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Thaddeus Maccarty
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THADDEUS MACCARTY (1721-84), 18th century
Anonymous
oil on canvas
30 x 24 3/4 (76.20 x 62.8650)
Bequest of Dwight Foster Dunn, 1937
Weis #74
Hewes #75
More
information
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| Thaddeus Maccarty, the son
of a
Boston sea captain, graduated from Harvard College in 1739. He was
ordained
in Kingston, Massachusetts, in 1742, but had a falling out with
members
of his congregation and was dismissed in 1745.(1) Two years later,
he became
the minister of the First Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, where
he remained
for the rest of his life. Although his preaching was never
considered brilliant
or intellectual, Maccarty earned a reputation for his enthusiastic
descriptions
of hell and damnation, and his daylong Sunday discourses on the
evils of
man. He was described by a contemporary as "a man tall of
stature,
slender of habit, with a black penetrating eye. As a publik [sic]
preacher
he was solemn, loud, searching and rousing."(2)
During the Revolutionary War, Maccarty attempted to keep politics
out
of his pulpit. Unlike other area clergy who fully supported the
Loyalist
cause and abandoned their congregations for the safety of Canada,
Maccarty
remained in Worcester and tried to balance the issues, although he
clearly
had patriotic feelings. "When a post rider rode into
Worcester on
a hot day in July 1776, bearing the news that the Declaration of
Independence
had been signed, he was summarily halted by a tall, slender man
with dark,
piercing eyes. The man was Rev. Thaddeus Maccarty.... Isaiah
Thomas, at
the time the post master, was in the little throng that had
collected
in anticipation of the news and it was Mr. Thomas, at the command
of the
clergyman, who mounted the porch of Old South Church and read the
message
that thrilled the city."(3)
Because Worcester was the county seat, Maccarty was often called
upon
to preach at public events, such as the 1778 execution of
Bathsheba Spooner
(1746-1778) and her three accomplices, for the murder of her
husband Joshua.
The Spooner case was one of the most sensational court cases in
New England
as it involved not only a crime of passion, but, because of
Bathsheba's
alleged support of the British cause, pitted Loyalists and
Patriots against
one another. Spooner was prominent socially and surprised the
citizens
of Worcester with her calm acceptance of her fate. Maccarty
recalled,
"I accompanied her in a carriage to the place of execution;
she appeared
undismayed and unaffrightened.... At length we came in sight of
the gallows.
I asked her if the sight did not strike her? She answered not at
all any
more than any other subject. Her constitutional politeness
remained."(4)
Maccarty preached a sermon on the death of Spooner which, along
with other
published writings by the minister, is preserved in the American
Antiquarian
Society's imprint collection.
This portrait of Maccarty by an unknown painter remained with the
minister's
descendants into the nineteenth century. In 1867, heavily
overpainted
and damaged, it was given to the Society by the sitter's
great-great-granddaughter.
Eleven years later, the family requested the return of the
portrait stating,
"The portrait is of no value as a painting but it is the only
likeness
of Maccarty which exists and it would be very agreeable to us if
it could
be returned to our family."(5) The Society complied with the
request.
In 1935, the next generation bequeathed the portrait back to the
Society
along with a collection of Maccarty's personal papers.(6)
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1) William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit 1
(New York:
Robert Carter & Brothers, 1859): 423-25. The Rev. Ellis Gray
preached
at Maccarty's ordination, November 3, 1742.The Fidelity of
Ministers to
Themselves, and to the Flock of God, Consider'd and Enforc'd
(Boston:
printed by G. Rogers for M. Dennis, 1742)
2) Zephaniah Willis quoted in Clifford K. Shipton,
Sibley's Harvard
Graduates 10 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1958):
380.
3) "Old Bible Given to South Church," Worcester
Sunday
Telegram, April 18, 1926, American Antiquarian Society
Newsclipping File.
4) Sibley's Harvard Graduates 10: 385. For an analysis of
the
Spooner case see Chandler Bullock, "The Bathsheba Spooner
Murder
Case," paper read before the Worcester Historical Society,
April
14, 1939. The Spooner verdict has the distinction of being the
only execution
in Worcester County of four individuals for a single crime. For a
modernized
version of the case, see Deborah Navas's Murdered by his Wife,
published
in 1999 by the University of Massachusetts Press.
5) Mary Foster Dunn to Samuel Foster Haven, August 19,
1878,
American Antiquarian Society Archives.
6) Maccarty Family Papers 1742-1863, American Antiquarian
Society
Manuscript Collection
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This site and all contents © 2004 American Antiquarian
Society
Last updated December 10, 2004
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