Glass. 
 Book. 
 
 ^riJ 
 
 n.r 
 
''The Whitestown Country/' 
 
 1 784-- 1 884. 
 
 Centennial Celebration of the Settlement 
 of Whitestown June 5, 1884. 
 
 WHITESBOROS ''GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 
F, 
 
 ;^7 
 
THE WHITESTOWN CEiNTEj^iNIAL 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 At a meeting of the Oneida Historical Society, held April 10, 
 1883, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted: 
 
 As the fifth day of June, 1884, will complete a century of years 
 since the arrival at Whitesboro, for the purpose of residence, of 
 Hugh White and family, whicli was the beginning of the first 
 permanent settlement of Oneida County and "the Whitestown 
 Country," it seems fit and becoming in the people of this region to 
 mark the centennial with appropriate observance ; and if deemed 
 advisable that it be observed with public addresses and other 
 ceremony, in honor of the heroic men wlio, throughout the 
 territory, opened the way for their successors, it seems also tit that 
 the Oneida Historical Society should take the initial steps toward 
 the accomplishment of this purpose, therefore 
 
 Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to confer upon 
 the advisability of such public celebration, and, in case of approval, 
 upon the proper mode of conducting the same, and that they 
 report thereon at the next regular meeting of the Society, said 
 committee to consist of lions. Samuel Campbell, D. E. Wager, 
 Amos O. Osborn and William M. White and S. N, D. North, Esq. 
 
 At the regular meeting of the society, held May 8, 188-3, the 
 above named committee rej^orted favorably of a public celebration 
 of the centennial anniversary, to be held at Whitesboro ; recom- 
 mended that a memorial shaft be erected near the first dwelling of 
 Judge Hugh White, which shall be unveiled on the occasion; that 
 the literary exercises consist of a historical address and a dedica- 
 tory address, and also of a poem ; that the exercises conclude with 
 a collation for invited guests, to be followed by brief addresses and 
 reminiscences; that the Historical Society appoint a committee, 
 
8 THE WHITESTOWJSr CENTENNTAL. 
 
 broader in its embrace than its own membership, and large enough 
 for subdivision, which shall have charge of the arrangements for 
 the celebration, raise the necessary funds and carry out the pro- 
 gramme, independent of the Historical Society ; and lastly for the 
 accomplishment of these purposes, they recommended the follow- 
 ing committee, viz. : 
 
 Samuel Campljell, Cliairuian, of 
 
 Wbitestown. 
 Wm. D. Walcott, of Whitestown. 
 L. L. Wigbt, of Wbitestown. 
 George Williams, of Wliitestown. 
 George Grabam, of Origkany. 
 Ricb. U. Sbearman,of New Hartford. 
 Wm. S. Bartlett, of Clinton, 
 Jobn L. Dean, of Westmoreland. 
 A. P. Case, of Vernon. 
 D. G. Doi'rance, of Oneida Castle. 
 A. O. Osborn, of Waterville. 
 D. E. Wager, of Rome. 
 A. C. Kessinger, of Rome. 
 
 Lutber Guiteau, of Trenton, 
 Fred. G. Weaver, of Deerfield. 
 Wm. M. Wbite, of Utica. 
 A. T. Goodwin, of Utica. 
 Jobn F. Seymour, of Utica. 
 
 C. W. Hutcbinson, of Utica. 
 M. M. Jones, of Utica. 
 Ellis H. Roberts, of Utica. 
 
 D. W. C. (irove, of Utica. 
 A. L. Woodruff, of Utica. 
 Tbos. Foster, of Utica. 
 M. M. Bagg, of Utica. 
 Tbeo. S. Sayre, of Utica. 
 
 The committee's report was approved and adopted. 
 
 Without further action on the part of the society, preparation for 
 the celebration was taken in hand by the committee, assisted by 
 local sub-committees of their appointment ; every portion of the 
 programme was provided for, and when the day arrived was most 
 successfully carried out. 
 
THE CELEBRATION. 
 
 On the 5th of June, 1884, thy beautiful vilhige of Whitesboro, 
 the seat of the day's festivities, presented its luost attractive 
 appearance. Its long, wide main avenue, lined with commodious 
 residences and spacious grounds, and embowered by noble old 
 trees, rich in midsummer foliage, gave the centennial settlement 
 that peculiar charm which recalls its New England lineage. The 
 day Avas exceptionally plea.^ant. The whole village was gay with 
 holiday attire in which its hospitable citizens had decked it, in 
 honor of the Whitestown birthday. 
 
 The guests from the surrounding country soon began to arrive. 
 They came on the street cars of the Utica and Whitesboro railroad, 
 by the canal steamers and the trains of the New York Central, 
 while a continuous stream of vehicles occupied the roads leading 
 to the ancient county seat. 
 
 The literary exercises of the day were conducted on a large 
 platform, suitably decorated, standing in the center of the public 
 " Gi-een " fronting the old Court House. That noted edifice, now 
 the Tovvn Hall, swarmed with visitors registering their names, and 
 busy directors. At the sides of the park the ladies of several of 
 the churches had erected tasteful bootlis amply provided with 
 refreshments for the thirsty and hungry. 
 
 The monument was the center of observation throughout the 
 day. It stands near the middle of the north side of the park. It 
 is a symmetrical shaft of Quincy granite, rising nearly thirty feet 
 from the base, having on the north face a polished shield in relief, 
 bearing the inscription, 
 
 TO COMMEMORATE 
 
 THE FIRST SETTLEMEXT OF WHITESTOWN 
 
 BY HUGH WHITE AND FAMILY, 
 
 .JUNE, 1784. 
 
 On the base is the lettering, 
 
 "Erected 1884." 
 
10 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 The monument cost about |1,500. The additional expenses of 
 the celebration raised the amount to about $2,100. Of this 
 amount William M. White contributed $500, and members 
 of the White family $500 more. The remainder was raised 
 throug'h the personal solicitation of Thomas Foster and other 
 membei's of the committee, and was contributed by about a dozen 
 persons. 
 
 The space within hearing distance of the platform was occupied 
 by benches, where comfortably seated under the shade of the trees, 
 the assembled thi-ong listened with the closest interest to the 
 addresses and poem. The platform was occupied by Hon. Samuel 
 Campbell, President Dunham, the speakers, members of the com- 
 mittee and many ladies. 
 
 About a hundred carriages lined the park, and from three to 
 four thousand persons were present. 
 
 The Whitestown band, carrying fourteen pieces, furnished the 
 music of the day, assisted by the Oriskany Cornet Band of fifteen 
 pieces. Both bands were uniformed in blue and buff. The New 
 York Mills band also contributed their share of the music. 
 
 At 11.20, Chairman Campbell called the assemblage to order. 
 The exercises were opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. D. G. Corey, 
 of Utica, who for 44 years has been pastor of the Bleecker street 
 Baptist Church, 
 
 Hon. Charles Tracy, of New York, was then introduced and 
 delivered the historical address, which M-as most attentively listened 
 to, the old settlers crowding up the steps of the stand to hear. 
 
THE HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 
 
 BY HON. CHARLES TRACY. 
 
 A hundred years ! How such a period marks the earth and its 
 people with changes. It sweeps away three generations, and 
 hardly does one man who breathed at the beginning of the grand, 
 cycle live five score j^ears and watch its ending. 
 
 On a bright day in June, 1784, Hugh White, ascending the 
 Mohawk river in a boat, reached the mouth of the Sadaqueda 
 Creek and there landed, at the spot since known as the Point. 
 With some of his sturdy sons he stepped into the vast forest 
 stretching north, west and south to the bounds of the 
 -State of New York, unbroken by any civilized settlement, 
 without a natural prairie, and hardly opened to the sun 
 except by a few scattered patches of Indian clearings. But 
 they came to stay, and did stay. The fourth, fifth and sixth 
 generations of his line w^itness to-day the centennial of that land- 
 ing and the due honors rendered to those whose dust rests in peace 
 in the fair land they won and reclaimed and beautified. 
 
 This hundred of years includes three-eighths of the whole period 
 from the first landing of English emigrants on the American coast 
 down to the present day. 
 
 The bold settlement of Manhattan Island by the Hollanders, 
 and the establishment of their colonies along the Hudson and a 
 part of the Mohawk, attracted emigrants from their own country 
 and from Germany^ before the British succeeded to the govern- 
 ment ; but after the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam had become 
 the English province of New York, the difference of language 
 hindered the infusion of British emigrants among the people. At 
 the breaking out of the revolution the Hollanders in the valley of 
 the Mohawk extended not many miles above Schenectady, from 
 whence up to German Flats and Frankfoi't there were only 
 Germans speaking their native tongue. The two peoples in the 
 valley were similar in character and habits, and were in mutual 
 friendship, but their dialects differed, and were distinguished as 
 low Dutch and high Dutch. They held a region of remarkable 
 fertility and beauty on both sides of the river, and there they cut 
 ■down the woods, made roads and bridges, built houses and 
 
12 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 churches, and cultivated theii- fruitful fields ; and in the winter, 
 ■when sleighing came, they "rode" their wheat to the town on the 
 Hudson, now the city of Albany. They were in comfort, and 
 were contented. 
 
 But the great struggle of the Revolutionary war, and its 
 wonderful success, aroused a spirit of enterprise throughout the 
 union, and as soon as peace was proclaimed thousands of New 
 Englanders were ready to go beyond the existing Mohawk 
 paradise, and attack the primeval forest, which, as they had heard, 
 covered a broad area of rich soil. Hugh White was the man' 
 fitted by nature and chosen by providence to take the lead in this 
 great enterprise. He was a substantial farmer of Middletown, 
 Connecticut, fifty-one years old, with good habits, perfect integrity 
 and ample vigor, promptitude, courage and mental force. 
 
 Things were prepared for his hands. One Hugh Wallace had 
 held a tract of 6,000 acres by grant from the British provincial 
 government, sometimes known as Wallace's patent. It lay in this 
 valley, extending from the mouth of the Sadaqueda, at the Point, 
 along up the Mohawk river and back from it on each side, 
 including a remarkable combination of interval with higher level 
 plains and gently rising hills. The Indian title to this land had 
 been lawfully acquired by purchase under the sanction of the 
 provincial government, according to the just and honest course of 
 dealing with the Indians which always prevailed from the days of 
 the first Dutch emigration. Wallace was a merchant in the city 
 of New York, and a member of the British governor's council. 
 The Americans once " apprehended " him ; but after holding him 
 prisoner in Connecticut for some time Governor Turnbull released 
 him, and he returned to New York and resumed his seat in the 
 council. His being a clear case of treason, the New York State 
 Legislature, in the midst of the war, on the 22d day of October, 
 1779, passed a speciafl act in which his name was included with 
 some other like offenders. It opens thus : " Whereas, during the 
 present unjust and cruel war, waged by the King of Great 
 Britain, against this State, and the other United States of America, 
 divers persons holding or claiming property v/ithin this State, 
 have voluntarily been adherent to the said King, his fleets and 
 armies, enemies to this State and the said other United States, 
 with intent to subvert the government and liberties of this State 
 and the said other United Slates, and to bring the same in sub- 
 jection, to the crown of Great Britain; and whereas the public 
 justice and safety of this State absolutely require, that the most 
 
ADDRESS OF HON, CHARLES TRACY. 1^ 
 
 notorious offenders should be iminediately hereby convicted and 
 attained of the offense aforesaid, in order to work a forfeiture of 
 their respective estates, and vest the same in th.e people of this 
 State." It then proceeds to enact that certain persons named, 
 among them being- this Hugh Wallace, " be, and each of them are 
 hereby severally declared to be, ipso facto, convicted and attainted 
 of the offense aforesaid; and that all and singular the estate, both 
 real and personal, held or claimed by them, tlie said persons 
 severally and respectively, whether in possession, reversion or 
 remainder, within this State, on the day of the passing of this act, 
 shall be, and hereby is declared to be, forfeited to and invested in 
 the people of tliis State." It further enacted that all said persons 
 be forever banished from this State, and that if any one of them 
 should ever be found in this State "he should suffer death without 
 benefit of clergy." 
 
 Thus Wallace's patent became the property of the State of New 
 York by the best title known to the law. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, in the same year, the State, by its Com- 
 missioners of Forfeitures, sold this tract of land to Zephaniah 
 Piatt, Ezra L'Hommedieu, Melancthon Smith and Hugh White 
 jointly, and the property became better known as Sadaqueda 
 Patent, thus taking the name of the beautiful stream already 
 mentioned. 
 
 The Indian name of this creek signifies "the stream of smooth 
 pebbles," and the savages pronounced it Saghdaguaite. The 
 French, who first wrote it, in their usual way shortened the name 
 into Sauquoite, and pronounced it Sow-quait. The English after- 
 wards wrote it and pronounced it Sadaqueda, and so it appears in 
 maps and deeds through a long period. More recently the custom 
 has been to use the French spelling but to apply to it an English 
 pronunciation, and '•'■ Saio-quoW'' prevails. 
 
 Piatt, L'Hommedieu, Smith and White divided the Jand between 
 themselves. As Mr. White agreed to be the pioneer and settle on 
 the ground, he was justly favored in the division, both as to choice 
 of location and as to price, and he wisely chose the eastern part, 
 taking in the cre<ik and its valleys and plains on both sides from 
 the Point up to site of New York Mills, and he also purchased 
 other grounds on the west side of his allotment; so that his 
 possessions took in the "Green" where we now stand, and a 
 valuable part of the site of this village and the graceful hills that 
 rise on its borders. 
 
 It is now full five score years since Hugh White thus entered 
 
14 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 upon his portion of the land. In the following year, 1785, he 
 brought hither all his family and set up his home. The annual 
 spring freshet of 1785 having surrounded the place near the Point, 
 where he landed in 1784, he chose a spot on the plain near where 
 we now are, and put up a temporary dwelling, which afterwards 
 was succeeded by a substantial frame house, sided with boards 
 brought from Schenectady. The soil about the house he cleared 
 of every tree and shrub, except three maple saplings which had 
 grown there from wild seed, and as he afterwards used to say, 
 they were then not bigger than his whip stock. These were left 
 to grow into shade trees. Their irregnlar positions and unequal 
 distances show they nev.er were planted by the hand of man, but 
 they stand thci'e now in nature's order, three remarkable trees, 
 with an average diameter of three feet. Although a century has 
 made its marks on their trunks and tops, and although they were 
 bored for the sap and yielded sugar in many successive years, and 
 one of them has lost so much timber that it looks now like a 
 crippled giant, trying to stand on his last leg and keep up till the 
 coming of this day's rejoicing, yet they are in full leaf to-day and 
 retain some remnant of the beauty for which thousands have 
 admired them. The old farm house has been transformed, but 
 these three venerable sugar maples stand before us as living 
 witnesses of the olden time. (See note A.) 
 
 Hugh Wliite's house on this plain was built on the Connecticut 
 model, which differed widely from that of ihe Dutch. The 
 Dutch house had a long front, with less depth, a chimney at each 
 end rising above the high gable and a roofed piazza along the 
 fi'ont called by them a "stoop " — a Avord of theirs which has now 
 become American. The Connecticut house had nearly a square form 
 and a large chimney stack in the middle. To this day the former 
 lingers in the lower valley, and some of the latter remain in 
 Whitestown. The two styles distinguishable at a distance, show 
 whether a Dutchman or a Yankee was the builder. The Tory 
 refugees who sailed from New York harbor, in the autumn of 1783, 
 were of both the races; and in the valley of Annapolis, in Nova 
 Scotia, where King George gave them lands for their consolation 
 in adversity, the tourist of to-day may see how the two races fol- 
 lowed their respective old usages in the style of their dwellings. 
 
