<\/p>\n
Because it is of vital importance to an understanding of the early history of Maine, I want tonight to share with you a bit more of Parson Smith’s diary, the journal kept by Portland’s first minister from 1725 to 1786.<\/p>\n
One of the great events of the first half of the 18th century in Portland was the coming of the celebrated British evangelist, George Whitefield. He is the man about whom Benjamin Franklin wrote so lavishly in the Autobiography. Franklin, out of curiosity, went to hear Whitefield preach to a big crowd in an open field in Philadelphia. Franklin avowed beforehand that no spieling evangelist could move him, especially when the collection was taken. But so dynamic was Whitefield’s preaching, Franklin found himself divested not only of the copper coins he had grudgingly decided to donate, but actually of all the silver coins in his pocket as well. Franklin said he never heard a speaker of such magnetic power as George Whitefield.<\/p>\n
That is the man who came to old Falmouth, now Portland, in 1745. He had first come to the colonies in 1738 to take charge of regular services for the Church of England in Georgia. He was then only twenty years old. Returning soon to England. he became imbued with Wesleyan theology. Coming again to America. he visited Philadelphia and New York. where he preached to huge crowds. producing hitherto unheard of religious enthusiasm. His farewell sermon in New York was preached out-of-doors to 10,000 people. He preached the Wesleyan doctrine of justification by faith, the necessity of a new birth.<\/p>\n
Whitefield first came to Boston in 1740 and preached in other New England towns, but did not at that time come to Portland. In Boston his services were usually held on the Common. People hung round the windows and doors to catch his inspiring eloquence. Many who heard him broke into shouts and agonized pleas for God’s mercy. Some rolled on the ground; many fainted.<\/p>\n
That kind of behavior did not meet with the approval of the established clergy of Boston — the ministers of the orthodox Congregational Church, which at the time exercised both religious and political control in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
Dr. Chauncey of Boston’s famous First Church, as well as other clergymen and leading laymen, protested loudly against the disorder induced by Whitefield’s preaching. A convention of New England clergy, held in 1743, praised the spirit of religious revival, but deplored the extravagant actions at Whitefield’s meetings. The real reason for their attacks on the evangelist became apparent when they accused him of preaching within the parish of local ministers without the local man’s consent.<\/p>\n
A member of that 1743 convention, held in Boston, was Parson Smith of Falmouth. He supported Whitefield and wanted to bring him to Falmouth for a series of services. In the fall of 1744 Whitefield came into the District of Maine, holding services at York. Parson Smith went thither to urge the evangelist to come to Portland, but found him ill and unable to move. Two days later Smith was waited on by one of his prominent parishoners, James Pearson, who advised strongly that Whitefield not be invited to Portland. Smith wrote in his diary: “The parish is likely to be in a flame on account of Whitefield’s coming, the leading men violently opposing.” The following weeks showed numerous diary entries on the subject revealing Parson Smith’s determination to bring the man to Portland:<\/p>\n
“November 2, 1744 — I am much about with the people, to quiet them with respect to Mr. Whitefield.<\/p>\n
“January 24, 1745 — Great and violent clamors everywhere against Mr.Whitefield.<\/p>\n
“February 13 — Minister’s meeting concerning Mr. Whitefield, much uneasiness.<\/p>\n
“February 19 — We hear Mr. Whitefield was today at Biddeford and has now got as far as Dunistan.<\/p>\n
“February 20 — Whitefield preached at Dunistan today.<\/p>\n
“February 21 — Whitefield preached in the morning at Biddeford, and in the afternoon in Scarborough.<\/p>\n
“February 22 Whitefield, West and Rogers lodged at my house.<\/p>\n
“February 23 Whitefield preached in my pulpit. Multitudes flooded in from Purpoodock and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
“February 26 — I have been in great concern about Whitefield’s coming among us. There has been violent opposition among the leading men and much pains taken to prejudice the people against him. But now the wonderful providence of God is to be observed. All is well, and the people’s response is glorious.”<\/p>\n
Three months after the evangelist had left Portland, Parson Smith committed to his diary this comment: “For several Sabbaths I have been in a blaze. Never have I felt in such a flame, quite involuntary and beyond my control. I went to meeting, resolved to be calm and moderate, lest people should think it was wildness and affectation to ape Mr. Whitefield. But God makes what use of me he pleases, and I am only a machine in his hands.”<\/p>\n
Did you know that a Maine minister was once hanged for witchcraft? He was executed in Massachusetts, for in fact no execution for witchcraft ever took place in Maine, but much of his preaching had been done within what is now our state. The man had in fact preceded Parson Smith at Falmouth by fully half a century. He did not become a regular minister in the Maine town, but he did hold services there for some time. Samuel Burroughs had graduated from Harvard in 1670, and was preaching at Falmouth when it was burned by the Indians in 1676. He escaped to an island in the bay.<\/p>\n
