pREsi;,\Ti;n in ELEBRATION PROCEEDINGS «f ti,e One Hundred and Fiftieth Annivers2iry of the Town of New Ipswich New Hd^mpshire ^ ^^. Au|(ust 26 to 28 1900 ^7 CELEBRATION PROCEEDINGS ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY '^^ NEW IPSWICH, N. H. AUGUST 26-28, 1900. 1*1 ' There is a spot of earth supremely hlest,i . A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest."\ » COMPILED BY FREDERIC WILLIAM JONES, A. M., M. D. NEW IPSWICH, N. H.: PUBLISHED BV THE CELEBRATION COMMITTEE. 1900. ,NtNi Sentinel Printing Company, FiTCHBURG, Mass. P 4 O'OI DEDICATED TO THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF NEW IPSWICH, N. H. lE'TRODTJCTIOK. The selectmen of New Ipswich early in the year considered the pro- position for a celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town. In order to commemorate this event, a special committee of twelve citizens was appointed. This committee immediately organized, choosing a chairman, W. L. Phelps, a secretary, H. J. Moore, and a treasurer, E. O. Marshall. Ses- sions were held at frequent intervals, and the arduous work of raising the requisite funds carefully considered. Each member was provided with a paper for the solicitation of subscriptions. This was imperative, because there was no appropriation and the financial situation looked dubious. The hearty and willing co-operation of all soon solved the problem. Letters announcing the proposed celebration were sent broadcast to the loyal sons and daughters of the town, as well as to former residents widely scattered over the United States, and personal appeals were also made to the citizens. This had the desired effect and soon the generous subscrip- tions began to materialize in such an amount that the celebration commit- tee made adequate preparations to observe the anniversary with appropri- ate exercises. The genial chairman, Wilbur L. Phelps, deserves especial praise for his kindness and courtesy while presiding. The committee heartily entered into the plans for the realization and perfection of a program that would attract and please the visitors and participants. The orator. Prof. Charles H. Chandler, and the poet, Timothy Perry, Esq., were natives of the town. Preliminary services were held on the Sabbath previous in the Con- gregational church, where a number of eminent and scholarly clergymen assembled and addressed a congregation of people who filled the building to its utmost capacity, while an old-fashioned choir aided by an old- fashioned orchestra enriched the occasion with entrancing song and music. His Excellency, Gov. F'rank \V. Rollins, the father of " Old Home Week," seven members of his staff, Capt. Jonas Nutting Post, No. 53, 6 PROCEEDINGS. G. A. R., the Peterboro Cavalry, the Lyndeboro Artillery, the local Fire Department, and a list of invited guests willingly responded and assured their presence on the day of the celebration. The committee strenuously labored to celebrate with due honor this notable occasion under the most auspicious influences, and its culmination was largely due to the kindly energy of those who so materially responded and offered their financial aid. To all of these the committee extend most cordial thanks, also to the Governor, his staff, all the military organizations, the G. A. R. Post, and the Fire Department, who were instrumental in reviewing the glories of the old historic town and honoring its noble ancestry. " Long live the good town, giving out year by year, Recruits to true maniioocl and womanhood dear." F. W. Jones. New Ipswich, N. H., Sept. 21, 1900. PROCEEDINGS. THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE. Wilbur L. Phelps, Joseph A. Wheeler, Edward O. Marshall, John Preston, Harry J. Moore, George R. Barrett, Frederic W. Jones, Albert F. Walker, Lauriston M. p. Hardy, Charles Wheeler, George S. Wheeler, Caroline F. Barr. PROCEEDINGS. SUBSCRIBERS TO THE CELEBRATION FUND. Full Amount Received, $949.35. J. L. Hildreth, William E. Davis, Brown Brothers, John W. Cumrnings, Rodney Wallace, Charles M. Wheeler, Chauncy Perry, Timothy Perry, James H. Farwell, Henry R. Reed, Joseph Silver, Jr., G. H. Wheeler, Royal E. Farwell, F. W. Jones, Elizabeth M. Barrett, George R. Barrett, R. H. Stearns, Ralph E. Parker, W^illiam A. Preston, Frank W. Preston, Henry T. Champney, J. M. Marsh, Hattie P. McKown, O. H. Perry, J. W. Bullard, M. F. Deane, L. M. Barr, James B. Davis, Emma Hardison, Edwin Leedham, J. E. F. Marsh, G. F. Lougee, Oliver Tenney, H. M. Brooks, Frank L. Mansfield, C. Fred Jowders, E. H. Farwell, J. M. Burton, W. N. Thompson, C. F. RiLssell, A. L. Travis, William Boynton, John N. Wilkinson, E. Frederick, Stephen Wheeler, James C. Chandler, J. A. Wheeler, George S. Wheeler, E. M. Fox, John Bourgault, P. J. LeCourt, H. J. Moore, John Foster, C. S. Moore, W. L. Clark, G. L. Muzzey, R. A. Hale, A. F. Walker, Mary J. Tabraham, William R. Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Moore, F. W. Chapman, E. C. Stowe, F. H. Whittemore, PROCEEDINGS. Charles H. Hardy, Albert L. Howe, George R. Jacquith, L. W. Newell, D. E. Putnam, N. O. Whitney, George C. Ramsdell, L. H. Hodgman, H. W. Whitney, Louisa F. Rand, Martha A. Taylor, William Wheeler, Charles F. Wheeler, Guy C. Blanchard, John Parmenter, E. F. Blanchard, L. E. Ferrin, M. T. Robbins, Nettie Whittemore, Charles S. Wheeler, B. A. Robbins, Edw. R. Wheeler, Charles Wheeler, Alice Edson, J. L. Chandler, A. A. Woodward, E. H. Taylor, James Barr Ames, George D. Burton, Myron Taylor, J. L. Wolcott, William E. Preston, Edward O. Marshall, Charles Houghton, I. W. Chick, F. N. Gibson, Charles S. Davis, Eugene L. Clark, Sanders Brothers, Mary H. Hersey, Mary D. Barrett, Sarah F. Hubbard, Andrew Bateman, Mrs. N. W. Farley, Perley B. Davis, Henry Ames Blood, Mrs. James Tucker, Harriet King, Silas Boyce, Mr. Holden, Sarah B. Perry, F. B. Perry, Mary B. Gibson, Elizabeth Gould, Mrs. Hooper, George Parker, Samuel Gates, Ella Russell Freeman, Arthur Farley, Charles H. Allen, L. M. P. Hardy. 10 PROCEEDINGS. INVITED GUESTS. Gov. Frank W. Rollins, Gen. W. E. Spalding, Col. E. S. Head, Col. Sam Lewis, Gen. A. D. Ayling, Gen. H. H. Dudley, Col. J. M. Sargent, Col. Joseph H. Coit, Capt. Charles Davis and Company of Peterboro Cavalry, Capt. Edward Ross and Company of Lyndeboro Artillery, Commander A. L. Travis and Capt. Jonas Nutting Post, No. 53, G. A. R. New Ipswich Fire Department, Rev. Cecil F. P. Bancroft, Rev. F. W. Greene, Hon. Rodney Wallace, Hon. R. H. Stearns, Mr. John C. Hildreth, Mr. S. Arthur Bent, Rev. Perley B. Davis, Mr. Lucius Sanders, Capt. John Hubbard, Prof. James Barr Ames, Mr. Nathaniel Doane, Judge E. E. Parker, Hon. Isaac C. Stearns, Rev. Calvin Cutler, John Herbert, Esq. Rev. William R. Thompson, Mr. Roby Fletcher, Mr. William A. Preston, Judge Chauncy Perry, Mr. George R. Barrett, Mr. Alfred H. Brown, Mrs. Sarah F. Hubbard, Maj. D. E. Proctor, Hon. Frank G. Clarke, Rev. John S. Brown, Prof. Charles H. Chandler. Timothy Perry, Esq., Mr. William J. Greenman and Mr. Daniel G. Murphy, caterers at New Ipswich centennial dinner in 1850. SUNDAY, AUGUST 26. ORDER OF EXERCISES AT THE SERVICE IN THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. Rev. Cecil F. P. Bancroft Presiding. Hymn, " Sweet is the day of sacred rest." Portland. Prayer, Rev. William R. Thompson. Hymn, "Come, my beloved, haste away." Invitation. Reading of Old Testament Scriptures by Rev. F. W. Greene, also from Erasmus' Version of New Testament, London edition, 1548. Hymn, " While shepherds watched their flocks by night." Sher- burne. Rev. C. F. P. Bancroft read notices, also Rev. George F. Mer- riam's letter, and made an address. Hymn, "Spare us, O Lord, aloud we cry." Complaint. Rev. Calvin Cutler made an address and followed it with prayer. Anthem, " Strike the cymbal." John Herbert, Esq., gave an address. Hymn, " How long, dear Saviour, O, how long?" Northfield. Hymn, "Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I." Greenwich. Rev. Frederick W. Greene's address. Hymn, " Gone are those great and good." Pierpont. Benediction pronounced by Rev. Dr. Bancroft. THE SABBATH SERYIOES. " Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee." Gladsome skies never welcomed a more beautiful day than the Sab- bath of August 26, 1900, when the keynote of the celebration was struck, and amidst a magnificent display of bunting and gorgeous decorations, a large assemblage convened in the Congregational church. The facade of the building was attractively decorated, and a corps of able and efficient ushers soon filled the edifice with people. Happiness, good will, and fraternal sympathy beamed in the faces of the great assemblage. Over the pulpit was the motto, "God be with you till we meet again." On either side were the dates 1750 and 1900. The gallery, in which were seated the choir and orchestra under the director, William Willis Clark of Boston, a grandson and son of former leaders of the choir, was filled with ladies and gentlemen, who most heartily entered into the spirit of the day and carried by their songs all listeners on the wings of imagination to the days of yore. Miss Sarah F. Lee, daughter of the late Rev. Samuel Lee, arranged the Sunday program. Rev. Cecil F. P. Bancroft of Andover, Mass., presided. Hymn, "Sweet is the day of sacred rest." Portland. Rev. William R. Thompson, a former pastor of the Baptist church, offered the opening prayer. Hymn, "Come, my beloved, haste away." Invitation. Rev. ¥. W. Greene of Middletown, Conn., a great-grandson of Rev. Laban Ainsworth, who filled a pastorate of 75 years in Jaffrey, N. H., the longest one on record in the United States, read the 84th Psalm, and PROCEEDINGS. 13 from the 1 6th chapter of Matthew, in a copy of Erasmus' version of the New Testament, from the 21st verse to the 29th, from Hebrews 11th chapter, verses 8-10, 13—16, and from the 39th to 2d verse of chapter 12th. This volume was published in London in 1548, and was used and read from by Rev. Samuel Lee on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of this town. Hymn, " While shepherds watched their flocks by night." Sher- burne. Rev. Cecil F. P. Bancroft read the morning notices and also a letter from Rev. George F. Merriam of Mt. Kisco, N. Y., who cherished tender memories of his pastoral duties while connected with the New Ipswich Congregational church. It was the original intention to have had Hon. R. H. Stearns, Rev. Perley B. Davis and Earle W. Westgate, a former principal of Appleton Academy, present, but previous engagements prevented. REMARKS BY REV. CECIL F. P. BANCROFT. It is very fitting that the celebration of the settlement of this town one hundred and fifty years ago should be recognized by this church, and that it should begin with a special religious observance. In that early day church and state were so intimately united as to be almost identical. At the first meeting of the proprietors of this township, June 20, 1750, it was "Voted to choose a committee to provide a proper person to preach in said town." The actual organization of the church was delayed by various hindrances ten years, when the first minister, the godly Stephen Farrar, was ordained and settled. But previously preaching had been maintained, and a meeting-house had been built by general taxation. It was not till 1824, the half-way date in the history of our town, that the present system of voluntary support of the churches was fully established in this community ; and not till some years after that the parish acquired from the town the ownership of the meeting-house. At present it is an established principle in American life that church and state must be sep- arate; when this town was young, church and state were one; the church was supported, as now our schools, highways, courts, and legislation are supported, at the public charge. I esteem it a great honor to be invited to preside on this occasion. 14 PROCEEDINGS. and to introduce the speakers who are to follow me. I am sustained in part by my interest in this, my native town, and in this church. My earliest recollections of public worship are connected with this edifice. Here our large household worshipped, scattered now, and some of them long since worshippers in "the house not made with hands." The Sun- day morning drive from our somewhat distant and isolated home in Wilder village, — the irreverent at that time called it by a less attractive name, — the converging lines of numerous vehicles and pedestrians going up to the house of God, the pealing of the deep-toned bell, which I a few years afterward learned to ring, the general aspect of cheerfulness, neighborli- ness, bustle, and Sunday respectability of dress and manners, made a deep impression on my childish mind. It is easy for some of you to recall with me the old meeting-house, then of one lofty story instead of two as at present, with the wide gallery running around three sides, and the double row of numerous windows, which I seem again to hear rattling in the winter wind. The square pews along the walls and the slips in the middle, the very pew in which we sat, the faces and even the dress of some who sat in adjacent pews, the hinged seats which went down some- times with a slam after the long prayer, the foot-stoves in great request in winter days, and the choir in the south gallery, are all very vividly before me, — especially the orchestra, two or three violins, the 'cello which my father played, a double-bass viol, a clarinet, and two or three brass instruments, which sustained the voices. It was very impressive and very inspiring, for the Clark family and the Stearns family were the same musical folk as in the next generation. But the most awesome thing was the lofty pulpit, a square structure, large enough, it seemed to me, for a church in itself, with two entrance doors right and left of the communion table, leading into the deep unknown, finished at the top with rich, red velvet cushions, while behind were festooned in a great arch red damask draperies. I used to watch with solemn curiosity the minister coming down the broad aisle, entering one of the doors which closed behind him, and then after a dread interval see him rising out of the mysterious arcanum ; first the head became visible, then the shoulders, and finally the full half-length. I used to wonder by what mechanical or super- natural agency all this was brought to pass. It sometimes seemed as if he must have been upborne by angels' wings. My father was an officer in this church for many years, till he re- moved to an adjoining town. He was active in the reconstruction of this building, and 1 think was on the building committee. When it was re- PROCEEDINGS. 16 dedicated I joined my father and eldest sister in the choir, attempting rather helplessly, as I remember, the alto score. Our new sittings were on the other side of the church, and in the next pew sat Perley B. Davis, whom we hoped to hear to-day as one of the children of this church who have had a long, able, and successful ministry. I should be false alike to memory and affection if I failed to make grateful mention of the uplift, intellectual and spiritual, which I received here from the sermons of the minister of my childhood and youth, the Rev. Samuel Lee. I must not dwell longer on personal recollections, even though they be typical and awake responsive echoes in your memory. I have spoken of the church as an integral part of the early life of this community. Notwithstanding the separation of church and state, it is so still. The real influence abides under new forms. In pioneer days the church was the social center, and its educational power was only less than its religious. I sometimes allow myself to wonder what would have been the history of this town if the church had not been established and maintained from that day to this. The church and the academy have united for the pro- motion of the higher life of this community. They have stood consist- ently and openly for those moral qualities in our citizens which make for right living and good government, and the church has been the highest expression of obedience to law, unselfish devotion to the public welfare, and abounding sympathy and beneficence for those who are in trouble or want. There is a gloomy side in the history of this church, — the long and bitter controversies over matters which seem in the far distance not worth the contention, but this sharp division of opinion among brethren has been an evidence of conscience, of independence and freedom of opin- ion, whether the quarrel was over the location of the meeting-house, or the half-way covenant, or ministerial taxes, or an erring brother, or the minister. A community unblessed by the sanctuary, the ministry of the word and the sacraments, has not been a good place in which to grow in grace and to bring up children, nor to do business. Generations of reli- gious families worshipping God and sustaining the institutions of the church have brought our country forward to its present intelligence, virtue, and prosperity. Generations of families opposing or neglecting the churches have not been tried in this country, and it is not wise to prophesy what would follow, but this we may say, that the character of our honest, frugal, industrious, patriotic, church-going, and religious ancestors is a legacy in which we proudly and gratefully stand to-day, and an inherit- ance which most of us desire by our own example and influence to aug- 16 PROCEEDINGS. ment and transmit. What is the perfect church but a society of men and women asking for the best that God can give to them and to the com- munity, and giving over to their fellow-men out of a pure, strong life, in the name of the Master, those things which subsist in high principles and a noble self-devotion. On this festival, therefore, we do not dwell on the narrowness or bigotry of our forefathers, but on their magnanimity, their rugged sobriety, their fear of God, their devotion to justice and righteousness, and their union in Christian patience and love. In spite of all their native individualism, their civic virtues, grounded in their reli- gious temper and faith, wrought out a common life and a public spirit which have made New Ipswich, like the town in which I now reside, as described by Phillips Brooks, "everywhere and always, first, last, the sober, patriotic, straightforward New England town." It is not neces- sary for us to separate the factors which make up such a body politic ; it is enough for us to recognize the fundamental and all-pervasive influence of the Christian Church. Hymn, " Spare us, O Lord, aloud we cry." Complaint. Rev. Calvin Cutler of Auburndale, Mass., gave an address stating that the orator would help revive the memories of the sturdy men and matrons next Tuesday. Towns are but units that help make the state, neither the purse nor the sword is in their power. Town records should be sacredly guarded. The goodly heritage that we possess is due to the acts of our worthy ancestors. Its source is the Bible. Rev. Mr. Cutler mentioned the names of some of the prominent business men of the town who had pews while he preached here from 1861 to '67: Rev. Samuel Lee, the fertility of his mind and the force of his character will long be remembered in all the region round about ; Prof. E. T. Quimby, the popular principal of Appleton Academy, John Preston, Esq., Frederick Jones, M. D., Deacons Reuben Taylor, John P. Clark, James Davis, William Hassell, also Stephen Thayer and Clark H. Obear, while the pews on either side of the pulpit were filled with the students of Appleton Academy. Mr. Cutler was the youngest candidate, and during the meeting for choosing a pastor an elderly brother arose and forcibly remarked, " I move we take the colt." PROCEEDINGS. 17 The Children's Fair, still held annually, was started in the pastor's study, with the assistance of Prof. Quimby. William W. Johnson was the able auctioneer. Rev. Calvin Cutler's address, "Coming Home," is given in part. ADDRESS BY REV. CALVIN CUTLER. M\j Dear Friends : — Celebrations like this are fitted to extend the knowledge of the early history of the country. They are just tributes to the memory of worthy men to whom we are under everlasting obligations. They furnish fit occasions for inculcating the great principles which led to the settlement of the country, reminding us that there is something worthy to be commemorated in the soil we inhabit, and thus furnishing food for enlightened patriotism. * * * It is a time for personal reminiscences. Thirty-nine years ago the first Sunday in October I entered this pul- pit for the first time. The sun was bright, the air was crisp, the house was full, the music was fine, under the leadership of Mr. Peter H. Clark. The first funeral that occurred was that of a soldier ; a soldier was the first to be married and his bride not long after was a widow. We recall that Sunday when a company of volunteers marched up this aisle to worship before going into camp. Of these one was buried on the battlefield, and others were borne from this house to soldiers' graves. In the chapel every week the hands of ladies were busy preparing comforts for the sick and wounded soldiers. * * * The darkness was relieved by occasions of gladness, the joy of harvest, the mirth of weddings and social delights. Here I brought my newly wedded wife, and a delegation of citizens met us, and Academy students drew up in lines for us to drive through to our new home. Such memories crowd upon us all. They waylay us along the well- remembered roads. They greet us from the house where the vows of youth- ful love were spoken, or the silver cord was loosed and the spirit re- turned to God who gave it. Their voice comes up from Mill Village, Bank Village, and High Bridge. Gibson Village, Davis Village, and Wilder Village tell their story. They come down from Binney Hill. The stones are full of them. They spring up in the fields. The trees of the wood fling out their voice. They mingle with the murmurs of the Souhegan. * *• * We must turn to other thoughts. They are summed up, many of them, in a single word, that suggests more of earthly 18 PROCEEDINGS. happiness than any other that can be named. It speaks of joy. It sings of love. Next to divine names it is the most sacred word we speak, and yet it is a common word. It is Home. The potency of a world-wide celebration lies in the call of the Governor upon the people of the state in every town to observe the festival of Home Week. It touches the heart of the absent sons and daughters, and they long to see again their old New Hampshire homes. Those who are on the old place leave the latch-string out to welcome those who return. Each is eager to see the other, to ask and to answer questions, to sit again at the home table, and sleep again under the rafters they used to gaze at in childhood, to see again the little red school-house. They recall the good times at the singing-school and the walk home, where the path was just wide enough for two — with care. Such are the thoughts of many hearts to-day. Words cannot pic- ture them, coin cannot buy them. They are the pledge of a healthy social life. And so we may congratulate ourselves that a theme so suited to the house of God is so fitting for this festival. * * * Much of the thinking of the present time goes to emphasize the thought of the individuality of men. It needs to be balanced by the thought of mutual organic relations. ^ And this festival at the foundation rests upon a truth which we are coming more and more to comprehend, — the unity of the race. The nation means that which is born. Its basis is identity of blood. It speaks of him who " hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." * * * Great blessings flow from this spring of the home, — the control of children, the guidance of the young, the care of old age. * * * Could any other emblem stand more truthfully for all that is attractive in the heavenly world than the home of childhood? A living picture on which we may read the legend: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." *' * *" Then think of the safeguard it offers against temptation. Full of evil is the spirit that would undermine the structure or loose the bonds of the family. For the family is the basis of the state. On the other hand the highest earthly joys have their seat in the home. We ought then to make more of our homes and try to make them better. It need not make us selfish, for the home is the emblem of communion — better than a thousand lessons on kindness. * * * PROCEEDINGS. 