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 STAN DISH MONUMENT 
 
 EXEKCI8ES AT THE CONSEORATiON, 
 
 DUXBURY, AXJG-UST 17, 1871 
 
STANDISH HOUSE. 
 
 Built 166(i. (Still Standing.) 
 
MYLES STANDISH, 
 
 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE 
 
 EXERCISES OF CONSECRATION 
 
 MONUMENT GROUND ON CAPTAIN'S HILL, 
 
 DUXBUKY, AUG. 17, 1871. 
 
 PREPARED BY STEPHEN M. ALLEN, 
 Corresponding Secretary of the Standish Memorial Association. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 
 
 1871. 
 
r£8 
 Sg 
 
CAPTAIN MTLES STANDISH. 
 
 The character of the Pilgrims of New England probably 
 stands out with more force and is as marked and distinctive as 
 that of the pioneer settlers or conquerors of any country of 
 which we read, while the result of their influence upon the na- 
 tionality they created has been much wider spread, more various 
 and beautiful, and giving life to a more liberal national and re- 
 ligious sentiment than that ever before engrafted in the hearts of 
 any people. The Norman conquest, from which so much has 
 been claimed for humanity, though so cruel and devastating in 
 its first effects, and which for eight hundred years has exerted 
 such an in3uence in the Old World, was conceived in sin, sel- 
 fishness, and an unholy ambition, and was established with a 
 vengeance diabolic and almost unheard of in the history of 
 nations. The landing of the Pilgrims, and the settlement of 
 Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, on the contrary, gave birth to 
 national ideas which were the off'spring of a pure and supremo 
 love of Deity, a free and untrammelled worship, and a govern- 
 ment of universal liberty, based upon Christian principle, pre- 
 ceding, in all cases, the cravings for worldly gain or ambitious 
 personal preferment. Tiie sterling worth of a people in humble 
 lite, that would forsake home, friends, and country, cross the 
 trackless ocean, and settle upon a frozen, barren shore, with 
 privations and sufferings before them which they were certain to 
 meet, shows the possession of a moral strength and force, that, 
 perpetuated in their descendants, gives the New England people 
 an ancestry of which they may justly be proud. Sucli were the 
 founders of Plymouth in 1620, among whom there was one, a 
 
representative man, worthy in every respect to become a leader, 
 who, without pretensions to special piety, worshipped acceptably 
 at their shrine, guided their settlements, laid out their grounds, 
 drew plans for their mills, collected and disbursed their money, 
 sat for years at their council board, commanded their military 
 forces, subdued their savage and bloodthirsty enemies, all 
 without ever losing the confidence of the colony, or being doubted 
 either as a Christian, citizen, soldier, or financier, and who died 
 after long years of service, beloved and lamented to a degree 
 seldom found in the conflicting associations of life. 
 
 Captain Myles Standish was born at Lancashire, England, 
 probably in 1584. He descended from a long and illustrious 
 line of ancestors of that name. Descending from Thurston de 
 Standish and Ralph Standish, his family was divided and desig- 
 nated as the Standishes of Standish, and the Standishes of 
 Duxbury Hall. They separated, — "Jordan" becoming the 
 proprietor of Standish, and " Hugh " of Duxbury, one upholding 
 the Catholic, the other the Protestant religion. The baronetcy 
 of Standish, erected in 1676, became extinct in 1812. The 
 family seats are situated near the village of Chorley, in Lan- 
 cashire, and the property is large, the income being some five 
 hundred thousand dollars per annum. The records of the par- 
 ish from 1549 to 1652 were thoroughly searched a few years 
 since by Mr. Bromley, the agent sent out by the heirs of Stan- 
 dish in this country, the result proving to his mind that Myles 
 Standish was the true and rightful heir to the estates which 
 were surreptitiously detained from him. Justin Winsor, in his 
 History of Duxbury, says: "The records were all readily deci- 
 phered, with the exception of the years 1584 and 1585, the very 
 dates, about which time Standish is suppesod to have been born ; 
 and the parchment leal, which contained the registers of the 
 births of these years was wholly illegible, and their appearance 
 was such, that the conclusion was at once established, th.it it 
 had been done purposely with pumice-stone, or otherwise, to 
 
destroy the leo:aI evidence of the parentage of Standish, and his 
 consequent title to the estates thereabout. The mutilation of 
 these pages is supposed to have been accomplished, when, about 
 twenty years before, similar inquiries were made by the family 
 in America. The rector of the parish, when afterwards re- 
 quested by the investigator to certify that the pages were gone, 
 at once suspected his design of discovering the title to the prop- 
 erty, and taking advantage of the rigor of the law (as he had 
 entered as an antiquarian researcher merely), compelled him to 
 pay the sum of about ,£15 or suffer imprisonment." 
 
 Miles was educated to the military profession, and early re- 
 ceived a commission as lieutenant in Queen Elizabeth's forces 
 on the Continent, in aid of the Dutch. He repaired to the Neth- 
 erlands, the seat of war, where he remained a short time after 
 peace was declared, but soon joined the English refugees of 
 Leyden. He joined the first company of Pilgrims for America, 
 and on their arrival on the coast was sent out in the command 
 of the shallop with sixteen men, to make discoveries along the 
 shore. After spending nearly a month in various expeditions, 
 surveying the diflerent bays and channels, he reported in favor 
 of the harbor of Plymouth as a settling point, where the final 
 landing was made. He was soon elected to the chief military 
 command, a position he retained till his death, thirty-six years 
 afterwards. There is, perhaps, no parallel of his military expe- 
 rience in the early settlement of the country. 
 
 "Standish affords us not only an instance of the nerve of the 
 Pilgrims, but a type of their hearts." His courage was indis- 
 putable. In his various expeditions against the Indians he 
 wanted but few men, and the choice of these he claimed for 
 himself. He was always a leader in every hazardous undertak- 
 ing, and the people, confiding in his bravery and prudence, were 
 ever ready to place themselves under his command, and in the 
 most trying conflicts they felt themselves secure. His actions 
 show a forbearance rarely met with in one of his profession ; 
 
6 
 
 while in the time of decisive action, his courage and persever- 
 ance were equal to the boldest resolutions. 
 
 Winsor says: "In 1G23 Standish was sent by the Governor, 
 with orders to break up a plot of the Indians, which, it was 
 learned, had been formed to destroy the settlement and massacre 
 the inhabitants of the English colony at Wessagusset, now Wey- 
 mouth. On this expedition, the most celebrated one of his life, 
 and which is possibly a fair criterion of his character, he chose 
 but eight men, refusing any more. On arriving at the settle- 
 ment ho found the people scattered, wholly unconscious of their 
 impending danger. Having quickly assembled them, he informed 
 them of their situation, not, however, without exciting the suspi- 
 cions of the Indians. Soon after, an Indian bringing the Captain 
 some furs, he treated him ' smoothly ' ; yet the Indian reported 
 that he saw by the Captain's eye that he was angry in his heart. 
 And at another time, Pecksuot, an Indian warrior of reputed 
 courage, said to Hobomok, Standish's guide and interpreter, 
 and an inmate of his household, that he understood that the 
 Captain had come to kill him and the rest of the Indians there ; 
 but tell him, said he, we know it but fear him not — neither will 
 we shun him, let him begin when he dares; he shall not take us 
 unawares. And again, a little after, in the presence of Standish, 
 whetting his knife before his face, and boasting of its quality, he 
 said to him, 'Though you are a great Captain, yet you are 
 but a little man ; and though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of 
 great strength and courage.' On the following day Pecksuot, 
 Wittowamat, and his brother a youth of eighteen, and another 
 Indian, with Standish and about the same number of his own 
 men, being in a room together, the signal was given by the 
 Captain, and the door instantly closed and fastened. Then 
 seizing Pecksuot, he snatched his knife from his belt, and his 
 men fell upon the others. A short struggle ensued, which ended 
 in the death of Pecksuot by Standish, and that of the other In- 
 ians, save the youth, whom they afterwards hung. Hobomok, 
 
who stood by a silent spectator of all that passed, then smilingly 
 exclaimed, ' Yesterday Pecksuot bragged of his own strength 
 and stature, and told you that though you were a great Captain, 
 yet you were a little man ; but to-day I see you are big enough 
 to lay him on the ground.' 
 
 " Consider the situation of Standish. Upon his decisive action 
 at this moment we cannot but feel that depended much, — not 
 merely the preservation of the company to whose succor he had 
 come, but the existence, perhaps, of the whole colony. Had 
 they been successful in their designs here, elated by their 
 recent victory, they would have made the settlement of Ply- 
 mouth the next object for their depredations, and the lives of 
 the whole colony would have fallen victims to their cruel bar- 
 barity. His was not distant from the foresight of the captain. 
 He struck a mighty blow, and, by determined action in a time 
 of doubt, dispelled the fears of his followers and sent terror 
 upon the enemy. This action needs no apology. He acted 
 but the part of a brave defender of his country, who feels that 
 upon his own vigorous exertions the defence of the people de- 
 pends. And, says his biographer, men of his profession will 
 admire his courage, his promptitude and decision in the execu- 
 tion ol his orders." 
 
 No one has ever charged Standish either with failures in 
 point of obedience, or of wantonly exceeding the limits of his 
 commission. He is called by Prince one of those heroes of 
 antiquity, "who chose to suffer affliction with the people of 
 God; who, through faith, subdued kingdoms; wrought right- 
 eousness; obtained promises; stopped the mouths of lions; 
 waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the 
 aliens." 
 
 Near the close of his life, he was made commander of the 
 expedition against the Dutch, and, although far advanced in 
 years, he was still considered the best person upon whom the 
 command could devolve. In his commission and instruction, he 
 
8 
 
 is spoken of as one " of whose approved fidelitie and abilitie 
 we have had long experience." 
 
 Standish's services to the colony were of hardly less import- 
 ance in their civil than in their military affairs. He held the 
 office of an assistant and deputy during the whole of his life, 
 was treasurer of the colony from 1644: to 1649, and once he 
 was sent to England, as their agent. Scarcely an appraisement 
 was made, where the colony were interested, but Stan dish was 
 on the commission, unless otherwise occupied. About the year 
 1630, he settled in Duxbury, on a tract of land granted to him 
 by the colony, and which has since been known as tiie Standish 
 farm. Upon this farm the celebrated Captain's Hill is situated. 
 Tradition fixes his house on the southeastern part of the penin- 
 sula, where there still remain the walls of two cellars, singu- 
 larly joined at one end. It is supposed that the cellar of one 
 part was constructed to accommodate a storehouse, built after 
 his death, in 1656, by his son Alexander, which was supposed 
 to have been burned some time during the next nine years, or 
 previous to 1665. The present Standish house was erected by 
 Alexander Standish, partly from old timbers taken from the 
 remains of his father's house. This fact is fully verified by the 
 appearance of the beams in the present building, which show 
 not only the marks of former use, but bear traces upon them of 
 the use of a whip-saw, an implement which antedated the 
 establishment of saw-mills. It is also supposed that the hearth- 
 stone, as indicated in our engraving, belonged to the former 
 house, as well as the doors and latchings, of which we also give 
 a representation. There is nothing left to give the true size or 
 shape of the original house, though the timbers that were trans- 
 ferred to the new one were mostly of oak, and were very 
 strong. They are still quite sound, and show the old mortises 
 and tenons used for the first house, in many places. The barn, 
 so far as is known, was on the south slope of Captain's Hill, 
 not far from the large rock, now sometimes called the " Cap- 
 
9 
 
 tain's Chair." The homestead estate, contaiaing about one 
 hundred and fifty acres, was left, by will, to his son Alexander, 
 who lived on it till his death, in 1702. 
 
 Alexander devised the homestead to his son Myles, who re- 
 sided on it till his death in 1739. The latter left a numerous 
 family. He also had a son Myles, who inherited the property, 
 but who removed to Bridge water, and died in 1784. The 
 mother of the last named, and one sister, remained at the old 
 home, and were probably the last of the family who resided 
 there. The estate was sold by Myles, July 3, 1763, to Samuel 
 and Sylvanus Drew, who disposed of the property to Wait 
 Wadsworth, and from his hands it passed to George Faunce, 
 and descended to his children ; then a part was purchased of his 
 grandson, George Faunce, and a part of Luther Pierce, by the 
 present proprietor. The descendants of Captain Standish are 
 very numerous, and are scattered through the whole country. 
 Some remain in New England. Moses Standish, Lemuel Myles 
 Standish, and one or two brothers reside in Boston, and William 
 and Benjamin Standish, and perhaps some others, still reside in 
 Duxbury and Plymouth County. 
 
 The Standish tract contains some of the finest land in the 
 county of Plymouth, a part of which, on the east side, was tlie 
 Elder Brewster place. Of Captain's Hill the historian of Dux- 
 bury says : " This hill formed a part of an early grant to Captain 
 Standish, who settled near its base, and whose name it still 
 bears. It is situated on a peninsula, which extends in a south- 
 easterly direction, between the bays of Duxbury and Plymouth, 
 and contains about two or three hundred acres of good soil, 
 little inferior to any in the country in fertility." 
 
