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PROCEEDINGS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 AT THE 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TOWN HALL, IN SWANSEA 
 
 MASS., 
 
 ON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1891. 
 
 FALL RIVER, MASS. : 
 
 Ar>MY & Milne, Fine Book and Job Printers, 
 
 1892. 
 
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 In jilxoJaangQ 
 A:n3r. Anu. SoO. 
 
 25 11 ^SO*^ 
 
Swansea, Oct. 1st, 1891. 
 Mil. Job Gardner, 
 
 Chairman of Dedication Exercises of Swansea Toivn Hall : 
 
 Dear Sir : — At a meeting of the Board of Selectmen of 
 Swansea, held this day, it was voted to request you to confer with 
 the orator and other speakers who took part in the exercises at the 
 dedication of the Town Hall, for permission to have their addresses 
 printed and published in pamphlet form. 
 
 William P. Mason, ') Selectmen 
 Daniel Hale, >- of 
 
 Samuel G. Arnold, ) Swansea. 
 
 Swansea, October 2nd, 1891. 
 Mr. Job Gardner, 
 
 Dear Sir : — In behalf of the citizens of Swansea we request 
 that you cause to be prepared and published a Memorial volume 
 containing an account of the exercises which took place on Wed- 
 nesday, Sept. 9, 1891, at the dedication of the Town Hall ; and 
 also a copy of the deed given by the Hon. Frank S. Stevens to the 
 town of Swansea. 
 
 William P. Mason, ^ Selectmen 
 Daniel Hale, >- of 
 
 Samuel G. Arnold, ) Swansea. 
 
THE DEDICATION 
 
 I HE formal dedication of the handsome new Town Hall 
 -^ at Swansea village, the gift of Hon. Frank Shaw 
 Stevens, occnrred on Wednesday, September Ninth, A. D. 
 1891, with appropriate and deeply interesting exercises. 
 
 It was a great occasion for the historic old town, and 
 many of her sons and daughtei's who make their present 
 home in other communities gathered from far and near to 
 do honor to the occasion, and renew their allegiance to the 
 town from which they went forth to the fields of their life's 
 activities, with its trials and its triumphs. 
 
 The towns-people were early on the scene, and when 
 Mr. Job Gardner opened the formal exercises at 11 o'clock, 
 the hall was crowded to repletion with a noble gathering of 
 the people of Swansea and their friends. 
 
 The weather was of a delightful character, clear, cool 
 and inspiring, and this fact contributed much to the success 
 of the occasion. The ladies of the town sent a committee 
 to decorate and adorn the hall and its rooms with beautiful 
 flowers. They did their work in an excellent manner, and 
 the result was seen on the platform of the hall, in the pub- 
 lic library and in the selectmen's room. 
 
6 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 On the speaker's stand, in tlie center of the platform, 
 was a basket of handsome flowers, while in the front was a 
 row of beautiful potted plants. At each end was a bank of 
 flowers, — ferns, golden rod, lilies, etc. These were arranged 
 by Mrs. I. W. Pierce and Miss Laura E. Allen, while an 
 attractive display of ferns and golden rod, with bright flow- 
 ers to show a contrast, was placed in the selectmen's room 
 and in the public library room by Miss Julia R. Wellington, 
 the librarian, and her assistant, Miss Carrie A. Chase. 
 
 The exercises were announced to commence at eleven 
 o'clock, but an hour before that time the hall was filled with 
 a distinguis]ied company of people, and late comers were 
 oblio-ed to stand either in the corridor or the rooms to be oc- 
 cupied by the selectmen and public library. While the peo- 
 ple were gathering the Swansea Brass Band gave an inter- 
 esting concert on the lawn in front of the hall. 
 
 Hooper's Steamer Puritan Orchestra rendered the fol- 
 lowing concert programme in a manner that elicited fre- 
 quent applause and gave much pleasure to those who lis- 
 tened. 
 
 March — Steamer Puritan 
 
 Overture — Aukl Lang Syne D. Miller. 
 
 Descriptive Piece — A Trip to Great Britain. . Loesch. 
 
 Selection from " Faust" Gounod. 
 
 Overture — Jubal Weber. 
 