19 The choicest blessings of home are open to all. "The sober comfort and all the peace that springs From the large aggregate of little things ; The small cares of daughter, wife, and friend. On which these social, sacred joys depend." There, wherever it be, in lordly mansion or in lowly cottage, — there is home, — the highest form of earthly blessing known to man, the truest relic of paradise lost, the truest emblem of paradise regained. " When believers pass that portal. Home, Sweet Home, is made immortal." After the address prayer was offered by Rev. Mr. Cutler. Anthem, "Strike the Cymbal." John Herbert, Esq., of Boston, the next speaker, was principal of Appleton Academy twenty-six years ago. Mr. Herbert gave an extemporaneous address on " Development of Religious Thought," and said in part : ADDRESS BY JOHN HERBERT, ESQ. Many changes in religious thought have occurred during the past one hundred and fifty years. * * *• There has been a great change in regard to the observance of the Sabbath. * * * The music of to- day would have been sacrilegious in those early days. '^' * * Instru- mental music was considered too worldly for the sanctuary, and every- thing worldly was believed to be the work of the devil. * * * Not only was everything artistic regarded as unholy and unfit for the church, but comfort within its walls was deemed to be improper; and therefore no stove or other means of heating was provided, but each person was obliged to carry his or her foot stove. * * * Everybody was ex- pected to go to church, but all walking, except to or from church, was considered wicked. * * * Boys were sometimes allowed to walk through the cemetery. A great change has taken place in the view entertained concerning Christian life. * * * In earlier years all natural desires were thought to be of the devil. *' ^'- * Our temporal life was supposed to be necessarily full of trials, burdens and unhappiness, and therefore a life not to be desired, except for the happiness in the hereafter. This led 20 PROCEEDINGS. many good people to sympathize with the little boy who prayed that he might be good — not very good, but just good enough not to get a whip- ping. Now we have a different view of Christian life. We believe that God created us to be happy both here and hereafter, and that the here- after is but the here extended into the after. As every drop of the great ocean has in it all the elements of the ocean, and every ray of light has in it all the elements of the sun, so every moment of time has in it all the elements of eternity. Josh Billings once said, "Truth is said to be stranger than fiction — it is to most folks." * * * in the past many had more faith in their creed than in truth itself. We are coming to have more faith in truth and to believe that "Truth is the image of our God above, That shines reflected in His sea of Love." The hieroglyphic representation of Truth on the tombs of ancient Egypt is an image holding in its hand the symbol of life, and bearing upon its head an ostrich feather, the symbol of immortality. So truth, accepted and followed, will enable us to forge the key which unlocks the door to the kingdom of happiness here and hereafter. Let us hope that when the people of New Ipswich celebrate the 200th anniversary of the settlement of the town they may all heartily sing : " All hail ! blest Truth, thou daughter of the skies, Reign thou on earth and bid earth's sons arise ; Bid virtue lead and justice hold the scale, For thou art mighty and wilt soon prevail. Seize then on truth where'er 'tis found, Among your friends, among your foes, On Christian or on worldly ground The plant's divine where'er it grows." Hymn, "How long, dear Saviour, O, how long?" Northfield. Hymn, " Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was L" Greenwich. Rev. Frederick W. Greene of Middletown, Conn., closed with an address on "The Increasingly Intensifying Power of a Godly Ancestry," and said in part : ADDRESS OF REV. FREDERICK W. GREENE. True to her sign hung out upon Mt. Jackson, New Hampshire pro- duces men. But the good seed of this harvest was a godly ancestry. It PROCEEDINGS. 21 is a personal touch with a living God that binds the generations together. The rest of our environment changes. He alone remains the same. The first definition of God in Exodus (xxxiv. 6 and 7), recognizes the spiritual influence of the past upon the present. The Jewish race furnishes the most glorious examples of the truth of the subject, for it produced or made possible, the Christ. He was the flower of their national spiritual life. But they rejected him. Veneration for the past may have a good or a bad effect upon our lives. If it leads us to look for God only in the past it is deadening ; if it leads us to know a living God we become " living stones, built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets," etc. My oldest boy is named after Rev. Mr. Ainsworth, for seventy-five years the pastor of the church in Jaff"rey, and my second boy after Judge Farrar of New Ipswich ; but if in their manhood they do not know the God of their forefathers there will be no reason for pride in their ancestry. Finally, if our thoughts are toward the good men of the past, just as truly theirs are toward us to-day, rejoicing with us, working with us. The " wise man" said, "Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not." Let us apply it to our own personal relations to Jesus Christ, our father's friend, " The same yesterday, to-day, yea and forever." Hymn, " Gone are those great and good." Pierpont. The benediction was pronounced by Rev. Dr. Bancroft. MONDAY, AUGUST 27. This day was chiefly devoted to making calls and interchanging reminiscences. Public buildings and many private houses were decorated. In the evening an open air concert was given at the bandstand on Acad- emy campus by Battery B Band of Worcester, Mass. " Absence makes the heart grow fonder." The following named persons registered : Henry R. Reed, Boston, Mass. Charles H. Allen, Boston, Mass. Rev. Cecil F. P. Bancroft, Andover, Mass. John Herbert, Esq., Boston, Mass. Hon. R. H. Stearns, Boston, Mass. Judge Chauncy Perry, Brooklyn, N. Y. Timothy Perry, Esq., Brooklyn, N. Y. Prof. Charles H. Chandler, Ripon College, Ripon, Wis. John W. Cummings, New York, N. Y. George Hardwick, Annandale, Minn. Henry Hersey, Hingham, Mass. Mary H. Hersey, Hingham, Mass. Benjamin Champney, North Conway, N. H. Major Thomas Franklin Davis (a veteran of the Mexican war), Nashua, N. H. Rev. W. D. Waldron, Boston, Mass. George D. Burton, Boston, Mass. Frances J. Burton, Boston, Mass. H. O. Shepley, Canton, 111. Anne C. Gibson Shepley, Canton, 111. Charles E. Houghton, Baltimore, Md. Mrs. Charles E. Houghton, Baltimore, Md. PROCEEDINGS. 23 S. A.. Thayer, New Ipswich, N. H. Carrie Lovett Gannett, Wollaston, Mass. S. Josephine Lovett Lane, Ashmont, Mass. Emma Gushing Blanchard, Lynn, Mass. Frances A. Gushing, Jersey Gity, N. J. Rev. Galvin Cutler, Auburndale, Mass. Mrs. Martha E. Cutler, Auburndale, Mass. Sanford L. Cutler, New York, N. Y. Charles S. Davis, Newton Center, Mass. Albert L. Perry, Brooklyn, N. Y. Mary Y. Hiccock Draper, Wakefield, Mass. Edward M. Fox, Boston, Mass. Sarah E. Batchelder, New York, N. Y. L. Perrin, Brookline, Mass. Alfred A. Stevens, Portland, Me. Mrs. Lucy Reed Sawyer, Arlington, Mass. Lizzie Clark Crowell, Boston, Mass. Henry A. Spear, Everett, Mass. Henry B. Batchelder, New York, N. Y. Richard A. Hale, Lawrence, Mass. Edward S. Kraus, Paris, France. Anna F. Walter, Middletown, Gt. Eliza F. Clary, New Britain, Gt. Richard Hall Stearns, Boston, Mass. Mrs. R. H. Stearns, Boston, Mass. William M. Walker, Sterling, Col. George H. Taylor, Lowell, Mass. Harry H. Chandler, Waltham, Mass. George F. Conant, Worcester, Mass. Mrs. George F. Conant, Worcester, Mass. George A. Sanders, Worcester, Mass. Mary Edson Barnard, Cambridge, Mass. Charles H. Fox, Roxbury, Mass. Mrs. Lebanon Brqwn, Allston, Mass. Robert R. Ames, Cambridge, Mass. William Willis Clark, Boston, Mass. Mrs. Frances Wheeler Russell, Oakland, Ore. Matilda Hodgman Keyou, East Lexington, Mass. C. E. Keyou, Hinsdale, N. H. 24 PROCEEDINGS. George H. Wheeler, Boston, Mass. James H. Farwell, Zumbrota, Minn. Fred Smith, Boston, Mass. Willis F. Smith, Boston, Mass. Nahum A. Child, Temple, N. H. Earl H. Farwell, Fitchburg, Mass. Charles F. Hastings, Somerville, Mass. A. P. Bateman, Winchendon, Mass. Arthur C. Farley, Auburndale, Mass. Frank Weston, Townsend, Mass. A. M. Hannaford, Claremont, N. H. Mrs. George H. Taylor, Lowell, Mass. Mrs. Jennie L. Field, Northfield Farms, Mass. Ernest C. Field, Northfield Farms, Mass. Mrs. Mary L. Horton, Fitchburg, Mass. Mrs. G. K. Rand, Worcester, Mass. G. K. Rand, Worcester, Mass. Mrs. F. J. Ames (Wheeler), Peterboro, N. H. Frances O. Davis, Newton Center, Mass. Samuel P. Gates, Bridgewater, Mass. Dorcas B. Hayward, Ashby, Mass. Augusta H. Wright, Ashby, Mass. Carrie A. Wright, Ashby, Mass. Caroline E. Moore, New York, N. Y. Permelia Thayer Farley, West Newton, Mass. Diana P. Boyce Conant, Peterboro, N. H. M. E. McDonnell, Leominster, Mass. S. K. McDonnell, Leominster, Mass. K. E. Davis Piper, Ashby, Mass. Marshall W. Chandler, Winchendon, Mass. Nancy Chandler, New Ipswich, N. H. Abbie L. Hayward, Ashby, Mass. Alfred H. Brown, Canterbury, N. H. Mrs. Alfred H. Brown, Canterbury, N. H. . Mrs. H. O. Hildreth, Auburn, Me. H. O. Hildreth, Auburn, Me. W. Hildreth, Newton, Mass. A. Reed Tenney, New Ipswich, N. H. Mrs. E. Fox, Boston, Mass. PROCEEDINGS. Mrs. Charles Blodgett, Dorchester, Mass. Miss V. M. Weldon, Roxbury, Mass. Lizzie Hill Aspinwall, Townsend, Mass. W. Simonds Hill, Townsend, Mass. George J. Maxwell, Rindge, N. H. Ella Mabel Hill, Townsend, Mass. George H. Brooks, Ashby, Mass. Mrs. CM. Brooks. Ashby, Mass. Mrs. A. A. Hill, Townsend, Mass. Ada Nutting, Townsend, Mass. Mark O. Smith, Milford, N. H. Waldo Clement, Milford, N. H. Miss Sophia E. Lawrence, Ashby, Mass. Mrs. Marion A. Lawrence, Ashby, Mass. Henry A. Lawrence, Ashby, Mass. Penelope Hamilton, Providence, R. 1. Oliver D. Wilder, Lowell, Mass. James O. Reed, Mason, N. H. Mrs. Caroline R. Reed, Mason, N. H. James O. Reed, Jr., Mason, N. H. Mrs. Harriet Reed Strout, Waltham, Mass. Miss Letty A. Strout, Waltham, Mass. Margaret L. Willard, Ashby, Mass. Bessie J. Willard, Ashby, Mass. Sarah M. Willard, Ashby, Mass. F. A. Willard, Ashby, Mass. Mrs. F. A. Willard, Ashby, Mass. Mabel L. Hodgman, Brookline, N. H. E. E. Livingstone, Fitchburg, Mass. Mrs. E. E. Livingstone, Fitchburg, Mass. Mrs. Jennie Blanchard Ranquer, Neponset, Mass. Mrs. Harriet N. Bliss Goldsmith, New Ipswich, N. H. Miss Annie A. Goldsmith, New Ipswich, N. H. William H. Doonan, Greenville, N. H. Mrs. Ellen Preston Robinson, East Boston, Mass. Mrs. Sarah J. Heyward, Temple, N. H. M. L. Sargent, Milford, N. H. Mrs. M. L. Sargent, Milford, N. H. Etta L. Sargent, Milford, N. H. 25 26 PROCEEDINGS. John S. Chandler, Canton, III. M. H. Fish, Temple, N. H. Mrs. M. H. Fish, Temple, N. H. Mrs. Belle Brown Cummings, Orange, Mass. William H. Brown, Shirley, Mass. J. F. Brown, Shirley, Mass. D. M. Waldron, Boston, Mass. Mrs. Lizzie Locke Collins, Albuquerque, N. M. Rodney Wallace, Fitchburg, Mass. Lebanon Brown, M. D., Boston, Mass. Frank W. Rollins, Concord, N. H. A. D. Ayling, Concord, N. H. Mary E. Brown Burroughs, Boxborough, Mass. Lottie Willard Thompson, Fitzwilliam, N. H. Henry W. Nutting, Worcester, Mass. Caroline F. Jones, New Ipswich, N. H. Mrs. Clark H. Obear, New Ipswich, N. H. Miss Helen S. PoUey, Boston, Mass. Edward T. Jewett, Waltham, Mass. Oliver D. Wilder, Lowell, Mass. Mrs. Jennie Bateman Puffer, West Somerville, Mass. Robert J. W. Phinney, Woburn, Mass. Sarah M. C. Phinney, Woburn, Mass. Henry T. Champney, Nevv York, N. Y. Stillman Gibson, Townsend, Mass. George W. Shattuck, Ayer, Mass, Sarah G. Shattuck, Ayer, Mass. P. H. Devans, East Jaffrey, N. H. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28. The town was crowded with visitors and every one was most cor- dially welcomed to join in the festivities attending the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, which assembled so many sons and daughters of talent, noble character and patriotic devotion. The day was ushered in with the booming of cannon. The fluttering of banners, the lavish dis- play of bunting, the prominence of " Old Glory," the open doors, and the universal good cheer all testified that New Ipswich was about to spend a gala day. The weather was ideal, and very early visitors from the adjoining towns began to arrive. The various organizations assembled in front of Clark's Hotel at nine o'clock. The column was formed under the direction of the chief mar- shal, Lauriston M. P. Hardy, and his aids, Albert F. Walker and Wilbur L. Phelps, in the following order: Drum Major, Thomas E. Kielty. Battery B Band of Worcester, Mass., twenty-one members. Capt. Jonas Nutting Post, No. 53, G. A. R. President of the Day, John L. Hildreth, M. D. Invited guests. Chaplains, Rev. Cecil F. P. Bancroft and Rev. William R. Thompson. Anniversary Committee in carriages. Peterboro Cavalry, Capt. Charles Davis. Lyndeboro Artillery, Capt. Edward Ross. Tiger Engine Co., Foreman Charles L. Knowlton. Southern Hero Engine Co., Foreman Edward R. Wheeler. Citizens with carriages and bicycles. 28 PROCEEDINGS. The line of the procession was past the Baptist church and Appleton Academy over Preston hill to Bank Village, where Gov. Frank W. Rol- lins and staff, consisting of the following gentlentien. Gen. A. D. Ayling, Gen. W. E. Spalding, Gen. H. H. Dudley, Col. E. vS. Head, Col. J. M. Sargent, Col. Sam Lewis and Col. Joseph H. Coit, were met. The governor and party came in a private car to Greenville, N. H., on the morning train, where the delegation was received by a committee of three, — John Preston, Frederic W. Jones and Edward O. Marshall, — repre- senting the anniversary committee. The governor and staff were assigned a place next to the Capt. Jonas Nutting Post, G. A. R. While His Excellency was en route from Greenville the usual salute of seventeen guns was fired from the hill in the rear of the residence of George L. Muzzey by the gunners' squad of the Lyndeboro Artillery. The return march from Bank Village was made over Walton hill down Main street to PostofRce square, thence to the Congregational church, where the literary exercises were held. Many private residences and public buildings along the route of the procession were beautifully decorated with flags and bunting. Gov. Rollins, the founder of " Old Home Week," greatly honored this old historic town, coming as a guest crowned with the well-earned laurels of his felicitous oratory, uttered in so many sections during the festivities of "Old Home Week" in the Granite State. The column halted in front of the church and their reserved seats in the central aisle were soon filled with eager listeners. The other parts of the church had been open to the public and previously occupied. The President of the Day, J. L. Hildreth, M. D., of Cambridge, Mass., called the meeting to order and prayer was offered by Rev. Cecil F. P. Bancroft, after which the President gave his address. ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE DAY, DR. JOHN I.. HILDRETH. It is my pleasant duty, in behalf of this old town which we love, to bid you welcome to this celebration of her one hundred and fiftieth birthday. To many of you, the town is a present home: to some, the PROCEEDINGS. 29 only home you have known. To others, it is the old home, to which, after wanderings afar, you come back to join in these festivities, just as children, grown up and widely scattered, come back on some Thanks- giving day to the old roof-tree, talk over the old days and revive the old affections. But, coming from near or far, what is the tie which, pulling at our heart strings, compels us to leave our ordinary pleasures and pursuits, and come back here to-day ? It is not in many instances at least, the tie of a personal affection for those now living : for the familiar faces are gone. Time has done its work, and the joy of return is tinged with melancholy. But with us all, it is the love for the town itself, for all that it means in our memory, for all that it actually stands for to-day. It is the fashion in some quarters nowadays, to belittle the sentiment of patriotism. When men take their lives in their hands and go out to battle for liberty in Cuba, or for the authority of the United States in the Philippines, or to rescue from deadly peril missionaries and legations in China, there are those who impute to them, or to the government which they serve, some sordid or sinister motive. But, whatever may be thought of particular measures of national policy, the spirit of patriotism burns as brightly now as ever, and the motive which leads men to respond to the calls which the country makes upon them is the same which prompted men in the Revolution or the Civil war. Looked at broadly, we call this sentiment patriotism: but the senti- ment of local pride, of local attachment, is of the same quality and may well be given the same name. We love our country after we have first learned to love our home, and because we have learned to love it. It is the home feeling in the larger sense, — enclosed at first within four walls, then extending to all that comes within the narrow horizon of the child and growing youth, and later including larger and more varied interests — this it is which brings us here on this occasion. And when we speak of "the town," what do we mean? What constitutes the town? Not farm joining farm, whether of fertile fields, or of thin reluctant soil : not roads or hills or any physical features : not even the people who, at any given time, live within its borders : it is the sum total of these, and of much more than these. It is the institutions of education and religion; it is the free popular government, in which each man is the equal of every other man ; it is the ideals of character, sustained by public sentiment and exemplified in noble and useful lives; it is unselfishness in the home, kindness between neighbors, the ready 30 PROCEEDINGS. sympathy in time of trouble, the caring for the sick, the watching by the dead, the thousand gentle and friendly ways in which joys and sorrows are shared; all this goes to the making of a town, and enters into our thought of this town to-day. It is a mistake to estimate the importance of a town by statistics of its industries, by the computation of its wealth, or by the size of its popu- lation. The best product of this town is not its crops, but its men and women; not only those who have stayed by the old homes, making them what we see them to-day, but equally those who have gone forth from them. You who were born or educated here, who have gone out from here to find success in business or art or literature or any profession or occupation, — you too are a part of the assets of New Ipswich. To have given birth to you, to have trained you for your work, to have furnished you with the standards and incentives which have stimulated you in your careers, is a part of the distinction which this town claims. It is just such towns as this, a little aside from the ordinary currents of trade and industry, which have kept alive and vigorous the distinctively New England traits of character, and have supplied some of the best blood for the renewal and replenishment of the national life. Fifty years ago, as a boy, I witnessed the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the charter of this town. I remember the pro- cession of visitors from Boston and elsewhere, which, as it crossed the town line, was met by the committee of reception, while a welcoming salute was fired from a field-piece on one of the adjoining hills. I watched the procession which moved the next morning from Union hall to the field in the rear of the residence of Mr. Newton Brooks, where a stand had been erected and a great assemblage had convened under the open sky, to hear the oration by Dr. Augustus A. Gould and the poem by Mr. Eugene Bachelder. The impression on my mind was vivid ; yet, as a boy, I could not fully appreciate all that the occasion meant. Of those present here to-day, probably there are some among the younger who, fifty years from now, will have some part in the town's two hundredth anniversary. What material changes they may have wit- nessed in the interval, what developments in the arts and sciences, what improvements in the conditions of life, what new facilities for commerce, industry and transportation, it would be idle to conjecture: just as, fifty years ago, it would have been impossible to predict the telephone, the electric car and the automobile. But of one thing we may cherish a reasonable assurance : that they will find here the same high standards of PROCEEDINGS. 31 character, the same fidelity to duty, the same sincerity of religious faith which were manifest half a century ago, and are vital here to-day. ORATION BY rUOF. CHARLKS H. CHANDLER, RIPON, WISCONSIN. " Near us bends the leafy wiklwooil, Pecked with flowers that bloomed of yore, While tlic pillared hills of chiUlhood Hound the world for us once more." FeUow-townsnien and Friends: — These lines, written by a daughter of our good town and sung at the meeting a half century ago, have oft come to my mind during the last few days, as they have also frequently recurred when in past years I have occasionally come within the encircling shadows of our old home, and have recognized the welcome of the horizon of broken contour, changed here and there, but still preserving the famil- iar aspect of our younger da3's. Among the clearest recollections of my early boyhood are those of the centennial assembly in the neighboring natural amphitheatre. I remember the days of anticipation, and most distinctly do 1 recall the awe impressed upon my being by the aspect of the chief marshal. Col. Prichard, whose spirited steed and flowing sash so completely eclipsed the otherwise not- able splendor of his aids. To my boyish vision the display of that day far outclassed the splendors of the annual muster of the Twenty-second Regiment, which had been held in this town the preceding year and given a joyous excitement in the midst of the monotony of boy life on the farm. But the centennial meeting, presented but once to the eyes of any one of us, I recall as having a certain aspect, undefined and unexplained, but by no means unnoticed by my boyish mind, which remained unchanged in memory until the school of life has revealed its interpretation and has given the first place in the retrospective thoughts of September 11, 1850, to the radiant light in the faces of friends of years long sped, and the evident meetings of heart with heart as long parted hands came once more into earnest clasp. And though we may not bring a second centennial of this town within our experience, yet to-day again our mother amid the Granite Hills welcomes us no less heartily, and, — in the words of our poet of fifty years ago, — Her "joyful welcomes bid the heart to feel That kindness here is not oflicious zeal, Hut something; more — a greeting kind and warm, That gladdens life and takes the heart by storm." 