 "■ While in other portions of the town the soil is sandy and 
 unproductive, and a considerable part in no state of cultivation, 
 this peninsula is furnished with a deep and fertile soil. The 
 same may be said of the highland on the Gurnet, Saquish, and 
 many other similar spots around the bay, where the soil is in 
 
10 
 
 immediate proximity to the sea. Clark's Island in some parts 
 possesses a mould, which, if equalled, is scarcely surpassed in the 
 country; and while the northern and western sides offer the 
 most desirable qualities for pasturage and grain, its southern 
 and eastern declivities present a perfect garden, abounding 
 with trees, through whose foliage, even during the summer's hot- 
 test months, stir the breezes from the sea. The summit of the hill 
 is about four hundred yards from the sea, and about one hundred 
 and eighty feet above its level, and when once attained, presents 
 a view to him who communes with nature, and who has pon- 
 dered over the history of the early Pilgrims, is acquainted with 
 their character, and has conceived the purpose of their exile, — to 
 him it presents a spectacle which has in times past, and which, I 
 conceive, must ever cause an impression on his mind, not easily 
 lorgotten, and scarcely to be eradicated. Full as it is of the most 
 pleasing associations, it calls up in the mind of the beholder those 
 reminiscences which gladden his heart and arouhe his soul into 
 being, and clothe him with all the nobler feelings of mankind, 
 dormant as they may lie within the deep recesses of his heart. 
 Nor is the loveliness of the scene itself any the less an efficient 
 agent of holy influences ; both cause one to tremble, irresistibly, 
 and to offer praise to his Maker. The circumstances, to be 
 sure, add to the attractions of the spot; but its beauty, its sim- 
 plicity of grandeur, its busy scenes, and its still, silent loneliness 
 give to it a power whose effects need not be mentioned. Select, 
 should you visit it, the closing hours of a summer's day, when 
 the burning heat of the declining sun is dispelled by the cooler 
 shades of approaching evening, and ascend to its height. Now 
 as the retiring rays of day form on the heavens above a gorgeous 
 canopy of variegated hues, so on nature's face below all bright- 
 ens into richness, and the verdure of her covering softens into 
 mildness; the shining villages around, and the village spires 
 towering against a background of unfading green, add gladness 
 to the scene. The glassy surface of the bay within, with its 
 
11 
 
 gentle ripplings on the shore beneath, the music of the dashing 
 waves on the beach without, give quiet to the mind and peace 
 witliin. Before you, in the distance at the east, appear the 
 white sand-hills of Cape Cod, shining beyond the blue expanse, 
 and seeming to encircle by its protecting barrier a spot dear to 
 t,he heart of every descendant of that Pilgrim band. Still 
 nearer, at your feet and before you, are the pleasant bays of 
 Plymouth, Kingston, and Duxbury, enlivened by passing boats, 
 and sheltered by the beach from a raging ocean, crowned at its 
 southern extremity by a light-iiouse, and with the extending 
 arm of Saquish enclosing the Island of the Pilgrims ; turning 
 your eyes to the south, they fall in succession on the promontory 
 of Manomet; on the ancient town of Plymouth, rising beneath, 
 and as if under the protection of the mound beyond, the resting- 
 place of the Pilgrim's dead, on the villages of Rocky Nook and 
 of Kingston. Extending your eye over the extent of fores t to 
 the northwest, you see the Blue Hills of Milton, ascending far 
 above the surrounding country; while nearer, at the north, 
 are the villages of Duxbury and Marshfield,] scattered over 
 the fields, whose white cottages, shining in the sun, offer a 
 pleasing contrast to the scene. Below you and around you 
 once arose the bumble abode of the Pilgrims. Who can g aze 
 upon the spot which marks the site of the dwelling of Standish, 
 without feelings of emotion? who can but give thanks that that 
 spirit — ^ 
 
 'A spirit fit, to start into an empire 
 And look ttie world to law ' — 
 
 had been sent amongst them, to be their counsel in peace and 
 their protection in danger? Who can but admire its ready 
 adaptation to a sphere of action so totally different from the 
 school of his youth? Here also arose the dwellings of Brews- 
 ter, who having followed in his yoath the retinue of kings and 
 princes, preferred a solitary retreat in the western wilds, and 
 
12 
 
 there to worship his God in peace. Here, too, was the abode 
 of Collier, who, under every circumstance of danger, strove with 
 unceasing toil in the discharge of every duty necessary to the 
 welfare and prosperity of the colony. Here, too, can be seen 
 the spot whereon the habitation of Alden was, whose prudent 
 counsels and whose rigid justice attained for him a rank in the 
 estimation of the colony, alike an honor to himself, and a sub- 
 ject of pride to his descendants. Turn your vision as you may> 
 and you will feel that you are gazing on a scene of more than 
 ordinary interest, full of the most grateful recollections, and of 
 a nature the most agreeable and pleasing." 
 
 ** Scenes must be beautiful, whicli daily viewed 
 Please daily, and whose novelty survives 
 Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years, — 
 Praise justly due to those that I describe." 
 
 " Hose, the first wife of Myles Stan dish, died at Plymouth, Jan- 
 uary 29, 1621, about a month after the landing. She was among 
 the first to succumb to the privations of that terrible first winter. 
 He married a second wife (Barbara), who survived him. 
 
 " To his house on Captain's Hill, Standish removed after his 
 second marriage, and here he drew around him a devoted class 
 of friends, among whom were the elder Brewster, George Par- 
 tridge, John Alden, Mr. Howland, Francis Eaton, Peter Brown- 
 George Soule, Nicholas Byrom, Moses Simmons, and other set, 
 tiers ofiDuxbury. 
 
 *' The Indians also loved as well as feared him, and the faithful 
 Hobomok ever kept near to minister to his wants, and was the 
 faithful guide in his travels. This devoted Indian died in 1642, 
 having faithfully served his master twenty years, and is supposed 
 to have been buried on the south side of Captain's Hill, near 
 the great rock called ' The Captain's Chair.' Tradition fixes 
 his wigwam between two shell mounds on the shore near the 
 Standish place, till taken home to the house of Standish, where 
 he became an inmate till his death." 
 
13 
 
 THE WILL OF MYLES STANDISH. 
 
 In the Plyraoiith Colony Records, vol. ii., pages 37, 38, is 
 recorded the will of Standish, dated March 1, 1655. In this he 
 devises that if he " die at Duxburrow, my body to be laid as 
 near as conveniently may be to my two dear daughters, Lora 
 Standish my daughter, and Mary Standish my daughter-in-law." 
 After the payment of debts and funeral expenses he ordains that 
 " my dear and loving wife Barbara Standish shall have the third 
 part " of the estate. 
 
 4. I have given to my son Josiah Standish upon his marriage 
 one young horse, five sheep and two heifers, which I must upon 
 that contract of marriage make forty pounds, yet not knowing 
 whether the estate will bear it at present; my will is that the 
 residue remain in the whole state, and that every one of my four 
 sons, viz., Alexander Standish, Myles Standish, Jcrias Standish, 
 and Charles Standish, may have forty pounds api:ce; if not, 
 that they may have proportionable to the remaining part, be it 
 more or less. 
 
 5. My will is that my eldest son, Alexander, shall have a 
 double share in land. 
 
 6. My will is that so long as they live single that the whole 
 be in partnerships between them. 
 
 7. I do ordain and make my dearly beloved wife, Barbara 
 Standish, Alexander Standish, Myles Standish. and Jerias Stan- 
 dish, joint executors of this my last will and testament. 
 
 8. I do by this my will make and appoint my loving friends, 
 Mr. Timothy Hatherly and Captain James Cudworth, super- 
 visors of this my last will, and that they will be pleased to do 
 the office of Christian love, to be helpful to jny poor wife and 
 children by their Christian counsel and advice; and if any dif- 
 ference should arise, which I hope will not, my will is that my 
 said supervisors shall determine the same, and that they see 
 that my poor wife shall have as comfortable maintainance as my 
 poor state will bear, the whole time of her life, which if you my 
 
14 
 
 loving friends please to do, though neither they nor I shall be 
 able to recompense, I do not doubt but the Lord will. 
 
 By me, Myles Standish, further my will is, that Mary Robin- 
 son, whom I tenderly love for her grandfather's sake, shall have 
 three pounds in something to go forward for her two years after 
 my decease, which my will is my overseers shall see performed. 
 
 Further, my will is that my servant, John Irish, Jr., have forty 
 shillings more than his covenant, etc. 
 
 9. I give unto my son and heir apparent, Alexander Standish, 
 all my lands, as heir apparent by lawful descent, in Ormstick, 
 Borsconge, Wrightington, Maudsley, Newburrow, Crawston, and 
 in the Isle of Man, and given to me as right heir by lawful 
 descent, but surreptitiously detained from me, my great-grand- 
 father being a second or younger brother from the house of 
 Standish of Standish. 
 
 The above described will, as indorsement states, was pre- 
 sented for probate by Captain James Cud worth. May 4, 1657. 
 some time after the death of Captain Myles Standish. 
 
 Captain Standish is perhaps better known through Mr. 
 Longfellow's charming poem relating to his courtship of Pris- 
 cilla, than through the dry records of New England history, 
 The historians of the Plymouth Colony have failed to give us 
 the details of that remarkable wooing, leaving it to the poet to 
 embalm the romantic story in his beautiful verse. We copy 
 from the poem the following description of the doughty Cap- 
 tain : — 
 
KITCHEN OF THE STANDISH HOUSE. 
 
 
15 
 
 " In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims, 
 
 To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling, 
 
 Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather, 
 
 Strode, with a martial air, Myles Standish the Puritan Captain. 
 
 Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing 
 
 Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare. 
 
 Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber — 
 
 Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus, 
 
 Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence. 
 
 While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket and matchlock. 
 
 Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic. 
 
 Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron; 
 
 Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already 
 
 naked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November." 
 
 Captain Standish, in his old age, so far as can now be ascer- 
 tained, enjoyed good health till his last illness. His vigor, both 
 of mind and body, seemed as strong and fresh as in his early 
 dajs. He combined in a pre-eminent degree the practical use 
 of intuition and intellect; and when convinced of the wisdom of 
 a plan, however suddenly made, he executed it with great rapid- 
 ity. His temperament was sanguine and impulsive, but through 
 the whole course of his life, he seemed to exercise a wonderful 
 control over his passions. 
 
 He loved nature more than art, and entered with his whole 
 soul into the enjoyments of his home and farm at Captain's Hill. 
 His domestic and social life, and the great variety in the 
 associations around this spot, seemed to captivate and control 
 his very being. Here the careworn soldier found rest, — but 
 rest only through that usefulness which ever brings happiness. 
 Ever active and earnest, the full measure of his soul was drawn 
 out in the many opportunities before him to serve his fellow- 
 man, and the reward sank deep into a warm and tender heart, 
 full of appreciation and love. The impetuous dreams of early 
 life, the sense of wrong and injustice wliich drove him from the 
 fatherland were here soothed and put to rest, and perhaps for- 
 ever buried from thought in the consciousness of the emptiness 
 of title, the possession of wealth, and the glitter of courts and 
 palaces. 
 
16 
 
 STANDISH MEMORIAL. 
 
 The great interest taken by tlie public in the erection of some 
 suitable memorial to Captain Myles Standish, has properly 
 taken the subject from the hands of a few of his immediate 
 descendants, and placed it in charge of the American people at 
 large, the representatives of whom, as shown by the list of the 
 officers of the Association, are fully capable of taking care of 
 the subject in all its bearings. The military of the United 
 States very naturally claim a large share in perpetuating the 
 memory of the first commissioned military officer of the New 
 World, especially when the martial character of the man, after 
 more than two hundred and fifty years' test, still stands out 
 almost unparalleled in the history of the country. 
 
 It has often been said that the military powers of Standish, 
 together with his great executive ability, and incessant labor in 
 the various departments of the colony, saved it many times from 
 dissolution. Be that as it may, there is abundant evidence that 
 the colony always held him in high confidence and respect. 
 The last commission against the Dutch, so near his death, proves 
 that even in his old age their confidence was not diminished. 
 
 Members of the Grand Army of the Republic alone would 
 cheerfully erect a monument; but some of our first merchants 
 and citizens are too sensible of the great service of our soldiers 
 to allow them to be at this expense, and offer liberally in its 
 behalf. It is to be presumed that the sum of fifty thousand 
 dollars can be easil)' raised for such a purpose. President 
 Grant and many of his Generals have signified their hearty ap- 
 proval of the object, and citizens from almost every part of the 
 country offer their aid and support. 
 
17 
 
 The spot chosen for the monument is Captain's Hill, on the 
 old Standish Farm, at Duxbury, where Captain Standish lived 
 and died. This Farm was given him by the colony about 1630, 
 and remained in the family till the middle of the last century. 
 The hill is one hundred and eighty feet high, and overlooks 
 Plymouth and Duxbury Bays, and is now much used as a sight- 
 ing point to navigators in entering Massachusetts Bay. When 
 the shaft is up it will be most useful to the coast survey as well 
 as to navigators. 
 
 Thus, after two and a half centuries, this tribute is offered to 
 the memory of one who left the allurements of wealth, luxury, 
 and power, for the wilderness of New England, there to give a 
 life service in sowing seeds for the fruit we to-day enjoy. 
 
 STANDISH MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Article 1st. The object and purpose of this Association is 
 to cause to bo erected a suitable and proper Memorial Monu- 
 ment, Obelisk, or Tablet, to the memory of Captain Myles 
 Standish, on or near Captain's Hill, Duxbury, Massachusetts. 
 
 Art. 2d. — The Board of Directors of the Association, for 
 the time being, shall constitute the Board of Management, and 
 have full power to act and do all things necessary to secure the 
 object of the Association, appoint agents and assistants, and till 
 all vacancies in their board. 
 
 Art. 3d. — The property and funds of the Association may 
 be held by one or more trustees, or a treasurer, who, with the 
 officers of the Association, after the year eighteen hundred and 
 seventy-one, shall be chosen by the subscribers to the fund, 
 under such rules or by-laws as the directors or subscribers may 
 adopt at any regular meeting. 
 
 Art. 4th. — The officers of the Association shall be a Presi- 
 dent, one or more advisory or Vice Presidents, Trustees and 
 Directors, Secretaries and Treasurer, and such other officers or 
 3 
 
18 
 
 agents as may be appointed or chosen for the necessary pur- 
 poses of the Association ; and the Selectmen of Duxbury are to 
 appoint or approve the first officers of the Association. 
 
 Art. 5th. — The President, or any five Directors, may call a 
 meeting of the Directors when needed. The annual meeting for 
 the choice of officers and other business shall be held, after 
 notice, the first Tuesday of January in each year. All officers 
 iray hold over till new ones are elected in their place. 
 
 Art. 6th. — An Executive Committee of twelve shall be 
 chosen, who shall have special charge of the planning and build- 
 ing the Monument, under the control of the Board of Directors. 
 
 Art. 7th.— The foregoing Constitution, Rules, and Specifica- 
 tions may be altered and changed by the subscribers or directors 
 at any regular meeting of the officers of the Association. 
 
 Duxbury, December 21st, 1870, and the two hundred and 
 fiftieth anniversary of the landing of Myles Standish with the 
 Pilgrims, at Plymouth, on the '2 1st day of December, 1620. 
 
 Officers of the Association appointed and, approved by the Select- 
 men of Duxbury, July 4th, 1871. 
 
 President. — Gen. Horace Binney Sargent. 
 
 Advisory Presidents. — His Excellency Marshall Jewell, 
 Connecticut; His Excellency James A. Weston, New Hamp- 
 shire; Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Massachusetts; Rev, Dr. 
 George Putnam ; Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, Maine ; Hon. 
 Alexander H. Rice; Dr. George B. Loring; Hon. John H. Clif- 
 ford, Massachusetts ; Gen, A. E. Burnside, Rhode Island; Hon. 
 Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Boston; Hon. E S. Tobey, Boston; Hon. 
 Horatio Harris, Boston. 
 
