Case Name: Elijah Gridley versus Elihu Clark et al.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1824-09
Citations: 2 Pick. 403
Docket Number: 
Parties: Elijah Gridley versus Elihu Clark et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 19
Pages: 429–437

Head Matter:
Elijah Gridley versus Elihu Clark et al.
A person ordained as a congregational minister in Connecticut, dismissed in regular standing, and installed over a town in this Slate, is within St. 1821, c. 107, $ 6, exempting settled ministers from taxation.
A person was settled as a congregational minister over a town, with leave to dissolve his connexion upon giving six months’ notice. Some of his parish formed themselves into a new unincorporated society, and his church voted to unite themselves with them. The new society gave him a call to settle with them, which he accepted. He then gave notice, as above mentioned, to the parish, and after the six months expired he preached with the new society as their minister, but without any new ceremony of ordination or installation. Soon after he so began to preach, the church was, by an ecclesiastical council, formed into two, without precedence to either, one of which was united with the new society and the other with the parish. Held} that such minister, by virtue of St. 1811, c. 6, $ 4, and St. 1821, c. 107, § 6, was exempted from taxation for the amount of property specified in this last statute.
Trespass de bonis asportatis. The defendants pleaded the general issue, and a special plea in justification, in which they set forth that they were assessors of the town of Granby in 1822, and that the goods in question were distrained under a warrant from them, to satisfy a tax which they bad assessed upon the plaintiff.
The plaintiff claimed to he exempt from taxation, on the ground that he was regularly called and settled as the congregational minister of an unincorporated religious society in Granby, called the West Religious Society in Granby, and that as such minister he resided in Granby at the time when the tax was granted and assessed ; and in his surrejoinder he tendered an issue upon that fact, which was joined.
At the trial, before Lincoln J., it was admitted, that the plaintiff was duly ordained a minister of the gospel at Mansfield, in Connecticut, in 1789, according to the forms and usages of the congregational churches ; that he was dismissed in 1796, in regular standing and with testimonials of recommendation as a Christian minister ; and that he was afterwards, in 1797, installed pastor of the church, and settled as a minister of the gospel, in Granby, where he has ever since resided. In January, 1821, a number of the inhabitants of Granby formed themselves into a religious society, by the name of the West Religious Society in Granby, and on the 26th of February, 1821, this society voted to give the plaintiff, who then continued minister of the congregational society in Granby over which he was installed in 1797, a call to settle with them. On the 27th the plaintiff accepted the call. On the 15th of the same February the church in Granby voted that they would be united with the new religious society. On the 3d of October following, the same church voted that it was expedient that there should be two churches instead of one, to be called the West Church and the East Church, and that the plaintiff should still retain his pastoral relation to the West Church, but not to the East Church;, and the plaintiff produced the result of an ecclesiastical council, dividing the church and erecting a West and an East church, without priority to either, the former to be composed of the members of the church who belonged to the West Religious Society. From August 1821, the plaintiff ceased to preach to the Congregational Society, but from that time he preached to the West Religious Society as their minister and pastor. He administered the ordinance of the communion to the whole church, until its division, and afterwards to the church which was constituted within the West Religious Society. By the terms of the plaintiff’s settlement with the Congregational Society, he had liberty to separate from them by giving six months’ previous notice of such intention, and he accordingly gave such notice on the 27th of February, 1821.
Upon these facts the plaintiff contended, that after his separation from the Congregational Society in August 1821, and his connexion with the West Religious Society, and without any particular ceremony of ordination or installation over this last mentioned society, he remained exempt from taxation, as a settled minister of the gospel, according to the provisions )f the statute of 1821, c. 107, § 6.
The defendants contended, that after the separation of the plaintiff from the Congregational Society by his voluntary act, pursuant to the terms of his settlement, he ceased to be a settled ordained minister of the gospel within the contemplation of the statute, and that his subsequent connexion with the West Religious Society, without installation or some equivalent religious ceremony, did not constitute such ministerial relation and character as would entitle him to exemption ,* and they introduced as witnesses the Rev. Nathan Perkins and the Rev. Joshua Crosby, ministers of the congregational order of Christians, who testified that it is the universal usage of the congregational churches and societies in Massachusetts, when a minister who has been once ordained is to form a pastoral relation with another people, to call an ecclesiastical council, who proceed by prayer and religious services in the same manner as in cases of ordination, with the omission only of the imposition of hands, the ordaining power having before conferred the right to preach, or the pastoral character, and the installation being a mere location of a minister over his people ; that they knew of no instance of the dissolution of the pastoral relation between the minister and his church, without the intervention of a council, and that it would be altogether irregular ; that the understanding is, that the ordination or installation is between the minister and the church, and where there is no church existing, there is no ceremony either of ordination or installation, except in the ordination of an evangelist.
