THE CHAIRMAN: A counselor learned in the law, who has graced the bench, an honored public servant of both City and Commonwealth, also a profound investigator into the deeds of the past, which he has recorded in English pure and undefiled, is worthy of the homage of his townspeople.

It is my privilege to introduce to you the Honorable Nathan Mortimer Hawkes, who represents the Lynn Historical Society, which is believed to be the largest local organization of the kind in this country.

Called the Old Tunnel on account of the roof of its cupola. It set on the Common on a line diagonally from the present meeting house towards Whiting Street. Built 1682 from timber cut in Meeting House Swamp in the Lynn Woods Altered in 1716. by porches, oak pulpit and sounding board imported from England. In 1737, new roof and other repairs cost £464-12-5. In 1771, four gables taken down and the "ornament" built over the bell, giving the building its time-honored nickname. Original bell unknown; second bell imported from England 1699, was cracked in celebrating the peace of Ghent and the battle of New Orleans, the news of both reaching Lynn at 10 A.M., Feb. 13, 1815. Bell recast by Paul Revere & Son, November, 1816. Cracked by fire alarm and recast by William Blake, 1878.

It was moved, in the Spring of 1827, to the Parsonage lot corner South Common and Commercial Streets, where it was rebuilt.

There is no authentic picture of the first meeting house which was east of Shepard Street at the rear of 244 Summer Street. Lewis states that it was moved to the Common and formed a portion of the second church. Moulton claims that it was moved and formed a portion of the Alley house on Harbor Street, which was torn down in 1896.

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS BETWEEN

PARISH AND TOWN.

ON

Hon. NATHan Mortimer Hawkes.

Representing The Lynn Historical Society.

NE standing in the House of Worship of the First Parish and Church of Lynn, naturally seeks to prove kinship and connection with them. I submit the following evidence of my right to be here to-day.

Church and State, with our fathers, were so intimately blended that seats in the church were assigned in Town meeting. Those who, from worldly position or spiritual leadership, were deemed worthy of special positions were selected by the Town; the remainder of the people (for attendance at church was compulsory) were arranged by a committee, as will be seen by the following extracts from the Town records, 1692, January 8:

"The town did vote that Lieut. Fuller, Lieut. Lewis, Mr. John Hawkes, senior, Francis Burrill, Lieut. Burrill, John Burrill, Jr., Mr. Henry Rhodes, Quartermaster Bassett, Mr. Haberfield, Cornet Johnson, Mr. Bailey and Lieut. Blighe should sit at the table.”

"It was voted that Matthew Farrington, senior, Henry Silsbee and Joseph Mansfield, senior, should sit in the deacons' seat."

"It was voted that Thomas Farrar, senior, Chrispus Brewer, Allen Breed, senior, Clement Coldam, Robert

Rand, senior, Jonathan Hudson, Richard Hood, senior, and Sergeant Haven, should sit in the pulpit."

"The town voted that them that are surviving, that was chosen by the town a committee to erect the meetinghouse, and Clark Potter to join along with them, should seat the inhabitants of the town in the meeting-house, both men and women, and appoint what seats they shall sit in, but it is to be understood that they are not to seat neither the table, nor the deacons' seat, nor the pulpit, but them to sit there as are voted by the town."

In the list of the elders authorized to sit at the table in the House of Worship and the Council House of the whole people appears the name of my ancestor, the son of the immigrant first-comer.

The date is the year when the Old Tunnel was only ten years from its building and the year of the arrival of the Provincial Charter of William and Mary and many years before the West End became the Third Parish.

I am here, however, not on account of ancestry, but because I have made a study of the local conditions attending evolution of the Town from the Parish.

The scope of our theme this afternoon does not touch the great struggles in New England churches in the early years of the Nineteenth Century from which this church and parish came out as a brand saved from the burning. It does not deal with the legal nor ecclesiastical phases of the same period, but is an unvarnished recital of some matter-of-fact happenings of the good people of Lynn of that time. The matter was drawn to my attention by reading in Alonzo Lewis' first