 DiRECioRS. — Hon. Onslow Stearns, Concord, N. H. ; Hon. 
 Thomas Russell, Boston; Nathaniel Adams, Boston; Lemuel 
 Myles Standibh, Boston; Samuel Little, Boston; Samuel Loring, 
 
19 
 
 Duxbury; Nathan Matthews, Boston; Frederick 0. Adams, 
 Kingston; Francis Standish, Boston; William Whiting, Boston; 
 Nathan ^Morse, Boston; Isaac Keene, Duxbury; Jonathan S. 
 Ford, Duxbury; Rev, Josiah Moore, Duxbury; Dr. James Wilde, 
 Duxbury; James Ritchie, Boston ; S. M. Allen, Boston ; Edwin 
 Adams, Boston; Edwin 0. Bailey, Boston; Stephen N. Gifford, 
 Duxbury; Joseph S. Beal, Kingston; Alden S. Bradford, King- 
 ston; George B. Standish, Duxbury; Alden B. Weston, Dux- 
 bury; Elbridge Chandler, Duxbury; Hamilton E. Smith, Dux- 
 bury; Oliver Ditson, Boston; John G. Jackson, Boston; Dr. 
 Gushing Webber, Boston; Gen. B. F. Butler; Jonas Fitch, Bos- 
 ton; Jacob H. Loud, Plymouth; George Bradford, Duxbury; 
 John S. Loring, Duxbury; Harrison Loring, Boston; Joseph W. 
 Coburn, Boston; Alden Frink, Boston; W. S. Danforth, Ply- 
 mouth; George W. Wright, Duxbury; Dr. Calvin Pj-att, Dux- 
 bury; Parker C. Richardson, Duxbury; Job A. Turner, Boston; 
 Joshua M. Gushing, Duxbury. 
 
 Secretary. — Stephen N. Gifford, Duxbury. 
 
 Corresponding Secretary. — Stephen M. Allen, Boston. 
 
 Treasurer. — Jacob H. Loud, Plymouth and Boston. 
 
 Committees chosen at the meeting at Duxbury, Aug. IT, 1871. 
 
 Executive Committee. — Nathaniel Adams, of Boston ; Lem- 
 uel Myles Standish, Hon. E. S. Tobey, Samuel Little, Francis 
 Standish, James Ritchie, S. M. Allen, Edwin Adams, Jacob H. 
 Loud, Harrison Loring, Job H. Turner, Gen. H. B. Sargent. 
 
 Finance Committee. — Horatio Harris, Hon. Alexander H. 
 Rice, Hon. E. S. Tobey, Nathan Matthews, Oliver Ditson, Dr. 
 Geo. B. Loring, Samuel Little, Jacob H. Loud, Nathaniel 
 Adams, Jonathan S, Ford, George B. Standish, Gen. B, F. But- 
 ler, George W. Wright, Jonas Fitch, W. S. Danforth, Hon. 
 Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Rev. Dr. George Putnam, and Joseph 
 S. Beal. 
 
20 
 
 EXERCISES OF CONSECRATION ON CAPTAIN'S HILL 
 DUXBURY, AUGUST 17, 1871. 
 
 The first train on the new Duxbury and Cohasset Railroad 
 arrived at the Duxbury station at seven o'clock the evening pre- 
 vious, with freight and passengers, and bringing a section of 
 two guns and twenty men of the First Battery, under command 
 of Capt. E. C. Langley and Lieut. I. C. Foster. On the morn- 
 ing of the seventeenth, on the arrival of the cars and steamboat, 
 the exercises of the day commenced with the firing of one hun- 
 dred guns by the batttery. 
 
 A procession was formed at the depot, under tlie direction of 
 Joshua M. Gushing, the marshal of the day, the Standish 
 Guaids, Lieut. Lanman, commanding, acting as escort. 
 
 Arriving at the monument grounds, the assembly were called 
 to order by Gen. Sargent, President of the Association, and 
 the Executive and Finance Committees were appointed, and the 
 exercises progressed as follows : — 
 
 MUSIC BY THE WEYMOUTH BAND. 
 
 Hail to the Chief. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 BY REV. JOSIAH MOORE. 
 
 ODE TO MYLES STANDISH. 
 
 Air — America. 
 
 Sung by the Audience. 
 
 All Hail, departed Chief! 
 Tlie Nation to thee brings 
 An oflering free ; 
 
21 
 
 Not of mere bronze or stone, 
 Nor set on hill alone, — 
 Our memories long have flown 
 O'er land and sea. 
 
 Fond hopes In Britain left. 
 Of wealth and power bereft, 
 
 Still, spirit free. 
 You braved the ocean's roar. 
 You wooed a frozen shore. 
 That we might evermore 
 
 Wed liberty. 
 
 That seed of freedom sown, 
 Through frost and blood hath grown 
 
 A Nation free 1 
 An empire, great in trust, 
 A people full of rest. 
 Millions, thus happy blest, 
 
 All honor thee. 
 
 After the singing, General Sargent was formally introdaced 
 to the audience, by the Secretary, Mr. Gilford, and addressed 
 them as follows: — 
 
 oratio:n^. 
 
 BY GEN. HORACE BINNEY SARGENT. 
 
 It would have been more fitting to the grandeur 
 of a noble memory that a disthiguished connection of 
 Myles Standish should have addressed you to-day. 
 It would have been most agreeable to myself, as well 
 as to you, that one. of the many, illustrious by letters 
 or by deeds, with whom the Pilgrim blood is blessed, 
 should enjoy the honor of speaking before an au- 
 dience familiar with the simple, grand traditions 
 which I can only repeat like a twice-told tale to you. 
 I crave your courteous patience for my short recital 
 
22 
 
 of a well-known story, and my reverent tribnte to a 
 life supremely brave. 
 
 Two memorable pictures, representing widely sep- 
 arate decades, hang on the wall of American history. 
 Two and a half centuries span the gulf of time be- 
 tween the first decade, when a little band of English- 
 men floated into Jamestown, and another little band, 
 a few years later, became entangled in the shoals of 
 Cape Cod; and the last decade, when, with a shock 
 of arms that shook the world, the descendants of the 
 Cavaliers, repeating English history, surrendered the 
 wreck of all their armies, — infantry, cavalry, and 
 cannon, — with all hope of separate empire, to tne 
 descendants of the Puritans and to national suprem- 
 acy; each combatant bound to the other, henceforth 
 forever, by mutual reverence for proven valor; 
 both, victor and vanquished, destined to stand here- 
 after, shoulder to shoulder, against the world in arms, 
 and clasp each other's hands as brethren, — joint 
 heirs of all America ! 
 
 The giant timbers of English oak with which 
 Nelson humbled France would once have been an 
 easy prey to the tiniest squirrel of the wood. And 
 the germ acorn did not more differ from the line-of- 
 battle ship, than did the colony of the Mayflower 
 from our veteran nation of to-day. As the oak had 
 gathered to itself all elements of the universe from 
 ten thousand storms and showers, until its top 
 reached out to heaven, and its roots, like anchors, 
 grappled with the world, so the colonies have incor- 
 porated the energies and assimilated the qualities of 
 
'2'6 
 
 many peoples. But the germ principle has controlled 
 them all. As no method of culture, no fertilizing 
 agent, no icy cold or fiery heat, would have devel- 
 oped the acorn into anything but the oak, so the 
 Pilgrim spirit, while absorbing, with all the vigor of 
 vitality, the masses of life, wealth, poverty, ignorance, 
 and culture that have been wafted to these shores, 
 could grow into nothing else than an independent, 
 popular government. Dissenters from those who 
 dissented — even from dissent — must necessarily 
 have founded a state with an inborn, hereditary ten- 
 dency to rebel against assertion of creed or sceptre. 
 The fugitive residents of the home-like community of 
 Leyden, which, after an exhausting war, had chosen 
 the princely boon of a university rather than immu- 
 nity from onerous taxation, might naturally develop 
 that cradle of independent thought, — the common 
 school-house. 
 
 But to develop anything, it was first of all essential 
 that the Pilgrim colony, stranded on a sterile cape in 
 a l!*rew-England winter, among savages, should sur- 
 vive. And the wonderful providence of God is not 
 more evident in the protecting husk that he gives to 
 the ungerminated acorn, with which, amid the thun- 
 der of battle, he purposes to override a nation, than 
 it is in creating the Moses and the Joshua to lead an 
 infant people. The rough tent of a trooper, the 
 unsurveyed forests of Virginia, the flat-boat of the 
 Mississippi, the rude log-cabin of the West, as well 
 as the sheep-folds of Israel or the cattle-shed of 
 Galilee, may contain the fate of empires. 
 
24 
 
 About the time that all Christendom was in mourn- 
 ing for the murdered Prince of Orange, and deploring 
 in his death the overthrow of the bulwark of the 
 Protestant faith, a little fair-haired child was playing 
 among the hedge-rows of England, who was destined 
 to learn the art of war in the armies of that king's 
 more warlike son. Prince Maurice, then a boy of 
 seventeen, and to be a tower of defence to the unsol- 
 dierly Pilgrim colony of Protestant America. 
 
 That child — whose bones, after nearly fourscore 
 years of toil and war, were laid somewhere on this 
 hill-side, perhaps under our unconscious feet — was 
 Myles Standish, the great Puritan captain ! He was 
 born about the year 1580, of English ancestry, dating 
 back to rank and opulence as far as the thirteenth 
 century. Of his childhood, little is known. To de- 
 feat the title of his line to lands in England, the rent- 
 roll of which is half a million per annum, the hand 
 of fraud is supposed to have defaced the page that 
 contained the parish record of his birth. Unjustly 
 deprived of these vast estates, as he avers in his 
 will, in which he bequeaths his title to his eldest son, 
 it seems probable that he went to Holland near the 
 time of his majority. Queen Elizabeth signed his 
 commission as lieutenant in the English forces, serv- 
 ing in the Netherlands against the cruel armies of the 
 Inquisition. As she died in 1603, about two years 
 after his majority, it is not improbable that we are in- 
 debted to that first disappointment, which may have 
 driven him, in his early manhood and some despair, 
 into the army. 
 
25 
 
 From 1600 to 1609, the year of the great truce 
 between Prince Maurice and the King of Spain, the 
 contest was peculiarly obstinate and bloody. In this 
 fierce school the Puritan captain learned the temper 
 and art of war. 
 
 From 1609 to 1620, a period of truce but not of 
 civil tranquillity, the Low Countries were inflamed 
 by those theological disputes of the Oalvhiists and 
 Arminians which brought the excellent Barneveldt 
 to the scaffold, and drove the great Grotius — a 
 fugitive from prison — into exile. In this school, per- 
 haps, Myles Standish learned some uncompromisino- 
 religious opinions, which brought him into sti-ange 
 sympathy and connection with the Pilgrim church in 
 Leyden. Both periods seemed to leave their impress 
 on his character. The inventory, recorded with his 
 will, mentions the Commentaries of Cassar, Bariffe's 
 Artillery, three old Bibles, and three muskets, with 
 the harness of the time, complete. His Bibles were 
 old. A well-worn Bible for every musket- and, 
 thank God, a musket, not an old one, to defend each 
 Bible! 
 
 The schedule of his books, some forty in number, 
 records nearly twenty which are devotional or reli- 
 gious. With the memory of one act of singularly 
 resolute daring, when, in obedience to the colonial 
 orders to crush a great Indian consj^ii'acy, he took a 
 squad of eight picked men into the forests, and 
 deemed it prudent to kill the most turbulent warrior 
 w^ith his own hands, we may imagine how the pilgrim 
 soldier, friend and associate of Brewster, disciple of 
 
26 
 
 the saintly Robinson, rose from the perusal of one 
 of the old Bibles, or of " Ball on Faith," " Sparkes 
 against Heresie," or " Doclcl on the Lord's Supper," 
 to stab Pecksuot to the heart with his own knife ; a 
 giant who had taunted him with his small stature in 
 almost the very words of Goliah, in his insulting 
 sneer at David, long before; and to cut off the head 
 of Watawamat, which bloody trophy the elders had 
 ordered him to bring home with him. We can im- 
 agine him on the evening of that cheaply victorious 
 day, taking more than usual pleasure in the exultant 
 psalms of the warrior David, and in a chapter of 
 Burroughs's " Christian Contentement" and "Gospell 
 Conversation," especially as he had his three muskets 
 with bandoleers, and Bariffe's Artillery, close at his 
 hand. One can feel the unction with which the val- 
 orous pilgrim would religiously falfil the colonial 
 order to smite the heathen hip and thigh, and hew 
 Agag in pieces before the Lord. 
 
 !N^ot originally, and perhaps never, a member of 
 the Pilgrim church, and possessing many traits which 
 might have belonged to the fierce trooper, in an army 
 whose cavalry was the legitimate descendant of 
 Caesar's most formidable enemies, — the Batavi, cele- 
 brated for cavalry qualities, and long the body-guard 
 of the Poman emperors, — the appearance of the 
 somewhat violent soldier, in the saintly company 
 of Parson Pobinson's church, is an anomaly. 
 
 It has been proven many a time, from the days of 
 Bannockburn, when the Scottish host sank on its 
 knees to receive the benediction of the Black Abbot 
 
27 
 
 of Inchaffray, even to our own late day, when many 
 of the best fighting regiments were blessed ivith the 
 most earnest chaplains, that men never tender their 
 lives more gallantly to God and mother-land than 
 when they are fervently preached to and prayed for. 
 Yet the all-daring contempt for peril, the rough- 
 ness of temper, the masterly economy with which 
 Standish saved human life by consummate indiffer- 
 ence to personal homicide upon prudent occasion, his 
 power of breathing his own fiery heart into a handful 
 of followers, till he made them an army able to with- 
 stand a host in the narrow gates of death, would lead 
 us to expect such a colleague for the saintly Brewster 
 as little as we should expect to see Sheridan — 
 
 " Cavalry Sheridan, 
 Him of tlie liorses and sabres we sing" — 
 
 prominent among the Methodists. 
 
 In truth, with the poem of our sweetest and most 
 cultured bard in our minds, and with the memory 
 of those fierce monosyllables with which our great 
 cavalry leader rolled back defeat upon the jubilant 
 rebel host, and rescued victory at Winchester, fancy 
 can depict the foaming black horse pressed into the 
 rush of the shell-shattered guidons by the iron gripe 
 of knees booted in " Cordovan leather," and imagine 
 that little Myles Standish rode that day in the saddle 
 of little Phil Sheridan. 
 
