MarlowHistoricalSociety.org

[Loisanne Foster]

Introduction to Caleb Blood's "Circular Letter"
and Its Implications for Marlow History

Elgin Jones tells us in History of Marlow, New Hampshire that Mr. Caleb Blood, a Baptist, was called to be the first minister in Marlow in 1778. (Jones, 30) Before that time, we know little about the manner of worship, but we can guess it was Baptist because, among the first settlers from Lyme, Connecticut, were several Baptist ministers. [I read somewhere, and I'll try to track it down, that Caleb Blood was ordained in Marlow.]

Yet Caleb Blood's term as a Marlow preacher was short. Jones notes, "That nothing had been done this early about a church building is seen by a vote passed at their meetings on the Sabbath would be [sic] two months at Nathan Huntley's, two months at Ruel Royce's, and two months at Solomon Gee's and successively through the year." (Jones, 30) Mr. Blood remained a Marlow preacher for only about a year and a half when a vote was taken to see about "settling him" or "reconsidering the former vote". (30) In March 1779 "it was voted to release Mr. Blood as minister." After that, there is no record of a Marlow minister until April 17, 1792 when Elder Beckwith was called to preach here. It appears that some were interested in having a Mr. Fisher, a Congregationalist from Lempster preach in Marlow, but it seems to have come to nothing. (31) Elder Eleazer Beckwith was also released as a minister after a relatively short period of time, and during his time as a preacher here, Marlow was embroiled in a long dispute over paying him a salary. We see mostly the names of early settlers on the lists of protesters. Since the Beckwiths themselves came early from Lyme, Connecticut, this seems counterintuitive.

We can see from this that, while our early Marlow settlers were Baptists, it is unlikely that they were of a mainstream variety such as Regular or Particular Baptists. They seem, rather, to be at odds with their own ministers.

Caleb Blood, who subsequently became an important Elder at the large Baptist evangelical church in Shaftsbury, Vermont and a well-known circuit-riding missionary preacher, wrote several circular letters to his various congregations and participated in writing others sent from Shaftbury to its sister churches. These letters offer insight into what Caleb Blood might have experienced in Marlow. Elder Blood seems to be arguing for the necessity of church discipline and a curb on individual liberty within the church while, at the same time, cautioning against gossip, in-fighting, and back-stabbing. One can only imagine what observations and experiences led him to write as he did. Here are some instructive quotations from one of his letters:

"Shaftsbury Baptist Association
CIRCULAR LETTER, 1789
"Gospel Discipline" by Caleb Blood

DEARLY BELOVED:

Although it has not been our usual custom to address you by a circular letter, yet we wish you to suffer a word of advice in this trying day; and as we are determined to stand aloof from the idea of claiming -- much more exercising -- any power that may in the least interfere with the independency or government of the several churches by us represented; [Then comes the big BUT.] yet it appears to us that there is no one thing of greater importance ... than a proper exercise of that power, which... is given to each individual church over its own members. The power which a Gospel Church has over its members, is not to be exercised according to any plan, form, or custom, of any that wear the name of Christian, any further than they perfectly agree with the direction given by the great Head of churches in his written word, ... All church power exercised contrary to this rule is mere usurpation...

"The design of Gospel Discipline is, to purge the church from iniquity, and not to gratify our prejudice and hard feelings one toward another. In its nature it is calculated to succor the tempted, to deliver the captive, hunt up and bring home with rejoicing those who are gone astray; also to cleanse the church from impenitent sinners, from contention and division, from tattling and tale bearing; and to keep the faith and order of the Christian church in its primitive purity.

"...The 18th of Matthew, clearly holds forth the nature, and strongly urges the necessity of church government and discipline. When we consider the wonderful order in which God hath fixed all nature, both rational and irrational, animate and inanimate, so that each one shall bear his portion,
exhibiting his glory, we must be sensible he never intended his peculiar people should live in this world without strict attention to good order and government in his church. ...