32 PROCEEDINGS. Yes, her hills welcome us and we heartily respond to their greeting. Some of us are lo3'al sons and daughters of foster-mothers, hundreds, per- haps thousands, of miles away ; we are proud of the states which we call our own. Perhaps we joy in broad prairies, with noble expanse of gran- deur hardly surpassed by that of the boundless ocean ; we may have ex- perienced many a feeling of relief, as we have recalled the weary ascents and precipitous descents of boyhood ; and not improbably some of us, revelling in the wealth of virgin soil free from obstructions to the plow and the reaper, may have been glad that only in memory we wrestled with the cliifs and boulders of the paternal farms. But, if we have been lovg absent, I feel sure that revulsions of feel- ing have ensued, and even though our homes have not been in those western regions of which Bret Harte has said that the shadow of the sta- tion was the only thing that moved, but in broad realms of unsurpassed fertility, and amid the beauties of the gentle undulations and rolling hills so abundant in our western states, still the home instincts have asserted their power, and as the train has borne us homeward, and the granite ribs of our eastern mother have begun to appear through the scanty garb of foliage, our hearts have bounded joyously, and we have longed to leap from the train and press our lips to the clear fountains born amid the crystal rocks. And although the bonds of kindred blood and of early association doubtless rightly hold the greater place amid the pleasures of our home return, still the heart response does not comprise the whole. By our ex- perience in other homes our intellectual appreciation has been awakened to a recognition of truths long unseen. It has been said that New England tourists are the despair of pro- fessional guides on the Alps, along the Rhine, and amid other foreign scenery of world-wide repute. From him whose earliest vision rested upon the scenery of the White or the Green Mountains, or the little lakes scattered amid the isolated peaks like Monadnock and Watatic, or even the humbler heights of Kidder and "Whittemore, the tribute of admiration is not easily won. Familiarity has bred, not the proverbial contempt, but rather an unconscious indifference, obscuring the aesthetic vision, until the effect of the long surfeit of early life amid Nature's ever-present beauties is healed by the abstinence of absence. I hardly think that my experience of a few years ago was peculiar, when traversing a path familiar to my youthful footsteps along the road now hardly to be traced in places across the Massachusetts line and over PROCEEDINGS. 33 Nutting hill in Ashburnham to the classic region of the " Children in the Woods" tavern, I turned aside near the southwest corner of this town to ascend Emerson hill ; and although nearer peaks hid the stately Monad- nock fronn my vision, yet as I looked from the summit of the hill over the strikingly varied landscape of farm and village, hill, valley and stream, beginning in the northeast with the striking forms of the Unconoonucks, and stretching southeastwardly nearly to the ocean before being lost to sight, while the wide extent of Worcester county to the southwest gave a fullness of beautiful detail sufficient for hours of observation, my former blindness came vividly into recognition, and I wondered if yet, as in my boyhood, the vision passes unnoticed by those who are near. Neither is it in the recognition of Nature's beauties alone that the absent children have learned new lessons in their new homes. Hardly less is it true that they have learned more of the value of the familiar lessons in thrift, in firmness of principle, in respect for that blessing of protean form included in the word order, in the almost reverence for edu- cation, which have been a steadying power to every community in whose formation New England's children have had a part. But I must remember that I was called to this place for other pur- poses than are set forth in the expression of the thoughts that spontane- ously arise at a home-coming; rather for a review of such historical con- siderations as form an appropriate topic for the hour. I turn to this duty ; but, as I approach the consideration of the fifty years which have passed since Dr. Gould presented to us the record of the heroic days of our town, I have to recognize that fifty years, despite mathematical truth, are by no means half of a century, when called upon to furnish material for an historical address. A large part of those to whom [ speak know the history of this more recent period far better than myself, and delving amid records can bring forth little of general interest in review. Not only does the first half of the nineteenth century contain much more of that which is beyond our personal memories, but it greatly gains in interest from the unfamiliar atmosphere of the earlier days. I trust, therefore, that I may reasonably ask those of my hearers who recall those chronicles of early days presented to the sons of New Ipswich assembled fifty years ago, and afterward amplified and published in one of the earliest of the volumes containing the histories of New England towns, that they will charitably consider any lack of dramatic interest in what I shall say, when it is compared with the result of the faithful labor of Dr. Gould. The pioneer period, whose most prosaic events have much 3 34 PROCEEDINGS. of the charm of romance to our later vision, and also the local details of a national birth, were among the topics of our centennial, in comparison with which the home industries of the last half of the century fail to present interest in narration, while the work of New Ipswich in the in- tense period of the fifty years now drawing to an end, the history-making period of 1861 to 1865, has been recently so well presented by its local historian that nothing more than casual reference to its relations to other facts is needed to-day. I will, however, call attention to one thought based upon the facts collected by Mrs. Obear for her book on " New Ipswich in the Civil War." From the seventeen hundred inhabitants of our town were furnished to the armies of the Union a total of ninety-five soldiers, (hired substitutes from abroad not being included), nineteen of whose names upon the memorial stone erected by their fellow townsmen testify to the greatness of their gift. Of these men, amounting to about one company, four held captain's commissions, and six were lieutenants, there being also fourteen non-commissioned officers among them ; a record indicating worthy descent from ancestors of the days of the Revolution. I further fear that under the restrictions and limitations which I have suggested as existent the flavor of the remaining material for the hour will prove so much enfeebled that we shall be under the necessity of over-stepping the chronological boundaries of the special field of this day and ranging in freedom over the entire past century and a half, per- haps also longing for the prophet's vision of the century to come. Moreover, if we limit our vision too closely, the element of pathos in our home-coming tends too strongly toward sadness. More or less uncon- sciously, it is true, but yet really, we have turned toward our early home expecting to renew the experiences of youth ; the remembered landscape, changed it is true, but still familiar, seems to give promise to our silent expectation ; and it is with a rude shock, perhaps, that we meet an ex- perience like that of a former student of our academy who, having come a few years since with joyous anticipations to a meeting of the alumni, complained on her return to her home of the strange fact that " all the girls were old women." More than this must be true for those of us who have been long away. Not merely have blooming cheeks withered and the sturdy grasp of the hand grown feeble, but it may be that the charm of the eloquent landscape grows feeble to us, as did the voice of the break- ing sea to Tennyson, because of the longing " For the touch of a vanished hand. And the sound of a voice that is still." PROCEEDINGS. 35 Perhaps we find that the neighboring field of the dead, extending now its bounds far beyond those which we remember, presents to our longing gaze names which tend to make it the most home-like place of the town. We remember, among those whom the special period of this day's thought has borne to that home, the pastor of twenty-five years' earnest service. Rev. Samuel Lee; Dr. Stillman Gibson, whose patients during many years came from such distances as demanded a place for his name upon neighboring guide-boards; his son-in-law, the man of broad culture. Dr. Frederic .Jones, whose visits brought relief to many homes during almost half a century; the attorney of nearly forty years' success- ful practice, Hon. John Preston, whose conclusive arguments flavored with characteristic humor are so well remembered by many citizens as fatal to schemes presented in town-meeting for the depletion of the treas- ury: the brothers, .John and Peter H. Clark, whose mandates all the melody of the town obeyed; men prominent in official and business activities of the town each for from twenty to fifty years, like George Barrett, James Chandler, Jeremiah Smith, William W. Johnson, Stephen Thayer, and many others of whom time forbids mention. Still further, through the years we may have remembered the familiar customs and occupations of our town in the middle of the century so clearly that they seem to be a part of New Ipswich itself; yet probably we fail to find them on our return, and the home we sought seems to have departed. If these things sadden us, we need to remember that the truth of the Quaker Poet is very broad when he sings " That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own." The New Ipswich we cherish is not thus confined ; it is not limited by the years of the present, nor by the encircling hills. We who are scattered in distant homes declare by our return that we are still of New Ipswich, and that her past and her future are ours. A marked trait of New Ipswich character has been a quick vision of coming needs. Her children have been among the first along many lines. Perhaps, therefore, it is somewhat a matter for surprise that the centennial should not have been observed until the expiration of a decade or more in excess of a century from the first settlement in town. The organization under the Masonian grant indeed dates from 1750, but among the petitioners for the grant a year before that date are found the names of thirteen persons said to be "of a place called New Ipswich," of whom at least one seems to have been a resident of that place for thirteen 36 PROCEEDINGS. years. Had 1738 been called the birth-date of our town instead of 1750, it would have been more noticeable that in settlement, as in many later activities, New Ipswich was in the front rank. Few were the white men in regions as far from the tracts made accessible by the seaboard and the larger rivers, when Abijah Foster built his log-house near the site of the present Bank building as a shelter for his wife and daughter. Without reviewing the history of the town already made familiar to most of her loyal children by the pages of the History, itself almost a pioneer among local histories, we may call to mind the erection of the first cotton factory of New Hampshire within our limits now almost a hundred years ago, and also the enterprise of our ancestors in founding the academy, an institution whose contribution to the town's prosperity can hardly be over-estimated, at a date second to that of only one similar institution in the state, Phillips Exeter academy, which antedates our own by only five years, although the town of Exeter, near New Hamp- shire's only seaport, was one hundred years the senior of New Ipswich. But these thoughts cannot turn us from the consideration of one of the most familiar of epigrammatic sayings, — that this is not the same world as that of fifty years ago. Especially is it true that this country is not the country of fifty years since. That period of time has witnessed its passage from youth to mature age. We may believe, indeed, that the rapid pulsations of the national heart and the strenuous loyal endeavors of the years immediately succeeding the shots fired at Sumter marked the attainment of our nation's majority. Of course, then, it must be a truth that our town, ever the same to her loyal children, yet has found such widely diff"erent conditions, has passed through such before unknown experiences in these last fifty years, as have greatly changed its aspect. A recognition of these changes is surely in order. Since Hon. John Preston with well remembered geniality presided at the centennial festivities of our town, a generation and a half of her citi- zens have passed off" the stage of life and have in a few cases been suc- ceeded by children and grandchildren whose faces and voices seem almost to place again before us those who bore the same names in the days of our childhood. But the change is practically complete. Not one of the twenty-five town officers named in the town report covering that year re- mains ; and of only four of them, if I am not in error, are there descend- ants bearing their names now resident in town. Of the entire ninety names appearing in that report I recognize only two, those of John C. Hildreth and Charles Taylor, still borne by citizens yet holding honorable PROCEEDINGS. 87 places among us in recognition of faithful lives well occupied during the intervening half century. I cannot say that there may not be others still living elsewhere, but I have learned of none. Of the more than fifty citizens, some at that time non-resident, comprising the various committees in charge of the e.xercises of that historic day, I find but three remaining, Charles M. Wheeler, now, I believe, of La Ku^uf, Pa., Isaac C. Stearns of Zumbrota, Minn., and one, somewhat the oldest of the three, and pre- sumably our town patriarch, although now resident beyond its bounds, Roby Fletcher of Fitchburg, who maintained on the list of the citizens of New Ipswich a name extending nearly to the conventional founding of the town, the son of a revolutionary patriot who was the author of one of the three earliest literary works having birth in this town, and also a descendant of the first settler within our bounds, Abijah Foster. This reference to ancestral lines suggests the question to what ex- tent the early families, giving character to New Ipswich, are still repre- sented among her citizens. As we recall the numerous neighborhood marriages incident to the life of early days, it becomes evident that an investigation based upon surnames alone will yield but partial results. The blood of the Barretts, the Bullards, the Champneys, the Farrars, the Kidders, and the Prestons flows in the veins of one New Ipswich citizen of to-day; and similar, if somewhat less diversified, pioneer ancestry might, without doubt, be found in many cases by a sufficiently extended examination of family records. This is of course impracticable, but an examination restricted to descendants with surnames unchanged may not be devoid of interest. Antecedent to this, however, it seems well to recall a few leading facts and dates of early history which may not be entirely familiar to all, but which locate more definitely the relative positions of the difiierent names in the annals of our town. The history of the claims under which the settlers in the southern portion of New Hampshire took possession of the wilderness and established their homes is far from easy to adjust and retain in memory, as I doubt not that many readers of the chapter of our town history presenting with great care the History of the Land Title have found. Sanborn's History of New Hampshire, Fiske's Beginnings of New England and other publications more recent than our own local history are prone to produce in our minds a "confusion worse confounded," finally leaving little beyond a very clear conviction that the English rulers of early days were very ignorant of geography, and not at all care- 38 PROCEEDINGS. ful to be sure of their own titles to land which they saw fit to grant to those whom they would favor. Both time and patience would fail should we review the various con- flicting elements of the early claims ; a considerable portion of the east- ern part of this state seems to have belonged to three conflicting grants ; but a brief presentation of two of these will sufficiently indicate the legal difficulties in the settlement of our town. In 1606 King James I. incorporated two companies, known as the London and the Plymouth companies, dividing between them the American coast for a distance diff'erently stated by diff"erent authorities as fifty, sixty, and one hundred miles inland, but extending from the thirty- fourth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, that is from Cape Fear to the eastern extremity of the Maine coast, the Plymouth company having the northern half. Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason were prominent members of the Council of Plymouth, and in the division of the grant they sought and obtained large portions. But not content with the nar- row strip along the coast, by personal grants from the king they extended their claims far into the interior. One of these grants to Gorges and his associates, made in 1620, gave title to the land lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels of latitude, that is from New Jersey to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Mason secured a grant from the Plymouth Council of " all the land from the river of Naumkeag [now Salem], round Cape Anna, to the river Merri- mack, and up each of these rivers to the farthest head thereof; then to cross over from the head of one to the head of the other." This district was called Mariana. Another Plymouth grant, to Mason and Gorges conjointly, made in 1622, gave the district of Laconia to be "bounded by the Merrimack, the Kennebec, the ocean, and the river of Canada." But in 1627 the Plymouth company granted to Sir Henry Roswell and others a tract extending from three miles south of the Charles river to three miles north of every part of the Merrimack river. The multiplicity of conflicts is evident ; but the troubles of our forefathers in the matter are practically those which took form in the long continued contest between the colonies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire in respect to their dividing line, since in the progress of events ultimately it was de- cided that this dividing line was the same as the southern boundary of the valid claims of John Tufton Mason, as heir of his great-grandfather, John Mason. But this decision was not rendered until 1745, and during the intervening years the question had been a burning one, not merely as PROCEEDINGS. 39 to the doubly granted three-mile strip along the north bank of the Merri- mack, but also in reference to the much more weighty question concerning the head of that river. In 1653 commissioners were sent by the General Court of Massachusetts to determine and mark that boundary point, who, performing that duty, left upon a rock their own initials and the name of John Endicott, governor. This stone, concealed by the rising of the waters of Lake Winnipiseogee, and forgotten for many years, was dis- closed to view in 1830, and within recent years has been raised from the obscuring sand and water and grinding ice, and by action of the State of New Hampshire has been protected by an edifice of stone as a memento of a barely escaped peril to the existence of our embryonic state. The question, indeed, may well be asked how it is that we are here to-day, natives of New Hampshire, if the Merrimack to its source was granted to Massachusetts, and the question may be hard to answer. A current tra- dition is that at the time of the practical settlement that the northern line of Massachusetts should cross the Merrimack as now, midway between the present sites of the great manufacturing cities, Lowell and Nashua, a surveyor reported that at the place of crossing the river all its water could run through a quart cup. If so, he doubtless omitted to state the time required for such passage at the usual rate of flow, and relied for the justice of the survey upon the obvious fact that the grant was made under a belief that the general course of the river was from the west, and there- fore, when a point was reached above which it came from the north, there evidently the spirit of the grant outweighed its exact letter. This per- haps too long departure of our thought beyond the geographic limits of our town may tend to a clearer understanding of what we may term its double birth. It is a suggestive coincidence that the year in which the name of John Endicott, a man who had once forfeited his governorship for a year for the offence of cutting the cross of St. George from the flag of the Salem militia company, a man a century before his time in seeking for more and more home government for the colonies, that the year in which this name was cut upon the centre of our state in formal refusal to recognize the claim of men of English and Episcopal affiliations, Mason and Gorges, was the year when Cromwell turned the key behind the Long Parliament. Under the Commonwealth no resistance to the claim so powerfully sustained by Puritan influence was practicable. Before this date the settlements in Maine had voluntarily submitted to the govern- ment of Massachusetts, the grandson and namesake of the proprietor conveying his proprietary rights for the sum of £1,250 in cash. But 40 PROCEEDINGS. the Masonian claims were intermittently, yet urgently, pressed for eighty- five years after the restoration of the monarchy, until in 1745 the disputed region, in part at least, and that a part including this town, was decided to be the property of the claimant under the claim of his great-grand- father, John Mason. But during the later years of the pre-eminence of the Massachusetts claim her General Court had been freely granting the disputed land to settlers, and in 1736 the town of New Ipswich, occupying largely the land now included in it, but somewhat larger than the present town, had its first birth. So much can be ascertained from Massachusetts Records, which disclose the fact of the grant being made to inhabitants of the town of Ipswich ; yet scarcely another fact about the earliest activity in this town would now be known but for the discovery of a petition made to the General Court by the first grantees or their representatives praying for another grant by way of recompense for their loss involved in the decision in favor of John Tufton Mason. From this petition we learn of the erection of a meeting-house, sawmill, bridges, etc., to a larger ex- tent than we should have supposed probable in the limited time. This review of facts which may have become somewhat unfamiliar to those of us who have once known them leads to a comparison of the names preserved in this early document with those of the later history of the town, or it presents the question " to what extent is this really a New Ipsivich ? " Of the twenty-six claimants whose names are there found not a single one has its representative among the present citizens of New Ipswich, and only Isaac Appleton seems to have clung to his pioneer en- thusiasm and founded a family in the new town. It may be, however, that Benjamin Knowlton, whose family has disappeared from town within recent years, and who came from Ipswich, may have come in the right of one Captain Knowlton, an original grantee represented in the petition by one Abraham Knowlton. But we know that there were settlers from Ipswich not named in the existing documents. The two brothers, Ephraim and Benjamin Adams, men of great weight in town matters relating to both church and state, were here before the second organization of titles, but, after a long and honorable record, the name has disappeared. The first settler, Abijah Foster, was from Ipswich, but died while on service in the French war, and his family had passed from town years before the centennial. From the same town also came in later years, Benjamin Safibrd and Eben Brown, PROCEEDINGS. 