F 74 
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 Copy 1 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 UPON THE CELEBRATION OF THE 
 
 OF THE ADOPTION BY THE 
 
 General Court of a Resolve vesting the 
 
 Inhabitants of Worcester with the 
 
 Powers and Privileges of other 
 
 Towns within the Province 
 
 Mechanics Hall, 
 Worcester, Massachusetts 
 Wednesday, June 14, 1922 
 
 CHARLES G. WASHBURN 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 UPON THE CELEBRATION OF THE 
 
 Ctoo ^unbretitlb ^nmber£iarp 
 
 OF THE ADOPTION BY THE 
 
 General Court of a Resolve vesting the 
 
 Inhabitants of Worcester with the 
 
 Powers and Privileges of other 
 
 Towns within the Province 
 
 Mechanics Hall, 
 Worcester, Massachusetts 
 Wednesday, June 14, 1922 
 
 CHARLES G. WASHBURN 
 
 THE DAVIS PRESS 
 
 WORCEBTEK, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 1922 
 
.Wo w? 
 
 V 
 
 ■ ■ ■ -•;:<rr's? O.'fics. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Men and Women of Worcester, sprung from 
 many races, in many of the older countries of the 
 world, north, south, east and west; inheritors of 
 many creeds and many traditions; now owing 
 allegiance to but one country — 
 
 The United States of America 
 
 and to but one flag — 
 
 The Stars and Stripes 
 
 We are met together upon a memorable occa- 
 sion and in a memorable place. The occasion 
 being the two hundredth anniversary of the vest- 
 ing of the inhabitants of Worcester with the powers 
 and privileges of other towns within the Province 
 and the place one in which our citizens have met, 
 often in times of rejoicing and often in times of 
 sorrow, for more than three score years. This 
 country is still young. Something less than two 
 years ago, we celebrated the three hundredth 
 anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at 
 Plymouth Rock — and three hundred years is a 
 very small space upon the pages, even of recorded 
 history. I remember visiting, some years ago, a 
 tomb in Egypt where the pigments seemed as 
 fresh as when they were appUed to its interior 
 decoration four thousand years ago. One may 
 now gaze with admiration upon the majestic 
 outlines of the Parthenon, which, had it not been 
 for the destructive hand of man, would to-day 
 
[4] 
 
 be as perfect as when it was fashioned by the 
 genius of Phidias more than two thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 Nearly seventeen hundred years of Enghsh 
 history had been written between the crossing 
 of the British Channel by Caesar and the sailing 
 of the Mayflower. During three hundred years 
 there has developed here the mightiest nation in 
 the world upon which, more than ever before, is 
 dependent the progress of mankind towards more 
 permanently stable conditions. I say this because 
 it is here that is being tried upon a vast scale the 
 workings of a representative, democratic govern- 
 ment, towards which system all the governments 
 of the earth must eventually tend, if progress 
 towards a higher civilization is made. 
 
 While it is with the history of our own com- 
 munity that we are most concerned this evening, 
 we are so closely related to state and nation, of 
 which we are an integral part, that some mention 
 of the development of each, during the past three 
 hundred years, may properly be made. I remem- 
 ber being present at a very interesting occasion 
 twenty-five years ago when the Bradford Manu- 
 script History was presented to the Governor of 
 the Conamonwealth, Roger Wolcott. This history 
 of the Plymouth Colony from its inception to the 
 year 1647, in the handwriting of Governor William 
 Bradford, had, in some mysterious way, fallen 
 into the custody of the Bishop of London. Largely 
 through the efforts of Senator Hoar and through 
 the good offices of our Ambassador of that day at 
 the Court of St. James, Mr. Bayard, the manu- 
 
[5] 
 
 script was returned to us and is now in the State 
 Library in Boston. The conversation between 
 Mr. Hoar and the Bishop is interesting. Said 
 Mr. Hoar, after looking at the volume and read- 
 ing the records on the flyleaf: 
 
 "My Lord, I am going to say something which 
 you may think rather audacious. I think this 
 book ought to go back to Massachusetts." 
 
 "Well," said the Bishop in reply, "I did not 
 know that you cared anything about it." 
 
 "Why," replied Mr. Hoar, "if there were in 
 existence in England a history of King Alfred's 
 reign for thirty years, written by his own hand, 
 it would not be more precious in the eyes of 
 Englishmen than this manuscript is to us." 
 
 This record should be of the profoundest inter- 
 est to every citizen in the United States, par- 
 ticularly to us of Massachusetts, presenting, as it 
 does, a picture of the abandonment, by the 
 Pilgrims, of their pleasant EngUsh homes; the 
 flight to Holland; the sojourn in Ley den; the 
 embarkation at Delfthaven; the voyage in the 
 Mayflower across the stormy seas of the Atlantic ; 
 and the landing at Plymouth Rock, of which 
 Senator Hoar said : 
 
 "There is nothing like it in human annals 
 since the story of Bethlehem." 
 
 After the first settlement of Worcester had 
 been broken up by the Indians in King Philip's 
 war, a meeting of those interested was held in 
 Cambridge on March 14, 1679, for the purpose of 
 considering the expediency of again settling the 
 town. As a result of this meeting, it was resolved 
 
[6] 
 
 'Ho settle the said plantation some time the next 
 summer come twelve months, which shall be in 
 the year of our Lord 1680." 
 
 The town was to be built to attain six ends, 
 which were enumerated, chief among them ''the 
 better convenity of attending God's worship" 
 and "the better education of their children," but 
 provision was also to be made "for the better 
 accommodation of trades people." 
 
 Nothing of a practical kind was done until the 
 General Court threatened to forfeit the grant 
 unless the settlement were made; accordingly an 
 agreement was entered into April 24, 1684, with 
 that end in view. It was voted that the plantation 
 be divided into 480 lots, three of these to be set 
 apart for the maintenance of a saw mill, and three 
 for a grist mill. To the builders and maintainers 
 of works promoting useful trades, and for a fulling 
 mill, when the place is capable thereof, six lots. 
 From 1686 until the fall of 1713, no record appears 
 of the transactions which took place in the settle- 
 ment and during much of that time the country 
 was exposed to the ravages of the Indians, and, 
 in consequence, the settlement was almost entirely 
 deserted. 
 
