Parson Noble G
Parson Noble
G. O. Bent
As soon as the first English-speaking settlers on the St. John River, at
Maugerville, had established themselves, they followed their New England
custom and organized a church. For ten years they had no settled minister, but
by 1774, finding themselves numerous enough and prosperous enough to support a
regular minister, they extended a call in June of that year to Mr. Seth Noble
to settle in the work of the ministry among them.
Seth Noble, who received this call from the River St. John, was a native of
Westfield, Massachusetts, a descendant of a Thomas Noble who came to the
Massachusetts Colony about 1653 and settled at Westfield.1 The house where he
was born, April 15, 1743, built by his grandfather, Deacon Thomas Noble, in
1727, upon land originally granted the emigrant ancestor, is still standing at
Westfield, though not in possession of the Noble family for upwards of a
century. With its plastered front, fourteen inch square hewn timbers, paneled
partitions, wide boards, huge fireplaces, and chimney twelve feet or more
square, the ancient mansion, now somewhat dilapidated, is an interesting relic
of "the old Colonial day."
Seth Noble's relative, the Reverend Oliver Noble, was contemporary minister at
Newbury, Mass., where Seth, as his letters show, was well acquainted. Newbury
and Newburyport (anciently the port of "Ould Newbury," set off as a separate
town in 1764) were parts of the old home territory of most of the earliest St.
John River settlers. There they traded and got supplies, and there they appear
to have turned for a supply of the gospel.
Seth Noble joined the Congregational Church at Westfield in 1770, but when or
where he was ever ordained to the ministry does not appear to be known. Dr. J.
G. Holland, in his "History of Western Massachusetts," published in 1855,
refers to him as "not a liberally educated man, but he was a divine of a good
degree of talent, and some not unpleasant peculiarities."
The terms offered Seth Noble by the St. John River settlers were liberal for
those days. They were promptly accepted. He was duly installed in his first
charge as minister of the Congregational Church at Maugerville — first
Protestant church and minister of the St. John River — and the building of a
meeting-house was begun.
He was no sooner fairly settled in his new ministerial office and dignity
than, following further good old New England custom, he took unto himself a
helpmate. He chose youth, and, evidently, beauty. Imagination might conjure up
a very pretty story of the courtship and marriage, in this primitive
settlement, of blue-eyed Hannah Barker, daughter of Joseph and relative of
ruling elder Squire Jacob Barker, aged sweet sixteen, and the new parson, a
handsome man of thirty-two. Their nuptials were celebrated November 30, 1775.
But all was not to be sunshine and joy for Parson Noble. Troublous times
loomed in church and state.
The following letter, written by the Parson to a nephew at Westfield, who had
spent some time on the St. John River, shows something of the stress of
religious and political feeling at Maugerville.
Dear Kinsman:
I received yours of the 7th and 10th, with joy. Had you been more particular
respecting the national difficulties, it would have been an addition to my
joy. I have enjoyed a usual state of health. I took a bosom companion the
last of November. She has been pressed down under a weight and burden of her
sins, almost ever since we entered into that near relation, but I trust,
within a few days past, has happily taken sanctuary in Christ, the only ark
of safety.
There is at present a considerable shaking of the dry bones among us, and
several have happily put on Christ, which is life eternal. Simeon Towns is
daily rejoicing in the rock of his salvation. Asa Kimball and wife are
brought out into marvellous light. John Watson was greatly troubled in mind
during his absence. It was pressed upon him to return to this place, which
he did with Capt. Lovet, and is now almost incessantly praising and adoring
the lowly Jesus. Andrew Tibbetts and wife, Mr. Gellison's wife, Thomas
Saunders, Sarah Coy, and Alice Potter seem under the preparatory work of the
Spirit. . . . . . .
My wife with myself desires to be remembered to you, to Mr. Granger, to your
mother, and all my kindred and acquaintance.
From your friend and humble servant,
Seth Noble.
Maugerville, 7th February, 1776.
P. S. I send this letter by Capt. Row, tho' it is uncertain whether he goes
further than Machias. I shall expect you in the spring, if there is any
passing. I should be glad to take Medad Noble till he is 21, except he
should be greatly bent on learing a trade, and if he is, I will endeavor to
get him a good place at Newbury Port. Pray advise with his mother and my
brethren about it, and especially with him. If he and they think it best,
pray bring him down with you. I will do as well by him as I would by my own.
