Justus Forward: Difference between revisions

 

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== Legacy ==

== Legacy ==

[[File:Belchertown Congregational Church.jpg|thumb|Justus Forward served as Belchertown’s minister for 59 years, 23 of which were served in this structure that was erected beginning in 1789 (from postcard printed in the 1970s). It’s the oldest church still standing in Town; it was enlarged in 1828 and altered in 1872. Today, it’s the Belchertown [[United Church of Christ]], a descendant of the original [[Congregationalism|Congregational Church]]. ]]

[[File:Belchertown Congregational Church.jpg|thumb|Justus Forward served as Belchertown’s minister for 59 years, 23 of which were served in this structure that was erected beginning in 1789 (from postcard printed in the 1970s). It’s the oldest church still standing in Town; it was enlarged in 1828 and altered in 1872. Today, it’s the Belchertown [[United Church of Christ]], a descendant of the original [[Congregationalism|Congregational Church]]. ]]

Justus Forward served as minister in Belchertown for an unusually long period of time, from 1755 until his death in 1814. He was called “pre-eminently a matter-of-fact man”<ref>Quoted in Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 2:330 (New York, 1896)</ref> and known as an [[Evangelicalism|evangelical]] and a [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]]. He practiced medicine among his parishioners as a self-taught, unpaid physician. Justus published various theological works, was an “avid student of foreign affairs” and oftentimes took to making—like many theologians of the era—”pronouncements of the legislature and the Continental Congress.”<ref>Brown, Richard D. Spreading the Word: Rural Clergymen and the Communication Network of 18th-Century New England. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1982, Third Series, Vol. 94 (1982), pp. 1-14.</ref>

Justus Forward served as minister in Belchertown for an unusually long period of time, from 1755 until his death in 1814. He was called “pre-eminently a matter-of-fact man”<ref>Quoted in Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 2:330 (New York, 1896)</ref> and known as an [[Evangelicalism|evangelical]] and a [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]].

Justus published various theological works, was an “avid student of foreign affairs” and oftentimes took to making—like many theologians of the era—”pronouncements of the legislature and the Continental Congress.”<ref>Brown, Richard D. Spreading the Word: Rural Clergymen and the Communication Network of 18th-Century New England. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1982, Third Series, Vol. 94 (1982), pp. 1-14.</ref>

He meticulously documented births, deaths and marriages among his parishioners, records that are still kept by the Town of Belchertown, some of which are available in public databases.<ref>See Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, ancestry.com.</ref> The [[Stone House Museum]], [[Belchertown Historical Association]], has a collection of his papers and ephemera in its [http://stonehousemuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Archival-Holdings-List.pdf inventory].

He meticulously documented births, deaths and marriages among his parishioners, records that are still kept by the Town of Belchertown, some of which are available in public databases.<ref>See Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, ancestry.com.</ref> The [[Stone House Museum]], [[Belchertown Historical Association]], has a collection of his papers and ephemera in its [http://stonehousemuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Archival-Holdings-List.pdf inventory].

American minister and theologian (1730–1814)

Justus Forward (May 11, 1730 – March 8, 1814) was an American Congregationalist minister and theologian. Known as “Esquire,” he was pastor of the Belchertown Congregational Church, in Western Massachusetts, for nearly six decades.^[1] His sermons were described as “clear and simple,” his theology of the “strict orthodox New England type.”^[2]

He was born in Suffield, then in the state of Massachusetts, and graduated from Yale College in 1754. He taught at Hatfield Academy, Hatfield, Massachusetts, until 1756, the year he was ordained as minister in Belchertown, Massachusetts.^[3]

This occurred after the Town dismissed its first minister, Harvard-educated Rev. Edward Billings (1707-1760)^[1], a conservative Congregationalist who supported the famous theologian Jonathan Edwards in nearby Northampton. The two men argued against the Half-Way Covenant, which was considered a loosening of the then-strict Church membership requirements.^[4] The Covenant allowed baptized but “unconverted” adults to have their children baptized to address the decline in church membership.^[5][6]

The same year of his appointment, Forward married Violet Dickinson (1738-1834), of Hatfield, in Belchertown. They were the parents of three sons and nine daughters, most of whom died young. Their first son, Joshua, drowned in 1765, aged seven years, and lies in the Hill Cemetery in Hatfield. Another child of the same name, aged four years, died in 1776 and lies in Belchertown’s South Cemetery.

Upon his arrival, he was granted 100 acres of land and parishioners erected a house and barn for his use. His starting salary was 46 pounds. He was said to have “carried on quite a farm and cleared a good deal of land – not an easy task” to supplement his salary. His journal entries include mention of planting rye, buckwheat, plum, cherry, and apple trees and harvesting hay. He kept livestock, including sheep, cattle, and swine. He helped many boys fit for college, often with no compensation.^[7]

There was no practicing physician in Town so he became “useful to his people in sickness; by reading and practicing he obtained considerable knowledge of medicine.”^[8]

In late 1766, Justus Forward donated land, “for a Possession of a Buriing Place [sic],”^[9] which is the oldest in Town (founded in about 1742),^[10] where his body rests with those of his family.

He died in 1814 at age 83. Forward’s wife and two children—out of eleven—outlived him.^[11]

One of the early cases in the New England vampire panic, in the late 18th century, was that of Justus Forward.^[12][13]

Consumption, or tuberculosis, was thought to be caused by the deceased consuming the life of their surviving relatives. Bodies were exhumed and internal organs ritually burned, or in Forward’s case placed in the earth above the coffin. This was believed to stop the deceased “vampire” from attacking the local population and to prevent the spread of the disease and the deaths of loved ones.

By July 1788, Justus Forward and his wife had lost three daughters to consumption. This included Martha, who had married a son of Capt. Nathaniel Dwight, who was among the first to settle Belchertown. She had died in 1782 at age 23. Two more were ill, including their daughter Mercy, who had begun hemorrhaging, so Justus, “consulted many about opening the graves of some of the deceased, to see whether there were any signs of the dead preying on the living.”^[12] He wrote in a letter:

this morning [July 21] opened the grave of my daughter [Martha]… who had died—the last of my three daughters—almost six years ago … On opening the body, the lungs were not dissolved, but had blood in them, though not fresh, but clotted. The lungs did not appear as we would suppose they would in a body just dead, but far nearer a state of soundness than could be expected. The liver, I am told, was as sound as the lungs. We put the lungs and liver in a separate box, and buried it in the same grave, ten inches or a foot, above the coffin.

Their daughter Mercy died in January 1789 though other children survived their illness.^[14][15]

Justus Forward served as minister in Belchertown for an unusually long period of time, from 1755 until his death in 1814. He was called “pre-eminently a matter-of-fact man”^[16] and known as an evangelical and a Whig.

Justus published various sermons and theological works, was an “avid student of foreign affairs” and oftentimes took to making—like many theologians of the era—”pronouncements of the legislature and the Continental Congress.”^[17]

He meticulously documented births, deaths and marriages among his parishioners, records that are still kept by the Town of Belchertown, some of which are available in public databases.^[18] The Stone House Museum, Belchertown Historical Association, has a collection of his papers and ephemera in its inventory.

Forward’s papers at Yale University contain correspondence, diaries, account books, over one thousand sermons, church papers, Yale papers (as student), one hardback book, fragments of two Congressional bills, and miscellaneous materials. The period covered is from 1752 to 1814.^[19][20][21]