 The third attempt to effect a permanent settle- 
 ment was made in October, 1713, when Jonas Rice 
 came from Marlborough and built a log house on 
 Sagatabscot Hill, and by 1721 the population had 
 so increased that the freeholders and proprietors 
 petitioned the General Court for an act of incor- 
 poration in response to which the following resolu- 
 tion was passed on June 14, 1722: 
 
[7] 
 
 "Resolved, That the inhabitants of Worcester 
 be vested with the powers and privileges of other 
 towns within the Province, and that it be earnestly 
 recommended to that Council only of the seven 
 churches which did meet at Worcester in Septem- 
 ber, 1721, to whom the contending parties sub- 
 mitted their differences relating to the Rev. Mr. 
 Andrew Gardner, that the said Council proceed 
 and go to Worcester on or before the first Wednes- 
 day in September next, to finish what is further 
 necessary to be done for the procuring and estab- 
 lishing of peace in said town, according to the 
 submission of the parties; and that the Freeholders 
 and inhabitants of Worcester be assembled on the 
 last Wednesday in September next, at ten o'clock 
 in the forenoon, to choose all town officers as by 
 law accustomed for towns to do at their annual 
 meeting in March ; and that, at the opening of the 
 meeting, they first proceed to the choice of a 
 moderator by written votes." 
 
 It was not until after the adoption of the State 
 Constitution, in 1780, that the first act was passed 
 declaring towns within this government to be 
 bodies politic and corporate. 
 
 The first town meeting, called under the fore- 
 going resolve, was held September 28, 1722. The 
 necessary town officers were chosen, who entered 
 at once upon the discharge of their duties. It 
 should be remembered that the Province of 
 Massachusetts Bay was governed by the Charter 
 of William and Mary and had been since 1691, 
 when the Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New 
 England, and the Colony of New Plymouth in 
 
[8] 
 
 New England, together with the Province of 
 Maine and the territory called Arcadia or Nova 
 Scotia, were united under the name of the Province 
 of Massachusetts Bay in New England. 
 
 At the head of the government was the royal 
 Governor appointed by the King during his 
 pleasure. He had a full veto over legislation, was 
 the Captain General of the Militia, the Chief 
 Executive officer of the Province and the King's 
 personal representative. His Honor, the Lieuten- 
 ant Governor, also appointed by the King, suc- 
 ceeded to the functions, though not the title of 
 Governor, upon the latter's removal, absence or 
 death. The King reserved to himself admiralty 
 jurisdiction in order to enforce the commercial 
 acts of Parliament. Owing largely to the Gover- 
 nor's dependence for his salary on the House of 
 Representatives, the latter gradually acquired 
 control of the Province. By 1745 the royal Gover- 
 nor became little more than an administrative 
 figure dependent upon his personal influence for 
 what little power he was able to exert. 
 
 It is not surprising that the spirit of inde- 
 pendence should have grown strong between the 
 time of the first settlement in 1620 and the 
 Revolutionary War. The people of Plymouth 
 Colony were left pretty much to themselves until 
 1691, when, as we have seen, they were united 
 with the Colony of Massachusetts Bay by the 
 Charter of William and Mary. The people of 
 Massachusetts Bay were quite independent under 
 the charter granted by Charles I, in 1629, which 
 gave them extensive powers amounting almost to 
 
[9] 
 
 self-government. This charter was annulled by 
 a writ of quo warranto in 1684. Thus for many- 
 years the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony and 
 the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay were unvexed 
 by any outside interference with the administra- 
 tion of their own affairs. 
 
 While Worcester is perhaps primarily known 
 for its prominence in manufacturing, its industrial 
 growth does not concern us now for it did not 
 begin until after 1830. At the time of which we 
 are now writing, the mills in Worcester were few 
 in number and simple in character. Captain 
 John Wing had a saw and grist mill as early as 
 1685, north of Lincoln Square on Mill Brook. 
 Another was that of Obadiah Ward, built about 
 1717, also on Mill Brook on the site occupied later 
 by the Crompton Loom Works. Elijah Chase 
 built the first corn mill near where the paper mill 
 at Quinsigamond was later located, on the Black- 
 stone River. The water privilege, with thirty acres 
 of land, was granted by the town to Captain 
 Nathaniel Jones, September 12, 1717, upon the 
 condition that he should complete and maintain a 
 grist mill for twelve years. (He built a dam and 
 saw mill in 1726, but both were probably swept 
 away in the flood of 1728-29, and in 1732 the town 
 took steps to recover the land by reason of the 
 failure of Jones to comply with his contract.) Saw 
 and grist mills with an occasional fulling mill and 
 trip hammer shop represented the industries of 
 the town and were adequate to supply the simple 
 needs of a population of 200 people. In 1760 
 potash was added as an article of manufacture. 
 
[10] 
 
 The English Parliament, which inhibited almost 
 all kinds of manufacturing in the colonies, thought 
 that the production of potash would give them an 
 article of export with which to pay for manufac- 
 tured articles imported from Great Britain. The 
 North American Plantations were thought to be 
 well adapted to the making of potash by reason 
 of the abundance of wood suitable for the pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Cloth was manufactured in a small way here in 
 1789. The manufacture of paper took an early 
 and prominent place among the industries of the 
 colonies. Isaiah Thomas, who had brought the 
 "Worcester Spy" from Boston to escape its cap- 
 ture by the British and who had here a large 
 business as a printer and publisher, erected a paper 
 mill in January, 1793, at Quinsigamond village 
 on the site of what is now the location of the 
 American Steel & Wire Company. Zenas Crane, 
 the grandfather of the late Governor and Senator 
 W. M. Crane, worked in this mill. Paper had 
 been made earlier in this vicinity and in insuffi- 
 cient quantities because for this reason, on 
 October 30, 1776, but one-half of "The Spy" 
 could be published and on October 30, 1777, the 
 following notice was published: 
 
 "The paper mills and, of consequence, the 
 printing offices in this county must inevitably 
 stop unless the good people are more careful in 
 preserving their rags. The advanced price of 3d. 
 per lb. for clean linen rags is now given by the 
 printers, which, together with the invaluable 
 benefit which the public must derive from having 
 
[U] 
 
 a plentiful supply of paper books, cannot fail of 
 the desired effect." 
 