 Mr. White and his sons proceeded with diligence to cut away 
 the forest and convert their possessions into farms. The soil was 
 absolutely perfect, yielding crops in quantity and quality far 
 beyond their New England experience. 
 
ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES TRACY. 15 
 
 In later days botanists found that the native flora between the 
 Oriskany and Sadaqueda creeks was remarkably extensive and in- 
 teresting. 
 
 News of White's settelement in this goodly region was not slow 
 in spreading through his native land. Farmers who had worn out 
 plows and hoes among rocks and stones, with scant reward, 
 welcomed the thought of a soil freely worked and yielding better 
 crops. One of the original brown bread eaters of the east in- 
 quired, among other things, whether those' wondrous lands bore 
 good ryeV and White answered, "I don't know: wheat is good 
 enough for me." The war had left the country much wasted in 
 regard to its material condition, but rich in active men, and a flow 
 •of emigration soon started hitherward. The only accessible place 
 where good wild land could be found in tiiis State, was west of 
 the Gei-man settlements on the Mohawk, and hence this patent 
 was the natural point of pursuit. The Mohawk valley, with its 
 navigable river and its roads, formed the only practicable line of 
 approach, and thus White's settlement was the very key of the 
 position. Hither they came, f.rst from Connecticut, next from 
 all New England, with some irom Long Island and New Jersey, 
 followed later by people of the Old World. Soon there were 
 farms, houses, mills, and villages, at attractive points for a 
 luindred miles westward. Later came the era of turnpike roads, 
 which helped much in the teaming over a soft deep soil. The 
 river was used only the more for freighting. The movement went 
 on without check or slackening, and the new country became an 
 •established and permanent reality. 
 
 The Oneida Indians were a friendly people. They came often 
 to see what was going on in the new settlement and to do a little 
 traffic. Mr. White was always kind and wise in his intercourse 
 with them, and prompt to decide and act. One of their chiefs after 
 a few years' acquaintance craftily put his confidence to a hard 
 test. This chief after some palaver with avowals of his great 
 esteem, asked for a loan of Mr. White's baby granddaughter, pro- 
 mising to bring her back in a few days and in the meantime to 
 take good care of her. " Take her," said White, " I know you 
 will do as you say." The mother's tears and bursting heart 
 resisted in vain. The little one was picked up by the squaws, and 
 soon was out of sight in the woods. There were long hours by 
 day and longer by night while the child's place was empty. But 
 at last the chief proudly came again, with a procession of squaws, 
 bringing the child, well and happy, bound in a frame like a pap- 
 
16 THE WHITESTOWiV CENTENNIAL. 
 
 poose and glittering with Indian finery and trinkets. From that 
 hour Hugh White was worshiped by the OneidasJ. 
 
 Years afterwards, when Whitesboro was an established and 
 beautiful village, and the Oneidas had withdrawn from its vicinity,, 
 there still was to be seen occasionally a tall, slender Indian march- 
 ing down in the middle of the street, followed by his family in 
 single file, he bearing no load but a long, fresh, spear shait which 
 he held perpendicularly, his form erect, his step high, his air proud ^^ 
 the women in blankets, bearing on their backs large packs held 
 by bands across their foreheads, walking bent and paiTot-toed ;, 
 the younger ones falling into the file behind. It was charming to 
 look upon sucii a party on its way to the fishing grounds. But 
 when the expedition had become wearisome and the fishing was 
 over, and the visit to the shore had ended in drunkenness and 
 begging, they slank back homeward by twilight or through 
 wood ])aths, straggling and shabby. 
 
 Until 1784, tbe greater part of the State was included in Tryon 
 and Schenectady counties and the Hudson river counties, and 
 Long Island and Staten Island were the exceptions. But there 
 was no actual government or civil organization by towns 
 anywhere west of German Flats. In that year the Legislature 
 changed the name from Tryon to Montgomery county, by a 
 statute passed April 2, 1784, but set up no tov/nship government. 
 Thus on the first landing at the Point in Jmie, 1784, this patent 
 was in liic county of Montgomery. Four years afterwards the 
 necessity of a regular government for the many and fast growing 
 settlements became apparent. Tiie Legislature by an act passed 
 March 7, 1788, among other things, created the town of Whites- 
 town in the county of Montgomery. This town was laid out on a 
 magnificent scale. Its eastern boundary was a straight line cross- 
 ing the river a short distance below Genesee street bridge, at a 
 log house then standing there, and running thence du<^ north to 
 the Kiver St. Lawrence, and also due south to a small stream 
 near Pennsylvania and down that stream to the Pennsylvania line. 
 All parts of the State lying west of that line were constituted the 
 town of Whitestown. It contained more then twelve million acres 
 of land, navigable head waters of the Mohawk, the Delaware, the 
 Susquelianna and the Ohio, the salt springs of Onondaga, the 
 chain of little lakes and Oswego river, the entire valley of the 
 Genesee with its upper and lower falls, and also the grand 
 cataract of Niagara. Its frontage on great lakes and rivers was 
 not short of lour hundred miles in lentrlh. 
 
ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES TRACY. 17 
 
 The raap now ehown is the ordinary map of the State published 
 the present year, 1884. Red ink has been added to show the 
 bounds of the town in 1788. It goes now into the collection of 
 the Oneida Historical Society. Within the original limits of 
 Whitestown thyre are now a dozen cities, our own Utica being 
 the eldest and by far the most handsome and attractive; and 
 half as many collefjes. our own Hamilton being first and leader; 
 iind more tlian a million of inhabitants and untold wealth. 
 
 The original town did not long retaiii its vast dimensions. In 
 1789 a slice was cut otf at the west end to make the county of 
 Ontario. In 1 792 the towns of Steuben, Westmoreland, Paris, 
 Mexico and Peru were set off; but the autonomy of Whitestown, 
 with its town meeting, justices, clerk and elections, never ceased. 
 I^tica was set oif in 1817, and New Hartlord in 1827. The residue 
 remains nearly as it was in 180G, when Peleg Gilford made his 
 survey and published his raap. 
 
 In 1791 Herkimer county was created. It included nearly the 
 Avhole of Montgomery county west of Little Falls, and VA-'hites- 
 towii was its county seat, in which the first court was held. Ten 
 years afterwards Oneida county was created, taking in the greater 
 ])art of Herkimer county. In this instance the name for the new 
 county was determined by a little gatliering held here. It was a 
 Whitesboro man wdio proj)Osed to depart from the usual custom 
 and take the name of the Indian tribe, the original people of the 
 region still dwelling around the New England settlements; and 
 thus cxme the smooth and graceful style of Oneida county. This 
 ^ood example was followed in other cases. 
 
 Hugh White, the pioneer, was not a seeker of public position. 
 He once was appointed justice of the peace; and alterwards the 
 governor appointed him one of the judges of the county, and he 
 serv^ed several years as such judge, with approbation and honor. 
 Age at length inclined him to retirement and quiet. 
 
 The last summons found him at his post. On the 16th day of 
 April, 1812, while those three maple trees were putting forth their 
 buds foi- the season. Judge White, on his own domain, peacefully 
 yielded up his breath, in the eightieth year of his age. His, 
 venerated widow seventeen years afterwards, at the same season, 
 passed away in the eighty-seventh year of her age. 
 
 This village early took the nam? of Whitesboro. Its broad 
 avenue was made by voluntary cessions, enlarging the width 
 beyond the original four rods of a country road to a full one 
 hundred feet, and was early planted with shade trees on each side. 
 
18 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 The first church was reared by "The United Society of Whites- 
 town and Utica," on the site of the present brick church. 
 Although it was a wooden building-, it was well designed by a 
 competent amateur architect, divided by columns into nave and 
 aisles, with Roman arches, tall windows, a pulpit with sounding 
 board above, a music loft, a graceful belfry and a bright tinned 
 steeple. The carpenter may have failed in some details, but the 
 result was comely, and for a long period it was an attractive 
 structure. A sweet bell, added in due time, was rung at six 
 o'clock to arouse the sleepers, at noon it called to dinner, and at 
 nine in the evening its tongue spoke to all visiting beaux a hint 
 for parting. The organization was Presbyterian — the settlers thu* 
 taking a departure from the Congregationalism of their ancestors. 
 
 Som^, perhaps many, who in youth heard the gospel in the old 
 church, but afterwards felt the spell of worship in grand cathe- 
 drals, still held that handsome wooden church in pleasant memo- 
 ries, and sighed when they learned that it was gone. 
 
 The Baptists early had a church, and a strong following and 
 influence for good. 
 
 The minister and the schoolmaster early appeared, and exercised 
 benign influences. Yet there came a need for court house and 
 jail. The former displayed the union flag while the court was in 
 session, and the sheriff", wearing a cocked hat and girt with a 
 sword, followed by constables holding aloft their long black rods^ 
 marshaled judges, jurors and counsel as they went in procession 
 from their quarters to the temple of justice. 
 
 Nor were the lawyers idle. This town furnished to the Court of 
 Errors in 1805, the first chancery case in the State on rights in a 
 stream of water, as aflTected by occupation and by unwritten 
 agreements between the proprietors of adjacent lands. In 1809' 
 this village gave the Supreme Court its first case in the law of 
 escapes. The jail liberties here, which were free to imprisoned 
 debtors, were so established that a certain sidewalk was within 
 the liberties, but a certain roadway was not. A prisoner, strolling 
 on a winter day, found this sidewalk encumbered with a snow 
 drift, and he stepped out into the roadway and walked there a few 
 rods ; and the sheriff" being sued for this as an escape, was con- 
 demned to pay the creditor the whole amount of the judgment,, 
 being over $5,000. Each of these cases was argued ably by 
 Whitestown counsel, was considered by the courts -with care and 
 fully reported. Many authorities were cited, but all were from 
 English authors, or decisions of English courts. Not a New York 
 
ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES TRACY. 19 
 
 nor xlmerican ease or authority was referred to; and probably 
 because there was none in existence, touching such questions. 
 
 This village early had its weekly newspaper, and was a place of 
 DQUch traffic. But the Utica settlement having advantages in 
 position, in that the high ground there reached to the shore of the 
 river and always gave a dry landing place, finally outgrew 
 Whitesboro; and yet for a long time this spot was not without its 
 merchants who sold both at wholesale and retail, and made ship- 
 ments to New York of potash, otter skins, beaver skins, and other 
 products of the country. 
 
 When the time came for emigration to regions west of this 
 State, the best and almost the only line of travel was by the valley 
 of the Mohawk and through Whitestown. Then could be seen 
 passing along this street the emigrant wagon, covered wittf a high 
 canopy of sail-cloth, carrying wile and little ones, and furniture and 
 food for the journey ; the father and boys following behind and 
 driving a few cows and sheep ; all slowly making their way, the 
 canvas marked in large capitals " Ohio." In later years the label 
 was " Indiana." This was a frequent and interesting sight, and it 
 is still repeated on some of the plains of the far west, near the 
 Rocky mountains, where the white and spectral canvas, seen from 
 afar, is called " the ship of the prairie." 
 
 Things have changed here ; but still the best line for passing 
 from the eastern coast of the United States to the western world 
 must be through the valley of the Mohawk, and the plains of old 
 Whitestown, which line divides the Allegany range as does no 
 other between Vermont and Florida. (See note B.) 
 
 Among the neighbors of Hugh White were many who had 
 served in the Revolutionary war, and some who bore arms in 
 the earlier war between the English and the French. One, at 
 least, was a soldier in a Connecticut regiment of volunteers and 
 fought at Louisburg in 1745, — an extraordinary battle, where the 
 New England troops landed at the shore without artillery, and 
 attacked and carried a strong fort, well supplied with cannon and 
 fully garrisoned ; and thei-e was one who helped in the same 
 French wars to make the "Mud bow." Coming up the Mohawk 
 in boats, and finding near Sadequada point a long curve in the 
 river which swept around and made a circle, they stopped an hour 
 or two and dug with their oars across the little neck and let the 
 river tear through the soft earth and make a new channel. Their 
 intention was thus to shorten their voyage a whole mile, for their 
 convenience in case of being driven back by the enemy. This 
 
^0 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 mile of water was soon separated from the river by the deposits 
 of the stream, and it remained a curved pool with the name of the 
 Mud Bow. 
 
 An early emigrant long afterwards narrated how he first arrived 
 here. It was in 1789, and the day of company training; and on 
 this green, where the stumps were then burnings Hugh White was 
 <lrilling about 27 men simply uniformed and bearing muskets, and 
 his son Daniel C. White, was drilling 17 riflemen, who wore hunt- 
 ing shirts made of tow cloth with a ravelled fringe. 
 
 Long afterwards, when an emergency of the war of 1812 re- 
 quired tne whole mass of the militia of this region to proceed to 
 the northern frontier, they went forth under a Whitestown general, 
 the strongest company being from this town and mustering nearly 
 150 mcH. The campaign was a weary one. There were long 
 marches in the mud, leaky shelter in camp under constant rains, 
 and not much fighting to be done. The bayonets always think. 
 When the men concluded that they had served long enough, and 
 had done their duty, and it would be of no use to stay any longer, 
 there began a dispersion, some going home singly', and then some 
 in small parties, and in one case a captain deliberately marching 
 off his company in a body. The battalions were dej)leted ; but the 
 Whitestown company held on and finally constituted a majority 
 of the regiment to which it belonged. 
 
 The war being ended, the court martial began to deal with the 
 alleged, c^eserters, and lor some fifteen months went on with trials, 
 when it Avas suddenly discovered that there was a fatal defect in 
 the constitution or organization of the tribunal, and the court, not 
 having yet pronounced any judgment, gracefulh* dissolved, and 
 no officer or man was condemned. 
 
 Years after, on a general training day of the 134th regiment 
 held here, at the noon resting time, there was a debate as to the 
 chances of a shower in the afternoon, when some one asked the 
 oracular major for his opinion on that point. Without looking at 
 the clouds he promptly responded with ringing voice: "It never 
 rains anything but blessings on the old hundred and thirty-fourth." 
 
 Some are here now wlio remember a day during the war of 
 1812, when a large body of British troops in red coats were 
 marched as jirisoners through this street, on the way to the sea- 
 board for exchange; and also the illumination at the peace of 
 1815, when the windows of the village glared with lighted candles. 
 
 The rule of the road, '"Turn out to the right,'*' is as firmly fixed 
 in the popular mind as if it came down with the old common law. 
 
ADDRESS OF HON. CHAKLES TEACY. 21 
 
 But the regulation in England was, and is, to turn out to the left. 
 In this State there was no old or established law or custom in that 
 regard. The roads were generally narrow and bad, and the be- 
 havior of drivers depended mainly on their characters. When the 
 roads along the Mohawk and to the west became much used the 
 trouble of meeting and passing became serious. There arose 
 debates and fights between teamsters. The highway became both 
 a necessity and a terror. Thereupon the legislature in 1801, recog- 
 nizing that the loads going towards tide water usually were far 
 the heaviest, passed a statute requiring that on the roads leading 
 from Schenectady up the Mohawk and on to Canandaigua, all 
 teams going west should give tlie road to teams going east. This 
 worked some good, but after a little practice, any teamster who 
 was tugging w^est with a full lading of imported goods, found it 
 not easy to see the propriety of yielding the whole road wiien he 
 met a wagon beariiig only man, wife and baby, or an empty ox 
 cart. Hence arose collisions, law suits and lasting quarrels. At 
 length the legislature interposed again, and by a general law, 
 passed in 1813, required that on all public roads in every part of 
 the State, when teams met, " each must seasonably turn to the right 
 of the center of the road." Such is the law now, and this sensible 
 rule has spread thi-ough the United States. In this instance, the 
 law^was actually founded on reason. 
 
