MEDWAY - For more than 50 years in the 19th century, Jacob Ide was a pastor in town, and he ardently spoke out against the evils of slavery.

The town is currently moving closer to ensuring his house, at 158 Main St., will be preserved.

The Historical Commission voted on Sept. 27 to declare the residence historically significant to Medway. That vote, said Chairwoman Jeanne Johnson, was needed to allow the town to use community preservation funds to purchase the building, which dates back about 200 years.

According to Johnson, the matter arose after members of the Medway Historical Society (a separate group) learned of the house's availability and suggested that selectmen explore buying it.

The purchase will likely come before voters at this fall's Special Town Meeting.

Commission Vice Chairman Paul Russell said Ide was quite a significant figure in the town's history, serving as pastor of what is now the Medway Community Church for 51 years.

"He was the first pastor at the church that is there now," he said, referring to the building constructed in 1814. "Before that, church was held at a meeting house across the street."

Russell said Ide was an abolitionist, and had a connection to the "Underground Railroad" that helped escaped slaves flee the south. Ide's son-in-law Charles Torrey was a major figure in that effort, Russell said.

"(Torrey) went down to the Washington, D.C. area to bring wagons of slaves to Philadelphia or northern New York," he said. "He was jailed (and later died in prison), and was so popular that abolitionists built a house for (his wife, Ide's daughter) next door to Ide's house."

Ide trained 43 pastors, according to the Medway Community Church website. As a "learned person" was a requirement for starting a new town at the time, many of these pastors went on to help establish new municipalities in the state, Russell said.

"He trained over 40 of them, so he has a lot to do with the history of other towns, too," he said.
