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January ist, 1876. 
 
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 AUBURN, N. Y. 
 
 
 At^ 
 
January ist, 1876. 
 
 ^^c 
 
 CE^TINNIAL DEMOlTRATiO^ 
 
 AT AUBURN, N. Y. 
 
 A REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 INCI.UDINO THE SALUTES AND FLAG RAISING, THE NAMES AND AGES OF THE 
 COMMITTEE, OFFICERS, CLERGY AND SPEAKER, 
 
 THE REMARKS OF PRESIDENT MYERS, 
 
 AND / ■ • / , ^ . 
 
 THE ADDRESS OF JUDGE HALL. 
 
 ''''Thy Stars have lit the welkin dome, 
 Aivl all thy hues wsre born, in Heaven.' 
 
 AUBURN: 
 
 \V. J. MOSES' PUBLISHING HOUSE, 16 CLARK STREET. 
 
 1870. 
 
 fr 
 

f 
 
 ORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 AuBi'RN, Dkckmbkr G, 1875. 
 HON BEN J. F. HALL : 
 
 Dkar Sir: — As the public colonial proceedings of the year 1776 which 
 resulted in national independence were inaugurated on New Year's day, by 
 the hoisting of a continental flag at the headquarters of the Commander- 
 in-Chief of the army, at Cambridge, it seems to the undersigned, your 
 neighbors, that the centenary of that event ought to be in some way com- 
 memorated in Auburn. They are able to think of no more appropriate 
 way than to have it commemorated by religious solemnities and an address 
 at one of our public halls or churches, on New Year's day or evening, as 
 may hereafter be the most convenient. 
 
 In the belief that their action will be concurred in by their neighbors 
 generally, they take the liberty of inviting you to deliver the address, and 
 of asking you to signify your acceptance or declension at an early day. 
 
 Yours Respectfull}', 
 
 Horace T. Cook, 
 E. E. Marvine, 
 
 C. W, POMROY, 
 
 Charles Hawley, 
 Hugh Hughes, 
 Joseph D. Otis, 
 John S. Clary, 
 E. L. Skinner, 
 James A. Clary, 
 Wm. B. WoODlN, 
 A. J. Sanders, 
 I. R. Pearson, 
 A. A. Sabin, 
 a. w. hollister, 
 Wm. T. Gr.wes, 
 S. H. Morris, 
 L. C. Mann, 
 
 H. RlCHAUDSON, 
 
 .Fno. \i. Richardson, 
 Isaac S. Ai.len, 
 a. v. m. suydam, 
 
 S. W. BO-iiRDMAN, 
 
 D. M. Dunning, 
 Chas. G. Briggs, 
 A. H. Goss, 
 
 H. T. Dickinson, 
 W. E. Webster, 
 Adelbert R, Hoyt, 
 
 E. S. Ongley, 
 A. G. Bulkley, 
 H. B. Gilbert, 
 N. B. S. Eldked, 
 Geo. W. Bacon, 
 
 J, B. (xAYLORD, 
 
 C. W. Edwards. 
 W. U. Caupknter, 
 
 Terance J. Kennedy, 
 M. S. Myers, 
 Jno. S. Browd, 
 William Searls, 
 John P.age, 
 C. S. Burtis, 
 S. L. Bradley, 
 H. P. Green, 
 Martin J. Webster, 
 E. B. Tuttle, 
 Chas. A. Smith, 
 X. P. Clarke, 
 Frederick Allen, 
 G. W. Tripp, 
 .Iamks E. Tyler, 
 Jno. E. Leonard, 
 f. m. cofkin, 
 Chas. S. Goss. 
 
4 COBBESPONBENCE. 
 
 Messrs. Horace T. Cook and others : 
 
 Gentlemen : — Your note of the 6th instant reached me yesterday. The 
 maintenance of the siege of Boston without gunpowder, within musket 
 shot of a formidable enemy, for six consecutive mouths prior to the com- 
 mencement of 1776, was and is confessedly without a parallel in military 
 history ; and the ultimate escape of General Washington and his rustic 
 soldiery from that imminent peril was a marvelous deliverance. Nothing 
 in our history ever approximated it, except our marvelous escape from the 
 perils of the winter of 1861. The men who went to their lesoue, and wire 
 mustered into the continental service on the tirst day of January, 1776, 
 at Cambridge, saved the army of Washington, and probably the cause 
 itself, from discomfiture and disgrace. The formal dedication of the flag 
 on that day was both a demonstration of gratitude for their deliverance, 
 and an artifice of war. 
 
 As it was dedicated with religious services and an address, it is certainly 
 proper to commemorate the event in a similar manner. It was an event of 
 too much importance in its consequences to the country and to mankind, 
 to be allowed to be forgotten by a people who have free institutions to 
 preserve and a God to adore. I heartily concur with such of my neighbors 
 as think its centenary ought to be observed in Auburn. If they desire 
 me to do so, I will endeavor to contribute to the exercises. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Auburn, N. Y., Dec. 8, 1875. BENJ. F. HALL. 
 
Committee of Arrangements, 
 
 Col. TERANCE J. KENNEDY, Age 33. 
 
 Col. JOHN B. RICHARDSON, 
 Col. THADDEUS B. BARBER, 
 Capt. JOHN E. LEONARD, 
 Capt. HUGH HUGHES, 
 Sh'ff ANDREW J. SANDERS, 
 Capt. JOHN CHOATE, , 
 Treas. HORACE T. COOK, 
 C. E. JOSEPH H. MORRIS, 
 Capt. GEORGE W. BACON, 
 P. C. JOHN PAGE, 
 Com. WILLIAM E. WEBSTER, 
 P. C. ROBERT R. GARDNER, 
 Prof. E. P. SPRAGUE, 
 
 5S. 
 SO. 
 
 48. 
 87. 
 44 
 Bl. 
 53. 
 33. 
 52. 
 35. 
 32. 
 35. 
 38. 
 
 This Committee initiated and conducted the ceremony, 
 and defrayed its expenses. 
 
p 
 
 FFICERS OF THE 
 
 P 
 
 AY. 
 
 'i^residenl , 
 MICHAEL S. MYERS, As-e 74. 
 
 7 'ice- i^resirients, 
 
 OLIVER S. TAYLOR, 
 NATHAN OSBORN, 
 JOSEPH CnOATE, 
 NATHANIEL WILLIAMS, 
 JOSEPH BARNES, 
 DANIEL HEWSON, 
 MILO "WEBSTER, 
 SYLVESTER WILLARD, 
 WILLIAM LINDSLEY, 
 ELLSHA W. SHELDON, 
 SILAS W. ARNETT, 
 HORATIO ROBINSON, Sen., 
 THERON GREEN, 
 EDWARD E. MARVINE, 
 CHRISTOPHER MORGAN, 
 NELSON BEARDSLEY, 
 
 Aggregate ages of President and Vice-Presidents, 2531 years. Average, 77. 
 
 Secretaries, 
 
 H. LAURENS STORKE, Age 32. HENRY D. PECK, Age 24. 
 
 Clerffy, 
 Rev. EDMOND B. TUTTLE, Age 60. Rev. WILLIAM SEARLS, Age 48. 
 
 Speaker, 
 
 BENJAMIN F. HALL, Age 62. 
 
 "Director of Music, 
 
 PiiOFESsoR E. P. SPRAGUE, Age 38. 
 
 Marshals , 
 
 ANDREAV J. SANDERS, Age 44. JOHN E. LEONARD, Age 48. 
 
 JOSEPH II. MORRIS, Age 32. 
 
 92 
 
 AMOS T. CARPENTER, 
 
 Asie 87 
 
 86 
 
 JAMES TIBBLES, 
 
 " 85 
 
 85 
 
 THOMAS M. SKINNER, ' 
 
 " 84 
 
 83 
 
 LYMAN SOULE, 
 
 " 82 
 
 82 
 
 ROBERT JENKINS, 
 
 " 81 
 
 79 
 
 RICHARD STEEL, 
 
 " 80 
 
 77 
 
 TRUMAN J. McMASTER, 
 
 " 78 
 
 76 
 
 JOHN OLMSTED, 
 
 " 76 
 
 76 
 
 JOSIAH BARBER, 
 
 " 75 
 
 75 
 
 ANDREW V. M. SUYDAM, 
 
 " 75 
 
 74 
 
 CHARLES STANDART, 
 
 " 73 
 
 72 
 
 WILLIAM C. VANVECHTEN, 
 
 " 72 
 
 72 
 
 ISAAC S. ALLEN, 
 
 " 72 
 
 72 
 
 DAVID WRIGHT, 
 
 " 69 
 
 G7 
 
 ELMORE P. ROSS, 
 
 " 67 
 
 67 
 
 CHARLES W. POMROY, 
 
 " 67 
 
THE CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 HOW^ IT WAS COMMEMORATED. 
 
 Pursuant to the recommendation of the Common Council 
 the city bells, factory bells, and every other sort and descrip- 
 tion of bells, which could tinkle or sound, were tasked to 
 their utmost tensity the very first minute of the very first hour 
 of the morning of this centennial year, and the merry chimes 
 of St. Peter's rang out the following programme : 
 
 THE 0[,!) YlCAit. THE NEW YEAR. , 
 
 1. Changes on Eight Bells. 5. Hail Columbia. 
 
 2. Those Evening Bells. 6. Yankee Doodle. 
 
 3. The Last Rose of Summer. 7. America. 
 
 4. Auld Lang Syne. 8. Watchman, tell us of the night. 
 
 At the same time there was a feit de joie by a detail from 
 Seward Post G. A E., under command of Lieut. Wm. E. 
 Webster, and consisting of Comrades Martin Webster, Chas. H. 
 Shapley, Ed. Havens, Ed. Andelfinger, Lorenzo Daniels, and 
 Fred. Cossum, who fired a salute of thirty-six guns at the rate 
 of three rounds per minute, which shows that the old battery 
 men have not yet " got out of practice." During the firing, 
 the steam whistles of Messrs. E. D. Clapp & Co. put in their 
 chorus, their fires having been kept up for that purpose; and 
 that very minute the doors of XMT Hose Co. flew open, and 
 its members, with a number of "Fours," and other patriotic 
 citizens, issued therefrom with their carriage — which had been 
 fitted up for the occasion with strings of sleigh-bells attached 
 to every available part of the apparatus, as well as to the drag 
 
b CENTENABT OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 ropes, and with the bell of a Southern Central locomotive sus- 
 pended from the rear axle — and with' a good sized dinner bell 
 in each man's hand, which added their clangor to the general 
 din, they moved off, headed by a band of music. Altogether 
 the firing and banging, and the jingling and whistling, and the 
 crackling and the screeching, outdid anything which old John 
 Adams, or any of his compatriots, ever dreamed of If it did 
 not " make Rome howl," it made every dog in Auburn howl, 
 and many things in Auburn besides dogs. They embellished 
 the revolutionary prediction of anniversary jubilations with all 
 the modern improvements and latter day contrivances. 
 
