man himself is subjected to the mellowing influences of high and Christian ideals, we find him ready and responsive to them—a strong man—strong in his individuality and determination.2
The origins and political processes of a New England town are quaintly and tidily illustrated in the Brimfield Town Meeting Records:
RECORD OF THE FIRST TOWN-MEETING
Att an annull meeting holden att the meeting hous in Brimfield, to Elect town officers for the town by order of the General Court, march 16: 1731 First Robert Moulton Choos moderator the meeting and work of the day.3
Another item gives homely evidence of the interlaced routine of town and church:
PETITION FOR PRIVILEGE TO ERECT A PEW.
Brimfield March 12th 1759
We the Petitioners Do Send Greeting &c to the Honourable town for Several Reasons, Do humbly Beg leave of your honours that you would give us the place over y° woemens Stairs to build a pew upon our own Cost, one reason we give is that we are soe Crouded at Sundry times that we cant hardly get a seat to sit in, & the other Reasons is, that whereas there is a pew on the other Side, we Reasonably think that it will beautifie the house.4
Towns in New England were strong elements in colonial government. Examples of this close participation abound in Brimfield's town records:
REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
At a meeting of the town of Brimfield, January 14, 1773. To act on the following, viz.:
"To see if the Town will take into consideration the matter of Grievance that are supposed to be brought upon by certain acts of Parliment, and if they think proper to choose a committee or committees to confer with other Towns on Matters of Grievance, and in every respect to act upon it as they may think proper."5
Town meetings were conducted "in his Majestie's Name," the last of which (under that name) was held March 12, 1776. The following year meetings were called in the name of the "Government and People of Massachusetts Bay" and in 1783 in the name of the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
The Rev. Mr. Hyde details the wars and connected events supported by Brimfield town: Revolutionary War, Provincial Congress, Massachusetts Convention on the Constitution, Shay's Rebellion, War of 1812 and the Civil War. It was this last which was engaging the thoughts and energies of Brimfield citizens when he arrived. They were in the midst of enrolling another military company and loading wagons with beef. He was ordained amidst this excitement of war preparations.
The Brimfield Congregational Ecclesiastical Council was called and organized August 19, 1862. Seventeen ministers and deacons from Brimfield and surrounding villages found that Hyde had received a unanimous call, that he had his certificate of church membership, and his license to preach. The group, which included the Rev. Dr. Mark Hopkins (he had horsebacked all the way from Williamstown), examined him respecting his views of theology, his religious experience and his motives for entering the ministry. Satisfied, the council voted unanimously to proceed to ordination. The Rev. Dr. Hopkins preached in the ordination exercises.
Thus does a Congregational preacher advance into acceptance by the congregation that calls him. The church records start the 30-year-old Rev. Hyde on his ministerial path at the first business meeting September 4, 1862, in a fast roundup of assignments prophetic of the pace he would be setting for himself for the rest of his life. These are the items approved that day: "Hyde was received as a member of the Church upon the recommendation from the Congregational Church in Sheffield. . .chosen Moderator and Clerk of the Church. . . chosen member of the Standing Committee. . .received on behalf of the Ladies Benevolent Association a new communion service."6
The Rev. Mr. Hyde signed the minutes which he had written of this, his first meeting. He was to write in his beautiful longhand all the minutes throughout his pastorate. Actually, this was presageful, for his usual role in many of the churches, community agencies and business enterprises with which he would later be connected would be that of secretary or recorder. His handwriting for public review was carefully and meticulously done. His handwriting in personal correspondence was something else again.
The Rev. Mr. Hyde had been preaching at the Brimfield church since the first of April; he was called May 22 and ordained August 19, all in 1862. He was therefore prepared to comment on most of 1862 in his first annual report. Aside from the usual listing of church events, the report covers fully the church participation in the Civil War:
Our Church has supported the government in its defense work. The Ladies have labored with commendable diligence in furnishing the M.S. [Massachusetts State] Sanitary Commission such articles as might be of comfort to the suffering soldiers. The Young Men have volunteered at the call of our constituted authorities and left home and friends and peaceful occupations for the hardships of the Camp and the exposures of a soldier's life. This church has parted with some of its members thus for a reason and some have been brought back to find a resting place by the side of their departed kindred.7
His second year was reported largely in terms of the spiritual fervency of his church members and the moral support accorded the government in the war. A kind of stylized dissatisfaction marked the reference to the one while an obvious vein of righteousness in official government warfare characterized the other. Both comments are reproduced for their value as clues to Hyde thinking:
In the view of our religious history for the past year while we have occasion for devout Thanksgiving to God for the mercies we have received, we cannot but lament that we have made no better improvement of Divine favors. While we may not have been guilty of positive worldliness, preferring earthly things to spiritual, there has been too little appreciation of the supreme importance of eternal realities. Undoubtedly engaged as we have been so much of this past year on the outward business of the house of God, the attention of the people has been necessarily, in a measure, diverted from higher objects.
While mercifully spared the sight and experience of the horrors of civil war, we have not been uninterested in the contest, or, regardless of the principles of moral right and political justice, involved in it. Many prayers have been put up to the God of battles that He would prosper our righteous cause. The fourth Sabbath of the month has usually been observed as a concert of prayer for this object, and the appointments by the National and State authorities of Public Thanksgiving and Praise or Humiliation and Prayer, have been publicly observed.8
The Rev. Mr. Hyde was elected a trustee of the Hitchcock School December 13, 1862. This was a private school endowed by a benefactor who himself possessed no schooling, Samuel Austin Hitchcock.9
This man supplies a remarkable parallel to Charles Reed Bishop, banker and philanthropist, who was to be a close Hyde associate in charitable and cultural interests some years later in Hawaii. The parallel is significant in that both were self-made merchandisers and generous donors to churches, schools, and other community enterprises. His father was a hatter and a tailor; but he and two partners opened the first dry goods commission house in New England. Then he became the prime mover in the Hamilton Woollen Co., retiring in poor health to Brimfield.
His charities and grants were enormous for his day; $175,000 to Amherst College, $120,000 to Andover Theological Seminary, $5000 to Hyde's church in Brimfield as a "fund to aid in support of an Evangelical Calvinistic Orthodox Trinitarian Congregational Minister," $90,000 to found the Hitchcock Free High School, and many others.
Hyde was chosen for the school's Prudential Committee which regulated the employment of teachers and handled the building program. He was re-elected each year until his resignation from the Brimfield church in 1870. But the need of his counsel followed him to his next parish at Haverhill, as in 1875 the legislature added four nonresident trustees to the board, and among them was named "the Rev. C. M. Hyde of Haverhill."10
There is a record of brief war service in the Hyde file. In 1864 the students learned he was going into the army as chaplain and asked him to defer his going to give them some of his time for religious exercises. A modest postponement seemingly caused no problem with army authorities—his work could be undertaken at will—so he conducted the exercises requested. As a result, fifteen