41 none of whose descendants are now residents in the town ; and the same is true of a number of families, presumably connected with the Ipswich families by ties of kindred or friendship, which came from the neighboring towns of Rowley, Boxford, Topsfield, LynnfieJd and Beverly. But the names of Batchelder, Mansfield, Newell and Towne are not found on the records of 1900. With the legal transfer of proprietary rights to the representative of John Mason all bonds between New Ipswich and its Massachusetts parent failed, until it seems that but little more of the early life than the name remained. The process of disintegration of the settlement was also accented by the threatening aspect of the Indians and a temporary deser- tion of the town by all the inhabitants except Capt. Moses Tucker, who alone remained in his home on the old road over Knight's hill. It is a pathetic thought that of this first enterprise scarcely any traces remain. Its house of worsliip, situated on the hill east of the academy, opposite the head of Safford lane, perhaps never used for the purpose of its erection and burned during the temporary desertion of the town, and the neighbor- ing burying place which received a few of the first dead, of these the exact location is unknown. Still it is certain that a few held on undis- mayed through the years of doubt from 1745 to 1749, as we find their names in the record of the permanent rehabilitation of the town. The Masonian proprietors had no wish to have their towns deserted, and apparently required little more than an acknowledgement of their claim before confirming the settlers in their holdings, although the petition from which names of the Ipswich grantees have been taken seems to sug- gest that there was very probably a difference in the recognition of the claims of actual settlers and of those who had not availed themselves of their charter rights before the transfer from the authority of Massachu- setts. At all events the spring of 1750 witnessed the birth of New Ips- wich, New Hampshire, by a grant from the agent of the Masonian pro- prietors to thirty men covering a tract of land which was practically that of our present town. Thirteen of these men were named as " of a place called New Ipswich, " for the christening by the General Court of Massachusetts evi- dently could not be recognized as having bestowed upon this social infant, now first recognized as existent by New Hampshire, a lawful title such as was rightly held by the nine other places whence came the remaining seventeen grantees. Neither could our poor " place called New Ipswich " acquire at the same time "a local habitation and a name," since it 42 PROCEEDINGS. waited for any legal appellation until it had attained the age of twelve years, when in 1762 it was duly incorporated as a town bearing the name of Ipswich, the prsenomen "New" for some reason not being added until 1766. We now look at the list of the second fathers of the town and seek whether they still remain in the persons of their posterity in this town won from the wilderness by their power. The thirteen having no habita- tion except New Ipswich at the time of the Masonian charter were Reuben Kidder, Archibald Foster, Jonas Woolson, Habijah Foster, John Brown, Benjamin Hoar, Jr., Timothy Heald, Joseph Kidder, Joseph Bullard, Eben- ezer Bullard, Joseph Stevens, Henry Pudney, and John Chandler. The minister's rate for 1763, thirteen years after the charter, shows assessments against all of these except Habijah Foster who, as has been said, died in military service before 1760, and Henry Pudney, of whom no record is found except that in the drawing of lots he received the one upon which Ichabod Howe, who came to town in 1754, was living in 1759. It may perhaps be assumed that he never became an actual citizen of the place. But of the remaining eleven names of those whom we may consider in a sense to have been ante-Masonian proprietors, and to have entered earn- estly upon the new plans for the town, and six of whom we find to have been elected to positions of responsibility by their fellowtownsmen, there remains today in the town but one representative, a great-granddaughter of Joseph Bullard. Of the seventeen grantees from other towns, concern- ing twelve there is no evidence that they ever occupied the lots assigned them so far as to build upon them and reside there ; one was residing upon his lot six years after the charter, but his name fails to appear in the record of the minister's rate for 1763. Another, Andrew Spaulding, signed the church covenant at the organization of the church in 1760, but probably did not become a permanent resident, his lot being occupied by his sons. Only three names remain, those of Thomas Adams, Isaac Appleton, and Benjamin Hoar, the first of whom apparently never came here to reside, but was doubly represented by his two sons, Ephraim and Benjamin Adams, to whom reference has before been made as represent- ing the Ipswich contingent. Both of their names and also those of Messrs. Appleton and Hoar are among those of whose places in the activi- ties of our town, influential and honorable, we can now speak only as matter of history. It has appeared, therefore, that the procession of the ages, extending though it may only through a period of six brief generations, has borne PROCEEDINGS. 43 from amid these hills every name save one of those who participated in the work of one hundred and fifty years ago. If now, shortening the period of investigation, we seek the names of New Ipswich families extending throughout the nineteenth century, the resulting list is not long. The families settled in the town before the beginning of that century number about one hundred, but of these only sixteen have maintained their places among the citizens of New Ipswich until its closing year, although a few names honored among our ances- tors, like Champney, Fox, and Gould, are still found among those who each year seek recreation amid the summer influences of their ancestral homes. Following Joseph Bullard previously mentioned, who was here in 1743, we first find Jonas Wheeler coming as early as 1758, before the legal incorporation of the town, and remaining a citizen of the town for fifty-seven years until his death at the age of ninety-four. His name does not appear prominently in the records, but his son Seth, himself one of the early New Ipswich settlers, since he was a native of Concord, and came to this town at the age of five years, was elected selectman at the age of thirty-four and held that office for thirteen consecutive years, thus manifesting a habit of the family through succeeding generations. The third name in the list of families still remaining in town has been found in places of honor and trust since the first John Preston of New Ipswich came to this place from Littleton in 1760, and at the early age of twenty- four was elected a member of the first board of selectmen. At about the same date, perhaps a little later, Thaddeus Taylor came from Dunstable and settled in the southwest corner of the town, where his son, one of the early preceptors or our academy, was born, and whence has sprung a New Ipswich family not large in numbers, but whose enduring energy is witnessed by its representative now one of the oldest of our citizens. Pass- ing the date of incorporation, Charles Barrett came from Concord in 1764, founding the family well known in the manufacturing, commercial and financial enterprises of the town ; and the succeeding year brought from the same mother-town James Chandler, members of whose family have been resident upon some portion of his farm near the south line of the town, or in that immediate neighborhood, until the present time. From him, as a member of the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety, his widely scattered descendants have derived titles to mem- bership among the Sons and Daughters of the Revolution. At about the same date John Wheeler also settled in the south part of the town on a 44 PROCEEDINGS. farm near the "old county road" which still remains in the possession of his family. The name is now represented by descendants of three sons of the first settler. Silas Davis, of the large family bearing that name in Concord, came here in 1768, settling upon Flat Mountain. His family has been well known in the south part of the town until the present time. A name frequently found in the records of town officers through several generations is that of Wilson, the family having descended from Supply Wilson, who came here from Woburn in 1759 before he had attained his majority. Paul Prichard at the mature age of fifty came to this place in 1772 from what is now Boxford, Mass., settled on the north road to Greenville, and during the remainder of his life held a very influ- ential place amid the activities of the town, as his descendants have also done until the recent death of the last of our citizens bearing the hon- ored name. The name of James Barr, borne by father and son, has been held in honor since the father came from Scotland in 1774, and held by the power which, as Saxe assures us, " makes the world go round, " made his abode here. The name of Simeon Blanchard, who purchased the farm on the south line of the town which was occupied by his family for nearly a century, first appears on the tax roll in 1776, although he may have been a somewhat earlier resident. Probably about 1780 the farm just east from Smithville, known as the Goen farm, received its name from its purchase by John Goen, just arrived from Reading. The Revolution- ary soldier, Zaccheus Walker of Andover, came here at the close of his service, and through the influence of his marriage settled just east from the school house in the Gibson district, in which section of the town his descendants have continued their residence. And our list of eighteenth century founders of families is completed by the names of Benoni Buck- nam, who came from Boston in 1795, and Joseph Wheeler, whose name first appears in the closing year of the century. If the disappearance of the early families of our town seems unduly near complete, it is of course largely accounted for by the same cause or causes, whatever they may be, which have brought about another condi- tion which we may not ignore, but which we shall do well to consider with careful freedom from the repining in which it is easy to indulge, as we recognize the decreasing number of the town's inhabitants. The population of our town during its first half century, from 1750 to 1800, rose rapidly for the first part of the period and more slowly afterward, but within the time multiplied its numbers by ten, rising from 120 to 1,241, a statement based partly upon estimate, but such as ensures PROCEEDINGS. 46 the fact of a continued increase. The first half of the nineteenth century was fitful ; for, although the net result was an increase of fifty per cent, from 1241 to 1878, the successive decades were alternately periods of advance and retrogression, the decade ending in 1820 presenting a loss of 115, and the decade ending in 1840 a loss of 95 inhabitants. Still these were far outbalanced by the gains of the intermediate periods, and we came to our centennial with an advance of nearly twenty per cent, during the immediately preceding decade, and without any warning dis- cernable by ordinary vision that we were entering upon a long era of unbroken descents, decade after decade destined to reduce our numbers from their high- water census mark of 1878 successively through 1701, 1380, 1222, 969, until the census of the close of the century shows only 911 names, a descent but little relieved by the consideration that the lo.ss of the last decade was but six per cent, instead of the twenty-one per cent, of the decade immediately preceding, the most discouraging period of our history in this respect, since even the Civil war forced a loss of only nineteen per cent, during the decade from 1860 to 1870. It is improb- able that there was any sudden change in the rate of decrease about ten years ago. Rather we must believe that the rapid descent affected the decade now closing to some extent, and we may reasonably greet the de- creased rate of loss reported by the census of 1900 as an indication of reversal of the tide. But this encouragement may not be sufficient to forbid our speaking despairingly or contemptuously of New Ipswich, according to the spirit prevailing within us, and declaring that the days of country New England are no more, or deriding the lack of energy existing amid those into whose hands the ancestral homes have passed. But does it not rather befit us, as loyal sons and daughters of New Ipswich, and especially upon this anniversary, to seek the varied causes of the facts which lead to adverse conclusions, to ask whether these things are necessarily tokens of debase- ment, and whether, so far as the changes in local conditions are to be deplored, there is not reasonable cause for an expectation that a reverse current will ensue in due time ? New Ipswich by no means stands solitary in her present position. Long is the list of country towns whose numbers have grown smaller and smaller with successive census reports ; and for nearly all of the large class we may recognize at least three potent causes of the change, the opening of the western country, the increased facilities for transportation, and the Civil war. All of these have affected our own town perhaps 46 PROCEEDINGS. somewhat more strongly than has been the case with many towns in other regions apparently equally exposed to their power, because of a character- istic inherited from the settlers of New Ipswich, to which it is doubtful if merited attention has been given. Our examination of the previous homes of these settlers showed that no very large fraction of the whole number came from Ipswich and the surrounding towns, but that a large part of the grantees under the Masonian charter apparently belonged to that great class of adventurers, who, one hundred and fifty years ago, as now, seem to have been ready to enter upon new projects, and equally ready to abandon them after the first charm of novelty had passed, or the unduly roseate expectations of remarkable and speedy success had paled. Filling the places of these more mercurial adventurers, whose names are entirely unfamiliar to New Ipswich annals, came those men who have been already mentioned as founders of well-known families of the town, and many others, like Batchelder, Champney, Farrar, and Gould, whose names, although not of the present, occupy large and honored places in the past. A. review of these can hardly fail to call attention to the large proportion that came from a group of towns in Middlesex county, stretching from Cambridge toward the northwest, and united by bonds of common interest and kindred. Of these towns Concord is typical ; and a native of New Ipswich, familiar with the traditions of his town, can hardly visit the burying grounds of this Massachusetts town without fre- quent surprise, as familiar names meet his sight upon the tombstones. These towns may indeed be termed ancestral towns. John Fiske calls attention to the fact that " it was in one and the same week that Charles I. began his experiment of governing without a parliament, and that he granted a charter to the Company of Massachusetts Bay." The resulting exodus to these shores, under the leadership of widely differing, but per- haps equally able men, like John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley, with the purpose of undertaking a task " not to be achieved without steadfast and sober heroism," was not an undertaking of fickle, uncertain men, but of those having in large measure " the courage of their convictions," of men who calmly considered the courses before them ; and it is hardly too much to say that when they chose to enter upon a new work, that choice determined success. The group of towns which I have mentioned was pre-eminently of this blood, mixed, however, with a lesser stream from the Plymouth Colony, schooled perhaps equally to an unwavering and fearless fidelity to deliberately chosen purpose. Hence, we may believe, came in large part the rapid growth, in this region offering nothing beyond PROCEEDINGS. 47 reasonable return to faithful endeavor, of our infant town in its first quarter century. But, because of this inherited strength, it may be that our townsmen in an especial degree have calmly and deliberately under- taken pioneer projects, and entered open doors appearing in distant regions, until the early families have disappeared, as we have seen. Macaulay has written: "Those projects which abridge distance have done most for the civilization and happiness of mankind," and surely by nothing has the last half of this century, notable for so many inventions, been more characterized than by the class of projects to which he refers. When we met in centennial celebration. New England possessed only 2,600 miles of railroad, and the entire country had but 8,600. But even then, this eastern portion of our national domain was so well provided that its mileage has hardly been trebled by the period of wonderfully advancing construction, while for the whole country the ratio of increa.se doubtless exceeds twenty. These simple figures alone suggest volumes of explana- tion of an increasing removal of men having the characteristic energy of our sires; not because changes of the fields of profitable endeavor have been made easy ; such men are not devotees of ease ; but because facilities of transportation make the successful result of their labors not merely possible, but probable. Yet not only by multiplying opportunities for the exercise of the masterful tendency to which I have called attention, do these changed conditions tend to draw population from the more retired localities. In the days of our fathers, or our grandfathers, when fifty miles, the distance from this town to Boston, even by the exceptionally rapid means of trans- portation afforded by the stage, was a long day's journey, while private conveyances were wont to stop over night at Groton, and the humbler traveller regarded the means provided him personally by nature as the most reasonable means of pursuing a journey, Farmer Brown, upon the top of the mountain, was only by a single hour's travel more retired than the residents of the centre village. But this hour becomes a largely objectionable addition to the journey, when the work of the long day is gathered within the compass of one fourth of its former duration, or in many places, where rapid transportation approaches more nearly than it has yet to New Ipswich, a single hour covers the time of a previously long journey. Hence it has resulted that thousands of Farmer Brown's farms, like those of our own town, have been deserted for the villages, which in turn have yielded to analogous attractions of larger gatherings; and, while a half century ago only one-eighth of our people were residents 48 PROCEEDINGS. of cities containing 8,000 inhabitants or more, it has come to pass that in 1890 almost three-tenths were thus dwelling, and probably before the present time more than one-third of the entire population has become thus aggregated. But a far more potent result of this change in conditions is found in the certainty that business must necessarily follow the lines of rapid transportation. A century ago the dwellers in Fitchburg recognized the enterprise and business ability of New Ipswich by making in this place their occasional purchases of such articles as their farms did not supply. It is by no means easy at the present day to bring into clear vision the habits of life and of business of the early years of this century. We may suppose that one of our ancestors has come to that interesting point in his life when, having won the affections of our ancestress, and having by patient labor acquired that with which he may meet the necessary expenditures of the contemplated step, he is about to enter upon the enlarged life of complete manhood. Obviously at this time a suitable personal outfit must be provided, and he is entirely spared all harassing decision between the claims of economy in favor of a rather more elegant sale suit than has constituted his ordinary wear and the desire to do full honor to the ceremony by appearing attired in more perfectly fitted cus- tom work, since "ready made" clothing has not yet appeared in the market. He may, however, find excellent goods of wool grown on New Ipswich farms, and spun and woven in New Ipswich homes, but fortu- nately redeemed from its homespun aspect and given a truly elegant appearance due to its having been fulled and dressed by John Everett in his newly erected mill operated by the Gibson Village water power. Hav- ing made his purchase, he well knows that it is only a short distance to the meeting of the roads which offers a compromise location for the erection of the fourth meeting house, in which we are now assembled, near which Ezra Kimball is ready to take his measure and employ his best skill in the construction of a suitable wedding suit. A further walk of half a mile brings our prospective bridegroom to the shop of King & Preston, just below the present academy grounds, where he may obtain a hat made to order, and therefore sure to fit. It may be, however, that the need of suitable provision for his feet requires a little farther travel, but we may be sure that Phineas Pratt, dwelling half a mile from Pratt pond, can make the needed boots, very probably of leather from the tannery of Jere- miah Prichard, unless that founder of a New Ipswich industry has ceased from his labors, in which case the work is certainly continued by Isaac PROCEEDINGS. 49 Spaulding in the same location at the foot of old " Meeting-house Hill" so long devoted to that industry. The fitting out of the new home neces- sarily requires a visit to " Tophet Swamp "' and the newly established chair shop of Peter Wilder, but, since his industry is more specialized in its ends than that of most cotemporaneous artisans, the new household is dependent for the few other articles of furniture demanded by the simple habits of the time upon the shop of Joseph Bacheller upon " Meeting- house Hill, " or that of some other one of the competent joiners of the town. It is uncertain what workman of the time under review can sup- ply our ancestor with a farm wagon ; but he needs no other vehicle, since the farm horse with saddle and pillion will bear the couple on Sundays to the old meeting-house on the hill. The saddle, however, probably comes from the shop of Silas Cragin ; and the most important of the implements with which the labor of the hardest month of each year is to be per- formed, the scythe, we may trace from the shop of John Putnam at the site of the present Walker shops ; nor is it likely that our ancestor has need of passing far beyond the borders of the town to find the place of manufacture of any article required by the new farm and the new home. Fifty years ago the industries of our town may have been somewhat less complete in meeting all the needs of residents ; but at that time the smaller industries had not been crushed by such concentration of energies in large establishments as brings the price to consumers below that which can remunerate artisans working under earlier conditions. At the time of our centennial, beside the Wilder shops still continuing in the northwest corner of the town. Smith Village had three chair shops in successful operation, or about to begin, those of Charles Taylor, Stephen Sylvester, and Jonas Nutting, now all closed by the changed conditions. The wheelwright shops of William Hassall, Richard H. Davis, Roby Fletcher, and Seth Straton each usually employed one or more hands be- side the proprietor, and were largely occupied in actual manufacture, while at the present time shops offering that line of work in towns of the size of ours from necessity are practically confined to repairs. The saw- nnills of Jonas Nutting, George C. Gibson, Daniel Farwell, Henry Adams. Emery Carr, Ebenezer Converse, and Luke Cram, all in activity in or near the year I80O, are now represented by only three mills which, however, have recently shown such increased activity as may be considered an earnest of an approaching reversal of some of the unfavorable condi- tions of later years. The wooden manufactures of various kinds in con- nection with these mills may perhaps in part compensate for the decay of 4 50 PROCEEDINGS. the chair industries before mentioned, although far from completely ; and the water power employed by William Walker fifty years ago in his bedstead factory is still utilized in the wood-turning industry by his son. Only one blacksmith's shop in 1 900 takes the place of those of John C. Hildreth, Russell Farwell, Augustus Russell, John T. Stevens, and Charles Bateman of 1850. The tanneries of Amos Pierce and Stedman Houghton have no successors ; neither the tin-shops of the Sanders Brothers and of Boynton, Stark & Carroll, nor the saddlery of Cyra L. Weston. Two small shops for the manufacture of cigars are all that now represent the industries of Stephen Thayer and of Moses Brickett, who in 1850 employed one hundred hands in the varied manufactures of matches, ink, blacking and essences as well as cigars, the last named article also suggesting the allied production of cigar boxes by Harvey Batchelder at the earlier date. The bakery of N. Smith has a small successor at the Bank Village. Some small industries may have escaped mention in con- nection with both dates. But in one sense the most striking indication of the trend of business conditions in our town is shown by the closing of two of the three cotton factories of 1850, and a union of the third with the factories in Greenville so complete as to threaten the integrity of the boundaries of our town, a change involving a reduction in the number of New Ipswich employees from about 275 to only 85 ; although the improvement in mechanical facilities has so increased the product that it is believed to exceed that of the earlier date. The second condition tending to cause an exodus from the small country towns of the East, the opening of the broad expanse of the West and the discovery that the "Great American Desert" of our geographies, published even nearly or quite as recently as 1850, is largely a myth, may perhaps be justly declared to be in part a result of the increased facilities for transportation already considered. But with equal justice this may rightly be considered a cause of the remarkable increase of those facilities, a change imperatively demanded in order to hold the increasing- ly wide extent of our nation together. And without doubt the belief inculcated in our youth by boasts like that of the song of "Uncle Sam's Farm" so often heard in our schoolrooms fifty years ago, which de- clared " Of all the mighty nations in the East or In the West, Oh I this glorious Yankee nation is the greatest and the best, We have room for all creation, and our banner is unfurled. Here's a general invitation to the people of the world," PROCEEDINGS. 