From today's Brown Bag lunch series.
In 1606, dissatisfied with the corruption and lapsed nature of the Church of England, religious Separatists in the village of Scrooby broke away from the established church. Scrooby Manor was William Brewster's home and became a meeting place for dissenters. Elder Brewster (1560-1644) led the Separatists (Pilgrims) from Scrooby Parish to Leiden, The Netherlands, and then on to Plymouth Colony. The clerk's desk in the Pratt Room is believed to have been used during Elder Brewster's tenure in Scrooby. The clerk's desk would have been located in the church below the pulpit on the same level as the congregation. It may have been below a reader's desk as well. The Parish Clerk stood or sat facing the congregation, who he led in the responses printed in the Prayer Book. He alos led the "lining of the psalms" and made community announcements from the desk.
In 1900, the desk was presented as a bequeathed to the Library by Charles Carlton Coffin (1823-1896) who obtained the desk from the Parish Clerk's House in Scrooby in 1880. Coffin was an author, journalist, war correspondent, and member of the Massachusetts Legislature 1884-1885.
The following was printed in the Forty-Third Annual Report of the Directors of the American Congregational Association of May 25, 1896: "The desk is doubtless contemporary with those forefathers (Plymouth Pilgrims), for it is reputed to be more than three hundred years old. With its solid oak, its quaint carvings, and its centuries of history, it is an object not to be regarded without emotion."
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