HISTORICAL NOTE

This is the first of what is anticipated to be donations at regular intervals of the records of a active Congregational Church. They cover from its founding in 1825 to 1957. These were its rural years, when most of its members were substantial farmers. The records which cover its suburbanization have not yet been given to the Historical Society.

The West Parrish was set off from South Parrish in 1826. There had been complaints about excessive distance to travel since before the Revolution but it was only the general revival of Orthodox Calvinism under the influence of Andover Theological Seminary, which made South Meetinghouse intolerably crowded. In the usual scheme of Established  Congregationalism, proprietors of the to-be-established parish petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to allow them to set up a tax-supported parish. Not waiting for the legislative sanction, they laid the cornerstone of their meetinghouse June 15, 1826 and then organized formally in December. Their first minister, Samuel Cram Jackson, was installed in December 1827.

The West Parish, as a tax-supported institution, was in some sense an organ of government. Its treasurer controlled parish affairs, receiving town monies and also raising money by selling pews in the meetinghouse. All inhabitants of the geographical area, the West Parish had to pay taxes, whether they agreed with the theological position of the minister or not. This parish, like town government, had no female members because under the laws of Massachusetts females could not enter into legal contracts. 

Separate from the West Parish was the West Church. This was the company of the faithful, led by the deacons. It was they to whom the minister was directly responsible, although he was chosen by the majority of both the parish and the church. The church often had a majority of female members. Its concerns were worship and teaching and its membership was strictly controlled. Members were admitted by examination or by letter from some other Orthodox Congregational Church. Excommunication was its ultimate weapon. Under its aegis were the Sunday School and the all voluntary missionary societies. It had its own treasurer.

In 1833, Massachusetts law was changed. Parishes were no longer supported by taxation and membership in a Congregational Church became voluntary. However, women were still unable to enter into contracts, so most Congregational parishes, including this one, changed the Parish to a Society and continued much as before, although funding was now voluntary. In the 1870’s the law concerning the status of women was abolished and most Congregational Churches combined Society and Church, usually under the name of the Church. West Parish, Andover held out until 1966, one of the last in the state. 

It is possible to get a misleading picture of the dynamics of a Congregational  parish by concentrating on the ministers. The real power and continuity were with the deacons, laymen who served twenty, thirty, forty years and passed the office down to their sons. For example, Solomon Holt Senior and Junior served from 1826 to 1883: Peter Smith from 1832 to 1880 his son Peter Dove Smith from 1881 to 1911. It was they who hired the ministers, controlled the finances and the membership and set the tone of the parish. 

Nevertheless, the ministers were dynamic and educated spokesmen of the Congregational churches and by looking at the length of service and the institutions that flourished under their aegis one can get a good picture of the relative liveliness of any parish. Under the first minister, Samuel Cram Jackson, who held office from 1827 to 1850, the pace was rapid. This was the period of evangelical fervor and the West Parish, with its Sunday School, Juvenile Missionary Society, Singing Society, Seaman’s Friend Society and Temperance Society was deeply involved in all the popular causes of the day. Yet it was in trouble by the 1840’s and on one of the concerns of the day, it almost floundered. Some of the most fervent members, led by Scottish John Smith, who felt that West Parish was lukewarm on abolitionism, broke off in 1846 to form the Free Church. (He left his brother Peter behind). Also at this time other Protestant churches such as the Baptist and the Episcopal were formed in Andover, which meant that everyone who lived in West Parish no longer automatically joined the church. It also lost would-be parishioners when Lawrence was formed in 1847. Jackson left in 1850 and settled in South Parish. He never held another pulpit, but devoted his services to founding Abbott Academy and to working for the cause of compulsory public education in the state as assistant to Horace Mann. 

Jackson’s second successor, James Hervey Merrill, had a long pastorate, 1856-1879 which spanned the Civil War/ It was during his tenure that the meetinghouse was remodeled and the present spire built. He continued Jackson’s institutions, but by the end of his years in office they were beginning to run down. Following him were a succession of men who stayed only three or four years, many graduates of the Theological Seminary or older men who were infirm. The most distinguished was John Edgar Park, minister 1904-1907, who went from Andover to West Newton and then to the presidency of Wheaton College. From 1913 to 1938, at a time when the parish was in great difficulties, Newman Matthews was pastor. During his tenure William Wood swooped down and transformed Frye Village, a farm hamlet, into Shawsheen Village, an enclave for executives of the American Woolen Company, which then withdrew from Andover at the end of World War I. The agricultural tenor of West Parish was disturbed by this and also by the Great Depression. At the same time church polity and theology were changing. The Congregational “Way” became denomination with a structure; the rigid Calvinism of the founders soften. 

