Person:Moses Adams (19)

... Rev. Moses Adams, the first pastor occupying this house, had been selected with great care. In May 1776, the town chose a committee to take advice of the president of the college and the neighboring ministers and to engage four candidates to preach four Sabbaths each in succession. One of the four was Moses Adams. He, like his predecessor, Rev. Mr. Swift, was a native of Framingham. He was born October 16, 1749, and graduated at Cambridge, 1771. On the 29th of August, 1776, it was voted "to hear Mr. Moses Adams eight Sabbaths longer on probation," and on the 20th of December "to hear Mr. Moses Adams four Sabbaths longer than is agreed for." ... On the 8th day of January they made choice of Mr. Adams to take the oversight and charge of the church. The choice was confirmed by the town on the 15th of the same month. At an adjournment of that meeting, on the 17th of March, an offer was made of £200 settlement and £80 salary in lawful money, according to 6s. 8d. per ounce. It was also voted to provide him with fire-wood the first year after his settlement. The invitation was accepted, and Mr. Adams was ordained on the 25th day of June, 1777, then in his twenty-eighth year.
He was the only child of respectable but humble parents. By the death of both parents he became an orphan at the age of seven years. The property left him was sufficient, with economy, to defray the expense of a public education. The first years of his ministry were attended with considerable pecuniary embarrassment, for, although precaution was taken to make the salary payable in silver, yet the value of that compared with the necessaries of life very considerably decreased.
The promptness and spirit with which the people of Acton met the calls of the Government for the support of the war rendered them less able to pay their minister. His settlement had been relied on to meet the expense of building a house, which a young and increasing family made a matter of necessity. The settlement was not wholly paid for several years. The subject was agitated at two meetings in 1781, and in February, 1782, the selectmen were directed to pay the remaining balance.
In 1788 Mr. Adams, in a communication which is recorded, made a statement of £123, which he considered his due for balance unpaid of his three first years' salary, accompanied by an offer to deduct £43 if the remainder should be paid or put on interest. It is not certain whether this was a legal or merely an equitable claim, but the town promptly acceded to the proposal. In justice to the town it should be observed that so far as it regards their pecuniary dealings with their two first ministers a liberality and sense of justice is manifest, with few exceptions, from the beginning to the end of the records. There were other negotiations in regard to the salary. It was all, however, in perfect good feeling and in accordance with the respect and affection which existed between Mr. Adams and his people through the whole period of his long ministry of forty-two years.
He died on the 13th of October, 1819, and was buried on the 16th, which was the seventieth anniversary of his death.
In consequence of his request in writing - which was found after his decease - no sermon was delivered at his funeral. To anticipate the silent tear was more to him than the voice of praise. He had days of prosperity and he knew how to enjoy them. He witnessed seasons of sorrow and bore them with rare equanimity. In public duties, in social intercourse, in the schools, in the transactions of private life, he carried himself with a genial but serene self=poise commanding universal confidence, veneration and love.
The house where such a man lived and died, whose walls witnessed the mental struggles of his closet and study, the composition of his four thousand sermons, the training and education of his children, and of those from abroad, fitting for college under his care, is a hallowed retreat calling for a tender appreciation by all who shall hereafter gaze upon this memorial structure. The following items have been copied from the town records, in regard to his children. Moses, son of Moses and Abigail Adams, born November 28, 1777 ; Mabby, daughter, born January 21, 1780 ; Josiah, born November 3, 1781 ; Joseph, born September 25, 1783 ; Clarissa, born July 13, 1785.

"Moses, ch. Lois" was baptized 29 Aug 1756.
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[See his mother's page. Supposedly, this Moses was baptized after his father's death and upon his mother's return to Hopkinton. She died shortly thereafter.]

p 22 -
... HE was the Rev. MOSES ADAMS of Acton (Har. Univ. 1771) ; was ordained 25 June 1777, and continued to preach till a few months before his death, 13 Oct. 1819. He was buried on the 16th, which was the seventieth return of his birth day. HE married ABIGAIL STONE, daughter of Hon. Josiah Stone of Fram., by whom he had seven children. (See p. 29.)
The reader will excuse the feelings which induce the insertion of the following extract from the inscription placed over his grave :
"In his person, he was dignified and modest ; in his intellect, vigorous and sound ; in his heart, benevolent and devout. His preaching was plain and practical, and his example added greatly to its power. The scriptures were his study and delight ; and, while he exercised the Protestant right of expounding them for himself, his candor toward the sincere, who differed from him, was in the spirit of the Gospel. The good Being, whom he loved with supreme devotion, was pleased to grant him many years of prosperity and gladness, and to add not a few of affliction and sorrow. The first, he enjoyed with moderation and gratitude ; and, in the last, he exhibited the power of Religion to sustain and comfort the practical Christian. To his people, and his family, he was ardently attached, and spent his life in exertions and prayers for their welfare ; and they have placed this inscription to testify their reverence for his character, and their love for his memory.
We cannot mourn thee, Venerable Shade! Whom Virtue led in triumph to the skies, While following Sorrow halted at the tomb."

p 29 -
... (From p. 18) ABIGAIL STONE ... married Rev. MOSES ADAMS of Acton ; (See p. 22.) ... They were both 2d and 3d cousins. They had the same great grandfather in Moses Haven1, and his father, Richard of Lynn, was also their common ancestor ...

Their children were
1. LOUISA, born 7 Sept. 1773, who married JOHN PARK, M.D. ...
2. NANCY, 18 Jan. 1776, married REV. NICHOLAS B. WHITNEY of Hingham, ...
3. MOSES, 28 Nov. 1777, (Harv. Univ. 1797), married MARY L. TUTTLE of Littleton ...
4. NABBY, Jan. 1780, married her mother's cousin, LUKE BIXBY, who was also her father's 2d cousin ...
5. JOSIAH, 3 Nov. 1781, (Harv. Univ. 1801), Lawyer in Fram. He married JANE PARK of Windham, N.H., sister of Dr. John Park, who married his sister Louisa. ...
6. JOSEPH, 25 Sept. 1783, (Harv. Univ. 1803), Lawyer at West Cambridge, where he died 10 June, 1814. He married ALMIRA FISKE ...
7. CLARISSA, 13 July, 1785, married Caleb Hersey, of Hingham ...

Mrs. ADAMS died 7 Dec. 1812, aged 63. ...