 The crowds assembled on the streets reinforced the proces- 
 sion, which took its route through South and Logan to Eliza- 
 beth, and thence back through William, Genesee, Washington, 
 Clark, State, Garden, Franklin and Fulton streets to East 
 Genesee and back to headquarters, dispersing not until the 
 first gray streaks of daybreak made their appearance. For aii 
 impromptu demonstration in commemoration of tlie centennial, 
 it was a very creditable affair to the originators and projectors, 
 and doubtless did everlastingly commemorate the occasion in 
 more minds than one. 
 
 From the hour of seven until eight o'clock in the mornino- 
 the church and factory bells again rang a peal in compliance 
 with the invitation of the Common Council. From that time 
 forward all was quiet on the Potomac until half past ten, when 
 an immense concourse of people assembled in and in front of 
 the Court House, to witness the exercises arranged for com- 
 memorating the dedication of the American flag, one hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 EXERCISES IN THE COUKT HOUSE. 
 
 The formal exercises of the day took place in and in front 
 of the Court House. The ceremonies in the interior, consist- 
 ing of speech-making, singing, devotional exercises, &c., took 
 place on a platform erected over the Judges' bench and Clerk's 
 desk, embellished by ornamental tributes on the south wall of 
 the room by various local organizations. Right here we 
 
THE DECORATIONS. » 
 
 desire to say that Sheriff Sanders is entitled to great credit 
 for the admirable manner in which he carried out the wishes 
 of the committee of arrangements in regard to the staging, 
 fixtures, &c. 
 
 THE DECORATIONS. 
 
 At the left, in an evergreen shield and in neat evergreen 
 lettering, were the words, "Auburn Fire Department." The 
 shield was surmounted by a regular fireman's hat, which had 
 doubtless seen service. Pipes, trumpets, and other firemanic 
 symbols surrounded the device, while at the top an American 
 flag was tastefully arranged. Chief Engineer Joe JMoitIs was 
 the artist, we understand. 
 
 At the right, the words " Seward Post G. A. R No. 37,'' 
 enclosed in an evergreen frame, stood out prominentl^^ The 
 Stars and Stripes, tastefully looped up, also decorated the tablet. 
 A portrait of the illustrious Seward adorned the centre, a 
 painting of the gallant Sheridan's ride was seen at the top, 
 while on the floor of the stage stacked muskets and a number 
 of revolutionary swords were observed. 
 
 In the centre, in a large square evergreen frame, the legend 
 " Post C. W. Crocker, No. 45 G. A. R, Tribute to the Flag," 
 loomed up conspicuously. Surmounting the frame and 
 enshrined in the flag he loved so well, was an excellent por- 
 trait of the immortal Washington, and in the center was a 
 picture of Charles W. Crocker, in whose honor the Post was 
 named. Muskets and a number of antique swords stood on 
 the floor beneath the device, and the whole presented a very 
 beautiful and artistic appearance, reflecting great credit on the 
 decorator, Capt. George W. Bacon. 
 
 The face of the stage was wholly concealed by flags, which 
 hung in graceful folds, and a lithograph of the " Battle of Get- 
 tysburg '' rested in the centre. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE MEETING-. 
 
 At the hour of 10:30 precisely, the meeting in the Court 
 House was called to order by Col. Terance J. Kenned}^, who 
 
10 CENTENARY OF THE AMEBIC AN FLAG. 
 
 announced the arrival of the hour appointed for the opening of 
 the meeting, and moved its immediate organization bj the 
 election of the officers selected by the Committee. 
 
 The motion being unanimously adopted, Hon. Michael S. 
 Myers, President of the day, took the chair, amid great 
 applause, and invited the Vice-Presidents named in the papers 
 to take seats upon the platform. 
 
 In compliance with the invitation, the aged procession filed 
 upon the stage, many of the venerables bending under the 
 weight of years, and experiencing considerable difficulty in 
 mounting the steps. Following is the list of 
 
 THE VICE-PRESIDENTS : 
 
 Oliver S. Taylor, Amos T. Carpenter, Nathan Osborn, James 
 Tibbies, Joseph Choate, Thomas M. Skinner, Lyman Soule, 
 Nathaniel Williams, Joseph Barnes, Eobert Jenkins, Eichard 
 Steel, Daniel Hewson, Truman J. McMaster, Milo Webster, 
 Sylvester Willard, John Olmsted, Josiah Barber, Elisha W. 
 Sheldon, Silas W. Arnett, William Lindsley, Andrew V. M. 
 Suydam, Charles Standart, Horatio Eobinson, Theron Green, 
 Elmore P. Eoss, William C. Van Vechten, Edward E. Mar- 
 vine, Isaac S. Allen, David Wright, Nelson Beardsley, Chris- 
 topher Morgan and Charles W. Pomroy. 
 
 president's address. 
 
 Fellow Citizens :■ — I heartily thank you for the 
 proof of your confidence and respect which you have 
 shown, in calling me to preside at this novel and inter- 
 esting gathering. My duties in the position in which 
 you have placed me are few and simple, and it is not 
 my purpose to take up your time by extended remarks 
 on historic details. That duty has devolved upon 
 another, who will do the subject full and ample justice. 
 It is enough for me to state that our centennial as a 
 nation is upon us, and that we, the People of the United 
 
PBESIDENT MYERS' ADDRESS. 11 
 
 States of America, are a united, free, and independent 
 people, a powerful republic, commanding the respect 
 of the civilized world, and proclaiming liberty and 
 freedom to all its citizens. Its advent has been hailed 
 by the people with patriotic ardor, by a demonstration 
 that brings to us a Fourth of July sensation, and renews 
 our pledge to the support of the Stars and Stripes, one 
 hundred years ago dedicated by our forefathers to the 
 cause of Freedom. 
 
 It is imputed to a British statesman to have said, 
 after the Revolution had succeeded, and our Indepen- 
 dence was established, " Let them have their freedom ; 
 let them maintain their republic. One hundred years 
 hence the world will be talking of the good old mon- 
 archy of America." He was a false prophet. The Flag 
 still floats over a free republic, sustained by freemen 
 who unite in proclaiming, 
 
 " Forever float that standard sheet ! 
 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us. 
 With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
 
 And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?' 
 
 SECRETARIES. 
 
 • On motion of Col. Kennedy, Messrs. H. Laurens Storke and 
 Henry D. Peck were appointed Secretaries of the meeting. 
 
 PATRIOTIC SONG. 
 
 The quartette, consisting of Messrs. H. B. Lindsley, R C. 
 Grant, W. A. Holmes and Prof E. P. Sprague, then rendered 
 excellently the song commencing : 
 
 " We love the heroes of our land, 
 
 Whose names shall live in story, 
 The wise of heart, the strong of hand, 
 
 Whose life and death was glory." 
 
1 2 CENTENAR Y OF THE AMEBIC A N FLA G . 
 
 THE PRAYER. 
 
 Rev. Wm. Searls then addressed tlie Throne of Grace in a 
 fervent, impressive, and eminently appropriate prayer. 
 
 " UNION AND LIBERTY " 
 
 was then spiritedly sung by the quartette, accompanied on the 
 organ by Prof. Sprague : 
 
 " Flag of the heroes who left us their glory, 
 
 Borne through their battle-fields' thunder and Harae, 
 
 Blazoned in song and illumined in story, 
 Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame." 
 
 SPEAKER OF THE DAY. 
 
 President Myers then introduced the speaker of the day, 
 who proceeded to address the large meeting. His address was 
 an able and masterly contribution to history, showing careful 
 and intelligent research, and interested the assemblage intensely. 
 It was both retrospective and prospective in character, its his- 
 torical portions accurate and comprehensive, its deductions for 
 the future logical and conclusive, and its delivery eloquent 
 and impressive. At the eloquent recital of the patriotic events 
 enumerated in the address, and at its conclusion, the speaker 
 was enthusiastically applauded. _ [^c?. Advertiser.^ 
 
 JUDGE hall's address. 
 
 Addressing the President and Vice Presidents^ he said: 
 
 Mr. President : I avail myself of this, my earliest 
 opportunity, to congratulate you, sir, and the two and 
 thirty venerable and honorable neighbors like yourself, 
 who grace this platform with their presence, that you 
 and they are alive and in comfoitable health, to see and 
 enjoy the light of this centennial day. I also venture 
 to take the liberty in this presence to felicitate myself 
 for the enjoyment of the same blessing, and for this 
 
JUDGE HALVS ADDRESS. 13 
 
 appointed privilege of exchanging congratulations. It 
 affords me great pleasure to salute you at this time with 
 my heartiest words of cheer, and [turning to the audi- 
 ence] 
 
 Fellow Citizens and Neighbors: I also congratulate 
 you, and each and every one of yoa, and very especial- 
 ly those of you who were so thoughtful as to appoint 
 these exercises, and embellish this demonstration in 
 our beautiful and beloved Auburn, as T have the 
 seniors upon this platform, and earnestly pray for you 
 and yours, a happy New Year. May you live long and 
 prosper. 
 
 We have assembled this morning to commemorate, 
 in a modest way, and to commend our children and our 
 children's children to commemorate, an event in our 
 national life which deserves to go down with our choic- 
 est family traditions to the end of time — the organiza- 
 tion of the army of the Revolution and the simultaneous 
 inauguration of the continental flag. We commemo- 
 rate and commend the commemoration of that event, 
 not so much, if at all, because of the intrinsic beauty 
 of the standard in its present form and condition, 
 although that is quite sufficient to command admiration, 
 but because it is the appointed, honored and world- 
 renowned symbol of our advanced civilization in the 
 condition of civil and religious freedom. Having con- 
 sented to act as your guide through the mists of the 
 past century, you will now proceed to habit yourselves 
 for the trip — to put on your ancestor's shoes that you 
 may be able to go back with me to old Cambridge and 
 stand awhile precisely where some of them stood one 
 hundred years ago. Although it may seem to you to 
 
14: CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 hQ a great distance by the milestones of persons, or of 
 families, or even of generations, it is nevertheless but a 
 step by the milestones of nations. In the familiar fash- 
 ion of the guides at Niagara, Yosemite, Mont Blanc and 
 Vesuvius, I will endeavor to acquaint and to antiquate 
 you a little as we proceed. I will endeavor to set the 
 hands on the dial of time back to where they stood one 
 hundred years ago, that you may have a preparatory 
 glimpse of the situation of the country and the revolu- 
 tionary cause, before you are introduced to the inaug- 
 uration itself. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 
 
 One hundred years ago all North America belonged, 
 by possession under color of title, to Great Britain and 
 Spain. 
 
