Memoir of Ebenezer Fisher, D. D.

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UNITED STATES OF A^ERftA.

Preface

in its general quality and in the impression it leaves, will be found every way reliable. It has been my constant study to make it so.

I have found the toil exacting, yet I confess it has proved, in its general preparation, a pleasant, almost an enviable, task. At times I have felt very near the great and good man who for thirty years was my constant friend, — never more so than when we differed as to opinions and methods. The theme has at times cast its spell over me. It has almost seemed that he was a companion by my side, — that I could look into his noble face and hear his kind, sympathetic word. I arise from my labor of love, grateful for the quickening which must come from dwelling so continually upon the congenial theme. I give the testimony that I have grown to a more profound appreciation of his great work, and of his marvellous fitness for its responsibilities. I shall ever be grateful that his living students have by formal act pronounced my name worthy to stand beneath that of Ebenezer Fisher, on the same title-page.

In the body of the work I have indicated the parties who have been of special service to me, not alone in reporting information for my use, but in some instances in giving shape to the recital. But for their very copious and sympathetic aid, this volume could not have been prepared.

May I record the hope that the subject-matter of this book, if not its form, will secure for it sympathetic, appreciative readers ; that through the trials, anxieties, and final triumphs it records, they will be led into a deeper apprehension of the importance — the indispensable necessity — of that institutional work in the founding of which Dr. Fisher did a lion's share.

In the time of great need, providential men are raised up. Such was Martin Luther. Such was Hosea Ballou. I make no doubt that the faithful verdict of time will proclaim that such was Ebenezer Fisher.

Upon this humble tribute to his memory I humbly and reverently invoke the Divine favor. May it go forth on a mission of good to the world.

G. H. E.

Contents

CHAP. PAGB

I. Childhood and Youth 1

II. Led towards the Ministry 18

Chapter I. Childhood And Youth

The Country and the City. — The Fisher Family : from Dedham, Mass. — A Down-east " Plantation " : a Wilderness. — A Speculation. — A Sequel. — " Always a Man." — A Portable School. — The Parents. — Wilderness Life. — The Bears. — First Memory. — Savage Neighbors. — The " Cat and Clay " Chimney. — The " Coal Mine." — " Going to Market." — Primitive Travel. — An Incident. — No Supper wanted. — Literary Facilities. — Geographical Mysteries. — A Quilting Bee. — A Poem. — The Scholar of the Plantation.

TT is a trite proverb with writers on the philosophy of civilization, that the city is dependent upon the country. Historical critics habitually remind us that Rome the city was constantly replenished by Rome the empire. The effeminacy, the social corruption, the moral laxity, the dearth of patriotism, and the lack of the heroic spirit incidental to the opulence, luxuries, and temptations of the great metropolis, would have wrought its destruction before a Caesar was born, had not the rough, energetic, hardy vitality of the provinces replenished the waste, and kept intact the heart of the

MEMOIR OF EBENEZER FISHER.

" body-politic." If great men are drawn to the city, they come from the distant villages, — such is said to be the law of social and political progress.

If due allowance be made for exceptions, — which we know are not infrequent, — it is evident, and the fact is easily accounted for, that the rule is here correctly enunciated. The average man is weak in the presence of temptation. What ought to be helps are often found to be hinderances. The men who make their mark upon their age are, as a very general rule, those who have made their opportunities and conquered difficulties.

The character I shall attempt to describe in these pages certainly furnishes no exception to the rule which I have so briefly stated. I am to sketch a career that began on the rugged Atlantic coast, in a neighborhood which at that time had no township name ; when the university was a " portable school," — one moved from house to house, like its teacher " boarding around," — where the gas-light was that of the blazing back-log, and where books and periodicals were few. I doubt not that the intellectuality and integrity of that character were constitutional ; but its heroism, of purpose was evoked in the conflict with obstacles, which uniformly elevate the soul that rises above them or converts them into incitements and helps.