Mr. Saunders has done considerable labor on your land. We have had something
of a cold season of late, though not colder than it is many times at
Westfield. We have about eighteen inches of snow. Mr. Makin died soon after
you went away, but nobody since. Jeremiah Howland and Polly Buber were
published last Sabbath, and Israel Esty and Salome Burpe. Josiah Whitney is
married.
It seems to be still as to political affairs. If you could bring a Suffield
dishturner, it might be a benefit to the person and to this place. A saddler
is much wanted, for there have been near a dozen horses purchased here since
you left us. There were sundry opportunities to get a passage from New
England here last fall. We have a number of vessels lately come in from over
the Bay. We have unanimously signed a paper, to join New England in the
national struggle, and are making all possible preparations for war. The
fleet and army that went from Boston to Halifax have sailed, we suppose, for
England, though they pretended they were going to Quebec.
May 20, 1776.
To Mr. Aaron Dewey,2
Westfield,
County of Hampshire,
Massachusetts Bay.
The attempt of the Maugerville settlers, influenced largely by the Parson, to
throw in their lot with their mother colony of Massachusetts, was frustrated
by the arrival at the mouth of the river, early in May, 1777, of a British war
vessel from Halifax, which quickly ended the "rebellion" on the St. John
River. The Maugerville settlers renewed their allegiance to the British Crown.
Parson Noble and a few ringleaders signed an abject submission to the British,
begging "that no distinction be made as to pardon." The Parson, however, not
feeling sure of the treatment which would be accorded him by the British
authorities, decided to flee. He left his wife and the place where he was so
comfortably settled, and, narrowly escaping capture, it is related, made his
way with Jonathan Eddy and some others, by the inland Indian route, to
Machias, Maine.
He was no sooner there than he turned solidier, and, shouldering a musket,
started back for the St. John River, via Musquash Cove, the British vessel
having departed from St. John. He was with John Allen's party in this effort
to gain over the St. John Indians and strike a blow at the British Tyrant.
The Parson as Soldier spent several weeks cruising on the St. John, and
doubtless had an opportunity to visit his young wife at Maugerville, where she
bore him a son, Seth, August 5, 1777.3 She did not leave Maugerville to join
her husband until the latter part of 1780.
This raid on the St. John River, from Machias, necessitated another British
expedition from Halifax, which soon swept the river clear of the "rebels," and
Parson Noble once more sought refuge at Machias, by the inland route, with the
horde of Indians under John Allen. The Massachusetts record of revolutionary
soldiers has the following:
Seth Noble, St. Johns. Private, Capt. Jabez West's Co.; enlisted May 17,
17777; discharged July 22, 1777; serivce, 2 mos. 5 days; company raised in
Machias for service on expedition against St. Johns.
He was at Machias when a British squadron, under Sir George Collier, made an
attack and destroyed stores accumulated there, August 14-15, 1777, and the
following Sunday preached a sermon on the event. He wrote a letter to General
Washington, urging the importance of getting control of the St. John River and
the Bay of Fundy, but Washington had too many other irons in the fire, and the
British were strong at Halifax. Further efforts for the conquest of old Acadia
were abandoned. Parson Noble took his departure from Machias, and his future
warfare was confined within the limits of the Church Militant and a struggle
for existence.
During the remaining years of the war he appears to have ministered at various
places in New England, not far distant from Newbury. He was careful not to get
too far down-east, within reach of British cruisers, as the following letter
shows:
Woburn, June 7, 1777.
Honorable Gentlemen:—
I received an order for a mission to the eastern settlements, yesterday, by
the hands of Col. Baldwin, but find its contents so much different from what
I had expected, must decline the undertaking. I was informed the mission was
to be on the River Penobscot only, but find I was misinformed. There are
such a variety of islands, and other inhabitants contiguous to the water —
those seas are so much frequented by their cruisers, that I think it is too
dangerous for a proscribed person to accept of. I suppose you are not
unacquainted with the amazing scarcity of the necessaries of life, in those
parts. Add to this, the reward offered me, when laid out in provision or
clothing, will not purchase more than one dollar would in 1775.
From a friend to those liberties which God and nature has bestowed on
mankind.
Seth Noble
To the whole Court.
In 1784 Parson Noble wrote an extraordinary letter — a good specimen of
old-time "Yankee" audacity — to the church at Maugerville, claiming arrears of
pay, etc. The brethren of Maugerville sent him a complete and well-rounded
reply, which is printed in publications of New Brunswick Historical Society.
