Boston Friends and the Pastoral Ministry 1870-1926

BOSTON FRIENDS AND THE PASTORAL MINISTRY 1870-1926 By George A. Selleck* During the past several decades the Friends Meeting at Cambridge , Massachusetts, has been well-known as one of the strong meetings on the Atlantic seaboard, of the unprogrammed type. It is not generally known that for several decades around the turn of the century Friends in that region were under the influence of the programmed or pastoral tradition. In this article we shall endeavor to trace the development and decline of the pastoral type of meeting in the Boston and Cambridge area. In the year 1865 the Friends meetinghouse on Milton Place, just off Federal Street in Boston, was sold by the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England. There had been practically no Friends in Boston since the local meeting had been laid down in 1799. Although Friends had never flourished in Boston because of the strong Puritan influence, the Yearly Meeting, remembering the persecutions of the 1600's, had felt an obligation to maintain a Quaker presence there. The only Friends meetings held in the city since 1799 had been those arranged by Lynn Friends for visiting ministers. The future of Quakerism in Boston at that time was indeed bleak. In the years immediately following the American Civil War, however , there was a migration from the rural parts of New England to the cities. And Friends were migrating to Boston along with many others. In 1867 a young Quaker woman by the name of Martha Swan (1840-1928) from New Sharon, Maine, moved to Boston to try her fortune as a dressmaker. The following year she was joined by three of her sisters, Mary ( 1836-1929), Elizabeth (1838-1931), and Olive (1844- ? ) ; and in 1869 the sisters were joined by their uncle, Ephraim E. Swan (1800-1890). In 1866 Gilbert C. Hoag (1803-1886), then in his twenties, moved from Sandwich, New Hampshire, to Lynn, Massachusetts, where he was married, and shortly afterwards he and his wife moved to Boston. These all had transferred their membership to the nearest meeting, Salem Monthly Meeting. In addition other Quaker families were *Nantucket, Massachusetts, who gave this address at the 1971 annual meeting of Friends Historical Association. 67 68QUAKER HISTORY moving to Boston about this time. By early 1870 there must have been at least twenty-five Friends in Boston who had become aware of one another, probably through the activities of Salem Monthly Meeting. Since 1845 the major portion of New England Friends had been evangelical in their sympathies, and counted themselves in the Gurney tradition of Quakerism. Thus when the spirit of the evangelical revival developed among Gurneyite Friends between 1860 and 1880 it was felt even in the rural meetings of New England, chiefly through the visits of traveling Friends.1 Meetings that had formerly been dry and formal acquired a new warmth. First Day schools were organized for the study of the Bible, and there was a new concern for the pastoral care of the membership. Thus the Quakers arriving in Boston just before 1870 were coming with a new and fresh outlook. For them religion was no longer dull, but warm and exciting. Though there is no record of such, it is likely that one of the first activities to draw these Boston Friends together was a Bible study group, where they developed a warm fellowship. In the spring of 1870 this group applied to Salem Monthly Meeting to seek official recognition as an "indulged" meeting for worship in Boston. The letter addressed to Salem Monthly Meeting was signed by sixteen Friends, of whom four were men and twelve were women. The monthly meeting responded favorably and appointed a committee of oversight.2 Boston Friends had arranged to rent a committee room in the Boston Y.M.C.A., then on Tremont Street on the site later occupied by Tremont Temple. Here they met for two years, holding meetings regularly at 10:30 A.M. on First Days and at 3:30 P.M. on Fourth Days. At the end of the first year the committee reported that the meetings had been well attended, there having been from twenty-five to forty persons present...