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“ [248] of singing for the year ensuing.” This is the first vote of the kind found in our records. It was to pay a teacher. No one received money for singing. It was deemed a privilege to aid in this part of public worship; and is it not a privilege? Nov. 24, 1793: “The church agreed, that, for the future, after the candidates for full communion had stood propounded a fortnight without any objections against them, the pastor might then admit them without calling for a vote.” The salary paid to Mr. Osgood at first was not increased for many years, except by the annual grant of twenty cords of wood. Sept. 19, 1796: “Voted not to make him any grant, on account of the high prices of the necessaries of life.” May 5, 1804, the town made the first grant of two hundred dollars, under the head of “wood money;” which sum was afterwards voted annually. The utmost, therefore, which he ever received was $533.33. This strangely contrasts with the sum of $5,500 paid for ministers' salaries in 1855. He made no complaint; although the number of taxable persons in his parish had more than doubled during his ministry, and their means of payment more than quadrupled. May 9, 1808: Voted “eighty dollars for the encouragement of the singing.” April 7, 1817: “Voted to grant seventy-five dollars to the ‘ Medford Amicable Singing Society,’ to promote the objects of said society.” Dr. Osgood kept a diary, beginning Jan 1, 1777, and ending Dec. 5, 1822. Through this long period he recorded, with marvellous brevity, the salient events of each day. The manuscript is preserved in his family. From its first settlement to 1823, Medford had been but one parish; and, for the last hundred years, its two ministers experienced neither popular opposition nor social neglect; and the people experienced neither sectarian strife nor clerical domination. Claiming free thought for himself, and encouraging it in his people, Dr. Osgood brought his parish quite up to his standard of liberality and progress. At his death, a large majority of the native inhabitants had quietly taken side with the Unitarians; while many citizens, not born in the town, had as quietly taken side with the Trinitarians. That any creed could be written, or any minister elected, to suit these opposing parties, was the mistaken
John Wilson and son. 22 School Street. Boston. 1855.
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