 To the genealogist, who believes that names rep- 
 resent qualities and things, it is not unpleasing to 
 find in the family record of Standish and Duxbury 
 Hall, in the parish church of Chorley, Old England, 
 
28 
 
 the name Milo Standanaoght. To stand at nothing-, 
 in the ivay of a duty commanded by the civil authority, 
 seemed the essence of character in Myles Standish; 
 and thoroughness stamps the reputation of the name 
 and blood to-day. 
 
 The materials for personal biography are scanty. 
 His wife. Rose Standish, — an English rose, — whose 
 very name augurs unfitness for a New-England 
 winter on an unsettled cape, died within a month of 
 the landing. A light tradition exists that his second 
 wife, Bai'bara, was her sister, whom he left an orphan 
 child in England, and sent for. She arrived a 
 woman grown, and the valorous captain added an- 
 other illustration to the poet's story, that Venus and 
 the forger of thunderbolts were married. 
 
 From the first anchorage, Captain Standish, as 
 the soldier of the company, was charged with all 
 deeds of adventure. At first, certain grave elders 
 were sent with him for counsel. But ultimately his 
 repute in affairs, both civil and military, was such that 
 he was for many years the treasurer of the colony, 
 and, during a period of difficidty, their agent in Eng- 
 land. As a soldier, he was evidently the Yon Moltke 
 of the Pilgrims. They invested him with the gen- 
 eral command. Even in extreme old age — the very 
 year that he died " very auncient and full of dolor- 
 ous paines " — he received his last and fullest com- 
 mission against new enemies, his old friends, the 
 Dutch. 
 
 It is singular that among the primitive people, who 
 must often in the later Indian wars have missed his 
 
29 
 
 coimsel and conduct, as the poet describing Venice, 
 sighs, — 
 
 " Oh ! for one hour of blind old Dandole," 
 
 no clear tradition has descended of the phace where 
 the war-worn bones of the soldier-pilgrim lie. Sent, 
 like Moses, to guide and guard a feeble people to a 
 promised land of power that he might never sec, no 
 man knoweth his burial-place until this day. 
 
 More than one hundred years ago, the following 
 paragraph appeared in the Boston "JS^ews-Letter," 
 dated Boston, January 22,1770: "We hear from 
 Plymouth that the 22d day of December last was 
 there observed by a number of gentlemen, by the 
 name of the Old Colony Club, in commemoration of 
 the landing of their ancestors in that place." 
 
 The fourth toast on that occasion, a hundred and 
 one years ago, was, " To the mejnory of that brave 
 man and good officer, Capt. Miles Standish." 
 
 Over the graves of the guests at that dinner, — 
 
 "For fifty years the grasses have been growing." 
 
 But the principle of public fidelity shares the immor- 
 tality of God and Truth. Reverence for it never dies 
 till the decay of nations. And to-day we come to- 
 gether, the dwellers in the city and the dwellers on 
 the shore, men of every age and all professions, to 
 dedicate one spot of this parental soil for an enduring 
 monument to the same Myles Standish of the same 
 unfaded record. The sunlight of near three hundred 
 years, that has shone fatally on many a reputation 
 
30 
 
 since his baby eyes first saw the light of England, 
 has only bronght out the lasting colors of his fame. 
 Believing, as I firmly do, that he was a useful, a 
 necessary citizen, because he was " that brave man 
 and good officer" at a time when soldierly qualities 
 were essential to the very life of the infant colony, it 
 seems to me providential for the colonists that one of 
 their number was, by temper and training, unable to 
 sympathize with that soft tenderness for human life 
 which is wont to characterize saintly-minded men, 
 like the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who, when he heard of 
 the marvellous conflict where Standish, with three or 
 four others, in a locked room, killed the same number 
 of hostile chiefs that were gathering their tribes to 
 exterminate the English, uttered these sorrowful 
 words: "Oh! that you had converted some before 
 you had killed any! " The soldier practised that ter- 
 rible piece of econojny which no saint of the com- 
 pany would have dreamed of doing with his own 
 hand. To borrow the diction of the time, the gaunt- 
 let of the man of wrath was the fold of the lambs of 
 God. It was fortunate for us who believe in Ply- 
 mouth Rock, that one trained soldier, who had faced 
 war conducted by the Duke of Alva, came out in the 
 Mayflower. Some little love of high position, some 
 thirst for gain in ofiice, some disposition to confer 
 office on men for their "forwardness" rather than for 
 their fitness, were seeds of weeds that the Mayflower 
 brought over to the congenial soil of America. Even 
 in the second expedition inland from the barque, " the 
 Gunner was sick unto death," " but hope of trucking 
 
81 
 
 made him go." It is to be feared that the mantle of 
 that gunner falls upon some camp-follower in every 
 regiment. 
 
 Had the fate of the Pilgrims depended on such 
 motives, Elder Brewster and his company would have 
 been buried m some Krossaness, like the earlier 
 explorer, the son of Eric the Ked, and American 
 civilization might have been for centuries deferred. 
 
 Myles Standish represented the true idea of public 
 service, vigorous fidelity and trained fitness for his 
 place. In his single heroic person he exhibited the 
 true idea of the army, — skilled military force in loyal 
 subordination to the civil authority. The confidence 
 that the colony reposed in him to execute their most 
 difficult commands as a citizen soldier, seems to prove 
 that he revered, in the words of Mr. Robinson's fare- 
 well sermon, "the image of the Lord's power and 
 authority which the magistrate beareth," — words 
 that can never be too forcibly imjDressed on the minds 
 of the penny-wise, who would diminish the dignity of 
 the magistrate's office by inadequate compensation, 
 or destroy his mdependence by the vulgar device of 
 the social charlatan, gifts to supplement judicial sala- 
 ries. If one may venture on such high speculation, 
 it may be that God is just, partly because he is 
 supreme, and to Him belongs the earth "and the 
 fulness thereof," Freedom from obligation is of the 
 essence of independence in the magistrate who bears 
 " the Lord's power and authority." 
 
 As a dissenter from dissenters, saturated with the 
 spirit of liberty, Standish, as an agent of authoi'ity, 
 
32 
 
 never fell into the heresy with which the rogues of 
 the body poUtic cajole its fools, — that a weak execu- 
 tion of the laws, an imbecile or impotent manifesta- 
 tion of government, is test or evidence of freedom. 
 ]S^or did the ISTorthern Pilgrims ever fancy that a 
 government founded upon compact was less pan- 
 oplied with positive authority, within its sphere, than 
 the superior government of the crown. 
 
 Even wheu every English life was precious to the 
 settlements, the Pilgrims did not hesitate to execute 
 three Englishmen for the murder of one Indian. In 
 flying from civilization to a desert in pursuit of lib- 
 erty, the Pilgrims did not fly so fast and far as to 
 leave majestic law behind them. That dear, pale 
 banner of the State, which the great-hearted, true- 
 hearted, stout-hearted war minister of Massachu- 
 setts, John Albion Andrew, of all-blessed memory, 
 thanked God that no one of fifty-three regiments 
 then in commission had ever left on any field of bat- 
 tle, bears the device that might have been inspired 
 at that early hour, — an Indian erect, in all the dignity 
 of manhood, ready for peace' or war, and the armed 
 hand of protecting power raised above him, ready to 
 guard or smite, and the legend Ense petit placidam 
 sub lihertate quietem. 
 
 And this is the end and path of government, — 
 the armed hand, seeking serene rej^ose, under lib- 
 erty, by the sword, raised, but not needlessly 
 descending; or if kept in the scabbard, kept always 
 sharp. 
 
 To us, who sometimes ignore the uncancelled, un- 
 
30 
 O 
 
 paid debt of the nation to the military academy, and 
 to the professional soldiers who there learned the art 
 of victory; — to us, who sometimes imagine that the 
 practice of gymnastics, with a musket, makes all the 
 difference between a citizen and a citizen soldier, and 
 dispenses with that code of new sensations, subordi- 
 nation, the soldierly habit of mind and temper, exact 
 obedience and reverent loyalty to authority, which no 
 muster-field or training-day can give, and which 
 nothing but military discipline in a camp of instruc- 
 tion can inspire ; — to us, who have learned, by bitter 
 experience, how much time and blood and gold it 
 costs to convert a patriotic mob into an effective army 
 of soldier citizens; — to us, who are suffering oppres- 
 sive taxation for our ignorance and forgetfulness that 
 true economy is always to be prepared for war, a 
 blunder and a crime which we have no moral right to 
 fasten upon the purses of posterity, for the blunder 
 was our own; — to us, thus criminal and suffering, 
 it is profitable to reflect, that if Myles Standish had 
 not been a trained soldier, the reverend heirs of the 
 elders of the little church of Ley den would probably 
 have adorned the Avigwams of " the Massachusitts." 
 His grand heart might have been as true and loyal 
 and brave as it was; his arm — now dust, mouldering 
 somewhere under the sod of this hill-side — might 
 have been as strong. But if he had not learned from 
 his own experience, and the well-conned commentaries 
 of his beloved Caesar, how contemptible are the most 
 vigorous and patriotic multitudes without real disci- 
 pline, Plymouth Rock would have been of no impor- 
 
31 
 
 tance except to some leisurely antiquarian; JSTorthem 
 civilization would have been smitten with sudden 
 death by savage tribes ; even this beautiful headland 
 might have been tilled by Virginian slaves to-day. 
 
 Special fitness for special work — education 
 adapted to a purpose — is the lesson taught by the 
 Pilgrim life. Well might we profit by it, in teaching 
 the industrial arts of common life to the pupils of 
 our common schools, which now, neglecting the 
 practical arts of daily household duties, fill the w^orld 
 with helpless people, — starving, lady-like teachers, 
 without pupils; accountants, who have nothing to 
 add up, — useless members of society, ignorant of 
 every duty that a home demands, and demanding a 
 home that their refinement craves and station cannot 
 give. That even the Pilgrims found, that overmuch 
 unpractical culture was incompatible with provision 
 for the needs of rugged life, is indicated by the fact 
 that the second generation was less refined and more 
 skilled in practical arts than the first. 
 
 To be the founders of states is the first of glories, 
 according to Lord Bacon. The career of our Pil- 
 grim hero is a beautiful illustration of an educa- 
 tion fitted to the great mission for which he seemed 
 peculiarly, strangely ordained. 
 
 In grateful memory we consecrate this spot of earth 
 to a monument of the great Puritan captain. May its 
 shadow fall upon his grave! For two centuries the 
 stars have looked upon it. At what moment of the 
 ni"-ht the circling moon may ])oint it out with shad- 
 owy finger, no mortal knows, ^o mortal ear can 
 
35 
 
 hear the secret whispered to the night, " Beneath this 
 spot lies all of a hero that could die." 
 
 High as the shaft may tower over headland and 
 bay, deep as its foundation-stones may rest, brightly 
 as it may gleam in the rising or setting sun upon the 
 mariner returning in the very furrow that the keel 
 of the Mayflower made, the principles of common- 
 sense, a citizen soldier's education for a citizen sol- 
 dier's work, the principles of moral truth, manly 
 honesty, prudent energy, fidelity incorruptible, cour- 
 age undauntable, all the qualities of manhood that 
 compel unflinching execution of the states' behest, 
 — are firmer and higher and brighter still. And to 
 crown them all is reverence to the Supreme Execu- 
 tive of Earth and Heaven, who knows no feebleness of 
 heart or hand, and whose great purpose moved the 
 war-worn Pilgrim's feet to seek his home upon this 
 rock-bound continent, where the unceasing weaves 
 of two unfettered oceans roar the choral hymn of 
 Freedom. 
 
 General Sargent's address was listened to with marked attention 
 and received frequent applause as he alkided in glowing terms to 
 the heroic virtues of the founder of the town of Duxbury. 
 
 MUSIC BY THE BAND. 
 
 CONSECRATORY PRAYER. 
 
 BY KEV. R. H. KEALE, T). I> 
 
36 
 
 HYMN.— OUR PILGRIM FATHERS. 
 
 Am — Auld Lang Syne. 
 
 Suug by the audience. 
 
 Awake ! the slumbering Hero comes ! 
 
 Arise! his spirit uears, 
 To marshal back to "Pilgrim Homes" 
 
 Our sires from other spheres. 
 Tor "Auld Lang kSjuc" they come, 
 
 For "Auld Lang Syne," 
 And gather round those "Pilgrim Homes," 
 Of "Auld Lang Syne." 
 
 Hosannas to our Pilgrim Sires ! 
 
 Bright memories round them twine ; 
 Our prayers invoke celestial lyres 
 
 Around their homes divine. 
 For "Auld Lang Syne " we sing, 
 
 For "Auld Lang Syne;" 
 
 All honor to our Pilgrim Sires, 
 
 For "Auld Lang Syne." 
 
 • At the close of the exercises on the monument grounds, a 
 procession was formed for the dinner tent, which was reached 
 at about half-past two. Gen. Sargent led the guests, consisting 
 of General Butler, General Schouler, Dr. Geo. B. Loring, Hon. 
 Jacob H. Loud, Hon. Josiah Quincy, Ex-Mayor Shurtleff, Mayor 
 Gaston, Hon, William T. Davis of Plymouth, members of the 
 Executiv'e Council, and Hon. Oliver Warner, Secretary of State, 
 Rev, Dr. Caswell, Hon. A. C, Barsiow, Rev, A. A. Miner, Rev, 
 Edward E, Hale, Hon, Otis Cary, and others. 
 
 After the comf^any were seated, they were called to order by 
 General Sargent. Prayer was offered by Rev, Dr. Burgess. 
 After about an hour spent in eating. General Sargent rapped to 
 order, and introduced the speech-making by expressing the sat- 
 isfaction which he enjoyed, after having been tortured by making 
 a speech earlier in the day, to torture other gentlemen by calling 
 upon them for speeches. In introducing the first toast, he made 
 
37 
 
 very complimentary allusion to Gen. Butler, which was 
 applautled. 
 
 He announced the first regular toast as follows : " The Pres- 
 ident of the United States, and the great Puritan Captain : 
 trained soldiers both, and none the less determined to carry out 
 the will of the people without any policy of their own." 
 
 Responded to by General Butler. 
 
 SPEECH OF GENERAL BUTLER. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 I grieve that the principal executive officer of the 
 United States in this Commonwealth, who came w ith 
 me here, and who would in the usual course be called 
 upon to respond to the toast to the president of the 
 United States, has been called back by imperative 
 necessity, aiid left that which he, as a son of Ply- 
 mouth, would be glad to perform, to be performed 
 by me. 
 