"It must be acknowledged that all communities formed among men are under certain bonds of union to their own society, the fulfilling whereof are the conditions of the compact. If one member is indulged in the breach of this combination, why not another? and so on till the whole community becomes extinct? So, if one member of a church, be they high or low, rich or poor, bond or free, is indulged in the breach of those bonds of peace which we have entered into,... by the same rule another may; and thus we may go on, till in reality we become a synagogue of Satan, be our profession what it may. Let us then take great care to keep watch over our members for good.

Let great care be taken that all back-biting, whispering, tattling and tale-bearing -- those enemies which often prove so fatal to christian union and peace, and which have so often separated chief friends -- be purged out of the churches, otherwise the fire of contention and strife will always burn...

Signed by order of the Association.

Source: Baptist Association

--------

It is not too much a stretch of the imagination to theorize from Caleb Blood's letter that there were in New England in 1789 Baptists who were challenging the mainsteam church, "pushing the envelope," as it were, toward individual liberty, and that is, in fact, true. It would not be too much a stretch of the imagination to suppose that some of these people resided in Marlow. That has yet to be proven. Various books (See below.) call these liberal church people who were known to be in isolated pockets of New Hampshire, Free Will Baptists and explain that the sect traces its origins back to England and seems to have its American origin in North Carolina. There were also groups which supposedly arose spontaneously (?) in places such as Durham and Lenanon, N.H. The term "Free Will," like the term "Yankee," was apparently first used in a derogatory way, but was adopted with pride by those whom it described.

Free Will Baptists differ from the other Baptist sects mainly in their insistance that eternal life is available to all, not just an "elect," and in their willingness to honor an individual's experience of the divine to the extent of accepting his interpretation of divine will as long as he can vouch for the metaphysical experience which imparted it and has received an adult baptism as a sign of it. It might be seen an extension of democratic liberty into religious life. A History of Original Free Will Baptists .Michael R. Pelt. Mount Olive College Press, Mount Olive, NC.1996 and The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Bernard Bailyn. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Mass.1992

The idea that Marlow Baptists were Free Will Baptists is only a theory, but much weight is added to the argument for it by the fact that many Marlow residents refused to pay the ministerial tax here, even when it was for a Baptist minister, and many joined the Universalist church in Washington, trekking some distance to join with Universalists who also believed in universal salvation. It could be a clue to the tremendouly long religious conflict that prevented Marlow from building a meeting house or retaining a pastor for long until nearly the beginning of the nineteenth century.

[Loisanne Foster]

From
The Great White Hills of New Hampshire.Ernest Poole.Doubleday and Co. New York. 1947
Chapter V. "Battling Sins"

[Ernest Poole is writing mainly about the White Mountain area, but, by extension, much of what he says applies to the rest of New Hampshire. He first describes the Puritan Congegational churches and their difficulties. Here he discusses revivals and the competion which arrived to challenge the "standing order". Then he says a few words about the New Hampshire Millerites and Free Will Baptists. Best of all, he provides a different slant, or, to use the newer phrase, he puts a new spin on the topic.]

"All through these mountain villages came other 'precious revivals,' 'showers of mercy' and 'dews of heavenly grace.' Some took place after death-dealing plagues believed to come from an angry God who needed quick appeasement. But oh, the power of sin in these hills! The people lapsed again and again and in many places so low as to need still stronger medicine. For them, from Colebrook down to Weirs, came camp meetings of Methodists, Baptists and even Presbyterians. Staged as a rule in early fall, they varied in size from small affairs to others in which thousands of men, women and children gathered in great open sheds or out of doors, warmed by bonfires and the harangues of preacher after preacher who shouted all day and on into the dark, not only against sin and the Devil but against the "trash traps" set by other sects to land innocent people in hell. Hundreds flocked to the sinners' . benches, shouted, sang and moaned and sobbed. Nor was this all of the emotional spree; for, glad of the chance for a little excitement, unregenerates often came to such gatherings to boo the preachers and to make more trouble at night when, among the hundreds of wagons in which slept the women and girls, such young marauders silently moved; and in spite of night patrols, quite a few babies came into the world as one result of these "showers of grace."