 One hundred years ago 750,530 square miles of it 
 lying eastward of the Mississippi, between the St. Croix 
 and the St. John, inhabited by upwards of 2,000,000 of 
 civilized people, belonged to the dominion of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 One hundred years ago those pioneer inhabitants 
 were organized into thirteen separate communities, 
 under as many separate grants of the British crown. 
 
 One hundred years ago those thirteen separate com- 
 munities were provided with twelve royal governors, 
 namely : The Colony of Massachusetts Bay, with 
 Major General Th(nnas Gage; the Colony of New 
 Hampshire, with Baronet Sir John Wentworth ; the 
 Colony of Connecticut, with Ex-Chief Justice Jonathan 
 Trumbull ; the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence 
 Plantations, with Ex- Lieutenant Governor Nicholas 
 Cooke; the Colony of New York, with Ex-Lieutenant 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDRESS. 15 
 
 Governor William Tryon ; the Colony of the Jerseys, 
 with Counsellor William Franklin, son of the philoso- 
 pher, Benjamin Franklin ; the Colonies of Pennsylva- 
 nia and Delaware, with Mr. John Penn, grandson of the 
 founder, William Penn ; the Colony of Maryland, with a 
 Sir Robert Eden, brother of Lord Aukland ; the Col- 
 ony of Virginia, with John Murray, Earl of Dunmore ; 
 the Colony of North Carolina, with Counsellor Josiah 
 Martin; the Colony of South Carolina, with Lord Wil- 
 liam Campbell, son of the Duke of Argyle ; and the 
 Colony of Georgia, with Baronet Sir James Wright, 
 who were charged, among other things, with the collec- 
 tion and transmission of certain tribute money, levied 
 upon the colonies by the British Parliament, in con- 
 formity with the financial policy of premier Lord Fred- 
 eric North. '^ 
 
 One hundred years ago the Legislatures of all the 
 colonies had declined to levy that tribute money, and 
 on account of such declension, the Legislatures of Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay and Virginia had been ordered by their 
 respective royal governors to dissolve. 
 
 One hundred years ago the inhabitants of the four 
 New England colonies, inclusive of the royal governors 
 
 * 1. GovEENOR Gage was born in 1720 ; entered the army and came to America with Lord 
 Amherst, and succeeded him in the command of the British forces in 1774, and was made 
 civil as well as military Governor of Massachusetts Bay. Failing to reduce the revolu- 
 tionists of Massachusetts to obedience, he was superseded by Sir William Howe in Octo- 
 ber, 1775; recalled in disgrace, ana died under that cloud upon his reputation April 2d, 
 1787, in the (iSth year of his age.— 2. Governor Wentworth was born in 1738; was 
 knighted and made Governor of New Hampshire in 176.5; surrendered his commission 
 when the war broke out, and removed to Halifax, where he died in 1820, in the 82d year of 
 his age.— 3. Governor Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Conn., 1710; commenced public 
 life as a Presbyterian minister; subsequently studied law and became Chief Justice ; was 
 appointed Governor in 17G9, enjoyed the confidence of Washington, who deliglited to refer 
 to him as " Brother Jonathan," and died at home, greatly lamente;!, Aug. 17, 178.5, in the 
 76th year of his age.— 4. Governor Cooke was born in Providence in 1717; was Deputy 
 Governor only at the time of the Concord aflair ; was, like his neighbor, Gov. Trumbull, a 
 
1 6 CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLA G, 
 
 of Connecticut and Rhode Island and Providence Plan- 
 tations, and a portion of the inhabitants of the other 
 colonies, were in the incipient stages of armed resistance 
 to that parliamentary exaction ; and the militiamen of 
 the former had met the British j^osse comitatus at Con- 
 cord, Lexington and Bunker Hill, and had retaliated 
 by taking Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Chamblee and 
 Montreal, and were then actually besieging the forces 
 under Generals Howe and Carlton at Boston and Que- 
 bec. 
 
 One hundred years ago the troops of General 
 Richard Montgomery were burying under the snows of 
 Canada the remains of their intrepid commander, who 
 fell the day before, in his assault on Quebec ; and the 
 Earl of Dunmore was punishing the Virginians for their 
 refusal to levy the tribute money, by burning the city of 
 Norfolk. 
 
 One hundred years ago all the domain of New York, 
 west of Herkimer, inclusive of our city and county, 
 with the exception of small settlements about Cherry 
 Valley and the old forts at Oswego and Niagara, was a 
 
 revolutionist from the commencement of hostilities ; was made Governor in October, 
 1775, and died Sept. 14, 1782, greatly lamented, in the fitJth j'ear of his age — 5. Governor 
 Teton was born in Dublin in 1718 ; came to America in 1764, as Lieutenant Governor of 
 North Carolina, and was advanced to the Governorship in 1771, and the same year trans- 
 ferred to New York ; was an intense loyalist, and after the war brolie out became :i Major 
 General ; returned to England after the surrender of Cornwallis, and was mude a Lieuten- 
 ant General, and died in that office, jircatly detested by his soldiery, February 27, 1788, in 
 the 70th year of his age.— 6. G veenoe Fbanklin was born in Philadelphia in 1730 ; served 
 in the French war as a militia captain; was appointed Governor of the Jerseys in 1762 ; 
 was a tory of the first water, and deposed in July, 177G, and sent to the tory prison in Con- 
 necticut ; went to England after the war, and olitaincd a small pension for his martyrdom, 
 aud died there November 17, 1813, in the 8 tth year of his age.— 7. Governor Penn was born 
 in Philadelphia in 1725 ; was Governor by appointment of the Crown from 17li3 to '71, and 
 from 1773 to '76; was imprisoned by the revolutionists at Fredericksburgh, Va., to the 
 end of the war, aud his estate confiscated for his toryism ; and died in February, 1795, in 
 the 71sl year of hi.-* age — 8. Governor Eden was born in Dublin in 1732 ; was kinsman of 
 the Calverts, and brother of Lord Aukland; was appointed Governor in 1772; was an 
 arrant tory, and banished from the colony by the Committee of Safety in the sunmier of 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDRESS. 17 
 
 liowling wilderness; but the settlers in the valleys ol' 
 the Hudson and Mohawk had superseded Governor 
 Tryon with a Committee of Safety. 
 
 One hundred years ago Governor Gage, who had 
 been recalled from Massachusetts for his failure to put 
 down the rebellion, was under examination at the bar 
 of Parliament as if he were a malefactor, and gave the 
 humiliating testimony that he had sacrificed upwards 
 of thirteen hundred soldiers and expended upwards of 
 £3,000,000 in slaying 226 Americans, without any per- 
 ceptible effect ; and in view of that disclosure, Parlia- 
 ment was besought to abandon the attempt to collect 
 the tribute money, by Edmund Burke and Charles 
 James Fox, two of the most brilliant forensic debaters 
 the world ever saw. 
 
 One hundred years ago the continental congress, sit- 
 ting in Philadelphia, although it acknowledged the war 
 to be an existing fact, and had appointed General 
 Washington to take charge of it, was presumptuously 
 waiting for a favorable turn of American affairs in Par- 
 liament, on the strength of deceptive assurances from 
 
 1776, and was never heard of afterwards. — 9. Goveknob Mueeat was born in Scotland in 
 1732 ; raised to the peerage as Earl of Duumore, and sent out to Virginia as Governor in 
 1771 ; was a severe and ostentations loyalist ; dissolved the House of Burgesses for passing 
 revolutionary resolves; was obliged to fly to his ships to escape indignation, in the fall of 
 1775; burnt Norfolk to punish Virginia January 1, 1776 ; was wounded by a splinter the 
 following July ; retired to Bermuda, and afterwards to England, where he died May 10, 
 I8(J<), in the 78th year of his age.— 10. Goveenor Martin was born in England in 1737 ; 
 was scut out i s Governor in 1774, to suppress the rebellion ; fired a proclamation at the 
 rebels, and fled to Parker's fleet in the harbor ; lingered on and about that fleet to the close 
 of the war, and then returned to England, and died there in Julj', 1780, in the snth 
 year of his age.— 11. Governor Campbell was born in England in 1722 ; was Governor of 
 Nova Scotia from '6G to '74, when he was transferred to South Carolina; like Murray and 
 Martin fled to the shipping for refuge when the war broke out ; mortally wounded in the 
 attack on Fort Moulline, and died of his wounds Sept. 5, 1778, in the 57th year of his age. 
 — 12. Governor Weight was born in Charleston in 1710; was knighted aud made Gov- 
 ernor in 1772; fled from the colony at the outbreak of the war; retunsed again and 
 resumed his government in 1779, but went to England with Cornwallls in 1781, aud died 
 there in 1786, in the 77th year of his age. 
 
18 CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 Europe, that Burke and Fox would compel that distin- 
 guished body to recede. 
 
 One hundred years ago the frequent arrivals of rein- 
 forcements and supplies in the harbor of Boston made 
 it perfectly evident to General Washington, who was 
 greatly in advance of Congress in sagacity, that the 
 British Ministry was too tenacious of the pretended 
 right of taxation, and too sour upon all denials of that 
 right, ever to recede, and that there remained to the 
 colonies, in their existing situations, no method of 
 redress but the arbitrament of war. 
 