 In 1802 a clergyman from New England, traveling in this 
 region, sent home his journal. He speaks of passing through this 
 place, and adds : " It would appear to you, my friend, on hearing 
 the relation of events in the western country, that the whole was 
 a fable, and if you were placed in Whitestown," * * * "and 
 saw the progress of improvement, you would believe it enchanted 
 ground." He also wrote : " The original Whitestown appears to 
 be the garden of the world." He also sent home a map of this 
 village, made by himself, on which some buildings now standing 
 may be recognized. 
 
 A distinguished emigrant from Long Island, who settled some 
 distance hence, used to say that if ever there was a garden of Eden, 
 it must have been here. 
 
 This name of Whitestown clung to the whole region from here 
 to Lake Erie and Ontario for a long time. As late as 1827 a cele- 
 brated lecturer on geography used to say that the eastern and 
 southern parts of New York, like his own New England, had a 
 poor soil, except in a few valleys, but that when you came to " the 
 Whitestown country," there was a vast area of greatest fertility. 
 
22 - THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 In eight of the beautiful farms now around us, it is best not to 
 forget the time when the great stumps of the forest held out and 
 were a tiresome disfigurement of the landscape, and it was a rare 
 and pleasing thing to look on a ten acre lot which was perfectly- 
 free of them. 
 
 They who first broke the forest here were not paupers, but for 
 the most part were men of small means, large courage, industry 
 and hope. The story of many was briefly hinted by one of their 
 natural orators, in the westerly parts of Oneida county, on his 
 addressing a jury of his neighbors, and appealing for their confi- 
 dence. His defense was opened thus: "Gentlemen of the jury. 
 Twenty-five years ago I came across Fish creek with my axe on my 
 shoulder and forty dollars in my pocket, and went to work in the 
 woods. I have grown with your growth and strengthened with 
 your strength. Now how is it? You know my house and my 
 farm and my stock, and you don't know a man to whom I owe a 
 dollar. I am one of yourselves, and can have no object in de- 
 ceiving you ; and I swear to you, gentlemen, that my client here, 
 Jeemes Smith, is an honest man ; and an honest man is the noblest 
 woi-k of God." 
 
 Pioneer life did have its hardships, and many a toiling man and 
 woman came to tlie bent figure and trembling hand of old age 
 before passing threescore years. But their children, born and 
 bred on the spot, were erect and robust. 
 
 There were times when meat was lacking. Once, after such a 
 period of want, there came immense numbers of wild pigeons, 
 furnishing botli abundance and luxury for several weeks. It was 
 then deemed prudent to preserve pigeons' breasts by packing them 
 in salt, in view to another scarcity. This was done, and when the 
 famine of meat came again, the stock of cured provisions was 
 l)roached ; but it was found that the salt had struck in quite too 
 well ; and one who messed with Judge White in those days, after- 
 wards said that in spite of soaking and extra boiling, the article 
 was much more salt than pigeon. 
 
 This village on the other hand gave to the country the most 
 beautiful, fragrant and delicious of fall pippins; the widely known 
 Lowell apple. The original seedling tree stood for some seventy 
 years in a garden at this village, and bore fruit in its old age. Its 
 stump remains in situ under a beautiful green house, its fitting 
 shelter and monument. The river also contributed an occasional 
 luxury, yielding to fisherman the Mohawk pike, celebrated for its 
 delicious quality. 
 
addrp:ss of iion. chakles tkacy. 23 
 
 Amono' the peoj^le here from the first there never was a time 
 when Yale and Harvard were not represented, and evei-y genera- 
 tion has furnished its full quota of professional men as well as 
 farmers, merchants, mecbanics, engineers, manufacturers and 
 bankers. DeWitt Clinton, in his " Letters of Hibornicus," said 
 of one of the early settlers from the old world, that he was " the 
 most learned man in Amei'ica." 
 
 In this connection let it not be forgotten that a part of Whites- 
 town, now in New Hartford, was owned jointly by George Wash- 
 ington and George Clinton. One of the deeds, on the sale of 
 part of that property, signed by them both, and acknowledo-ed 
 before James Kent in 1796, is preserved in the collections of the 
 New York Historical Society. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this discourse to display the names of 
 those wlio have hel 1 public position and won renown by genius or 
 attainments. This has been done well by others, and can be done 
 again, for the theme is not hiilf exhausted. The transformation of 
 the Whitestown country of 1784 into that of 1884 has been 
 wrought mainly by toil and labor. The forest trees fell before the 
 blows of axes wielded by hard hands. The roads were made, the 
 houses, barns and fences were built, and the fruit trees were 
 planted mostly by a host of plain men, abounding in strength and 
 will. It was a long w^ork and more than one generation shared it. 
 The result is a vast cultivated region full of life's comforts, possess- 
 ing all the material requirements tor education, religion, society, 
 refinement and happiness. Without now listing the fortunate few 
 who received the decorations of distinction, it is fair to think 
 deeply of the rank and file who did the work of these hundred 
 years, and standing near the dust of these true toilers, to feel that 
 the world was not made for Caesar. 
 
 It seems not long ago when the Union demanded soldiers, and 
 young men of this region with rifle in hand followed the flag 
 through march and battle, not loving their lives, even unto death, for 
 the good cause. It was a proud day for the sons of Oneida 
 county, when in 18G1 its first quota of volunteers passed through 
 the city of New York, and bearing a flag there presented 
 to them by emigrants from this county, marched to the 
 front ; and it was a sad but yet proud day when the fourteenth 
 regiment passed the same place again on its return from many 
 battles, bearing the same flag, the ranks thinned by losses, but 
 covered with honor. 
 
 The dead of that mortal struggle for national existence, popular 
 government and liberty, piously brought home and laid in the 
 
24 THE WHITESTOWN CENTEl^fNIAL. 
 
 earth by the side of their fathers, gave to every bm-ying ground 
 in the land a new and holy conseci-ation. 
 
 There is no prophet now who can lift np his voice and tell what 
 will be here when another century has passed and we all have 
 turned to dust: no seer whose eyes can pierce through the long 
 vista and descry the scenes beyond. 
 
 May the Mighty and Loving Father who made this land of 
 fertility and abundance, and in the fullness of time called our pro- 
 genitors into its possession, abide with their descendants and. 
 successors to all generations. 
 
 ^ s . 
 
 Note A. — The appropriate inscription placed on Judge White's monument 
 about sixty years ago was drawn up by a young man. In bis draft tbere was a 
 glowing passage about " making tbe desert to blossom as the rose," but his 
 senior, who had been here from the early days', struck out that passage as 
 smacking of fiction, and remarked, "the Judge would not allow so much as 
 a rosebush about his liouse." The three sugar maple trees were the only 
 exception to the destruction he waged upon all wild growth of tree or bush. 
 Nor was this strange. The necessary fight against forest and thicket inspired 
 a hostile sentiment which made it a joy to wield the axe against tlie common 
 enemy. Those who tried to save here and there a grand old tree, for its 
 beauty or its viseful shadow, usually were disappointed. The shallow roots 
 of a tree full grown in the dense woods proved insufficient to sustain it when 
 standing alone, deprived of the clinging net work of forest roots, and ex- 
 j)osed to the winds which swept across the open clearing. Young trees, left 
 or planted in open fields, and there passing their youth, adapted themselves 
 to circumstances, and with grapplings deeper sunk in the earth and forms 
 less lofty and more robust, braved the storm and flourished. Much of the 
 ornamentation of the country was due to rude and unsightly fences, in the 
 corners of which a j'oung tree might escape the plow and the scythe, and on 
 many an old farm we now can trace b}' a few surviving trees the line of a 
 former log or worm fence, which rotted away long ago, leaving no trace, and 
 better farming gave it no successor, but abandoned the line and united the 
 fields. The landscape is thus beautified by chance, and its beauty not onlj' 
 excites the pride of owners, but improves the taste of the people. 
 
 Note B. — The Alleganies form a continuous mountain chain, bovmding on 
 the west the whole Atlantic slope, except the one opening through by the Hud- 
 son and the Mohawk. The valleys of these two streams form a notch or clove 
 reaching from the ocean level to the western slope, always affording a con- 
 tinuous water passage, the usefulness of which led to the great enterprise of 
 building the Erie Canal. Everywhere else the valleys of rivers, when fol- 
 lowed up, were found to end beneath high mountain land. All plans and 
 efiforts for canalling through to the west, by the river lines of Pennsylvania 
 and of Virginia, and furtlier south, totally failed. Nature had given to 
 New York alone the power to open the west. In later days the railroads 
 have climbed over or pierced through the high divide ; but the line of the 
 Hudson and the Mohav/k must forever be easier of grade and more available 
 than any other for railroad operations. 
 
JiiAjAi 
 
 COHOES, N. V. 
 
GENEALOGY OF THE WHITE FAMILY. 
 
 BY WILLIAM M. WHITE. 
 
 Chairman Campbell then introduced William M. White, who 
 read a carefully prepared Genealogy of the White family. In 
 introducing it he said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 As the son of Hugh White I lost my inheritance, my birthright, 
 before I was of sufficient age to enter my protest and know my 
 loss. My name should have been Hugh, and then genealogy 
 would record six Hugh Whites in America, each the sou of Hugh, 
 but the first, beginning with 1691 and continuing nearly 200 
 years. 
 
 The family trace their descent from Elder John White, one of 
 the first settlers of Cambridge, in Massachusetts, of Hartford, in 
 Connecticut, and of Hadley, in Massachusetts. 
 
 These facts conclusively show that the spirit of the pioneer was 
 strongly developed in the father of the family in America. From 
 his connection with Reverend Thomas Hooker and his church, it is 
 supposed that he was born in Chelmsford, the county seat of 
 Essex county, England, about the year 1595. Our first certain 
 knowledge is that he was a passenger, with Mary, his wife, and 
 two children, on the ship Lyon, Captain Pierce, which sailed from 
 England about the 25th of June, 1632, and an-ived in Boston on 
 Sunday, the 16th day of September, 1632. 
 
 Mr. Hooker's company or congregation had had assigned to 
 them for settlement by the general court of Massachusetts the 
 town of Cambridge, then called Newtown. Elder John White's 
 "home lot" was on the street called "Cow Yard Row," not far 
 from where Gore Hall, the beautiful library building of Harvard 
 University now stands. His social standing, or position, or 
 condition of life — it is fair to infer — was of the middle class, 
 neither rich nor poor ; and that his home life in England had 
 been of reasonable comfort, and that he had not been driven to 
 expatriation by necessity or want. The English people have been 
 likened to their own beer: the top all froth, the bottom dregs, 
 
26 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 the middle pure. Jolin White was admitted a freeman of 
 Massachusetts, March 4, 1633, and in February, 1635, the town of 
 Cambridge elected a board of seven men "to do the whole business 
 of the town." John White was one of the number chosen. In 
 1636, he sold "his betterments," and accompanying his pastor, 
 Rev. Mr. Hooker, with about one hundred others, took departure 
 for "the new towne" on the Quin-e-tac-quet river (Connecticut.) 
 In the records of Hartford, John White appears as one of the 
 original proprietors, and he was one of the " selectmen " of the 
 town. On the death of Rev. Mr. Hooker, in 1647, a schism arose 
 which seems to have been of a personal character. It resulted in 
 a new departure under Elder Goodwin; and sixty persons from 
 Hartford and Wethersfield went up the Connecticut river, and 
 laid the foundations of Hadley, in Massachusetts. John White 
 was of the party. He remained there eleven years, when he 
 returned to Hartford and was chosen to tlie office of elder in the 
 South Church. His life was prolonged to a good old age, and he 
 died early in 1684, just two hundred years ago. He had four 
 sons and two daughters. 
 
 Second Generation. 
 
 His oldest son. Captain Nathaniel White, was born in England 
 about 1629. At the age of 21, he removed to Middletown with 
 his father, and was one of the first settlers and proprietors. He 
 acquired great influence and was a leading man in the colony. 
 He was a member of the legislatdre or general court, and for 
 fifty years in succession was annually chosen deputy from that 
 town. Very few instances exist m so long an official life, 
 dependent on annual popular election. In military life he rose 
 through the successive grades to the rank of Captain, by which 
 title he has been known to his posterity. He died August 11, 
 1711, at the age of 82 years, and the record is: "He was a man of 
 high religious character and sound judgment." By his will he 
 left one-quarter of his undivided lands "to remain for the use of 
 the public school already agreed upon by the town of Middletown," 
 forever," perhaps the first legacy to the public school system in 
 America. He had five sons and three daughters. 
 
 Third Geneeaiion. 
 
 Ensign Daniel White was the third son of Captain Nathaniel, 
 and was born at Middletown upper houses, February 23, 1661. 
 
ADDRESS OF WILLIAM M. WHITE. 27 
 
 He lived iu his native town, held various town offices, and died 
 December 18, 1739. He had eight sons and three daughters. 
 
 Fourth Generation. 
 
 • 
 
 Hugh White was the fifth son of Ensign Daniel, and the father 
 of the pioneer of western New York. He was born February 15, 
 1691. He always lived in Middlotown, and was a man of 
 substance and respectability. His wife was Mary Stone, of 
 Guilford. They had three sons and four daughters. 
 
 Fifth Generation. 
 
 Hon. Hugh White, as he is designated iu the records of the 
 family, was the youngest son of Hugh White, and was born 
 in Middletown, Connecticut, January 25, T733. He " settled" in 
 Middletown, and married Mary Clark of the same town. All of 
 his children were born there. His wife died in 1774. He after- 
 wards married Mrs. Lois Davenport, widow of Rev. Ebenezer 
 Davenport. She joined him early in 1785, in the settlement of 
 Whitestown, and died there in 1829. When a resident of Middle- 
 town, Hugh White was a "selectman" from 1779 to 1783. He 
 was a commissary in the army during a part of the Revolutionary 
 war, and soon after the close of the war he joined in the purchase 
 of Sadaqueda Patent with Zephaniah Piatt, Ezra L'Hommedieu 
 and Melancthon Smith. Early in the spring of 1784, he started, 
 with most of his family, for their new home, in what was to be 
 known as " the Whitestown country." They arrived here one 
 hundred years ago to-day, June 5, 1784. He divided his purchase 
 of about 1,500 acres among his sons and his daughters, and he 
 lived like a patriarch of old, surrounded by his children and his 
 grandchildren. He had five sons and three daughters, who ac- 
 companied him, or joined liim in settling this town. And yet, 
 to-day, there is not in the town of Whitestown, nor yet in the 
 county of Oneida, a male resident of his name and lineage. And 
 so it comes to pass that you, to-day, are celebrating, not the 
 arrival of a family now with yoii, and of you, but are commemora- 
 ting the first settlement of western New York, which happened 
 to be made by Hugh White (my ancestor.) You are celebrating 
 the founding of the first colony, outside of New England, by the 
 Puritans, the first swarm of the Puritan hive. And these bowlders 
 of New England granite are to be, for all time, witnesses of the 
 first settlement of Whitestown by Hugh White and family of 
 
28 THE WHITESTOWlSr CElSTTENISriAL. 
 
 Middletown, Connecticut, and in the annals of the future may be 
 looked upon as the second Plymouth Rock. 
 