61 this belief, fortified and sustained by the fertility of much of the land opened to pioneers, has ^ne far in drawinfj; the population of the Eastern country towns away, not always directly to the idealized prairies and mines, but in no less measure to take the places of those leaving the more dense communities of the East. The tendencies of our Civil war to diminish the population is mark- edly impressed upon us, when we read in our census reports that the increase in the entire country from 1860 to 1870 was only twenty-two and six tenths per cent., while the preceding and following decades yielded thirty-five and six tenths and thirty per cent., respectively. And the country places have been the ultimate losers, sending from their numbers to supply the loss in the urban population. Thus in our own state, during that decade of devastation and death, there was a decrease of population amounting to two and four tenths per cent., while the pre- ceding decade had given a slightly larger per cent, of increase, and the following decade an increase of nine per cent. Looking at our own coun- ty, with its two manufacturing cities, prosperous and rapidly increasing during the last half of the war decade, we see that the three decades from 1850 to 1880 gave as successive per cents, of increase eight and one tenth, three and three tenths, and seventeen and seven tenths. But our little town, as we have seen, suffered in these decades successive losses of nine, nineteen, and eleven per cent. An additional element of loss is without doubt that which ever ap- pears at the close of wars. Many of the returning soldiers who, but for their knowledge of regions outside their ancestral habitat might have passed their lives contentedly in the places of their birth, find themselves unable to rest in quiet conditions, and must needs seek more pronounced activities. Does it seem that the facts under consideration are strangely un- suited to an occasion like this, when we gather in honor of our early home and in grateful recognition of her gifts to us ? Or is it true that the sons of New Ipswich have sufficiently true loyalty to their mother to yield naught of their allegiance because of their recognition that in the course of advancing civilization the work which each country and state and each smaller unit has laid upon it radically changes as the years pass by ? The great social forces, like Him who ordained them, are never in haste. Not reformers alone are prone to forget this truth, and to chafe at the tardiness of results. We are all inclined to be restless or despairing, as our moods may be, when events do not conform to our 52 PROCEEDINGS. ideas of true advantage. We say that the day of country places has gone by. Perhaps that is true of the forms of country life which our early associations tend to make us judge the only real forms; and the change to the form of the future, not yet developed, perhaps necessarily leads through a period which at least has a certain appearance of approach- ing decay. But is even this concession to the despondent view necessary in the case of our own little town? We of America are prone to an undue exaltation of the immense, and the value of small things is apt to be unappreciated among us. We forget that "Iron is heaped in mountain pilcB, A nd gluts the laggard forges, But gold-flakes gleam in deep defiles And lonely gorges." We meet to-day in a town of less than one-half as large population as greeted the assembly of fifty years ago ; to which we may join the suggestive fact that the number of its school children is only one-third of that of the centennial year. Is the town dying ? Surely a town which under such conditions, with its thirteen schools of 1850 reduced to six in 1900, yet devotes to the education of its children once and one-third as much money as was expended at the earlier date, and provides for each of its scholars once and one-half as many weeks of instruction per year as did the New Ipswich which in 1850 stood very high among New Hamp- shire towns in its care for education, presents evidence that the old spirit of our ancestors, and the inherited determination to succeed, has far from perished. Moreover, the beautiful and constantly increasing library, the lighted streets, the provision for the prevention of destructive fires, and many other like changes from the conditions of fifty years ago seem to indicate most conclusively that the town is decidedly alive, and sees no need of preparation for an approaching dissolution. Such being the case, we may ask whether the three causes considered as having led to the decrease in population are constant in tendency or in results. The Civil war has passed, and we devoutly hope that no like penalty for national wickedness may again be visited upon us. The error involved in the refrain of the song before mentioned, a declaration that ♦' Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm," is rapidly becoming evident to all. The tide of western emigration is not terminated, but it is strongly checked. Nor is this checking of the flow due merely to the approaching exhaustion of what a half centurv ago seemed the exhaust- less supply of virgin soil. The days of belief in the perennial productive- PROCEEDINGS. 53 ness without fertilization, of the boundless prairies ready for cultivation without clearing of forests, is rapidly passing away, and the visions of sudden wealth for the agriculturalist have faded. There are eddies and tendencies to return currents in the tide, as it is found that there are blanks as well as prizes in the enterprise, and experience tends to a pleasurable recollection of the surer, if sometimes less abundant, crops drawn with more labor from the ancestral acres. It is far from wise to predict with any strong confidence the exact order of economic events ; but it seems sure that, as population becomes more dense throughout the country, land will have a larger place in the resources of the agricultur- alist in proportion to labor than is the case at present ; and with this com- ing condition in mind certain tables and maps in the census report for 1890 become very suggestive. These tables show the value of the agri- cultural products of the different portions of our land per square mile, and the accompanying maps indicate by different depths of shading the same facts. The state of Massachusetts stands first in this respect among the states. A few small tracts in its eastern portion, and certain other favored locations on the Atlantic coast, have the richest shade denoting places in the sixth class, which produce over $5,000 per square mile. Our town, however, lies not in that most highly favored region, but in the considerably broader and more widely scattered, but still quite limited area of the fifth class, producing between $2,500 and $5,000 per square mile. In the face of this fact it is certainly rash to pronounce a perpetual condemnation of New Hampshire farms. Our farms were redeemed from the wilderness by the labor of emigrants of the good English stock. Possibly other emigrants of equally valuable habits and character may redeem them again from their period of rest. The Scandinavians find here a soil like that of their own homes, and they make excellent Ameri- can citizens. Were the suggestion of ways and means the object of this meeting, it might be well to consider the practicability of inviting to our midst this element, already favorably in evidence in the more northern portions of our state. Neither, we may believe, does the advancing civilization, declared by Macaulay to be so greatly promoted by projects for the abridgement of distance, necessarily and permanently tend to a depletion of less accessi- ble districts, such as has so frequently resulted in towns to which the railroad has closely approached, but failed to enter. We may well call to mind that the railroad is not the only factor in the abridgement of distance, although the one which hitherto has usually had the first place in 54 PROCEEDINGS. the social changes of any region. At the time of our centennial the first practical message had been sent over the initial telegraph line, between Washington and Baltimore, only about six years, and the telephone had its birth in the middle of the period which has since elapsed. The first express line, even between Boston and New York, antedated the tele- graph but a few years. The electric car is practically the gift of the last decade. We have seen that the railroad has separated the land into two parts, the one, having all sections closely connected by the iron bands, to a certain extent acts as a unit, and prospers materially at the expense of comparatively isolated districts. But other developments of these later decades present manifest tendencies toward overcoming the solitude of the regions wasted by unsatisfactory conditions in respect to the railroad. The electric lines are already relieving the pressure of city population, and making a constantly increasing extent of surrounding towns practic- ally suburban. Time forbids more than a reference to the manifest effect of the rapidly extending telephone lines, of the development of systems for the rapid transfer of purchases by mail and express from the phe- nomenally immense mercantile establishments of the cities, of the im- proved mail facilities now especially manifest in the institution of rural delivery, already reaching one retired section of our own town. All these have had clearly perceptible effect in the line suggested, and promise to press on still more rapidly in the opening decades of the twentieth century in forms not yet devised, until the isolated town can hardly be found. Any attempt to foretell the work of New Ipswich in the coming century would be presumptuous, but hardly as much so as to assume her necessary continuance along the old paths of methods now passing into conditions of disuse analogous to those which have obliterated the old county road west of Governor's hill, and are rapidly accomplish- ing a like work upon the one extending from Bank Village over Knight's hill. Our forefathers chose the elevated sections of the town for their farms, while the lot upon which the tent for the centennial dinner was pitched, just across the street from the Barrett mansion, in early days almost a swamp covered with a worse than useless tangle of brush, was so little valued that "as poor as Joe Kidder's lot" was a proverb of worth- lessness. A century of cultivation and of washing rains has removed the fertile soil of the mountain farms, and many of us have seen the heavy burden of hay cut from the " Joe Kidder lot. " A half century of comparative rest has been restoring the deserted farms and, as we believe, PROCEEDINGS. 65 not in vain, although we may not yet see their future place in coming industries. But, whatever these events of the future may be, the great work of these lines of intercommunication gives a joyous color to our thoughts, as we meet here, along lines upon which we can hardly err. This great work is the extending of fellowship, the broadening of brotherhood. It is far less true of the thoughts of New Ipswich youth of to-day than when the words were written fifty years ago, even though it be equally true of their vision, that "the pillared hills of childhood bound the world. " A century ago fears were entertained that, in case the seat of the national government should be removed to the banks of the Potomac, the representatives of New England would resign their seats in Congress in preference to undertaking the perilous journey through wilderness and morass to the capital. Fifty years ago many Englishmen strenuously opposed the projected World's Fair, because they did not wish to have England overrun by citizens of inferior civilization, — a notable survival of the ancient estimate of Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian. The " Greater England" so often in our hearts to-day was hardly a possibility of thought then. Not quite a century ago a young lady in what is now our neighbor- ing city, but then somewhat distant town, of Keene was united in mar- riage to an army officer stationed at Fort Dearborn on the present site of Chicago. Her friends bade her a more lingering farewell than would now characterize a departure to the farthest isles of the sea. The bridal trip to the new home was expected to occupy a month, during one-half of which the party would travel on horseback accompanied by a train of packhorses with their belongings. It is entirely possible that children of this couple have passed over the intervening miles in less hours than the days of their parents' journey. At a period, then, in which lines of geographical division are so fad- ing, and kindred hearts refuse to recognize them as separating bars, surely the New Ipswich we love and honor is bounded by the hills which wel- come our return only as it is defined in our joyous memories. We rejoice, indeed, to revisit these scenes whose beauties are heightened by grateful associations. But the real New Ipswich which greets us to-day, and which we cherish in thought, is a brotherhood and sisterhood of which only a small fraction can come together in body, but whose actual exist- ence is manifested in many ways, among which we may mention gifts like those of the Isaac Spalding School Fund of $10,000, and the Albert 56 PROCEEDINGS. Stearns Lecture Fund of $3,000. No small part of the bond of our union above that of the children of many places is due, we may confi- dently assert, to the honored institution which joined together so many of the youth of the separated districts of the town at an age when such bonds of lasting strength are most readily formed. Dr. Gould, our orator of fifty years ago, strongly emphasized the work of our academy and its influence upon the town. Possibly it is a pardonable digression, if it be a digression from the spirit of this meeting, to recall that at that time the institution, declared to be so essential to the true prosperity of the town, was "struggling with bare means of subsistence and apprehensive of entire failure" because with advancing civilization the necessary demands for such an academy had increased beyond its resources, amply sufficient in its early days. I may recall to the memory of those who were present at the centennial dinner that an honored citizen of the larger New Ips- wich of those days was unable to be present in body, but sent this toast : — " The Literary Institutions of New Hampshire in general, and the acad- emy of New Ipswich in particular ; and to enable that institution to assume its former standing and extend its future usefulness, I, Samuel Appleton of Boston, do hereby promise to pay to the Trustees of New Ipswich academy, for the benefit of said academy, five thousand dollars on demand. " This unique toast, followed by other similar and even more substantial assistance from the same source, enabled our academy to enter upon its second period of prosperity. As we meet here again, the condition of fifty years ago is renewed. Again a constantly advancing standard of education makes demands be- yond the ability of our school to meet. The smaller academies elsewhere, as well as our own, are being pressed to the wall. The committee in charge of this reunion has expressed its purpose to follow the program of fifty years ago as far as is found practicable ; and we all sincerely hope that a toast having a power of inspiration equal to that which marked the movement adding the name of Appleton to our academy may be on the program for to-day. Our centennial orator said that he had been told that the sons of New Ipswich had accumulated more wealth than the sons of any other town of like numbers. We trust that this excellent power has not departed ; and surely the citizens of the Greater New Ipswich, either single or by united action, can in no way more fitly celebrate their meeting in spirit than by again bringing to the front amid such institu- tions the academy to which so many of them owe so much of their power- It is, of course, not at all practicable to say how great a part of the traits which we believe to be characteristic of the children of the town PROCEEDINGS. 57 have resulted from the exceptionally good schools for which during many years she was noted, and in respect to which we trust she does not now fail, due, we may believe, very largely to the work of our academy. As many of us gratefully recall, the poet of to-day was fifty years ago a teacher in the academy, and also in our district schools. And we may note that from among his scholars of one winter there have come the president of to-day's meeting, the chaplain, the orator, and at least two other members of the so-called " learned professions, " a rather unusual coincidence for the history of a country district school. It is natural to dwell upon the successful public men of any locality in considering the character of the place of their origin, as we of New Ips- wich lay claim to the widely honored names of Timothy Farrar and Samuel Appleton. But this is a reasonable claim only as such examples are typical of the local character equally to be valued in narrower fields of activity. And we believe that the lives trained in New Ipswich obtained by heredity from the before cited class of ancestors an enviable strength now giving excellent results in widely separated fields of labor. We claim that, despite many present adverse aspects. New Ipswich is a typical Yankee town true to what Edward Everett Hale terms " the New England determination to get the thing done anyway. " To this bears witness that section of New Ipswich lying far away and known under the name of Denmark, Iowa, founded more than sixty years ago by a New Ipswich colony, and conducted upon New England principles. To this no less bears witness that home activity of enduring benevolent and edu- cational value, the children's fair, inaugurated nearly forty years since in the room below. We live in an epoch of difiierentiation, no less truly amid communi- ties than amid individuals. We all well know that a man may accom- plish far more of value now than in the days when each man was his own carpenter, ploughman, blacksmith, and shoemaker, even though his diverse capabilities were invaluable in the earlier stages of civilization. We recognize the fallacy of the early objection to railroads based on a belief that they would cause horses to become valueless. Horses have still a use in the processes of transportation ; and similarly in the broader prog- ress of civilization there awaits our town some worthy function, not yet fully defined, in this era of specialization among communities. As Yankees we of course devoutly believe Boston to be " the hub of the universe," and we enumerate the widely diverging radiant influ- ences sustaining that claim. A limitless Boston of orderly, intelligent, 58 PROCEEDINGS. conscientious persistence has sprung from the little peninsula in Massa- chusetts Bay ; and, comparing great things with small, we know that the assembly of to-day bears testimony to the work of our New Ipswich. But as the scattered sons of New Ipswich sires, who with the char- acteristic ancestral desire to be in action have sought the more stirring places of labor, return and exchange the hearty greetings and the hand- shakes full of meaning, first and strongest in all the recognition of the elastic bonds which stretch, but break not, ever drawing toward the point of union, come the thoughts recently written: — " stout heai t-i have they who cross the seas And distant perils face, Who wish to 'scape from deadening ease, Or scale to higher place. But valiant, too, is he whose heart. Like theirs, would breast the foam, Yet at the old hearth keeps his part — The one who stays at home. New countries have great fields to reap. Need young and vigorous brain : But Motherland some sons must keep. To sow and bind her grain. The old folk, too, need some one there — They can no longer roam — Of all the flock there's one to spare— The one who stays at home. " Song by the Temple Quartette of Boston. POEM BY TIMOTHY PERRY, ESQ., of BROOKLYN, N. Y. Among the granite hills that skirt The valley of the Souhegan — In the shadow of Kidder mountain — Around old Whittemore hill, And off toward Watatic, Where the rainfall, wandering west. Seeks the Connecticut, Or east, the Merrimac, and where The bear, the deer, the catamount And the wild Indian. Roamed the primeval forest — Here eight-score years ago Our fathers, seeking a fitting place Where they might till the soil And worship God in peace. Sought out this rugged land. With them they brought no wealth of gold. No sounding titles, proud and old. No hope for unearned worldly gains Or for success that cost no pains. Proceedings. 69 Better, they brought a conscience clear, Bold, honest hearts that knew no fear, Clear heails, strong arms and Iron wills, Firm and unchanging as the hills, Patience that waited for succiess, And found in labor happiness. They tilled the hard, unwilling soil, And with persistent care and toll From rocky hill or sandy plain Garnered the scanty yield of grain. They felled the thick-grown trees and reared Their cabins by the forest's edge. They built the schoolhouse and the church, Of faith, of law, of liberty. At once the safeguard and the pledge. And through the winter's snow and sleet. Through autumn's storms and summer's heat They labored on and knew no rest — A sentinel upon each crest Watching by every smoke that rose The stealthy step of unseen foes. But they wlio on themselves depend Are sure to conquer in the end; * And as the years go slowly by Comes the reward of industry. Fragrant the fields, the meadows fair. The sun shines brightly, and the air — No longer filled with wild alarms — Breathes soft and every fear disarms. Ricli harvests now the toilmen cheer. And peace and plenty crown the year. Then did our fathers turn to Him From whom their every blessing came. Whose guiding hand had led them on. Their hardships and their perils through. Out of a howling wilderness Into a smiling promised land. And grateful hearts burst forth in song — Song of thanksgiving and of praise. But hark! When all seemed calm and still What tempest now the east wind brings? Signalled from every watch-tower hill. Oppression comes on fiery wings. Sons of New Ipswich hear the din And in the furrow leave the plow, The deadly conflict to begin. And, resolution on each brow. Mustered their men with hasty drill And closed the ranks at Bunker Hill — To tyranny defiance hurled, " And fired the shot lieard round the world."