 An early evidence of enterprise and public spirit 
 is found in the desire, previous to 1796, to estab- 
 lish communication between Worcester and the 
 seaboard, first by making a canal to Providence 
 and then by cutting one from the Great Pond in 
 Worcester to Boston. Nothing was done, how- 
 ever, with either project until 1822. 
 
 This hasty survey up to 1800 of the simple 
 industrial activities in Worcester must suffice and 
 I now purpose to dwell upon the momentous 
 political developments of the eighty years since 
 1722, making some reference to the military oper- 
 ations, in which the town of Worcester was 
 largely involved. Perhaps I may well call atten- 
 tion here to the fact that from Colonial days our 
 people had been accustomed to war. The settlers 
 in Virginia were unmolested for only a few years 
 after they landed, when the savages fell upon 
 them and on a single day killed over three hundred 
 men, women and children. 
 
 Our own Pilgrim Colony at Plymouth entered 
 into a compact with the Indians which was faith- 
 fully observed for over fifty years, but after that 
 the settler was usually compelled to go armed 
 about his daily duties and the gun was a familiar 
 object at the head of the pew on Sunday. The 
 site selected for the meeting house was usually 
 some eminence from which it would be easy to see 
 an enemy. For seventy years before 1763, when 
 the Treaty of Peace between England and France 
 was signed, there was almost constant warfare 
 
[12] 
 
 between the French and the English and their 
 Indian allies in the new world, and after a brief 
 period of twelve years of peace, the colonies were 
 engaged in the War of the Revolution. A state of 
 irritation between the people of the Province of 
 Massachusetts Bay and the Mother Country was 
 more or less constantly in evidence, but the feeling 
 of loyalty to England was very tenacious and the 
 idea of separation was very reluctantly reached. 
 
 As late as 1762, the government of the Province 
 of Massachusetts Bay expressed to its agent in 
 London its faith in the permanence of existing 
 conditions in the following language: 
 
 "We shall ever pray that our most gracious 
 sovereign's life may be prolonged, and that he and 
 his posterity may reign in Britain, and in British 
 America till time shall be no more." None of the 
 American agents in London then believed that 
 the Colonies would think of disputing the Stamp 
 Act at the point of the sword, and even James 
 Otis said, ''It is our duty to submit." This was 
 only thirteen years before the beginning of the 
 war for independence. 
 
 In 1767 the instructions of this town to its repre- 
 sentative in the General Court were to ''use your 
 influence to maintain and continue that harmony 
 and good-will between Great Britain and this 
 Province which may be most conducive to the 
 prosperity of each," but a continuing purpose 
 was manifest to preserve the rights of the colonies. 
 It was only because no other course seemed open 
 that the people ultimately resorted to arms. In 
 the Revolutionary War and the wars that had 
 
[13] 
 
 preceded it, Worcester was well represented. The 
 fact should be noted here that a leading cause of 
 the revolution was that the colonies resented the 
 restriction placed upon their industrial activities 
 by the Mother Country. The Earl of Chatham 
 once said that the ''Colonists had no right to 
 manufacture so much as a single horse shoe nail." 
 
 In 1750 a law was passed by Parliament pro- 
 hibiting the working of iron and declaring every 
 mill for such purpose a common nuisance which 
 Governors of the Province were bound to abate. 
 
 The War of the Revolution stopped all imports 
 from Great Britain and revived such domestic 
 industries as had formerly existed. Upon the 
 return of peace in 1783, the influx of goods threat- 
 ened our manufacturing industries with ruin. 
 The Revolution had been successful but had failed 
 of its complete purpose. Everyone was in debt 
 and many without resources. The desperate con- 
 dition in which people found themselves led to 
 an outbreak in Worcester in 1786 known as 
 Shays's rebellion, the participants in which, in- 
 cluding representatives from the surrounding 
 towns, compelled the Court of Common Pleas to 
 adjourn by forces of arms. The declaration of 
 peace had brought no promise of prosperity or 
 happiness to the country. We had no government 
 worthy of the name. The Confederation of the 
 States, a merest makeshift at best, had very little 
 power. The people were afraid of a strong central 
 government, the whole tendency having been to 
 place all the power in the several states. The 
 states levied the taxes, raised the military forces. 
 
[14] 
 
 administered justice. Congress had no revenue 
 and no courts. It could declare a war but was 
 dependent upon the states for men and money to 
 carry it on. It could make treaties but it could 
 not enforce the obligations thus created. It 
 could settle disputes between the states but had 
 no power to enforce its decrees. Each state could 
 enact a tariff and could prevent the passage of 
 goods from other states across its borders. Mean- 
 time war had destroyed the foreign commerce 
 which could not be restored excepting under the 
 administration of a government capable of making 
 treaties, the terms of which could be fulfilled and 
 enforced. Domestic trade was paralyzed. Added 
 to all this was an irredeemable currency which 
 brought with it the attendant ills of poverty and 
 debt. A dissolution of this feeble league appeared 
 to have begun in 1786. Rhode Island would send 
 no delegates and New Jersey refused to pay her 
 quota of the revenue. It is not within our pro- 
 vince to dwell upon the circumstances attending 
 the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Suffice 
 it to say that after prolonged discussion, it was 
 agreed upon in convention in September, 1787, 
 and subsequently ratified by the states, but with 
 extreme reluctance and against the strong opposi- 
 tion of some conununities, including our own. 
 