It was admitted by the defendants, that the members of .he West Religious Society filed in the office of the town cleric regular certificates of membership, before the tax in question was voted and assessed upon the plaintiff.
The judge directed a verdict for the plaintiff, and if the Court should be of opinion that the plaintiff was a settled minister of the gospel, within the meaning of the statute, entitled to exemption from taxation in the town of Granby, at the time when the tax in question was granted and assessed, judgment was to be entered on the verdict; otherwise the verdict was to be set aside and the plaintiff to become nonsuit.
Davis, (Solicitor-General,) E. H. Mills and Doolittle, for the defendants,
suggested that the ordination of the plaintiff in Connecticut gave him no rights in this State. As the exemption from taxation is claimed by him as minister of an unincorporated society, he does not come within the description in the tax act, of a minister settled over a town, district or parish ; and to entitle him to exemption under St. 1811, c. 6, § 4, as minister of an unincorporated society, he must be settled agreeably to the usages of his own sect or denomination. He was asked if he was willing to be settled over the new society in Granby, and he answered that he was. Such a call ¿nd acceptance could not constitute a settlement. Without something more the plaintiff had a right to leave the society at any time. The dividing of the church by the council could have no effect in settling him, for a council have no power to settle a minister over a society ; their business is with the church. Baker v. Fales, 16 Mass. R. 488. Without an investiture agreeably to the usages of the churches, in a civil view he is a hired man only ; he is nothing but a teacher; he has not the civil rights and privileges of an ordained minister of the gospel. Supposing however. that the plaintiff was duly settled over the town of Granby, his connexion with the new society was created when he had no power to form suph a connexion, he being at the time the minister of the town. According to the testimony of two witnesses, it appears that he was not settled over the new society agreeably to the .usages of the congregational churches, and their testimony coincides with the Cambridge Platform, c. 9, § 7, except that the usage has altered in regard to the imposition of hands, which is now omitted in the settlement of a minister who l as been previously ordained. The plaintiiPs ministerial relation with the town was entirely dissolved on the 27th of August, 1821. In Avery, v. Tyringham, 3 Mass. R. 160, and in some other cases, it is laid down, that the contract between a society and its minister, where no time is expressed, is for his life, but that it may be determined for a sufficient reason, by the intervention of a council. Here the contract expired by its own limitation, and a- council was unnecessary. As soon as this connexion of the plaintiff was dissolved, though he retained some ecclesiastical powers and privileges, ’^e became like any other citizen, for all civil purposes. The question then is, what character has he since acquired ? By the principles of reason and according to the ancient usages of his own denomination, he could not acquire the rights, privileges and immunities of a settled minister by a mere private contract. A person, without being settled, may be a teacher, or a reader in an episcopal church, so as to entitle him to an action for a compensation for his services ; Sanger v. Third Par. Roxbury, 8 Mass. R. 265 ; or so as to exempt the society from a fine under St. 1799, c. 87 ; but it will hardly be pretended that he would thereby be authorized to perform the marriage service, or to claim exemption from taxation. By his separation from the old society the plaintiff was separated from the church; which was connected with that society in such a manner that it could not be severed from it by the proceedings which have taken place, and which still remains the first church in Granby. The new society and the church connected with it, though composed of persons who were once members of the old ones, are entirely distinct bodies. This Court have often recognised the importance of ordination and of adhering to the ancient usages of churches, and they will not set them aside now ; which they must do, in order to give a judgment in favor of the plaintiff.
Strong, on the other side, contended that the plaintiff was a settled minister, and so entitled to exemption from taxation-
By the usages of the congregational churches the plaintiff continued pastor of the church in Granby, if the defendants’ witnesses have stated the usages correctly, there having been no council called to dissolve his connexion with the church It may seem strange to the Court, after the remarks in the case of Baker v. Fales, that a connexion should be said to subsist between a church and pastor after a dissolution of his connexion with the society, but in an ecclesiastical view, and as a point of usage, there may be a church independent of any society. The installing council is merely for the purpose of forming a connexion between the church and the pastor. There was no need of a council here, as such a connexion had subsisted for more than twenty years, and continued after the secession of the church from the "old society.
