The Women of Chebacco Build a Meeting House

*The illustration above is from a 1910 barn raising in Lansing, Ontario

In 17th-century New England, the church was the center of government. Chebacco was the section of Ipswich that is now Essex, and its inhabitants were expected to make the ten-mile round trip every Sabbath, Lecture Day, Training Day, or Town Meeting Day to the Meeting House in Ipswich.

Chebacco residents petitioned the town of Ipswich in 1677 that they be allowed to build their own meeting house, and after considerable delay, Ipswich leaders answered that the Chebacco residents were free to do so as long as they continued to tithe to the Ipswich church. Undeterred, Chebacco folks started meeting in private homes and asked the Rev. Jeremiah Shepard to join them. The Ipswich church ordered him to stop preaching, and the Rev. Shepard found a less controversial appointment as the pastor at Lynn.

In 1679, Chebacco men began collecting timber and materials to build their own meeting house, the sills were laid on land donated by Mr. William Cogswell, which would come to be known as Meeting House Hill, near or abutting the Old Graveyard in Essex. Timbers were laid out, ready to raise. As soon as the foundation was begun, Ipswich authorities rushed to Boston and obtained an order from the general court that “No man shall build a meeting house at Chebacco.” If the residents of Chebacco were allowed to proceed, they would be well on their way to confirming their own legal autonomy.

Abigail Proctor, the wife of Thomas Varney, saw a glaring legal loophole in the order by which she might force the ways of Providence. On Tuesday, March 21, 1679, she, Sarah Martin, and Hannah Goodhue gathered the town’s women and a few men from Wenham, Gloucester, and Manchester, and they commenced construction while the men of Chebacco looked on, providing the workers with a good supper at the end of their labor.

On the next Tuesday, the Ipswich constable arrived with the following warrant: “To the constable of Ipswich. You are hereby required to attach the bodies of Abraham Martin and John Chub and bring them before me on Tuesday next, about one of the clock, to answer for their contempt of authority in helping to raise a meeting house at Chebaeco. You are also at the same time to bring with you the wife of William Goodhue, the wife of Thomas Yarney, and the wife of Abraham Martin, for procuring, or abetting and encouraging the raising of the said house, and so make return hereof under your hand.” The constable promptly arrested the three women and two men.

After the hearing, the case was held over and was brought before the General Court, May 28, 1679, which ordered them to appear at the Salem Court and acknowledge their wrongdoing; doing so, the five were dismissed, and the case was discharged, with the following determination:

“Referring to the place of the meeting house, that though a removal of the house from the place at present designed by said Chebacco inhabitants, farther towards the toune of Ipsuich, might acomodate some more of the inhabitants, farmers of said town, yet, perceiving that the number offering themselves are competent for such a setlement, those at the head & on the other side of said river of Chebacco will be much disadvantaged thereby, who were the first agreived & petitioning partye, that therefore the place where the house now standeth be & is heereby allowed by us, that they have liberty to proceed to the finishing of the said meeting house for their comfort and settlement.”

The wives had succeeded in outwitting the general court by getting their meeting house well-started. The restraint was lifted and the building was completed, measuring 42 × 36 feet. A second meetinghouse was built in 1719 on the same site.

The people of Chebacco wisely chose the inestimable Rev. John Wise as their first pastor, offering him ten acres of good land and agreeing to build a parsonage on it. His salary was established at £20 cash, £40 in grain, forty cords of oak wood, and eight tons of salt hay. The meetinghouse was dedicated in April 1680, and an Ecclesiastical Council met on Aug. 12, 1683, to organize the Second Parish of Ipswich (Chebacco Parish) and formally ordained Mr. John Wise, with John Burnham and Thomas Low as deacons.

Sources and further reading:

• Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Thomas Franklin Waters
• Ipswich: Stories from the River’s Mouth (Town Memoirs)
• Cody Family Association
• History of Ipswich, Essex and Hamilton by Joseph Felt
• Brief History of the First Congregational Church by Kurt Wilhelm, 1/30/19
• History and Genealogy of the Goodhue Family
• History of Essex: Raising a Meeting House
• History of John Cogswell’s grant.
• Two Centuries of Essex Church History