 In the Convention held in Boston in January, 
 1788, to consider the adoption of the Federal Con- 
 stitution, the vote in the affirmative was 187 and 
 in the negative 168. Of the delegates from Wor- 
 cester County, 8 favored the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution and 43 were opposed. The delegates from 
 the town of Worcester voted in the negative. 
 
[15] 
 
 We may, with profit, before we enter upon the 
 doings of another century, dwell for a moment 
 upon the character and training of the Pilgrim and 
 Puritan pioneers, who laid the foundations of our 
 civilization. They were, perhaps, narrow and in 
 some respects bigoted. Their characters were hard- 
 ened by the daily struggle with the Indians to 
 preserve their lives and with nature for a liveli- 
 hood. This may have developed natures that 
 were stern and forbidding, but these experiences 
 bred into our people some great qualities which 
 have leavened the entire lump of our national life. 
 Our Puritan ancestors were made of stern stuff. 
 Their entire polity was based upon their inter- 
 pretation of the Bible. 
 
 The Body of Liberties, the first code of laws in 
 New England, established by the General Court in 
 December, 1641, contain 12 capital laws, the penal- 
 ty for breaking each of which is precisely the same 
 as the penalty imposed in the Old Testament for 
 like offenses and in all cases death. 
 
 This condition, which we are apt at times to 
 criticize, has been due to a principle which lay at 
 the foundation of the religious life of the Puritan ; 
 namely, that the individual man, wrestling with 
 his conscience, must, through the grace of God, 
 work out his own salvation. 
 
 As John Fiske puts it in "The Beginnings of 
 New England ": 
 
 "Each single church tended to become an 
 independent congregation of worshippers, con- 
 stituting one of the most effective schools that 
 has ever existed for training men in local self- 
 government." 
 
[16] 
 
 It has been said that if Thomas Jefferson con- 
 fessed himself indebted to the business meeting 
 of a Baptist Church for some of his best ideas of a 
 democratic government, much more were John 
 Adams and his New England compatriots beholden 
 to their ecclesiastical surroundings for the Repub- 
 lican tendencies of their politics. And he goes 
 on to say that there has never been a society in the 
 world in which theological problems have been 
 so seriously and persistently discussed as in New 
 England during the Colonial period, the questions 
 raised in the learned arguments of the clergy, 
 upon doctrinal points, occasioning subjects for 
 earnest debate in every household because it was 
 assumed that every individual must hold his own 
 opinions, at his own personal risk in the world to 
 come. Mr. Fiske further calls attention to the 
 fact that according to the Puritan theory it was 
 essential that everyone should be taught from early 
 childhood how to read and understand the Bible 
 and that in the diffusion of knowledge the Puritans 
 were unwittingly preparing the complete and irre- 
 parable destruction of the theocratic idea of so- 
 ciety which they had sought to realize, by settling 
 in New England, because universal education and 
 the perpetual discussion of theological questions 
 were no more compatible with adherence to the 
 Calvinistic system than with submission to the 
 absolute rule of Rome. In a word, if the Puritan 
 system seems to us now to have been narrow and 
 somewhat bigoted, it carried with it its own cure 
 in free discussion and an insistence upon individual 
 responsibility for one's actions, which has gradu- 
 
[17] 
 
 ally led to the liberal and enlightened protestant- 
 ism of to-day when all denominations and all 
 religions live, side by side, and, usually, in sym- 
 pathetic relations. We must not forget, certainly 
 at this time, to express our appreciation of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. To be sure, the Rever- 
 end James Fitton did not begin his labors here until 
 1834, but now, for ninety years, that Church has 
 been a powerful influence for good in the com- 
 munity. 
 
 ''She saw the commencement of all the govern- 
 ments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments 
 that now exist in the world," wrote Lord Ma- 
 caulay; ''and we feel no assurance that she is not 
 destined to see the end of them all. She was great 
 and respected before the Saxon had set foot on 
 Britain, before the Frank had crossed the Rhine, 
 when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, 
 when idols were still worshipped in the temple of 
 Mecca, and she may still exist in undiminished 
 vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, 
 in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a 
 broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins 
 of St. Paul." 
 
 There is something quite inspiring in the spirit 
 that pervaded the family life of many of the simple 
 homes of the pioneers. It was sometimes hard to 
 make both ends meet. It was a constant fight to 
 feed and clothe the children with only two pairs 
 of hands to do all the work. But somehow it was 
 done: the children were well trained; one of the 
 family, perhaps — at what self-sacrificing cost — 
 received a college education. I think that there is 
 
[18] 
 
 more of pathos surrounding this simple experience 
 of the leaving home of the country boy than almost 
 any other. The long anticipated day has arrived. 
 The patient mother ties up the simple bundle, add- 
 ing some needed article supplied by her own 
 scanty savings. She stands in the doorway and 
 bravely says, "goodbye," while the boy, unmindful 
 of the struggle which awaits him and of the prayers 
 and the doubts that follow him, stops at the turn 
 in the road to take a last look at his mother and 
 the old red house. It was from such a home as 
 this that Daniel Webster came. Speaking, in his 
 later years, of his going to Dartmouth College, 
 he said: 
 
 "I remember the very hill we were ascending 
 through the deep snows in a New England sleigh, 
 when my father made his purpose known to me. 
 I could not speak. I laid my head upon my 
 father's shoulder and wept." 
 
 To some of these fathers and mothers of the 
 olden time, to their cheerful endurance of hardship 
 and to their self-sacrifice, is due the reverent 
 affection of their descendants. 
 
 It is a somewhat striking fact that even the 
 wisest men, at the close of the eighteenth century, 
 seem to have been utterly blind to the approach 
 of an era of phenomenal industrial growth and of 
 great development in the field of invention; thus 
 Benjamin Franklin wrote to John Adams in 1780: 
 
 *' America will not make manufactures enough 
 for her own consumption this thousand years," 
 and Adams replied: 
 
 "The principal interest of America for many 
 centuries to come will be landed and our chief 
 
[19] 
 
 occupation agriculture. Manufactures and com- 
 merce will be but secondary objects and always 
 subservient to the other." 
 
