Page Family Biographies:

Emery Harkness Page

Emery Harkness Page was born August 25, 1818, in Baltimore, Vermont. He descended from John Page, who came to America in 1630 on the ship "Jewel," one of the fleet under the leadership of Puritan Gov. John Winthrop.

Emery’s parents were Benjamin Page and Huldah Cheney. The youngest of nine children, he worked the fur trade for some time, with two of his brothers, to earn the money for his education. He studied in Ludlow, VT; and Meredith, NH; before entering Brown University in Providence, RI in 1845, at the beginning of his junior year. In 1850, he graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York, and supplied a church in Chicago, IL, for nearly a year. Emery was ordained November 9, 1853, in the Bethesda Baptist Church in Charlestown, MA. (His wife also referred to it as Bunker Hill Baptist Church.)

Emery was a young man in Baltimore, VT, when Joseph Graves was pastoring the Baptist church in the neighboring town of Ludlow. I believe that Joseph and Emery became acquainted during that time; perhaps Joseph led Emery to the Lord. It is almost certain that Joseph discipled him, and helped him prepare for the ministry--it is clear from family letters that he was a close friend of the family. Five months after his ordination in Boston, Emery married Stella Ann Susan Graves, Joseph’s youngest daughter.

About 1845, Emery’s brothers and sisters left Vermont, and moved to southern Wisconsin, some of the earliest pioneers in the area. Several years later, Emery took pastorates in nearby Madison and Berlin, before moving farther westward.

Emery retired from the ministry about 1883, after which he moved his family to Minneapolis, Minnesota. During the next five years, he "supplied" various churches in the area. Emery H. Page died May 5, 1888, in Minneapolis, and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery there.  

A summary of his ministry:

1850--Emery graduated from Union Theological Seminary, in New York, and "supplied a church" in Chicago, Ill. for nearly a year in the absence of its pastor.

1853 to 57--ordained into his first pastorate, in the Bethesda Baptist Church in Charlestown, MA (Stella later called it Bunker Hill Baptist Church). Joseph Graves took part in the ceremony, "Invocation and Reading the Scriptures."

1854--Emery and Stella were married by her father Rev. Joseph Graves in Boston--he was 36 years old, she was 25 years old.

1857--interim pastor of the Second Baptist Church in St. Louis, MO for a year. As he worked with evangelist Jacob Knapp, revival swept the city.

1859--Greenwood Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY.

1864--Hudson, MA.

1866--Milford, MA.

1868--Groton Junction (now Ayer), MA.

1870--Madison, WI.

1872--Berlin, WI--the longest pastorate in the history of the church.

1881--Osage, Iowa

1883--Emery retired from full-time ministry and moved his family to Minneapolis, Minn. where he "supplied churches in and about the city," according to his wife Stella.

 

There is no date on thisletter from Emery Page, but it was obviously before his marriage to Stella. I love this letter, a true old-fashioned love-letter, speaking from the heart!

My dear Stella,

I had a plain talk with your mother last evening. I told her that I thought enough of you--that is I loved you. But that she need conclude from this that I must marry you. And I told her if the time shd ever come when it would be for your interest to interrupt our intimacy it would be done. And whatever my feelings might be neither she nor yourself should be troubled with them. And so it is. Your mother seemed to think I might love you for a season or sympathize with you in your trouble and then forget you. I do not like such suspicions. They make me feel like doubting my own heart. A treacherous heart I know but does it not now rest in you like the dove sent out by Noah when it was received into the ark?

And now as to your feeling that I shall find out that I liked or loved contrary to my will. Don’t say anything to me about it unless you wish to.

Am I never to find any one to love and call my own? Must always be tossed like the storm driven ships on the sea of feeling--now almost loving this one and now changing to that one. And when friendship that is almost love begins to strike its deep roots into the fertile soil of my heart these roots must be torn up and leave the heart bleeding? Must this be repeated again & again. Oh no I hope not. I hope the haven in which my heart now rests is to be trully "a haven of rest" after a long long voyage. Don’t drive me out to sea again unless your happiness is involved. If it must be done let it be done after we have been longer separated.

I do not know how well it will be for you to marry me. Let that go for the future. We can decide better then perhaps than now.

Good morning

I am your E.H.P.

 

A short excerpt from a letter Emery wrote to his brother-in-law , December 1878. I love that this shows his heart for God and the ministry.

We are well and busy at work again. I have large congregations to preach to--larger much than I have ever had in Berlin before. My prayer is that God would come and save souls. I have nothing now in life to do but preach a little while longer & then go the way of all the living. Life--how short it is--most gone. But it is a privilege to work for Jesus. I feel it more & more so. Let everything else go. Work for Jesus--lay up treasures in heaven. Love to all the friends. Write again.

Yours
E. H. Page

 

 

Stella’s beloved Emery died in 1888. Here are a couple of obituaries for him.

Rev. Emery H. Page was born in Baltimore, VT; graduated at Brown University and Union Theological Seminary; was ordained at Charlestown, Mass., and was a successful pastor in Brooklyn, NY, and other churches in the East; he was also a stated supply in St. Louis and the Northeast church in Minneapolis. He passed to his rest May 5, 1888, in his 69th year. Bro. Page was a man of rare and earnest gifts, beloved by all who were co-laborers with him in the various churches which he served. Minnesota Baptist Annual, 1888

Rev. Emery H. Page was born in Baltimore, VT, Aug. 25, 1818, and died in Minneapolis, Minn., May 5, 1888. His training for his life-work was received at Ludlow, VT, and Meredith, NH, and at Brown University, and Union Theological Seminary, NY, where he distinguished himself for accurate scholarship. He was pastor for nearly 30 years, over churches in Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin, and Iowa. His longest and most prosperous pastorate was in Berlin, Wis., from 1872 to 1881. In May, 1854, he was married to Stella A., daughter of Rev. J. M. Graves, who, with three daughters and a son, survives him.
Vermont Baptist Anniversaries, 1888

 

March 1, 2013
Polli Turner