Ebenezer Fisher, the subject of this memoir, was born in Plantation Number Three, now Charlotte,

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Washington County, in the State of Maine, on the sixth day of February, 1815. His father was Ebenezer Fisher, born in Francistown, New Hampshire. His mother was Sally Johnson, born in Sharon, Massachusetts. He was the second of eight children. When in later years Mr. Fisher became the pastor of the Universalist Church in what was then South Dedham, Massachusetts (since named Norwood), the fact was noted, and caused the remark in the town, that by a strange coincidence he had literally returned to the home of his fathers. The Fisher family from which Ebenezer came was a Dedham family. In a memorial sermon occasioned by Dr. Fisher's death, preached in the Norwood (South Dedham) Universalist Church, the Rev. George Hill, the pastor, said : "I am told by relatives of the Fisher family, that the grandfather of Ebenezer belonged to the Dedham Fisher family, and lived in Dedham South Parish, his house standing on the spot now covered by Deacon Hartshorn's stable, he being one of the original settlers of this portion of the old township of Dedham."

I have since verified the accuracy of this statement. Samuel Fisher, of Canton, Massachusetts, a cousin of Ebenezer Fisher, and three years his senior, gives me the genealogy of the Fishers for five generations. David Fisher, with whom all knowledge of the family begins, lived in Dedham (the south part, now, as I have said, known as Norwood) . This is the only fact known in regard to him. Where he came from, at what period he came to Dedham, or whether he was bom there, and what was his history. — these are particulars in regard to which nothing has come down to us. His son. also named David, married Abigail Lewis, and with his wife went to live in Sharon, in the same State. The son of this David had the same name. Mr. Samuel Fisher, my authority and informant, adds, " The family was of the line of David." The third David married Mehetable Hewins, of Sharon, and went to Farmingi;on. Maine, and made that place his home. Ebenezer. the father of the subject of this sketch, was the son of David and Mehetable. The Scripture order was unbroken. The " line of David" was kept up. A second son of David and Mehetable received the same name as that of his father. Ebenezer and David, the brothers, went to Plantation Number Three, Maine. Samuel Fisher, my informant, was this David's son, and was born on the plantation. Ebenezer, whose history I am to give, was the son of Ebenezer, as stated above. Hence, in the Scripture style, I can make the record: tk Ebenezer. who was the son of Ebenezer, who was the son of David, who was the son of David, who was the son of David ! " And, so far. every name is, after the manner of the early times, taken from some Scripture personage.

At the time of the removal of the two brothers, Ebenezer and David (the father and the uncle) , to the plantation, the whole region was literally a 4 4 howling wilderness." The bears and other wild beasts roamed

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at will. It was about six miles from sea, and no market nearer than Eastport, some fourteen miles distant. It was an uncleared forest. The land had in some way become the possession of a Boston speculator by the name of Coates. He had it surveyed off into sections of 160 acres or a half-mile square and numbered. To tempt people to make so unattractive a region their home, Mr. Coates held out "inducements." He promised to give certain squares or "plantations," as by a fearful stretch of metaphor he called them, for a sum merely nominal to parties who, in taking possession, would clear the forest, cultivate the land, and build. The soil itself was good. Potatoes and wheat would make a good yield. The offer touched the nomadic propensity always strong in New England. A farm of one hundred and sixty acres for a sum ' c merely nominal," was a prize not to be slighted. Mr. Coates had no difficulty in finding families eager to accept his enterprising and, as it seemed, generous offer.*

But these migratory schemes too often have a sequel not anticipated. Long before the wilderness became a farm, in the midst of the slow and arduous transformation, Mr. Coates failed. It was then discovered by the settlers that procrastination in taking title-deeds had been extended too far. In fact, they were held for the market price of every acre ! Those who were ever able to pay were compelled to do so. The two Fishers, instead of feasting their imaginations on a home all their own, found themselves forced to the alternative of

MEMOIR OF EBEXEZER FISHER.

either losing the fruits of what, by great privation and industry, they had already secured, or else accepting the hard and unanticipated conditions of paying in full for the land that had been given theru. They accepted the hard lot : and. by depriving themselves even of comforts, they paid every dollar of the legal yet hardly just claim.