 This is all the more surprising because Franklin 
 was in England with the other Colonial Agents 
 protesting to Lord Grenville against the Stamp 
 Act, in the very year that James Watt was begin- 
 ning his experiments with the steam engine, and 
 he was still in Europe when, in 1769, Watt got his 
 patent in which he explains the principles which 
 were involved in the scientific development of his 
 invention. If Franklin had been vouchsafed the 
 gift of prophecy, he might have said : " I see steam 
 and electricity, harnessed to the machinery of the 
 world, making, in the next century, our own 
 country the greatest among manufacturing na- 
 tions. I see an immediate attendant evil in the 
 factory system, in which men, women and children 
 will be debased to the condition of the beasts of 
 the field, and I see the evil removed before the 
 corrective of humane legislation. I see the time 
 in the not remote future when great cities will 
 spring up in what is now a wilderness, where the 
 silence is never broken save by the war whoop of 
 the Indian or the hoot of the night owl. I see 
 every part of our land bound together by bands 
 of steel, product of our own mines, furnaces and 
 mills, carrying the commerce of a great nation. 
 I see its uttermost boundaries brought within the 
 range of the human voice. I see a time when our 
 descendants will gather from the air about them 
 messages from their fellow men scattered over the 
 surface of the earth — nay, more, I see seed now 
 
[20] 
 
 being planted by that faithless monarch, Frederick 
 the Great, in time, bear fruit and his kingdom 
 become the dominating military power in Europe, 
 threatening the very existence of France and of 
 Great Britain; and I hear those great nations, less 
 than seven score years hence, cry out to ours — not 
 yet born, 'Help or we perish,' and I see the United 
 States of America save them both from perhaps 
 becoming vassal states of the German Empire." 
 
 Such, as subsequent events have proved, might 
 well have been Benjamin Franklin's message to 
 John Adams in 1780, and yet he was no less 
 conscious of the wonders to be worked after his 
 time than are the wisest of us to-day. 
 
 The feeling of skepticism in regard to the intro- 
 duction of mechanical and other improvements was 
 not confined to this country. 
 
 The Academy of Science in France, when con- 
 sulted by Napoleon at the beginning of the Nine- 
 teenth Centm-y as to the steamboat, spoke of it as 
 "a mad idea, a gross error, and absurdity." When 
 Fulton's first steamboat made the trip from New 
 York to Albany in 1807, it happened to be the 
 17th of August, which caused many preachers to 
 curse the machine on the ground that seventeen 
 was the total of the horns and the seven heads of 
 the beast of the Apocalypse. It was not until 
 after 1830 that our manufactures developed, for 
 it was not until 1835 that the construction of our 
 railways was vigorously commenced or that steam 
 was availed of to any considerable extent for 
 motive power. The Reverend Edward Everett 
 Hale once told me that Judge Merrick, meeting 
 
[21] 
 
 Samuel Slater, the pioneer cotton manufacturer, 
 on the street in Worcester, said: 
 
 "Mr. Slater, Worcester will never be a manu- 
 facturing town because we have so little water 
 power." 
 
 Mr. Slater said in reply: 
 
 "Judge Merrick, you may live to see the time 
 when Worcester will need all the water of Mill 
 Brook to provide the steam for her steam engines." 
 
 This conversation must have occurred about 
 1830. It is hard to realize that William A. 
 Wheeler, who is credited with having installed 
 in 1825, in Worcester, the first steam engine in the 
 state west of Boston, should have discarded it 
 and used horse power until 1840 when he put in 
 another engine. William T. Merrifield, at the 
 same time put in an engine of from four to six 
 horse power. These were probably the first 
 efl&cient steam engines in Worcester. Beginning, 
 however, in 1830 and particularly after 1835, when 
 the railroad was opened to Boston, the industrial 
 growth of Worcester has been steady and rapid. 
 The Blackstone Canal connected Worcester and 
 Providence and was in active operation from 1828 
 until 1848. We were connected by rail with the 
 western part of the state in 1839 ; with New London 
 in 1840; with Nashua in 1846; with Providence in 
 1848; with Winch endon in 1874. It will thus be 
 seen that from an early day Worcester had the 
 advantages of the best railroad facilities. To this 
 and to the general introduction of steam power is 
 to be most largely attributed her rapid growth as 
 a manufacturing city. 
 
[22] 
 
 In 1889 there was not only direct communica- 
 tion with all points north and south, but there were 
 five outlets and thirteen different lines, more or 
 less, affording direct conununication with the West. 
 
 It is impossible within the confines of this 
 address to give in any detail the history of Wor- 
 cester's industrial development, nor is it necessary; 
 we know the fact that it has caused a growth in 
 population from a town of 4,000 in 1830 to a city 
 of 180,000 in 1922. We know that Worcester 
 products are sent to all parts of the world and 
 that, in some kinds of manufactures, Worcester 
 occupies a position of industrial primacy. 
 
