”The first recorded election, in 1836, brings to notice two sturdy pioneers in the Sunday-school work of the West Needham church, who may be considered types of the workers of that time: Jonathan Fuller, Jr., superintendent, and Miss Abigail Ware, “female assistant.” …

The younger children gathered about Miss Abigail Ware, in the big box pew at the left of the door as one entered the church, and with rapt attention gazed and listened while she expounded the meaning of Bible stories, illustrated on a large card or “tablet.” This tablet, more than a foot square, had on one side a picture illustrating the lesson story, and on the other the Bible verses and a column of questions. Every one who was once a member of Miss Ware’s class seems to have remembered her and her teaching, whatever else might be forgotten. Her heart was bound up in her Sabbath-school work, and when she married and moved to a distant town she at once sought out the Sabbath-school superintendent with a request for a class in a part of the room where she could talk as loud as she pleased without disturbing other classes. When seated with her new class in the box pew, in the farthest corner of the gallery, she is said to have exclaimed, ‘Now I shall not be homesick.’ ”

Reference Data:

The History of Wellesley Congregational Church, by Edward Herick Chnadler, 1898, pages 131-2 .