In 1785 he received, as a Nova Scotia refugee, a grant of 300 acres of land at
the new plantation of his friend, Jonathan Eddy, on the Penobscot River, and
in the spring of 1786, he appeared there with his wife and family, and met
some of his old Maugerville associates, now refugees. His friends there and at
the Kenduskeag plantation (Bangor) succeeded in getting a guarantee signed for
a salary of 70 pounds, and engaged him as minister for the Penobscot River
settlements. On September 10, 1786, under some spreading oak-trees, in the
vicinity of what is now the corner of Oak and Washington streets, Bangor, he
was installed, by Rev. Daniel Little, as a "minister of the people" — the
first settled preacher on that part of the Penobscot.
There, for between eleven and twelve years, he led a severe and strenuous
life. Times were hard and the people poor in those early days on the
Penobscot. In 1786, the year in which Parson Noble started preaching the
gospel there, the whole settlement signed a petition to the "General Court,"
original of which is extant, asking to be relieved of their taxes, as they
were unable to pay them. The Parson lived, at first, in a log house. He had no
organized church, but preached about the country in barns, etc., and travelled
by birch-bark canoe. An entry in his diary reads: "Apl. 8, 1794. Fixed my
canoe."
The Kenduskeag settlement received the name of Sunbury, doubtless bestowed
either by Parson Noble himself or some others who went there from Sunbury
County — the early name of the St. John River territory. This name the
Kenduskeag settlement bore for several years.
In 1790 the Massachusetts General Court was petitioned for the incorporation
of this settlement as a town. The inhabitants had voted that it be called
Sunbury. Parson Noble bore the petition to the Legislature at Boston in the
summer of 1790, but instead of Sunbury, inserted in the petition the name
"Bangor." The Parson was a great singer, and said to have been partial to the
old hymn-tune called Bangor. Dr. Watts' hymns were then being substituted in
the congregations for the Psalms of David as so spiritedly rendered in the old
Bay Psalter. The tune of Bangor was commonly sung to the inspiring words of
the hymn called "A Funeral Thought:"
Hark! from the tombs, a doleful sound.
The Parson, who was considerable of a wag, was liable to do odd things,
especially when under the influence of a slight overdose of the favorite New
England cordial of that day. Some ascribe this sudden change of name to an
accident, but probably the Parson concluded that the name Sunbury flavored of
the British Tyrant. Bangor the settlement became, and is now the city of that
name. Incorporation was granted in February, 1791, and in 1792 Squire Jonathan
Eddy issued the warrant to organize the town.
While Parson Noble was in Boston on this matter, his wife, the blue-eyed
Hannah Barker of Maugerville, suddenly died. A full reading of Dr. Watts' hymn
would almost furnish a belief that the Parson had a prescience of his loss.
The Parson found it very difficult to eke out an existence for himself and his
family in those pioneer days on the Penobscot. He farmed, taught school,
including singing — singing-schools being then in great vogue — and had to
collect his own salary wherever he could get it. About this time he appears to
have become well-nigh desperate, and wrote the following letter:
Penobscot River, August 21, 1790.
Gentlemen:
Sundry attempts have been made for a settlement between the people and
myself; but all to no effect. When I settled here I consented to accept 20
pounds less than what was really necessary to support my family, because the
people said they were poor. Still, to relieve them of the burden, I have
been at the expense to collect a great part of what has been collected. Very
little thanks have I had for the trouble that I have been to. I was desired
to draw a bond for the people to sign for my support, which was rejected,
and another drawn (unbeknown to me) which hath deprived me of one-half of
the sum proposed. I am willing to do in this and all cases, as I would be
done by; but necessity compels me to say, I must have my pay.
I must further tell you I shall look to no other persons for a settlement,
but that committee which covenanted with me on June 7, 1786 to give me 70
pounds annual salary. What you then did, is as binding as a note of hand. I
am sorry to take any coercive measures; but I tell you again, I must have my
pay immediately.
I am, gentlemen, with due respect,
Your most obedient,
Humble servant,
Seth Noble.
To the Committee.
In 1791 he visited the place of his first settlement, on the St. John River,
and spent part of the summer and fall of that year preaching and visiting old
acquaintances on the river. He may have been taking notice again of the fair
sex, tho he did not get his second partner on the St. John River, but in the
Bangor district, where he wedded, in 1793, a widow Ruhamah Emery, who had been
his housekeeper before she became wife. Despite his antipathy to the British
Tyrant, he appears to have cast longing eyes toward the fertile vales of old
Sunbury during his many years of wandering and deprivation. Tho he did not
succeed in his various efforts to again establish himself there, he took his
two young and only surviving sons, of his nine children, to the St. John,
presumably in his visit of 1791. They were brought up by their maternal
relatives at Maugerville or Sheffield, where they settled, and have numerous
descendants in New Brunswick.
