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Andover Mass.

Trinity Church, a Parish Priest’s Dream

Boston’s Trinity Church owes its magnificent appearance to the Episcopal priest who wrote the lyrics to the Christmas carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem — and, of course, to architect Henry Hobson Richardson.

Trinity Church under construction, c. 1875

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) was descended from the Rev. John Cotton on his father’s side and Samuel Phillips, the founder of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., on his mother’s. Born in Boston, educated at Harvard and Virginia Theological Seminary, he once wrote his only ambition was to be a parish priest.

In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church. The Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed the parish church on Summer Street, and Brooks began one of the most ambitious building campaigns in America.

Phillips Brooks

Trinity Church

Critics consider Trinity Church an architectural masterpiece, designed by Richardson, muralist John LaFarge and stained glass artists William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Finished in 1877, it established Richardson’s reputation. Historian Douglas Shand-Tucci described it as “an American Hagia Sophia.’

The style became known as the Richardsonian Romanesque style, with clay roof, heavy arches, rough stone and a massive tower. Architects adopted the style for a number of public buildings across the United States.

Trinity Church in Boston

Sunday after Sunday, Brooks preached at Trinity Church to large crowds drawn by his inspirational sermons. “Do not pray for easy lives,” he implored his congregation. “Pray to be stronger men.”

He told them, “Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.” And he could have been talking about his campaign to build Trinity Church when he said, “Set yourself earnestly to see what you are made to do, and then set yourself earnestly to do it.”

Brooks was consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891, but only served for 15 months before he died at the age of 57.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Memorial to Phillips Brooks at Trinity Church. Of statues, Brooks said,, “Life comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work. The hills are full of marble before the world blooms with statues.”

He wrote O Little Town of Bethlehem in 1868, after he visited the city in Palestine three years earlier. His organist, Lewis Redner, put the words to music. Redner recalled how it happened: “As Christmas of 1868 approached, Mr. Brooks told me that he had written a simple little carol for the Christmas Sunday-school service, and he asked me to write the tune to it,” he wrote. “Mr. Brooks came to me on Friday, and said, ‘Redner, have you ground out that music yet to “O Little Town of Bethlehem”? I replied, ‘No,’ but that he should have it by Sunday.

“On the Saturday night previous my brain was all confused about the tune. I thought more about my Sunday-school lesson than I did about the music. But I was roused from sleep late in the night hearing an angel-strain whispering in my ear, and seizing a piece of music paper I jotted down the treble of the tune as we now have it, and on Sunday morning before going to church I filled in the harmony. Neither Mr. Brooks nor I ever thought the carol or the music to it would live beyond that Christmas of 1868.”

Trinity Church Nativity Windows

Buried Like A King

Brooks loved Christmas. “The earth has grown old with its burden of care, but at Christmas it always is young, the heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair, and its soul full of music breaks the air, when the song of angels is sung,” he wrote.

People called him the greatest preacher of the 19th century. He is credited with strengthening the Episcopal Church, and with introducing Helen Keller to Christianity and to Anne Sullivan.

Phillips Brooks’ death in 1893 was a major event in Boston. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, where one observer wrote, ‘They buried him like a king.’

The Episcopal Church recognizes the day of his death, January 23, as a feast day.

Photos: Nativity stained glass windows, By Rebecca Kennison – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1585418; Memorial to Phillips Brooks, By Andrewrabbott – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18420785

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The Mysterious Death of New Hampshire’s Enoch Poor, Revolutionary War Hero

Enoch Poor went off to fight with the Continental Army in 1775, and fought in every major battle of the Revolution until he died in 1780 outside Hackensack, N.J. But it wasn’t the British who killed him. On that, at least, everyone agrees.

Enoch Poor

Poor was originally from Andover, Mass., born June 21, 1736, the son of a soldier. In 1755 he enlisted as a private in one of the Massachusetts units that fought in the French and Indian War. Upon returning home, he eloped. He and his new wife moved to Exeter, N.H., where he became a successful shipbuilder.

He was a vocal supporter of the anti-British agitators in the 1760s, and after the Battle of Lexington and Concord he restarted his military career, becoming the colonel of the Second New Hampshire regiment.

The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, Dec. 31, 1775, by John Trumbull

Poor’s regiment stayed in New Hampshire through the Battle of Bunker Hill, but after that fight it joined the Continental Army. It fought throughout the war at battles of Trois-Rivières, Trenton, Princeton, Hubbardton, Saratoga, Monmouth, and finally Yorktown. His regiment accompanied Gen. Richard Montgomery on the disastrous invasion of Canada. Poor and his men also went with Gen. John Sullivan to western New York, where they destroyed some 40 Iroquois villages.