"Not in all of them, by any means, for in most the rowdies were thrown out and the people grew so fervent that they were ready to convert not only these big granite hills but the entire face of the globe. In Sugar Hill Village you may still see an old grove, to which in 1835 the Free Will Baptists brought three thousand by stage and wagon, on horse or on foot. With their eyes on a huge wooden Hindu idol placed upon the speaker's stand, they listened day and night to preachers who orated on the benighted heathen's need; and at the end they raised enough to send Reverend Eli Noyes and his wife around the Horn to India.

"The Free Will Baptists had already built the lower white church in the village, and a lad who lived there at the time left this picture of the place:

"I can see it now, with the preacher climbing the stairs to the pulpit, taking off his coat and preaching a real Jonathan Edwards sermon for two hours .... The choir was famous for its fine singing. The preacher read the whole of every hymn, after which the leader of the choir would say the tune, then give the key and the music burst forth without any instrument to drown the voices or mar the, harmony." There were volunteer exhorters, too, who would rise in the congregation and speak, like Artemus Morse, who "would begin in a low voice and with slow speed, increasing both little by little until before he got through he would be speaking in thunder tones with lightning rapidity!" A woman rose one day and cried:

"My brethern and sistern, this passage of scriptur has been runnin' through my mind. Let every tub set on its own bottom." Let every soul do the same, she urged, and ask help from nobody but Jesus and God.
Later, when such exhorters grew rampant and joined the Millerites, the Free Will Baptists sold the church to them and built another up the hill. [For more about the Millerites, see "Genealogy," "Solomon Gee and His Family."]

"The Cold Summer of 1842, when the fields were still frozen in June, was to these Millerites a sign of the early end of the world, and their dark forebodings led them through search of Biblical texts to set the awful date at October 22. For weeks they harvested no crops, sold or gave away their cattle and, after a month of fasting and prayer, gathered with their children in the graveyard, all robed in white, to welcome friends rising from the graves, where already some could hear bones stir and rattle! Others climbed to housetops and one, on hearing a dinner horn, took it for Gabriel's trumpet and fell off the roof and broke his leg. Another, weary from fasting, climbed a haystack and fell asleep; but when unconverted boys set the hay afire, down he leaped!

"'Hell! Just as I expected!' he cried.

"On and on the starving families waited in vain for the trumpet to sound, then at last gave up and returned dismally to their homes, to get in what was left of the grain and potatoes abandoned in those last wild weeks.
But such glimpses of hysteria give no fair picture of early religious life up here. Over near Mount Washington, old Josiah Robinson, on the Dark Day of 1780 caused by a total eclipse of the sun, while his shivering neighbors prayed to a wrathful God to bring back light, calmly in his carpenter shop by the light of a candle worked on...

"Slowly rigid dogmas and fanatical creeds were replaced by a growing tolerance. The Free Will Baptists, with their creed of free will and free communion, have had an amazing growth since their beginnings long ago. Many other churches, too, with their Christmas parties, suppers and fairs, have tried to bring human happiness here and not leave all the bliss for the skies..."

[Loisanne Foster]

The son, Caleb BLOOD, of Isaiah BLOOD and Martha (THOMSON) (John5-John4-John3-John2-David1), became a Baptist minister.

Nathaniel Green, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charlton (where the BLOOD family moved after leaving Bellingham) wrote the following recommendation about Caleb when he was licensed to preach:

"The Church of christ in charlton, in the Baptist Constitution, to our Sister churches in the same order, wishing you much grace, mercy, and peace, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, Our Lord: These are to signify to you that our brother, Caleb Blood, is in good standing with us, and is a regular walkerboth in the world and in the Church of God; and he has manifested to us that he has a call to preach the Gospel, upon which we have taken opportunity to examine him and improve him in the work of preaching and it does appear to us, that he had a gift for the labor; and we recommend him into you as such, desiring that you may improve him among youin preaching and then give the same if you are satisfied with him in the work. So we subscribe ourselves you brethern in the land."(15 DEC 1777)

"Rural Vermont Minister"
"Soon after the settling commenced, ministers of the gospel might be seen traversing the woods and hunting up the scattered sheep in the wilderness. They would ride on horseback or go on foot, as they might be able, with no other equipage than a bridle, a saddle, and a pair of saddlebags containing a Bible, Psalm book, and a spare shirt or two, or, if on foot, with less baggage. Thus equipped, they would travel through the woods, mud and snow, preaching at the doors of log houses, or in the forest, anywhere that was most convenient. And in some cases, they have been overtaken in storms, lost their way and have lain out all night, witness this in Elder Caleb BLOOD."

