Dr. Sean Michael Lucas has found a great statement in the Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. of Lyman Beecher, D.D., ed. Charles Beecher (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1864), I, 99—at the beginning of chapter 17—about the payment received by the first Puritan minister of East Hampton, Long Island. His annual support was to be ₤45 per annum (later raised to ₤50 and then ₤60 per annum), “lands rate free, grain to be first ground at the mill every Monday, and one fourth of the whales stranded on the beach” (italics added). As Dr. Lucas notes: this “is the only case I ever knew of a minister’s being paid in whales” [“Glad ministerial pay has advanced beyond this...”, reformation21, post December 20, 2010 (http://networkedblogs.com/c3AE3)]. Can you imagine? James’ successor was a Mr. Hunting, related to one of the Marian martyrs, and then came Samuel Buell (d.1798) (Autobiography, Correspondence, etc. of Lyman Beecher, 99-100), whose ordination sermon Jonathan Edwards preached in 1746, and under whose pulpit ministry Sarah Edwards had some remarkable experiences. I wonder if Buell was still being paid in beached whales during his pastorate. One could only imagine him and his mentor, America’s greatest theologian, when the latter visited him, going out to check the beach for stranded whales!
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