 The following named gentlemen were seated upon the 
 platform : 
 
 Mr. Job Gardner, president of the day ; Hon. Frank S. 
 Stevens, the donor of the building ; Hon. John Summerfield 
 Brayton, the orator of the day ; Rev. Percy S. Grant of Fall 
 River, chaplain of the day ; the venerable Rev. Benjamin 
 H. Chase of Swansea ; Maj. James Brown of Taunton, the 
 first Swansea man to graduate from college ; Jonathan M. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 7 
 
 Wood, Esq., of Fall Kiver ; Hon. E. L. Barney of New 
 Bedford ; D. A. Waldron of Barrington ; Edmund Arnold, 
 Dr. J. M. Wellington, Obadiah Chase, E. M. Thurston, of 
 Swansea ; Wm. P. Mason, Daniel Hale and Samuel Arnold, 
 selectmen of Swansea ; Levi Cummings, ex-selectman ; Jere- 
 miah Gray, William C. Davol, Jr., Rev. Pay son W. Lyman, 
 John S. Brayton, Jr., eTohn P. Slade, Benjamin Buffinton, 
 Henry S. Fenner, George Slade, David F. Slade, Esq. ; the 
 venerable William Mason of Fall River, a native of Swan- 
 sea ; Jonathan Slade, Hon. Wm. Lawton Slade, Hon. Daniel 
 Wilbur, of Somerset ; Rev. George E. Allen, Hon. Weaver 
 Osborn, Robert Adams, Job B. French, Wm. Lindsey, T. D. 
 W. Wood and others of Fall River ; Rev. O. O. Wright of 
 Newton, Conn., and others. Mr. Gardner arose and wel- 
 comed the people. He said : 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen : — To me has been assigned the 
 pleasant duty of presiding on this occasion. In view of 
 what is to follow, however, I will not detain you with any 
 extended remarks. I heartily welcome you here on this 
 auspicious day, and trust that it will prove to all, one of 
 memorable interest, pleasure and profit." 
 
 Prayer was then offered by Rev. Percy S. Grant of 
 Fall River, after which Mr. Stevens, the donor of the build- 
 ing, was presented by Mr. Gardner, who said : "I now have 
 the pleasure of presenting to you, the Honorable Frank 
 Shaw Stevens, who is too well and favorably known in this 
 community to need an introduction." 
 
DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Address and Presentation 
 
 BY HON. FRANK SHAW STEVENS. 
 
 I ^j^-REAT applause greeted Mr. Stevens as lie rose to 
 ^-^ respond to the call of the chairman, and the high 
 esteem in which he is held by his towns-people was manifested 
 frequently during the progress of his brief but characteristic 
 address. Mr. Stevens said : 
 
 Mr. Cliairinan^ ladies and gentlemen : — 
 
 The occasion for which we have met here today is one 
 of the greatest pleasure to me. Although not to the manor 
 born, I have been a resident of the town and your neighbor 
 for more than thirty years. I believe I can safely say there 
 is no one who feels a greater interest or takes more pride in 
 the prosperity of the town and its people than I do. 
 
 The first town meeting I ever attended here was held in 
 the vestry of the Christian Church, and the town meetings 
 were held there for a number of years after. When the 
 Christian Society decided that politics and religion did not 
 harmonize very well, it notified the town officials that they 
 would have to procure other quarters, which they succeeded 
 in getting at Swansea Factory ; and our meetings and elec- 
 tions have been held there since that time. I must say that 
 they were very inadequate quarters, particularly so when 
 politics ran high. When the warrant was issued calling 
 the annual town meeting to be held in March 1890, there 
 

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 ^^. (^i^^d^/^m @^^^^^. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 9 
 
 was a clause to see if the town would vote to build a town 
 hall and make appropriations therefor. When I saw it, I 
 made up my mind to propose at the town meeting to build a 
 town hall and present it to the town : which proposition was 
 unanimously accepted, and the building we are now in is the 
 result. 
 
 I wish to put myself on record by saying that I had no 
 selfish or personal motive in wishing the building located 
 here, as I think anyone giving anything to a city or town 
 ought to do it so as to benefit future generations as well as 
 the present. For the past four or five years when in conver- 
 sation with citizens and others interested in the town, I have 
 casually asked them what part of the town they thought was 
 going to increase in value and population the most in the 
 next fifty years. I can safely say without an exception they 
 said '^ Gardner's Neck." When asking them their reason, 
 they said because of its location, it being bounded on the 
 east by Lee's River, on the west by Cole's and on the south 
 by Mount Hope Bay, and it also had railroad facilities which 
 no other part of the town enjoyed. Taking the last ten 
 years as a basis, I think they were right in their judgment. 
 
 With this object in view, some four or five years ao-o 
 when making alterations in my will, I left some thousands of 
 dollars to the town for the purpose of erecting a hall, and I 
 left it without any restrictions of any kind, having confi- 
 dence in the good judgment of the voters of the town that 
 they would erect a building in the proper place. 
 