Matthews retired in 1938, leaving a quiescent parish, but the post-World War II suburbanization of Andover and the electronics industry jolted it awake. Hundreds of new members joined the church and have now given it the reputation of being very dynamic and experimental. It joined the United Church of Christ, not by unanimous vote, but without a great deal of fiction. The struggle to merge Church and Society and then incorporate as the West Parish Church in 1966 was harder fought, but it too passed. Since 1973 the church has been experimenting with a team ministry and with a quite radical approach to Christian community.

Basically a parish of quiet, prosperous, substantial farmers and shoemakers, the people of West Parish did not change greatly until after World War II, when Andover lost its agricultural orientation. The records here preserved deal only with its former manifestation. They end for the most part about 1951 at the time of the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary. 

The history of West Parish Church has been well covered in the Historical Manual, 1826-1926, written for the centenary of the parish and West of the Shawsheen by Eleanor Campbell, published in 1975. 

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE 

The records have been divided into twenty sections, called Sub-groups. Nineteen of these contain written records, the twentieth has a few photographs. The records consists chiefly of minutes of meetings and account books. There is very little correspondence, only a few private letters and letters of acceptance and resignation from the pastorate. The important running records seem all to be present. Of particular interest for social historians are the very full records of the Juvenile Missionary Society and the Seaman’s Friend Society which document mid-nineteenth century attitudes towards children and women as well as with foreign and domestic missions. 

The first section contains records of the South Parish, West Meetinghouse, before the West Parish was organized. It includes records of debates, reports of the committee to build the meetinghouse and the program of exercises at the laying of the cornerstone. 

The second section contains records of the Church, largely membership records of admissions, dismissals, baptisms and marriages from 1826 to 1957. This includes nineteenth century records of church discipline. The most severe penalty was excommunication, but there were many steps leading up to it. The third section contains Parish and Society records, kept by parish clerk and parish treasurer. There are also records concerning the pews, which were brought and sold, and of renovations and repairs to the meetinghouse between 1843 and 1896. The Parish was also concerned with real estate and buildings other than the meetinghouse. The first minister built his own house on donated land and sold it to his successor but from 1855 to the present the Parish has owned the parsonage. Also of concern were the horse sheds, a necessary adjunct to the meeting house in the days before the automobile. (The Parish also took over the running of the West Parish Cemetery, in use since 1692. These records have been placed in sub-group XVIII). 

The Church, as opposed to the Parish, offered many educational and social service and educational opportunities to its members. Running records of some of these have been preserved. The Sunday School was founded in 1827, but its few records date only from 1878 to 1904. Fuller and more interesting are the records of the Juvenile Missionary Society, which existed from 1830 to 1913. This was made up primarily of young girls who met every two weeks to discuss missions and to do handwork to sell to support them. From the beginning, they humanized the efforts by “adopting” heathen children, in 1831 an Ojibway Indian whom they named Samuel Cram Jackson after their pastor. A letter by Samuel and his missionary teacher, William T. Boutwell, written to the Andover children has survived. Also surviving are books of questions and answers about missions by the Theological Seminary students who were their teachers and all the secretary’s records from 1830 to 1913. The ladies of the parish were heavily involved in good works. The Seaman’s Friend Society evolved out of the Sewing Circle in 1837 and lasted 10 1930. Despite its name, it was involved in many parish activities, such as furnishing the vestry in 1928. Secretary’s minutes from 1845 to 1930 have been preserved. For much of its existence it was technically bisexual, as was the Auxiliary Temperance Society. An undated Constitution, probably from the 1840’s members’ signatures survives from the Temperance Society. In 1855 the ladies, anxious to have their own building for meetings instead of the school house, published one issue of a newspaper, The Vestry Advocate. The Ladies Aid Society was formed by younger members of the church about 1900, who found the Seaman’s Friends to exclusive. The two groups merged in 1930 into the Women’s Union, but there are no records here at the Society of the new organization. The earliest society of young people in the church was the West Parish Singing Society. Founded in 1827, it lasted to1881 when it became simply the choir. Its constitution and minutes for the entire period have survived. A few programs from the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor from about 1905 have been preserved. 