Mystery

Poor, however, did not see the war to the end. He died in New Jersey in September of 1780. Diaries of other soldiers reported that he died on September 8 after suffering from a bilious fever for several days. Typhus was the suspected cause.

Over the years, however, another story has always haunted Poor’s legacy. Conspiracy theorists say the cause of his death actually represents one of the earliest American political coverups. This school of thought holds that Poor actually died as the result of wound suffered in a duel.

Dueling was against military rules and could have resulted in court martial and disgrace, reason enough for a cover up. And a fever quite likely could have accompanied a bullet wound.

The Massachusetts Historical Society put forth this theory in the 1880s, in its official proceedings, when it published “The Duel of General Poor with Major Porter.”

Essentially, the story holds that Poor, known as a demanding leader, instructed Major John Porter of Bridgewater, Mass., on one hot August day to rouse his resting troops and have them continue marching. The recalcitrant troops stayed seated and Poor had to repeat the command, to which Porter responded rudely.

The ‘Duel’

In the follow up exchange, Porter challenged Poor to a duel.

“The seconds arranged that each should stand back to back against the other with loaded pistol in hand, that each should advance five paces, fire over the shoulder at the other when the word should be given, and that they should then advance and finish the contest with swords. At the fire General Poor fell, wounded by the ball of his adversary. Major Porter, not wounded, instantly turned and drew his sword, when the seconds interfered and stopped all further proceedings. General Poor’s wound proved fatal, and he died on the 8th of September following. The affair was hushed up as much as possible, but Major Porter was not long after relieved of his command.”

Poor’s burial site. The inscription includes: In 1824, Lafayette revisited this grave, and turning away much affected, exclaimed, Ah, that was one of my Generals.

Both generals Washington and Lafayette attended his funeral and grieved his passing. But how did he really die? Skeptics would say it is unlikely that either man would resort to dueling. Porter was a minister in civilian life, and Poor was a respected officer. But the story remains unresolved to this day, with various sources split on exactly why Enoch Poor lies buried in Hackensack instead of back home in Exeter.

This story was updated in 2022.

Images: Enoch Poor’s burial site CC BY 2.5, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12017247.

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Lieutenant George Bush Gets Shot Down

As a 20-year-old bomber pilot in World War II, Lieutenant George Bush always thought someone else would get hit by enemy fire. He was wrong.

Lieutenant George Bush rescued.

Bush was a 17-year-old student at Philips Academy in Andover, Mass., when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He decided to enlist in the Navy. And so he enlisted six months after graduation, on his 18^th birthday.

On Sept. 2, 1944, Lt. Jg. George Bush was a torpedo bomber pilot in the Pacific Theater of World War II. His squadron took off at 8:15 a.m. on a mission to bomb Japanese radio towers and receivers on the island of Chi Chi Jima. Anti-aircraft guns and radar surrounded the radio tower.

The first plane dove through black clouds of intense anti-aircraft fire and dropped several bombs. So did the next. Then Bush’s turn came up. Bush later described getting hit to James Bradley, author of Flyboys: A True Story of Courage.

“You see the explosions all round you, these dark, threatening puffs of black smoke. You’re tense in your body, but you can’t do anything about it. You cannot take evasive action, so you get used to it. You just think to yourself, ‘This is my duty and I have got to do it’.”

He paused. “And, of course, you always thought someone else was going to get hit.”

As he reached the altitude to drop his bombs, a Japanese shell hit his plane.

“There was a fierce jolt and it lifted the plane forward,” he said. “We were probably falling at a speed of 190 miles an hour. Smoke was coming up from the engine; I couldn’t see the controls. I saw flames running along the wings to the fuel tanks.”

Hit the Silk

George Bush in his plane, a Grumman TBM Avenger.

He thought, “This is really bad.”

But, he said, he was thinking of what he was supposed to do. “And what I was supposed to do was drop those bombs and haul ass out of there.”

Bush continued his dive, released his bombs and turned east to clear the island. He shouted into the intercom, “Hit the silk! Hit the silk!” telling his crewmates to bail out. Both died.

George Bush bailed out over the water and floated on an inflatable raft. Fighter planes circled overhead to protect him. After four hours, the lifeguard submarine USS Finback surfaced and sailors fished him out of the water.

His words on being rescued: “Happy to be aboard.”