* Long was the struggle, hard the fight By which our fathers proudly won Triumph for justice and for right; And when the conflict all was done *At least fifty New Ipswich men took part in the battle of Bunker Hill. See "His- tory of New Ipswich," Kidder and Gould, 1852. 60 PROCEEDINGS. They raised the flag of liberty To float forever o'er the free. And when in later years the sound Of fierce Rebellion shakes the ground, And South to North the challenge sends, Once more the farmers rush to save Their liberties so dearly bought. And by their blood and valor gave Freedom to every cowering slave- To the Republic gave new life. Stronger and better for the strife. On many a hard and bloody field Our townsmen fought and bravely died; And when Rebellion's cohorts yield Victor and vanquished, side by side, Once more united, firmly stand. And heart to heart and hand to hand Build up a country strong and free. The home of peace and charity.* Such was the long and thorny road Our fathers trod, and such the school In which their children learned the worth Of hearts of granite, wills of steel, Of hope and courage for the right. Of honest industry and manly toil; And such the heritage they left Of sturdy strength and faith sublime. They built a town and ruled it well, Each man a king in his domain. But none o'erstepped his neighbor's rights. And justice reigned and sweet content. So, ever has New England taught Her sons by all her history That every obstacle they met Was but to them a stepping-stone By which they mounted to the heights Of honorable fame, and kept The sacred fires of liberty On every hilltop burning bright. So, ever have New England's sons The lesson learned, and wandering wide, They carry with them as they go Some fruitage of their native soil — The love of justice and, of right. The forceful, self-reliant zeal. The faith, the hope, the charity, The patient waiting fortitude That conquers every obstacle, And in a thousand hamlets helps To build a temple broad and firm- *New Ipswich furnished ninety-five volunteers enlisted in the Union army during the Rebellion. See "New Ipswich in the Civil War," Mrs. L. A. Obear, 1898. The names of nineteen of these volunteers, who lost their lives in the defense of their country, are inscribed on the New Ipswich soldiers' monument, which stands in front of the academy campus. PROCEEDINGS. 61 The temple of a nation's fame, And hastens on the coming time When knowledge, truth and righteousness Shall blossom forth the wide world round. New England, 'neath whose sunny skies I trod the flowery paths of youth. Hath still a charm which time defies, The charm of beauty and of truth. Where'er my wandering feet may stray, Whatever skies may be above. My heart still fondly turns away Back to my own, my first true love. I love her stern and rock-ribbed hills, On whose bold tops the sunbeams rest After the flery king of day Has sunk In splendor in the west. I love her mountain brooks that flow Impetuous down the rocky glen, And foam and sparkle as they go Oflf to the meadows far below; I love her forests far and wide. Beneath the shadow of whose pines The rabbit and the wild grouse hide Among the tangled brush and vines; I love her stately elms that shade With leafy arms the roadway o'er; I love her spreading chestnut trees, Her maples and her mighty oaks; I love her meadows fair and green, Which by the river's margin He; I love her clear blue sky that spreads In beauty o'er the smiling land; I love her mountain air that gives New vigor to my pulse's flow; I love her people who drink in From all their glad environment The virtues that adorn their lives, Her stalwart men, her maidens fair. Strong, honest, simple and sincere; I love the calm and sweet repose And all the charm and witchery That, like a spell, forever hangs Around New England's peerless homes! And when, worn out, life's labors done. My old, dim eyes shall faintly see For the last time the setting sun Go down the west in majesty. Fain would I sink to silent dreams Amid the scene my vision fills. As come the sun's bright parting beams Over New England's gold-tipped hills. And sleep my last, eternal sleep Where spirits of the Pilgrims keep Their vigils and their guard around. Within New England's hallowed ground! 62 PROCEEDINGS. At the close of the exercises at the church, the procession reformed and marched to the academy campus, where the dinner was served in a large tent by Caterer E. M. Read of Fitchburg, Mass. Plates were laid for 500 persons. After the feast the usual post-prandial exercises followed, inter- spersed with music from the band, and songs from the Temple Quar- tette of Boston. An artist secured views of the exterior of the tent as well as the interior ; the latter was obtained during the Governor's address. The official badge on satin ribbon bore a gilt outline of the State of New Hampshire on which was stamped the figure of the Old Man of the Mountain and the* state seal, with the inscriptions, 150th Anniversary New Ipswich, N. H., Aug. 28, 1900. Welcome to our Sons and Daughters. LETTERS. The president of the day had letters and telegrams received from the following persons and several were read : S. Arthur Bent, Magnolia, Mass.; Rev. John S. Brown, Lawrence, Kan ; Hon. Isaac C. Stearns, Zumbrota, Minn.; Roby Fletcher, Fitch- burg, Mass.; Rev. Perley B. Davis, West Roxbury, Mass.; Edward A. Lawrence, Principal of N. I. Appleton Academy from 1844-51, Orange, N. J.; Hon. Frank G. Clarke, Peterboro, N. H.; Judge E. E. Parker, Nashua, N. H.; Melvin O. Adams, Esq., Boston, Mass.; Charles H. Clark, New York, N. Y. Magnolia, Mass., Aug. 15, 1900. Celebration Committee, Dear Sirs : — I wish it were possible for me to attend the celebra- tion at New Ipswich, to which you have kindly invited me. It is thirty- five years since I have seen the home of my youth. I should wander as a stranger through once familiar scenes. 1 should look in vain for most of the companions of my childhood. But even in that case I should like PROCEEDINGS. 63 once more to walk to "High Kock," and the "Starch Factory Pond," or coast down the long hill which in winter carried some adventurous sleds, to pick blueberries with Henry Blood or scan Virgil with Cecil Bancroft. I well remember the centennial celebration, how the girls and boys lined the wall in front of Mr. George Barrett's house to cheer the ap- proaching guests preceded by a cavalcade of citizens ; how the venerable Hartwell Farrar replied to a toast by repeating the first lines : " You'd scarce expect one of my age, To speak in public on the stage," of the poem written for him in childhood by David Everett, Samuel Appleton's brother-in-law : and how the band crashed out in a triumphant blast, when Mr. Appleton's gift to the Academy was read. May your present festival rival the ancient one and bring together a happy throng of the sons and daughters of New Ipswich ! Very truly yours, S. Arthur Bent. Lawrence, Kansas, July 20, 1900. Celebration Committee, Dear Sirs .-—Greeting to the friends and good citi/.ens of the old town of New Ipswich, who on this one hundred and fiftieth anniversary gather to recite its history and recall old memories, and to greet friends and acquaintances. As I lie on my bed separated by the infirmities of age from most of the present events of life, my mind goes back to my early days, and I will give you an account of my early school days. I can dimly, very dimly, remember the time before I began going to school. Early as the year 1809, the summer I was just past three years of age, one Sally Jaquith taught our school. She was obliged to flog one of the boy.s for some flagitious conduct, and I recollect that my feelings were very severely tried by his piteous cries, while she applied vigorously the birchen rod to his naked back. Our home was just across the road opposite the school house, only a few rods distant, and I heard very plainly the poor boy's cry, " Oh ! Miss Jaquith, I will never, never do so again. Oh dear ! Oh! Oh! don't whip me any more. I will be good, just as true as I live. '" But Miss Jaquith put it on harder and harder, and the boy yelled louder and louder, till his ear-piercing shrieks entered my tender soul, and touched the very fountain of my tears. This whipping made a strong impression 64 PROCEEDINGS. on my mind and inspired a deep awe of the school-room, and a fear of all school-ma'ams. My school days commenced the summer after I was four years old. On that first morning my mother dressed me carefully, and as she wiped my soft, chubby hands, she remarked, "Stilly," — my name was Still- man, — " Stilly, you must be sure to be a good boy at school. Mama would feel very bad to have those soft, pretty hands whipped by the teacher because you were naughty."' So I cried a little and promised to be a good boy, and then was led off by my sister Mary, who was quite proud of me, to school. I could not sit with her, for it was an invariable rule to have the boys and girls sit apart and on different seats. This rule was rigidly adhered to except in cases of flagrant disobedience, when we boys were sometimes made to sit with the girls as a punishment. In learning my letters I had to stand before my teacher and repeat the letters after her as she pointed to them with her scissors. We used at this time Webster's spelling book. The alphabet was printed nearly in the beginning of the book, the capitals and small letters being placed in perpendicular and parallel columns. I learned to say my a, b, c's before I could tell them when seen separately. I could tell the names of all the letters and began to combine them into syllables before the close of the summer term, which was considered very good progress. The first line I ever tried to read was, " No man may put off" the law of God" ; the second, " My joy is in His law all the day. " In 1810 Webster's spelling book was in general use all through New England and to a considerable extent through the United States. There were some wood cuts in it, which charmed our eyes and engaged our attention, while we sat for weary hours on our hard, high seats, wait- ing for our ten minutes' recess, or for our noon's or night's dismissal. When we went out of the schoolroom door, we were required to turn square around and make a bow to our teacher. Sometimes in our haste to get out, we but half performed the ceremony, just bobbing our heads side wise as we rushed out. In coming in we could go through "our manners" more gracefully. Our schoolhouse was on the public road, the turnpike as it was called. When we met travelers on the road either morning, noon or night or at recess, we had to make our manners to them. The boys would take off their hats and bow, the girls would stop and "courtesy." The first school master whom I recall was Joseph Brown, of Ashby. I went to him in the winter of 1810-11. It is very little that I recollect PROCEEDINGS. 65 of him, the only circumstance that of "being called up" and made to stand on the floor, for what offense against the rules of school I forget. I was very much ashamed to be thus made the laughing-stock of the whole school, and there was a deeper tinge of slame when the affair was reported at home to mother and father. Mr. Brown afterwards studied for the ministry, and was sent as a missionary to some southern state. He was a member of the Congregational church. The " school-ma'ams," as the teachers of our summer schools were called, whom I remember were Sally Stearns, Sally Barr, Diademia Prichard, Sally Wetherbee, Nancy Batchelder, and I think a Miss Pratt. These, to the best of my recollection, were all kind, pleasant teachers, neither given to much scolding or whipping, but they treated us in a good, motherly way, leading us in the pleasant paths of learning and of virtuous conduct. The most dreary thing about the summer schools was the drilling that I was put through every Saturday forenoon in the catechism, otherwise termed the New England Primer. The winter schools were taught, while I had the privilege of attend- ing, by men, generally quite young men, who had attended an academy a term or two. Their names, as far as I can remember, were Joseph Brown, Isaac Kimball, Levi Nichols, Timothy Fox, Reuben Kidder Gould, Isaac Edes, William Moore, Addison Brown, my brother, Asaph Boutelle and Oilman Jones, who was my last district school teacher. Quite a number of large scholars went to school this winter : Sophronia Prescott, who afterwards married my brother Hermon, my sister Mary, Eliza Jaquith, Josiah P. Wilder, John Wilder, Calvin Wilder, Ann E. Wetherbee, who afterwards married my brother Addison, Joseph Bates Walton and others. Perhaps our teacher is still living ; he was a few years ago. He was from the neighboring town of Ashburnham, a faith- ful and laborious teacher, a somewhat odd genius, very distrustful of his own ability, but attached his scholars to him and was very much liked. The rod and the ferule were then indispensable in the administration of government, both at school and in the family, though some teachers had the tact to get along without applying them except on rare occasions. But they were always in sight as the insignia of authority, to be used as a last resort when other methods of punishment were unavailing. During the winter of Mr. Edes' administration there were many large boys and girls, who attended school and made things unusually lively by the display of rhyming and verse-making qualities. First ap- peared some thirty four-lined stanzas, printed on a sheet of rather coarse 5 66 PROCEEDINGS. paper and styled, "The Ladies' Looking Glass," the first verse of which started thus : " Alas! what pains the girls will take Themselves to sell and market make! What pains and sorrows they'll endure The eyes of men for to allure.'' And the second stanza is like unto it in smoothness of versification and beauty of sentiment : " They in the meeting house do sit All primmed up so neat and straight, Their thoughts and eyes around do rove On men, the objects of their love. " But there are girls, we must confess, VVho act from motives pure and just. Who look the priest right in the face, And hear him tell of saving grace. " And so on in like tenor through I forget how many lumbering stanzas. But the girls answered back in just about as many verses, some quite piquant, as, " They comb their locks and brush their boots, And think the girls admire their looks. But if they knew how we do hate 'em They'd use less blackball and pomatum. " Closing with the two eulogistic lines, " Nothing from nothing there remains Nothing but empty heads without the brains. " These verses are probably the highest poetic fiight that the school boys and girls on " Flat Mountain " ever attempted. I wish they could now be looked up as relics of a former generation arid a specimen of their rustic muse Tradition has it that the only contribution that the teacher made to these verses was the first word, " Alas !" I have a vague impression that our house was the headquarters of the committee of girls who put the finishing touches to the ansiver. These things may seem insignificant, but they loomed up in large proportions in the winter of 1817. Following the stream of time we come to the winter when Reuben Kidder Gould kept our school. He was a New Ipswich man and a very clever teacher. The last time I was in my native town, I read this inscription on the headstone of one of the graves, " Reuben K. Gould, died Dec. 19, 1870, aged 75 years and 7 months." I am probably the only one living who remembers him as a school teacher. He was a quiet PROCEEDINGS. 67 farmer, never obtruding himself on public notice, never ambitious of show or heaping up riches, simple in his manners and contented with his lot. He pursued the even tenor of his way till the Old Man with his sharp SO) the mowed him down. I think he had no wife or children to shed tears over his grave. In our summer and winter schools we went over about the same course of studies, spelling, reading, writing, "ciphering," geography and grammar. In the summer the two latter studies were often omitted on account of the youth of the pupils. We used Adams' arithmetic. Every winter we began at the beginning, " Addition," and advanced as far as possible, each succeeding winter finding us a little farther than the winter before. The "Rule of Three" was always exceedingly puzzling. If we could state the "sum" aright, i. a , if we could get the first and second and third terms in their proper places, the rest was easy. We knew that by multiplying the second and third together and dividing by the first we should get the right amount. But to divine which was the first term, which the second and which the third exceeded our wits. There being but six possible arrangements of these numbers, one must be right. Sometimes the answer would come at the first trial, sometimes at the sixth. As there were no vulgar fractions in the first edition of this work, one element confusing to weak brains was eliminated. We had to deal only with decimal fractions. It would have been considered a feat of great mental dexterity to tell the sum of ^, ^ and ^ ; probably the brightest boy in school could not have done it. When I graduated from the common school, " Colburn's Mental Arithmetic" was published. This was a great improvement on all treatises of arithmetic. The books used for reading in the schools seventy years ago were "Webster's Spelling Book," "The Art of Reading," and "The Colum- bian Orator." There was a sprightly little piece beginning: " You'd scarce expect one of my age, To speak in public on the stage," which was first published in the " Columbian Orator." It was written by David Everett, who taught the grammar school in New Ipswich in 1790, for a bright little fellow of seven years to speak at an exhibition of his school. This little fellow was the son of the minister of New Ipswich, Rev. Stephen Farrar. His name was Ephraim H. Farrar. At the centennial of the settlement of New Ipswich, in 1850, this same youth, now an old man, stood gravely up before the multitude assembled 68 PROCEEDINGS. on that occasion, and in a weak and broken voice, repeated once again after an interval of sixty years, the first two lines, " You'd scarce expect one of my age, To speak in public on the stage." His manner and tone excited a hearty burst of laughter in the audi- ence, a few of whom had heard him in his first delivery. As published in the "Columbian Orator," which was printed in Massachusetts, two lines were altered. " Mayn't Massachusetts boast as great As any other sister state ? " were originally written, " Mayn't New Hampshire boast as great As any other Federal state ? " The " Art of Reading" I do not remember very much about. It ceased to be used at an early date. " Scott's Lessons," according to my best recollections, began to be used about 1815 or 1816. It was a book of rather formidable size. Neither the print nor the paper would be con- sidered suitable to put into the hands of children of the present time. The matter was of a high character and well selected. There were sev- eral dialogues in it, which were rendered with spirit at some of our school exhibitions. Webster's Spelling Book was a rare book, giving the various sounds of the letters, explaining the uses of punctuation marks, and containing several wood cuts to illustrate some of the more instructive lessons — for instance, "The boy on the apple tree stealing apples," "The farmer and the judge," "The swallow offering to drive away the swarm of flies from the fox," "The milk-maid spilling the milk," "The old cat hanging from a hook." The story of the boy stealing apples ran thus: An old man found a rude boy upon one of his trees stealing apples and desired him to come down. But the young sauce-box told him plainly he would not. " Won't you ?" said the old man, " Then I will fetch you down." So he pulled up some tufts of grass and threw at him. This only made the youngster laugh. " Well ! well ! " said the old man, " If neither words nor grass will do, I will try what virtue there is in stones." The old man pelted him with stones and he soon came down and asked his pardon. The moral of the story was formerly written at the close. PROCEEDINGS. 69 That old spelling book was the foundation upon which the slender fabric of my knowledge was built. I bestowed hours upon it. " See how the mower swings his scythe," "The first of April's dawning ray is little Lydia's natal day," " When Jack got up and put on his clothes, he thought if he could get to the wood he should feel quite well, for he thought more of a bird's nest than his book." These and like sentiments from the book flit over my memory like dreams. They come back again and again till sometimes it almost seems that I am again back in the little bright school-house, sixteen feet square, with its four glass windows, while in the west side stands the wide yawn- ing fireplace, in summer filled with green hemlock and spruce boughs, in winter full of wood, with the great blaze roaring up the chimney, and here sit around me the companions of my youth, Fanny Batchelder, Eliza Blodgett, my sister Mary, my cousin Eliza Jaquith, Alfreda Thompson, John B. Wilder, Calvin Wilder, Ann E. Wetherbee, Josiah Wilder, Joseph B. Walton, Lyman Spears, Betsy Spears, Polly Batchelder, Nathan Perry, Hermon Brown, Lebanon Brown, Polly Blodget, and many others whose faces I can recall as they looked sixty, seventy, eighty years ago. Nearly all have passed away except Ann E. Wetherbee and myself, gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns. Perchance some of their descendants here to-day will recognize their names. But I am making my letter too long for your time and patience. As I lie here on my bed I think of the olden times, and it would be no difficult task to go on with my history and tell of manhood and age, with their many A'icissitudes, but it would be only an old man's babbling, and I forbear. My school days will be interesting as showing to the younger genera- tion the many changes, improvements since the early days of the century. Hoping that your celebration will be a very pleasant occasion, I remain, Sincerely yours, John S. Bkown. Zumbrota, Minn., Aug. 22, 1900. Celebration Committee, Dear Sirs: — Your welcome letter of the 16th was duly received. I should enjoy it very much if I were able to attend the celebration. But I cannot. The extreme heat we are having this month nearly prostrates me. I have been gaining in strength so that I am able to walk down into 70 PROCEEDINGS. Main street (our principal business street) one block away. I also do some light work in the garden. I work early in the morning, and in the cool of the day in the evening. Will you please send me a copy of the poem by Timothy Perry ? I hope to see a full account of the celebration. James Farwell starts to-day to attend it. Please give my kindest regards to Mrs. C. F. Jones and Mrs. A. C. Shepley, schoolmates of mine ; it is a long time since we attended school together, in the old brick school-house, — also my sisters Abby and Lucy, Mary Jane Lovett and others. Those were pleas- ant times and I like to recall them. Yours very truly, I. C. Stearns. 218 Park Street, West Roxbury, Boston, Aug. 20, 1900, Celebration Committee, Dear Sirs : — In responding to your kind invitation respecting the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the organization of our town, I am forced to reply, as to several previous requests, that arrangements formed before I was aware of the proposed celebration render it impracticable for me to be present. It would indeed afford me much pleasure to participate in the exer- cises of an occasion which draws together the friends of New Ipswich for a review of years and events that are gone. Our town has a history her sons do well not to forget. Those who have known the place during the last two or three decades only, are liable not to realize what breadth and potency of influence she has gained for herself during the three half-centuries of her life. Her religious teachers have been in every continent, and in numer- ous and widely scattered portions of our own land. With possibly a single exception the old church on the hill has, probably, sent into the world more missionaries, ministers, and ministers' wives than any other church or town in New Hampshire. Her jurists, educators and artists have attained more than national distinction. Her lawyers, physicians and musicians have been, and are, among the most eminent in their pro- fessions. It is no wonder her sons turn fondly to her, and take pride in their ancestral legacy. A town with such a history holds in that history an inspiring stim- PROCEEDINGS. 