If ordaining is necessary to a connexion between a minister and his society, it already existed here. An ordaining council is to inquire into the qualifications of the minister. When he has been once ordained he is not ordained again upon being settled a second time, but only installed ; and it is immaterial that the ordination in the present instance was in the State of Connecticut. This appears from the testimony, and from Mather’s Magnalia, bk. 5, p. 43, col. 1. The plaintiff then having been ordained, and an installing council, for the reason Before mentioned, being unnecessary, his connexion with the West Religious Society makes him a settled minister; Ruggles v. Kimball, 12 Mass. R. 339 ; Turner v. Second Precinct in Brookfield, 7 Mass. R. 62 ; Commonwealth v. Spooner, 1 Pick. 236 ; and there seems to be the more reason in it, since that society was composed entirely of members of his old society. See the case of Rev. Mr. Hooker, in Hubbard’s Hist. N. Eng. p. 307, and of Rev. Mr. Maverick, ibid. p. 187. The members of the new society filed their certificates with the town clerk, and the plaintiff’s connexion with them was mentioned by a council which was called, so that there was no need of an ordination or installation for the purpose of giving notice.
The plaintiff, as a teacher of piety, religion and morality. within the third article of the declaration of rights, devoted to one society for a year, comes within the statute exempting settled ministers of the gospel from taxation. Kendall v. Kingston, 5 Mass. R. 533 ; Turner v. Second Precinct &c., ubi supra; Baker v. Fales, 16 Mass. R. 509. And this ought to be the construction of the statute, for the object of the third article of the Declaration of Rights is to encourage public teaching of piety, &c., and that of the exemption is. to lessen the burden of the people who are to pay for it. *
The opinion of the Court was read at April term 1825, in Hampshire, as drawn up by
But see Kibbe v. Antram, 4 Connect. R. 134. See also Londonderry v. Chester, 2 N. Hamp. R. 268 ; Goshen v Stonington, 4 Connect. R. 210 ; Baldwin v. M‘Clinch, 1 Greenl. 102 ; Ligonia, v. Buxton, 2 Greenl. 102, Stebbins v. Jennings, 10 Pick. 172.

Opinion:
Parker C. J.
The legality of the tax for which the ° J plaintiff's property was taken by distress, depends upon the question, whether he was a settled minister in the town of Granby at the time when the assessment was made. That he was regularly invested with the ministerial character by his ordination in Connecticut in 1789, and his subsequent installation over the town of Granby in 1797, having been regularly dismissed from the former and regularly inducted into the latter ministerial charge, according to the usages of the New England churches, cannot be denied. And that he was a settled minister in Granby until the year 1821, is equally clear; so that the question seems to be narrowed to this, whether the proceedings which took place in that year, in relation to the parochial concerns of that town, deprive him of the rights and privileges and the character of a settled minister.
A division of the parish took place by reason of the withdrawing of a number of its members, according to the provision'of St. 1811, c. 6, and a new society was formed, and by virtue of that statute the members who associated themselves into a new society by the name of the West Religious Society in Granby, became exempt from taxation for parochial purposes in the town, and had a right to settle and contract with a minister who should likewise be exempt from taxation, notwithstanding the society was not incorporated.
The fourth section of that statute enacts, 66 that all ministers ordained agreeably to the usages of the sect or denomination to which they severally belong, whether over corporate or nnincorporate society or societies, within this commonwealth, shall have the same exemptions from taxation, as are given to stated ordained ministers of the gospel, in the town, district, parish or plantation where they are settled, subject however to the same restrictions and penalties."
The plaintiff had been ordained in the manner usual with congregational societies, and he was a stated minister, or settled in the town of Granby. On the dissolution of his civil contract with the town, he retained his ministerial character, and having entered into a contract with the new society in the same town, and having by mutual compact acted as minister over that society and as pastor of a church formed within the same, we do not see why he does not remain a settled minister within the words of the statute.
The objection is, that there has been no public act of installation over this new society, but we do not see that this is necessary in a civil sense, to constitute him a settled minister. He had been once installed over the same people, making part of a body politic or corporation. He has now, by consent of all parties, become the minister of a portion of that people within the same town, and the church of which he is pastor is the same church over which he was installed in 1797. No act of notoriety seems to be necessary to make him the minister of this society and the pastor of this church. By the word settled in the tax act or in the statute of 1811, nothing more is intended than a certain fixed connexion between the minister and the society, in contradistinction to those occasional connexions which furnish no proof even of habitancy in the towns or parishes where they exist.
The exemption contended for by the plaintiff is enacted by St. 1821, c. 107, § 6. The words are, " That the president, professors, &c., of Harvard and Williams Colleges, &c., also ministers of the gospel, preceptors of academies estaclished by law, and Latin grammar school masters, shall not be assessed for their polls and estates under their personal management and improvement, in the towns, districts, or parishes, where they are, settled.,}
The plaintiff being a minister of the gospel, and being settled as such within the town of Granby, though not over that town, is by virtue of this statute and the statute of 1811, exempt, and therefore is entitled to judgment on the verdict.
The persons relieved by this act from taxation are now made taxable by St. 1828, c. 143, § 2.