I’m slowly assembling biographical notes on the original pewholders of the 1838 meeting house of First Congregational Society of New Bedford (now First Unitarian Church in New Bedford). They were all white and all male (women were not allowed to own pews in 1838), and they ranged in economic status from small business owners to wealthy merchants. Within those limits, they were a fascinating cast of characters, and they were tied together by a web of business interests and kinship ties. I am interested in trying to document that web of relationships in these biographical notes. Here’s the first installment in a series of biographical notes on these pewholders.
This post is mostly a collection of random notes. Head to part two for more interesting stuff.
Pew 77 (left side of left center section, 3 pews back): James B. Congdon
Anti-slavery activist, as documented by the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in “Behind the Mansions: The Political, Economic, and Social Life of a New Bedford Neighborhood” p. 68:
“While he was chair of the city’s board of selectmen, James Bunker Congdon also hired lawyers ‘of the highest standing’ in the 1849 case of Henry Boyer, the black steward aboard the coaster Cornelia who was accused and ultimately jailed on the charge of having assisted a Norfolk boy to escape slavery aboard the vessel. In 1859, Congdon introduced to a small New Bedford audience the black physician J. B. Smith, who was then promoting a colonization plan that brought back to life Paul Cuffe’s interest in establishing a black-run economy competitive with the South. Congdon noted that the society would further the cultivation of cotton in Africa, and, should the effort succeed, it ‘would prove a greater blow to the system of slavery and the slave trade than all the moral efforts that had been used in this country.’ Congdon’s brother Joseph and his sister Mary T. Congdon were also active in antislavery, the latter having been one of ten delegates to the New England Anti-Slavery Society meeting in 1839.”
Congdon also owned pew 111.
Pew 101 (left side against wall, 12 pews back): Zachariah Hillman and Abraham Gardner
Hillman, with his brother Jethro, owned a shipyard. They are best known for building the ship Charles W. Morgan, now at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut; the ship was named after another pewholder of the 1838 meetinghouse.
Pew 36 (right side of right center section, 3 pews back): Ichabod Clapp
Clapp owned a livery stable on Fifth St., which he sold in 1845.
Clapp also owned pews 53 and 97.
Pew 12 (right side against wall, 12 pews back): Benjamin Lindsey
Lindsey was a printer who published the newspaper The Daily Mercury, as well as the weekly Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript. Daniel Ricketson, in his “The History of New Bedford, describes Lindsey thus:
“Mr. Lindsey was a man of great energy and industry, an editor of the old school. His constant devotion to his profession much impaired his health, and for many of his last years, as remembered by the writer, he bore the appearance of a valetudinarian; but he retained his quick step and industrious habits to the last.’ His appearance was remarkably editorial, but decidedly of the olden time, and like his predecessor, John Spooner, of the Franklin school of printers. The New Bedford Mercury during his editorship was of the Federal school of politics, and was ever one of the most consistent and able journals in the State. During the latter part of his life, he was assisted by his eldest son, the present editor, who established the Daily Mercury, not without the distrust of his father for its success, in 1831.”
Lindsey also published books, most notably The Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black, a Fugitive from Slavery, Written by Himself in 1847.
Lindsey also owned pew 15.
Pew 44 (left side of right center section, 6 pews back): Joseph Grinnell
The following appears on the Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress:
“Grinell, Joseph, (brother of Moses Hicks Grinnell), a Representative from Massachusetts;… elected as a Whig to the Twenty-eighth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Barker Burnell; reelected to the Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, and Thirty-first Congresses and served from December 7, 1843, to March 3, 1851; declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1850….”
Pew 45 (left side of right center section, 6 pews back): Moses Hicks Grinnell
The following appears on the Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress:
“Grinnell, Moses Hicks, (brother of Joseph Grinnell), a Representative from New York; born in New Bedford, Mass., March 3, 1803;… elected as a Whig to the Twenty-sixth Congress (March 4, 1839-March 3, 1841); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1840 to the Twenty-seventh Congress; presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1856….”
He also owned pew 98.