HISTORICAL NOTE 

The South Church records are almost unique in Massachusetts because the important records are complete from the foundation of the Parish in 1708 and of the Church in 1711 to the present.   Records only to 1932 were given to the Society in these donations.  The Church holds the more recent papers.  The church was founded in 1711 as the Church in the South Parish of Andover.  It became the South Parish Church or simply Old South in 1855 when Andover and North Andover were split.   In 1932 when “Church” and “Parish” were merged it took the official name of South Church in Andover. 

Until 1932 the South Church had conformed to the pattern of established Congregationalism in Massachusetts.  There were two distinct legal groups, each with its own officers and funds.  These were the “Parish,” made up of the legal voters (male) who lived in the geographical area, the South Parish or Precinct, on or near the Shawsheen River.   This was not the place of original settlement; that is now North Andover; but by the beginning of the eighteenth century it was a substantial settlement and ready for its own meetinghouse.  The process of forming a parish involved getting permission from the Legislature because the General Court had to decide whether the settlement was sufficiently prosperous to support a minister by taxation.  This hurdle was overcome in 1708 and the parish was legally recognized.  Then the “Church,” the company of believers, searched for a minister.  They found him in Samuel Phillips, 1689/90-1771, who came to them at the age of 22 and remained for the rest of his life.  The Church, which had female as well as male members, controlled its membership by a vigilant examining committee and by swift, publicly humiliating punishment for inappropriate behavior.  In 1833, long after the American Revolution, tax-supported Congregational churches were abolished in Massachusetts.  Yet the “Dual System” was kept in Andover for almost another century.  In the 1880s, women did receive the right to make legal contracts, so many of the Congregational churches merged their two sides.  South Church, in all things conservative, waited until 1932. 

Its first minister, Samuel Phillips, 1689/90-1771 was incumbent for sixty years, almost a record in Massachusetts.  He acted in many ways as a benign tyrant, living in considerable state, served by black slaves, deferred to by all his parishioners.  His sons and grandsons were to be the most important politically and among the richest of the eighteenth century Andover families.  Mr. Phillips’ successor, Jonathan French, had trained as a soldier and physician before he became a clergyman, so he served his parishioners’ bodies as well as their souls.  He held office from 1772 to his death in 1809, so that between them, the first two ministers spanned almost a century.  Mr. French was cautious theologically, treading a fine line between Calvinistic Trinitarianism and Unitarianism, but coming down on the Calvinistic side enough to be an adviser to the founders of Phillips Academy and the Andover Theological Seminary, largely descendants of his predecessor.

Mr. French was succeeded by Justin Edwards, an example of the new breed of Congregational minister, not content to be in charge of a single parish all his life.  He was minister 1812-1827.  He was chosen right out of Andover Theological Seminary, one of its first graduates.  After his resignation he served the American Temperance Society, then came back to Andover in 1836 to become president of the Theological Seminary.  He served there 1836-1842.  Mr. Edwards began the involvement with the Theological Seminary which was to continue for the whole of the nineteenth century.  He also set the pattern whereby the minister might spend much of his career in the service of one of the great agencies of social reform that were so important to the Trinitarian Congregationalists.  His successor, Milton Badger, who served from 1827 to 1835, went straight from the Theological Seminary to South Church and from thence to the American Home Missionary Society.  There were three ministers before the Rev. George Mooar, pastor 1855-1861 and author of the excellent Historical Manual of the South Church in Andover, Massachusetts, published in 1859.  Despite its title, this is a full-scale parish history with an invaluable list of all members since the foundation of the church.  Nothing comprehensive has been written on the South Church since. 

The records, given to the Historical Society in 1981 (Acc. No. 1981.41) and 1982 (Acc. No. 1982.32) have been here combined.  The Historical Society has other material by the South Church, which, because it was donated unofffically, has been kept separate from the official collection.  It may be found by consulting the manuscript card catalog.  (There is still much material at the Church, records of various funds and of the Cemetery as well as all material since 1932.)  See V.F. South Church Cemetery. 