71 ulus for the future. The foundations already laid should be prophetic of what the superstructure is to be. Let this single thought be my contribution to your celebration — New Ipswich: Her noble past will be congruous only with a future strongly marked by piety, together with strength and loftiness in social and educa- tional endeavor. Sincerely yours, Perley B. Davis. Thousand Island Park, N. Y., Aug. 20, 1900. Timothy Perry, Esq , Brooklyn, N. Y. My Dear Mr. Perry : — Your letter reminding me of the approach- ing celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of New Ipswich and urging my attendance has been forwarded to me from New York. I am spending the month of August in the ozonic atmosphere of this charming portion of the St Lawrence river, with the family of my daughter, Mrs. Henry Hale, seeking much needed rest and mental recuperation. Were present circumstances and conditions other and less imperative than they are, Mrs. Lawrence and myself could not well stay away from this gathering of former residents of the old town. But, as it is, I must ask you to present our greetings to old friends who may be present. Except when riding through the town in 1839, a passenger in the now historic six-horse stage coach then running to Keene, on my way to Dartmouth college, a youth of sixteen, I first knew New Ipswich in the summer of 1844, when, at the call of the trustees of the then New Ips- wich academy, I came to the town to re-open the old school which had been for some time closed. The trustees were, as I recall them, Mr. Farrar, Esquire Preston, Mr. Joseph Barrett, Rev. Samuel Lee, Mr. John- son, and Mr. Thayer — all long since passed away. The resuscitated academy came to have an attendance of 125 stu- dents in the fall terms, coming from New Ipswich and neighboring and more distant towns, an interesting and earnest class of young people, of ages from 15 to 20 and even 25 years. Many memories of my associa- tion with these students during the next seven years crowd my mind. Among these is your connection with the instruction of the school as assist- ant pupil, and your brother Chauncey's presiding as judge in a moot court held one evening by the literary society of the academy, precursor of his subsequent incumbency as judge in the courts of the city of Brooklyn. I see, too, coming to me with his father one Monday morning, a young lad, to begin his academic studies — his name now long familiar as 72 PROCEEDINGS. that of the head of one of the leading preparatory schools of the century —Cecil F. P. Bancroft. And Moses T. Runnells, recalling a Sunday noon walk and talk, and Perley B. Davis, preachers ; Mary Jane Craigin, William A. Preston, and Martin Fisk, teachers ; and a host of others. How I would like to see them all : though many of them have passed over to the other side. In 1851, I resigned the principalship of the academy. I continued educational work and superintendence elsewhere, till the beginning, some thirty years ago, of my membership of the educational publishing house in New York city in which I now am. It was while I was in New Ipswich that I married, as you know, a daughter of the town, Johanna P. Thayer. Our happy married life has rounded out a half century — July 26th last being our golden anniver- sary wedding day. One of our two daughters survives ; also nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. I much regret that I cannot on next Tuesday be with you and look into the faces and shake the hands, for a personal greeting, of pupils and old friends who may be in attendance at the reunion. Thanking you in advance for such kind service as you may render me in the transmission of these greetings, I am always, Very sincerely yours, Edw^ard a. Lawrence. University Publishing Co., 43-47 East 10th St., New York. At home, 144 Cleveland St., Orange, N. J. Nashua, N. H., Aug. 20, 1900. Celebkation Committee, Dear Sirs : — I am in receipt of your kind invitation to attend the exercises of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of New Ipswich, and regret very much that circumstances beyond my control will prevent my accepting it, as I know it will be a most enjoyable occasion. But unfortunately for me, the regular session of the probate court at Nashua occurs on the same date, and, alas ! I have not the power of being in two places at the same time. Please accept my regrets and allow me to express the hope that the weather may be auspicious, and that the exercises and ceremonies attend- ant upon the occasion may pass off" in the most satisfactory manner, and in a way to reflect honor and credit upon the grand record of your old and historic township. Very truly yours, E. E. Parkek. PROCEEDINGS. 73 REMARKS BY J. L. HILDRETH, M. D., CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Ladies and Gentlemen : — Doubtless all of us, after our hearty en- joyment of this, the old town's Thanksgiving dinner, will agree with Owen Meredith, who said: " We may live without poetry, music and art: We may live without conscience, and live without heart: We may live without friends : we may live without books : But civilized man cannot live without cooks. ^ He may live without books,— what is knowledge but grieving ? He may live without hope,— what Is hope but deceiving ? He may live without love,— what Is passion but pining ? But where is the man who can live without dining ? " What is true of the civilized man in general is peculiarly true of the American. Not only can he not live without dining, but he cannot live long without dining with somebody. If he is to listen to politics, or busi- ness, or social questions, he can do it best with his legs under a table, after he has enjoyed the good things which were spread upon it. So, if any explanation is needed of the performance we have just been through, there are two : the first is that it is an American custom : the second is that we were very hungry. It would be pleasant, meeting now as we do in these closer and less formal relations, to supplement the facts of history which have been called to our minds by the orator of the day with personal reminiscences of the men and women who have been identified with the town. Fifty years ago, the committee first appointed to make the arrange- ments for the celebration were : — George Barrett, John Preston, Joseph Barrett, Supply Wilson, Francis Prichard, Jeremiah Smith, Isaac C. Stearns, William Johnson, Stephen Thayer, Samuel Lee, and Thomas Cochran. There was a corresponding committee at Boston consisting of: — Hon. Timothy Farrar, N. D. Gould, Samuel Bachelder and Frederic Kidder. Later many more were added to this committee. As far as I can learn, only three of this long committee are now living, — Mr. Charles Wheeler, Isaac C. Stearns, and Roby Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher, who is in his ninety-eighth year, is still young in spirit, and we regret exceedingly his inability to be with us to-day. It is pleasant to remark that the two who prepared the dinner fifty years ago, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Greenman, are still with us. Mr. Mur- phy is sitting near me; Mr. Greenman did not feel equal to coming. When I pressed him to accept the cordial invitation of the committee, he made this characteristic reply, "I was born too early for this occasion." 74 ' PROCEEDINGS. Another interesting fact about the dinner which was served fifty years ago, although it occurred before the temperance movement had made much headway, and at which one thousand and twenty-six sat down, it was distinguished for the absence of all intoxicants. Several are to speak to you this afternoon, and I know they will have much to say that will interest you. There is so much that can be said about this good old town — about its beautiful hills and valleys : its trees, and brooks, and green meadows ; the sturdy men and women who have gone forth from its borders ; its academy with its remarkable history, dear to us all. These and many other things I leave to them. Let me close by appropriating for New Ipswich the words spoken more than fifty years ago, on an occasion like this at Pittsfield, Massa- chusetts, by Ur. Holmes : " Come back to your mother, ye children, for sharae, Who have wandered like truants, for riches or fame. With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. " At our centennial celebration, September 11, 1850, after the first toast, " The day we celebrate, " had been read, the president of the day said, " Some fifty years ago, there was a showy muster of the military in this town, and a march was composed called " Ipswich Muster, " and we proposed it should be revived for this occasion. " It was accordingly played by the band. It seems especially appropriate that you should listen to it to-day. As far as I can learn, no other governor with his military family has ever visited this town in his official capacity. We feel highly honored by his presence here to-day. He comes fresh from the celebrations of "Old Home Week," which he so happily conceived and successfully inaugurated. When I called upon him and supplemented your com- mittee's invitation, he said, in somewhat of a serious way, that I must not expect him to say much. Now that is the usual reply of after-dinner speakers, and you must not be misled by it. I shall be much surprised if he does not have his pockets full of interesting sayings, and that he will be very generous with them before he gets through. I take great pleasure in presenting His Excellency, Governor Rollins. RESPONSE OF GOV. FRANK W. ROLLINS. Felloiv Citizens: — In the speeches which I have made during Old Home Week I have tried to embody practical and helpful suggestions to PROCEEDINGS. 75 the people of New Hampshire. I have tried to avoid any attempt at oratory or bombast ; and what I purpose to say to you to-day will be a continuance in this line. I have adopted for my subject to-day "The Home," which is, as has been often said, "the backbone of our rej)ublic"; and anything which we can do to beautify and build up the home and make it attractive to our children and a place to be remembered, is a ben- efit not only to the family but to the state and nation. I am going to imagine myself looking about for a country home. This is what I would do. The first question would be as to location, and I would select it near some lake, pond or river. No country home is com- plete without a bit of water in the neighborhood. The child who grows up without it has one side of his nature undeveloped. It must also be in a rolling country, not flat. It must have a high hill or mountain in the background, for its mental and moral effect. I would not want to live where I could look out over all the world and look doivn upon everything. You must have something to look up to, something to measure things by, a standard as it were, — you must have something to hide the beyond, to introduce an element of doubt and mystery in the mind. We always want to know what the future has in store, what is just behind, beyond the hill ; and this is especially true of children. To them the hill or mountain covers the mysteries of the wide world, it typifies the veil which hides their mature life, and it is the Rubicon which they expect to cross when they leave their father's house and plunge into the thick of the bat- tle of life. My home must be in a wooded country with frequent patches and belts of forest, and by forest I mean the soft woods. Somehow or other the hard woods never seem to me to be natural or to constitute a forest They always seem to have been planted by man and to be for utilitarian purposes. Not that there are not beautiful hard woods, but they do not appeal to me in the mass as do the pine, the fir, the spruce and the hemlock. Now, having made a selection of a location, let us see about the house. It must set well back from the street. In other words, there must be a goodly piece of land, and I would go where land was cheap enough to have a good-sized lot, even if I had to go farther into the country and sacrifice some other things. The house must be simple in its architecture, having few and strong lines, and not a jumble of roofs, breaks and corners. If the house were in a considerable village or town I would follow somewhat the lines of the old Portsmouth houses ; but if it were to be in the open country or on a village street, I would get it more on 76 PROCEEDINGS. the ground, spread it out, get it closer to the earth. I would build a hip or gambrel roof, or a flat one, like the Portsmouth houses, and 1 would have wide, hospitable-looking doors. I would be very generous with my piazzas but very careful as to where I put them. They must not inter- fere with the scheme of the building, nor shut off light from the interior, for piazzas are really no part of a house. They are merely an excrescence tucked on for our convenience. I much prefer open piazzas, or terraces, preferably terraces, around the house. Of course they are not suitable for bad weather and they do not keep off the sun ; but they are delightful at evening, and give to the house an appearance of solidity, — an open air piazza gives the house a special dignity. Such terraces should generally be made of brick, or have a brick or stone wall around them, and perhaps surrounded by a hedge or climbing vines. And, speaking of vines, I do not think that we Amer- icans fully appreciate their value, especially here in New England. The English people use them to a great extent, and they add much of beauty and interest to the community. It is not difficult or expensive to plant vines along our walls and fences and against our houses, and in a few years the results obtained are magical. One of the best vines for this pur- pose is the English ivy, which is a very hardy plant. The woodbine is common in New England, and lends itself readily to such purposes. The Virginia creeper also is well suited to stone work. I myself have a great partiality for climbing roses, and I especially like to see a wild riot of them sweeping up over the front door, all around the front porch or stoop. As I have said before, I would put the house well back from the street, and I would pay a good deal of attention to the road, or pathway, by which the house is approached, giving it graceful curves, making if possible a vista of trees or shrubs through which glimpses of the house could be seen, providing, of course, that the lot was large enough for such purpose. I would like to say a few words on the subject of trees. Nothing is so beautiful in nature to me as a grand and stately tree. My favorite tree is our American elm, with its strong, dignified trunk, its wide- spreading, noble top. It is hardy, bold and self-reliant, well suited to our climate and our scenery ; and whether they border the village street or dot the meadow they are equally beautiful. The next tree which I favor is our sugar maple. Shapely, rapid-growing, magnificent in its foliage, it seems to thrive best in New England and in the middle states. The Norway maple is also well suited for our purposes. A group of PROCEEDINGS. 77 sugar maples upon a lawn is particularly charming. If one wishes to see the elm and the maple in their most attractive and beautiful shape and grouping, he has onl}' to come to my native city of Concord, where these noble trees arch over our roadways, forming long vistas of shade, reminding one of some gothic cathedral. I should like very much to see a more common use made of the tulip tree, which is well suited to our climate and is rapid-growing. I think the magnolia might also be used more generally in New Hampsliire, and I am very partial to the old Lombardy poplar, with its slender, graceful, spire-like form pointing heavenward. A row of these at the rear of a lot is very eftective against the sky-line. Fine effects can be produced by the use of many of our fruit trees, such as the apple, the peach, and the cherry, particularly in the spring when they are in bloom. We have not given enough atten- tion to the white birch, the " lady of the woods, " so-called. It is one of the most beautiful trees for a lawn imaginable, particularly when you can put it against a background of some dark green trees or shrubs. A cluster of these white birches produces a fine effect. I came very near forgetting my old and dear friend, the lilac. I get more real satisfaction out of an old purple lilac in the early summer than out of any other of our small trees or shrubs. There is something strengthening and invig- orating about the odor of the lilac, and something that carries you back to your boyhood. I should be very careful as to the color of the paint on my house. I should either stain it some soft dark color, somewhat on the reds or browns, or a cool gray ; or else I should boldly adopt the old red paint, of course with white trimmings, which you see occasionally upon one of our old farmhouses or a schoolhouse. I think a good deal is to be said in favor of a white house with green blinds, so peculiar to New England. It looks very attractive and cool among the deep greens of the country ; and if one is in doubt what color to use it is always safe, and is next to the dark red the most lasting and enduring paint one can put on. Vines and climbing roses are beautifully set off against a white house. The sit- uation and surroundings of the house have much to do, of course, with the color of the paint. It has become quite the custom to do away entirely with fences; and in many of our suburban cities and small towns fences are now unknown. The primary object of the fence was to mark division lines and to keep out stray animals ; but now that cows are always enclosed and not allowed to wander about, the object of the fence is largely done away with. I 78 PROCEEDINGS. am going, however, to advocate the return, not to a fence, but to some kind of a divisional line or separation of place and lots, not for the pur- pose of marking divisions, not to keep out cows, and not because I believe in being exclusive, but I do believe that every man is entitled to a little privac)' on his own place. I think he wants to be able to wander about and pick his flowers, and sit out on his lawn without being subjected to the inspection of the whole world. In other words, a little privacy is a good thing for everybody, and we are largely doing away with it in our good democratic country. There is a sameness about the uninterrupted stretch of lawn with here and there a house set down upon it, very tiring to the eye. It is human nature to desire to see things which are half hidden. The English people are very fond of their homes and of their privacy. They surround their places, no matter how small, with a wall which it is difficult to look over. I do not know that I am in favor of carrying it so far as the English do, but I certainly favor a modified form. This wall is built of stone with a fence covered with vines on top of it, or else it is built of brick. Frequently it is simply a high hedge, which, of course, answers the same purpose, and is, perhaps, more beautiful. I should advocate a more general use of these hedges, walls and evergreen screens. They serve another purpose besides that of privacy, — they form an eff"ective background against which to train shrubs and trees, and along which to plant flower gardens, and are the greatest addition to the land- scape. W-alls are worth having for their own intrinsic beauty, and not simply because they shut off" one's place from the public ga/e. A very pretty effect can also be obtained by wire lattice- work, covered with vines. " A fruit tree in bloom, just showing over the top of the garden wall, the breath of the lilac wafted from behind the hedge, or a short vista through the garden gate of a winding path and thick brick walls against which a row of hollyhocks are peacefully blooming, make an exquisite picture." I would lay out somewhere at the rear of the place, and shut off from the public view by a hedge or a wall where it is absolutely secluded and quiet and peaceful, an old-fashioned garden, with gravel paths, and either a box border or a turf border around the beds. What could be more restful and more peaceful than one of those old colonial gardens way back behind one of our old New England homes ? I would have it, if possible, sunk a little below the general level of the surrounding ground, or else I would have it on a terrace, with hedges or currant bushes about it. Perhaps at the corners I would have some modest-sized tree ; and I would have seats, or a summer-house where one could rest and enjoy the PROCEEDINGS. 79 odor of the flowers. A beautiful place for a garden is along the edge of a piece of woods, if such a place is obtainable, and of course if it is possible to get it near a running brook, and throw a rustic bridge into the picture, it is ideal. I would plant my garden with phlox, hollyhocks, larkspurs, roses, sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, and I would not forget the nasturtiums, asters, pinks, forget-me-nots, and pansies. I would have great beds of begonias, petunias, mignonette, and poppies ; and I would especially have a bed of spearmint, and some of the other old-fashioned herbs. This garden is, of course, the particular province of the house- wife ; but it is a splendid place to which a busy, careworn man may retire, and it is a particularly delightful place in which to bring up chil- dren. The odor of those flowers will last through a lifetime, and is never forgotten. In planning my home I would have the children in mind. The flower garden would be partially for them, and of course there should be a vegetable garden, where they could dig and hoe and plant. I should put up a martin-house, and try to tempt those beautiful warblers to make their home with me. I should also put dove-cotes in the barn ; and it is a splendid idea to try to interest the children in bees, and all sorts of birds and animals. It teaches them to be kind, careful and attentive, and forms the habit of observation. Perhaps I have said enough on the subject of what I would do if I were to build an ideal home. I might go on and amplify it indeflnitely, and others could make suggestions of great value. Of course each one has his own idea of what a home should be; but I am sure many of these suggestions will appeal to you all. Just one or two points more and I am done. I feel that our New England towns and villages might be made very much more attractive and furnish pleasure and amusement to their own people and to the "stranger within their gates" if they would pay more attention to the beauty spots which are about them, frequently un- known and uncared for. There is hardly a New England town or village or city which is not surrounded by, or has not in its neighborhood, little patches of forest, little strips of park-like country, or some eminence or cliff" from which a grand view could be obtained, or some pond or lake attractive to the eye. My plan is to lay out winding paths to these places. They are frequently unknown and inaccessible. It costs scarcely anything to mark and lay out such paths : it costs nothing to keep them in repair ; and if the entrances to them were marked in some way, and what is to be seen at the end of them was pointed out, thousands would 80 PROCEEDINGS. be tempted and drawn into these woodland recesses, and would be bene- fitted and uplifted, not only by the physical exercise obtained, but by that better hopefulness of life which is inspired by close communion with nature. We should do all we can to tempt people into the woods and fields, and to get them out of themselves and away from the cares and troubles and worries of every-day life. If we can do more of this we shall reduce the population of our asylums and sanitariums. People in the country have a mistaken notion that they must cut away the rough-growing trees and shrubs along the roadside; that the road is better cleared up in this way. They are probably unaware that our large cities are trying in their parks to produce just this effect of wild- ness and roughness by planting these bushes that the country people are destroying. Nothing adds so much to the beauty of the road as these green walls of rough, variegated bushes and plants. They should be cut just far enough to leave the road-bed and a gutter for proper drainage, otherwise leave them intact, except here and there where you want to make a vista or a view. The ideal road would be, first, a patch of forest, then a wild tangle of roadside growth, then an open piece of field or meadow land, then the crossing of a brook, or the skirting of a pond, thus giving variety of scenery and forming a restful change to the eye. The people of every town should be banded together to do away with roadside advertising. An effort should be made to prohibit it through the legislature. These great advertisements of sarsaparilla, or somebody's cherry pectoral, that stare you in the face from every barn and fence and which disfigure every rock, are an outrage and reproach. It is simply our good nature that permits it. The few dollars which the farmer gets for allowing such advertisements on his buildings are more than counterbalanced by injury to the landscape, which is after all a more valuable asset to him than the small amount he gets from the adver- tisement. If the people of a town choose to do it they could make it exceedingly unpleasant for any man who comes to decorate their fences and buildings in this manner. I would make the air very uncongenial, and I believe that a determined eff"ort ought to be started, not only to prevent the further disfigurement of our state, but to remove those adver- tisements which are already in existence. I fear that I have overstepped the bounds in this rambling speech; but it may possibly give some suggestion to those in search of a home, or it may be of some slight value to those who have homes in which there are possibilities for change and improvement. If any suggestion of mine shall be of benefit to our people, or our state, I shall be amply satisfied. PROCEEDINGS. 