 As I ascended Captain's -Hill this morning, the 
 thought occurred to me how little each generation 
 knows of the effect of the events which occur in its 
 own time. How little our pilgrim fathers thought of 
 the great country which thereafterward their ideas 
 and their descendants were to govern; when the little 
 Mayflower entered this bay, how little thought those 
 pilgrims of the great work they were doing ! So each 
 and every great event; to the present — to the 
 accompanying generation, the work is a small one, 
 however great it may seem to those who come after. 
 The great Captain, dead as we are told by your ora- 
 tor and by tradition, has an unknown grave. We 
 
38 
 
 can hardly look back and believe that the man tba 
 we know, the great citizen soldier of iron wdl, of that 
 Pilo-rim band, would be so little remembered by those 
 that immediately surrounded and came after hnn 
 that his resting-place should be even a matter of 
 which tradition does not speak. He has but suffered 
 the fate which all events of great magnitude, rising 
 from small beginnings, suffer at the hands of their 
 
 contemporaries. , ^ ^u 
 
 After what has been said - nay, after what the 
 men of Plymouth know of Myles Standish - it would 
 be idle for me, coming from Essex County, to enter 
 into anything like eulogy. He came down, indeed, 
 once to Essex County, however, and it was the only 
 time when he went out and came not back victor. 
 But then he interfered with our fish! (A laugh.) 
 There is a trait developed in the Puritan pilgnm 
 character in the steady public employment of Myles 
 Standish, which deserves a moment's thought. JNo 
 more pious, nay, no more thoroughly religious peop e, 
 ever came together. They came here, not as tradi- 
 tion has it, not in the words of poetry, for the pur- 
 pose of establishing freedom to worship God, but 
 they came here for the purpose of establishing a com- 
 monwealth in which they should have the right to 
 worship God uninterfered with by any other class, or 
 power, or potentate whatever; and upon that theory 
 alone can we, their descendants, entirely justify every 
 act of theirs. If they simply meant to establish free- 
 dom to worship God, why did Roger Williams found 
 Khode Island? Why did they cast out the sohismat- 
 
89 
 
 ic? It was because they thoroughly believed they 
 were right; that their religion was the true religion. 
 They, believing that, had left the perfect freedom ot 
 Holland, where they had every religious freedom 
 excejDt the freedom of worshijDping undisturbed by 
 schisms and dissensions, and came here to this coun- 
 try. And when they made themselves a home in the 
 wilderness, they determined that, being right, having 
 made the great sacrifices for that right which they 
 had done, no man should interfere with them. They 
 carried out their own ideas to the logical conse- 
 quence; better that men should suffer in this world, 
 than to suffer an eternity in the next, as they believed 
 all men who substantially differed from them would. 
 They always stood by the logic of their own ideas. 
 And it is the standing by that logic that to-day gives 
 those ideas the government of the nation, and makes 
 this nation the missionary nation of religious freedom 
 and religious rights in the world. 
 
 Again, our Pilgrim fathers were practical men. 
 Deeply imbued with the religious spirit, believing 
 they were controlled by a Divine Providence, they 
 recognized the fact that that Providence worked 
 through means, and human means, and used all 
 human means best adapted to carry out the end. 
 They remembered that Providence always blest the 
 best battalion and the best soldiers. They believed 
 in the man who had a will, and they believed that 
 their prayers would be sufficient to enable him to 
 carry out the will and power of God, although the 
 man might not be the most proper instrument in a 
 religious point of view. 
 
40 
 
 One of the most marked characteristics of Myles 
 Standish was, that, living among the Puritans, among 
 rehgious men, not a hypocrite, not praying in public 
 and sinning in private, and willing his whole life 
 should be known and well understood, he carried 
 with him, from the beginning to the end, the utter- 
 most confidence and respect of the highest religious 
 people. True, the good Elder Robinson thought 
 that he might convert a few of the savages before 
 he slew them, but he was quite content that the 
 Indian might be slain provided that God's people 
 might be preserved. Myles Standish had a will of 
 his own, and he chose to exercise that will, and 
 whenever it became necessary for him to carry for- 
 ward the work he had in hand, to do the duty placed 
 upon him, he was ready to sacrifice any enemy of his 
 country which stood between him and the work 
 which he was delegated by his country to perform. 
 
 Again, Myles Standish had another high attribute 
 of character, and that was loyalty to law — loyalty 
 to authority. He never went beyond the right as 
 it was given to him; he always bowed to the civil 
 power, and in that he only showed his training as a 
 soldier. This idea General Butler elaborated, and 
 claimed that the same thing was shown in the late 
 civil war, when our soldiers showed themselves obe- 
 dient always to law and order, especially on their 
 return home, when they were expected to make trou- 
 ble. He paused to eulogize General Grant, in this 
 connection, whom he termed the second gi-eat soldier 
 of this country since Myles Standish. The latter 
 had thirty-six years of executive power, and there 
 
41 
 
 are those who hope General Grant may continue 
 many more years to execute the will of the nation. 
 (Applause.) Whatever else was said ahout General 
 Grant, they could not claim that his policy had been 
 against the will of the people. 
 
 There was a resemblance between Myles Standish 
 and General Grant in the way they have been treated 
 by their countrymen. Some persons objected that a 
 grateful people should make gifts to General Grant^ 
 but did not our Pilgrim fathers give, tlie land on which 
 they then stood to Mjdes Standish for his soldier's 
 duty done? Thank Ood, in tliose days there ivere 
 not any newspapers, and there was no slander raised 
 on that account. (Laughter.) In this regard, General 
 Butler thought the example of the Pilgrim fathers 
 might well be followed. Here was sown the seed 
 which enabled this country to go through the war 
 for the suppression of the Rebellion. He (Butler) 
 was one of those who believed that the Rebellion was 
 necessary, and that it could not be averted; that all 
 in the country were more or less guilty of the great 
 cause — African slavery ; that the war was sent for 
 the nation's regeneration. He remembered that 
 Massachusetts and Rhode Island once owned slaves, 
 and although subsequently rid of them, the ]S"orth 
 was guilty of participation in the slavery of the 
 South. He believed the war could never have ended 
 until emancipation was proclaimed and the nation 
 cleansed by fire. Any man, looking back over the 
 recent events, could, in his opinion, see the guiding 
 hand of Providence in them all. As Moses was not 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 allowed to set foot on the promised land, so Presi- 
 dent Lincoln was not allowed to enter into the full 
 enjoyment of being the ruler of a reunited people, 
 and the nation had to have the last of all phials of 
 wrath in the shape of his successor. The triumph of 
 the Puritan over the Cavalier was referred to, and 
 General Butler said so strong a faith had he in the 
 Puritan character that he was almost superstitious 
 abont names, even, and if his grandfather's name had 
 been Carlos instead of Zcphaniah, he did nt' believe 
 he would have gone to the late war. It is this Puri- 
 tan idea that is revolutionizing the whole country 
 to-day; and when in the South and elsewhere shall 
 be established schools, equal rights, the town house, 
 the church where the word of God shall be preached 
 to satisfy the dictates of the consciences of those who 
 desire to hear it, the nation will be redeemed. He 
 (General Butler) observed some persons smiling at his 
 last remark, and repeated it, and declared that it was 
 the Puritan idea not to impose their tenets on any- 
 body else, and to allow nobody to impose their tenets 
 npon them. In closing, General Butler alluded to the 
 Christian commission following our armies in the 
 late war, and claimed that it was a strictly Puritan 
 institution, and ended with the following sentiment: 
 " The Puritan idea, the motive power which is to 
 revolutionize the world." 
 
 After music by the band, the second regular toast was 
 given "to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," and both Gov. 
 Claflin and Lieut -Gov. Tucker being absent, Hon. Oliver Warner, 
 
43 
 
 Secretary of State, was called upon for a response, but had left 
 the tent, and the sentiment was passed over. 
 
 After the performance of the " Star Spangled Banner " by the 
 band, the next regular toast was given as follows : " Practical 
 education and the industrial arts; their seeds were sown in 
 America by tlie Pilgrims who had to labor or starve." 
 
 To respond to this, Dr. Geo. B. Loring, of Salem, was called 
 upon. He was received with applause, and responded in an 
 eloquent manner, wliich was loudly applauded by the auiience. 
 
 SPEECH OF DR. LORING. 
 Mr. President, and Ladies and Oentlemen : 
 
 I owe you all an apology for making an attempt to 
 speak at this time and on such an occasion. I sym- 
 pathize most warmly with the Secretary of the Com- 
 monwealth in his flight from this tent. He had been 
 notified, only on his entrance to this place, that he 
 was expected to respond to a sentiment, for which 
 every man should desire careful and ample prepara- 
 tion. It is not a mere impulse, a sudden inspiration, 
 that will enable any one, even the most devoted and 
 admiring citizen of Massachusetts, to set forth in 
 suitable phrase the high qualities and attainments 
 of this honored Commonwealth. Such a subject is 
 worthy of, and is entitled to, the most careful thought 
 and consideration. The apology of the Secretary is 
 my apology. I was not aware that I was expected 
 to say one word — strange as it may seem to some of 
 you — on this occasion, and I came here entirely 
 unprepared to reply taa sentiment which involves 
 the largest knowledge of the industry of our State as 
 
1 
 
 44 
 
 developed in the days of our ancestors as well as our 
 OAvn. Bat I could not fail to respond in some form; 
 for I should be untrue to the blood which flows in 
 my veins, did I fail to appear at this time on Captain's 
 Hill, and to respond for the industry and enterprise 
 of my ancestors, and for the Puritan Commonwealth 
 which they founded. For I cannot forget, sir, that 
 the first contest which took place in the Pilgrim col- 
 ony, resulted in two lines of inheritance in this State 
 in which the gentleman opposite (Mr. Standish) and 
 myself have a personal interest, and which decided 
 for us our lineage. While he claims descent from 
 Myles Standish, I claim descent from John Alden, 
 from him who vanquished the great captain on the fair 
 and flowery field of love, and decided that the lovely 
 Priscilla should be my ancestor and not his. My 
 grandmother's name was Alathea Alden, — a Puritan 
 name in every respect, and an Old Colony name; 
 — if not, let any woman here bring forward one that 
 is, and let any man find one in his ancestry if he can. 
 And hence it is that I should be false to the blood 
 which flows in my veins, did I fail to respond to your 
 sentiment as best I may. And more than this. The 
 occupation which Myles Standish adopted after he 
 left his fields of conquest, has an especial claim upon 
 me. I understand that he was a Massachusetts far- 
 mer, an early representative of that industry which 
 lay at the foundation of our ancient prosperity, and 
 which is so important to us now. He was one of 
 those, who, having, in their hour of need, availed 
 themselves of the sandy store-houses of the Indians, 
 
45 
 
 made an honest endeavor to cnltivate these hill-sides, 
 as their part ofthe important service required by anew 
 CO lony. The example they set was a good o]ie. The 
 pe ople who have followed it have clothed themselves 
 with honor and prosperity. And so as an American cit- 
 izen,! believe in Myles Standish and his Pilgrim asso- 
 ciates, who, having performed good service with their 
 swords, tnrned their attention to their own acres, and 
 fixed a system of agricnlture, and independent and 
 intelligent landholdinghere, which is the pride and the 
 peculiar prerogation of our people. Upon this founda- 
 tion they built the fabric of their education, — that 
 admirable co-mingling of polite bearing, moral cul- 
 ture, and practical development, which has become the 
 characteristic of their descendants. And what a 
 true and steady cnlture was theirs! At its yerj 
 foundation, they laid the Bible. We were told by 
 the distinguished and eloquent orator of the day, 
 that Myles Standish had three old Bibles and three 
 new muskets. He was indeed well armed for the 
 service of life. As he fought and as he toiled, on 
 whatever field he applied his powers, he cultivated 
 his religious nature, believing that without this man 
 builded all in vain. The inspiration of that inspired 
 volume went with himself and his sturdy companions 
 everywhere, and sustained and warmed them on their 
 path endowing fame. It was their daily companion. 
 And I turn often with supreme delight to that page 
 of an ancient Bible on which one of my ancestors has 
 recorded that he diligently perused its chapter more 
 than sixty times in thirty years. The impression 
 
4G 
 
 made by such familiarity upon the minds of onr 
 fathers is not yet lost upon us. They read but tew 
 lighter books. They had but few. They read no 
 newspapers. They had none. Perhaps the gentle- 
 man who preceded me, will consider that in this they 
 were fortunate. But, however this may be, it was on 
 religious culture that they built the entire structure 
 of their education, and advanced them to that devel- 
 opment of every branch of knowledge and industry 
 which has made this Commonwealth what it is. They 
 were indeed scholars who were engaged in this 
 early colonial work of education. They came from 
 the classical schools of England, and brought the 
 Bible and the classics with them. They knew well 
 what study is, and what education is; and Bradford 
 and Carver and Winslow and Brewster had been 
 graduated at the great colleges of England, and they 
 brought here their taste for letters which, thank 
 God, has not yet died out in our beloved Common- 
 wealth. They were scholars; and when they landed 
 on these shores, their first service was to establish 
 that kind of mental culture here, which has done more 
 to give Massachusetts her power in the nation, than 
 all her industrial arts, and all her achievements on 
 the field or in council. They were scholars; and 
 while their hearts warmed over their college, they 
 forgot not moreover the demands of jjopular educa- 
 tion, true ever to the thought that upon an educated 
 people alone can the foundations of a free republic 
 securely rest. And this is indeed the secret of their 
 power. I honor these pilgrims of Plymouth for 
 
47 
 
 their sturdy thought, their intellectual culture, and 
 their liberal sentiments. They believed in and de- 
 manded religious toleration. And they left it for the 
 other line of my ancestors — who, I think, have done 
 their part to make Essex County illustrious — to 
 exercise another kind of religious fervor, and to send 
 Roger Williams to Rhode Island, and the dissent- 
 ing Browns back to England, because their religious 
 views were intolerable, while they themselves held 
 their hands open at all times for all faiths and all 
 religions. It was religious fervor which gave Ply- 
 mouth an existence, — it was religious tolerance 
 which gave her an immortality. 
 