 One hundred years ago the famous siege of Boston, 
 which held the regulars at bay six calendar months, 
 was at a perilous crisis, probably unknown to the enemy, 
 which tasked to its very utmost the skill, faith and for- 
 titude of the Commander-in-Chief to bridge the danger 
 in a manner to conceal it from the enemy, avert a panic, 
 and preserve the lines intact until he should obtain 
 relief In the scriptural j^citois of the shoremen of the 
 times, '' General Washington was in the lion's den unbe- 
 known to the lions." In more classic parlance, the sword 
 of Damocles hung over his head " suspended by a hair." 
 When the General arrived at Cambridge, in July, he 
 found there a fortuitous assemblage of about 15,000 
 men from the New England Provinces, divided into 
 four distinct bodies, each with a leader of its own. 
 Those from New Hampshire were under General Stark ; 
 those from Massachusetts were under General Ward ; 
 those from Connecticut were under the Cincinnatus of 
 that war, who left his plow in the furrow, General Put- 
 nam ; and those from Rhode Island Plantations were 
 under General Greene. They were there in their sum- 
 
 / 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDRESS. 19 
 
 iiier, homespun working clothes, without overcoats, 
 blankets, change of under-garments, discipline, com- 
 missariat, magazine, ammunition of any account, 
 dependence for supplies other than voluntary contribu- 
 tions from the neighboring towns, organization or bond 
 of union, other than the spur of excitement which 
 brought them together. With very few exceptions, 
 they knew literally nothing of the art, discipline, usages 
 or hardships of war. In that condition they constituted 
 all the army there was to maintain ten or twelve miles 
 of earthworks and besiege a city of 17,000 inhabitants, 
 and at least 12,000 of the best trained troops of Europe, 
 on the peninsulas of Boston and Charlestown. They 
 had been nomuially adopted as continental troops by 
 the Continental Congress ; but they were too jealous of 
 what they considered foreign dictation to change their 
 relations to their respective colonies and commanders 
 and be obligated, l^y honor or oath, to obey any supe- 
 rior authority. And he found them too short of can- 
 non-powder to l^e able to return the enemy's fire, 
 except by an occasional gun, while they were strength- 
 ening the lines with their spades. And although he 
 dispatched messengers at once to New York and the 
 Jerseys, and even to Ticonderoga, for powder, he 
 obtained none of much account before he was admon- 
 ished that his forces, weak as they were from indisposi- 
 tion to endure the hardships of the camp, were about 
 to disband. At the end of September, nearly or quite 
 one-half of the men he found there in July had gone 
 back to their homes, so that after that date down to the 
 end of December, his lines were as flimsy, as defences, 
 as bulwarks of gauze. 
 
20 CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 Although he reported his distress confidentially, time 
 and again, to members of the Continental Congress, it 
 was not until the middle of October that a mortal soul 
 of them came to his relief And when, at that late 
 day, the so-called Franklin Committee did come to his 
 headquarters, they came empty-handed, and only with 
 paper instructions to him, the General, and nobody else, 
 in his nearly deserted camp, in his desperate extremity, 
 to recruit a continental army if he could. When the 
 Continental Congress sent him to the front, that body 
 acted for a while as if it expected that he could do the 
 rest of the work himself, without any supporting or 
 supplemental aid. And that very wise and eminent 
 committee talked and acted as if they thought him 
 capable of creating an army out of nothing, and of 
 providing for it by smiting a rock in his neighborhood 
 for supplies. 
 
 And when, under those adverse and very discourag- 
 ing circumstances, he attempted re-enlistments, he met 
 with a legion of new perplexities, in the shape of 
 demands for commissions by those incompetent to fill 
 them — demands for bounties unauthorized by the Con- 
 tinental Congress — demands for good arms and good 
 quarters, which he was unable to assure — refusals to 
 enlist unless they previousl}^ knew their colonel and 
 captain — refusals of men of one colony to serve under 
 officers of another — and " such a dearth of public spirit 
 and patriotism," to use his own words, as to keep his 
 mind perpetuall}^ filled with apprehensions of disaster. 
 By unremitted, night and day, and almost superhu- 
 man efforts he succeeded, during the months of 
 November and December, in enlisting about 10,000 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDRESS. 21 
 
 men to appear for muster on the first day of January ; 
 but while those months were Avearing away, the gloom 
 of his perilous situation hung over his mind like a 
 funeral pall, as was disclosed in a confidential letter, of 
 which the following is an extract, written to Colonel 
 Reed, of Philadelphia, when all the members of his 
 domestic and military family were asleep : 
 
 ■'To maintain tliis post against tlie power of the British troops for six months 
 together without powder, and to have one array disbanded and another one 
 raised within musket sliot of a reinforced enemj' is, as far as I have ever learned, 
 without any parallel in history-. If I shall be able to rise superior to this, and 
 other existing difficulties, I shall religiously believe that the finger of Providence 
 is in it, blinding the eyes of the enemy. For, surely, if we get well through 
 this month, it must be from his lack of knowledge of our weakness. How much 
 happier I should have been if I had taken my musket on my shoulder and 
 entered the ranks, instead of accepting the command." 
 
 But during the wane of December he was relieved 
 l:)y degrees of the pall, by tlie appearance of the greater 
 portion of the recruits, in winter clothing, for duty. 
 So that one hundred years ago, when he was delivered 
 from that peril by the arrival of fresh recruits for the 
 continental service. General Washington had special 
 occasion for a demonstration of gratitude for a most 
 marvelous deliverance during that protracted struggle, 
 and never since even approximated, except by the 
 nation's marvelous deliverance from the perils of the 
 winter of 1861. As each and every one of these par- 
 ticulars belong to the significance of the ceremony, I 
 am anxious to impress them upon your minds before I 
 introduce you to the ceremony itself It will enable 
 you to perceive that the ceremony was partly a demon- 
 stration of gratitude for a marvelous deliverance, partly 
 an artifice of war to blind the enemy, and partly 
 
22 VRNTENART OF THE AMERICAN FLAQ. 
 
 intended as a stimulus to the soldiery and to the flag- 
 ging patriotism of the colonists at home. 
 
 WHEN AND WHERE. 
 
 The event we commemorate occurred on Monday — 
 a bright, serene and genial Monday, unruffled, the dia- 
 ries say, ''even by a breeze sufiicient to sway the cock- 
 erel on the spire of the Hanover street church.^' That 
 memorable Monday, I need not tell you, was the first 
 day of January, then, as now, by common consent a 
 public holiday. In New England, in those days, it was 
 observed by nearly all the people by repairing, when 
 they could, to their churches for thanksgiving and 
 prayer. By all it was a special occasion for the inter- 
 change of civilities, freighted with friendly congratula- 
 tions for their survival in health through the old year 
 and kindly wishes for happiness during the new. To 
 all who were not saddened by the peril of the war, it 
 was the usual time of cheer. 
 
 The event occurred at Cambridge, then a mere ham- 
 let, in close proximity to Boston. It occurred before 
 the official residence of General Washington, in full 
 view of the red walls of Harvard and of that primeval 
 elm, yet standing, under whose umbrageous foliage he 
 first took command of the army. Your histories inform 
 you that two days before the battle of Bunker Hill the 
 Continental Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia, 
 appointed General Washington Commander-in-Chief of 
 the army ; that he left Philadelphia on horseback, with 
 his aides and Major-Generals Lee and Schuyler, on the 
 21st of June, for his post of duty ; that he reached the 
 mansion of President Langdon, of Harvard, which had 
 
JUDGE HALLS ADDRESS. 23 
 
 been procured for his headquarters, in the afternoon of 
 the 2d of July ; and that, upon the following morning, 
 when the patriot soldiery were drawn up on Cani1)ridge 
 Common, he rode with a numerous staff to the shade of 
 that primeval, now historic elm, where he wheeled his 
 white horse, drew his sword, and in the presence of the 
 soldiery and a multitude of men, women and children, 
 formally assumed the command. Your histories further 
 inform you, that he was then a florid, blue-eyed, brown- 
 haired, well proportioned figure, precisely six feet and 
 two inches in height, and forty-three years of age ; that 
 he wore a black laced hat with a black cockade, a deep 
 blue coat with buff facings, heavy gilt epaulettes, dark 
 crimson sash, Ijuff small clothes, highly polished boots 
 with yellow spurs, and that his appearance and bearing 
 were dignified and commanding. The critical Mrs. John 
 Adams perceived in him " the gentleman and soldier 
 agreeably combined." Desiring a position affording a 
 better view of the situation, he soon afterward removed 
 from the Langdon to the mansion now occupied by the 
 poet Longfellow. Mrs. Washington went on there, 
 with her carriage and servants, in November, so that 
 he was comfortabb' situated to receive and entertain at 
 the time of which I speak. For military reasons 
 already indicated, the first day of '76 had been previ- 
 ously designated by orders for the organization of a 
 continental army proper, and the inauguration of the 
 flag. . The exercises of the day, therefore, had been 
 deliberately planned.. 
 
 EXERCISES OF THE DAY. 
 
 General Washington was a churchman and Mrs. 
 Washington was a chiircl) woman. At the hour of 10 
 
24 CENTENA KY OF THE AMEIUVAN FLA G. 
 
 o'clock, A. M., the iJcucral went with Mrs. Washington 
 to inorniui;- prayers, at what was then known as the 
 Rev. Dr. Natlianiel Appleton's clmrch — the phict^ ol" 
 public worship they usually attended, during their resi 
 dence in Cambridge. At the hour of 11 o'clock, the 
 General received his lield oHicers and issued to them 
 the requisite orders for the organization of the (;onti- 
 nental army. The Bunker Hill militiamen were pro- 
 vincial in character, and denied obligations to obey the 
 Commander-in-Chief At the hour of 12 o'clock, 
 (meridian) precisely, Avhen the hamlet of Cambridge 
 was still — when all that was mortal of General Wari-eu 
 and two hundretl and twenty-hve other martyrs of Con- 
 cord, Lexington and Bunker Hill, were sleeping beneath 
 a coverlet of crusted snow — when less than ten thou- 
 sand fresh recruits wori^ holding twice that niuuber of 
 British regulars at bay — when one immense and gor- 
 geous royal standard was floating from a lofty staiV on 
 the summit o[ J^unker Hill, and thirty or forty smaller 
 ones iVom as numv mizzen peaks in Boston harbor ; in 
 the presence of the lield and stall" oilicers of the army, 
 the members t)f the Legislature of Massachusetts, the 
 trustees and faculty of Harvard, and an immense cow- 
 course of other spectators, the Rev. Abial Leonanl, of 
 General Put nam's brigade, invoked the favor of Heaven, 
 and the Honorable Thomas Cashing and Robert Treat 
 Paine, at General Washington's request, advanced to 
 the halyards and hoisted to the head of a lofty stall", a 
 graceful standard of red and white bars, prepared by 
 the women of Cambridge, who cheered its ascension 
 \\\^\\\ the balcony, with the song of Miriam : 
 
 " Slujiit tlu> ^l.'ul ti(ling;s, for Isniel is free." 
 
