Cape Cod’s Old-time Ministers

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Palmer Street in Falmouth is named after one of the town’s most illustrious Puritan ministers, the Rev. Samuel Palmer. He served there for forty-three years, (1731-1774), succeeding a minister named Josiah Marshall.

Josiah had been in office for eleven years, (1719-1730), but by that time, 1730, the whole village was torn by dissension about his reputed personal bad ways and habits.

Gustavus Swift Paine, genealogist and Cape historian, humorously commented that “Many Cape Cod ministers interested themselves in the medical needs of their people. The Rev. Daniel Greenleaf of Yarmouth was an apothecary. Incidentally, his twelve children all had the smallpox at the same time. Because he travelled on the Sabbath to succor them, he was under a cloud.”

The Biblical parable of the ass that fell into the ditch on the Sabbath apparently had no meaning for the authorities of Yarmouth at that time.

Samuel Palmer was also a slaveholder, though whether through mercy or a belief in slavery is not known.

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Posted by capelinks - (website) on 05/19/06
Categories: Falmouth, History, Life
Keywords: history, falmouth, life
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Cape Cod’s Old-time Ministers

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