81 I thank you all for the very generous reception which you have given me, and I wish to here testify to the abundant hospitality with which I have always been treated by the people of the state of New Hampshire. The president of the day next introduced John Herbert, Ksq., who said in part : REMARKS OF JOHN HERBERT, ESQ. After-dinner speeches seem to be necessary to complete the order of exercises on such an occasion as this; but for myself, after partaking of the good things which have been spread before us, I feel somewhat like the man who said that he couldn't get access to his intellect: and I sym- pathize with the second class of men described by the colored brother in his account of creation. He said that God took some clay and formed the bodies of men and laid them up against the fence to dry. Then he breathed upon them and they moved their eyes a little and showed some signs of life. Then he took off the tops of the heads of some and })ut in brains, and they started off ready for the duties of life. The others, see- ing them start, followed. Hence we have scattered about the world descendants of this latter class. But I wish to assure you that none were allowed to leave Appleton academy until their brains had been put in and well developed. A saint of the middle ages u.sed to say that there are four classes who seek education : First, those who seek it for curiosity; second, those who seek it so that they may be known as wise ; third, those who seek it for the money they can gain ; fourth, those who seek it for the good which they can do. At Appleton academy, during my term at least, the stu- dents were taught that the last should be their purpose, and that by kind- ness, sympathy and other aid they should endeavor to make the world better and happier. They were also taught that they should not regard their daily avocations as simply a means of getting a living, but rather as their chosen field in which to serve their fellow-men, and thus learn to truly and happily live while getting a living. Here also the boys and girls were educated together. Some believe that God created the earth and rested. Then he created man and rested. Then he created woman, and since then neither God nor man has had any rest. Those who advocate the education of young men by themselves do so, I presume, because they wish to secure for them their much needed rest. * * * I have heard that some men were born tired and sym- 6 82 PROCEEDINGS. pathize with the Yale student who came to the conclusion that it wasn't healthy to study between meals. But if it be true that man has not had rest since the creation of women, it is because women are not satisfied to see their loved ones live upon a lower plane of motive, thought or action than that of which they are capable. We believe that " The manly and the maiden mind Together grow more bright, refined." At old Appleton, also, the boys and girls had an opportunity to learn each other's character and disposition, and thereby they were enabled to select congenial companions for life, and the man or the woman who seeks alone to rise to the highest and the best attainable is like the bird that tries to soar heavenward with one wing. They must live and work together if they would know the truest and happiest life. True, indeed, it is that "All who joy would win Must share it— happiness was born a twin." While the valedictorians of the classes were usually the young ladies, I am quite sure that during my administration they were not imbued with the spirit manifested by the educated young lady who was once asked if she would marry a man inferior to her, and she replied, " I sup- pose I shall be obliged to if I marry at all." But from Appleton acad- emy many young men and young ladies have gone forth two by two in heart, and later they have been united in the happy bond of matrimony; and the principles which here they learned became a part of their very nerve and life-blood and were thence transmitted to their offspring, so that the seed which has been sown in this educational garden has sprung up and sent forth many a bud and blossom to cheer, adorn and enrich that dearest place on earth — home, sweet home. The president next called upon the orator of the day, remarking upon his own knowledge of him when they were boys together, and re- ferring in a humorous way to his varied lines of early activity, including among them the occasional production of poetry. Mr. Chandler responded : REMARKS OF PROF. CHARLES H. CHANDLER. Mr. President: — I find it necessary to plead guilty to the charge of having issued certain crude rhymes with vain attempt to make them pass as lawful poetry, since my principal accomplice in that and other irregu- larities of former days has turned state's evidence. PROCEEDINGS. 83 But still, sir, I suppose that I must yield as complete a recognition of your authority as that which was yielded by a discreet young man bearing the unusual name of Jones, to a formal call issued in that part of our country which on account of its political aspirations is sometimes termed the " United States of Ohio." A leading lawyer of one of the cities of that state had an attractive daughter, especially attractive in fact to Mr. Jones, and also a younger son who frequently accompanied his father to court, and so became somewhat familiar with legal forms. It chanced one day that the young lady saw Mr. Jones passing her father's residence, and wishing to speak to him. said to her brother, " F'reddie, tell George to come in a minute." So Freddie stepped to the door and in resonant tones proclaimed, " George Henry Jones, George Henry Jones, George Henry Jones, come into court." I need not say that the legal summons was duly honored, although I believe that the court crier deemed it wise that he should become invisible. But now being called upon to add anything to my already too ex- tended contribution to the words of the day, I find my condition not un- like that of a certain Englishman who met with an unpleasant experience upon a railroad train in the newer regions of this country, and afterward related how a big, ugly looking revolver was thrust into his face with a demand from a fellow of equally unpleasant appearance, for his " money or brains," and " 'pon my word," declared the unfortunate victim, " I had nothing for him." One thing, however, does remain clearly in my con- sciousness, a real desire to urge a more enthusiastic and continuous appre- ciation of the line of thought which has so able an advocate in the gover- nor of the Granite State, and to advocate a true local loyalty, a condition as reasonable and as essential to the welfare of rural communities as an earnest orator once asserted a like feeling to be to the national welfare, when he said, " Patriotism is the back-bone of the British empire; and what we have to do is to nurse that back-bone and bring it to the front." The Civil war taught this land the lesson of the supremacy of the nation, sadly needed fifty years ago. But the glorious resultant broaden- ing of patriotism and the increased appreciation of the worth of distant sections of our country have often tended unduly to an unconscious exalta- tion of those sections, with an unfortunate undervaluing of the present conditions of ancestral homes. The recently awakened interest in gene- alogical study marks a reaction against the feeling formerly prevalent that such research is characteristic of snobs. It is a just reaction; for, if we are worthy of our ancestry, there is due a recognition of that which we have received by heredity. 84 PROCEEDINGS. Too often the unconscious bias extends to an approval of possibly un- desirable changes because of their novelty, as was shown by an Eastern boy's message from the West to his father remaining at home, suggested by the new experience of judicial elections by vote, in place of the appoint- ments of the ICast. "This is a great place, father," he wrote, "come out here and perhaps you will get to be a justice of the peace. They make justices of the peace out of dreadful mean men out here." Changes are not necessarily improvements. There is a place and a worthy place, for a fuller and a more comprehensive appreciation of the merits, of the strength, of the abiding power and usefulness of the old familiar New England virtues. There may be need of a due discretion and care lest the typical Yankee persistence come into evidence in support of local peculiarities hardly more weighty than moved a citizen of the New Ipswich of 1800, when an unfortunate difference of taste caused a disagreement between this member of one of the families no longer on our roll and his worthy wife, who chanced to prefer shelled green beans to those of the stringed variety, and declined to assent to her husband's views of the superior excellence of the last named article of food, even though, as entirely reliable tradition reports, he assured her with very emphatic allusion to her ignorance, that she was mistaken in believing that her preference was as she asserted, because, "everybody likes string beans best." That was not a type of true local loyalty. It is possible to recognize the excellencies of other homes than this, cordially to accept other customs, heartily to unite with other communities, while loyally and strenuously maintaining the reputation and memories of our early home with an enthusiasm which ought to be ever hereafter more pro- nounced and joyous because of the experiences and memories of this day. The Temple Quartette of Boston sang after Prof. Chandler's speech. The president of the day referred to a Boston merchant, whose patrons were reminded of their indebtedness by the receipt of his monthly statements, and then said, " I will introduce the Hon. R. H. Stearns." The venerable gentleman arose and said, "Mr. President, this intro- duction has been a first-class advertisement of my business, for which I thank you." He reverted in a fond vein of reminiscence to his youthful days passed here, while he resided in Davis Village and attended school * in that neighborhood. He mentioned his first visit to the circus, the boy's PROCEEDINGS. 85 delight and pleasure. Instead of possessing the characteristics of the Father of his Country, he said, " I could tell a lie, but wouldn't." Revisiting and reviewing the scenes of his boyhood days, he spoke of his first impressions of the district school, which was located near Davis Village, and most kindly mentioned one of his teachers, Miss Miranda Adams, who afterwards became Mrs. William D. Locke. His closing remarks embodied a gentle repartee to the medical fraternity. POEM BY MISS ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD OF BOSTON. Mrs. Hattie P. McKown read the following verses : Long years ago there lived a sage — I can't recall his name or age — Who said, "Now size, to my surprise, Of vahie is no gauge ; In packages exceeding small One has to look for nearly all The priceless things that Fortune brings On this terrestrial hall." The sage returned, as sages must In time, like all of us, to dust ; But his remark, a living spark, Remained to be discussed. And all who've gathered here must see The sage's wisdom, and agree His words, though few, were very true, And should immortal be. Upon the map this little town Seems scarcely worth the putting down ; Its tiny space might hold a place Of very slight renown ; And yet its fame has spread afar ; The natives down in Zanzibar For all we know, may try to show Their children where we are. Whene'er you see a model man. Who's built on Nature's noblest plan. You'll lind he claims New Ipswich names As many as he can. Perchance his uncle's grandma went To school here — or his cousin spent With distant kin, a summer in Our village, well content. We try our modesty to keep. And lull our righteous pride to sleep. While feeling still a pleasant thrill Of conscious worth, down deep. 86 PROCEEDINGS. Singers have sung, musicians played As children lie re ; and some are laid To rest at last, life's music past. Beneath our sun and shade. The old academy has trained Some minds that aren't to he disdained, Whose native wit has made them fit For eminence attained. Our district schools have sent away The children, far and near to stray ; Science and Art have had their part In all the after-play. Both law and letters have their share ; Ask a lu'ight light in either, where He learned to read ; his answer heed. And note it down with care. And medicine her portion took From those who here were brought to book, Willing or not-- and sometimes got Their tasks by hook or crook. Theology both broad and sound, Culture and wisdom most profound. With us began their course, and ran For many miles around. And though as yet, no President Directly from us has been sent, Our influence has been immense. And freely has been lent. Our 'scutcheon is without a blot, We hold a highly favored spot. Our air is pure, our quiet sure, And though it is our lot To see our sons and daughters go, An explanation we can show : 'Tis only they who go away Who can come back, we know! John Preston was introduced and responded: REMARKS OF JOHN PRESTON. We have gathered to-day to set the third golden milestone in our town's history. It is unnecessary for me to recall to your minds the names inscribed on the first post, for the blood of those brave, earnest pioneers runs through your veins ; and their memory is still as green as is the laurel on their native hills. Nor must I read the roll of their grandchildren, whose names are written on the second milestone. They are the names of your fathers and your mothers, whose thrift and energy have made our town PROCEEDINGS. 87 known from one end of the state to the other. New Hampshire was the clasp that bound the states into a union ; and our honored Timotliy Karrar was a strong factor in bringing about the action of our state. The New Ipswich company stood its ground at the rail fence during the battle of Bunker Hill, and four flags in one family lot in our church- yard show that New Ipswich courage had not abated as late as 1860. As it was the boast of an old German city that Nuremburg's hand reached through all. the world, so New Ipswich, too, can look with pride to her boys scattered over the world, successful as merchants, artists, clergymen and lawyers, and, like the Roman Cornelia, exclaim, "These are my jewels." " Not wholly in the busy world nor quite beyond it lies this garden that we love." The hills embrace it as warmly as in the days of our youth. As we wander through the village streets and renew old friendships we thank God that we are once more at the Old Home. "Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, Nor the march of the encroaching city, Drives an exile From the liearth of his ancestral homestead. We may build more splendid habitations, Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, But we cannot Buv with srolil the old associations." REMARKS OF REV. CECIL F. P. BANCROFT, LL. P., OF ANUOVKR, MASS. Mr. Presidevt : — When you invited me to speak at this festival I answered that I would not, whereupon you wrote in reply thanking me for my prompt acceptance of your invitation and intimating that ten minutes was a proper time limit. After flatly refusing I am now really accepting. This shows that I am a good patient of yours and take my medicine like a little man. The chief reason why I declined to speak to-day was that on Sunday I had the honor to participate in the service at the church, and in my address there I spoke briefly of the work and worth of our forefathers, and the good repute of this town, — the birthplace and home of so many of us here assembled. My voice has also been heard this morning. But I cannot forbear to say a word of the beautiful family life, and what I conceive to have been the great hajipiness of our forefathers, whom we sometimes think of as so pressed by privations and hardships, and so ex- posed to peril and harrassed by fears that they had little comfort and joy. They came here, however, not to escape political oppression or religious 88 PROCEEDINGS. persecution, not as exiles or fugitives, not quite as adventurers like those who flocked to ('alifornia in 1847 and to Alaska in 1897, but it is fair to them to say that they came in order to better their condition. The spirit of thrift and of enterprise was in them, and I venture to say that they brought great contentment and happiness as well as great courage and fortitude with them. It is easy to represent their faith as narrow and their manners as uncouth and austere, to pity them for their occa- sional superstition and their habitual bigotry, but their convictions had both warmth and glow. If their theology was hard, their religion was tender. They had intense family aff'ection, friendly neighborly interests, a large public spirit, and they served God with thanksgiving and rejoicing as well as with penitence and j;odly fear. They did their rugged duty with an honest will, and I believe that they had in their successful strug- gle here a great tide of wholesome happiness. Civilization is not in goods, in luxuries, in superfluities, but in ideas, in moral worthiness, in right conduct. It is in character, organization, and outlook. These our fathers had, both in church and state, in public affairs and in happy homes. A man may wear tan shoes and part his hair in the middle, and be a barbarian. Our fathers did not have what we, largely through their efforts, now enjoy, but they had the empire of character, a wealth con- stituted of the satisfactions of a good conscience and a pure love. I quoted from St. Paul this morning the phrase, " whose are the fathers." The fathers are indeed ours. It is for us to be as strenuous, patriotic, sagacious, and devout as they, so that we may as confidently say that we are theirs. This concluded the exercises of the day. PROCEEDINGS. 89 CLOSING REMARKS. Several of the visitors, who were highly entertained during the celebration exercises, left substantial tokens of their interest in the welfare of this community as well as proofs of their appreciation of the efforts of the president of the board of trustees of the New Ipswich library, an institution that has done very much in the past decade to educate, enter- tain and develop the best thought in this community. The New Ips- wich library needs an endowment of at least $10,000. Then it would be placed upon a basis of strength fortified by annual dividends which would ensure its independence. The citizens have made noble appropria- tions at the annual town meetings for the purchase of books and the main- tenance of the library, and private subscriptions have also been donated by many interested persons. Hon. Isaac Spalding's gift of $10,000 to the public schools a few years ago, the annual income of which is to be devoted to their aid, was a most generous contribution to a most worthy object, and will perpetuate his memory as a philanthropist. Capt. Albert Stearns, superintendent of the Church & Co. soda works of Syracuse, N. Y., established a noble memorial of his munifi- cence when he presented the town with his check for $3,000, to estab- lish a perpetual fund, the income of which is to defray the expenses of maintaining annually a course of free non-sectarian lectures. The Congregational, Baptist and Methodist churches, and New Ipswich Appleton academy have in former years received worthy gifts from their admirers, and their records show the names of many benefac- tors, who were either natives of the town or became interested in its prosperity. 90 PROCEEDINGS. GOVERNOR'S RECEPTION. " Now as evening shadows gather, And we're called upon to part, May the warm hand-clasp be taken, Of the love heart bears to heart; Kindly wishes, thought or spoken. Drop as blessings or as balm, And the meni'ry of this season E'er be hallowed with a charm." The governor's reception, held in town hall Tuesday evening at eight o'clock, attracted a large number of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen. Gov. Rollins and his military staff stood in front of the plat- form, while J. L. Hildreth, M. D., presented each person to His Excel- lency as the ushers escorted them and announced their names. The hall was beautifully decorated and brilliant lights enhanced the general effect of the lavish display of bunting. After the reception a grand ball was held. The Worcester orchestra occupied the platform and discoursed pleasing strains of music. Gov. Rollins and Mrs. Hattie P. McKown led the opening march, and were followed by nearly one hundred couples. Edward O. Marshall, general director, in his usual courteous manner exerted himself to close the day's celebration to the gratification of all present. His aids were Fred Preston, Ralph E. Parker, Edward R. Wheeler and Charles A. Preston, who heartily co-operated with him. Musical selections were rendered during the evening by the Temple Quartette of Boston. During the entire evening a throng of people were entering and departing from the town hall, and the gay crowds on the streets temporarily gave the impression that the town was quite a populous center of beauty, wealth and enterprise. In one corner of the hall at the right of the stage special chairs were arranged for the use of His Excellency and friends, while the surround- ings were made attractive for the distinguished guest. The sight of the galaxy of beauty afforded to those in the gallery was entrancing, as the devotees of Terpsichore threaded the mazy dance PROCEEDINGS. 91 or assembled in animated groups and discussed the pleasures of the day. Old associations were cemented anew and the cordial grasp of the hand of friendship awakened new interest in the observance of such occasions. Persons were present from Mason, Greenville, Temple, l^ast Jaffrey, Lyndeboro, Wilton, Peterboro, Rindge, Hancock, Dublin, N. H., Ashby, Boston, Mass., New York, Minnesota, Illinois and other places. " Long, long be my heart with such memories filled ! Like the vase in which roses have once been tlistilled — You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."