JUDGE HALLS ADDRESS. 25 
 
 There were no stars in thebaniier tlien, for the states 
 they now represent were unljorn. But Bishop Berke- 
 ley's Star of Empire shed its light upon the canvas from 
 the azure above. 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF SUCH STANDARDS. 
 
 There is nothing novel in that standard except its 
 composition. National and martial standards have high 
 antiquity. They originated in the age of symbolic lan- 
 guage, and have existed from time immemorial. The 
 Hebrews had twelve of them when they escaped from 
 bondage. Jasou had them in his expedition for the 
 Golden Fleece. Alexander and the Caesars had them 
 in all their campaigns. Constantine conquered with 
 standards Ijcaring the sign of the cross. Judah's lion, 
 the fabulous unicorn, and the crosses of Saints Andrew 
 and George had, for more than one generation, graced 
 the standard of Great Britain ; and union jacks, so 
 called, were at that very moment fluttering at the peaks 
 of our commercial marine. Each of the colonies had 
 its distinctive ensign also.* By the direction of Gen- 
 eral Washington himself, the crosses of Saints Andrew 
 and George (subsequently superseded by the stars) 
 were left in the blue field to indicate fidelity still to the 
 principles of the British constitution, trampled down 
 
 * Note.— The first rebel flag, of which history gives us any account, was hoisted in 
 what is now the City Hall Park, in New York City, in November, 1765. It wa.-^ red in color 
 and hoisted to indicate resistance to the stamp act The second one was hoisted in the 
 same place, to indicate resistance to the landing of tea. It was at that flag raising, that 
 Alexander Hamilton, then a student in King's College, made his first public speech. The 
 third one was hoisted there March 6, 1775, to commemorate the Boston Mas^sacre. The 
 fourth one was raised in the Town of Ponghkeepsie, March 21, 1775, to indicate support of 
 the resolves of the Continental Congress. The fifth one was hoisted on the common, which 
 is now the City Hall Park, on the 25th of June, 1775,.in honor of General Washington, who 
 arrived there on that day, on his way from Philadelphia to take command of the army at 
 Cambridge. The sixth one was hoisted in Albany, on the 15th of July, 1775, in honor of 
 the arrival there of Major General Philip Schuyler. 
 
2 6 CENTENAR T OF THE AMERICAN FLA ■ 
 
 by the King, Ministry and Parliament in their attempts 
 to tax the colonies without their consent. It would 
 not have been at all in harmony with their general char- 
 acter, if any of those eminent patriots had cherished a 
 particle of faith in the patronage of those saints, or in 
 the smiles of any heathen goddess of liberty. But it 
 was in perfect harmony with their general character to 
 believe in the beautiful doctrine of angels — inspiring, 
 ministering, protecting angels ; and that they graced 
 this scene with their invisible presence, and witnessed 
 with delight the dedication of the flag. If any of them 
 fell short of revering it as a sacred symbol of liberty, 
 none of them fell short of voting it sublime. 
 
 WASHINGTON A MAN OF INSPIRATION. 
 
 General Washington was a man of inspiration. Dur- 
 ing all his trials and vicissitudes, from the hour he 
 accepted his commission, at Philadelphia, to the hour he 
 resigned it, at Annapolis, he felt himself upheld, moved 
 and guided by an omnipotent hand. His majestic form 
 appeared to many to be itself the very temple of devo- 
 tion, if not the temple of divinity. "Upon that par- 
 ticular occasion," wrote Mrs. Adams to her husband, 
 " there was a halo about his head, which reminded me 
 (her) of Raphasl's portrait of the Savior." He appeared 
 to her to be scarcely less than divine. 
 
 WASHINGTON A MAN OF CEREMONY. 
 
 General Washington was a man of ceremony. He 
 belonged to a family of ceremony. He believed in cer- 
 emony, in its propriety, courtliness and dignity. And 
 he had been noted for it in the church of which he was 
 a member, in the chapter of which he was an officer, 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDRESS. 2 / 
 
 and in the Congress to which he had been a delegate. 
 He was ceremonious to his family, to his servants, and 
 as Mr. Washington Park Custisonce informed me, even 
 to his horse. It was precisely in the line of his habits, 
 therefore, to institute a solemn ceremony for the dedi- 
 cation of the flag. 
 
 FORMAL DEDICATION OF THE FLAG. 
 
 After the women (ladies were women then) con- 
 cluded their song, and after a fervent prayer by Presi- 
 dent Langdon, that the Almighty would dispose the 
 government of Great Britain to a right and reasonable 
 reconciliation, that this part of the empire might be 
 relieved of the calamities of a civil war, and Divine 
 favor to the Commander-in-Chief and his army, and for 
 the Divine blessing especially upon that proceeding, the 
 General advanced to the base of the staff', lifted his eyes 
 and hands, and in behalf of the United Colonies of 
 North America, formally and solemnly pronounced the 
 new standard to be the authorized symbol of the United 
 Colonies and of the cause which the martyrs of Con- 
 cord, Lexington and Bunker Hill had sealed with their 
 blood. It was then saluted with a salvo of thirteen 
 speaking guns. According to Mrs. Adams, who wit- 
 nessed the ceremony, it was the most heart moving- 
 spectacle ever seen in America. It excited the entire 
 assemblage to the highest pitch of intensity. Gray 
 haired men and gray haired women wept like children. 
 The cheeks of all the beholders were drowned in tears. 
 It was a scene, I dare say, which was never forgotten 
 by those who beheld it, during the remainder of their 
 lives. 
 
28 CENTENAR Y OF THE AMERICAN FLA O. 
 
 ITS SIGNIFICANCE AND RESULTING EFFECT. 
 
 Symbols, although speechless, are often more elo- 
 quent than words. They have a conventional and gen- 
 erally a civic and legal significance. When ihey pos- 
 sess that character, they are documents recognized by 
 the laws of nations. By those laws, well understood by 
 civilians, that speechless canvas exalted that rebellion 
 to the dignity of a revolution. It did not invest the 
 United Colonies with the risrhts of belligerents ; but it 
 lifted the acting patriots above the level of treason. It 
 did not import secession, however, except as a contin- 
 gent event, depending upon the question whether Great 
 Britain should adhere or recede. It imported enough, 
 in short, to bring that vexatious and protracted contro- 
 versy to a head, and by the logic of events, in six short 
 months to cut the British Empire in twain. When, 
 therefore, that document produced its intended fruit ; 
 when, at the end of six months, it wrought the result- 
 ing scission ; when the United Colonies became the 
 United States, entitled to position among the nations of 
 the earth, the crosses were erased and the stars and 
 stripes inserted to indicate the elements of the nation. 
 History awards the credit of suggesting the stars in the 
 place of the crosses to the Hon. Stephen Wendover, 
 great uncle of Mr. John V. Wendover, of Auburn, and 
 the suggestion has been preserved by the descendants 
 of the author, in the following lines : 
 
 '• No wonder Wendover of old 
 Suggested stripes and stars of gold, 
 For the true standard of the free ; 
 For when our infant nation bled, 
 He saw the smoking streams of red, 
 And the blue banner overhead 
 With the white bars of purity." 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDEESS. 29 
 
 With the insertion of the stars the composition 
 became complete. It is not as venerable as the stand- 
 ards of the older nations ; but what it lacks in age it 
 more than compensates in glory. We delight to hail it 
 now as the flag of Washington and the Revolution, hal- 
 lowed with a myriad of tender and honored memories; 
 as the flag of three subsequent wars, emblazoned Avith 
 a thousand victories ; as the flag of the brave ; as the 
 flag of the free; as the glorious star spangled banner 
 of our Union. 
 
 " Flag of Uie free heart's hope and home, 
 
 Bj' angel hands to valor given, 
 Thy stars have lit the welkin dome. 
 
 And all thy hues were horn in heaven." 
 
 THE INAUGURATION BANQUET. 
 
 As most of you who are at all familiar with the cus- 
 toms of those 1 days, among people of gentility, have 
 doubtless anticipated, the inauguration was completed 
 with a banquet. General Washington was a man of gen- 
 tility. ° That, like his habit of ceremony, was a trait of 
 his family, a feature of his character. It belonged to 
 his rank of Virginian society. The customs of that 
 rank had required him to entertain largely, at his board 
 at Mount Vernon, where he had been eminently social, 
 but never convivial. The dignity of the station seemed 
 to him to demand the continuance of the same practice 
 as Commander-in-Chief. As he served without pay, it 
 was, of course, a heavy tax upon his purse. But he 
 never allowed that consideration to stint either the 
 number of his guests or the provisions for their enter- 
 tainment. Colonel Rcid, one of his military secretaries, 
 left us the testimony that from the time of the arrival 
 
30 CENTENARY OF THE AMEEICAN FLAG. 
 
 of Mrs. Washington, in November, down to that holi- 
 day, there were but very few week-days when he did 
 not have distinguished men and women, from one or 
 more of the colonies, at dinner. Upon that occasion 
 the table was laid for two hundred — for the members 
 of the provincial Legislature of Massachusetts and rep- 
 resentatives from others, for the faculty, clergy and 
 municipal authorities of Cambridge, for all the commis- 
 sioned officers of the new army, and for such of the 
 ladies of their families as were in town. The repast 
 was substantial, if not sumptuous. When the cloth 
 was removed the General retired from the table, when, 
 with the venerable Cincinnatus of the war in the chair, 
 the guests enthusiastically toasted the host, the army, 
 and the flag. 
 
 I have now performed all my duties as your guide 
 to old Cambridge, and by showing you as well as i 
 could, with some of its antecedents and surroundings, 
 the stately, solemn and significant performance which 
 the good people of that hamlet beheld there ^^I'ecisely 
 one hundred years ago. To say that it was a great 
 afliiir, or even to say, as Mr. Webster once did at a New 
 England dinner, that it only fell short of the perfor- 
 mance at Philadelphia on the subsequent fourth of July 
 as the mission of John the Baptist fell short of the 
 Advent, would be to employ expressions which under- 
 rate its significance. If the figure of the Advent is 
 admissible for illustration of its relation to the perfor- 
 mance at Philadelphia, the inauguration was in sub- 
 stance and effect the Advent itself As I have already 
 observed, General Washington was full six months in 
 advance of the Continental Congress, as a body, in ripe- 
 
JUDGE HALL- 8 ADDRESS. 31 
 
 iiess for independence ; and when he dedicated that 
 flag to the cause of the martyrs of Concord, Lexington 
 and Bunker Hill, under the peculiar circumstances of 
 the case it is safe, I think, to say he meant nothing less 
 than independence as its ultimate fruit. The fact bears 
 no other rational interpretation. 
 
