United First Parish Church Quincy, Massachusetts

Reverend Anthony Wibird

It is amazing to me that Reverend Anthony Wibird served us longer than any other minister. He was called in 1755 and was our minister until his death in 1800, a total of forty-five years. Reverend Wibird succeeded Lemuel Briant and had to avoid the disputes of the pro-Briant, liberal supporters and the anti-Briant, Puritan opponents. On top of this, he had to navigate between the anti-British revolutionaries and the pro- British loyalists, no easy task. For example, in 1765 Reverend William Smith, Abigail Adams’ father and pastor of First Church in Weymouth, and Reverend Ebeneezer Gay, pastor of Old Ship Church in Hingham, were holding secret meetings to urge passive resistence to the British. Reverend Wibird did not join in and actually preached a sermon based upon the Biblical text, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.” This led John Adams to comment that Pastor Wibird “trembles on the brink of Toryism.”

When Reverend Wibird was first called to be our minister, the Church elders did not want to hire another divisive pastor like Lemuel Briant. They wanted someone more orthodox, less controversial, and more middle of the road. Anthony Wibird was the ideal candidate. Reverend Dunbar of Stoughton, who was a member of Wibird’s ordination committee, wrote that “Reverend Wibird had satisfied the Ordination Council about the diety of Christ, original sin, and justifying our righteousness before God.” It also didn’t hurt that Wibird knew both the Quincy and Adams families. In fact, he escorted Deacon Adams and the entire Adams family to John Adams’ Harvard graduation.

All of the biographers of John Adams take great delight in quoting the rather jealous description of Reverend Wibird by John Adams back when they both were young men and “calling” on Hannah Quincy, the daughter of Colonel John Quincy. Adams wrote, “ Anthony Wibird is crooked, his head bends forward, his shoulders are round, his body is writhed and bended, his head and body have a one way list, and when he walks he heaves away and swags on one side and steps with one foot about twice as far as the other. When he speaks, he cocks and rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and jerks his body around.” They seem to have ignored the fact that Adams also said that Reverend Wibird “is a genius at being popular.” Later on Adams, no warm and cuddly personality, will marvel at how Wibird, a confirmed bachelor, “will play with children and ask mothers about them.” When Adams was in France and writing about Benjamin Franklin he said that “Franklin recalled to him Parson Wibird’s way to fame by charming the women and men that he fixes on.” It seems as if Reverend Wibird would also get the Church elders to reduce the pew rents of families that were having financial problems. Part of the minister’s salary was based upon pew rental revenues. You can see why he was so popular.

Even though Pastor Wibird was evidently a real people person, it seems he was a terrible preacher. In 1775 Abigail Adams wrote John, “I could not bear to hear our inanimate old bachelor. Mrs Cranch and I took the chaise to Dedham to hear Mr. Haven, and we had no reason to repent our eleven mile ride.” John Quincy Adams came home for a visit and remarked, “Pastor Wibird preached in his usual dull, unanimated style.” Despite the bad sermons, the Church prospered and grew during the long tenure of Anthony Wibird. In fact he became so popular that he served in the state legislature, and was elected to be a delegate to the Massachusetts convention that ratified the United States Constitution. Anthony Wibird and John Adams were lifelong friends. Toward the end of his life Adams referred to Wibird as “my pious and virtuous, sensible and learned, orthodox and rigid, odd, droll and excentric spiritual guide. He is also benevolent, sociable, and has imagination, wit and some humor, but little grandeur.” This was not a bad compliment from a man who didn’t often give praise.

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