Tag Archives: Unitarian history

Research into the first African American Unitarian minister

Sometimes when you’re doing research, you have to go back to primary sources. I’ve been researching Rev. William Jackson, an African American minister, who had charge of the Salem Baptist Church in New Bedford from 1858-1870. Jackson was an important figure in the history of African American antislavery activism here in New Bedford, which is why I first started paying attention to him. He was also the first known African American minister to proclaim himself a Unitarian to the American Unitarian Association (AUA), and today we would say that he was treated badly by the AUA. But just what do we mean when we say he was treated badly? Here’s what Mark Morrison-Reed says in his superb study Black Pioneers in a White Denomination:

Egbert Ethelred Brown wasn’t the first black minister to proclaim himself a Unitarian and suffer because of it. Our earliest opportunity to spread Unitarianism into the black community came in 1860 when a Rev. Mr. Jackson of New bedford presented himself to the Autumnal Convention of the American Unitarian Association and testified to his conversion to Unitarianism. He went on and “stated the needs of his church, and the Unitarians took a collection, which totaled $49. A few dollars were added to this amount and he was sent on his way.” Douglas Stange reports this happening in his book Patterns of Antislavery among American Unitarians, 1831-1860, and concludes, “No discussion, no welcome, no expression of praise and satisfaction was uttered, that the Unitarian gospel had reach the ‘colored’.” [Mark Morrison-Reed, Black Pioneers in a White Denomination, 3rd ed., Boston: Skinner House, 1994, pp. 183-184.]

So I got Stange’s book. Morrison-Reed is quoting directly from Stange; that is to say, Morrison-Reed accepts Stange’s interpretations of the primary source materials which Stange consulted. This is perfectly adequate for Morrison-Reed’s purposes; Jackson is really a side issue for his book. But I wanted to read Stange, and here’s what he has to say about this event:

But what happened when a white church had the opportunity to wait upon a black [person]? This opportunity actually occurred at the Autumnal Convention in New Bedford in 1860. A Reverend Mr. Jackson, the “colored minister of New Bedford,” intruded upon the Convention to testify to his conversion to Unitarianism. Since he was perhaps the “only colored minister” (and indeed the first black Unitarian minister in America), he requested their kind and patient attention. After he had stated the needs of his church, the Unitarians took a collection, which totaled $49. A few dollars were added to this amount and Mr. Jackson was sent on his way. No discussion, no welcome, no expression of praise and satisfaction was uttered, that the Unitarian gospel had reached the “colored.” In truth, the antislavery forces had lost the battle, perhaps because many of them had never begun to wage it. [Douglas Stange, Patterns of Antislavery among American Unitarians, 1831-1860, Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1977, pp. 226-227.]

But here again, Jackson is just a side issue, and Stange actually tells me very little about Jackson (and for what it’s worth, $49 would be about $1,100 in 2007 dollars). So I decided to go back to the primary source material. Stange cites the 20 October 1860 number of the Christian Inquirer, a Unitarian newspaper of the day. The first two pages of the 20 October 1860 issue are pretty much filled up by the long story on the Autumnal Convention. I read through most of it, to get a flavor of the convention. Jackson doesn’t appear until the last day of the three-day convention. To give you a flavor of what the convention was like, here’s what the Christian Inquirer says about the two speakers who precede Jackson, followed by the actual report of Jackson’s appearance:

Rev. Charles Lowe thought that we now had got upon something practical. We are in the way to do something for our [Unitarian] cause. We have made, he thought, a mistake hitherto in our methods of appeal. We have forgotten those among the people who could do but little, and resorted principally to the rich to obtain what we want. This is not the way other sects do, and it is not the way we ought to do. They collect from all, and even if the sums are small, these little rivulets swell the general stream, and a vast volume is poured forth at last. Let us ask all to give; the two mites are as acceptable as well as the rich men’s offerings.