 I have mentioned some of the reasons for this 
 but not all. In addition to the introduction of 
 steam, have been the unusual opportunities offered 
 to mechanics to begin business in a small way 
 and without incurring the risk incident to the 
 building and equipment of a shop. Indeed, had 
 this not been the case, many individuals, com- 
 panies and corporations doing a prosperous 
 business to-day would never have existed. Many 
 instances might be given of individuals who have 
 begun with one machine, gradually increasing their 
 business until it has reached considerable magni- 
 tude. Growth of this kind is likely to be perma- 
 nent. It is not perhaps literally true to-day, but 
 it was a few years ago, that no manufacturing 
 business long established in Worcester but has at 
 one time or another occupied space in one or 
 another of the buildings for rent with power to 
 tenants. The oldest building of this type was the 
 Old Court Mill at Lincoln Square, the cradle of 
 
[23] 
 
 the machine tool business in Worcester. The 
 Dr. Heywood building in Central Street, the 
 Merrifield building, the Estabrook building at the 
 Junction, these were all veritable hives of industry. 
 This is one of the chief causes of the diversity of 
 manufactures in Worcester, a striking contrast to 
 some of our New England cities dependent upon 
 the prosperity of a single industry. Properly to 
 take advantage of the opportunities here offered, 
 an intelligent people was needed. Enterprise and 
 sagacity have always been characteristic of the 
 leading business men in Worcester, early mani- 
 fested in appreciation of the importance of com- 
 munication with the seaboard and secured by the 
 building of the Blackstone Canal and later by the 
 building of the railroads. But there is better 
 evidence than this of the wisdom and foresight 
 of the men who laid the foundation of Worcester's 
 prosperity. A desire for opportunities for educa- 
 tion was manifest at a very early day. In 1819 a 
 number of young mechanics who had been active 
 in reforming the schools and establishing a lyceum 
 and temperance society, made an attempt to form 
 a Mechanics Association. This failed, but in 1841 
 a public meeting was held and a committee was 
 appointed to consider the formation of an asso- 
 ciation having as its object 
 
 "The moral, intellectual and social improve- 
 ment of its members, the perfection of the mech- 
 anic arts and the pecuniary assistance of the 
 needy." 
 
 The first meeting was held in 1842. Steps were 
 taken to establish a library and an annual course 
 
[24] 
 
 of lectures. The first lecture was by Elihu Burritt 
 and was upon the importance of educating the 
 mechanics and working men of the country. 
 From that time to the present, the Mechanics 
 Association has provided a course of lectures every 
 winter. Another object in forming the Associa- 
 tion was the holding of an annual fair for the ex- 
 hibition of the mechanical products of the city. 
 The first was held in 1848. The Association 
 erected the building in which we are assembled 
 this evening, which was dedicated in March, 1857. 
 There has been a great change in our population 
 during all these years. Up to 1840 manual labor 
 was, for the most part, performed by Americans. 
 Worcester naturally attracted boys from the 
 country and the farmers' sons became our me- 
 chanics. About this time, as a result of the 
 famine at home, Irish immigration began. The 
 Irishman became an important factor in our 
 industrial development and indispensable to our 
 material progress. Since 1880, a large Scandinavian 
 population has been added to Worcester and is a 
 very valuable part of our community and indus- 
 trial life. A little later we had a considerable 
 immigration from Southern Europe. Over 53,000 
 of our population are foreign born. 
 
 There is to me much of tragedy in the experi- 
 ence of the immigrant, whether he came hither 
 in the Mayflower three hundred years ago or land- 
 ed at Castle Garden yesterday. There was an 
 impelling force which compelled the breaking of 
 the home ties, the most sacred and the most 
 tenacious known to the human heart. In some 
 
[251 
 
 cases fear of starvation; in others, persecution 
 for religious or other causes, or the hard conditions 
 that could no longer be endured. The father and 
 the mother in tears and agony of spirit, collect 
 their simple belongings. The scanty savings, with 
 perhaps aid from friends and neighbors, are 
 scarcely sufficient to carry them to the New 
 World. The voyage is full of terror and physical 
 discomfort. The parents are in some respects as 
 helpless as their children. They arrive in the 
 new country where perhaps a language strange to 
 them is spoken, nearly penniless and not knowing 
 where or how to earn their bread. Work is at last 
 obtained, and a start is made. The children are 
 in time sent to school and slowly, painfully so in 
 many cases, a precarious and then a more secure 
 footing in the new land is obtained. The parents 
 cling to their native language as the one tie that 
 binds them to the home land. The children 
 rapidly acquire the language of the new country 
 and become the teachers of their parents. Out 
 of these humble homes have come some of our 
 best citizens, both men and women. I would like 
 to see a monument erected in one of our public 
 squares to the immigrant. It would challenge the 
 genius of the greatest artist to depict the emotions 
 of the human heart which should be seen stamped 
 upon those faces — despair, fear, hope, and the 
 final victory over hard conditions. America, 
 among all the countries of the earth, is where these 
 experiences are most common. They are a part 
 of our daily life. In a sense there is no native 
 population of many generations; we have all, 
 
[26] 
 
 either through our ancestors or ourselves, fled 
 hither from the hand of the oppressor, or from 
 other conditions that could no longer be endured, 
 or to seek better opportunities. In our schools, 
 which we have always cherished, the children of 
 over thirty nationalities are taught the funda- 
 mental elements of American Citizenship, chief 
 among which is the first declaration in the Con- 
 stitution of Massachusetts that ''All men are 
 born free and equal." 
 
 Worcester had taken active interest in all the 
 political events of the Nineteenth Century. Our 
 people, being largely of the Federalist Party, were 
 opposed to the policies of Jefferson, to the em- 
 bargo of 1807 and to the War of 1812, both of 
 which were damaging to our commercial interests. 
 Slavery had hung like a cloud over the country 
 almost since the adoption of the Constitution; 
 and when, in 1828, the South, independent of the 
 tariff, because of her cheap cotton, made possible 
 by Eh Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, 
 enunciated the doctrine that a state could nullify 
 within its limits a Federal Act, Civil War, if this 
 doctrine were adhered to, became a certainty. 
 Then came the demand for the emancipation of 
 the slaves. January 1, 1831, was published for 
 the first time in Boston, by William Lloyd Garri- 
 son, a paper called ''The Liberator," which de- 
 manded the "immediate and unconditional eman- 
 cipation of every slave held in the United States." 
 