On microfilm at the Memorial Hall Library, Andover and at the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum, North Andover are more records than were included in the gifts to the Society.  The inventory to the microfilm lists individual items, but does not describe the volumes, so it is unclear exactly what has been filmed. 

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE 
 

This collection contains all the original, official records of the South Church from its foundation in 1711 to 1932 when “Church” and “Parish” were merged to form the South Church in Andover.  The records have been divided into ten sections, or sub-groups. 

The first section contains the Church records.  There are five volumes which cover 1711 to 1925.  The first book, 1711 to 1772, covers the whole of Mr. Phillips’ pastorate.  It contains the covenant, minutes of meetings with great emphasis on church discipline, baptisms, marriages, burials, admissions, dismissions and some accounts.  Later record books become more specialized.  The most important officers of the Church were the deacons, who were in charge of worship, discipline and charitable affairs.  They kept their own accounts, the first book of which extends from 1711 to 1755. 

The second sub-group of records is that of the Parish.  These are more complicated than the Church records.  The Parish had its own clerk, who began his record book in 1709 when the inhabitants received permission to incorporate.  The first volume extends from 1709 to 1847.  The Parish had a complicated financial structure.  It was supported by taxes on all the households of South Parish.  The first “ratebook” of these assessments was begun in 1709.  Even when the Parish ceased to be tax-supported, the assessments were laid on its members.  Money for the upkeep of the meetinghouse was collected from another source: the sale and rental of pews.  These records go back only to the renovations of 1833.  There are other Parish financial records, concerning land, repairs to the vestry and sale of the horse-sheds, a necessary adjunct to all rural churches before the automobile. 

Sub-group III contains the few records since the merger of Church and Parish that have been received.  They include the legal documents, by-laws, warrants and service leaflets of the time of the merger, 1931-2.  There is also a small file from 1961 when South Church joined the United Church of Christ, successor denomination to the Congregational. 

The fourth sub-group contains records of special charitable funds, the fund established by the Reverend Samuel Phillips in his will and the Phebe Atkinson Fund for indigent women of the parish.

There is not much material on the ministers of South Church, (sub-group five.)  Samuel Phillips, the first minister, has the most material:  a typed copy of a letter to his son; papers concerning his salary negotiations, 1739—1771; some extremely fragile copies of correspondence, notes on Maine and New Hampshire and sermon outlines (pages from a commonplace book) and the printed copy of at least the introduction to an address “To the Children of the South Parish in Andover” (1737.)  From George Mooar’s pastorate are some papers concerning his resignation.  The printed letter of resignation of Frank R. Shipman, minister 1893-1913, has also been preserved.

The sixth sub-group contains printed manuals and by-laws, of great interest to the historian because they contain the names of all full, adult members of the Church.  By far the most useful of these is Mooar’s Historical Manual (1859) which lists all members from 1711 to that date.

The seventh sub-group contains a few nineteenth century records of the Sunday School.  The eighth has material from official celebrations: dedication of the present meetinghouse in 1861 and material from the 200^th anniversary in 1911.

The ninth section contains material from nineteenth century societies associated with South Church.  The ladies were the greatest joiners.  The records of the Ladies Charitable Society from 1855 to 1900 when it became part of the Women’s Union, have been preserved, as have those of the Maternal Association, 1867-1899 and the Women’s Auxiliary of the World Board of (Foreign) Missions.  The teenagers and younger children of the late nineteenth century belonged to the Society of Christian Endeavor.  The singers, from 1820 to 1870 belonged to the Andover South Parish Union Singing Society.

The records preserved here do not cover all of the societies associated with South Church, or even all of the records of the societies mentioned in this inventory.  Consult the card catalog for others such as the Juvenile Missionary Society and for more material from the Singing Society.

The last sub-group contains items associated with South Church, but which are not official records.  They include a copy of Philip Doddridge’s A Plain and Serious Address… (Andover, 1831,) which was bought from income of Lieutenant Governor Samuel Phillips’ legacy.  There is also a printed letter from the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers, 1799, concerning a possible permanent, state-wide ministerial association.  An 1882 diary of services attended, said to have been kept by Mrs. Samuel Bailey and the personal account book,

Processed by Mary F. Morgan, February 1983.