He then spent a month on the submarine, often standing the midnight-to-4 a.m. watch. Much later, he recounted those nights:

I’ll never forget the beauty of the Pacific — the flying fish, the stark wonder of the sea, the waves breaking across the bow. It was absolutely dark in the middle of the Pacific; the nights were so clear and the stars so brilliant. It was wonderful and energizing, a time to talk to God.

I had time to reflect, to go deep inside myself and search for answers. People talk about a kind of foxhole Christianity, where you’re in trouble and think you’re going to die, and so you want to make everything right with God and everybody else right there in the last minute.

But this was just the opposite of that. I had already faced death, and God had spared me. I had this very deep and profound gratitude and a sense of wonder.

Photo courtesy George Bush Presidential Library and Museum. This story was updated in 2022.

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Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Tells the Ladies To Burn Their Corsets

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps more than 150 years ago wrote about how hard it was for women to balance their ambitions with home and family.

Now largely forgotten, she was once published next to Mark Twain, Henry James and William Dean Howells.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 1910

She wrote 57 books, all of which challenged the view that a woman’s place was in the home. She was the first woman to deliver a series of lectures at Boston University. A reformer, she questioned religious dogma, opposed animal experimentation and tried to change women’s clothing. She urged them to burn their corsets.

Burn up the corsets! … No, nor do you save the whalebones, you will never need whalebones again. Make a bonfire of the cruel steels that have lorded it over your thorax and abdomens for so many years and heave a sigh of relief, for your emancipation I assure you, from this moment has begun.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was born Mary Gray Phelps Aug. 31, 1844 in Andover, Mass., the daughter of a prominent Congregational minister, Austin Phelps. He was president of the Andover Theological Seminary, an orthodox Protestant institution that required students to build coffins as a reminder that life is brief.

Her mother, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, wrote the Kitty Brown series of children’s books. She died of brain fever when Mary Gray was eight, and Mary Gray asked to change her name in her mother’s honor.

Elizabeth’s first story was published in Youth’s Companion when she was 13. At 19 she had a Civil War story published by Harper’s Magazine.

In 1868 she published The Tenth of January about the tragic Pemberton Mill collapse, which killed 145 workers and injured 166. The story won the admiration of John Greenleaf Whittier and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

That same year she published The Gates Ajar to comfort, she said, a generation of women who lost loved ones in the Civil War. She described heaven as a place where families, including their pets, would be reunited. It was hugely successful, selling more than 100,000 copies. Her depiction of heaven as something other than a place to meet God provoked controversy, which only spurred more sales.

The book inspired spin-off products like cigars, funeral wreaths and patent medicines, even a parody by Mark Twain.

The story of Avis in 1877 portrayed a woman’s struggle to balance marriage and family with her desire to be a painter. It may have presaged her own marriage.

In 1888, at 42, she married Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist 17 years her junior.

The marriage didn’t succeed. They spent most of their time apart. He wasn’t even present when she died on Jan. 28, 1911, in Newton Centre, Mass.

This story last updated in 2022.

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Harriet Beecher Stowe: ‘To-night the last sad duty is before us’

Harriet Beecher Stowe lost her eldest son Henry Ellis on July 9, 1857, when he drowned in the Connecticut River. He was 19 years old, a student at Dartmouth College, and she was devastated by his death. She was a 46-year-old author and lecturer, celebrated and reviled for her campaign against slavery. Her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had been in print for five years. No book save the Bible sold more copies in the 19th century. She had just returned from Europe to her home in Andover, Mass., where Calvin Stowe taught at Andover Theological Seminary. On Aug. 24, 1857, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a letter to her five children as she prepared to bury her son:

Dear Children, — Since anniversary papa and I have been living at home; Grandpa and Grandma Beecher are here also, and we have had much comfort in their society … To-night the last sad duty is before us. The body is to be removed from the receiving tomb in the Old South Churchyard, and laid in the graveyard near by. Pearson has been at work for a week on a lot that is to be thenceforth ours. “Our just inheritance consecrated by his grave.”

Henry Stowe

How little he thought, wandering there as he often has with us, that his mortal form would so soon be resting there. Yet that was written for him. It was as certain then as now, and the hour and place of our death is equally certain, though we know it not. It seems selfish that I should yearn to lie down by his side, but I never knew how much I loved him till now. The one lost piece of silver seems more than all the rest, — the one lost sheep dearer than all the fold, and I so long for one word, one look, one last embrace…

There are two Harriet Beecher Stowe houses in New England: One in Hartford, next door to Mark Twain’s house in Nook Farm, and one in Brunswick, Maine, on the campus of Bowdoin College. Both are U.S. National Historic Landmarks. With thanks to Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe: Comp. from Her Letters and Journals.

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