The lack of sentimentalism in the character of Dr. Fisher. — of which lack examples in point will appear in this narrative. — which was so noticeable to all who had his intimate acquaintance, was. I am led to infer, inherited from his father. I asked Mr. Samuel Fisher for particulars in regard to his boyhood. His reply was : " Ebenezer never was a boy. He was always a man. Ever in his plays and freaks of humor, he was sedate, thoughtful, and manly." An instance of his early manly proclivity is pertinent here.

The practice of giving boys ;i stints," as they were called — that is. assigning them a given amount of work for a given amount of time, all the time left after the specified work was done being theirs for their own use or play — was customary on the plantation. But this custom did not have the approval of the elder Fisher. The son had no time that was his own. and no opportunity to get any. Hence, in working in the field he had a device of his own for gaining a few minutes for his personal use. He would hurry with his hoe and get to the end of the " row" ahead of his father, and the fewminutes of waiting he employed in a way that I imagine

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few boys could be induced to practise. He would lie upon the ground, book in hand, refreshing his memory with what he had before studied, or else extend his reading. So absorbed would he become, that the quiet approach of his father at times failed to divert his attention. The instinct of the student was in him ; in which regard, I hardly need say, the boy was father to the man.

It will be believed that the opportunities for an education were very limited. Three months in the winter was the maximum. The school-house at the first, I have said, " boarded around." It is a literal fact : the school was held in private houses, and was moved from one to another, and the proportional share of the common burden was discharged by the several families. At a somewhat later date, the rapid progress of the new civilization had a school-house proper, in which the young Ebenezer was a scholar. In going to the school, the distance was often great ; and the boy found the journey a tr}<ing one. He was not a son of fortune. His clothing was scanty and thin. Later in life, he vividly remembered, with almost a return of the shivering sensation, the sufferings of those early days while on the road between his home and the school.

The son had one advantage of great moment. Both his father and mother were persons of marked intellectual gifts, and of high and firm moral principles. The mentality of the father was very marked. Evidently he was a man born to have position and influence. He s

MEMOIR OF EBENEZER FISHER.

owned the mills, and employed several laborers. He was the Justice of the Peace, the plantation magistrate. He was the inn-keeper, and the inn kept and sold what in those days every inn was expected to keep and sell. He was the Post-master, his house or inn being the office. He was in fact the "grand seignior" of the Plantation, a patriarchal man ; in which regard his more distinguished son £ ' took after him " in a remarkable degree. The son, let me digress to add, with his sound moral nature and his observing mind, got his temperance principles from what he saw of the effects of strong drink upon the patrons of the inn.

I infer that in the son's early and almost passionate love of books — rather of reading, for the two loves are not identical — he has been " a mother's boy." Mrs. Fisher's passion for reading was indeed extraordinary ; and this passion in her case was the expression of an intellectual force not less extraordinary. The post-office kept in her house was the special opportunity thus put in her way. It was improved to the uttermost. No open reading-matter passed out of the office — and but little passed through — till it had first gone through the alembic of her brain. Though taxed to the strength of the average woman in attending to the duties of her household, her Napoleonic ability to dispense with sleep stood her well in stead. It was no uncommon thing for this woman to sit up till the first hours of morning, poring over and drinking in the contents of papers and pamphlets. If the subject-matter was very inter-

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esting and voluminous, the hour of three in the morning not unfrequently found her hard at the task of mastering their contents. Few heads, and still fewer bodies, are equal to such a strain ; but Mrs. Fisher found in the task refreshment not less than knowledge. That she was an ardent debater, tenacious of her opinions, and withal an enthusiast in politics, the reader will not be surprised to learn. Had woman suffrage been a question in her day and community, she would have been not only in its favor, but its earnest champion and leader for all the region round. But the politics of her day, though dealing with such dry topics as banks and tariffs, were full of interest to her ; and she was read} T to debate them, and maintain a part} r opinion in regard to them, with any person, man or woman, who put the challenge in her way. And she was not easily crushed in argument. That strong men, with hardly an exception, have had strong mothers, has a most notable example in this tough-brained reader and debater in the post-office of Plantation Number Three.