After peace was made with the Indians, Burroughs resumed his preaching at Danvers, but in 1683 was back again in Falmouth. The town granted him 200 acres which extended across the peninsula near the present site of Portland’s High Street. Burroughs also received from the town seven acres near where stands the present Portland City Hall, and there the community built him a house. He exchanged it for a house near the fort, a more central point in the village. In 1692 Burroughs fell a victim to the fanaticism that swept New England, beginning at Salem. He was then again at Danvers, not far from Salem village. He was accused of witchcraft, tried at Salem, and hanged on the old Salem gallows in October, 1692.<\/p>\n
The constant menace from Indians reached a climax in Portland in the summer of 1746. Let us see how Parson Smith recorded it: “June 17. 1746 — I was at New Casco at the funeral of Mr. Joseph Sweat, who yesterday was killed by the Indians at North Yarmouth. Merriconey was attacked, we think, this morning, there being continued firing there and from thence to North Yarmouth.” (Merriconey was the early name for Harpswell.)<\/p>\n
“August 2 – The Indians came upon Mr. Proctor’s folks and killed several of them.<\/p>\n
“August 9 — Philip Greeley killed. Twenty-eight Indians seen in a band by Mr. Wier.<\/p>\n
“August 26 — This afternoon Mr. Stubbs and a soldier with him were killed by Indians behind his house. It is thought they were the same Indians that killed Greeley.<\/p>\n
“October 5 — Our people are very much alarmed. Town meeting held about sending away the records. People remember the disaster of 1676, when the whole village was burned. I had concluded to send my family to Harwich on Cape Cod, but my wife negatived it.<\/p>\n
“October 16 – Our fear of the Indians is now no greater than our fear of the French fleet. We hear it is at Halifax and that Annapolis Royal is besieged.<\/p>\n
“October 25 — Good news has reached us. A storm has cast two French transports ashore on the Isle of Shoals, and the plague has broken out among sailors throughout the fleet. The fleet has now broken up and the ships are returning singly to France.”<\/p>\n
Parson Smith and his parishoners thus looked forward to a winter free from Indian scares, but it was not to be. On February 20, 1747 he wrote: “We have melancholy news from Merriconey (Harpswell) that an army of 600 French and Indians in the night surprised the garrison and killed 69, took fifty prisoners and seized two ships that had our ammunition.<\/p>\n
“April 13, 1747 The Indians were discovered and killed a young man, one Dresser of Scarborough.<\/p>\n
“April 19 (Sunday) — Very thin meeting, people fearing to come, because Sunday is often the day when the Indians first do mischief. But there was no attack today.<\/p>\n
“April 21 – The Indians killed Mr. Foster and carried away his wife and six children.<\/p>\n
“April 22 – We are all alarmed again. In the evening Stephen Bailey was fired upon by seven Indians at Cape Elizabeth.<\/p>\n
“April 23 — We are in most disturbed circumstances. Swarms of Indians are about the frontier and there are no soldiers save Captain Jorden’s Company of fifty men, thirty of whom have been for some time at Topsham guarding the government timber.<\/p>\n
“April 24 – The Indians are spread all over the frontier from Topsham to Wells.<\/p>\n
“April 26 – At Pemaquid the Indians killed our Mr. John and Joseph Cox, also Vincent, Smith and Weston of Purpoodock, and five men of the fort. All others were taken prisoner and marched off to Canada except a young lad and Mr. Lovell, who was severely wounded.”<\/p>\n
Several times, from the diary, we have mentioned a place called Purpoodock. That was the ancient name given to the northern shore of Cape Elizabeth, after first being applied more narrowly to the point of land on that cape called Spring Point.<\/p>\n
“May 20 — The Indians killed one Eaton at North Yarmouth and burned all the houses east of Wier’s. A hundred of the savages waylaid the whole road to New Casco.” (New Casco, by the way, was the modern Falmouth, just as the old Falmouth was the modern Portland.)<\/p>\n
The threatened attack on Portland did not come. Perhaps the garrison was too strong. Anyhow, the Indians left it alone, and by autumn had signed a new treaty of peace. But in 1750 the alarm was spread again: “August 31 — The Penobscots are in arms to the number of two hundred, and sixty Canada Indians have come to join them. Families are moving away from our town.<\/p>\n
“September 8 — Alarm in the night at the tower on Munjoy Hill was occasioned by an express from Richmond that an Indian had told the people there that in 48 hours the Indians would break upon us at Falmouth.<\/p>\n
“September 10 — We hear that on Saturday all Kennebec was in a blaze, a constant firing of guns. People are universally leaving their houses and moving to the garrison.<\/p>\n
“September 13 — We have news from Wiscasset that the Indians killed a man and a boy there today, and that a great fire was seen in Sheepscot like the burning of houses, and that people heard the alarm as far away as Pemaquid.<\/p>\n
“September 26 — Indians are discovered almost every day in back parts of the town.”<\/p>\n
But once again the danger subsided, and not until March, 1754, a few months before the building of Fort Western and Fort Halifax, did Parson Smith refer again to Indian dangers: “March 19 — We are raising six companies of soldiers to cover the eastern frontiers, the Indians having lately appeared surly and threatening at Richmond. The new settlement of the Plymouth Patent is the provocation.<\/p>\n
“June 29 — The government met yesterday with the Norridgewock Indians and proposed to them the building of the Fort at Ticonic. The Indians refused.<\/p>\n
“June 30 — The government determined to build forts at Cushnoc and Ticonic notwithstanding the Indian protests.”<\/p>\n
On July 2 a treaty was signed with the Norridgewocks and on July 6 one with the Penobscots, both tribes consenting to the erection of Fort Western and Fort Halifax.<\/p>\n
Year: 1959<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #438, Broadcast on December 13, 1959<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[800,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}