NHA Home | Historic Nantucket Articles | Bookmark and Share

Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Vol. 44, no. 2 (Summer 1994), p. 36-37

The Colonial Church and Nantucket
by Henry B. Worth, Esq.

Built c. 1725, the Old North Vestry is the oldest continually utiized house of worship on Nantucket, GPN2631

Nantucketers have always had a reputation for independence. From the 1906 Proceedings, here's one reason why.

The New England colonial community was based on the village system that took its rise before the dawn of history in the forests of Germany. The plan could exist only in regions where the land was diversified, woodland, meadows, tillable soil and barrens separated from each other in more or less variety. If, as in the Southern states, thousands of acres of land lay in extensive tracts all that would be required would be to mark it into sections, square, oblong or otherwise, and thus divide it into adjoining farms. In the South a few such domains, in some instances constitute an entire county. Mt. Vernon alone in area was about the size of the Island of Nantucket. But where the land suitable for house-lots was in scattered localities, and not extensive, and other kinds of land were separated by woods and stony barrens, the only practical plan was to assign to the settlers a proportionate part in the house-lot location and also in woodland, meadows, swamp and barren and thus allot to each an equitable proportion in every kind of land. This arrangement would result in the houses being clustered together in a group which would be also advantageous in that the residents would be so placed as to give mutual assistance against a common enemy. This was the arrangement and purpose of the Germanic village.

This system was brought from England by the Puritans and Pilgrims, and as they were inspired with a religious idea the center of the village was the meeting house. The typical arrangement was a central square, generally circular or oblong in figure, surrounded by a roadway; radiating from this road were ways that led to the remote parts of the town. Illustrations of this plan may be observed in Plymouth, Taunton, Bridgewater, Rochester [and other Massachusetts towns]. As soon as the land was laid out, arrangement was made for the meeting house. It was located at a convenient spot fronting the town square or common, and was erected as soon as possible. Often on the same lot was established a common burial ground. The greatest care was shown to have due provision made for the minister and meeting house. They were as much town institutions as the poor, school, or road department. Appropriations of money were made in town meeting and the Proprietary always made an assignment of a minister's share, and the name "Ministry Lot" remains attached to some localities at the present time. Frequently men of the parish would contribute land or money for the same purpose. Plymouth Colony recommended that in all dead whales found on the shore one share should go to the minister. The central and important fact in the town was the meeting house and the principal citizen was the minister, and both were so essential in the life of a New England community that each was maintained by taxation at the public expense. The laws enacted by both Puritans and Pilgrims on these matters were explicit, and promptly and rigidly enforced.

Then both Colonies passed stringent laws about church attendance; men were chosen to patrol the town and arrest persons engaged on the Lord's day in acts of recreation or pleasure. It was also their duty to keep people awake during the church service. These Sunday constables were called "tithing men".

During one period citizenship and church membership were synonymous terms; only church members could vote or hold office. In Hingham a certain individual was found to be ineligible as ensign in the local military company because he could not partake of the church communion. Such was the position and standing of the minister and meeting house in the New England community.

At Nantucket the situation was radically different. Although the settlers came from Massachusetts Bay and might be expected to take with them the religious customs and usages of the towns whence they came yet every feature of the New England meeting house already described was lacking. The first mention of a meeting house is to be found in 1709, half a century after the island was settled, in the records of the Nantucket Monthly Meeting of Friends. A vote was passed in 1716 that notice of the town meeting should be posted on the meeting house, and another vote in 1725 that the notice should be posted on both meeting houses. In 1765 the town voted to permit certain material belonging to the North Shore Meeting House to be stored in the town house during its removal. These are all the references to meeting houses to be found in the records of the town. No mention of the word "minister" is anywhere to be found; not a farthing was ever appropriated or contributed by the town for either minister or meeting house. Tithing men were not elected until long after 1700. There was complete and absolute separation of the town and church, and in fact, from the settlement of Nantucket to the present time, there was never any relation between church, meeting house or minister and the municipality of the town.

