the prides of the city is the
Public Library, established under an act of the State Legislature of May
24, 1851, authorizing the incorporation of public libraries. A year and
twelve days afterward the common council appropriated fifteen hundred
dollars for its support. Before the action of the city government the
library had existed a long time as the old Social Library, and before
that time as the Library Society, but when the State authorized the
incorporation of such institutions it immediately entered the wider
field. To-day it has fifty thousand volumes. It has the income of the
Sylvia Ann Rowland fund of fifty thousand dollars, the Charles W. Morgan
fund of one thousand dollars, the George Rowland, Jr. fund of sixteen
hundred dollars, the Oliver Crocker fund of one thousand dollars, and
the James B. Congdon fund of five hundred dollars. Besides the culture
of books, New Bedford has always been blessed by the presence and words
of ministers far above the average in talent and earnestness. The
dispute of the early settlers with the General Court showed that the
people were particular as to the quality of their spiritual food, and
this fastidiousness seems to have been handed down from generation to
generation, judging from the _personnel_ of the men. Dr. Samuel West,
who preached at the Head of the River from 1761 to 1803, was of just
that material to satisfy the spiritual wants of his time. Especially
should his name be honored for the vigor and determination with which he
threw himself, body and soul, into the struggle for independence. Nor
should the names of George L. Prentiss, Moses How, and others be
forgotten. One branch of the parent church, the First Congregational
(Unitarian) Society, which built its present substantial edifice in
1836-7-8, has had a continuity of pastors hardly equalled anywhere for
real spiritual living, thinking, and teaching. Dr. Orville Dewey, who
was settled in 1823, was much beloved by everybody, and in his last
years, at his home in Sheffield, among the Berkshire hills, he won the
hearts of all there by his beauty of character, as he had done here.
While Dr. Dewey was abroad, in 1833, and a year or so following, Ralph
Waldo Emerson supplied the pulpit. The present church was dedicated in
1838, and Rev. Dr. Ephraim Peabody and Rev. J. H. Morison were installed
as pastors. The former remained with the society until 1845, and the
latter until 1844. In 1847 Rev. John Weiss became pastor,