Music. Organist. HENRY W. EDES. Assisted by Mrs. GERTRUDE J. ROGERS. Choir. Mrs. H. E. CARTER, Soprano. Mrs. THOMAS DRAKE, Alto. ALLEN A. BROWN, Tenor. FRANK L. YOUNG, Basso. Chorus. Mr. Wм. H. M. AUSTIN, Leader of the Chorus. Historical Note. THE point brought forward by Mr. Knapp raises a very interesting historical question; namely, whether the original organization of the church was transferred from Dorchester to Connecticut in the emigration which took place in 1635-36. This is the claim made by the church at Windsor, Conn., and ably defended by its pastor, Rev. Gowen C. Wilson, in an address delivered at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of that church in March last; by Deacon Jabez H. Hayden, in Stiles's History of Windsor (p. 858); and by Rev. H. M. Dexter, D.D., in the Congregationalist (April 28, 1880), with the degree of fairness and courtesy with which he is accustomed to treat controversial questions. While there is much that may be said on both sides of this subject, the Windsor claim to the original organization cannot be substantiated, because there is no evidence that the church of Dorchester ever took any formal action and decided by vote to remove to Connecticut. The question, however, is a purely technical one. What is certainly known is that part of the original church-members and the junior pastor went to Windsor, Conn., and, as Cotton Mather says, "became a church"; and that the senior pastor, a number of the church-members, and the larger part of the congregation, remained in Dorchester, and were afterwards reorganized, with additions, under Richard Mather. In whatever way the technical question of church organization may be decided, no one can dispute the fact that both the church at Windsor and that at Dorchester directly owe their origin to the little band that gathered in Plymouth, England, in 1630. |