By 1797 the Parson's living had become so reduced, with gossips' tongues
a-wag, that he was compelled to leave the Penobscot. For a time he supplied
various pulpits in New Hampshire. In 1799 he returned to his native place,
Westfield, Mass., and for sixteen months remained among his kindred, and
supplied a large list of pulpits in that vicinity. He is described as "a man
of great activity." A mere list of the places where he preached and taught
singing-school during his career would appear something like a gazetteer of
New England. In 1801 he was installed as the first minister of Montgomery,
Mass., a territory originally included mostly within the boundaries of his old
home, Westfield. There he ministered for about five years, and had the usual
difficulty in collecting his stipend in a new and poor settlement.
In 1806, when 63 years of age, he struck out for what was then the "far west,"
Ohio. He was one of the refugees who received grants of land in the section of
Ohio set off by the United States Congress for some revolutionists of Nova
Scotia and Canada. Upon a part of this "refugee land" stands the city of
Columbus, the capital of Ohio. His grant was in Franklinton, now part of
Columbus. There he built a cabin, and is said to have been the first
Congregational or Presbyterian preacher in that part of the country. For
fifteen months he preached at different places in Ohio. The last sermon he is
known to have preached was at Franklinton, August 9, 1807, from Matt. xi, 28:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest. His earthly career came to an end at Franklinton, September 15, 1807,
when 64 years of age, and his remains were interred there, but the westward
sweep of civilization left no trace of the place of his sepulchre.
A few months before his demise he had married in Ohio a third wife, a widow,
Mary Riddle, who it is stated had been previously of New Brunswick.
Of his grant of 640 acres in Ohio, which might have enriched his descendants,
portions were disposed of for trifling sums. His sons, Benjamin and Joseph,
resident in New Brunswick, probably never claimed their shares. Many of the
largest of the sixty-nine original grantees of these refugee lands, who were
mainly of Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, parted with their titles for little
or nothing. Some settled on the land, and doubtless have descendants in Ohio
at the present day.
Some who knew him have left interesting pictures of Parson Noble, who was a
man of lively parts, and considered by some of his parishioners as "airy."
Mrs. Howard, a good lady who was his near neighbor at Bangor, has left record
that the Parson was
a very airy man, preached well, gifted in prayer, a good neighbor and a good
gardener; a very industrious man, excellent in sickness, and very moral.
William Hasey, one of the earliest settlers at Bangor, wrote in 1844:
Rev. Mr. Noble was settled in Bangor some six or seven years after I came
here. He was a pretty good preacher, a most gifted man in prayer, especially
on funeral occasions, he excelled. Indeed I have never heard his equal, so
touching, so affecting. A most excellent singer. He could drink a glass of
grog and be jovially merry. When out of the pulpit he ought never to go in,
and when in never to go out. His religious friends had scruples of his vital
piety, and after Mr. Noble went away, he wrote to Deacon Boyd, saying he had
never experienced religion till after he left Bangor. A very handsome man,
of middle stature, dark brown hair, quite a gentleman.
From Williamson's annals, etc.:
Deacon Wm. Boyd has often talked with me about "Parson Noble." The Deacon
who came to Bangor in 1791, says Mr. Noble was too light and frothy in his
conversation, did not sustain the gravity of character becoming a minister,
would drink a dram with almost anyone who asked him, laugh and tell improper
anecdotes. Yet in his religious performances he was able and pathetic — no
doubt, pious as he was truly an orthodox and faithful preacher. He is
described as a man thin-faced, spare, not tall, of light complexion and of
fresh countenance. He was active, quick, smart and nervous. He preached with
notes and sometimes they were pretty old. His head was covered with a
remarkable, white, powdered wig.
Thus may end these chronicles concerning a pioneer preacher in New Brunswick,
New England and Ohio, who was an ardent hater of the British Tyrant, but a
very genial person, and something of a sport.
___________________
1. Seth Noble became familiar with the St. John River. Was Westfield on this
river so named by the first minister, from his old home, Westfield, Mass.,
beautifully situated on Westfield River?
2. Descendant of an immigrant, Thomas Dewey, who was ancestor of Admiral Dewey
of Manila Bay fame. Deweys and Nobles were pioneer settlers at Westfield. See
Dewey genealogy, by Mr. L. M. Dewey of Westfield, and Noble genealogy, by Hon.
L. M. Boltwood. From latter above letter is taken.
3. This son was drowned in 1798 when on a voyage from Bangor to Boston.
Index
[Published in Acadiensis Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1907]