1684 The Manse

We begin our tour of Northampton at The Manse. This was the home of Rev. Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729) His grandson was Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan and Sarah lived here during their first ministry year. Stoddard graduated Harvard in 1662 and pastored at Northampton for 60 years.

This is a helpful intro video about Solomon Stoddard.

Read: George Marsden’s Jonathan Edwards: A Life which begins in Ch 1 with information on Stoddard. Meet the Puritans by Joel Beeke also contains a section on Solomon Stoddard.

54 Prospect Street, Northampton

“The Manse” was built by Colonel John Stoddard in 1744 on the foundation of the original 1684 parsonage of his father, Rev. Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729). Rev. Stoddard was the pastor of the first church in Northampton and the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), a founder of the Great Awakening. Some accounts say that Col. John Stoddard simply built the gambrel roof house as it now stands on to the front of his father’s house and that Dr. Benjamin Barrett removed the original Rev. Stoddard portion, made it into a barn on the property, and built the ell in the rear of the present building. The house’s cupola is a mid-nineteenth-century addition. The Stoddard family owned the house until c.1809-1812.

Aged 44 in 1726, Colonel John Stoddard still resided with his parents in the family home, which sat on a prominence that overlooked the town.  After his father’s death (Feb 11, 1729), John married in 1731 and continued to live in this home, which signaled his inheritance and his baronial authority as the richest man in town and its most influential magistrate. The first year Jonathan lived in Northampton, he presumably lived with his grandparents and his uncle John” Jonathan Edwards: A Life, Marsden

(Col John Stoddard) was eminently a strong rod …  As to his natural abilities, strength of reason, greatness and clearness of discerning, and depth of penetration, he was one of the first rank.  It may be doubted whether he has left his superior in these respects in these parts of the world.   He was a man of a truly great genius, and his genius was peculiarly fitted for the understanding and managing of public affairs.

Jonathan Edwards preached at Northampton on the Lord’s Day, June 26, 1748, on the death of the Honorable John Stoddard, Esq

Bridge Street Cemetery

156 Bridge St, Northampton

Resting place of David Brainerd, Jerusha Edwards and many of the Stoddard’s.

1. David and Jerusha died a few months apart and are buried together
2. Sarah Stoddard’s grave. Wife of Solomon, grandmother to Jonathan
3. Solomon Stoddard grave 1643-1729
4. Stoddard graves
5. Col John Stoddard 1681-1748 died a few months after the family lost Jerusha and David
6 and 7. Rev. David Brainerd 1718-1747 aged 29 Missionary to the Stockbridge, Delaware and Susquehanna tribes of Indians
8. Jerusha Edwards died at age 17 a few months after David 1730-1748
9. View of Bridge Street Cemetery

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The Edward’s Home

127 King St, Northampton

“They had a site on a place where an earlier house had been burned by Indians, so it was not like hacking out untouched soil…On this plot the Edwardses built a simple, foursquare house in a quarter acre of garden, bounded by a slab fence. Only five Northampton houses were painted at that time, but probably the Edwards dwelling was one of the five.” Dodds

At the entrance to Forbes Library in Northampton today is a worn little stone sunken into the grass. This was the doorstep to the Edwards house. Across it tramped the feet of so many visitors that the mind boggles at the thought of what was involved in bedding and feeding them all.

Marriage to a Difficult Man, Elisabeth Dodds

20 West St, Northampton

George Whitefield was a visitor one weekend in October of 1740.

George Marsden writes, “Learning of Whitefield’s plans to come to New England, Edwards excitedly wrote to him in February 1740. He wanted the itinerant to include Northampton in his plans…After preaching at Hadley Friday morning, October 17, he crossed the ferry to Northampton and preached at Edwards church in the afternoon and to a gathering in the Edwardses’ home in the evening…He preached again in the afternoon on Saturday and twice on Sunday…

Whitefield  was much impressed by the Edwardses. He had stayed in their home and on the Saturday morning not only joined them in their usual family devotions but, at Jonathan’s request, spoke to his little children. Sally (Sarah Jr.) was 12, Jerusha was 10, Esther was 8, and Mary was 6. Four year old Lucy probably was included as well (the others were 2 year old Timmy and Susannah, born that summer). The young evangelist’s visit with the girls, Edwards rejoiced, bore much fruit…Whitefield was particularly impressed that the Edwards children “were not dressed in silks and satins, but plain, as become the children of those who, in all things, ought to be examples of Christian simplicity”

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On the map below you can see Jonathan’s home was at Lot 64 (#125/7) King Street and Solomon Stoddard’s is Lot 7 (#52) Prospect.

The lot now holds the St. Valentine’s Polish National Catholic Church.

Edwards, recalling the elms of New Haven, planted one on his own lawn,
and it was to be a town landmark for many years.

Elisabeth Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man

The Northampton Church

129 Main St, Northampton

The Puritan settlers of Northampton built their first meeting house in 1655 on a site near the present-day Courthouse.  Eleazar Mather, cousin of Boston’s Cotton Mather, became the town’s first minister in 1658.  A new meeting house was built further up what came to be known as “Meeting House Hill” in 1661. When Mather died eight years later, Solomon Stoddard was called to take the pulpit. Stoddard preached his first sermon in Northampton in 1669… During Edward’s ministry, the third meeting house was built in 1737.  It was here that the evangelist, George Whitefield, preached in 1740, sparking the Great Awakening that Edwards reported in his widely published “Faithful Narrative”

Solomon Stoddard pastored here for 60 years, Jonathan Edwards for 23. After years of faithful service, his church fired him over a disagreement regarding who was to be admitted to the Lord’s table.