 THE EVENT DESERVES COMMEMORATION. 
 
 If you see the ceremony, my friends, as I seem to see 
 it, if you estimate its meaning as I seem to estimate it, 
 you cannot fail to perceive, as 1 clearly perceive, that 
 when General Washington, with the full knowledge ac- 
 quired on the spot, that General Howe was almost daily 
 receiving reinforcements from home, resolved to hoist 
 and dedicate that flag in the fiice of the enemy, he 
 intended it to be precisely what it turned out to be, a 
 bold and deflant and unqualified stand for indepen- 
 dence. By all the light which subsequent events re- 
 flect upon it, it is as clear as a sunbeam not only that 
 it was, but that it was the first decisive stand taken by 
 anybody clothed with authority to act in the premises 
 for a partition nolens volens of the British Empire. With 
 that just estimate of that day's performance, we cannot 
 too often recall it to our view. We should keep it fresh 
 in our minds. We should engrave it on our memories. 
 We should make it the frequent and familiar subject of 
 our reflections by day and of our meditations at night. 
 We should relate it to our children. We should incor- 
 porate it into our family traditions. 
 
32 CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 THE EVENT DEMANDS GRATITUDE FOR THE ENDOWMENT OF 
 WASHINGTON IN HIS DAY AND SEWARD IN HIS. 
 
 And as it was the fruitage of the herculean and mar- 
 velous eftbrts of the Commander in-Chief, like those of 
 our distinguished and lamented neighbor during the 
 winter of 1861, to keep the republican cause and the 
 continental union alive until succor should arrive, let 
 us never fiiil to be grateful to Almighty God that he 
 endowed General Washington in his time, and Senator 
 Seward in his, w^ith the wisdom to work out the most 
 marvelous civil salvations the world ever knew. Out- 
 ranking, as he clearly did, all the soldiers and sages of 
 his time in stature, talent and grace, being the lirst in 
 merit as the first in place, he was truly and completely 
 all which Chief Justice Marshall styled him : " First in 
 War, first in Peace, and first in the Hearts of his coun- 
 trymen." Like the great general-in-chief of the Exo- 
 dus, he w^as an envoy extraordinary of God. He was 
 sent to deliver his people first, and ultimatel}^, by the 
 logic of events, all mankind from bondage. 
 
 Exalted Chief: in thy superior mind 
 
 What vast resource, what various talents joined ! 
 
 Formed to command respect, esteem inspire, 
 
 Midst statesmen grave, or midst the social choir, 
 
 With equal skill tlie sword or pen to wield, 
 
 Alike in cabinet and martial field ; 
 
 'Mid glittering courts or rural walks to please, 
 
 Polite with grandeur, dignified with ease; 
 
 How fade the glow-worm lustres of a crowa 
 
 Before the splendors of thy high renown ! 
 
 On base far diftVrtnt from the conqueror's claim 
 
 Rests the unsullied column of thy fame ; 
 
 His on the woes of millions proudly based, 
 
 With blood cemented and with tears defaced ; 
 
 Thine on a Nation's welfare, fixed, sublime. 
 
 By Freedom strengthened and revered by Time. 
 
JrOOK HM.I.S IDDIih'^S. 
 
 oa 
 
 I'liK roi.irv MAP A (;(H)i>i,v kmmnc. 
 
 Ill tho avcH)un(s dI" the cM-usuilosol" the Iwoll'lli eouturv 
 to rocovor the Holy Slirinos iVoin t\\v inlidels, it is rela- 
 tod lliiit llir bainuM's ;nul armor of soiium)! the toUowrrs 
 of tlio surnaiiUHl Culmit (K> l.ooii wcro iiisorilxMl, in \\w 
 \\u\)vv\'vv{ iliaKM't of tlio aiu-iiMit Hritons, with a maxiiii 
 or motto wliioli, according to Chaucer, ran, in the Anglo- 
 Saxon oi' the period, as tbUoAvs : 
 
 " Not' ^'ooilo comos (>f weal inti'iuliitj;', 
 Ye tix'il Itisvos ot lloviMi t'i)ri't'oiidiiiij, 
 Unless strong blowes witlie vukmr bli-iuiiiii^ 
 Kowiirilos iuti'iitos witlie n'ooiUin etuliiii;." * 
 
 From this eligiMe standpoint I think we of this gen- 
 eration are able to perceive that tiie tixed laws of 
 IK^aven, as wc^U as \\\c oi'diiianci^s ol'natnre piH'ViMitiiig, 
 no good whatever would iiave ensued from the iiuiuer- 
 ous well intended, well considered and well composed 
 resolves of the (\)ntimMital CtMigress, if the (\)mmander- 
 in-Ghief in tlu> field had not, by that bold stroke of 
 limely military sagacity, "let slip the ilogs of war," 
 and thereby precipitated llu^ '' goodly ending."' The 
 " intiMidings '' o[' \\w (\)iitinenta1 Congress, and the 
 hundred resolves of the Continental Congress were 
 !:-ood, verv iiood indeed ; but thcv were uttiM'lv nnua 
 
 •The first liiii' of ihis niaxiin or motto, in tho longutijro of tho iiiiclent Britons, on 
 the rllibou Hppoinlotl to this jirnioritil dosigii, with tho design 
 itself, iniiirossed on rod soiilinj; wax, appearinj;; to have been 
 onoe attaohed to a written doeutnont or letter, and to have 
 been made with a large watoh seal one luindrod years ago, 
 lias licen preserved as a choice relic of antinuity l>y some 
 of the descendants of the paternal greal-irreal-irrandfalher of 
 (lie spealvcr, who was a contemporary of, and a civil magistrate 
 niuli'r (Jov. Trumlmll, when ihe thig was launched at Cambridge, 
 II is believed to have been an impression from his watch seal, 
 and to bcara maxim ormotto wliich he, in hislife time, deemed 
 pertinent to the exigencies of tlie early part of Revolutionary 
 war. 
 
34 CENTENABY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 lory as war measures, until General Washington moved 
 on the enemy's works. It was his movements on Dor- 
 chester Heights which drove the enemy from Boston, 
 and by a long line of sequences culminated in the end- 
 ing at Yorktown. The obvious moral of the maxim is, 
 that the value of good intentions, in revolutions as in 
 other reformatory movements, is demonstrable only by 
 their fruits. 
 
 THE SUBJECT PROLIFIC OF SUGGESTIONS. 
 
 The subject, my friends, is a vast one ; and when 
 considered in all its aspects is very prolific of sugges- 
 tions. Indeed, their name is legion. But my time and 
 your patience will not permit me to mention more than 
 three. For the rest of my hour I will try to entertain 
 you with them. These suggestions are : 
 
 1. The probable consequences of an assault during 
 that defenseless period, of the American lines. 
 
 2. The certain consequences which ensued from their 
 maintenance until Washington obtained forces with 
 which to protect them. 
 
 3. The important work which devolves upon our 
 successors during the century upon which we now enter. 
 
 Upon the first point, candor requires me to premise 
 that to a certain extent that consequence rests and must 
 forever rest in conjecture. Nevertheless, logicians, 
 scientists, philosophers, statesmen and divines agree 
 that there are several grades of conjecture, and that 
 that grade which has the best foundation in reason 
 makes the nearest approach to certainty. That grade 
 in a given case which approaches nearest to the abso- 
 lute is usually denominated moral certainty. By the 
 light of the reasons for the opinion which history affords, 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDRESS. 85 
 
 1 am morally certain that bad General Howe advanced 
 upon oar lines and forces during the last three months 
 of 1775, with his twenty thousand regulars, he would 
 have compelled an unconditional surrender — as com- 
 plete a surrender of ijersonnel and materiel as General 
 Burgoyne was compelled to make the following year 
 at Saratoga. By those who remember anything of the 
 treatment of Ethan Allen and the Long Island prisoners 
 in that war, and of the Canadian and Irish revolutionists 
 since, by the British Government, the consequences of 
 such a surrender may be easily calculated. Washing- 
 ton and his generals, Lee, Putnam, Gates, Greene, 
 Knox and Stark, and all the rank and file of their com- 
 mands, would have l)een considered and treated as 
 insurgent prisoners. Being insurgent prisoners, and 
 not ordinary prisoners of war, they would have been 
 transported to England for trial as traitors ; and those 
 who were not led to a scaffold would have been con- 
 fined in prisons or prison ships, or sent to the penal 
 colonies until the insurrectionary danger was believed 
 to be over. As they had not then advanced far enough 
 in any attempt to form a new government to be entitled 
 by the laws of nations to the rights of belligerents, 
 they would have had no claim to be returned as pris 
 oners of war. They would have been in the criminal 
 attitude of rebel traitors, taken in the overt act of high 
 treason, with arms in hand, and would have been unen- 
 titled to mercy. But it is enough for the occasion, t(j 
 say that they would have been hors da combat — out of 
 the military service of the colonies as long as any insur- 
 rectionary trouble either did, or was supposed to 
 impend. The small detachments, thei] enfeebled by 
 
36 CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 small pox, and snow-bound in Canada, would have 
 shared a similar fate. 
 
 Whether the struggle would have been revived by 
 the succeeding or by some succeeding generations, or 
 whether by the change of policy in respect to the 
 American colonies, which subsequently occurred in the 
 British Cabinet and Parliament, the colonists would 
 have been appeased for the time, or to the present 
 hour, are problems which must forever rest in conjec- 
 ture. But in the Providence of God, the lion did not 
 pounce ; the sword did not fall ; the army was not com- 
 pelled to surrender ; but, with auxiliary aid, ultimately 
 compelled the enemy to surrender instead, leaving to 
 us the privilege to-day of turning from that unpleasant 
 theme to the contemplation of some of the fruits of the 
 wisdom which effected that deliverance. 
 
 THE CERTAIN CONSEQUENCES WHICH ENSUED. 
 
