V

The Missionary from Boston

WHILE Thomas Story, the Quaker preacher, was visiting Nantucket in the year 1704, he found at one of his meetings a smaller number of people than usual; and he says in his journal that "two priests, an elderly man and a young one, the first from the isle of Shoals and the other from Martha's Vineyard, had a meeting near us and several were curious to hear the new preacher in the Presbyterian way." Other efforts like that mentioned in the Quaker's journal were made to establish Presbyterianism on the island; but owing to the growth and cheapness of Quakerism, which paid no wages to its preachers, they were not successful until the year 1711, when a little Presbyterian meeting-house was built near Nobottom Pond, and a little congregation began to worship in it.

In May, 1725, a young minister who had been

been educated at Harvard College was sent to Nantucket to revive the drooping faith of the Puritans represented by this feeble society. His name was Timothy White. He came from Boston, a missionary zealous for good works, and soon after his arrival he fell in love with an island girl named Susanna Gardner, who was a granddaughter of Captain John Gardner, already mentioned in my narrative. In this new condition of existence he neglected to write to his friends at home; and one day he was aroused by a letter from his sister, Mistress Abigail White, who had heard that he was “far gone "in an occupation unknown to her own experience. To this letter he replied:

NANTUCKET, Sept. 15. 1725

Sister Abi-I must confess you did eno' to shame me, by catching at an opportunity to write, while I was careless to improve the many which presented. But you have heard I conclude, altho’ you don't know by experience, that when Persons are stiffly engaged in Courting,

they

they are very forgetful of those lesser things.

I know not to whom you were beholden for your Information, but I can inform you that I was not so far gone in it but that I had determined to quit the place & all the things in it, till I heard from Boston, when your Letter came; and I have not laid my self under such strong obligations yet, but that I can easily let the action fall if you have anything material to object.

Whether the reason is because my Company is so very delightsome & charming, or what it is I cant tell, but it has been my Portion to be honour'd with such suspicions, wherever I have yet lived for any time.

But if this be not true, I could wish it were for I am no enemy to proceedings of this nature.

He advises his sister "to improve every opportunity for the advancement of your temporal good," which may have been interpreted as a suggestion that she also should be "stiffly engaged in courting; "

but

but above all, he says, "you are to be solicitous for the prosperity of your soul." This was an advice commonly offered by religious letter-writers of those days.

If Timothy White had "quit the place" at that time, he might have been better off in the end. The longer he stayed, the gloomier became his prospects; and at the close of two years' living on Nantucket he was intending to return to Boston, an unmarried man, when a letter came to him from Benjamin Coleman, minister of the Brattle Street Church, in that town, written on behalf of a committee of "Honorable and Reverend Gentlemen," and inclosing a gift of £100, with promise of £50 more in two years, to be accepted on these conditions:

First That ye said Mr White do willingly devote himself to ye service of Christ & Souls on the Island of Nantuckett, seriously endeavouring by ye help of God for ye space of five years to come, to introduce & establish the Settlement of a Church state there.

And secondly, That ye People of Nantuckett

tuckett to whom he is & has been ministering due signify to us their desire of Mr White's continuing & labouring among them to this end.

This encouragement satisfied him; and in September, 1728, he married Susanna Gardner, who was seventeen years of age; he was twenty-eight. The next month he wrote in his note book: "The Commissioners for Indian affairs at Boston made known to me their desire of my taking upon me the charge of a Lecture to the Indians upon Nantucket; on my understanding of which I sent an answer in the affirmative, and accordingly I begin today." He preached to the Indians once or twice a month for ten years, and received for this labor from the Commissioners £25 yearly in poor money. During this period he wrote in his book the date of each preaching, and the number of Indians in his audience; for example, " 1733, began a 6th year at Miacomet; November 1st there were 23 Indians present; 27th of December, 23 Indians; 20th of January, 60 Indians; 10th of February, 70 Indians; 24th

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