History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

Historical Address 75
ate with Baptists in extending the bounds both of the kingdom
of God and of the Commonwealth. This diversity of opinion
resulted in a town where a larger measure of religious hberty
was enjoyed than anywhere else in the colony.
Historians agree in caUing Pastor Myles and Capt.
Thomas Willett the fathers of the town. To Capt. Willett,
with four others, was given the trust of "the admittance of
town inhabitants. " The terms of membership which Willett
proposed were laid before the church, and, after consideration
by that body, a reply was made by Mr. Myles and John Butterworth.
This document is a careful "exphcation" of the
sense in which the proposals are to be understood and accepted,
and reveals the scholarly and trained mind of the pastor. Like
all other documents relating to the settlement, this clearly
shows the religious motive to have been dominant. The "explications"
made by the chm-ch were agreed to by the trustees,
and the proposals, as thus explained, were adopted by the
town February 20th, 1669.
On the foundation thus laid, Swansea was built. Until
this time Baptists had been excluded from every colony in New
England except Rhode Island. The organization of this town
on the basis of religious toleration was thus an important epoch
in the history of religious opinions and of ecclesiastical life.
This church, which still lives and worships at North Swansea,
was the first Baptist church formed in Massachusetts, and the
fourth in the United States. Thus this town may justly claim
to be the cradle of that branch of the Christian church in this
Commonwealth.
At the close of King Philip's war, owing to the broken
condition of his church, Mr. Myles labored three years in
Boston. Finally the urgent entreaties of his people caused his
return. As the settlement was mainly broken up, and a new
one had been started further down the Neck, a parsonage and
a church were there built. The death of Mr. Myles in 1683
closed a faithful and fruitful ministry of thirty-eight years.
Early Public Schools
In the original partition of the public lands, there was reserved
a pastor's, a teacher's and a schoolmaster's lot. This
shows, that, at the outset, the people counted on the estabhshment
of schools. December 19, 1673, it was ordered "that a
school should be forthwith set up in this town for the teaching
of grammar, rhetoric and arithmetic, and the tongues of Latin,
Greek and Hebrew, also to read English and to write," and