McMurray Family (Click for Family Tree)
On this anniversary of the “natal” day of Edward B. Payne (AKA “birthday”) it is only fitting to post this lovely compliment and bit of history.
“Rev. E. B. Payne of Springfield, Mass, formerly a Congregational minister, will occupy the pulpit of the Unitarian church next Sunday. Mr. Payne is a young man recently from California, although a native of Vermont, and a brilliant preacher.”
“…a brilliant preacher“- there are those of us who so wish that we could have heard his “brilliant” sermons, or sat at the dinner table with him, or lounged under the trees at Wake-Robin Lodge discussing economics, social movements, literature, and his beliefs and experiences in life. He knew the politicians, religious leaders, movers and shakers, artists and writers of the times, especially when he lived in Berkeley, or at Wake-Robin Lodge with Jack and Charmian (Kittredge) London, or Altruria, the Utopian colony he founded, or Camp Reverie, the adult summer camp in the woods that he and Ninetta (Wiley) [Eames] Payne ran. All these fascinating persons would have been around the table or out on the porch with him in the evening, and the topics would have been very intellectual and far-ranging. Edward B. Payne was a prodigious reader, remarkable author, and profound thinker- and he must have been a fascinating conversationalist.
Edward Biron Payne was born in Middletown, Vermont, on 25 July 1847, so was not yet 34 when the above was written about him.
After service in the Civil War, graduation from Oberlin College with his degree in theology, and ordination in 1874 as a Congregational minister, E.B. went to Berkeley, California for a time. While there, he felt a need to reexamine the faith he inherited from his father and other ancestors, and Rev. Payne converted to the Unitarian Church.
E. B. then returned to New England in 1880 to visit his parents (Joseph Hitchcock Payne and Nancy S. (Deming) Payne), per some accounts, and decided to stay. His wife, Nanie M. (Burnell) Payne, had gone blind soon after their marriage, and their daughter Lynette Payne (later McMurray) had been born 26 October 1879. The couple would have wanted their family to meet their beautiful babe and likely needed some help at home (Lynette had been born very premature), which was not always affordable on a young minister’s salary.
In addition, it is likely that E. B. may have felt the need to make a clean break with the Congregational church in California. He had been the first pastor at Berkeley Congregational/ First Congregational Church, and it must have been hard to explain to church members why he had changed faiths. He surely wanted a fresh start with his new understanding of religion, so moving to another place, especially a place where there would have been more interaction with ministers of the Unitarian faith, would have been beneficial in coalescing his ideas about God and our world.
Rev. Payne was called to serve as pastor at Unitarian churches in Springfield, Massachusetts; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Leominster, Massachusetts. He “exchanged pulpits” periodically with ministers in other cities, to give his flock as well as himself some variety in his preaching.
Finding new pieces of information about Edward B. Payne such as these helps us to feel a bit of our “Wishful Wednesday” has been granted, though it can never replace what would have been a mesmerizing conversation with this brilliant man.
Notes, Sources, and References:
- The day of one’s birth was called a “natal day” back when he was born on 25 July 1847 and the term was also used for many years. In 1893, the Morning Call (San Francisco, California), Thursday, 27 July 1893, Volume LXXIV (74), No. 57, Page 3, Column 2, ‘Chronicling America’ via loc.gov, reported a surprise party “in honor of the anniversary his natal day.” See Mystery Monday: The Birth of Edward B. Payne at heritageramblings.net/2016/07/25/mystery-monday-the-birth-of-edward-b-payne
- Interestingly, E. B.’s parents were enumerated on the Federal Census on 29 June 1880 in Waukegan, Lake County, Illinois, living with their other child, Cornelia Mary (Payne) Hinckley, her husband Horace A. Hinckley, and the Payne’s first grandchild, William H. Hinckley, age 11. Nanie’s parents were living in Illinois at that time as well, although a different county, so maybe E. B. and Nanie had gone to New England to visit E. B.’s parents, and then decided they had better opportunities in the Northeast than in the young California town of Berkeley. Of course, the family did move back to Berkeley in 1892, about 12 years after ministering to souls in New England, but that’s another story.
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