 Of Hugh White, as a man, a Christian, and a citizen, no better 
 conception can be had, than from the inscription on his tablet in 
 your own cemetery on the hill. It reads: 
 
 HERE SLEEP THE MORTAL REMAINS 
 OF 
 
 HUGH WHITE. 
 
 WHO WAS BORN 5tH FEBRUARY, 173li, AT MIDDLETOWN, IN 
 
 CONNECTICUT, AND DIED APRIL IGtII, 1812. 
 
 IN THE YEAR 1784, HE REMOVED TO SEDAUQUATE, NOW 
 
 WHITE8BOROUGH, WHERE HE WAS THE FIRSt WHITE INHABITANT IN THE 
 
 STATE OF NEW YORK, WEST OF THE GERMAN SETTLEMENTS 
 
 ON THE MOHAWK. 
 
 HE WAS DISTINGUISHED FOR ENERGY, AND DECISION 
 
 OP CHARACTER, AND MAY BE JUSTLY REGARDED AS A PATRIARCH, 
 
 WHO LED THE CHILDREN OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 INTO THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 AS A MAGISTRATE, A CITIZEN AND A MAN, HIS 
 
 CHARACTER FOR TRUTH AND INTEGRITY WAS PROVERBIAL. 
 
 THIS HUMBLE MONUMENT OF VENERATION FOR HIS 
 
 MEMORY IS REARED AND INSCRIBED BY THE 
 
 AFEECTIONATE PARTNER OP HIS JOYS AND HIS SORROWS, 
 
 MAY 15th, 1826. 
 
 Let me add in simple justice to this noble woman who shared 
 in the labors, trials and hardships, equally with her husband, the 
 monumental tribute to her worth: 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 LOIS, 
 
 WIDOW OF THE LATE JUDGE WHITE 
 
 WITH WHOM SHE EMIGRATED TO THIS PLACE THEN 
 
 A WILDERNESS, A. D. 1785. 
 
 SHE EXHIBITED IN HER CHARACTER A RARE UNION OP THE 
 
 NOBLEST ATTRIBUTES OP HUMANITY WITH THE EXCELLENCIES 
 
 OP THE DISCIPLES OP THE LAMB. 
 
 EARLY IN LIFE SHE BECAME A PROFESSED 
 
 FOLLOWER OF THE CROSS, AND DURING HER PILGRIMAGE BELOW,^ 
 
 BY AN HUMBLE WALK WITH GOD ADORNED THE DOCTRINES 
 
 OF HER SAVIOUR. 
 
 SHE ENTERED INTO REST 
 
 APRIL 13th, 1829. 
 
 ^T. 86 YEARS. 
 
 PRECIOUS IN THE SIGHT OP THE LORD IS THE 
 
 DEATH OP HIS SAINTS. 
 
ADDEESS OF WILLIAM M. WHITE. 29 
 
 The peculiarity of the settlement of Whitestowu was that it 
 was settled by one family, and all the members of that family 
 joined in the enterprise. The family, aside from Judge White 
 and his wife were : 
 
 Daniel Clark White and his wife and child, Joseph White and 
 his wife and child, Hugh White, Jr., Ansel White, Philo White, 
 Aurelia (Wetmore,) Mary Stone (Young) ; these (witli the excep- 
 tion of Rachel, the oldest of the family, who was born in 1757, and 
 married John Allen long before the exodus,) constituted the 
 family of Hugh White. 
 
 The next year arrived Amos Wetmore and Lemuel Leaven- 
 worth, and possibly Nathaniel Loomis and Roswell Goodrich. So 
 that it was literally a settlement "by Hugh White and family." 
 
 The energies of the pioneers seem to have been given to making 
 homes in the wilderness, and caring for their families ; providing 
 food and raiment and clearing the land for agricultural use. The 
 intense physical exertion necessary left little time for culture, and 
 there were no broad, smooth avenues to knowledge for the 
 children as you have them now. Books were a" rarity, news- 
 papers were unknown, and the Bible and the preacher the only 
 sources of mental food. So it happened, that while the father, on 
 the formation of the county, became a judge, the sons followed 
 the vocation, made necessary by the enteprise, and contented 
 themselves with filling the position of the American farmer. 
 Owning the land, and tilling the soil, "making the wilderness to 
 blossom as a rose " and laying the foundation of that productive- 
 ness and industi'y, that thrift and prosperity which charm and 
 astonish the stranger, and make this new world, the attraction to 
 all people, the Mecca, of the civilized world. 
 
 Of their descendants, a few may be mentioned as men of mark in 
 their day and generation. 
 
 Seventh Generation. 
 
 Hon. Fortune Clark White, LL. D., son of Colonel Daniel 
 Clark, was born in Whitestown, July 10, 1787. He studied law 
 in Judge Piatt's office and became first judge of Oneida County 
 about 1837. He was a brigadier general of the State militia, and 
 twice a member of the legislature. He died at Whitestown, 
 August 27, 1866. He had five sons and two daughters. 
 
 Hon. Philo White, LL. D., son of Philo, was born in Whites- 
 town, June 23, 1796. He graduated in a printing office in Utica, 
 removed to North Carolina and became an editor, and finally 
 
30 THE WHITESTOW]!i CENTE^S^NIAL. 
 
 State printer. He removed to Wisconsin while it was yet a 
 territory ; was a member of the legisUiture ; United States Consul 
 to the Hanseatic league, and Minister resident to Ecuador, South 
 America. He returned to Whitestown in 1859, and died there 
 February 15, 1883. 
 
 Canvass Wiiite, son of Hugh, Jr., was born in Whitestown, 
 September 8, 1790. His early life was spent on the farm. At the 
 age of seventeen he was a clerk in the store of Colonel Carpenter. 
 In the Spring of 1811, he went as supercargo on a voyage to 
 Archangel in Russia. In 1814, he was a lieutenant in the 
 regiment of Colonel Dodge, in the company of Captain B. F. Knop, 
 and was on the Niagara frontier, at the sortie of Fort Erie. He 
 was one of the engineers on the Erie canal under Benjamin 
 Wright, and subsequently rose to great eminence in his profes- 
 sion. He was engaged on the Union, Lehigh and on the Delaware 
 and Ruritan canals; built the Delaware breakwater. But 
 faiHng health cut short his career, and he died, December 18, 
 1834, at the age of 44 years. As an indication of his ability, 
 capacity and standing, it is related that Henry Clay said to a 
 gentleman seeking an engineer for the construction of the 
 Chesapeake and Ohio canal, " Get Canvass White. No man 
 is more competent, no man more capable, and while your faith 
 in his ability and fidelity increases, your friendship will grow 
 into affection." 
 
 Hon. Hugh White, son of Hugh, junior, was born in Whites- 
 town, December 25, 1798. He graduated at Hamilton college in 
 1823, and fitted for the bar in the office of Colonel Charles G. 
 Haines, New York city. But he soon tui*ned to business 
 pursuits. In 1825, he was located in Chittenango, engaged in 
 boating on the Erie canal, and in the manufacture of water lime, 
 called "White's water-joroof cement," for his brother Canvass 
 White, being the first made in i\merica, and afterwards at 
 Rondout in Ulster County. He established and built up the 
 Rosendale cement works, where he manufactured much of the 
 cement used on tlie Croton aqueduct. He was also largely in- 
 terested and engaged in the development of the water power at 
 Cohoes, on the Mohawk. In 1844, he was chosen representative 
 to Congi-ess, where he served three terms. He was then active 
 with the Litchfields, D. B. St. John, Governor Hunt, John 
 Stryker and others in building the Michigan Southern and 
 Northern Indiana raili-oad, and carried it to a successful con- 
 clusion. He married, April 10, 1828, Maria Mills Mansfield, of 
 
ADDRESS or willia:m m, white. 31 
 
 Kent, Connecticut. He died at his home in Waterlord, Saratoga 
 County, October 6, 1870, aged 7'2 years. They had two sons and 
 five daughters, of whom one son and one daughter are living. 
 His widow still occupies the homestead at Waterford. 
 
 Colonel William C. Young, son of Mary Stone White, and John 
 Young (the founder of Youngstown, Ohio,) was born at Youngs- 
 town, Ohio, (then a territory,) November 25, 1799. His parents 
 returned to Whitestown and occupied their "home farm" in 1802. 
 He attended school, had some knowledge of Latin, geometry and 
 surveying, aside from the ordinary schooling of the period. At 
 sixteen years of age he was assistant surveyor of the islands of 
 Lake Ontario, for the State of New Yoi-k : the next year a rod-mau 
 locating the Erie canal, and participating in the ceremony of 
 "ground breaking" for that work at Rome, July 4, 1817 : the next 
 year, a cadet at West Point in a class of 125 members; and 
 graduates No. 12 in his class in 1822. After four years given to 
 array life he resigns June 30, 1S26, and engages in superintencling 
 the locating and construction of railroads in New York State. 
 Under John B. Jervis the Saratoga and Schenectady road is built, 
 and Mr, Young originates the system of cross-sills or ties as now 
 used. Then as engineer aud general manager he gives fifteen 
 years to the Utica and Schenectady railroad, resigning that to be 
 chief engineer and manager of the Hudson River railroad, which 
 he pushed to completion and became its president. A lifetime 
 given to developing the resources of his country, and one of the 
 few minds that have created and developed the railroad system of 
 America, Mr. Young still lives, a splendid specimen of the men of 
 a previous generation. His brother, Charles Clark Yoimg, and his 
 sister, Jane M, Rosevelt, widows of Rev. Washington Rosevelt, Mrs. 
 Catherine Crouse, wife of John Crouse of Syracuse and daughter 
 of Ansel White, and Susan Porter, yonngest daughter of Hugh 
 White, jr., are all of the surviving grandchildren of the pioneer. 
 Three generations cover one hundred and fifty years. 
 
 With 1595 as the date of the birth of John White, and many of 
 the seventh generation still living, we have the fact that a gener- 
 tion has averaged over 41 years, and a record of 289 years is made. 
 Twenty-four years ago the known descendants of John White 
 were 5,074. Of these 2,850 bore the name of White, and 2,224 
 bore other names. There were then 542 families of Whites, and 
 458 families of which the mothers were Whites. 
 
 Of the descendants of Judge White, bearing the name of White, 
 those known to be living: are : 
 
32 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENISTIAL. 
 
 Nathaniel Patten, Edgar, James Hillhouse, and Frances Amelia, 
 children of Judge Fortune C. White. 
 
 Morris Pratt, Mary, Lewis, Philo, and Charles, children of Jonas 
 White. 
 
 Ilalsey and Mary, children of Halsey White. Maria M., Robert 
 Sayie, Canvass and William M., children of Charles Loomis, and 
 grandchildren of Canvass. Harry, son of Lewis White. Mary 
 Adelia, J^jranklin, Edgar Adelbert and Arthur Shirley, children 
 of Edgar White. Nathaniel C, son of James Hillhouse, Port 
 Huron, Mich., Hugh T., son of Nathaniel C, Port Huron, Mich. 
 
 William Mansfield White and Isabel White (Niles,) children of 
 Hon. Hugh, son of Hugh, junior. 
 
 Ninth Genekation. 
 
 Hugh, William Pierrepont, Anna Maria, Hubert Lawrence,. 
 Florilla Mansfield, Mary Pierrepont, Cornelia Butler, Isabel, 
 DeLancey Pierrepont, Charles Carroll and John Dolbeare, children 
 of William M. AVhite and Anna M. Pierrepont. 
 
 In regard to the date of the arrival at Whitestown, the date of 
 the month, the preponderance of proof justifies us in celebrating 
 it to-day-(June 5). M. M. Jones says he distinctly remembers that 
 his father, the author of " The Annals of Oneida County," got the 
 date of the same from Philo White, who afterwards dictated the 
 record to his daughter, Julia Ann (Kennedy,) for the "Philo White 
 Bible. " It is in her handwriting. The Bible was published in 
 ] 849, and as Philo White died April 12, 1849, the dictation must 
 have been made shortly before his death. But he was born June 
 25, 1767, and he has confounded the date of his birth with the date 
 of the settlement. He was seventeen years old in 1784, and if 
 they had arrived in Whitestown on his birthday, the coincidence 
 would have been noted. 
 
 John White sailed from England about the 25th of June, 1632. 
 He died early in the year 1684; just two hundred years ago, mak- 
 ing this a second centennial in the family. 
 
 Permit me to add, speaking for the family, and the whole family, 
 whether they bear the name of White or have been given in 
 marriage and now bear other names, that this movement of 
 the Oneida Historical Society, and this generous co-operation of 
 the citizens of Oneida county to do honor to our common ancestor, 
 and to mark the spot Avhere the first home was, in the wilderness of 
 western New York, and the time when it was made, and to com- 
 
ADDRESS. OF AVILLIAM M. WHITE. S3 
 
 raeraorate tlie actors, and their memory, has gratified our jmde: 
 has warmed our hearts ; has increased our faith in humanity ; has 
 strengthened our love. And we reverently thank God that our 
 fathers and our mothers were of those " whom the people delighted 
 to honor.'" 
 
 Royal blood is an inheritance. Noble blood if it begets noble 
 deeds is a blessing. But above all and beyond all, is the inher- 
 itance of a pious, God-fearing, God-serving ancestry. 
 
 Mr. White closed his remaks by saying : 
 
 Mr. Chairman : With a due sense of the honor and consideration 
 shown in designating me to unveil this monument to the settlement of 
 Whitestown and to the first settlers, permit me to waive this honor 
 and to designate that it now be done by Hugh White and William 
 White Niles, whose grandfather was Hugh White, son of Huo-h 
 the pioneer. 
 
 The monument was then unveiled by Hugh White, son of the 
 speaker and William White Niles, amid the cheers of the assem- 
 bled multitude and approprate music by the Oriskany Cornet 
 band. 
 
 Rev. Anson J. Upson, D. D., of Auburn Theolgical Seminary, 
 formerly professor of rhetoric and elocution in Hamilton College, 
 was then introduced and delivered the dedicatory address, which 
 was attentively listened to, and often applauded. 
 

 THE WHITESTOWN MONIMENT, 
 
ADDRESS OF DEDICATIOi\. 
 
 BY REV. ANSON J. UPSON, D. D. 
 
 The world avill not willingly let the xames of its 
 benefactors die. 
 
 To preserve the memory of all of them is impossible, yet we 
 grow impatient at the silence that creeps over their graves. We 
 cling to their memory. We will not let them clie. 
 
 You may tell me that oblivion is inevitable, and the sooner the 
 inevitable is acknowledged, the sooner will the struggle for remem- 
 brance be ended, but we reply that for generations at least, the 
 worthiest can be made to suiVive, and so far as in us lies we will 
 not permit our benefactors to be forgotten. 
 
 The great features of nature are comparatively changeless. The 
 rocks and hills around us are everlasting. We would make the 
 memory of character and achievement as enduring as they. The 
 soul that imparts its own character to individual life is immortal. 
 We would make the memory of the character and the life as endur- 
 ing as the spirit itself. 
 
 To such a purpose — to perpetuate character and achievements 
 worthy to be remembered, we dedicate this monument here and 
 now. We would thus, in the words of the inscription "commemo- 
 rate the first settlement of Whitestown by Hugh White and his 
 family on the 5th of June, 1*784 " — one hundred years ago! 
 