 I have endeavored to demonstrate to your satisfaction 
 that our national independence hinged upon the main 
 tenance of those lines. It appears to me that nearly 
 everything else we enjoy, except the canopy, footstool 
 and elements, has resulted from that independence. 
 Independence, mental and moral, which followed from 
 the political — independence, in its broadest sense, was 
 the American Abraham who begat Isaac, who begat 
 Jacob, who begat Judah and his brethren. It com- 
 manded the Star of Empire, which stood over the inaug- 
 uration of our flag at Cambridge, to move like a pillar 
 of fire athwart the continent. It broke the spell of the 
 ages. It turned night into day. It awoke the sleepers. 
 It electrified the wakers. It set the clock-work of civ- 
 ilization in motion. It took Arkwright's burring 
 
JUDGE HALLS ADDRESS. 87 
 
 niachiue and converted it into Whitney's cotton gin. 
 It took Watts' old tea kettle and converted it into the 
 mighty behemoth which strides the continent, and the 
 mightier leviathan which plows the oceans. It took 
 Guttenberg's clumsy printing stamp and converted it 
 into Hoe's lightning press, whose impressions outnum- 
 ber the seconds. It took Franklin's kite string and 
 Sturgeon's electro magnet and converted them into a 
 postal messenger for the nations. It took our grand- 
 mother's sewing and knitting pins and converted them 
 into the effective sewing and knitting machines now in 
 use, for the construction of garments and hosiery. It 
 took the blunderbuss, styled a cannon, in the battle oi 
 Crecey and converted it into the terrific Rodney's 
 which pierced the Alabama, and the greater Swamp 
 Angel which shelled the City of Charlestown. It took 
 the bungling English fusee and converted it into the 
 projectors, with which the American rifle team achieved 
 their honors at Dollymount. It took the Syrian sickle, 
 which cut the pottage which Esau accepted for his 
 birthrio-ht, and converted it into the wonderful harvest- 
 ers manufactured by David M. Osborne and his asso- 
 ciates, with which the husbandmen of both hemispheres 
 now gather and garner their cereal grains. And it has 
 produced thousands, if not millions of similar improve- 
 ments, to lighten the labor and promote the comfort 
 and happiness of our people. Like the sun in our 
 solar system, it has been itself a luminary whose pro- 
 lific radiance fell upon the country and made everything 
 grow. It made our domain grow from 750,530 to 
 3,515,740 square miles. It made our population grow 
 from a little over 2,000,000 to over 40,000,000 of souls. 
 
38 CRNTESABY OF THE AMEBICAS FLA fi- 
 
 ll made our organized communities grow from 13 
 unthrifty colonies to 38 thrifty states, inclusive of Col- 
 orado, and 8 large candidates for states, on probation 
 now as ten'itories. It made our schools of all kinds 
 rrrow frum less than 2,000 to over 500,000. It made 
 our churches grow from 950 to 74,450. It made the 
 number of newspapers and periodicals grow from 154 
 to 8,154. It made the number of miles of internal 
 canals grow from nothing worthy of mention to 3.184. 
 It made our exports and imports grow from an annual 
 average of $6,134,000 each, Vjefore the revolution, to 
 to $583,442,711 of exports, and $533,005,436 of 
 imports. It made the number of postoflSces grow from 
 209 to 35,547. and the number of miles of postage 
 route, from 5,042 to 277.873. it put into daily opera- 
 tion in the United States 54,672 miles of railroads; 
 62,642 miles of merchant express; 120,249 miles of 
 electro magnetic telef^raph, and 280,000 miles of tele- 
 f^raphic wires — enough, if drawn out in one continuous 
 line, to more than twice encircle the globe with rails 
 and more than ten times with wires. But I must not 
 fatigue you with figures. Our Patent Office has grown 
 from the model of Whitney's cotton gin to be a vast 
 museum of inventive geniu.s. The results of that gen- 
 ius are manifest in a thou.sand way.s, in the abridgment 
 and perfection of human labor. The application of the 
 useful arts as motors of progress are prominently indi- 
 cated by the various applications of steam to locomo- 
 tion, navigation and manufactures, of electricity and 
 magnetism to the production of mechanical motion, of 
 the electro magnetic telegraph to the registration of 
 astronomical phenomena And they are still more 
 
JCDOE HALLS ADDRESS. 
 
 familiarly indicated by the wijiiderful advancement anrl 
 apparent perfection in photography. And we have 
 bound onr states together by the metallic bonds of rail- 
 roads, telegraphs and bridges, which are stronger than 
 the constitution itself 
 
 One hundred years ago the single achievement of 
 Franklin constituted our only feather in the line of orig- 
 inal discovery. During the century, our men of science 
 have not only explored the field of original research, but 
 greatly enlarged it. They have made valuable discov- 
 eries in geography, surface and subterranean topogra- 
 phy, natural history, chemistry, lithography, telegraphy, 
 meteorology, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, elec- 
 tro magnetism. ])hotography. antiquistic philology and 
 astronomy, and found, in the process, a bed for an ocean 
 caVjle and several hitherto unknown comets and stars. 
 Our chemists and astronomers and other specialists rank 
 with the first in the world. 
 
 And notwitkstanding the several deinoralization.s 
 resulting from our recent civil war, (which I hope will 
 prove to be temporary,) we have advanced very greatly, 
 as a people, in education, benevolence and religion. 
 We have a multitude of common schools, academies, 
 .seminaries, colleges, for females as well as males, and 
 churches in every settled part of the land, wath well 
 appointed teachers, preceptors, professors and divines 
 to attend them. We have institutions for the truant, 
 the idiotic, the insane, the inebriate, the blind, the deaf, 
 the dumb, and comfortable public homes for the orphan 
 and friendless. Schools and churches were not only 
 cotemporaneous affairs at the commencement of our 
 settlements, but, following the primitive examples, they 
 
40 CEXTEXARY OF THE AMERICAS FLAG- 
 
 have continued to be cotemporaneous ever since. They 
 are the characteristics of all our settlements, both the 
 old and the new. And what is more, they have been 
 and are still peculiarly and specially American, pecu- 
 liarly and specially our own. 
 
 " On otlier shores, abuve their nioldering: towns. 
 In sullen pomp, tlie tall cathedral frowns ; 
 Simple and frail our lowly temples throw 
 Their slender shadows on the paths below. 
 
 '• Scarce steal the winds which sweep the woodman's tracks, 
 
 Tlie larch's perfume from the settler's axe. 
 
 Ere like a \ision of the morning air 
 
 His slight fram"d steeple marks the house of prayer. 
 
 " Yet Faith's pure hymn beneath its shelter rude, 
 Breathes out as sweetl}- to the tangled wood, 
 As where the rays through blazing oriels pour 
 On marble shaft and tesselated floor." 
 
 Independence, in short, according to my philosophy, 
 was the talismanic wand which beckoned the colonial 
 infants out of their cradles, reared them to stalwart 
 manhood, endowed them with healthful moral, indus- 
 trial and commercial activities, bound them together 
 into constitutional union, and introduced them to the 
 world at large as a nation of the first class in wealth, 
 character and power, where by the multiplication of 
 their number and the increase of theii' domain to the 
 Pacific Ocean, they present at this centennial jubilee, 
 to angels and to men, the sublime and glorious specta- 
 cle of a nation of forty millions of freemen, happy 
 
 BEYOND ANY OTHER PEOPLE, AND AT PEACE WITH ALL MAN- 
 KIND. The sun in its course does not shine upon another 
 spectacle like this. Ours is not the greatest nation in 
 population and domain, for China, Russia and Great 
 Britain are greater : but in all the essentials for intelli- 
 
JUDGE HALLS ABDIiESS- 41 
 
 gent and comfortable living, and facilities for prepara- 
 tion for the life to come, onrs is, beyond all question, 
 the greatest nation under the sun. It is not only at 
 the head of this continent, but at the head of the world. 
 With such wonderful and delightful results have the 
 people of this young republic exhausted the first round 
 century of its destiny. They have fairly earned the 
 right to rejoice to-day as no other people can. But 
 while they rejoice — while we, my neighbors, as a con- 
 stituent part of them, rejoice to-day as we ma}^ by 
 fairly earned right, let us be careful all the while not to 
 drop into the fatal error of the ancient Romans and the 
 more modern Bourbons, that our national work is done. 
 To use the figure of Bishop Berkeley, we have only 
 acted the first scene in the drama. Our work is only 
 fairly begun. We open the pages of the second scene 
 to-day, and give out the parts for our children and 
 successors to perform. 
 
 " Time's noblest offspring is the last." 
 LET US STUDY OUR RESPECTIVE PARTS. 
 
 Let us pause a moment at this centennial milestone 
 to study our respective parts. To do this with under- 
 standing let us, in the first place, endeavor to fathom 
 the will of the Creator and the deep designs of his 
 Providence, and accept with deferential respect what- 
 ever he reveals to us. Let us scan the map of our 
 great country as it lies to-day between the oceans, as if 
 designed l:)y Providence to be the grand union point 
 between the old civilizations and the new. Let us 
 re-peruse the history of our young republic, analyze its 
 facts and endeavor to extract its philosophy. Our body 
 politic, with all its apparent vigor has been recently un- 
 
42 CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 der the hands of a surgeon. It had an ugly cancer in 
 its side which imperiled its life, one which it became 
 necessary to remove. The operation saved its life but 
 it left a wound. The surgeon left so many roots behind 
 that it has been a difficult sore to heal. And it was torn 
 open so often by the nurses in its early stages as to have 
 been greatly inflamed. The healing, as all know, was 
 greatly delayed. But a cicatrix is now forming; and 
 with suitable care the wound will soon be healed and 
 the body politic will soon be presentable to the nations.* 
 As I understand the will of the Creator, it is now our first 
 and paramount and immediate duty to heal our nation 
 of slavery, perfect its civil and religious institutions, and 
 standing as we do the observed of all observers, to be 
 all and precisely what we profess to be, a commanding 
 example to the nations. 
 