This was taken from Smith, Henry P. and Rann, Wm. S,"History of Rutland County, VT," (1882), p. 760.

Contributed by Betty Sullivan [url]bettysul@starcourier.com [/url]

[Loisanne Foster]

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/MA-MENDON/2004-01/1073073086

On Rootsweb, Mary Blank discovered this information:


Notes for Rev. BLOOD Rev. Caleb BLOOD:
Caleb BLOOD was born just four years after the Baptist Chruch building had been raised in Bellingham,
and went all his growing up years to that church.
He was 13 when the Baptist Association was formed. It is not too surprising,
then, that he would turn toward the ministry of that church. He was highly
praised by the pastor when he told him he wanted to be a preacher.
When he was licensed to preach, the pastor at his home parish wrote this
recommendation:
"The church of Christ in Charlton, in the Baptist constitution, to our
sister churches in the same order, wishing you much grace, mercy, and peace,
through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. These are to
signify to you that our brother, Caleb BLOOD, is in good standing with us,
and is a regular walker both in the world and in the church of God, and he
has manifested to us that he has a call to preach the Gospel, upon which we
have taken the opportunity to examine him and improve him in the work of
preaching and it does appear to us, that he had a gift for the labor, and we
recommend him unto you as such, desiring that you may improve him among you
in preaching and then give the same if you are satisfied with him in the
work. So we subscribe ourselves you brethern in the land. (15 DEC 1777)."
Before ordination, Caleb was an itinerant preacher for two years at Dudley
and Marlow, NH. He was ordained at Marlow, NH in 1777. In 1779, he served at
Weston, MA, and in 1781 he was at Newton, MA. That church was newly
organized, and he stayed seven years. He also taught school there, for two
years, in the town's south district.
In 1786, he accepted a call to Shaftsbury, VT. During his 26 years at
Shaftsbury, the tiny Baptist congregation grew dramatically. He also
belonged to the Baptist Association, and did missionary work all through VT,
NH, and up into Canada.
In "The Rural Vermont Minister", an article in "The History of Rutland
County", by Harry P. Smith and Wm. S. Rann, 1886, he was described this way:
"Soon after the settling commenced, ministers of the Gospel might be seen
traversing the woods and hunting up the scattered sheep in the wilderness.
They would ride on horseback or go on foot, as they might be able, with no
other equipage than a bridle, saddle, and a pair of saddlebags containing a
Bible, Psalm book, and a spare shirt or two, or, if on foot, with less
baggage. Thus equipped, they would travel through the woods, mud and snow,
preaching at the doors of log houses, or in the forest. anywhere that was
most convenient. And in some cases, they have been overtaken in storms, lost
their way and have lain out all night, witness this in Elder Caleb BLOOD."
He went to serve the Fourth Baptist Church at Boston, in 1807. Three years
later, he and Sarah were on the road again, this time to Portland, ME. After
just four years, he took sick and died in 1814, at age 60. (Source:Barlow,
Claud W, "Descendants of Richard BLOOD of Bellingham & Charlton." 1992, pp.
18 - 19; Harris, Roger Dean, "The Story of the Bloods", p. 92; History of
Rutland County, 1882).

Children of Rev. BLOOD and Sarah HILL are:
+ 46 i. Moses6 BLOOD, born 11 July 1779 in Weston, MA; died Bet. 1854 - 1859
in Gratiot, LaFayette, WI.
47 ii. Betsey BLOOD, born 23 April 178142; died Aft. 1855. She married
Benjamin RUE; born in MA; died Aft. 1855.
48 iii. Eleanor BLOOD, born 20 November 178342. She married Timothy CHASE
08 May 1819.
49 iv. Martha BLOOD, born 13 October 1786 in MA42.