 It is not surprising that the planting of Plymouth 
 on such a foundation of education, religion, tolera- 
 tion, and practical wisdom should outshine all similar 
 events in history. It is not surprising that Plymouth 
 and her institutions should have outlived all similar 
 cotemporaneous events, and have produced an im- 
 perishable influence in the history of the country. 
 While Jamestown has decayed, and the places which 
 knew its founders know their race no more; while 
 the systems of the Dutch settlers of 'New York, 
 against whom Myles Standish carried on his first 
 conflict, and who, the historian Graham says, were 
 unable to cope with the stern qualities developed by 
 the trials at Plymouth, have faded away before the 
 all-conquering institutions of the Pilgrim; while the 
 empire of Lord Baltimore has vanished, and the 
 social and civil system which John Locke planted in 
 the Carolinas has disappeared, — the power of the 
 
48 
 
 separatist, of the single-hearted and liberal-minded 
 men of Plymouth, who founded here a common- 
 wealth, upheld bj a great faith, and led by a great 
 Captain, has gone on conquering and to conquer. 
 And this was their practical work, in which they felt 
 that in all their conflicts with evil, and their contests 
 with ignorance, it was the duty of those who founded 
 a State to develop alike its material prosperity, and 
 to cultivate the mind and heart and Conscience of the 
 people. And this is the Massachusetts of to-day. 
 
 In granting, as you have, to the great Captain who 
 lies buried beneath this sod, the practical power of 
 establishing the sovereignty of the Commonwealth, 
 and the practical intelligence of a cultivator of these 
 acres, and a valuable servant of the colony, you have 
 set forth what a true citizen was in the olden time, 
 and what the best of the citizens of Massachusetts 
 are in our day. I think we all believe in the law of 
 life adopted by Myles Standish, — a separatist faith, 
 a hard, industrious, prosperous, and productive life, 
 and in so much of the military arm as will render it 
 impossible for any man to conceive that he can defy 
 the State with impunity. He was as good a citizen 
 as he was captain; and I agree with the orator of the 
 morning, therefore, that he has left behind him an 
 example of cultivated military genius, and of useful- 
 ness to the Commonwealth, worthy of all imitation; 
 and I am sure he would have prided himself as much 
 upon his citizenship, as upon the zeal with which he 
 slew the hostile Indians roaming those primeval 
 forests. I see him now, with the honors of his 
 
49 
 
 military service won on the great battle-fields of 
 Europe, a simjDle citizen in this colony, performing 
 on this shore his daily toil, a warrior to-day, a farmer 
 to-morrow, and ever ready to serve his people in any 
 capacity, a pillar of the church and the State alike, 
 an example for the brave and true in all time. I give 
 you therefore, in closing: The first great civil 
 chieftain of the country, — may the lesson which he 
 taught guide our leaders in all time to come. 
 
 Applause followed Dr. Loring's speech. 
 
 The President then said, " The next toast is, ' Captain's Hill ; 
 it speaks today in all its pride,' and I have the honor of intro- 
 ducing to you Mr. Justin Winsor, a citizen of Duxbury formerly, 
 and now at the head of the Boston Public Library." 
 
 To this Mr. Winsor responded thus: — 
 
 CAPTAIN'S HILL. 
 
 A tumult of scorn swept wild through the skies, 
 Till the echoes were crazed with the taunting replies, 
 And the valleys looked up witli a mute surpi'ise. 
 
 It swelled from the Jungfrau's icy steep, 
 From Jura's wall of stupendous sweep, 
 From Pilate mirrored in Geneva's deep ; — 
 
 From where along the Grampian verge 
 Ben Lomond saw the sea emerge ; 
 Where Snowdon weltered in vapory surge. 
 
 'T was heard amid our Northern folk. 
 When Katahdin to Chocorua broke. 
 And Greylock all his echoes woke. 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 Where Lookout stands, a host beside, 
 Bore oil' the tumult far and wide, 
 Till remotest Shasta met the tide. 
 
 And thus commingled scoff and mock 
 Of forest peak and scarred rock 
 In one reverberating shock. 
 
 Down on a sandy shore there lay 
 
 The guileless cause of this riotous fray, — 
 
 Our Captain's Hill, — it speaks to-day ! 
 
 Had the clouds vouchsafed to its summit bare 
 A vapory cap, 't were then and there 
 Its scorn had flung it high in air. 
 
 Sturdy and true as its hero's soul, 
 It heard the bantering echoes roll, 
 And burst in its pride beyond control : — 
 
 " There are solider ribs than mine, I know, 
 And crowns compact of eternal snow, 
 But where has story a surpassing glow? 
 
 " The rugged scarps of the Switzer's land 
 For monuments of Freedom stand. 
 But this, around, is the Mayflower's strand ! 
 
 " All time shall know how by yonder head. 
 Whose sand-hills loom over the briny bed, 
 The Bible was kissed and tlie compact said : — 
 
 ' Most fateful day which the world e'er saw ! 
 When that scroll was signed with nameless awe 
 Of the stern omnipotence of law ! 
 
 " And then, Ben Lomond, with thy lore, 
 I '11 match thee on this storied shore 
 In tales to laugh at or weep o'er. 
 
 " Here at my feet the waves outspread 
 To where with more than an army's tread 
 The Pilgrims' struggling band was led. 
 
 " And they were weak, as I am small ; 
 But death at its terriblest cannot appal, 
 If the ranks close up as the weaker fall. 
 
51 
 
 '* If Fate claimetT half the Insatiate Throne, 
 Could spare enough for the world to own, 
 In heart and soul and sinew and bone. 
 
 " Mark yonder hero in his leathern hose ! 
 There were times in Flanders, Spanish foes 
 Skipped as his warring fury rose. 
 
 " And yonder stripling, lithe and tall! 
 Who does not know ? aye, each and all 
 Priscilla's 'Prithee,' to her willing thrall. 
 
 " My captain, you'll believe me, friends. 
 As he drummed his hilt with his flnger ends, 
 Outflanked for once, then vowed amends. 
 
 " Proud Lookout, too, what fame thou know'st, 
 "When Hooker scaled with cloudy host, — 
 I glory in your martial boast. 
 
 " But didn't my army, six souls strong, 
 With doughty Myles, put down the wrong, 
 Maintain the right, and keep it long? 
 
 " And thou, hoar Shasta of the west ! 
 Thou scann'st afar the miners' quest ; 
 Know'st not this land is with fruitage blest? 
 
 " We 've shades as classic as the Cam's ; 
 We 've brawn to buffet life's hard jams ; 
 And what is more — we 've Duxbury clams. 
 
 " And over the Thump Caps the pinksteru knows 
 The cod will bite if my gulley shows 
 Straight in the range of the Gurnet's Nose. 
 
 " And now, ye summits lost in cloud ! 
 I'm little, monarchs, but I'm proud; 
 To God alone, my Captain bowed." 
 
 And so it spoke, as it speaks to-day. 
 And felt the better for having its sa}^ 
 And so may we all feel, now and for aye. 
 
52 
 
 The next rcfjular toast was : — 
 
 "Rose Standish, the tvpe of womanly sacrifice: her mantle 
 has fallen on American women." 
 
 To this, Rev. E, E. Hale responded as follows : — 
 
 EESPONSE OF UEV. E. E. HALE. 
 It is certainly quite time, Mr. President, and ladies 
 and gentlemen,- that something should be said about 
 Rose Standish and the women who came with her. 
 Rose Standish is a little forgotten when we talk of 
 Priscilla Mullens, or whatever her name may be. 
 (Laughter.) The truth is, the women who came out 
 in the Mayflower solved the problem of emigration. 
 I give that fact to the lady editors, who do not seem 
 to me to make as much use of it as I think they would 
 be Avise to do. The effort to settle ]^orth America 
 to the northward of the Gulf of Mexico had been 
 made again and again, and yet again and again, and 
 yet again and again, for a century, and had failed. 
 The Huguenots had made it and had failed; the 
 Spaniards had made it and had failed; the French 
 had made it in Canada, they had made it again in 
 Carolina, and they had failed; Gosnold had made 
 it and had failed; the runagates that came out with 
 Popham had made it and had failed; the people who 
 settled at Jamestown had made it and, as we think, 
 they had failed. As my distinguished friend in front 
 of me said in my hearing, they failed till the day 
 came when the cavalier found out that the Puritan 
 was his master; until that great moment, even James- 
 town was a failure. The f\iilure was steady, sir, from 
 1492 till 1620; the attempt to colonize the I^orth 
 
53 
 
 American continent, north of Florida, was a failure ; 
 and why? It was a failure because always, — when 
 Halph Lane came over, when the Huguenots came 
 over, when John Smith came over, when Grosnold 
 came over, the men came over alone. With the first 
 winter they were inevitably disappointed, and in the 
 next spring they returned to England. Kalph Lane 
 returned to England and his men ; Popham and his 
 men returned to England. Gosnold returned to 
 England with his men the very year they came. 
 And why did they return to England? They re- 
 turned to England because they had not brought their 
 homes with them; because their Kose Standishes 
 stayed at home, while our Kose Standish came here, 
 though she came here to die. It was the women of 
 Plymouth who made the colony of Plymouth the first 
 permanent colony. Rose Standish and the lovely 
 women who came with her (we know they were 
 lovely, because we know their descendants) stand for 
 the success of Protestant colonization. Protestant 
 colonization depends upon the transfer of homes. It 
 is in the transfer of homes that emigration and col- 
 onization have succeeded in America. It is only in 
 the transfer of homes that it succeeds, and when my 
 excellent friends who are in charge of the woman's 
 rights movement learn that deeper than constitutions, 
 stronger than churches, more powerful than schools 
 in civilization are the homes of a nation, they will 
 have learned what it seems to me they do not know 
 to-day (applause), and they will have learned the 
 greatest secret of the church government and of the 
 state government of the world. (Applause.) 
 
54 
 
 Myles Staiidish stands for this, sir; he stands for 
 what is not always understood, the cathoHcity, the 
 toleration, the generosity of this company of Pil- 
 grims. We hear a great deal about their bigotry. 
 They were men of strong will; they were men who 
 meant to have the right to go forward, they were men, 
 as has been rightly said, who believed in God, and 
 meant to keep their powder dry. yevy certainly, 
 they meant to have the world go forward in a par- 
 ticular way, and to that way they consecrated their 
 lives. It is convenient, thei'efore, for those persons 
 upon whose toes they trod to say they were a narrow, 
 bigoted, self-satisfied set of men. The truth is, this 
 little body of Pilgrims, who settled here in the region 
 around this hill, embraced much more than the church 
 which had been formed in England, was then trans- 
 ferred to Leyden, and then removed here. It em- 
 braced such come-outers as Mj'les Standish. It took 
 in men that did not belong to that church. It took 
 them in with the toleration, with the generosity, with 
 the catholicity which belonged to the character and 
 ought to belong to the church of the new-born peo- 
 ple. It is on this catholicity, this generosity to all 
 comers, that the American republic was founded; 
 it is on the same generosity that its prosperity de- 
 pends to-day. And when you hear one schemer or 
 another talk of leaving out in the cold the men of this 
 lineage or that, of this creed or that, when you hear 
 them talk of America's standing by itself, saying to 
 the rest of the world, " hands oflp," or " stand back," 
 you hear people talk who do not know anything of 
 
55 
 
 the principles of Plymouth Kock, or of the founda- 
 tion that here was laid. 
 
 Myles Standish, himself not a member of their 
 church company, represents that principle of tolera- 
 tion in American history. 
 
 It is to this tolerance, indeed, exhibited among 
 their successors, that I owe the pleasure of being* 
 present to-day. I am in the midst, say, in round 
 numbers, of 562 descendants of the Pilgrims, myself 
 being the only one among them in whose veins there 
 runs not a drop of Pilgrim blood. (Laughter.) In 
 the last Pilgrim celebration that I attended, on the 
 225th anniversary of the landing at Plymouth Rock, 
 I chanced to be in the society of a venerable matron 
 who had well informed herself in the history of this 
 matter, and I ventured to say that my only plea for 
 Pilgrim ancestry was based on my hope that it would 
 prove that my venerated ancestor, Madam Pepper, 
 belonged to a Pilgrim family. It is to the blood of 
 that lady that I owe the coolness of disposition which 
 has served me well in trying exigencies. I said I 
 knew she was not in the Mayflower, but I hoped it 
 might yet prove she was in the Fortune, or in the Ann. 
 But I found jesting on this subject dangerous. With 
 a look of perfect iciness she asserted that could 
 not be; that no Pepper ever came over in the Ann, 
 the Fortune, or the Mayflower It is dangerous jok- 
 ing on such subjects here, sir. They all have their 
 genealogy, — not in the first pages of their Bibles ; 
 no, — they have it in their heads. They all of them 
 know from whom they descended; and all the per- 
 
5(j 
 
 sons around here would say as my friend said, that 
 they knew there was no person named Pej^per in either 
 the Ann, the Fortune, or the Mayflower. Since then, 
 I know that I have no right to stand on Pilgrim Kock 
 or Captain's Hill, except on this broad catholicity of 
 the Pilgrim forefathers. Why, you are not in the 
 same boat with me, Mr. President. Your venerated 
 and distinguished relative has made immortal for us 
 the faces of the Pilgrims upon the canvas in the hall 
 yonder. He has shown us the pensive beauty of 
 Rose Standish. He has shown us the manliness of 
 her husband. He has shown us Bradford and the 
 rest of them, in their manner, as they were, and I am 
 sure there is not one of us here but who, looking 
 back upon them in fancy, is guided by the genius of 
 a Sargent in his reproduction of the scene. What is 
 more, there is not one of our friends here but, as I 
 have been speaking, has rehearsed the number of 
 these ladies from whom they themselves descended. 
 We are seven generations from those people. Each 
 of us has two parents, four grandparents, and eight 
 great-grandparents; and by an easy calculation you 
 will see that in the seven generations past, one may 
 have one hundred and twenty-eight great, great, 
 great, etc., grandfathers and grandmothers in the 
 Mayflower, only that, unfortunately, there were but 
 one hundred and one persons there. . My charming 
 friend at my side is descended from them all, — she 
 unites all their graces and virtues. My distinguished 
 friend opposite, the treasurer of the Commonwealth 
 as long as the Commonwealth could command his 
 