 As 1 understand the will of the Creator, it is his pleas- 
 ure that the present generation of living men — that we 
 who are here while we live, and our children and suc- 
 cessors after we die — that we and they make it our and 
 their paramount work so to perfect every department of 
 our government and its supporting institutions as to 
 demonstrate to the world by example, as well as by pre- 
 
 * And it may not be disguised from ourselves, if we could conceal it from the nations, 
 that the scalpel left in the body politic a fearful amount of acrid treason, and kindred 
 ailments, which are every day developing themselves in forms of the most astounding 
 viciousness, wickedness, villainy and crime. The war not only cheapened virtue and 
 honesty, in high places as well as low, but it cheapened the value of life. Even now crime 
 of every conceivable enormity is holding high carnival. What Macauley styles the 
 " canker of war" ate deeply into the very heart of the nation. Demoralization is almost 
 universal. Our country was doomed to pass not only through the ordeal of a terrible 
 civil war, in order to be rid of negro slavery, but if possible a severer ordeal of public and 
 private crimes. We are in the midst of that ordeal now ; God alone knows when the trial 
 will end. But the optimists assure us thit when our nation shall have expiated its guilt ; 
 when it shall have been suflSciently reproved for the terrible crime of keeping 4,000,000 of 
 human beings, with souls to be saved, a century in bondage, our nation will emerge from 
 the fire regenerated, and disenthralled from the cancers and cankers of the war, as well 
 as from the slavery which was its provoking, primary cause. 
 
JUDGE HALL-S ADDRESS- 43 
 
 cept, the feasibility of popular government ; that under 
 proper conditions there may not only be security of per- 
 son and property, but provision for the maintenance of 
 education, order and good morals, and for the general 
 diffusion of such knowledge as will carry all the branches 
 of culture to their highest perfection, by means of insti- 
 tutions founded upon republican principles. By steam 
 and the electro-telegraph, and the improvements result- 
 ing from their discovery, we have advanced into the im- 
 mediate neighborhood of the great powers of Europe 
 and Asia, where the aristocratic and despotic elements 
 prevail. We have entered the charmed circle as the 
 neighbor of them all. We are every day, perhaps un- 
 consciously, resolving the great problem of the re-action 
 of democracy upon the aristocracy and despotism of 
 both of those civilizations. 
 
 Between these new neighbors and ourselves there is 
 no political connection. They adhere to their systems 
 yet, as we adhere to ours. But their interests are sim- 
 ilar to ours and often the same. Commercial interests 
 are mingling together all over the world. General in 
 telligence is becoming common to all nations ; and the 
 tone of sentiment which formerly prevailed only in cir- 
 cles of the learned, is now rapidly reaching the masses 
 of average people. In matters of taste, science and ju- 
 dicial administration, we think and act very much alike. 
 x\nd now that steam and electricity have brought coun- 
 tries so much nearer together, the people of one nation 
 seem to talk to those of another nation upon political as 
 upon other subjects. And as the press of those nations 
 is emerging from the surveillance of censors more and 
 more every year, the advantages of our free govern- 
 
44 CENTENA R Y OF THE A MERICAN FLA G . 
 
 ment are nearly everywhere the subject of discussion. 
 This recent entrance of ours, by steam and the electro- 
 telegraph, into the very midst of those old civilizations 
 has imposed upon us new duties and responsibilities. It 
 increases and hastens our obligations, as the central 
 Light-House, to show to them, and that too as soon as 
 possible, that government founded upon the popular 
 voice, for a large country as well as a small one, in 
 which life and property shall be secure, honesty and vir- 
 tue cultivated, the arts and sciences encouraged, and all 
 forms of industry reasonably compensated, is entirely 
 practicable. 
 
 This high missionary duty has been rendered all the 
 more imperative upon our successors, by the fact that 
 during the century gone, our nation has shifted its polit 
 ical center and its maratime front. At first, and for 
 nearly half a century, the center of power was Wash- 
 ington City, in the center of the settled selvage, which 
 constituted our maratime front, between the mouths of 
 the St. Croix and the Mississippi. For more than half 
 a century our nation faced Europe, and the people 
 looked to Europe chiefly for a market for their surplus 
 products. And during all that period, and longer, the 
 politicians of the Atlantic states controlled the federal 
 government. During the last five and twenty years a 
 large majority of the population have dwelt either in or 
 west of the Mississippi basin. The geographical center 
 has been shifted from Washington City to Kansas City, 
 and the political center to St. Louis. And during that 
 period Western politicians, Republicans particularly, 
 have been quite conscious of, and some of them very 
 ready to assert their power, I refer to the fact only for 
 
JUDGE HALVS ADDRESS. 45 
 
 illustration. By the settlement of California, Oregon 
 and Washington, and the recent purchase of Alaska ; 
 by the construction of the Pacific Railroad ; by Mr. 
 Seward's commercial treaty with China ; and by the 
 immense volume of travel, transportation and commerce 
 which have resulted therefrom, our nation now faces 
 Asia. 
 
 The Star of Empire, which stood over our flag at 
 Cambridge one hundred years ago, beckoned the column 
 of emigration, and agricultural and other improvements 
 westward and westward and westward, until at the end 
 of the century it has faced the nation completely about. 
 It rides into the second century, therefore, as the morn- 
 ing sun to China and Japan ; and their numerous mil- 
 lions of semi-civilized inhabitants are at this moment 
 hailing us as the angels of a better civilization - — the 
 harbingers of a better faith. The protracted battle for 
 our commercial supremacy on the Pacific Ocean has 
 been fought and won. Our people and the succeed- 
 ing generation and generations have onl}^ to go for- 
 Avard and improve it. The way is now open for expor- 
 tation of agricultural, mineral and mechanical produc- 
 tions to 850,000,000 of people, dwelling in China, 
 Japan, Eastern Russia and India; and upon the Sand- 
 wich, Celebes and Phillipine Islands ; Borneo, Java and 
 Sumatra; and for return cargoes direct, (not, as hereto- 
 fore, by London) of their choicest teas, silks, cashmeres, 
 thibets, furs, gums, dye stuffs and spices. 
 
 Those of us upon this platform are too far advanced 
 in life to be able whilst we live to do very much our- 
 selves towards making this needful demonstration to the 
 nations, or towards improving the new and inviting 
 
46 CENTENARY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 opportunities for commerce with, and mission work 
 among our Chinese, Japanese and East Indian neighbors. 
 But it is as clear to me as the sunbeams, that such is the 
 revealed mission and interest of the present generation 
 and of the generations to come. 
 
 A WORD RESPECTING OUR DESTINY. 
 
 I do not pretend to l)e endowed with any prescience 
 beyond that which I have derived from observation and 
 experience, in a life not now short, and from the inex- 
 orable logic of events. 
 
 ' 'Tis the sunset of life gives me la^'stical lore, ^ 
 
 Coming events cast their shadows before." 
 
 Yet you will allow me, I know, to leave a few predic- 
 tions on record, to be remembered by your children and 
 mine, when I shall be asleep on Fort Hill. By the aid 
 of that observation, experience and logic, I seem to be 
 able to peer a little into the future and to discern 
 unmistakable indications of a prosperous and glorious 
 future. I seem to discern that it will be the mission of 
 our people, during the century upon which we now 
 enter, among other things, to astonish the world with 
 myriads of hitherto unthought of inventions ; to perfect 
 our government, and its civil, literary and religious insti- 
 tutions ; to convert our unoccupied land in the West 
 into productive, agricultural and pastoral farms, embel- 
 lished with thrifty cities and villages ; to swell our pop- 
 ulation to at least two hundred millions ; to multiply 
 steamers and commerce upon the Pacific Ocean ; to rush 
 across that peaceful ocean highway to the rescue and 
 reclamation of the people beyond ; to arouse the slum- 
 ber of a hundred centuries ; to set the principles of 
 
JUDGE HALL'S ADDRESS. 47 
 
 self-government at work ; to establish a new order in 
 human aifairs ; to refresh superannuated nations with a 
 new civilization ; and ultimately in the future, near or 
 remote, to verify the beautiful anticipations of the 
 prescient Virgil of the American Revolution : 
 
 "As when the asterial blaze o'er Bethlehem stood, 
 Which marked the birthplace of the incarnate God. 
 When eastern Magi tlie heavenly splendor viewed, 
 And numerons throngs the wondrous sign pursued. 
 So Eastern Kings shall view the unclouded daj', 
 Observe our star which streaks its golden vvay. 
 That signal spoke a Savior's humble birth, 
 This speaks his long and glorious reign on eaith. 
 With science crowned shall peace and virtue shine. 
 And true religion beam a light divine. 
 Here the pure church descending from her God, 
 Shall fi.\ on earth lier long and last abode, 
 Her opening courts in dazzling glory blaze. 
 Her walls salvation and her portals praise." 
 
 And thus, by enterprise, perseverance, patience and 
 fortitude, the characteristic virtues of Washington, by 
 slow but sure degrees, in God's appointed way and 
 time, the American people may be reasonably expected 
 to work out the civilization and christianization of the 
 world. 
 
 With this feeble tribute to Washington and the flag, 
 and these faint predictions of the future, I bring my 
 address to a close by once more commending the event 
 we commemorate to-day to our children and our chil- 
 dren's children, as being eminently worthy, for the rea- 
 sons I have given, to descend with their choicest 
 national and family traditions to the end of time. 
 
48 CENTENABY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 THE BENEDICTION. 
 
 At the conclusion of Judge Hall's remarks, the assembly 
 inside the Court House was dismissed with a benediction, pro- 
 nounced by Chaplain, the Rev. Edward B. Tuttle, of the 
 army. 
 
 hoisting and salutation of the flag. 
 
 The meeting then adjourned to the area in front of the Court 
 House, where the lofty flag staff stands, to witness the cere- 
 mony of hoisting to its summit and saluting the National flag, 
 in exact imitation of the manner of its hoisting and salutation 
 at the time it was dedicated a century ago. The emblem was 
 hoisted by Comrades Shapley and Kirkpatrick of the Veteran's 
 Post, and when at half mast it was saluted by one gun and the 
 song of the " Star Spangled Banner," by the quartette. At 
 the signal of a second gun, the flag was hoisted to the sum- 
 mit and saluted, by eleven additional " speaking" guns, 
 making thirteen in all — the full symbol of the thirteen orig- 
 inal states, and the same number of stripes in the flag. 
 
 During this ceremonial the streets and sidewalks in front of 
 the Court House were densely crowded by thousands of spec- 
 tators, who appeared to be deeply interested in the impressive 
 ceremonies, and at 12:30 the vast populace dispersed to their 
 several homes. 
 
 Thus it will be perceived by our friends abroad, that the 
 neighbors of our late highly distinguished citizen, William 
 Henry Seward, remembered his admonitions in relation to lib- 
 erty, and did not forget to do precisely what he would have 
 advised them to do had he been among the living. — lEd. Auburn 
 Advertiser. ^ 
 
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