 We commemorate no military achievement. St. Leger, Bur- 
 goyne and Sir Henry Clinton might indeed have prevented this settle- 
 ment forever. The heroism and fortitude of the illustrious Herkimer 
 made it possible. But the British armies had sailed away ; and the 
 sturdy German had slept in his grave for seven years when Hugh 
 White entered this township, the pioneer of a conquest as mem- 
 orable and as far reaching if not as exciting as a great soldier's 
 victory. 
 
 By this monument we commemorate the achievements of a 
 pioneer. He cleared the way into this, as yet, unbroken forest. 
 We may justly honor him as a pioneer, for he was a leader, vigorous, 
 ardent, enterprising, intrepid, energetic, devoted to his purpose, 
 persevering. God might have raised up some other man to do the 
 
36 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 ■work he did, but in the honor we pay to his memory, we recognize 
 him as the agent of Providence for this beneficent purpose. And 
 his was the achievement of individual enterprise. He was not 
 supported by governmental authority, nor sustained by the ac- 
 cumulations of wealth. He was a pioneer by the act of his own 
 will. He was not driven out by oppression, as were the pilgrims 
 from England, or the Germans from Palatinate. But with that 
 spirit of unrest so characteristic of the genuine American, be led 
 one great division of that endless procession, that ever since has 
 been fulfilling the pi-ophecy of Bishop Berkeley, Avhen he said 
 " Westward the course of empire takes its way." 
 
 And by this monument we commemorate also the character and 
 achievements of one who has been well named "a patriarch" — the 
 head of a family. 
 
 Hugh While came into the vast township that afterwards bore 
 his name, not as a solitary adventurer, but with his family, accom- 
 panied by his sons and daughters. In his fifty-second year the 
 enthusiasm of youth had been tempered by the experience of 
 advancing age — not altogether unlike the greatest of all the 
 ancient patriarchs "the father of the faithful," he went forth into 
 the wilderness. 
 
 He brought with him his family, as an evidence of his faith. He 
 came to stay. He had no other thought. He made the first set- 
 tlement. As citizens of Oneida county, we honor the memory of 
 James Dean, the patriotic pioneer, not altogether unlike Captain 
 John Smith of Virginia. But we remember that James Dean had 
 no permanent home in this county till 178G. We honor the 
 memory of Samuel Kirkland, the missionary to the Oneidas and 
 the founder of Hamilton College, but Kirkland lived mostly alone 
 with his Indian friends until 1792. He and his family could not 
 become permanent residents till after this new home in Whites- 
 town had been established for eight years. 
 
 The word " family " in this inscription is significant. It com- 
 memorates the establishment of the first permanent home in the 
 wilderness — father, mother, sons and daughters gathered here 
 together. In that word " family " upon this monument we com- 
 memorate the heroism of the mother and the children, as well as that 
 of the patriarch himself. They could appreciate, perhaps better 
 than he, all that Dr. Asahel Norton meant, when in the old 
 meeting house at Clinton, on every Sabbath day, he used to thank 
 the Lord that he had preserved the early settlers in this " howl- 
 ing wilderness ! " 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. ANSON J. UPSON, D. D. 37 
 
 But once more; by this monument we reconize Hugh White 
 and his family as our benefactors. 
 
 The founders of every community impress tlieir characteristics 
 •upon it — characteristics that remain fixed and permanent, so long 
 as the community lasts. The founders gather round them in the 
 early settlement men like themselves. Generations may succeed 
 each other, new comers in great numbers may bring with them 
 new customs and ideas, but the characteristics of the first settlers 
 will be largely controlling. Boston and Albany, Philadelphia 
 and Baltimore diifer to-day as much as did their founders. 
 
 If Hugh White and his sons had been dissolute men, how the 
 picture of to-day would have been reversed ! But they were 
 not dissolute men. They brought with them a New England 
 morality, a New England industry, a neatness and economy, a 
 Yankee thrift, an English vigor and sincerity, a New England 
 intelligence and desire for education, a simplicity of manners, 
 with no affinity either for the dilettanti or the coarse. Above all, 
 they brought with them a reverence for God and a belief in the 
 Bible. 
 
 And naturally, the men and women who followed after — the 
 Platts and the Storrs, the Golds and the Sills, the Tracy s and the 
 Berrys, the Fosters, the Wetmores, your Benjamin Walcott and 
 your Dexter and your John Frost and your David Ogden and 
 Beriah Green — all these among the honored and revered dead, 
 and many more among the living here, brought Avith them the 
 same characteristics with which tbey have enriched and 
 strengthened and adorned your life. 
 
 In erecting this memorial to commemorate the first settlement 
 we honor the influence of all these who have contributed to the 
 honorable reputation of this town, that still retains the name of its 
 founder. 
 
 And not only so, but we commemorate the founders of that 
 larger township extending from the Mohavt'k to the great lakes. 
 At this point of departure, where first in this State, the influence 
 of New England began to exercise its beneficent power, we erect 
 this memorial. We give a cordial welcome to every other people. 
 We rejoice in the remarkable commingling of races in this 
 commonwealth that has made New York so cosmopobtan. But 
 we remember that the iron in our blood is drawn from the New 
 England hills. We erect this monument as a token to all comers, 
 that so far as in us lies, the healthful influence of our New Eng- 
 land ancestry shall neither be forgotten nor pass away. 
 
38 THE WHITESTOWJS^ CENTENNIAL. 
 
 Let the children of the coming generations as they pass this 
 monument and read this inscription be taught its significance. 
 Most likely none of them can ever be~ such pioneers, such 
 patriarchs, such benefactors ; yet each in his own life can practice 
 the same simplicity, the same self-reliance, the same integrity, the 
 same faith. 
 
 Let this monument teach every passer-by that usefulness, 
 though not always raised to high station, will not be forgotten, 
 Mankind do not forget even their unconscious benefactors. If 
 Hugh White could have foreseen, that when a century should 
 have passed, on an occasion like this, amidst hundreds of an 
 admiring posterity, his name would be repeated with respect and 
 gratitude and veneration, as the great founder of what we behold 
 around us, would he not have felt his heart cheered, under the 
 hardships of the wilderness or amidst the perils of the savage? 
 
 " Other men labored and we are entered into their labors." 
 
 The great countries of the old world love to trace their long 
 descent from warfare long and fierce between prond Normans and 
 stui'dy Saxons, between restless barons and grasping kings — back 
 even to wars between fabled heroes and demigods. 
 
 To us it is given to honor conquests more peaceful and not less 
 far-reaching. 
 
 To the energy, fortitude, perseverance, of men like him we 
 honor to-day, do we owe the glory of this land we love. They 
 have left us no 'stately castles crowning our hill-tops with walls 
 and moats and towers, but theirs is a fairer memorial, in the 
 peaceful beauty of a scene like this — in the happy homes which 
 are all about us to-day, because of the bi-avery and patient toil of 
 that household in the forest here one hundred years ago. 
 
 " The Isles of Greece, the hills of Spain, the purple Heavens of Rome, 
 Yes all are glorious — yet again I bless thee, Land of Home ! 
 For thine the Sabbath peace, my land! and thine the guarded hearth : 
 And thine the dead, the noble band that make thee holy earth. 
 Their voices meet me in thy breeze, their steps are on thy plains; 
 Their names by old, majestic trees are whispered 'round thy fanes. 
 Their blood is mingled with the tide of the exulting sea ; 
 O ! be it still a joy and pride, to live and die for thee ! " 
 
 Benjamin F. Taylor, of Cleveland, O., the poet of the day, was- 
 next introduced, and received with applause. His poem was one 
 of the most enjoyable features of the day, and was read with 
 expression. It was often interrupted with laughter and hearty 
 applause. 
 
"THE WHITESTOWN COUNTRY;' 
 
 POEM BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. 
 
 "One Hundred Years Ago." 
 
 " God bless us every one ! " So say we all, 
 
 Let Hermou's dew like benediction fall ! 
 
 Time calls a halt and here we stand and turn 
 
 To days as dear as ashes in an urn, 
 
 When following on the Dutchman's pale " Half Moon," 
 
 Tlie wake of empire kindling in its light, 
 
 A "May Flower" out of season came in sight 
 
 And graced December with the joy of June. 
 
 Miles Standish was aboard, whose sturdy heart 
 
 Played the same blood that throbbed in Kirkland's own; 
 So, down they come, two centuries apart. 
 
 The mighty Captain and his ftir-olF Son, 
 Old Sinai's clouds are cleft by Calvary's ray. 
 Close up, grand comrades, march abreast to-day ! 
 
 Whitestown Country. 
 
 Upon The Whitestown Country's Northern hem 
 
 Where breeze was song and brook a running gem, 
 
 Wild rubies hid among the meadow grasses. 
 
 White-throated deer drank out of looking-glasses, 
 
 Sweet-hearted maples stood in sturdy ranks 
 
 And packs of dogwoods hung upon their flanks, 
 
 While elms in outline arched the graceful air 
 
 As if an Ariel meant to chamber there ; 
 
 And here and there the blue smokes lifted high 
 
 As if to tint some spot of faded sky — 
 
 Smokes filtering thro' from swallows'-nests of homes 
 
 The leafy rafters of the forest domes. 
 
 Where whispering twilights haunted cabin doors 
 
 And hid the idle noon-mark on the floors. 
 
 ' Till axe and echo tilled the woods with clocks 
 
 Sounding the death-watch for the masted fleet 
 Of foundered forest that with wrecks and shocks, 
 
40 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 Swept swaths of wilderness as cradled wheat, 
 Matched broad-cast harvest with a broad-cast day. 
 So axes won the cyclone's right of way, 
 And let, at last, the golden sunlight fall 
 Like grand Elijah's mantle over all. 
 
 RivEKs ANB Men. 
 
 Its rambling rivers flow toward all the world 
 
 From vast St. Lawrence to the Chesapeake — 
 By Mohawk borne and Susquehanna whirled; 
 
 They brave the shaggy wilderness to seek 
 Ontario's wave. Blue Erie and gray main 
 All one to them, these rivers free as rain. 
 Dear household brooks and children of the hills, 
 Ye ribbons woven from exultant rills, 
 With reedy warble, cataract and song. 
 Oh, rivers float your Indian names along— 
 Forbid them not ' till Unadiila dies, 
 On cloudy wings Chenango's waters rise, 
 No wrens in woods, no blue-bird in the skies; 
 Make room, Oh Babel, let their music stand, 
 The sweet Ionic of the Whitestown Laud, 
 'Till men forget where Skenandoa lies, 
 That nobleman of God to Kirkland given. 
 Who held his patent from the court of heaven. 
 Ah, streams prophetic, had we only known, 
 
 Of them who broke the strong horizons thro'. 
 Bore Yankee Doodle to the dragon throne 
 
 Where lar Cathay its Bohea breezes blew, 
 Where Desolation's grisly bones Lave worn 
 Thro' the lean earth stark, naked and forlorn. 
 Where lie beneath pale Arctic's pennon'd spears 
 Unquarried winters of a thousand years. 
 Where palm leaves lap like tongues the golden air, 
 And Indian Summer from the topmost stair 
 To Heaven looks down, relents, and never enters there, 
 Oneida's sons have rent the azure robe 
 And boxed the quivering compass round the globe. 
 
 John White's Welcome. 
 
 Now full two hundred fifty Junes ago 
 The good ship Lyon stole across the sea. 
 
POEM BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR, 41 
 
 All sails hauled homa slia welcomed every blow 
 
 That drove her on where faith and Heaven were free. 
 Beyond the roll-call of the Babel world 
 The good ship Lyon's tattered sails were furled. 
 So came John White, an Elder and an oak 
 No danger daunted and no tempest broke. 
 Nobody knew that God's salvation went 
 Beyond the border-line of Continent, 
 Meant this unchristen'd wilderness, amid 
 Whose glooms tlie red and smoky nations bid 
 Uncounted centuries go idly by, 
 Left no inore trace than eagles in the sky. 
 One trail no broader that a Bible's page 
 Crept in a stealthy way age after age 
 From Hudson's tide to Erie's magic blue. 
 And this was all, save scatter'd flints that flew 
 And tomahawks with wings, and heaps of bones. 
 And blacken'd brands of fires, and frightful tones 
 The night-owls echoed and the night-hawks caught — 
 AVas all they left that savage Nature taught, 
 Except heir-looms of rare melodious names 
 Bound for the future, and forever fame's. 
 
 Yet Shakespere walked what little world he knew; 
 Like holy fire crusaders' standards flew. 
 
 All Europe looked and wondered and was grum; 
 Yet Pocahontas by one act of her's 
 Whose very thought the dullest bosom stirs. 
 
 Had saved the Smiths to people Cin-istendom ; 
 Spenser had led his Fairi3 Queene along, 
 Herbert had sung the perfect Sabbath song 
 Whose pure and plaintive accents will survive 
 While one dear English word is left alive. 
 
 Behold them there, the pilgrim of the Lyon 
 And this wild realm beyond the range of Zion, 
 And what Elijah's son could dream the twain 
 Would e'er be bound in name and blood and brain? 
 As soon believe the breeze that wakes the rose 
 Of Ispahan should whirl Alaska's snows. 
 
 Hugh White's Welcome. 
 
 And yet, this day, one hundred years ago. 
 Near where we stand there swung a rude bateau. 
 
42 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 Five generations clown, Hugh White had come 
 
 To find a wilderness and found a home. 
 
 No flag saluted but the tulip trees, 
 
 No song of welcome but the wild-rose breeze, 
 
 No martial music but the partridge drum 
 
 And jay-bird fife and old Homeric thrum. 
 
 No torchlight honors and no welcome words 
 
 Of dear old English but the " phoebe "-bird's ; 
 
 The tall elms built the sole triumphal arch 
 
 That graced the landing, glorified the march 
 
 Both God and valor brought triumphant through. 
 
 It mattered not to him and his platoon 
 Of manly sons. I wonder if he knew 
 That from the basswood walls and elm-bark roof 
 That neighbor'd wolves and kept the winds aloof, 
 
 His cabin fire would lejid a light to June 
 That would not perish in its hundredth year — 
 This man who marched beyond the dim frontier 
 And picket line. I wonder if he heard 
 The primal throb when empire lived and stirred. 
 I wonder if he dreamed the drowsy drone 
 
 Of meadow bees a few poor spindles made, 
 Would ever sound, two hundi*ed thousand grown, 
 
 Like sea born winds that sweep the everglade, — 
 The rattling harness of the fireside loom 
 Jar like the chariots of the grander Rome, 
 And weave their forty million yards, and more 
 
 Tlian clothe the nation Patrick Henry knew, 
 
 Give all the flags our navy ever flew 
 And dress Rhode Island in a pinafore. 
 
 One Hundred Years. 
 
 The bell strikes " one " — The Whitestown Country Chime, 
 Now put new chevrons on the sleeves of Time ! 
 Stand forth, my Sergeant ! Ah, how passing grand 
 When God's centurions take supreme command. 
 The gypsy Junes close up along the line, 
 A hundred Aprils in their snow-drops shine, 
 A hundred Summers shouldering their sheaves, 
 A hundred Autumns glorified with leaves, 
 • In rank and file the red Octobers glow. 
 
 And white Decembers trail their skirts of snow. 
 
POEM BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. 43 
 
 There is no yonder, every there is here, 
 
 The sun stands still, the stars themselves are near, 
 
 The jewell'd Dipper's holy dews baptize, 
 
 The halted Age before our reverent eyes. 
 
 Hugh White's old cradlers rock the field of wheat, 
 
 His mowers swing the scythe in naked feet, 
 
 And sometimes blundering on a grassy nest 
 
 They whirl a whisk and wish •all bees "be — blest!" 
 