Rev. Alfred P. Putnam, of Roxbury, thought that to do what is desirable we must cultivate the missionary spirit. Other Christian bodies had their monthly missionary meetings. They thus cultivated the spirit of that work. In the late missionary meetings in Boston, what was especially noteworthy was that the action of missions was reflex upon the churches themselves. We should gain a like good from the establishment of such monthly concerts for missions. By such a method of action an unwonted interest might be awakened over the entire Christian body.

Rev. Mr. Jackson, the colored minister of New Bedford, had been converted [to Unitarianism]. He was converted yesterday by the essay. He should preach the Broad Church. He had learned that the religion of Jesus was universal, and gave all the right and privilege of thinking for themselves. As he was perhaps the only colored Unitarian minister, he hoped they would hear from him patiently. He then presented the claims of his church, which was in debt, and desired that some aid might be afforded him to discharge this debt. After some further remarks, a contribution of $49 was taken up, to which more was afterwards added to lift the debt on Mr. Jackson’s church. [Christian Inquirer, 20 October 1860, p. 2.]

The irony is too much: they’re going on about “missionary” work, and then someone pops up to give them a chance to do “missionary” work in the African American community, and they completely drop the ball. So Stange’s interpretation is probably true, but a more nuanced interpretation seems possible.

Now for some background information that might lead to a more nuanced interpretation of the AUA’s treatment of the very first African American Unitarian minister, which I’ll include below the fold.

Continue reading →

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 →

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.

Unitarian minister fired for promoting basketball (1922)

When you do research in local history, sometimes you turn up fascinating little local dramas. Like the newspaper story I found today about Unitarian minister Samuel L. Elberfeld, who lost his job in part because he coached a church basketball team for teenagers. This is a story that appeared on the front page of the New Bedford Standard for 18 November 1922, above the fold.

Sports fans will have fun reading how Elberfeld believed sports and religion could not be separated — and they will have less fun reading how he got fired for so believing. Aficionados of dirty church politics will revel in the stratagems used by church members to promote minority rule. Church polity geeks will want to puzzle out the complicated matter of why a church rooted in congregational polity would ever delegate responsibility of firing their minister to another church (quick answer — that other church provided the money to pay the minister’s salary).

Journalism fans will notice how the reporter uses “it is said” instead of directly quoting someone, or attributing facts or opinions to an actual person — a delightful use of the passive voice to promote innuendo — but this was a different era of journalism, with different standards. Note too how a daily city newspaper chose to report such a story on the front page — for it is exactly the kind of juicy rumor-laden story that we all love to read in local newspapers, notwithstanding the obvious pain this particular story caused to Samuel Elberfedl, as revealed in his quoted remarks in the story; and no doubt the article was also very painful to members of the congregation. Which is why newspapers stopped carrying stories like this one, and which why we now read blogs, because the newspapers have gotten so boring.

So here is the story, blazing headlines and all (with an epilogue at the end telling what happened afterwards):

26 VOTED FOR
   DISMISSAL OF
      MR. ELBERFELD

Meeting Held in Unity Home
   Last Evening Acts
      Against Pastor

ONLY 36 PRESENT
      OF 135 MEMBERS

Final Action in North Unita-
   rian Church Up to
      Center Committee

At a meeting of members of the North Unitarian Church held in Unity Home, Tallman street, last night, a vote was taken on the dismissal of the Rev. Samuel L. Elberfeld, pastor of the church. There were 36 members present, and the voted was 26 for dismissal, and three for his retention. There were seven blanks cast.

According to previous announcements, the meeting was called for the purpose of discussing the future policy of the church, bearing on the question of whether the social and athletic activities are to be carried on as extensively as they are at present, or whether they are to be made subservient to the work of the church proper.