Following the records of societies is the twelfth Sub-groups: records of individual ministers. These should, of course, be supplemented by the official records of Church and Parish and also by the historical accounts. There is more material on Samuel Cram Jackson than any of his successors. His material includes his letter of acceptance, a pledge by members of the church to guarantee his salary and a printed copy of his first sermon.  The Charge to the Minister and People at his installation, given by his father, Rev. William Jackson of Dorset, Vermont, has been preserved. There is also material on Jackson’s children, for when he left West Parish he simply mover across town. There is a life of his son, Samuel Charles Jackson, who died tragically young of tuberculosis, written by hid daughter Susan E. Jackson. (She also left a lively account of parish life during her father’s tenure that is in Sub-group XVI.) Material for the other ministers consists almost entirely of correspondence and service leaflets concerning their call and dismissal, resolutions and obituary notices. There is very material on Merrill, but again, a long-lived daughter wrote an historical account which has been placed in Sub-group XVI. The fullest file is that of John Edgar Parks, minister 1904 to 1907. Newman Matthews, minister 1913 to 1938, gave the book which records sermons funerals and other services which he performed for the parish beginning in 1918. There are only a few scraps of material from ministers since him. 

Following the material on ministers are official publications and resolutions. These include manuals with membership lists from 1829, 1883, 1901 and 1926. 

The fourteen Sub-groups contains material from various anniversary celebrations on the parish: the fiftieth, seventy-fifth, one hundredth and one hundred twenty-fifth. The 1926, centenary celebrations was by far the most elaborate. Preserved are copies of addresses, clippings from newspapers and a quest book. The fifteenth Sub-group contains printed material from other special occasions such as the dedication of the World War I service flag and laying the cornerstone of a new vestry. 

Sub-group XVI contains various old ladies of the parish, piously recorded and preserved. They include memoirs of Susan E. Jackson, first minister’s daughter. There are notes made from the records on historical subjects and a list of those who signed a friendship quilt presented to Mrs. Jackson in 1846, in Sub-group XVII. 

The eighteenth Sub-group contains the records of ten West Parish Cemetery. This long antedates the Parish. It was founded about 1692 and the earliest gravestone dates from 1707. The new West Parish took it over shortly after 1826, but the list of lot owners in these records starts in 1849. Among these records, however, is a copy of the beginning of the effort to record all the burials in the cemetery. Section One was completed in 1973. With these cemetery records are some blueprints of the monumental gateway and elaborate mortuary chapel built in 1908 by William Wood, the philanthropist who founder of Shawsheen Village. He turned what had been a small rural burying ground into an elaborate garden cemetery. 

There are few items by other Andover institutions and by individuals seemingly unrelated to West Parish Church. These include a funeral sermon for Agnes, wife of John Smith, the brother who seceded from West Parish, preached by the minister of the Free Church in 1852. The secretary of St. Matthew’s Lodge of Masons wrote to the parish in 1937 saying that its members helped to lay the cornerstone of the meeting house in 1826. Andover gave its name to an association of Congregational ministers from the vicinity. This association merged with the Andover Conference of Churches which included lay members. On occasion these groups met at West Parish Church and programs of meetings between 1862 and 1929 have been preserved. In 1863, Rev. Henry Wallace Ballard, killed at Gettysburg, which was printed and saved. Ballard is an Andover family name but this man seems not to have been a member of the church. Last, there is a receipt from an undertaker in Lawrence for the funeral of Nathan Moore, 1887. 

Sub-group XX. Consists of three photographs. 

Founded in a period of evangelical fervor, West Parish was a rural church until after World War II. For most of its history it was deeply conservative. The records which record this country, conservative phase are now at the Andover Historical Society. 
 

Sub-group I.   South Parrish. West Meeting House 

Sub-group II. West Parish Church. Church Records. 

Sub-group III. Parish and Society 

Sub-group IV. Sunday School 

Sub-group V. Juvenile Missionary Society 

Sub-group VI. Seaman’s Friend Society 

Sub-group VII. Auxiliary Temperance Society/Cold Water Army 

Sub-group VIII. Ladies Vestry Society 

Sub-group IX. Ladies Aid Society 

Sub-group X. Andover West Parish Singing Society 

Sub-group XI. [Young People’s] Society of Christian Endeavor 

Sub-group XII. Ministers

Sub-group XIII. Publications and Resolutions

Sub-group XIV. Anniversary Celebrations 

Sub-group XV. Announcements of Other Parish Ceremonies 

Sub-group XVI. Reminiscences 

Sub-group XVII. Transcripts and Notes

Sub-group XVIII. West Parish Cemetery 

Sub-group XIX. Unrelated Institutions and Individuals 

Sub-group XX. Photographs 

Processed by Mary F. Morgan, January 1983.