I have said that the plantation in name, was in fact a wilderness. It was one of those very sterile regions, far removed from the large and affluent centres of civilization, that test the endurance and compel the industry and the economy of the early settlers. Most of the population, at the date of Mr. Fisher's childhood, immigrated from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, bringing with them the "district school" and the sturdy courage of the New-Englander. They could not transform the wilderness into a garden, nor transplant academies and colleges ; but they managed to secure for their children better facilities than are usually found under circumstances so unpropitious. But, at the best, they must have been poor and very limited. The Gazetteer of 1850 puts the entire population of Charlotte, which name had been given to the plantation, at about seven hundred. At the time of Mr. Fisher's boyhood, the number must have been much smaller. A few hundred persons, including children, scattered over so large a territory, can hardly be said to make a neighborhood. It was a wilderness just emerged from the primary condition. Indeed, the enemy prowling by midnight was not the burglar and the robber : it was the bear of the forest. The loaded gun was in readiness, not for wicked men, but for devouring beasts.

The bears indeed roamed almost at will over the country, preying upon the sheepfold, or whatever seemed of less strength than their own, that came within their range. The gun was always accessible, loaded and primed, not to protect the man or woman, for the bears usually quailed before the human gaze, but to protect the piggery, the hen-coop, and the sheepfold. TVomen at night would be gathered around the great log fire, sewing or knitting by the light of the candle, to be startled, not by the apparition but the literal appearance of a bear resting his paws upon the window-sill, placing his nose upon the glass, and most impudently gazing upon the human group within ! The

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women would then give the alarm. The men would run to the well-charged musket ; and Bruin, foreseeing trouble, would run to the woods. But it was only by constant diligence that the live-stock of the premises were protected against the strange invader.

An incident illustrative of this border life was often related by Mr. Fisher. In his childhood, it startled him, and he retained the memory with almost a romantic vividness. One da} r , while standing in his father's dooryard, a strange, moaning, deathly sound saluted his ear. He was transfixed with fright. He knew what it signified, and he trembled in terror. Soon the men of the neighborhood, what few there were, started with quickened pace, and gun in hand. In due time the report of the weapon told that the crisis was passed. The men returned in triumph. A bear of sufficient size and strength had seized a heifer : the groan that filled the air was the poor creature expressing agon}\ But Bruin paid for his temerity with his life. Mr. Fisher used to recount this as the first event he could remember.

Less annoying was the not very welcome companionship of savage men. Large bodies of Passamaquoddy Indians had their wigwams on or near the plantation. The}^ had the most primitive manners of the tribe. They never sat at table, and never made use of knives and forks. But they were harmless and occasioned no fear. Still they were not just the kind of neighbors the average Saxon is disposed to covet.

The houses, whether of boards or of logs, I may

MEMOIR OF EBENEZER FISHER.

here add, had no accompaniment of brick. The chimney was indeed laid in " courses," but the courses were sticks filled with clay, very much like the cob-houses of juvenile creation, only they were cemented with the clayey soil. The technical name was the 64 cat and clay" chimney.

The coal-mine was the heavy forest of maple and beech. No one needed to suffer for the want of artificial heat. The pioneer woodman was glad to furnish maple and beech logs, cord-length, for " three and nine " — the modest computation being sixty- two and one-half cents — a cord, brought to the door and symmetrically piled !