The meeting resolved itself into a discussion of the dismissal of the pastor. The vote it is said did not represent the sentiment of the full church body for the reason that there are at least 125 accredited members of the parish, and that our of this number only 36 were present. Of the 36 who attended, it was pointed out that the majority was entirely out of sympathy with the pastor. Members of this majority, it is said, were the instigators in the removal proceedings that were first brought to light as a result of a meeting a week ago. It

(Continued on Page 2.) Continue reading →

Some New Bedford Unitarians in 1838: Abolitionists and anti-slavery activists

Among the original pewholders of the 1838 church building of First Congregational Society of New Bedford (now First Unitarian Church), there were those who actively opposed slavery through word and deed, but there were also those who did not support the anti-slavery movement. Here are some capsule biographies of some of the pewholders in 1838, with comments on the extent to which they opposed slavery:

Benjamin Lindsey (pew 12): Lindsey was a printer and publisher. He published and wrote for the New Bedford Mercury, a daily newspaper. By the 1830s, Lindsey was not supporting abolition in the columns of the Mercury, because he thought abolitionism was too revolutionary and would lead to chaos. Yet he also was willing to print anti-slavery books; in 1847 he published The Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black, a Fugitive from Slavery, Written by Himself, a fugitive slave narrative.

Joseph Grinnell (pew 44) served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843 to 1851. New Bedford Abolitionists grew angry with Grinnell in 1850; Grinnell was absent when a vote came up on the Fugitive Slave Law. One New Bedford abolitionist wrote, “I am ashamed of him…. When the most important bill of the whole session was up for consideration, and he knew it, he was not in his place, but at the Treasury Department….” (Grover, p. 218). Grinnell had been one of the original investors in the Wamsutta Mill in 1846, which manufactured cotton cloth; we can imagine that he was perhaps torn between a desire to represent New Bedford’s opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law on the one hand, and his interest in maintaining a supply of cotton on the other hand.

James Arnold and his wife Sarah Arnold (pew 66) were some of the many New Bedford Quakers who had become Unitarians in the 1820s. The Arnolds became very wealthy, and as time went on turned their attention to philanthropy. During the 1850s, our church supported Rev. Moses Thomas as a minister-at-large to work with the city’s poor people; when the church withdrew its support of Thomas c. 1859, the Arnolds came forward and employed him full-time to carry out their philanthropic work; Thomas worked for them until he retired.

While it is documented that the Arnolds opposed slavery, their main social justice interests were elsewhere. Most importantly, they were concerned with alleviating the effects of poverty; they also engaged in other philanthropic ventures such as endowing the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. Even if anti-slavery work was not a priority for them, it is hard to hold this against them given the extent of their anti-poverty work.

Charles W. Morgan (pew 68) is best known today for the whaling ship that bears his name, now at the Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut. Morgan was a prominent ship owner and merchant who owned an oil refinery and candleworks on South Water St.; his house stood on County St. at the head of William St., where the headquarters of the New Bedford Public Schools now stands. He was another of the liberal Quakers who became a Unitarian in the 1820s.

Morgan was also an anti-slavery activist, although it is not clear how active he was. According to historian Kathryn Grover, Nathan Johnson may have come to New Bedford with Morgan. It is not clear whether Johnson was a fugitive slave when he came to New Bedford, but if he was then Morgan was active in the Underground Railroad. Nathan Johnson and his wife Polly Johnson later became prominent African American citizens of New Bedford and conductors on the Underground Railroad — Frederick Douglass spent his first night of freedom in their house — and Nathan Johnson became a member of the Universalist church in New Bedford.

Andrew Robeson (pew 43) was a ship owner, and a merchant with business interests in New Bedford, Fall River, and Boston. He was involved both with the whaling industry and the textile industry, with a whale oil refinery on Ray St. in New Bedford, and a printing plant in Fall River for printing designs on calico fabric. Robeson’s house now stands on William St., across from the National Park Service headquarters.

Robeson was a strong abolitionist. It was Robeson who nominated one Mr. Borden, an African American man, for membership in the New Bedford Lyceum in 1845. The Lyceum sponsored a popular lecture series, bringing such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson to New Bedford to speak. The Lyceum members, who were all white, refused to admit Mr. Borden into membership on a close vote. Ralph Waldo Emerson then refused to speak at the Lyceum, while the New Bedford abolitionists left the Lyceum to form a competing lecture series. The resulting controversy got national attention for the rights of African Americans to participate freely in society.