It may be profitable to investigate the reason for this peculiar situation, because it must seem strange for families to leave Massachusetts Bay where all activities centered about the meeting house and found a community where the minister and meeting house were absolutely eliminated; but an examination of the facts will explain the unusual condition.

1. For the first thirty years after the settlement of the Island, Nantucket was a part of New York Colony; in 1692 it was annexed to the Province of Massachusetts. New York had no laws requiring the maintenance of minister or meeting house, or compelling church attendance. There was no such institution supported by the public treasury, and no compulsory observance of any religious forms; consequently there was absent the most powerful incentive to support a meeting house, viz: the fear of the law. With this lacking there would be no public support, and the entire combination would depend on the religious enthusiasm and steadfastness of the inhabitants, and Massachusetts found that this could never be trusted. This important support of the meeting house never existed and this alone was sufficient to account for the fact that these religious institutions were not established at Nantucket.

2. Under these circumstances, even if they had by voluntary contributions succeeded in erecting a meeting house, no minister would care to undertake to preach in such a section, many miles at sea, surrounded by hundreds of Indians, little opportunity to visit the mainland, and, worse than all, no law compelling the inhabitants to contribute to his support.

3. But an important reason may be discovered in the character and disposition of the settlers. Thomas Macy had been fined for exhorting in public without the proper license or approval; he was probably a man of fluency of speech, and enjoyed engaging in public discourse. Elder Edward Starbuck was disciplined by the Dover church on account of the subject of baptism, and he was rated with the Anabaptists. Peter Folger seems to have been a man of religious emotions and some skill in writing and speech. It has been asserted that he was a Baptist, but this rests on doubtful tradition and may be open to serious question. Cotton Mather, the great Puritan minister, writing of Nantucket, said that: "Peter Folger taught the young reading, writing, and a knowledge of the Scriptures." Such a commendatory remark would not have been likely if Folger had belonged to the Baptists, a sect hated by Mather. So far as can be ascertained Macy, Starbuck and Folger controlled the religious affairs of the Island. Presumably Folger was of the same religious opinion as Mather, while Macy and Starbuck were not in accord with the Colonial Presbyterianism of that day.

The sentiment of the settlers can also be inferred from the vote taken soon after their arrival. In stead of adopting church membership as the test of citizenship they prescribed two qualifications, viz: land ownership and residence on the Island. In this they dismissed all religious connection of church and state.

So it appears that this was the situation: the settlers proposed to separate religion from government as permitted by the laws of New York Colony. The leaders were independent in thought and might have been appropriately designated as "freethinkers" of that day. Among themselves they were not exactly in agreement and so under all the circumstances they did not feel the need of a minister or meeting house, and probably would not have united on any form of creed. They seemed to minister to their own religious needs according to their varying opinions and views, and none interfered with the practice of his neighbor. Having become wearied of the Puritan Church of Massachusetts Bay they resolved to allow to each man absolute religious freedom. Consequently the minister and the meeting house as municipal institutions never existed in Nantucket.

About the year 1700 the Friends secured a foothold and soon became a powerful factor in all the affairs of the Island.

But it may be asked if all this be true and there was no minister or meeting house on the Island for the first half century after the settlement, was it a Godless, immoral and irreligious community? By no means. When the Quaker missionaries came to the Island they found a thrifty community where occasionally some clergyman had made a visit, where no war had ever existed with the Indians, where the court records show that crime among the whites was almost unknown, where the people were well-versed in the Scriptures, where the inhabitants had developed to a point to understand and accept the mystical teachings of the Friends, and where the leading family on the Island was that of Mary and Nathaniel Starbuck. No evidence of degeneration in all this.

To be sure the Islanders were not angels. Tristram Coffin and John Gardner and their adherents could grapple in bitter conflict, and for years the feud might continue, but such events were frequent in every colonial town; innocent men and women, for fancied crimes, during the Quaker and witchcraft excitements had been condemned to death under the shadow of the Puritan meeting house; but the results of investigation show that in 1710, when Nantucket had its first organized religious body it was a community as highly advanced and developed as any in the Province, even though it never had minister, meeting, or meeting house.