57 
 
 services, is descended from thirty-eight; the lady on 
 yonr left from sixty-seven; your friend in line with 
 her, from twenty-three. I am, alas, descended from 
 not one! Yet, sir, I have no doubt that my ances- 
 tors did their best. (Laughter.) I am not well ac- 
 quainted with them. They were not a class of 
 people who left their record behind them. They 
 were, I do not doubt, brave men, pure women; but 
 they were not received on board the Mayflower. 
 Since I have sat here, I have pictured to myself their 
 manly procession, their womanly beauty, as they 
 waited on the pier at Plymouth, in southwestern 
 England, for the day when the Mayflower should be 
 sighted at the signal-station, and when she should 
 come up the bay. She leaves Delft-haven ; she passes 
 the dangers of the English Channel and comes to 
 Old Plymouth, the farthest port in southwestern 
 England. " Methinks I see her now, the Mayflower 
 of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a 
 distant State, and bound across the unknown sea." 
 She comes up Plymouth Bay; one hundred and 
 twenty-eight of my ancestors, sir, — sixty-four men 
 and sixty-four women, — are waiting upon the pier, 
 with their passage-tickets in their hands, requesting 
 to be received on board; and at the gangway, with 
 military precision, there stands the sentinel. It is 
 Myles Standish, — afterwards to be the hero of the 
 little company. He looks upon their faces; he sees 
 what may come from them to the old colony in its 
 time ; but he looks back upon the hampered vessel, 
 and to the oldest of my ancestors of that day, sir, he 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 says : " You are a handsome man, but you can't come 
 in." (Laughter and applause.) It is only to that 
 great misfortune of that hour, sir, that I owe the 
 disgraceful position which 1 hold before you now. 
 (Renewed laughter.) I am not acquainted with the 
 facts, I say; I am obliged to draw upon my imagi- 
 nation; and my political friends know that when you 
 have no facts in the blue-books, your imagination is 
 an excellent substitute. I am obliged to draw on 
 my imagination for my facts; but I believe in that 
 sad hour, when they saw the Mayflower leave the 
 shores of Plymouth in England to come across the 
 waters here and establish the 'New Plymouth, those 
 men and women devoted themselves to American 
 colonization; and so soon as they heard that Win- 
 throp, Dudley, and the rest, were on the way, those 
 sixty-four gallant men and sixty-four gallant women, 
 possessed with the impression of the beauty of Rose 
 Standish upon the deck, and the manliness of Myles 
 Standish as he stood beside her, consecrated them- 
 selves to the determination that they would follow 
 the founders of the little State. They remained only 
 ten years in England, and devoted those years to 
 doing what they could to establish the lesser colony 
 of the Bay. 
 
59 
 
 THE PILGRIM MOTHERS. 
 
 BY S F. STREETEK. 
 
 The Pilgrim Mothers ! whei-e are they ? 
 Their frames are dust, their souls iu heaven; 
 
 Yet shall their memory pass away, 
 Nor praise to their good deeds be given ? 
 
 " Teach infant lips to sing their name, 
 (Ten thousand ready tongues reply;) 
 
 And give their noble acts to fame ; 
 Tho' now in silent dust they lie ! " 
 
 They severed fond affection's chain, 
 And looked and listened o'er and o'er, 
 
 On forms they might not see again, 
 To voices they might hear no more ; 
 
 Then, tore their bleeding hearts away. 
 From peaceful homes beyond the sea; 
 
 Where they had passed their childliood's day, 
 Yet where the spirit was not free. 
 
 No Home for them — that magic word. 
 Which, fraught with love, and joy, and rest, 
 
 Whenever and wherever heard, 
 Unseals pure fountains in the breast ; 
 
 No home for them — for far away 
 The dwellings of their kindred stood ; 
 
 Beyond the swellings ocean's play, 
 Far from their forest solitude. 
 
 They sought a strange and wintry shore, 
 Yet love burned brightly in their breast ; 
 
 They shrank not when the mourners bore 
 The weary spirits to their rest ; 
 
 And oft, when from a savage tongue, 
 Pealed wildly forth the battle cry. 
 
 They to their trusting children clung, 
 A nd calmly gave themselves to die. 
 
 man, boast not of thy lion-heart ! 
 Tell not of proud, heroic deed ! 
 
 Have we not seen thy vaunted art 
 Fail in the deepest hour of need? 
 
GO 
 
 But, woman's courage ! 't is more deep, 
 More strong than heart of man can feel — 
 
 To save her little ones that sleep, 
 She bares her bosom to the steel. 
 
 Daughters of them who, long ago. 
 Dared the darlc storm, and angry sea, 
 
 And walked the desert way of woe. 
 And pain, and trouble, to be free! 
 
 Oh, be like them ! like them endure ! 
 And bow beneath affliction's rod ; 
 
 Like them be humble, mild and pure — 
 In joy and sorrow look to God. 
 Baltimore, 1843. 
 
 The next toast was, " The first and the last Surveyors of the 
 Cape — The last has enabled us to pay our tribute to-day to the 
 first." 
 
 It was responded to by Hon. Josiah Quincy, who in a 
 pleasant and facetious address deprecated the growing custom 
 of speech-making, urging as his reason for this action that they 
 could not find any record of the Pilgrims' public speaking. 
 
 The next sentiment was : — 
 
 "Roger Williams, the companion of the pilsfrims, the 
 apostle of soul-liberty." 
 
 This was responded to as follows by the Rev. Dr. Caswell, 
 president of Brown University : 
 
 As a descendant of the pilgrims, I am here to-day 
 to honor those noble pioneers of Christianity and civ- 
 ilization on these shores. But, Mr. President, I came 
 to hear, and not at all to speak. I came to look in 
 reverence upon the spot, which is this day consecrated 
 to the memory of " Captain Myles Standish," the able 
 and dauntless military leader of that little band of 
 exiles. 
 
61 
 
 But why do we honor the Pilgrims? For theii* 
 heroic virtues, their unflinching devotion to truth and 
 duty, their never-faiUng and sublime trust in God. 
 The world has seen but few examples of Christian 
 faith and endurance so illustrious as theirs. Amid 
 sickness and sufferings and dangers that might well 
 appal ordinary men and women, and drive them to 
 despair, they remained steadfast and unmoved in their 
 confidence, — " Strong in the Lord, and in the power 
 of his might." This, it seems to me, was their great 
 distinction from other men and other women. In this 
 they hold a proud preeminence. But what can be 
 said in praise of them that has not been said a hun- 
 dred times already? Suffice it to say, that their prin- 
 ciples and their example formed the basis of 'New- 
 England character. They sowed the precious seed, 
 which, in all parts of the land, has borne fruits an 
 hundred- fold to the honor of piety, and justice, and 
 patriotism. It is hardly too much to say that their 
 principles, propagated in their descendants and 
 through them, permeating and moulding public opin- 
 ion, have, at length, after more than a century of con- 
 flict, made us a nation of freemen, in which there 
 breathes not a single slave. 
 
 But, Mr. President, the sentiment which you have 
 given me calls upon me to speak of Roger Williams. 
 "We honor his memory in Rhode Island. And I am 
 glad to know that the time is long past since his 
 name was held in dishonor in Massachusetts. With 
 the Plymouth brethren, Williams always maintained the 
 most friendly relations. To some of the leading men 
 
C2 
 
 in the Massachusetts Bay, he was warmly attached. 
 In his bitter exile he takes evident pleasure in speak- 
 ing of Governor Winthrop as his " loving friend." 
 
 Roger Williams was a statesman as well as a Chris- 
 tian. He saw, probably, more clearly than any man 
 of his times, — and what comparatively few men saw 
 at all, — the necessity of an entire and absolute sep- 
 aration between church and state. He maintained 
 that in all matters of religious concernment, the con- 
 science must be free, — there must be, what he called, 
 " soul-liberty." Every man must be left free to wor- 
 ship God according to the dictates of his own con- 
 science. The civil magistrate must exercise no con- 
 trol and impose no restraint. This was the distinc- 
 tive feature of his polity with regard to church and 
 state. 'J''his, also, was perhaps the chief heresy which 
 made him obnoxious to the rulers of the Massachusetts 
 Bay, and led to his banishment. That event of 
 unhappy memory occurred nearly two hundred and 
 fifty years ago. The ideas of civil and religious lib- 
 erty, thank God, have made great progress since that 
 time. "Who now, in this broad land, stands up to con- 
 test with Roger Williams that great principle of relig- 
 ious liberty, which he was the first to promulgate? 
 Among Protestants, we may answer, not one. We 
 here, on this consecrated ground, honor his memory. 
 The nation honors it. The friends of religious liberty 
 in all lands honor it. By common consent, the name 
 of Roger Williams stands to-day among the illustri- 
 ous names of history. 
 
 As a matter of tardy justice to the memory of her 
 
63 
 
 distinguished founder, the State of Rhode Island has 
 recently placed an imposing marble statue of him in 
 the national capitol. It is purely ideal, as no authen- 
 tic portrait of him is known to exist. But it finely 
 symbolizes the character of the man, — the humility 
 and benevolence of the Christian, the self-reliance and 
 firmness of the pioneer, the dignity and wisdom of 
 the statesman. 
 
 As yet, no commemorative monument honors him 
 in the city which he founded. We hope the reproach 
 of ingratitude will not long rest upon those who have 
 so largely entered into his labors and who aro so 
 justly proud of their inheritance. It is to be hoped 
 that your good example of to-day may act as a salu- 
 tary incentive to us. 
 
 The next sentiment was : " The Seeds of Civil and Relig- 
 ious Liberty, — planted on our sterile soil by our Pilgrim Fathers, 
 they have brought forth a harvest in which all Christian sects 
 find an inheritance." Rev. Dr. A. A. Miner made an eloquent 
 response. 
 
 SPEECH OF DR. MINER. 
 
 Mr. President, and Ladies and Oentlemen : 
 
 It is but little I have to say, on so short a notice; 
 and at this late hour, brief is the time it would be 
 proper for me to employ. It is not without misgiv- 
 ings I rise at all to respond to the sentiment you have 
 read, as my faith has considerably overflowed the 
 Puritan boundaries. This misgiving was not a little 
 
64 
 
 increased by a jocose remark of the gentleman (Mr. 
 Quincy) who has just addressed yon, and who may 
 be supi^osed to be authority in such matters. Kiding 
 up Captain's Hill this morning, he said to me and my 
 venerable friend Dr. l!^eale, who sits before me, that 
 he did not see what business either of us had here. 
 But as Dr. ISTeale has managed somehow to come in, 
 and as his shoulders are broader than mine, I have 
 followed in his wake. His " Communion," though 
 " close," embraces me, and mine embraces everybody. 
 It may be that this is the door through which the gen- 
 tleman himself (Mr. Quincy) has entered. 
 
 I have, however, one or two things to say for my- 
 self. In the first place, I am a descendant of Captain 
 Myles Standish. It is true, I am compelled to rest 
 this claim on somewhat peculiar grounds. George 
 Macdonald, one of the most popular authors, perhaps, 
 at present, among the literary men of Scotland, in one 
 of the most exquisite little poems known to our lan- 
 guage, gives the lineage of an infant in the following 
 unique and succinct style: — 
 
 " Where did you come from, baby dear? 
 Out of the everywhere, into here " 
 
 !N^ow, as I have the authority of uncorrupted tradi- 
 dion, strengthened by a proximate memory, that I 
 started life an infant, I too may claim to have come 
 from " out of the everywhere into here," and so to 
 have descended in a right line from Myles Standish. 
 
 In the second place, though a heretic, judged from 
 the Puritan stand-point, I am a legitimate successor 
 
65 
 
 of the Puritans, as regards their claims of personal 
 right to worship God and interpret his _ word accord- 
 ing to the dictates of their own consciences. It is 
 true, " they builded better than they knew." What 
 they claimed for themselves, but had not, learned to 
 concede to others, has come to be embodied in institu- 
 tions. Their private prerogative has come to be rec- 
 ognized as a public principle, and men now seek to 
 draw near to God in the light of the best they know of 
 him. Thus do the principles of righteousness come 
 to be embodied in the understanding and the heart. 
 If the business of the church were to ticket us for 
 the kingdom of heaven as we were ticketed for Dux- 
 bury this morning, the Roman Catholic church could 
 do the work quite as well, perhaps, as any other. 
 But if the business of the church is to fortify the 
 human soul with the principles of justice, integrity, 
 humility, and trustful patience, and to temper and 
 kindle it by the sovereign power of divine love ; and 
 if this bringing of a soul into communion with God 
 and making it a law unto itself, is saving it, then 
 the church that best does this, that brings God near- 
 est, that most magnifies his love, that knits the 
 human soul most strongly to him and most controls 
 it by that love which is the " fulfilling of the law," 
 is the best. Thus judged, the Romish church holds 
 a low place; and Romnnism, though under Protest- 
 ant names, is little better. Now, Puritanism, for 
 itself, stands on the right of individual judgment ; 
 and we, for ourselves, Puritanism consenting or 
 resisting, stand on the same right, — the right to be 
 
 9 
 
66 
 
 a heretic, — the right to show that man's heresy is 
 God's orthodoxy. This private right has become 
 pubhc law, and the harvest from Puritan seed has 
 become the common inheritance of the church. 
 
 One thing furtlier. We are professedly honoring 
 the Puritans and their church fidelity. Honor higher 
 than can be embodied in words, would be bestowed 
 by imitating what was noblest in their church life, — 
 fidelity to the best they knew. Churches may put 
 on all the external appearances of thrift and religious 
 zeal, and at the same time remain utterly worldly, 
 fashionable, and self-seeking. I yield to no man in 
 my respect for a truly Christian church. But those 
 churches which take a bottle in one hand and a ballot 
 in the other, and deposit the latter to perpetuate the 
 dominion of the former, present very doubtful claims 
 to any man's respect. For myself, I prefer to be 
 voted out of such a church to being voted into it; 
 and if I must go to heaven with its ticket of indorse- 
 ment pinned to my garments, I would ask some 
 heretic to cover it with a patch of simple unhypocrit- 
 ical worldliness, that divine grace might not be put 
 to any unnecessary strain in receiving me. Not 
 until we can rise, under our measure of light, to the 
 grand fidelity of the Puritans under theirs, shall we 
 truly honor them; and not until we vote as we think, 
 and live and act as we vote, will God be honored 
 and man be blest. 
 
67 
 
 The next regular toast was then announced as follows: "The 
 Pilgrim Colonies, — their records have the simple poetry of 
 mythology and the philosophic truth of history." 
 
 To this toast Dr. ShurtlefF responded. His remarks were 
 full of beauty and historic interest. 
 
 REMARKS OF DR. SHURTLEFF. 
 
