Easter In New Hampshire And Our Spiritual Heritage

by Robert Hanaford Smith, Sr.
Weirs Times Contributing Writer

It comes every year on its assigned date, that date being the first Sunday after the first full moon after or on the 21st day of March. It is the Christian holy day called Easter, though some Christians prefer to call the day Resurrection Sunday in an attempt to emphasize the Biblical reason for the celebration rather than the more secular traditions associated with the name Easter.
Nevertheless, Easter Sunday as we know it is the one day above all others during the year when most Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ or Messiah, from the dead.
The related events of the death and the events following resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are crucial to Christian faith and hope.

One of the more meaningful ways for many of remembering the resurrection of Jesus (resurrection meaning rising from the dead) is the Easter Sunrise Service. I remember those times in my youth when the members of one church or several jointly would gather at some outside location at sunrise on Easter Sunday to sing and hear the reading of Scripture and the message about the resurrection by a Pastor, and later giving some of those messages myself. The outdoor atmosphere and the dawn of a new day helps one to imagine the circumstances of that day many hundreds of years ago when Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
The Sunrise Services have not always been accompanied by the sight of a rising sun, however, as there have been rainy and even snowy mornings when an assembly of brave souls still cheerfully, if maybe shiveringly, celebrated the triumph over the grave. Sometimes an Easter Sunday breakfast would follow.
More people are apt to attend church services on Resurrection Sunday than at other times of the year, though I think in greater amounts during my younger years than today. It used to be a time, and still is for some, when many would buy new clothes for the occasion, or at least start wearing their spring attire for the first time of the year. The ladies were apt to adorn new hats during those years when the fairer sex used to include dressy hats as part of their Sunday attire, and it was not unusual for a corsage to be attached to their dress.
Today, the state of New Hampshire has about the lowest percentage of churchgoers in the nation, but that has not always been the case.
One of the first actions taken by the early towns in New England was to establish a body of church members and build a house of worship, along with making arrangements for the settling of a minister of the gospel in the new village. Those ministers were usually greatly involved in leadership positions not only in church affairs but also in governmental matters. In fact, in the early colonial days, one had to be a church member in order to qualify as a voter.

The founder of the town of Hampton, the controversial Rev. Stephen Bachiler, was one of those ministers. He is also one of my ancestors, as his granddaughter married my great-6 times-grandfather, one of the many John Smiths.
The churches that were under the authority of Puritan leaders or their influence, did not celebrate Easter because of concern about the association with previous pagan customs and the absence in the Bible of any command to do so, but it should be understood that they were believers in the resurrection of Jesus and His ascension to Heaven.
In some 1905 accounts about his home town Edwin C. Lewis wrote that the early settlers of New Hampton “were of the good old Puritan sort.” He added that the laws of Massachusetts, which New Hampshire was once a part of, “were designed to form a government based on the Bible, and modeled to quite an extent after the Jewish economy.”
New Hampshire’s early government was modelled after Massachusetts’. Lewis indicated that the past influence of the Puritans helped to explain “…how it came about that New Hampton became the center of such strong, educational, moral, and religious influences.”
In one of those 1905 sketches Mr. Lewis, a former editor of The Laconia Democrat, wrote that “This town has always paid excellent attention to religion. A larger audience according to the population of the town can be seen every Sunday in church than in most of the places in the state. People drive two and three miles every Sabbath through all weathers to attend church service. The custom of the fathers have been transmitted unimpaired to the sons. It must be pleasant to the preacher to see in the same pew Sunday after Sunday parishioners who live off on the hills three or four miles away; to think what pains they take; how early they must rise to reach there in time; and especially pleasing to note the fine attention and respect paid the sermon.”
Lewis went on to declare “Modern degeneracy has not yet reached New Hampton. The people have not learned how to run counter to all the good customs and observances that characterized the Puritans. They still have some respect for the Sabbath. The traveler passing through the village on that day would see no signs of business of any kind. If he heard a woodsaw going on Sunday or the sound of an axe, he might know it was not a genuine inhabitant of the place but some intruder from some other town. He would meet between the hours of ten and eleven a stream of people wending their way to church.”
It was true, Lewis admitted, that even in New Hampton not everybody attended church services, for some felt they could be better edified by reading the Bible or Rev. Talmadge’s sermons (printed in the newspaper) at home. Some had “no church tendencies or principles”, but Lewis insisted that those people were not descendants of the New Hampton “parent stock.”
In today’s world, Easter, to some, may not mean much more than Easter baskets and egg hunts, things that represent life and have entertained children and adults down through many years, but for many others, even in New Hampshire, where interest in the wonder of resurrection and accountability to the Creator seems to be at a low point, the memories of Palm Sunday services, Maundy Thursday Eucharist events, Good Friday services from noon until 3 p.m. (the ninth hour), Sunrise Services, and joyful and triumphant Resurrection Worship Services have been a source of peace and hope for many people.
A group of ministers in Laconia churches in 1925 in a joint statement urged the people “to turn their thoughts anew to the teachings, the life, and the sacrifice of this Master of All Great Life,” as they expressed their assumption that the thoughts of Christians would be turned to the significance of the death and life of Jesus Christ.

Robert Hanaford Smith, Sr. welcomes your comments at danahillsmiths@yahoo.com