In his Life and Times, Frederick Douglass mentions Robeson, alongside such prominent abolitionists as Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker, as one of those “friends, earnest, courageous, inflexible, ready to own me as a man and brother, against all the scorn, contempt, and derision of a slavery-polluted atmosphere…”

Loum Snow (pew 47) was an agent for whaling ships, a mill owner in Falmouth and Middleboro, director of the Mechanics’ National Bank, trustee of the New Bedford Institution for Savings, and director of the United Mutual Marine Insurance Company.

Snow was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. There are at least two documented instances of Snow helping African Americans escape from slavery. In 1850, Snow arranged for Isabella White, then a slave, to be shipped to New Bedford in a barrel labeled “sweet potatoes.” Then in 1859, William Carney, who had escaped slavery in Virginia and come to New Bedford, went to Snow seeking help to purchase the freedom of his wife, Nancy Carney. (Carney later went on to become the first African American to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his heroism during the Union attack on Fort Wagner during the Civil War.)

Snow’s Italianate house still stands on County St., on the north side of Morgan St., just a block or so from the church. Since this is the house where Isabella White arrived, it is one of those rare places that is documented as a station on the Underground Railroad.

Joseph Ricketson (pew 30) refined oil and had other interests in the whaling industry. He is best known today for helping Frederick Douglass on the path to freedom. Douglass tells the story this way in his Narrative:

“[U]pon our arrival at Newport, we were so anxious to get to a place of safety, that, notwithstanding we lacked the necessary money to pay our fare, we decided to take seats in the stage, and promise to pay when we got to New Bedford. We were encouraged to do this by two excellent gentlemen, residents of New Bedford, whose names I afterward ascertained to be Joseph Ricketson and William C. Taber. They seemed at once to understand our circumstances, and gave us such assurance of their friendliness as put us fully at ease in their presence. It was good indeed to meet with such friends, at such a time.”

Later, when he wrote his Life and Times, he added a few details:

“We arrived at Newport the next morning, and soon after an old-fashioned stage-coach with ‘New Bedford’ in large, yellow letters on its sides, came down to the wharf. I had not money enough to pay our fare, and stood hesitating to know what to do. Fortunately for us, there were two Quaker gentlemen who were about to take passage on the stage — Friends William C. Taber and Joseph Ricketson, — who at once discerned our true situation, and in a peculiarly quiet way, addressing me, Mr. Taber said: ‘Thee get in.’ I never obeyed an order with more alacrity, and we were soon on our way to our new home.”

(Ricketson was another of the Quakers who became Unitarians in the 1820s, and retained his Quaker dress and speech throughout his life, so it is not surprising that Douglass mistook him for a Quaker.) Some historians believe that Ricketson and Taber had been sent on purpose to Newport to meet Douglass; in any case, Ricketson had no compunction about serving as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Conclusion

Because of the range of opinions on slavery, we cannot say that First Unitarian Church was an abolitionist church in 1838. By contrast, the Universalist Church in New Bedford voted to support abolition, and had African American members, at about the same time. Yet we can also see that First Unitarian moved towards an anti-slavery position over the course of the mid-nineteenth century.

We can see the movement towards an anti-slavery position most clearly in the church’s choice of ministers. In the 1820s, Rev. Orville Dewey did not take a stand against slavery, or for equality for African Americans; after he left our church, he became one of the Unitarian ministers whom abolitionists did not like at all. By 1837, when our current building was built, the church moved towards an anti-slavery position when it called Rev. Ephraim Peabody, who, while not a radical abolitionist, opposed slavery. (Peabody’s wife, Mary Jane Derby Peabody, is famous for being the one who paid Frederick Douglass his first wages as a free man.) And by 1847 the church was ready to call Rev. John Weiss, then well-known as a staunch abolitionist. While not everyone in the congregation agreed with Weiss’s abolitionist views, the congregation (including those who invested in textile mills) gave him perfect freedom to continue his abolitionist activities and state his abolitionist views throughout his eleven-year ministry here.

Update: Added Joseph Ricketson 29 January 2009.