and some others started a folk music coffee house in New Bedford in 1967. They had programming every Friday and Saturday evening, to provide a safe place for teenagers during that era of youth unrest. After starting off with a bang in May, 1967, they began having increasing difficulty finding adult volunteers, until things reached a crisis point in July. Here’s how Maggi told the story this afternoon:

“Every time that I would ask for people to help, they sort of faded like snow off a ditch. And then there was one famous night where I had to take care of Friday night. And I turned up, and wonderful Joe Cardoza. We loved Joe Cardoza. He always did the door. He was our doorkeeper, and he was from Pilgrim Church [the UCC church here in New Bedford]. The salt of the earth! And there was another woman there called Florrie; and then Ellen; they worked in the kitchen.

“And when this happened, I arrived on the Friday, but nobody else did. Joe was on the door. And there wasn’t even any coffee that night. And only four kids came. And one of them was P—— and he was from Fairhaven. And he said to me — he had a guitar with him; he didn’t play very well [laughter] — and he said, ‘Is nothing happening tonight?’

“And I said, ‘There is always something happening at Tryworks.’

“And he looked at me, and he said, ‘You know, Maggi, this is sort of typical of New Bedford. Everything starts with a big article in the newspaper, and a big hoopla.’ He said, ‘Remember that first night in May, when we opened?’ And this was about July [1967]. He said, ‘Everybody starts with a terrific hope, and everybody’s going to help, and then it all fizzles out within six weeks.’

“And I said, ‘P——, I promise you. Tryworks will not fizzle out in six weeks.’  ”

Well, to make a long story short, Maggi kept that promise. Tryworks coffee house did not fizzle out in six weeks. Maggi became the first director of Tryworks coffeehouse and ran it for twenty years. After she stepped down, it continued for another fifteen years, and when it finally closed for good in 2003 it was the longest-running folk music coffee house in the United States. More importantly, in those thirty-five years Tryworks made a huge impact on the lives of hundreds of young people.

I guess the moral of the story is this: If only four kids show up for your youth program, don’t give up.

More on North Unitarian Church in New Bedford, Mass.

North Unitarian Church in New Bedford began as a mission to the immigrant communities in the North End of New Bedford in 1894, had a separate institutional existence as a church 1917-1923, returned to its status as a settlement house, reorganized as a separate church in 1944, and finally consolidated with First Unitarian c. 1971. I’ve just put together a page on North Unitarian’s history, summarizing my research to date.

Sources on North Unitarian Church | Unity Home begins with a concise summary of major institutional events. From there, you can drown in excerpts from far too many primary and secondary sources. You have been warned.