 Men like Mr. Garrison believed that the negro 
 should be free, even if it necessitated the destruc- 
 tion of the Union. On the other hand, many men 
 
[27] 
 
 opposed to slavery thought that the Union with 
 slavery was better than no Union. Daniel Webster 
 held this view, and so at first did Abraham Lincoln. 
 In spite of the Compromise of 1820, which shut out 
 slavery from the territory west and north of 
 Missouri, the South demanded the right to in- 
 troduce it into the territory of Nebraska; and 
 Senator Stephen A. Douglass, in 1854, introduced 
 the Kansas-Nebraska bill which divided the 
 Territory of Nebraska into two parts, the southern- 
 most of which was called Kansas; and proposed 
 that the settlers should determine whether they 
 would have slavery or not. Congress, much to 
 the indignation of the people of the North, passed 
 the bill, thus in effect repealing the Compromise 
 of 1820. There was now a great struggle to see 
 whether the territory should be settled by those 
 favorable to or opposed to slavery. The slave- 
 holders of Missouri began a settlement at Atchison 
 and those opposed, largely emigrants from New 
 England, settled at Lawrence. The conflict was 
 such that the territory was known as "bleeding 
 Kansas." Finally the opponents of slavery pre- 
 vailed and Kansas was admitted as a state, with- 
 out slavery, in 186 L Eli Thayer of Worcester took 
 a leading part in settling Kansas with the oppo- 
 nents of slavery. His marble bust now has a 
 place in the State House at Topeka. 
 
 Charles Allen made a bitter attack on the Whig 
 Party, for its toleration of slavery, in the City 
 Hall in Worcester in 1848, and his brother, the 
 Reverend George Allen, for many years a minister 
 in Shrewsbury, introduced the following resolu- 
 
128] 
 
 tion which became a shibboleth of the Free Soil 
 Party. 
 
 "Resolved, That Massachusetts wears no chains 
 and spurns all bribes. That she goes now and will 
 ever go for Free Soil and Free Men, for free lips 
 and a free press, for a free land and a free world." 
 
 Worcester's military record in the Civil War 
 was highly creditable. On April 14, 1861, news 
 of the evacuation of Fort Sumter reached Worces- 
 ter. On the evening of April 16, Charles Devens 
 urged the people, gathered in great numbers in 
 this hall, to rally to the support of the country. 
 
 On April 19 the Light Infantry attached to the 
 6th regiment of State Militia passed through 
 Baltimore and were quartered in the Senate 
 Chamber in Washington, the first military regi- 
 ment from a state to report with arms and equip- 
 ment complete. "Thank God you have got here," 
 said Abraham Lincoln to Colonel Jones as he 
 stepped from the train. ''If you had not come to- 
 night, the Capitol would have been in the hands 
 of the rebels before morning." 
 
 The City Guards, the Emmet Guards and seven 
 regiments followed at intervals. 
 
 During the war many of our shops were busy 
 day and night manufacturing arms, ammunition 
 and equipment. 
 
 During the fifty years and more of peace that 
 followed, excepting for the war with Spain in 
 which Worcester had an honorable part, we were 
 free from any great national castastrophe. Our 
 industrial prosperity had made us the richest 
 nation in the world; our energies were largely 
 
[29] 
 
 devoted to getting and spending. The Federal 
 government made no direct demand upon us for 
 taxes and no demand of any sort for service, so 
 that we naturally came to regard the nation as a 
 sort of benevolent institution from which aid 
 might naturally be expected but to which none 
 need be given. That this was a dangerous attitude 
 of mind I think all will agree. 
 
 But soon all this was changed. We became part 
 of the great world catastrophe. The forces of 
 nature which we had appropriated to the use of 
 man to such a marvellous extent were availed 
 of with dreadful efficiency in the destruction of 
 human life and property, not only on the earth 
 beneath but in the heavens above and in the water 
 under the earth. 
 
 It seemed in those awful days of war that the 
 Almighty was speaking in tones of thunder that 
 could be heard above the cannon's roar and the 
 din of battle — 
 
 ''I will shake the heavens and the earth and the 
 sea and the dry land and I will shake all nations 
 . . . and this word signifieth the removing of 
 those things that are shaken as of things that are 
 made, that those things which cannot be shaken 
 may remain." 
 
 If you would know how we acquitted ourselves 
 on land and sea, you have but to raise your eyes 
 to our city's service flag with its 13,000 stars of 
 blue and 327 stars of gold, shining emblem of 
 supreme sacrifice. From Chemin des Dames 
 through the final terrors of St. Mihiel and the 
 Argonne forest, the record made by Worcester's 
 
[30] 
 
 soldiers stands as a series of brilliant achievements. 
 To these brave men and to the lads in blue of the 
 Navy who convoyed our troops over the stormy 
 waters of the Atlantic, infested by the piratical 
 U-Boats and to those brave nurses who ministered 
 to our wounded and djdng, we pay the tribute of 
 reverent appreciation and heartfelt gratitude. 
 Of those who stayed at home, men and women, I 
 can say with truth that no similar community in 
 the country has a record of war work superior to 
 ours. And now, my friends, my tale is nearly told. 
 It is, of course, impossible to recite the deeds of 
 two hundred years in less than half as many 
 minutes. No one is more conscious than I of what 
 has been left unsaid, but we must not fail to 
 mention the names of some of those who for one 
 reason or another have been conspicuous in the 
 history of this town. Otherwise we would seem 
 to lack in appreciation of what they have done for 
 us. We would fail in our duty to our children if 
 we were not to commend to their grateful attention 
 those whose works have conferred such great 
 blessings upon them. 
 
 Let me call the illustrious roll. Would that we 
 could summon them from the spirit world to 
 receive our homage: 
 
 Ephraim Curtis, first white settler of Worcester 
 and Indian fighter, who, sitting on a stump and 
 looking in the direction of his old home in Sudbury, 
 wept at his remoteness from civilization. 
 
 Daniel Gooktn, friend of Eliot, Superinten- 
 dent of the Praying Indians. ''Father of Wor- 
 cester. " 
 
[31] 
 
 DiGORY Sargent, who refused to retreat before 
 the Indians in 1702 and was later killed and 
 scalped by them and his family made captive. 
 