 Mr. President: — 
 
 Coming here at this time out of respect to the 
 Pilgrim forefathers of Duxbury and their worthy- 
 descendants, it would certainly be much more agree- 
 able to me to be a silent listener to the pleasant 
 words of others, than to consume any of the time of 
 this interesting occasion by being a speaker. But 
 having a good share of Pilgrim blood coursing 
 through my veins, perhaps as much as any one pres- 
 ent, it would seem wrong, after receiving your kind 
 invitation, to let my aversion to public speaking pre- 
 vent my responding to what you have just proposed. 
 
 What you, sir, have just now said about the records 
 of the Pilgrim colonies is perfectly correct. They 
 possess all that you have attributed to them, and 
 even more: But it is of very little consequence on 
 this occasion what the words of a toast are, for the 
 sentiments that pervade all of us to-day cannot be 
 otherwise than concerning the Pilgrim forefathers of 
 New England. We who esteem ourselves happy in 
 being descended from these Avorthies, always rejoice 
 in an oi:)portunity to pay deserved tribute to their 
 memories by rehearsing their virtues and estimable 
 
68 
 
 characteristics. We consider it our boiinden duty to 
 communicate to our children and successors those 
 things worthy of remembrance which we have learned 
 from our fathers. !N^ow, sir, with what you and 
 others gathered together around this hospitable board 
 have so well said, nothing of this has been neglected ; 
 nor have the mighty deeds of valor that were per- 
 formed of old by our venerated ancestors been for- 
 gotten. How could we on an occasion with such 
 interesting purposes as this in view, forget these 
 worthy people? "We are now on their own ground, 
 and in sight of the scenes of their early endeavors. 
 The places which they once trod, and where they 
 d-^elt and labored, are before and around us. Every 
 object that meets our view reminds us of what has 
 transpired in the past, and of the historic characters 
 who have achieved so much for their posterity. 
 
 The special object of this present gathering on 
 Captain's Hill — the consecration of the ground on 
 which we hope soon to see reared an enduring mon- 
 ument to the Pilgrims' captain — cainiot but awaken 
 within us many memories of the past which must 
 necessarily rencAV associations of the most pleasant 
 character, and carry us back to the ancient days 
 when the Pilgrim worthies were here in the flesh, as 
 they undoubtedly now are in the spirit. In the selec- 
 tion of a site for the memorial, you have been singu- 
 larly fortunate. It is most prominently situated, and 
 is discernible from all the Pilgrim surroundings, and 
 moreover, was early set apart for the use of the brave 
 captain by his grateful contemporaries. Standing on 
 
69 
 
 it, as we now do, we recognize the appropriateness 
 of the place. From its lofty eminence, hallowed 
 by the remembrance of the valiant Captain and vene- 
 rated Elder, scenes of the greatest interest open to 
 our view. At our feet Ave can distinctly trace the 
 vestiges of these fathers and of their humble abodes. 
 We can drink to-day from their never-failing springs 
 of living water, and partake of jDroducts raised in 
 their own fertile fields. At no great distance from 
 the shores that nearly surround this delightful penin- 
 sula, we can distinguish the very place where, just 
 within view of the promised land, rode the renowned 
 May Flower and its little colony of self-exiled pil- 
 grims. Very near can be seen the delightful island 
 which first gave rest and safety and comfort to these 
 weary people, and where, under the shelter of the 
 hospitable rock that even now marks the sacred spot, 
 they passed their first Christian Sabbath in ^ew 
 England. From this, your chosen site, can be seen 
 all the noted landmarks of the Pilgrim history. 
 
 "While we survey these ancient scenes and former 
 abodes of the Pilgrim fathers, we should consider our- 
 selves exceedingly fortunate and happy that so much 
 knowledge of what concerned them has been pre- 
 served on written and printed pages, and that rem- 
 iniscences have also been transmitted to us by truthful 
 tradition, most sacredly passed down from generation 
 to jreneration of the descendants of the first comers. 
 But when I say "truthful traditions," Mr. President, 
 I do not mean to class with them any foolish and 
 vague impossibilities, that neither heighten, in our 
 
70 
 
 estimation, those whose memory we should revere, 
 nor give us ideas of what did not take place. His- 
 tory and Ideality can keep closely together, and 
 strengthen and beautify each other; but Truth should 
 be their handmaid and ever-present companion. The 
 positive historian must, and always will, doubt tradi- 
 tionary lore, because, in it error frequently supplants 
 and eradicates truth, diverts reality from its direct 
 course, and very sadly perverts history. 
 
 However truthful record has been respecting the 
 history of our pilgrim ancestry, tradition has been 
 greatly at fault. Truth and propriety have been set 
 aside, and error and frivolity have prevailed. But, 
 fortunately, the written and printed records speak 
 louder and stronger than wide-mouthed tradition, and 
 all is safe. In the laudable contention of claiming for 
 ancestors the honor of being the first to place foot 
 upon the Plymouth rock, tradition has most signally 
 failed. Both sexes have set up pretensions to this 
 distinction, and some of the most excellent of the May 
 Flower passengers have to be set aside because, hav- 
 ing other engagements aboard ship, they did not hap- 
 pen to be of the first boatrload that reached the shore 
 at the water-side of their new-found haven of rest in 
 "New Plymouth. 
 
 The first three marriages in the colony were of 
 persons all of whom were passengers of the May- 
 flower: Edward Winslow married widow Susanna 
 "White; John Rowland married Elizabeth Tilley, and 
 John Alden married Priscilla Mullens. These mar- 
 riages took place when all the colonists dwelt on the 
 
71 
 
 two sides of Leyden Street, between Burying Hill and 
 the water side in Plymouth, and sometime before 
 Edward Winslow brought over the three heifers and 
 one bull, — the first neat cattle in the colony, — in the 
 Ann, in March, 1624. Therefore, the tradition that 
 Howland married a daughter of Governor Carver is 
 not true ; nor would Alden have required any animal 
 for his newly-married wife to ride a few rods, especi- 
 ally when there were none in the colony larger than a 
 good-sized dog, or goat, or respectable pig. 
 
 The redoubtable actions of the brave Standish, the 
 excellencies of Alden, South worth, Brewster, Collier, 
 and innumerable other worthies, we can all believe, 
 because they are matters of record, and we notice 
 them daily exemplified by their posterity. Let us 
 continue to emulate these examples of excellence and 
 worth; and as the Standish memorial shall rise, stone 
 upon stone, let our determination be strengthened to 
 be guided by instructions which they left for our 
 good. 
 
 Far away, sir, in the old borough of Boston, in 
 Lincolnshire, which furnished so many good colonists 
 for our Boston, there stands a noble old church-edi- 
 fice known as St. Botolph's, with an extraordinai-ily 
 tall tower. There formerly worshipped many saintly 
 persons whose lives terminated in ^ew England. 
 It is said of the estimable John Cotton, of Boston, 
 that while he was vicar of St. Botolph's, he kept dur- 
 ing dark nights a light upon that tower to guide the 
 wayfarers over the bogs and moors and fens of Lin- 
 colnshire; and it is likewise said thai when Cotton 
 
72 
 
 came to 'New England the light of St. Botolph's went 
 out. Be this as it may, certainly a new light was 
 transferred to America which served here as a most 
 brilliant luminary. May we not hope that our memo- 
 rial may tower up on high like old St. Botolph's, and 
 serve not only as a safe guide to the weary mariner 
 and wayfarer, but also be a landmark, from whose 
 lofty top shall be pointed out the foot-paths of our 
 fathers, and, recalling the remembrance of the past, 
 excite to the best endeavors the sons and daughters 
 of the Pilgrim stock. 
 
 The exercises were concluded by " Auld Lang Syne " by the 
 band. 
 
73 
 
 Owing to the extreme uncertainty of the railroad being finished 
 in season to transport the guests, the committee, with much 
 regret, were obliged to withhold many invitations till the last 
 moment, which rendered it impossible for some of the distin- 
 guished invited guests to be present. Many letters of sympathy 
 with the cause were received, but with regrets that intervening 
 engagements would prevent their presence on the occasion. Lord 
 Parker was present on the grounds during the day, remaining 
 till the exercises were over, and showing much interest, but 
 carefully avoided being called out. Lord Walter Campbell sent 
 his regrets, as did many distinguished citizens who would, if 
 possible, have been present. Extracts from the following letters 
 show the great interest in the Memorial to Standish, and the 
 press of the country have universally and strongly favored this 
 tribute to the memory of the old hero. The generals and other 
 officers of the army, as well as the privates of the G-rand Army 
 of the Republic, all approve of erecting a monument to the 
 memory of the first commissioned officer of the United States, 
 and some of the best soldiers, as well as many distinguished 
 civilians, are already members of the Association. The expenses 
 of the festival were borne by the citizens of Duxbury, who, 
 are deserving of much credit for their perseverance and energy 
 in trying to make so large an audience comfortable under such 
 disadvantageous circumstances, and without any expense to the 
 Memorial Association. 
 
 Five acres of land for the monument has been donated by 
 the owner of the Standish farm, at the request of the Standish 
 heirs, and ten acres more of adjoining land has been placed by 
 him in the hands of the treasurer of the Association, to be by 
 them assessed and sold for betterments, if, in the opinion of the 
 directors, the erection of the monument shall in any manner 
 
 10 
 
74: 
 
 benefit pecuniarily the balance of the Standish farm, — if not, 
 the same is to be re-deeded to hitn. 
 
 To George Bradford, Thomas Chandler, and Charles H. 
 Chandler, Selectmen, and other town officers and citizens of Dux- 
 bury, the Association is much obligated for contributions and 
 assistance, in entertaining the guests, as well as for their uni- 
 versally expressed sympathy for the memory of Myles Standish. 
 
 XjE1TTE:RS 
 
 From the President of the United States. 
 " I am heartily with your Association, in sympathy with any 
 moYcment to honor one who was as prominent in the earl}' history 
 of our country as Myles Standish ; but my engagements are such 
 that I regret I am unable to promise to be present at the dedica- 
 tion in August. 
 
 " With many thanks for your kindness in sending me the invita- 
 tion, I am respectfully yours, 
 
 U. S. Grant." 
 
 General Sherman writes : " Of course the proposit(m to erect 
 a monument in sight of Massachusetts Bay, to that stanch old 
 soldier, Miles Standish, meiets m}' hearty approbation, and I should 
 be most happy to assist. 
 
 "But I have been away so much that I ought to stay at home," 
 etc. 
 
 From General Sheridan. 
 
 " I do not know that my engagements will permit of my being 
 present at the time mentioned, but will do so if I can. 
 
 *■' In any event, allow me to assure you of my admiration and re- 
 spect for the services and sturdy character of the man, and my 
 heartj' approval of the oliject of your A&sociation." 
 
 P. H. Sheridan. 
 
75 
 
 "1 beg to say that I heartily approve of your intention to erect 
 a Memorial to Captain Standish, and I think there is no more 
 fitting spot than the one you have chosen for that purpose. 
 
 " I shall be glad to be with you if possible. Thanking you for 
 your courteous invitation, 
 
 " I remain, yours very truly, 
 
 " A. E. Bdrnside." 
 From General Hooker. 
 '' I regret to state that my engagements for the month of August 
 are such, as to render it impossible for me to join you on that 
 memorable occasion. It is unnecessary for me to say that I deeply 
 sympathize with the object of your meeting. I have been an ad- 
 mirer of the character of IMyles Standish from my boyhood up, and 
 would like to be identified with any body of gentlemen engaged in 
 commemorating his great virtues. To me, his civil and military 
 character towers far above his contemporaries, and they, if I mis- 
 take not (when history shall be truthfully written), will be made 
 to appear to be the most remarkable body of men that ever lived. 
 Viewed from our present standpoint, in my opinion, they are now 
 entitled to that judgment. It will be a graceful act on the part of 
 our friends, to erect a monument to his memory ; but it must not 
 be expected to add to his fame or immortalitj'. Industrj-, valor, 
 and integrity were regarded as the cardinal virtues of our foi-e- 
 fathers, and I hope they will never be held in less estimation by 
 their descendants. One of our gifted poets has happily named 
 ' Plymouth Pock ' as the corner-stone of the nation. The super- 
 struction promises to be worthy of the foundation. With great 
 respect, I have the honor to-be your friend and serA^ant, 
 
 "J. Hooker, llajor-General." 
 " Unexpected engagements will deprive me of the pleasure of 
 accepting your kind invitation for the day. Frequent recurrence 
 to the forming period of national character distinguishes a wise 
 and patriotic people. The incident at Cape Anne in 1625, 'the 
 eager and peremptory demand ' of Standish, combined with the 
 'prudence and moderation' of Governor Conant, exhibit the 
 characteristics, the combination of energy and wisdom, of decision 
 and flrnmess, which again made the law a century and a half later 
 at Bunker Hill. 
 
76 
 
 "The spirit of self-assertion and inclepend<ince in 1625, bred that 
 which paralyzed the English Council in 1671, and British arms in 
 1775; which repeated 'the 19th of April' in 1861, and thwarted 
 British greed in alliance with Southern Slavers'. The historical 
 connection is complete. 
 
 " Very respectfully, yours, 
 
 "J. Wing ATE Thornton." 
 
 From Ex-Governor Sprague, of Bhode Island. 
 " I fear my other engagements will deprive me of the pleasure of 
 mingling with those who meet to honor the sterling character of 
 our ancestor, and call up their deeds for the imitation of the actors 
 of this hour. Express to the Association my sense of the honor 
 done me by their invitation. Associations of men of the present 
 time, who honor men of the past for acts which have redounded to 
 the elevation of those who live subsequently, have the same, or 
 some of the same elements of character themselves, that they honor. 
 \Ve can tell by the public acts of the man, or of communities, 
 whether among them, or in the nation, the word of progress is For- 
 ward! whether there is a backusard tread. Men cannot stand still; 
 the highest perfection is, man progressing ; the lowest scale of 
 being is, man decaying. 
 
 " Very respectfully, yours, 
 
 "W. Sprague." 
 
 " As a descendant of those who landed on the Plymouth Rock, 
 I feel a special interest in whatever relates to the brave soldier. 
 Captain Myles Standish, by whose sword the little colony was in 
 its infancy defended. I am withheld from attending the ceremony 
 which is to take place on the 17th, by various occupations which 
 take up all my leisure, and must content myself with expressing 
 my satisfaction that it was so fully shown by our late civil war, 
 that those who have inherited from the noble stock of the Pilgrim 
 fathers, the region once defended by his valor, inherit also the 
 courage and resolution which have made his name famous in onr 
 history. 
 
 " I am. Sir, with great respect, your obedient servant, 
 
 W. C. Bryant." 
 
 219 89-^. 
 

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