 The green and golden surf around them rolls. 
 
 They shed their jackets but they keep their souls. 
 
 Arrayed in tow the brawny threshers come 
 
 And eat for three and drink New England rum; 
 
 The oaken floor their flails alternate beat, 
 
 And kernels dance a rattling tune of sleet ; 
 
 Now comes his sempstress — bless her smiling face ! 
 
 In tall back-comb and Inisey gown and grace 
 
 And not a bang — she long ago gave place 
 
 To shapes of iron feet and cabinet-ware 
 
 And left forlorn the bantam sewing-chair. 
 
 Swung to a pillion on her wedding day. 
 
 Her arm around his waist, she rode away 
 
 And made a log-heap turn a lover's nest — 
 
 Of all the patents earliest and best. 
 
 Great trees that kept the treaty made with Time 
 
 An age ago — it seems almost a crime — 
 
 Broke the long twilight as her husband knocked, 
 
 And sweeping headlong down to ru.in, mocked 
 
 With crash of column, coronal and branch 
 
 The frozen thunder 'of the avalanche. 
 
 They trained a sunflower near the cabin door, 
 
 They walked on sunshine round the puncheon floor. 
 
 Brigades of corn deployed in green parade 
 
 And rounding gold among their ranks betrayed 
 
 A pious war, a pumpkin cannonade. 
 
 Old fashioned flowers drew up in double line, 
 
 The four-o'clock, the pink, the columbine. 
 
 The flax a-field was hardly sown before 
 
 Unhetcheled tow-heads danced upon the floor, 
 
 Swarmed up the ladder on their way to bed, 
 
 Swarmed down before the morning sky was red, . 
 
 Swarmed out three miles to meeting and to school. 
 
44 THE WHITESTOWiN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 Set traps for wolves and learned the Golden Rule. 
 No man could doubt the Children in the Shoe, 
 Ten pewter spoons and still the number grew. 
 And these are they who made this wilderness 
 Turn fair enough for angels to caress, 
 Who set this heart of empire throbbing forth 
 Its sterling manhood round tlic belted earth. 
 
 Their fires were half Promethcini — came from Heaven, 
 
 No sign of matches had King Pluto given, 
 
 And yet how easy, had he only kiiown, 
 
 To dip his tooth-picks in the Acheron ! 
 
 They covered embers though no curfew tolled, 
 
 They borrowed embers when their own were cold, 
 
 They kept a box with flint and steel and punk. 
 
 Boys had the grit and women had the spunk. 
 
 Think of Oneida's maid, ye graceful girls to-day, 
 
 Who cleared the door-yard of a bear at bay. 
 
 And swept him out with just an oaken broom ! 
 
 Salute, ye heroes, give the maiden room ! 
 
 Think of the Whitestown Country girls that drove 
 
 Their tandem teams where deer scarce dared to rove! 
 
 Drove lumbering turn-outs of the classic breed 
 
 Of dear Priscilla's puritanic steed. 
 
 Whose Juno-eyes old Homer sang in Greece, 
 
 And full of spirit with two horns apiece. 
 
 Thk Old Kitchex. 
 
 Reverse the lever of the world fo-day 
 
 And bid the flying Age dismount and walk ; 
 Before the lightnings left their garret play 
 
 To cheer a kitchen and to learii to talk ; 
 
 Before with slender shafts they pumped the rock 
 And flashed the torches on the startled air; 
 Before they fished Ibi- flame and iound it where 
 The blundering Jonah found an oil depot — 
 
 Now light the candles with a glowing coal. 
 No other gleam like theirs in all the world to show 
 
 The " living room," the homestead's genial soiil, 
 That warmed their hearts one hundred years ago: 
 • . Tlie iron fire-dogs, crooked legs apart. 
 
 Knee-deep in rubies from the maple's heart. 
 
POEM BY BENJAMIN Y. TAYLOK. 
 
 A bowl of apples flushing by the tire, 
 
 A russet boy that heaps the cord-wood higher, 
 
 Festoons of apples swing along the line. 
 
 The grumbling clock betrays the hour of nine, 
 
 —Pass round, my girl, the orchard's amber wine ! — 
 
 A full grown clock stands sentry over all, 
 
 Upon its solemn shape the firelights fall, 
 
 A tall, slim coffin, whence with face serene 
 
 And sadly sallow, Time regards the scene 
 
 Between his bloodless fingers, long and lean ; 
 
 With muffled pulse, a shrill and tolling bell, 
 
 'Tis all the same, a bridal or a knell ; 
 
 A bellows' foxy nose, a turkey's wing. 
 
 White cotton curtains on an apron-string, 
 
 The hammered tongs with poor magnetic legs, 
 
 A rusty scabbard swung from wooden pegs. 
 
 The starving crane with Ethiopian arm 
 
 Holds out its hooks with pot-and-kettle charm, 
 
 Their nervous covers playing tambourine 
 
 To serenade the golden samp within ; 
 
 The Prussian-blue pagoda-painted wares. 
 
 The pewter platters and the kitchen chairs 
 
 Whose woven seats once waved in summer airs 
 
 Where rushes drew their sabers to salute. 
 
 And bright Bob-Lincolns swung with bell and flute; 
 
 There dwelt of old, apart from pomp and pride. 
 
 The living circles that have never died 
 
 But live as rainbows live, that fade away 
 
 In broader glory and a brighter day. 
 
 The Eaely Day. 
 
 Five miles to meeting, forty miles to mill. 
 
 They backed the grists and traveled with a will; 
 
 By bridle path and trail and bark canoe 
 
 Dim as the twilight, noiseless as the dew ; 
 
 Then back they came, the bright day turning brown, 
 
 And met the swarthy Mohawk coming down, 
 
 The forests roaring like the surf of seas. 
 
 The starlight tangled in the tops of trees. 
 
 Two fox fire eyes betray the whiskered cat, 
 
 A flying blot— Saint Crispin's bird, the bat, 
 
 The tossing fire-fly's mockery of lamp, 
 
 45 
 
i46 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 And thought of home and Johnnycake and samp. 
 A royal breed of tramps the fathers made, 
 We knight them now with loving accolade ! 
 Right-handed men whichever hand you shook, 
 Square-stepping men whatever way they took. 
 Stout-hearted men whatever might betide, 
 For duty ready 'till the day they died. 
 Truth-loving men, their lettered tablets bore 
 The first grave charge that ever mortal made, 
 " Here lies," the marbles say, but might have said, 
 " Here lies " the man who never lied before ! 
 
 Then and Now. 
 
 When Fdxton drove his shining six-in-hand 
 
 Of dappled grays along the Whitestown way 
 With La Fayette the guest of all the land, 
 
 He never dreamed the world would hail the day 
 And drive the lightnings with a single line. 
 Abolish time and space and everything 
 But death, put all the planet in a wedding-ring. 
 While East and West the concert tidings shine. 
 When Parker's coach by swamp and corduroy 
 
 That made its one score miles since early morn, 
 Came lurching in amid the general joy 
 
 And angry treble of the driver's horn, 
 And brought six foolscap letters three weeks old 
 Sealed with a moon and crackling in the fold 
 Like thorns and hemlock in a log-heap fire, 
 What would you have? What more could man deeirei 
 Did Parker think that creeping coach of his 
 Might be a kind of drowsy chrysalis, 
 That taking wing and clouding up with power 
 Would make his day's long pull in half an hour? 
 Shoulder its wake as if it meant to fly. 
 And leave its smoky track along the sky ? 
 
 The Whitestown Country Forts. 
 
 Lo, Old Fort Schuyler in a grand disguise. 
 The classic walls of " Hamilton " arise, 
 The stately mother, of whose royal sons 
 
 Six hundred manned the battlements of God. 
 
POEM BY BEISTJJ^MIN F. TAT LOR. 47^ 
 
 Some bravely trained the Union's roaring guns 
 And won their morning stars and went abroad. 
 
 Some wore the ermine with unspotted fame, 
 
 Some startled senates into loud acclaim, 
 
 Three score turned chieftains of the Fourth Estate, 
 
 And some unchalleng'd sit in glory's gate : 
 
 And some lived lives of patience and of pain 
 
 Serene and pure, but did not live in vain, 
 
 As when still moonlight parts the leafy spray 
 
 Along the dew-drops dawns a little day; 
 
 For these, we know, there waits a rare renown 
 
 And earth's acanthus turns Corinthian crown, 
 
 I owe thee duty as my father's son, 
 
 God make it noon until thy work is done ! 
 
 Saint Peter kept the keys of Paradise — 
 
 Thy Peter bids us look with mild surprise 
 
 Upon the broods of callow worlds that blaze, 
 
 Hatched out beneath his incubating gaze ! 
 
 These are the strong redoubts whence Science trains 
 Her dumb artillery against the skies 
 
 Where far Auriga drives his starry wains 
 
 And brings down worlds to brighten dying eyes. 
 
 Tho' Stanwix guns are rusted out and dumb — 
 
 Oneida's hives with sons and daughters hum ; 
 
 These are the forts whose armaments command 
 
 The dim blue range where waiting ages stand. 
 
 Oh, strong redans, oh, garrisons of youth, 
 
 Strike where you will, but always strike to truth. 
 
 • 
 The Old Meeting House. 
 
 Unfold the wardrobe in the cedar chest, 
 The weary week is done. The Sabbath rest 
 Begins to-night and lasts all day to-morrow. 
 Grant perfect peace without a dream of sorrow ! 
 From Indian Summer to the ides of May 
 The house of God was one long winter's day, 
 With nothing warmer than an April smile 
 And small square foot-stoves tinkling up the aisle. 
 The Elder preached in mittens, and in cloak ; 
 While clouds of frosty breath around him broke, 
 He told of fire, but no one ever thought 
 How blest indeed to have some embers brought. 
 
48 THE WHITES'J'OWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 Celestial love and holy zeal alone 
 
 Kept saints alive in that intemperate zone. 
 
 There were the men that from their hemlock tents 
 
 Defied the devil. and the elements; 
 
 And when their time for better liomesteads came, 
 
 Still notliing warmer than a candle's flame 
 
 Relieved the rigor of the chambers, where 
 
 The nail heads silvered in the Arctic air. 
 
 Sometimes the brazen warming pan would sweep 
 
 The linen parallelograms oi sleep, 
 
 Feel here and thore the frosty corners out, 
 
 But boys and girls went bouncing to their beds, 
 Their cast-off garments flying all about 
 
 Like wdnd-blown down from dandelion lieads. 
 Gone the old church and gone the reverent feet 
 That made the threshold beautiful and sweet. 
 And charmed the Sunday noontimes round the place 
 With Christian comfort, carraway and grace. 
 Across the road the fallow field of God, 
 
 Unsown, un tilled, unmourned and overgrown 
 With tangled thistle, thorn and golden rod ; 
 
 Gone are the graves and inarticulate the stone. 
 
 Gone is the preacher Vv'ith the braided queue, 
 The velvet small clothes and the buckled shoe. 
 The broad flapped coat, the continental hat, 
 The broad bandanna and the broad cravat — 
 Broad as " the road " of which he used to read, 
 "And thousands walk together there." Indeed 
 He wore the colors of the Flag all thro', 
 Bandanna gave the red defiant hue, 
 Cravat the white, Connecticut — the blue ! 
 
 Ah, dead lips whispci- like a field of vvdieat, 
 
 Old Cl)ina mourns "departing friends" once more,. 
 
 Slow clouds the crape along the mourners' seat. 
 Front-face to God and sadly borne before, 
 
 The solemn bell slow booming overhead. 
 
 In rigid slumber come the slirouded dead. 
 
 TiiK Old Choir. 
 
 The singing master's wooden pitch pipe blew 
 A curlew note and all the sinsiX'rs flew. 
 
POEM BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. 49 
 
 Oh, fly again, sweet girls of Israel's choir 
 And warble larklike up the tuneful stair. 
 The fugues fled with fragments of the words. 
 The meeting house was filled with singing birds 
 Each with a note to make the nest complete, 
 And named it Windham, Mear or Silver Street: 
 Or else he "flushed" them with a two-tined fork, 
 Picked up the key and grimly said, " Sing York ! " 
 Old Neptune's royal trident had not then 
 Done baser duty for the sons of men. 
 And twotined forks "pitched" melody and meat. 
 Tossed the new hay and swung the bundled vvheat. 
 
 No girls in seraph white and heavenly blue 
 
 So sweetly sang as if they thought it true, 
 
 "I want to be an Angel." If they might 
 
 Turn birds of Paradise and take their flight. 
 
 Each pair of wings a maiden should unfurl 
 
 Would rob the world and not improve the girl. 
 
 No gentle souls in penitential mood ■ 
 
 Before the congregation rose and stood. 
 
 And sang confession, how "I love to steal," 
 
 No alto owned it with a joyous peal, 
 
 No tenor told in music clear and strong. 
 
 No grumbling bass to pass the crime along. 
 
 No fair soprano bore the guilty story 
 
 In sky-note carol to the gates of Glory. 
 
 In those old days no line of real girls. 
 
 Fun in their eyes and frolic in their curls, 
 
 Stood forth and sang " I would not live alway." 
 
 Bless their dear hearts, we know they " care to stay. " 
 
 They sing it all with such delightful grace 
 
 It brings a smile to Meditation's face; 
 
 The three-score grief is not akin to youth's, 
 
 The words are Kachel's but the lips are Ruth's. 
 
 Grief to the world, those crumbling wasp gray walls 
 
 Were built too near the pure and perfect halls 
 
 Of Paradise, the Canaan of the Blest. 
 
 The pulpit stood, that sacred swallow's-nest, 
 
 On border-land and boundary between 
 
 That world and this, whence angels could be seen 
 
 That beckoned mortals to the other side 
 
50 THE WHTTESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 With grace so rare tliey could not be denied, 
 No other gate but Death's and so they died. 
 
 Stanwix and Oriskany. 
 
 Plow, press and primer, pulpit, post and pen 
 Proclaimed abroad "good will and peace to men."" 
 Sling up for once the axe beside the sword. 
 With helve and hilt in beautiful accord, 
 Halt, if you may, with talismanic word 
 The pioneers who marched in Freedom's van 
 One hundred years ago, and bid them, if you can, 
 Look back upon the realm thro' which they "blaze'' 
 Their way to glory — regiments of maize 
 And high-tide gracious seas that never drown, 
 W^here answered prayer for all the world is strown, 
 And countless flocks of homes that climb and crown 
 The vantage hills with all their towers and spires 
 That loom like castles, mount like sacred fires. 
 Fort Stanwix guns are dumb: no longer Death 
 Grins from embrasures blackened with their breath. 
 Appear, once more, immortal August day. 
 Let muskets rattle, busy batteries play — 
 Ye rifles blent with old Queen's arms fire true ! 
 Fire low! fire fast! fire all ! 'till woods turn blue 
 With bullet blasts, and the green mosses red 
 W^ith such bad blood as Brants and Butlers shed — 
 See there, St. Leger's scalpdocked scarlet hordes, 
 Satanic bond of tomahawks and swords, 
 Scalps at their belts — such peltry quoted high, 
 A woman's hair ten dollars if she die! — 
 Gunpowder in their rum ! — Sling ofl" the dium ! 
 Beat the long roll with cannon I Let them come ! 
 Run up the flag above the parapet ! 
 Those Stanwix colors strangest that had yet 
 Saluted, shrouded, rallied or defied. 
 Grew costlier far than coronation pride : 
 A soldier's shirt all scalloped into stars 
 
 Was stitched — "fixed" stars — upon a martial cloak 
 Of blue, and stripes of scarlet rags made Mars 
 
 Blush dingy red and bless the battle smoke. 
 Up with the garments ! A'aior's cast-off clothes 
 Can have no endino- more sublime than those ! 
 
