PARKMAN, EBENEZER
(5 September 1703, Boston-5 December 1782, Westborough, MA). Education: B.A., Harvard College, 1721. Career: Teacher, 1721-22; preacher, Westborough, Newton, Hopkinton, Worcester, 1722-23; minister, Westborough, 1724-82.
Ebenezer Parkman is the sort of man we would normally know nothing about. He was not a great theologian, a celebrated preacher, an institution builder, or famous in any other way in his own time. He was simply a country parson, typical of the hundreds who ministered to the Congregational church throughout colonial New England. He is extraordinary simply because he left a long and well written diary that lets us know about him and through him about the ordinary day-to-day life of the Puritan clergy.
Parkman's father was a pious shipwright, who became a ruling elder of North Church. He must have been proud to send a son to Harvard and the ministry, and must have struggled more than most parents to pay the bills. Parkman was ordained minister at Westborough in 1724, and a few months later he married Mary Champney, whom he called "Molly."
As minister at Westborough, Parkman did the things hundreds of other Congregational clergymen did: he raised children, preached and made pastoral visits, argued with his people about his salary, and met with fellow clerics in the local ministerial association. Like many clerics he was a doctor as well as a pastor, although he admitted in his diary that when he visited a sick parishioner, "my heart has often trembled within me." Like other country parsons, he was also a farmer, and like them, he often needed help from his people bringing in the crops. One might answer, "When my grass and com will move into my bam without hands, I'll leave to help Mr. Parkman-not before." Another would reply, "He is laboring for our souls, and why shall I refuse." Such was the material with which the ministers worked, some men and women devoted to church and pastor, others not.
In Parkman's career one sees the degree to which the early ministers served as moral "watchmen" for the entire community. One evening Parkman attended a barn raising and a supper that lasted until ten at night. He went home, but others stayed behind to continue the party. So Parkman got out of bed, returned to the house, "and admonished them and sent them home." Later he admitted in his diary that "this exerting my authority gave me great uneasiness," but he was determined do his "duty as watchman in this place and as having care of their souls."
During the Great Awakening Parkman, like many other ministers, was not fully identified with either Old Lights or New Lights. He entertained George Whitefield* at his parsonage during the evangelist's first missionary journey to New England, and he opposed the efforts of the local clerical association to adopt a condemnation of Whitefield during his second visit. But Parkman was troubled by uneducated itinerant preachers coming through his region, and he discouraged people from crying out in his church.
He was equally nonplussed, as were other clergymen, by the early tumult of the Revolution. He called the Stamp Act riots of 1765 "a melancholy occurrence." He became a patriot as much to keep company with his family and his parish, as from political principle. After Lexington and Concord he signed a patriotic manifesto "for peace sake and to avoid a rupture among us." Only when his eldest son, Ebenezer, joined the revolutionary army, did Parkman wish heart and soul for an American victory.
Parkman died in 1782, in the fifty-eighth year of his ministry, four days after making the last entry in his valuable diary.
Bibliography
A: Zebulon Advised ... Counsels for Them Tiult Go to Sea (Newport, R.I., 1738); Reformers and Intercessors (Boston, 1757); The Love of Christ (Boston, 1761);-. Francis G. Wallett, ed., ''The Diary of Ebenezer Parkman," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 71 (1961),93-227, 361-448 [covers 1719-38]; 72 (1962), 31-233, 329-481 [covers 1739-46]; 73 (1963), 45-120, 385-464 [covers 1747-48]; 74 (1964), 37-203 [covers 1749-50]; 75 (1965), 47-199 [covers 1751-53]; 76 (1966), 71-201 [covers 1754-55].
B: SHG 6, 511-27.
Ebenezer Parkman is the sort of man we would normally know nothing about. He was not a great theologian, a celebrated preacher, an institution builder, or famous in any other way in his own time. He was simply a country parson, typical of the hundreds who ministered to the Congregational church throughout colonial New England. He is extraordinary simply because he left a long and well written diary that lets us know about him and through him about the ordinary day-to-day life of the Puritan clergy.
Parkman's father was a pious shipwright, who became a ruling elder of North Church. He must have been proud to send a son to Harvard and the ministry, and must have struggled more than most parents to pay the bills. Parkman was ordained minister at Westborough in 1724, and a few months later he married Mary Champney, whom he called "Molly."
As minister at Westborough, Parkman did the things hundreds of other Congregational clergymen did: he raised children, preached and made pastoral visits, argued with his people about his salary, and met with fellow clerics in the local ministerial association. Like many clerics he was a doctor as well as a pastor, although he admitted in his diary that when he visited a sick parishioner, "my heart has often trembled within me." Like other country parsons, he was also a farmer, and like them, he often needed help from his people bringing in the crops. One might answer, "When my grass and com will move into my bam without hands, I'll leave to help Mr. Parkman-not before." Another would reply, "He is laboring for our souls, and why shall I refuse." Such was the material with which the ministers worked, some men and women devoted to church and pastor, others not.
In Parkman's career one sees the degree to which the early ministers served as moral "watchmen" for the entire community. One evening Parkman attended a barn raising and a supper that lasted until ten at night. He went home, but others stayed behind to continue the party. So Parkman got out of bed, returned to the house, "and admonished them and sent them home." Later he admitted in his diary that "this exerting my authority gave me great uneasiness," but he was determined do his "duty as watchman in this place and as having care of their souls."
During the Great Awakening Parkman, like many other ministers, was not fully identified with either Old Lights or New Lights. He entertained George Whitefield* at his parsonage during the evangelist's first missionary journey to New England, and he opposed the efforts of the local clerical association to adopt a condemnation of Whitefield during his second visit. But Parkman was troubled by uneducated itinerant preachers coming through his region, and he discouraged people from crying out in his church.
He was equally nonplussed, as were other clergymen, by the early tumult of the Revolution. He called the Stamp Act riots of 1765 "a melancholy occurrence." He became a patriot as much to keep company with his family and his parish, as from political principle. After Lexington and Concord he signed a patriotic manifesto "for peace sake and to avoid a rupture among us." Only when his eldest son, Ebenezer, joined the revolutionary army, did Parkman wish heart and soul for an American victory.
Parkman died in 1782, in the fifty-eighth year of his ministry, four days after making the last entry in his valuable diary.
Bibliography
A: Zebulon Advised ... Counsels for Them Tiult Go to Sea (Newport, R.I., 1738); Reformers and Intercessors (Boston, 1757); The Love of Christ (Boston, 1761);-. Francis G. Wallett, ed., ''The Diary of Ebenezer Parkman," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 71 (1961),93-227, 361-448 [covers 1719-38]; 72 (1962), 31-233, 329-481 [covers 1739-46]; 73 (1963), 45-120, 385-464 [covers 1747-48]; 74 (1964), 37-203 [covers 1749-50]; 75 (1965), 47-199 [covers 1751-53]; 76 (1966), 71-201 [covers 1754-55].
B: SHG 6, 511-27.