I have said that Eastport was the market. It must be told how the plantation people got to the market. At the time of Ebenezer's boyhood, there was no road whatever, in any direction. It was literally an unbroken wilderness. The way to Eastport, and the method of transportation, was as follows : First, a boat, being loaded with what was to be " exported," was rowed for half a mile across what was called Round Pond. It was then guided through a narrow channel into Pennamaquon Lake, on which the boat was rowed three miles. Then the passage was down a river, two miles, to Little Falls. Here the " cargo" was taken down over the Falls. Then the boat was dragged thither and reloaded. Down about two miles more to Great Falls, the unloading, moving, and reloading were repeated. A half-mile more came to tide- water. The passage was timed so as to reach Eastport on the ebb tide. Then, after depositing the u cargo" and loading with such " imports " as had been procured, a flood tide took them back to the river, the oars of course assisting ; and then back by the same progress of loading and reloading and rowing up the stream over lake and pond. That was the style of " going to market." In the winter, when the snow was deep and crusty, there was an easy and almost a direct passage across the land, and hence winter was the elect time for going to and returning from Eastport.

Somewhat later an ox-path had been cleared for four or five miles to Pembroke, where advantage was taken of the ebb and flood tides to reach and return from Eastport. Mr. Samuel Fisher gives a curious and almost touching incident, that may appear in this connection. Himself three years older than his cousin, Ebenezer, and a brother still }T>unger, " went to market." The} T took the ox-team to Pembroke, from there the} r took the boat and its burden to Eastport, and returned. Reaching Pembroke on the return, Samuel as the elder said to the two, " I wish to remain a short time at Pembroke. You take the team on to Charlotte ; and, as the oxen will move slowly, I shall overtake you before you get home." They did as he requested. In due time he started in pursuit. Upon reaching a place about a mile from home, he saw a person stretched upon the ground. Approaching him, he discovered that the person was no other than his cousin Ebenezer sound asleep ! He had become entirely exhausted ; and, resting upon the ground to wait for his cousin, he fell asleep. Being awaked, a work of some difficulty, the elder, seeing that Ebenezer was weary and sad, said to him encouragingly, " It is only half a mile farther, Ebenezer, and when we get home we shall have a supper." • ; If I can only get home, I shall not want any supper," was the significant reply. The journey and the hard work had proved too much for a constitution that was never strong.

I may add here that the hardships of going to market were the less in that there were few occasions for such a kind of enterprise. The temptations of high life did not exist, and the wants were few. The people of the Plantation lived mostly within themselves. They raised potatoes and wheat for 4 1 home consumption," and these with the live-stock met nearly every urgent need. The abundant maple was the sugar-cane, and no one thought of buying what he could produce, sugar and molasses ; and the demand for dry-goods was not very great in such a wilderness, for the people had wilderness habits.

The literary facilities of the plantation were limited. The " Eastport Sentinel " was the " London Times " of the wilderness neighborhood. This was thoroughly and officially Whig in politics, and in public disputes it was the authority and umpire. Somewhat later the other side had' its organ in the "Northern Light," stoutly democratic, and also published at Eastport. A few copies of u Zion's Herald," a Boston Methodist paper, were taken ; and these three papers furnished the literary nutriment of the community.

I have alluded to Ebenezer' s love of study as an example of his intellectual and studious proclivities. Mr. Samuel Fisher gives me an incident. When his mother went to the plantation, moving from Sharon, Massachusetts, she took with her that novelty of text-books, Morse's Geography. Such facilities for getting knowledge of the "round globe" and its divisions were almost an innovation upon the methods of study. It appears that Ebenezer had access to the geographical treasure, the fact coming to light in this way. Like all boys, what little of the boy that was in him loved to play with the water. He had his juvenile rafts and vessels. Samuel tells me one of his surprises was hearing Ebenezer say, while moving his toy craft around a point or along a narrow stream, that he was passing a particular cape or along a particular strait, giving the names he had learned in Morse's text-book ! As the elder, he had not been admitted into the mystery of the strange book, — the straits, the channels, and capes were new to him, and he hardly knew what Ebenezer meant in his allusions to them.

As a man, the staid dignity of Mr. Fisher was easily broken into smiles, at times into rather noisy laughter. He had a quick sense of the ridiculous, and his humor never failed him. I give in this sketch of his boyhood an amusing example of his fun running to rhyme. The occasion was a quilting-bee, and the spectacle was the

MEMOIR OF EBENEZER FISHER.

not uncommon one of country neighborhoods. The particulars the poem will indicate ; of course the name is fictitious. Samuel Fisher tells me that Ebenezer's verses were on every one's tongue, and that they made Charlotteville merry. And he illustrates his statement by reciting from memory as I write them down : —

My friends, come now I '11 sing to you

Of a most wondrous race That was begun and well was run

No great way from this place.

Of lasses two, I 'd have you know,

Went to a quilting-bee, And as they came towards their home

Our Jonah they did see.

By Jonah's wink they just did think

That he was after them ; And quickly they their heels did ply

To run away from him.

I have averred the noise was heard

For three full miles and more, Like rabbits they did run away,

Nor look behind nor 'fore. .

I say to you the dust it flew

Enough to blind your eyes, "While Jonah stands with upraised hands,

Struck dumb by his surprise.

They ran full well, as I do tell,

As far as yonder tree ; They there sat down and looked around :

No Jonah could they see.

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" Alackaday ! " they then did say,

" What evil have we done ? 'Tis my belief poor Jonah's grief

Has surely hirn undone."

I conclude this account of the childhood and youth by recording the fact that Ebenezer was, by the unquestioned verdict of young and old, the scholar of the Plantation. In certain specialties one or another ma}^ have excelled him. One kept ahead of him in the arithmetic, and another in the grammar ; but, in the combining of all the attainments in the general and well-balanced scholar, he had neither rival nor second.

MEMOIR OF EBENEZER FISHER.

Chapter II. Led Towards The Ministry

Unpromising Conditions. — The Antecedents of Faith. — Illustrative Incident. — How Blessings are Appreciated. — The Real Calvinism Dominant. — Sadness of Youthful Life. — A Furniture Maker. — Incipient Universalist. — Argues with Relatives. Urged to become a Baptist Minister. — A Pivotal Event. — Avows the Universalist Faith. — The Country Schoolmaster. — Contemplates Secular Business. — Thinks of the Ministry. — Hears his first Universalist Sermon. — Assists at a Sunday Service.

XDER the unpromising conditions described in

^ the preceding chapter was to appear the literal founder of an institution of learning. From the semiwilderness was to appear the man who, in a sense distinctive and peculiar, was to be a teacher in Israel, and whose success was to be so marked that the ministry of one branch of the Christian Church at this day feels the impress of his strong mind and character more than that of any other man. In fact, the Uniyersalist Church in America is in no small degree in the care of the ministers whose teacher in theology and the duties of the pastoral office fifty years ago was a poor boy, poorly clad and poorly taught, working with the hoe on a sterile soil, and fearing by day and night the stealthy

LED TOWARDS THE MINISTRY.

approach of the untamed beasts of the forest. The explanation in part is in the greed for knowledge that cared for no holiday save as it gave him an opportunity to study the book which was always at hand in his pocket, and which hastened to the end of the furrow that it might in the few moments gained review the lesson.

I pause to think of the Canton students who now make a large proportion of the working force in the Universalist ministry. I then think of that man's capacious brain, consecrated character, and plastic hand, training " the boys " in the Canton edifice. I go back — and it is but a few short years — and see that instructor and fashioner of ministers reclining upon his back in a potato field, so rapt in the tempting and inciting pages that the father, first pausing to wonder over the strange spectacle, is compelled to break the revery, and call back the wandering faculties to the stern realities of life on a wilderness farm. Fiction can present more grotesque situations, but none more romantic or farther removed from the ordinary experience of human life.