POEM BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. 51' 
 
 A sultry day, Oriskany, was thine, 
 
 Of wild red revelry and wasted wine. 
 
 In shivering woods the waltz of death began, 
 
 From tree to tree the dreadful circles ran, 
 
 'T was white to red, 't was death to man or man. 
 
 Death lurked behind each beech and maple shaft 
 
 Heroic soldiers took to woodman's craft. 
 
 The bullets whistled thick as driving rain. 
 
 The bayonets bristled like a hedge of cane, 
 
 The forest columns dotted dense with shot 
 
 Like bird's-eye maple when the wood is wrought. 
 
 Amid this hell rode Herkimer, as calm 
 
 As if he heard an old long-meter psalm — 
 
 Rode his "White Surry" with a swinging rein, 
 
 As if he loitered in a farm-yard lane ; 
 
 Then tumbling headlong died the stricken steed, 
 
 Then fell the rider like a shattered reed. 
 
 They bore him bleeding to a fallen beech. 
 
 But sword and soul were both within his reach, 
 
 And there reclined he fought the battle thro ' 
 
 "With orders cool as if he never knew 
 
 That, every breath he drew, around him whirled 
 
 An instant summons to the other world. 
 
 And there he sat, and struck with arrow-head and knife 
 
 A spark ; the tinder crinkled into life, 
 
 And then he calmly smoked as if he heard 
 
 The storks come home, old Holland's household bird ! 
 
 I think this leads the Appomatox chief 
 
 Who made Havana roll historic leaf. 
 
 This was the Beulah Land to which men came 
 
 Who saw on Bunker's day the Charlestown flame 
 
 That flung its last red gleam along the seas 
 
 When British scarlet caught the homeward breeze ; 
 
 Those men whose garments brought the powder smoke 
 
 Of Bennington ; whom Yorktown cannon woke ; 
 
 Charged six abreast through Sodom's dreadful rain 
 
 And swept like surf down Lundy's fiery Lane; 
 
 Dared the red lion, scorched him in his lair; 
 
 Crossed in the gloom historic Delaware. 
 
 This is the stock express and thoroughbred 
 
 That made the ribb'd earth tremble with its tread, 
 
52 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 That answered " here ! " when Freedom called the roll, 
 Went through the mills of God where death took toll, 
 A widow's thirds, a pension or a soul, 
 And dotted all the Whitestown Country through 
 Like spotted cambric with the Federal blue ! 
 
 The Doge of Venice deemed it very grand 
 
 To wed the Adriatic Avith a ring. 
 
 The Whitestown Country saw a grander thing 
 When spades were trumps and Clinton played the hand 
 And played it tii rough though Thomases decried, 
 And made the western wave Atlantic's bride. 
 Along that narrow water silent went 
 The Western glory of the continent ; > 
 Great States passed by, like shadows one by one. 
 That flaunt their sheaves against the setting sun. 
 
 Here dwelt the man who led the roll that signed 
 The Magna Charta Letter to mankind, 
 Here died the last of pensioners who drew. 
 Because their muskets made that Message true. 
 From first to last, from wilderness to prime. 
 The s|)lendid lineage runs like perfect rhyme. 
 Weave them a wreath of palm and immortelle, 
 Ring them a chime on Time's centennial bell, 
 The Age strikes "one." God save us all. Farewell ! 
 
PRESENTATION OF THE MONUMENT. 
 
 Hon, Samuel Campbell then presented the monument to the 
 village of "Whitesboro, saying: 
 
 President DunJiam: 
 
 A pleasing duty devolves on nie that will occupy but a few 
 moments of our time. We are now enjoying the fruition of our 
 endeavors in making preparations for the event that brings us to- 
 gether to-day. That enduring monument will stand as a witness 
 to tell the story of its origin to future generations, possibly for 
 centuries, I hope it will be looked upon, not only as an ornament, 
 but in some measure as relatively associated with your beautiful 
 village that owes its beginning to the historic name on the tablet. 
 Hugh White and family left their New England homes in May, 
 1784, to bi-ave the dangers and vicissitudes of frontier life. Their 
 new home took the appropriate name of the Whitestown country. 
 We are now reaping the fruits of their hazardous enterprise. 
 
 I have now the honor, as chairman of the executive committee, 
 with power, to transfer the care and keeping of the monument to 
 the trustees of this village of which you are now the worthy 
 president, and thereafter to your successors in office, which I 
 trust will be cheerfully accepted. 
 
 Rev. Dr. M. E. Dunham, president of the village, accepted the 
 monument in the following words : 
 
 ADDRICSS OF AOOEPTAIN^CE. 
 
 BY EET. M. E, DUNHAM, D, D. 
 
 Mr. Cliairman and Gentlemen of the Historical Committee : 
 
 In belialf of the citizens of Whitesboro, as represented by their 
 Board of Trustees, I have the honor to accept the custodianship 
 of the monument which your generosity has erected, dedicated and 
 this day given into our care. It is natural that we should take 
 pride in protecting it from injury, as it is to us, and will be to 
 coming generations, a memento of the early settlement of this, 
 
54 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 our beautiful village. It stands there a granite shaft, on a 
 granite base, an imperishable epitome of history engraven on 
 stone. We read that when the children of Israel made their 
 wonderful passage through Jordan that their leader, Joshua, com- 
 manded twelve men, one from each tribe, to take each man a 
 stone and deposit them in a heap, that these might be a sign 
 among them, so that when their children should ask : What mean 
 ye by these stones? they could recount to them the history of 
 their passage through Jordan, dry shod, while the turbid waters 
 stood, waiting on either side, and thus perpetuate the record of 
 this remarkable event. We have no record that the early settler 
 of this place met with any such divine interposition on his 
 journey hither — though he had two rivers to cross; but tradition 
 says that he arrived here and pitched his tent on Saturday evening, 
 spending the next day in the quietude of a New England Sabbath 
 observance, amid the trees of the forest; and if this be true, then 
 civilization entered upon the inheritance of this goodly land 
 through the gateway of the Sabbath day, and thus hallowed the 
 future that lay before it. And surely as it spread from this point 
 westward, it went, not only to possess a land full of promise, 
 but to bear the seeds of promise in itself which have borne 
 wonderful fruitage in the temporal prosperity. Christian refine- 
 ment and intellectual culture which rests as a crown of glory 
 upon western New York to-day. You have, therefore, gentle- 
 men, done an appropriate act in the erection of this granite 
 monument, that when the children of coming generations 
 look upon it and ask what it meaneth, there may be recounted 
 to them what we have heard in the historical address to-day. 
 Thus shall the events which transpired here one hundred 
 years ago be kept fresh in memory and handed down through the 
 coming centuries. 
 
 We congratulate you, gentlemen, upon the successful com- 
 pletion of this work you have undertakeUi In reverence for the 
 past you have erected a land-mark of its history for the con- 
 templation of the future. Your work has been well done. 
 Coming generations will thank you for it as we thank you to-day. 
 On it is recorded the name of Hugh White, the first white settler 
 in this then wilderness, who led the way of civilization to this 
 fertile region and gave to it the name of Whitestown. To-day 
 we honor the name he bequeathed. Once it covered a broad 
 extent of territory, extending to the St. Lawrence on the north, 
 to the lakes on the west, and to Pennsylvania on the south — as we 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. M. E. DUNHAM, D. D. 55 
 
 have been told ; but as the population increased and spread, new 
 colonies sought, like new married couples, to set up for them- 
 selves; and Whitestown, out of the generosity of her motherly- 
 heart, gave them a goodly territory, and let them set up for them- 
 selves under new names. Thus her own territory has been nar- 
 rowed down into comparatively small limits. Still, gentlemen, 
 she is Whitestown — proud of. her name and content with her 
 territory. She has been an indulgent mother, suflering her 
 children to grow up into cities, while she has remained a modest 
 township with modest villages. Nor does she envy them their 
 thrift and prosperity. She will be content to remain with smiling 
 farms and beautiful villages — unless some day the village that 
 bears her name shall be seized with ambition and shall reach out 
 her arms to take in the cities on her borders. But we trust that 
 time may be far distant. Better in modest content to " bear the 
 ills we suffer tlian fly to those we know not of." 
 
 By your generous act, gentlemen, we have something that will 
 be abiding. Once we had the distinction of being the center of 
 business, of justice and of legal talent. But ambitious daughters, 
 on either hand, became desirous of this distinction and we 
 yielded to their demands by turning our jail into a peaceful 
 dwelling and our court house into a town hall, because we 
 believed that these ambitious daughters had more need of court 
 houses and jails than we. With the yielding up of these we lost 
 something of our prestige, but still retain the honor of our name. 
 You have to-day given us something that our ambitious neighbors 
 can not take from us — this granite monument. So in modest con- 
 tent we rest; with a name prominent on the page of history ; with 
 a manufactory of world-wide reputation and without a superior in 
 its special field ; and with a monument standing as a land mark 
 for the ages to come. In behalf of the citizens of Whitestown I 
 thank you for what you have done for us this day; and now after 
 an intellectual feast of history, of rhetoric and of poetry, I 
 invite you to a humbler but no less essential collation for the 
 refreshment of the physical man. Please follow to yon neighbor- 
 ing tent. 
 
THE COLLATIOK 
 
 The speakers of the day, members of the committee and the 
 invited guests, headed by President Dunham and Hon. Samuel 
 Campbell, with their wives, then marched in procession to ihe tents 
 where the collation was spread. 
 
 South of the park on the Whitcher lot the large tents were 
 spread, under v/hich the invited guests were to feast. Thirteen 
 long tables filled the space, at which plates were laid for seven 
 hundred guests. The tent poles were handsomely twined with 
 bunting, and their bases hidden in groups of house plants. Com- 
 fortable benches surrounded the tables. Baskets and vases of 
 flowers decorated the board. The good taste shown in their 
 selection and arrangement is due to the efforts of the floral com- 
 mittee, under the direction of Miss H. Gold Frost. Among the 
 profusion of lilies, pansies, white [and purple fleur de lis, many- 
 colored tulips, and roses, was a basket crowned Avith a superb 
 white lily, having the date, 1884, in black on a center of white 
 pyrethrum, sent by Mrs. Merritt, from Rome. There were also a 
 pretty basket of flowers from Mrs. A. R. MacKenzie, a vase of white 
 callas, bunches of single and double peonies, and baskets of wild 
 floAvers, in which the white mandrake blossom w^as prominent. 
 Mr. Benedict, of Yorkville, and Mr. Tunbridge, of Whitesboro, 
 robbed their green-houses recklessly to make the tables bloom. 
 
 The collation comprised the usual menu of cofiee and sand- 
 wiches with the addition of delicious pies and cakes, biscuit, 
 pickles, coffee, fruits and cream. Rarely is a public collation so 
 elaborately prepared and so attentively served. Fifty maidens in 
 pink and white, assisted by some of the Whitestown lads and 
 marshaled by Mrs. White, attended to the wants of the guests. By 
 each plate was a favor of pansies and forget me-nots, enveloped 
 in a Japanese napkin. Across the south end of the tent over a 
 line of bunting hung a green shield, on which was inscribed in 
 white flowers, " 1784— White— 1884." This was afterwards 
 presented to Hugh White. 
 
 The table committee, headed by Mrs. E. J. Mack, had provided 
 ample accommodations for the nine hundred guests who partook 
 of the collation. Among the ladies and gentlemen in the tent was 
 a liberal sprinkling of gray heads, most of whom were closely con- 
 
THE COLLATION. 57 
 
 nected by family ties with the events of one hundred years ago. 
 When the company were seated, President Dunham called upon 
 Rev. R. L, Bachman, of Utica, to ask a blessing upon the feast. 
 About an hour was then spent in doing justice to the collation. 
 
 The local committee of Whitestown promised to feed six hundred 
 people. It performed far more than it promised, and fed about nine 
 hundred people, including the bands and many of the older residents 
 of Whitestown and surrounding towns. The village made a record 
 for hospitality of v/hich it may well be proud. 
 
 AFTER DINNER REMARKS. 
 
 At 3 p. M., Rev. M. E, Dunham, president of the village and 
 toastmaster of the occasion, called the assemblage to order, and 
 asked John F. Seymour to act for him. 
 
 Mr. Seymour said Henry A. Foster, of Rome, and others could 
 not be present. He called on, as the first speaker, Judge 
 Wetmore, of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Judge Wetmoi-e said he was present because a descendant, a 
 great grandson of Hugh White, the pioneer. His ancestors had 
 left this locality and had gone to the wilderness of northern 
 Pennsylvania. It was a good thing for children to go back to the 
 hearthstones of their ancestors. It was a pleasure for him to look 
 into the faces of the descendants of the Whites and Wetmores 
 here. He complimented the people on their enterprise and thrift. 
 
 Rev. Thomas R. Gold Peck, of Waterville, v/as next called on. 
 He said a little egotism on an occasion like this was pardonable. 
 "It was in this dear old village of Whitesboro I first saw the 
 light of the world, and was baptized by Rev. John Frost. Here 
 I first attended school, and here I would come year after year 
 when a resident of New York, to renew the wasted energies of 
 city life." Mr. Peck spoke in a very pleasing manner of the old 
 associations of the village. His grandfather, Thomas R. Gold, 
 came here from Connecticut and established a law school. He sat 
 in Congress and afterwards became government agent for the 
 Indians. Rev. John Frost came here and married the eldest 
 daughter of Thomas R. Gold, and the only direct descendant is 
 Miss H. Gold Frost, who graces this occasion with her presence. 
 
58 
 
 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 A large number of letters of regret had been received in response 
 to invitations, sent to those having associations with this locality, 
 but as there was not time then to read them all, or space now to 
 print them, and as selections might be invidious, they are omitted. 
 The following is a list of persons from whom regrets were received 
 and their residences, the State being given, except New York: 
 
 H. G. Abbott, Utica. 
 
 C D. Adams, Utica.- 
 
 Miss E. J. Alexander,WasMngton, D. C. 
 
 Mrs. Rosamond Barbour, Saratoga Spa. 
 
 Charles W. Barnes, Buffalo. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Willis J. Beecher, Auburn. 
 
 Hon. H. R. Bigelow, St. Paul, Minn. 
 
 J. L. Bissell, Waterville. 
 
 Cbarles A. Butler, Utica. 
 
 Dr. A. N. Brockway, New York city. 
 
 Lewis A, Brigliam, New York city. 
 
 W. B. Camp, Sacketts Harbor. 
 
 Hon. Horace Cai^ron.WasMngton, D. C. 
 
 Hon. John D. Caton, Ottawa, 111. 
 
 T. D. Catlin, Ottawa, 111. 
 
 Hovey K. Clarke, Detroit, Mich. 
 
 His Exc. Grover Cleveland, Albany. 
 
 Ezra Chapman, Oneida. 
 
 Mrs. Clifton, Washington, D. C. 
 
 John Constable, New York city. 
 
 Rt. Rev. A. C. Coxe, Buffalo. 
 
 Hon. Alfred C. Coxe, Utica. 
 
 John J. Crouse, Syracuse, 
 
 Mrs. John Crouse, Syracuse, 
 
 H. W. Dawley, Guelph, Canada. 
 
 Rev. James Deane, Crown Point. 
 
 George Doolittle, Washington, D. C. 
 
 L. M. Drury, Canandaigua. 
 
 Hon. C. E. Flandrau, St. Paul, Minn. 
 
 William Floyd, Westernville. 
 
 Joseph Foreman, Lima. 
 
 John E. Frost, Topeka, Kan. 
 
 Hon. H, A. Foster, Rome. 
 
 John P. Garrett, South Trenton. 
 
 E. A. Graham, Utica. 
 
 Hon. S. Hastings Grant, New York city. 
 
 T. F. Hand, Oneida. 
 
 T, P. Handy, Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Dr. P. M. Hastings, Hartford. Conn. 
 
 Dr. J. W. Hitchcock, Mt. Vernon, 111. 
 
 Wm. F. Hovey, Chicago, 111. 
 
 John C. Hoyt, Utica. 
 
 Robt. J. Hubbard, Cazenovia. 
 
 Rev. T. B. Hudson, Clinton. 
 
 Thos. G. Hull, Brookland, Pa. 
 
 Mrs. K. W. Hutchinson, Albion. 
 
 E. R. Johnes, New York city. 
 
 D. M. K. Johnson, Rome. 
 
 J. F. Kirkland, Washington, D. C, 
 
 H. F. Locke, Waterville. 
 
 Jas. H. Loomis, Attica. 
 
 Rev. Dr. S. K. Lothrop, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Chas. J. Lowery, Brooklyn. 
 
 Rt. Rev. Theo. Lyman, Raleigh, N. C. 
 
 Prof. E. North, Ham . College, Clinton. 
 
 A. D. Neal, Paris. 
 
 Chas. A. Olmstead, Lockport. 
 
 Frank W. Owen, Boonville. 
 
 Dr. J. E. Peck, St, Augustine, Fla. 
 
 H. D. Peck, Staunton, Va. 
 
 Merritt Peckham, Utica. 
 
 Mrs. H. M. Peckham, Toledo, Ohio. 
 
 Hon. F. D. Pennimau, Honesdale, Pa. 
 
 Rev. G. F. Plummer, Portland, Oregon. 
 
 Hon. W. C. Pierrepont, Pierrepont 
 
 Manor. 
 Dr, W. A. Pierrepont, Brooklyn. 
 Mrs. Susan Porter, Cohoes. 
 Dr. H, C. Potter, East Saginaw, Mich. 
 Geo. Putnam, Waterville. 
 Hon. Chas. Rhodes, Oswego. 
 C. H. Roosevelt, New Rochelle. 
 Hon. John Sayles, Brenham, Tex, 
 Norman Seymour, Mt. Morris. 
 Com. M. Sicard, Washing-ton, D. C, 
 Geo. J. Sicard, Buffalo. 
 Aaron Stafford, Waterville, 
 S. H. Stafford, Oneida. 
 Wm. K. Tibbits, Galesburg. Ill, 
 Charlemagne Tower, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
THE COLLATIOlSr, &V 
 
 John C.Van Rensselaer, Rensselaer, Ind. Jas. H. White, Port Huron, Mich. 
 
 H, C. Van Schaack, Manlius. Edgar White, Port Huron, Mich. 
 
 Cornelius Van Sautvoord, New York Philo White, San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 city. Robt. S. Wliite, San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 B. S. Walcott, New York city. Canvass White, Perth Amboy, N. J. 
 
 S. E. Warner, New York city. Mrs. Hugh White, Cohoes. 
 
 H. P. Wilhird, Boonville. Hon. Peter White, Marquette, Mich. 
 
 James C. Wetmore, Elizabeth, N. J. E. B. Wood, San Jose, Cal. 
 
 Rev. W. W. Wetmore, Plymouth, Rev. Albert S. Wood, Rensselaer 
 
 Mich. Falls. 
 
 L. G. Wetmore, Ontario, 111. Wm. C. Young, New York city. 
 
 Mrs. Myra A. Wheeler, Kent, Conn. Wm. S. Young, Buffalo. 
 
 Louis Wilhelnii, Ft. Grant, Arizona. W. Edward Young, Buffalo. 
 
 Erskine N. White, New York city. Mr. and Mrs. Caryl Young, Chicago, 
 Alexander M. White, Brooklyn. 111. 
 
 Dr. Bagf? read an old poem entitled " The Whitestown Rove," 
 furnished by Mrs. D. B. Peck, of Marshall, with the following 
 explanation : 
 
 '* Reading about the Whitestown celebration I am led to send yoa 
 an old time song which has been recited to me, from memory, by 
 Mrs. Almira Barton, of Waterville, aged 81, widow of the late 
 David Barton, one of the earliest settlers of this town, and sister of 
 Mr. George B. Peck, of Marshall. Mrs. Barton says she memorized 
 the words when a child, over 70 years ago, from hearing her blind 
 aunt, Miss Roxanna Peck, sing them. It was called the ' Whites- 
 town Rove,' and was composed in 1780, by those who, during the 
 Revolutionary war, had been impressed with the fertility and beauty 
 of the upper Mohawk region, as an invitation or exhortation to 
 settlers to make their home in White's Town. Mrs. Barton is not 
 aware that the lines were ever printed, and thinks the last line of 
 each stanza was spoken. As a product of memory, and as a 
 description of the physical and animal Whitestown of a hundred 
 years ago, rather than as poetry, the song is as interesting as 
 quaint." 
 
 "The Whitkstown Rove," 1780. 
 
 " Come all ye laboring hands 
 
 That toil below 
 Among the rocks and sands. 
 
 To plow and sow. 
 Come, and quit your hired lands 
 
 Let out by cruel hands; 
 You'll make large amends — 
 
 (If you'll to Whitestown go.) 
 
60 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENNIAL. 
 
 " There's maay a pleasant farm 
 
 Lies on tliat vale; 
 Where you can settle down, 
 
 You need not fail — 
 You'll make a large estate — 
 
 (So don't come too late.) 
 
 " Our cows they give us milk. 
 
 By nature fed; 
 Our fields afford us wheat 
 
 And corn for bread. 
 Oh! the sugar trees do s'and 
 
 And sweeten all the land, 
 We have them at' our hand — 
 
 (So do not fear.) 
 
 " The pigeon, goose and duck. 
 
 To fill our beds; 
 The beaver, coon and fox. 
 
 To crown our heads. 
 Oh! the harmless moose and deer 
 
 Make food and clothes to wear; 
 (Nature could do no more for any land.) 
 
 " There stand the lofty pines — 
 
 They make a show! 
 As straight as any lines 
 
 Their bodies grow, 
 And their lofty limbs do rear 
 
 Up to the atmosphere 
 Where winged tribes repair; * 
 
 (And most sweetly sing.) 
 
 William Kirkpatrick of Syracuse, grandson of William Kirk- 
 patrick, who came to Whitestown eleven years after Hugh White, 
 was next called on. He said the Ononclagas sent greeting to the 
 Oneidas. They still kept the fires burning brightly at their 
 councils. In a few years the Onondagas would celebrate their 
 centennial, and the Oneidas would then find the old long house 
 open at both ends. His ancestor had lived here eleven years, and had 
 represented this district in Congress. The speaker gave an inter- 
 esting sketch of his ancestor, which was closely listened to. 
 
 Mr. Seymour spoke of Captain Avery, who formerly lived in 
 Whitestown, and whose daughter, Mrs. Hannah Avery Clark, 
 lives at Utica with her son, George A. Clark. Captain Avery was 
 a clergyman, who raised a company to fight in the Revolution. 
 
THE COLLATION. 61 
 
 Horace P. Bigelow of Waterville, spoke pleasantly of the great 
 progress made by the country during the past one hundred years. 
 
 Professor A. G. Hopkhis of Hamilton College, was next called 
 on and spoke of the value of preserving the history of towns. The 
 history of Kirkland had been well written, and it was appropriate 
 that the history of Whitestown should also be. 
 
 Hon. David Gray of Marcy, was called on and said he was no 
 more prepared to make a speech than he was to make a balloon 
 ascension. He had known the people of Whitestown for sixty-five 
 years, and had great respect for them. In the old days it was a 
 custom for any one called on at a dinner, to make a speech, tell a 
 Btory, or sing a song. He would conform to the custom by telling 
 a story. This he did in most interesting style. 
 
 Hon. Samuel Earl of Herkimer, spoke interestingly of the 
 relations of Herkimer and Oneida counties. The first county 
 clerk of Herkimer county lived in Whitestown', which was the 
 county seat. Although Herkimer was sixty years older than 
 Whitestown, Whitestov»^n within six or seven years took the lead 
 in i3ublic spirit and enterprise. He read extracts from the diary 
 of a lawyer who visited Whitestown in 1792, which showed that at 
 that time Whitestown was quite gay. 
 
 Rev. Dr. D. G. Corey said he never heard so many good things 
 Baid about a people as he had heard about the Whitestown people 
 to-day. If they were not proud, it was because they possessed 
 an extra amount of humility. Soon after the settlement of the 
 town, a young lady came here from Connecticut. After remain- 
 ing for a time she returned to Connecticut and gave most glowing 
 accounts of the new western country. The only objeclion which 
 she had to the place was that the people were all democrats. The 
 chairman (Mr. Seymour) labored under the same difficulty. 
 
 He moved a vote of thanks to the ladies whose ministrations had 
 been so faithful and v/ho had done so much to make the visitors 
 happy to-day. 
 
 The motion was unanimously cirried. 
 
 Professor A. J. Upson spoke of the old elms of the village. He 
 said his step-father was James Dean, who told him that when he 
 was fourteen years old, just eighty years ago, he saw the elms 
 planted in front of the residence of J. C. Smith, formerly the Judge 
 Piatt and S. Newton Dexter house. 
 
62 THE WHITESTOWN CENTENISTIAL. 
 
 Mr. Seymour read a poem entitled " Twenty Years Ago,'' written 
 by Thomas Gold, Jr., son of Thomas R. Gold. 
 
 Twenty Years Ago. 
 
 I've wandered by the village, Tom, I've sat beneath the tree 
 Upon the school-house playing ground, that sheltered you and me; 
 But none were there to greet me, Tom, and few were left to know 
 Who played with us upon the green, some twenty years ago. 
 
 The grass is just as green, dear Tom, barefooted boys at play, 
 Were sporting just as we did then, with spirits just as gay, 
 The " master " sleeps upon the hill, which, coated o'er with snow. 
 Afforded us a sliding place, some twenty years ago. 
 
 The old school -house is altered some; the benches are replaced 
 By new ones, very like the same our pen-knives had defaced. 
 But the same old bricks are in the wall, the bell swings to and fro. 
 Its music's just the same, dear Tom, as twenty years ago. 
 
 The boys were playing some old game, beneath the same old tree; 
 I do forget the name just now — you've played it oft witli me 
 On that same spot; 'twas played with knives by throwing so and so. 
 The loser had a task to do then — twenty years ago. 
 
 The river's running just as still, the willows by its side 
 Are larger than they were, dear Tom, the stream appears less wide. 
 But the grape vine swing is ruined now, where once we played the beau 
 And swung our sweethearts — " pretty girls " — full twenty years ago. 
 
 The spring that bubbled 'neath the hiil, close by the spreading beech. 
 Is very low — 't was once so high, that we could almost reach. 
 And, kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom, I started so. 
 To see how much that I am changed since twenty years ago. 
 
 Near by the spring upon an elm, you know I cut your name, 
 Your sweetheart's just below it, Tom, and you did mine the same. 
 Some heartless wretch had peeled the bark, 'twas dying sure but slow. 
 Just as that cne whose name you cut died twenty years ago. 
 
 My. lids have long been dry, dear Tom, but tears came to my eyes, 
 I thought of her I loved so well — those early broken ties, 
 I visited the old churchyard and took some flowers to strew 
 Upon the graves of those we loved some twenty years ago. 
 
 Some now are in the churchyard laid — some sleep beneath the sea, 
 But few are left of our old class excepting you and me; 
 And when our time has come, dear Tom, and we are called to go, 
 I hope they '11 lay us where we played some twenty years ago. 
 
THE COLLATION. 63 
 
 Rev. E. H. Payson of Oneida, said it was his privilege to be the 
 pastor of the first Presbyterian churc]i of Whitestown, which was 
 not then Whitesboro. He was acquainted with all the pastors of 
 the town from the time of John Frost to the present day. He 
 wished to say .a word for Jud<i;e Jedediah Sanger, one of the most 
 prominent and best men of New Hartford, then Whitestown, who 
 held court in a barn. 
 
 Mr. Seymour. Didn't they pass whisky around after court 
 adjourned ? 
 
 Rev. Mr. Payson. Undoubtedly they did, especially if Mr. 
 Sanger was a democrat. [Laughter.] 
 
 Amos O. Osborn of Waterville, said his town (Sangerfield) was 
 named after Judge Sanger, and in recognition of the honor, Judge 
 Sanger gave the people a barrel of whisky or rather a cask of rum. 
 Benjamin White first settled the town of Sangerfield, but he was 
 not a relative of the Whites of Whitestown. 
 
 Hon. S. S. Lowery spoke briefly and pleasantly. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Conkling of Rochester, followed with a few remarks. 
 
 Hon. William J. Bacon spoke pleasantly of Whitestown. He 
 remembered it when he was but eight years old, as a very pretty 
 little village. He remembei-ed its old court house, where the law- 
 yers of the county engaged in legal struggles, and at the end of 
 the day's work gathered around the large open fire place of the 
 tavern and told stories. He tried his fii'st casein that court house, 
 and gave a very interesting account of it. 
 
 William W. Niles of New York, offered the following resolu- 
 tions, which were unanimously adopted : 
 
 Resolved^ That the thanks of the children of Oneida, in centen- 
 nial celebration assembled, be extended to Hon. Charles Tracy, for 
 his delightful, exhaustive and eloquent address ; and that a copy 
 be requested for publication and preservation. 
 
 Resolved^ That we have listened with great interest to the dedi- 
 catory address, by Rev. Anson J. Upson, D. D, That it has 
 renewed in us our reverence for our ancestors, and our love for our 
 "kith and kin," and awakens us to a fuller realization of our duties, 
 our responsibilities, our influence and our position. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy be requested for publication. 
 
64 THE WHITESTOWJSr CENTENl^IAL. 
 
 Resolved, That the aesthetic, liistoric and poetic verses by Benja- 
 min F. Taylor have added largely to the pleasure and completeness 
 of this occasion, and that a copy be requested for publication. 
 
 William M. White offered the following, which were also adopted 
 unanimously. 
 
 Mesolved, That the thanks of this meeting be given to our chair- 
 man, Hon. Samuel Campbell, for the active, energetic and earnest 
 interest he has manifested in making the centennial of Whitestown 
 a success, and securing this monument as a memorial of the settle- 
 ment of the town. 
 
 Resolved, That our thanks are also due to Dr. M. M. Bagg for 
 his pei'sonal zeal and devotion in the arrangements for our cele- 
 bration, and in summoning the children of Oneida county to 
 commemorate their ancestors and their origin. And also to 
 Thomas Foster for his efficient and successful labors as chairman of 
 the finance committee. And last, but not least. 
 
 Resolved, That we cordially thank the people of Whitestown 
 and their representatives, and especially the ladies of Whitesboro, 
 for the cordial, hearty, substantial. welcome given us, their guests, 
 on this reunion of old friends and renewal of old memories. 
 
 The afternoon's exercises closed at 4,30 p. m., all present having 
 enjoyed themselves heartily. 
 
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