Dr. George Bartlett, John Phillips, and Honorable Peter Chardon Brooks, the grandfather of William Everett.

The circumstances attendant upon the death of Judge Gorham are given in the following letter, written by Commissary Devens to his minister, Doctor Morse, who was absent at the time on a journey in the State of New York:

The day after you left us was held our monthly evening lecture. The Honorable Mr. Gorham was present, and had seemed for some days past in better than usual health. Returning home through his garden (the nearest way from the church) with Mrs. Gorham and his daughter, Mrs. Bartlett, he told them he found difficulty in speaking. "You are notional," replied Mrs. Gorham, with her usual pleasantness. When he got into his home his face was pale, and perceiving that they noticed it, he said, "You are frightened now." Medical aid was promptly procured; but in vain. A paralysis took place, apoplexy followed, and on Saturday he left us.

At the funeral (the largest ever known in Charlestown) the flags were at half-mast. The sermon by Doctor Thatcher, and the eulogy by Thomas Welch, M.D., were printed at the expense of the town and a copy given to each family within its limits.

JANUARY 10, 1891.

XLVIII

A Famous Controversialist

Dr. Jedidiah Morse His Ministry in Charlestown

His

Sons - The Great Invention which made S. F. B. Morse
Famous.

T

HE old church which stood on the Town Hill, and which was referred to in the previous section, was erected in 1783. On the 27th of October, 1782, the town made a grant of the Town Hill to the First Parish for the sole purpose of erecting thereon a house for the public worship of God, provided the said house be erected within the space of five years, otherwise the grant was to be void. The church was built, as we have said, in 1783, and opened for use, but had only temporary seats and an unfinished steeple until 1787.

Up to that time there had been no regularly settled minister, but in January, 1787, Rev. Joshua Paine, Jr., a son of Rev. Joshua Paine, of Sturbridge, was ordained and settled over the society. He was a graduate of Harvard College, a very promising young man; but his health failed, and in February, 1788, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he died, sincerely lamented by all who ever knew him.

On the 20th of November, 1788, a letter signed by Richard Carey, Nathaniel Gorham, John Larkin, and Thomas Miller in behalf of the church was sent to Rev.

Jedidiah Morse, who had preached two Sabbaths in the same month as a candidate, giving him a call to settle in the work of the gospel ministry among them. On the 24th of November the parish held a meeting, presided over by James Russell, Esq., and voted unanimously to concur with the church in the choice of Rev. Jedidiah Morse to be pastor of this church and congregation. They fixed his salary at eleven dollars a week. He was to have firewood sufficient for his study until married, and when married was to be furnished with a dwellinghouse and barn, and twenty cords of wood annually. These terms seem to have been entirely satisfactory to him, for in his reply he says: "The unanimity, the affection, and the generosity manifested in the call induce me and my friends to believe that it is the call of God, and that Providence is by this means pointing to Charlestown as the scene of my future ministerial labors"; and before his installation he relinquished, in a letter sent to the society, one dollar per week of the cash payment. His acceptance of the call was with the understanding that his duties should not commence until the close of the winter or the beginning of the next spring.

Jedidiah Morse was a graduate of Yale College in 1783, and was for some time a tutor there. He was licensed to preach in September, 1785, and before coming to Charlestown had been settled in Norwich, Connecticut, for a year or two, and had occupied the pulpit of a church in Midway, Georgia, for something less than a year, and that of a Presbyterian church in New York for about the same length of time. He arrived in Charlestown, April 9, and his installation took place April 30, 1789-the same day and at the same

hour that Washington was inaugurated President of the United States. The Rev. Dr. Jeremy Belknap preached the sermon on the occasion. On the 14th of May, Rev. Mr. Morse was married, in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, to Miss Elizabeth Ann Breese, daughter of Samuel Breese of that place, and of Rebecca Finley, daughter of Rev. Dr. Samuel Finley, president of New Jersey College.

The condition of things at the time the reverend gentleman commenced his ministry here may be judged by the following, copied from Doctor Sprague's life of Doctor Morse:

Every circumstance attending Rev. Mr. Morse's settlement in Charlestown seemed to give promise of a happy ministry. The people composing the parish of which he took charge, though generally of the middle and plainer class, were capable of appreciating the excellent qualities of their new pastor; while there were among them several distinguished for high intellectual culture, the finest moral and religious qualities, and a widely extended and most benign influence. He had just formed a matrimonial connection which was full of promise, not only to himself, but to his congregation; for the lady who had become his wife possessed those attractive, generous, noble qualities which could not but render her a favorite wherever she was known. He had his home at first with his excellent friend, Richard Carey, a man of great worth and of high consideration in the community; and in due time a parsonage was provided for him, contiguous to the meeting-house, which commanded a fine view of Boston, Charles River, the harbor and islands, and much of the surrounding country. He was also within three miles of Harvard College, the oldest literary institution in the land, and he very early came into intimate relations with its president and several of its professors.

The whole atmosphere around him

was eminently intellectual; the most cultivated society in Boston was always accessible to him; and the ministers of the Boston Association, to which he belonged, received him with great cordiality, and he in turn gratefully reciprocated their expressions of good will.

In less than a year after Rev. Mr. Morse was installed, Richard Carey, who had warmly welcomed him to his new pastorate and kindly taken him with his wife to his home, had breathed his last. He died February, 1790. Mr. Morse was absent at the time on a journey, and on his return he preached a funeral sermon in which he paid a warm and grateful tribute to the memory of his friend. The sermon was printed, and was the first printed sermon of its author.

On the 27th of April, 1791, his eldest son was born, and to him was given the full name of his grandfather and the family name of his grandmother, Samuel Finley Breese Morse. On the front of the old mansion, known as the Edes House, on Main Street, a little way from the Harvard Church, is a marble tablet with this inscription:

HERE WAS BORN 27th APRIL 1791

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE

INVENTOR OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH

At the time of this birth Doctor Morse and his wife were living in this house with Thomas Edes, the ancestor of Mr. Henry H. Edes, from whose chapter entitled "Charlestown in the Last Hundred Years," published in the Memorial History of Boston, edited by Justin Winsor, we quote the following. Speaking of the old mansion, the oldest perhaps now standing in Charlestown, he says: