FAMILY HISTORY AND STORIES
HISTORY OF BARNSTABLE COUNTY (by Paul Schilling)
Hinckley Family Records
Long before the white colonist came to Cape Cod, Wampanoag Indians were worshipping the Great Spirit, whose creative work they saw in sun and moon, forest and seas, animals and plants, calling forth respect and care for the Land which was not theirs but theirs to use as a trust from the Creator.
The Chrisitian gospel was first preached among the "South Sea" (Nantucket Sound) Indians in 1658 and in 1670 Richard Bourne was ordained pastor of an Indian church. Appropriately, the oldest church building in Barnstable Country is the little Indian meetinghouse erected in 1684 in Santuit and moved to Mashpee in 1717.
Congregationalism: The English colonists on Cape Code were Puritan in background, concerned to purify the church from the remnants of medieval Catholicism . Calvinistic in theology, they opposed Anglican ceremonialism and episcopacy and emphasized religious earnestness and strict moral rectitude. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony remained loyal to the church of England and sought to reform it from within; others, like the Mayflower Pilgrims were Separatists who wanted complete independence from the established church.
The oldest Puritan society on the Cape was gathered at Sandwich in 1638. These people aimed to form a "godly commonwealth" in America. One community organization was responsible for both political government and worship and one meetinghouse served both purposes. Ministers were called and their housing and salaries were provided by vote of elected officials. Not until 1692 was a charter adopted granting freedom of religion.
In the early nineteenth century theological controversy produced a division between trinitarians and liberals or unitarians. The resultant bodies federated in 1918 and in 1965 merged to form the First Church of Christ in Sandwich, affiliated with bothe United Church of Crhist and the U nitarian Universalist Association.
In 1639 another group of colonists settled in the marshes of Mattacheese, later named Barnstable. However, their history actually dates from 1616 when dissenters in Southwark, London covenanted together to form an independent congregation - the first in the world to be call Congregational. In 1634 thirty members led by their pastor John Lathrop emigrated and located in Scituate. Joined by thirteen others who had previously arrived and were part of the Plymouth Colony congregation, the majority moved to Barnstable five years later.
Rev. John Lothrop of Yorkshire, Eng., married Hannah HOUSE in 1610 and Ann DIMMOCK in 1635. The Rev. John Lothrop was a minister in the Church of England in Egerton, Kent, England. He was placed in prison for his liberal church activities. In 1634 he was pardoned, provided he leave England. John stayed in London for a short time before coming to America along with four of his children and a large number of his congregation in 1634 on the Ship Griffin.
Although we do not have proof, we do believe that John Parker and his two "charges," Elisha and Robert, came to America as part of Rev. John Lothrop's congregation; see "Using the seal..."
Want to read more history and stories?
|
