Reverend Joseph Dyar

Notes:

Joseph Dyar Jr. conveyed land in Charlestown in 1796. In 1806 he emigrat ed to the province of Maine and settled at Phillips where he "was a leadi ng Baptist elder of that section until he died" (Dyar Gen.,p. 15).The 1820 census of Phillips township shows Joseph's household with one ma le aged 16-18 (James), two aged 16-25 (Joseph 3rd and an unknown), and o ne aged over 45 (Joseph Jr.), and females: one aged 10-15 (Eliza), and o ne over 45(Sally). Three of these people were involved in agriculture.As mentioned above Joseph Jr. was very involved in the religious life of h is town. Until 1818, when the church went under, and some years after it w as revived Joseph (and two other ministers) did most of the preaching at t he church in Phillips -- these efforts were without any compensation fr om the church members. As the Farmington Chronicle stated in a series of s ketches of Phillips in 1869, "The devotion and sacrifices of those early m inisters who were faithfully engaged in their work challenges our admirati on. Their privations and suffering excite our commiseration, but a re to be attributed to errors taught by the ministers themselves and too f aithfully sanctioned by the membership."Despite the occasional decline of membership to a point approaching zer o, Joseph Dyar continued preaching. When Elder Samuel HUTCHINS visited Phi llips in 1827 he noted the poor attendance and was instrumental in starti ng the church again on her course. From this time, improvement in the man ner of conducting affairs became apparent. Elder Joseph Dyar was constitut ed pastor of the Phillips church and the preaching became more regula r. In 1830 the members who lived in Madrid, Maine, were organized in to a church by themselves and Elder Dyar was dismissed from his pastora te in Phillips. After this he bestowed most of his labor on the chur ch in Madrid. Ironically, after the departure of Joseph Dyar from Phillip s, the congregation there began to employ a paid preacher under contract.The 1830 census of Phillips township shows Joseph's household with one ma le aged 10-14 (?), and one aged 50-59 (Joseph Jr.), and females: one ag ed 5-9 (?), and one aged 50-59 (Sally). Their farm appears to have be en contiguous with that of their son Joseph 3rd.The Rev. Joseph Dyar Jr. died at AE 85, and was buried at the Riverside Me thodist Church, Phillips, Franklin Co., ME.This cemetery (behind the Methodist Church, the town's first which open ed in 1840), was destroyed on 4 OCT 1869 after two days of torrential rai ns washed out all the bridges over the Sandy River but one, took out fi ve dams above the town and killed one resident.
SOURCES:
The Dyar Family Tree (1944)Farmington Chronicle, 10 FEB-22 JUL1869 ("Sketches of History of Phillip s, Franklin, Me" by Albert Pease.)
Franklin County, Maine, Vital Statistics IV, 8.
DOD: Wirth, D.; Franklin County, Maine Cemetery Records, IV.
Whitney, Wendell; History of Phillips (ME) (1933), IV
Malden Births, Marriages & Deaths (1903), p. 23.Dyar, Harrison Gray (Jr.), Preliminary Genealogy of the Dyar Family (1903 ), p.15.
Somerset Co. (ME) census of 1820 and 1830

Joseph married Sally Merritt on 25 Dec 1792 in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts . Sally (daughter of Samuel Merritt and Sarah Hawkes) was born on 20 Feb 1773 in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts ; died on 24 Feb 1847 in Phillips, Franklin County, Maine; was buried in Riverside Methodist Church, Phillips, Franklin County, Maine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]