Original "slave pews" preserved in one church
By Nora Cardec Journal Correspondent

The Townsend United Methodist Church sits at the junction of Routes 13 and 119 in the center of town.

Four narrow wooden pews - two on the right and two on the left - remain in a constricted space on what seems to be the third level of the Townsend United Methodist Church's tower.

The pews can hardly accommodate three or four people of average weight.

A wall faces the pews to the front and a door immediately in the back of the pews is the only entry and exit to the tight space.

The distance between a person seated on the front pews and the wall is less than 12-inches which mirrors the distance is between the pews.

This was the only seating area, in the church, for black people of yesteryear.

The pews were referred to as "slave pews."

The Townsend United Methodist Church preserves the pews to this day as a testament to the town's past. A portion of the wall in front of the pews has been opened and covered in glass to allow visitors an easier view of the historical pews.

The Townsend United Methodist Church considers itself to be the only church in the country to have kept the original slave pews.

The pews thought to be for the black residents of the town are now protected for historical purposes.

The Congregationalists built the church in 1770.

The building was originally erected about a mile away from its current location and oxen moved it in 1804 to where it stands today at the junction of Route 13 and 119 in the center of town.

The Methodists purchased the building in 1852. It served as the town's second meeting house until 1894. The Unitarian Society also used the church as a meeting location during the course of its history.

The original structure included porches, three entrances and only one floor with side galleries. The Methodists made renovations to the structure; "removed the porches and the old-fashioned square pews, and installed a floor to make it two sections."

The Methodists also installed the 2,500- pound bell in the church's tower.

Since no written history of blacks was kept centuries ago, no one will ever know with exactitude who sat on those slave pews; whether free or slave, young or old; male or female. No one will ever know about their personalities, their likes or dislikes, their dreams, their families or their contributions to the town.

Although there are legends in town that connect the slave pews to actual runaways who were harbored in town through the Underground Railroad on their passage from the South to Canada. Others claim the few blacks who lived in town during the 1700s and 1800s were free blacks for the most part and that there weren't any runaways or slaves.

"People in town were abolitionists and were anxious; I'm sure, to be of help if they could," said Susan Gerken, a member of the Townsend United Methodist Church.

"The pews were most likely for free blacks."

Whether free blacks, slaves or runaways from the South sat on these pews it is uncertain, but the historical accounts of the town point to the presence of black slaves in town during pre- and post-Revolutionary War era.

In her 1955 book, "In My Father's House," Grace Nies Fletcher, the daughter of the Methodist minister Rev. Leopold Nies, wrote as part of her description of the Methodist Church or Church on the Hill, as it is also commonly known.

"The slave pews in back, where the black servants of the old Puritans (did you know they had slaves) used to sit, with just a slit to look through so they could see but not be seen. All the color prejudice wasn't in the South," she wrote.

The uses of the pews are also mentioned in the book by Emanuel C. Charlton, "The Squanicook Parish," while describing the second meeting house as known again as the Church on the Hill.

"That new meeting house is the present old white Church on the Hill now occupied by the people commonly called Methodists," he wrote. "It had the old fashioned square pews, thirty-five in the main body and the four pews in the attic for the Negroes, which still remain as originally built."

The best known historian in town, Ithamar B. Sawtelle, acknowledges the existence of slaves in Townsend, even to the dismay or denial of some, through several entries in his book, "History of the Town of Townsend 1676-1878."

In chapter two, Ecclesiastical History, Sawtelle presents two accounts where a slave child and a woman were baptized.

"On Dec. 14, 1735 Andrew Notgrass, a servant child of William and Eunice Clark" was baptized into the church, he wrote.

Another entry reads; "On May 19, 1745 Ama, a Negro servant of Mr. Benjamin Brooks, was received into full communion with the Church of Christ in Townsend."

Records kept by the town also showed the presence of slaves. Sawtelle demonstrates this in his book with entries such as; "Phillis, servant of John Stevens; born Nov. 26, 1752; Annie, a servant of Benjamin Brooks, born 1756."

While some may argue that the use of the words servant and slave were not used interchangeably, Jeannie Bartovics, the site administrator for the Townsend Historical Society, maintains that "if servants were listed on people's wills as part of their inventory, then they were slaves."

That is the case of a black man named Caesar. While Sawtelle makes a note of him as "a Negro servant of Mr. John Conant," Jane Boyes Stonefield in her "History of the Old Mansion," (which was another name for John Conant's house) shows Caesar and others listed as property.

"John Conant's personal inventory taken in 1757 includes; 'clothing of his deceased Negro slave (Caesar) and Negro woman and boy.'"

Sawtelle refers to various prominent men in town who owned slaves, such as, "Mr. William Clark was a shoemaker, owned slaves, came from Concord to this town," and, "Daniel Taylor, he owned more slaves than any other person in town. There were then (in town) five or six families who had Negro servants."

The argument over the pews not being used by slaves rests in that the Methodists bought the building in 1852, almost 70 years after Massachusetts abolished slavery.

However, the law specified that black people born after 1783 would be considered free. One can only speculate that blacks, who were born prior to the year when the law was passed, would remain slaves unless they were freed by their owners, and therefore, would have sat on the "slave pews."

According to historical records, people in most church denominations, from the 1600s to the mid-1800s, were seated according to social rank.

People purchased their seats in church and slave owners had to buy seats for their slaves.

The seats for black people were called "slave pews" and were located in upper galleries, in a corner on the back of the church and even under the stairs in some instances.

This segregated seating system existed throughout churches in Massachusetts and other northern states.

The Old Sturbridge Village Online Resource Library states that, "Before and after the abolition of slavery, churches in the north kept separate pews for blacks (free or slave) and Native Americans."

From the 1840s to the 1930s, churches moved from paid to free seating in churches and, eventually, removed the slave pews from their buildings.

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Nora Cardec is a correspondent for The Community Journal and can be reached at: ncardec@yahoo.com or (978) 827-3386. Ext. 10.