Medford pulpit cushion.
We were recently shown an old letter which we think interesting because of its subject and date. It is written on a single sheet of the old style and size letter paper, and bears the following superscription: To the Selectmenof the Town of Medford
The sheet, carefully folded and lastly tucked in, was sealed with red wax about the size of a nickel. It reads as follows:
[p. 24] William Pepperell was of Kittery, Maine (then part of Massachusetts) and was son-in-law of Colonel Isaac Royall and had been father-in-law of Parson Turell for eleven years, the marriage of his daughter Jane to the Medford minister being her third matrimonial adventure. It seems that sixteen years before, Colonel Royall had given the town a Bible (folio) which proved an innovation. Received with thanks voted. Four years later a vote was passed for its public reading, and, as above seen, sixteen years later, and in a new and more stately meeting-house came the gift of the cushion of velvet on which to lay the Holy Book. Doubtless Pepperell's esthetic tastes had been offended by the sight of the bare ‘desk’ during his visits to Medford, and thus sought to better things. Twenty-three years later the town purchased a ‘green velvet one,’ which after twenty years of use was replaced by another. This time in the general refurbishing, the pulpit itself changed color, and curtains were added. This was accomplished by the ‘women-folks,’ who took one man into their confidence, who donated a new pulpit Bible in two volumes. And so for a century and a half innovations have come.