 Timothy Bigelow, blacksmith at Lincoln 
 Square; delegate from Worcester to the Provincial 
 Congress. Captain of the Minute men who led 
 his company from Worcester to Cambridge, April 
 19, 1775. Major, then Colonel; at the storming of 
 Quebec; at the taking of General Burgoyne; at 
 Valley Forge with Washington. Now buried on 
 the Common. 
 
 Levi Lincoln, Sr., Soldier in the Revolutionary 
 War, lawyer, Judge of Probate; delegate to the 
 Convention that framed the Constitution of 
 Massachusetts; Attorney General of the United 
 States in the Cabinet of Thomas Jefferson. Gover- 
 nor of the State. Associate Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. 
 
 Levi Lincoln, Jr., Member of the Massachu- 
 setts Senate and Speaker of the House; Lieutenant 
 Governor; Governor. Justice of the Supreme 
 Judicial Court; Representative in Congress and 
 Collector of the Port of Boston. First Mayor of 
 the City of Worcester. 
 
 Isaiah Thomas, owner of the ''Worcester Spy," 
 the first newspaper in New England to print the 
 Declaration of Independence, read by him to our 
 people on the steps of the Old South Church; 
 first Postmaster of Worcester, appointed by Ben- 
 jamin Franklin; widely known as printer and pub- 
 lisher. Founder of the American Antiquarian 
 Society. 
 
[32] 
 
 Aaron Bancroft, a soldier at Lexington and 
 Bunker Hill; clergyman in Worcester for more 
 than fifty years. Defender of religious liberty. 
 
 Dr. John Green, a great physician. Founder 
 of the Green Library. 
 
 Honest John Davis, Representative in House 
 and Senate of the Congress of the United States. 
 Governor of Massachusetts; leader of the Bar; 
 classical scholar. 
 
 Stephen Salisbury, a name borne by three 
 generations. The first a prosperous merchant 
 who lived in Salisbury Mansion at Lincoln Square. 
 The second and the third, philanthropists and 
 pubUc spirited citizens; both friends and supporters 
 of the Polytechnic in time of need; the last of the 
 name, founder of the Worcester Art Museum. 
 
 Charles Allen, lawyer, judge, legislator, 
 Abolitionist. One of the founders of the Free 
 Soil Party. 
 
 IcHABOD Washburn, creator of the wire indus- 
 try in Worcester. Founder of the Memorial 
 Hospital and of the Washburn Shop of the Poly- 
 technic. Prominent in all good works. 
 
 Seth Sweetser, Calvinist minister of the 
 Central Church, through whose counsels John 
 Boynton planted the Polytechnic in Worcester. 
 
 George Bancroft, historian of the United 
 States. 
 
 Emory Washburn, lawyer, judge. Governor, 
 author. 
 
 James Fitton, missionary and priest; founder 
 of the College of the Holy Cross. 
 
[33] 
 
 ELrau BuRRiTT, the learned blacksmith ac- 
 quainted with fifty languages; preacher of inter- 
 national peace. 
 
 Abby Kelly Foster, Abolitionist, pioneer 
 advocate of equal political rights for men and 
 women. 
 
 Jonas G. Clark, founder of Clark University. 
 
 Alexander H. Bullock, legislator; Mayor of 
 Worcester; Speaker of the Massachusetts House; 
 Governor; orator. 
 
 Eli Thayer, Member of Congress; organizer 
 of the Emigrant Aid Society to make Kansas a 
 free state. ' ' I would rather, ' ' said Charles Sumner, 
 ''accomplish what Eli Thayer has done than have 
 won the battle of New Orleans." 
 
 Charles Devens, lawyer; soldier; judge. In 
 command of the 15th regiment at Balls Bluff. 
 Attorney General in the Cabinet of President 
 Hayes. Chivalrous gentleman. 
 
 Edward Everett Hale, Unitarian clergyman. 
 Author of many books; wrote here the greatest 
 lesson in patriotism in the English language, ''A 
 Man Without a Country." Editor; friend of the 
 weak and unfortunate; pubUc spirited citizen. 
 
 Russell L. Hawes, inventor of envelope ma- 
 chinery which gave Worcester a leading position 
 in this great industry. 
 
 George F. Hoar, scholar; lawyer; orator; 
 statesman; inheriting by birth the best traditions 
 of the earlier days. A champion of the Free Soil 
 Party. 
 
134] 
 
 John J. Power, better known as "Father 
 Power," Roman Catholic priest; a father to his 
 people; a sympathetic brother to his fellow men; 
 patriotic citizen. 
 
 George Crompton and Lucius J. Knowles, 
 whose inventive talent and enterprise have made 
 Worcester known the world over as a producer 
 of textile machinery. 
 
 William R. Huntington, minister of the Epis- 
 copal Church ; a leader in his day. 
 
 "And what shall I more say? for the time would 
 fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak, and of 
 Samson and of Jephthah; of David also, and 
 Samuel and of the prophets; who through faith 
 subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
 tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. 
 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of 
 the sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
 waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies 
 of the aliens." 
 
 And yet we would not forget the thousands upon 
 thousands of artisans and laborers who, in grime 
 and sweat, have worked with hands and picks and 
 shovels. They all deserve our grateful recognition 
 on this occasion. Without their labor there would 
 be little of a material sort upon which we could 
 dwell with pride to-day. 
 
 This bare recital compels a feeling of great 
 respect for the character, of great admiration for 
 the achievements of those who have preceded us, 
 which must increase our sense of duty to future 
 generations, the more fully we appreciate our debt 
 to those of the past. 
 
[35] 
 
 While not unmindful of our own shortcomings, 
 we may yet venture to hope that we are trans- 
 mitting unimpaired to our descendants the rich 
 heritage we have received. 
 
 To maintain and to enrich it is a great trust 
 which we confide to them. Conditions will be 
 different, perhaps more onerous, but we have 
 abundant faith. 
 
 New occasions teach new duties. 
 Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
 They must upward still and onward 
 Who would keep abreast with truth.