 I do not take any credit to myself for the tower, clock 
 and bell, as that was the suggestion of a friend of the town, 
 and mine as well. A few days after it became public, I re- 
 ceived a communication something like this : it commenced, 
 " My Venerable Friend :— I see by the papers that you are 
 going to erect a hall and present it to your fellow citizens. 
 I think tliat it is a very nice thing for you to do, and one 
 
10 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 that will be appreciated. I have a suggestion to make 
 which is, do not fail to have a tower and put in a clock and 
 bell : for when the belated traveller is passing along and 
 hears the bell striking the hour of the night he will say, 
 ' God bless the donor of that clock and bell.' " He closed 
 by saying *' I can give this disinterested advice as I do not 
 have to pay the bills." 
 
 The manner in which this thing was put pleased me 
 very much, and the tower, bell and clock are the result. 
 
 Mr. Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, I now have 
 the pleasure of presenting to you the deed of this property 
 and the keys to the building, with the hope that the citizens 
 of the town will have as much pleasure in receiving, as I 
 have in making the gift. 
 
 As Mr. Stevens handed the important document and 
 the keys to Mr. William P. Mason, the chairman of the 
 selectmen, the applause of the audience was enthusiastic 
 and long continued. 
 
 Mr. Mason, chairman of the selectmen, accepted the 
 munificent gift in a brief address. He spoke as follows : 
 
 RESPONSE OF MR. ]\L\SOX. 
 
 " Mr. Stevens : — In behalf of the citizens of Swansea, 
 allow me to thank you for the generous and beautiful gift 
 you bestow on us, and we know that within its walls we shall 
 find among us men who can govern our town in such a 
 manner as will be acceptable to all our citizens. I know the 
 citizens of this town will all join with me in wishing a long- 
 life, combined with health and happiness, to Swansea's best 
 friend and most liberal benefactor." 
 
 Hooper's Orchestra then rendered a selection, and con- 
 tributed delightful music at intervals during the exercises. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 
 
 11 
 
 The President then introduced the Hon. John Summer- 
 field Brayton of Fall River, a native of Swansea Village, 
 who would deliver the historical address of the day. 
 
 Mr. Brayton spoke in a clear voice, and held the un- 
 divided attention of the large audience for more than one 
 hour, during the delivery of an address rich in historical in- 
 formation, choice in language, and eloquent in the presenta- 
 tion of facts that made every one present honor the name of 
 Swansea. 
 
12 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Historical Address 
 
 BY HON. JOHN SUMMERFIELD BRAYTON. 
 
 QWANSEA to-day dedicates its first town hall. An 
 }<^ honored and generons citizen has erected this sightly 
 and commodious structure, adapted to the uses of the town 
 and library, and has in your presence presented the same, 
 with its appointments, as a free gift to the town Thus, this 
 ancient and historic municipality comes into possession of a 
 town hall, worthy of its name and fame. Few rural towns 
 in the Commonwealth have been so signally favored. 
 
 For nearly two centuries and a quarter, town meetings 
 have been held here, but never yet in any town building other 
 than the meeting house. From the first the town meeting 
 was regarded as of high importance. In 1670 it was "or- 
 dered that whatsoever inhabitant of this town shall absent 
 himself from any town meeting to which he shall be legally 
 warned, he shall for every such absence, forfeit four shil- 
 lings." Affairs of the greatest importance were there dis- 
 cussed and settled, and it was felt to be every citizen's duty 
 to share in public decisions. What was a duty was also 
 generally regarded as a privilege. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 13 
 
 Originally these assemblies were held at the meeting- 
 house in what is now Barrington, afterwards at North Swan- 
 sea, at private dwellings, in the meeting house at Luther's 
 Corner, and recently in the hall at Swansea Factory. The 
 dwellino- house of Jonathan Hill and his son Caleb Hill, 
 now the residence of Mrs. Kate F. Gardner in this village, 
 was thus frequently used, as were also the houses of James 
 Brown, James Luther and of Caleb Slade, the latter now 
 the residence of Deacon Arnold. For four years just prior 
 to the division of the town the house of Capt. Joseph 
 Swazey at the north end of Somerset was thus utilized. 
 
 As lono- ao-o as 1812 a vote to build a town house was 
 passed, but it was speedily reconsidered, and the proposition 
 has never since been successfully carried through, although 
 frequently discussed in town meetings. The contention has 
 been happily settled by this day's events. We congratulate 
 Swansea upon receiving this tangible proof of the loyalty and 
 affection of her adopted son, and we congratulate him that 
 by this act he has raised in the hearts of this people a mon- 
 ument more enduring than the pile he has reared. The wise 
 man says, '' The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that 
 watereth shall be watered also himself." 
 
 We are here to revive the memories of the old town, to 
 recall briefly some ' of the scenes, and some of the leading 
 actors in its long and honorable history, and to sketch, 
 though it can only be in outline, the course of events which 
 have given it celebrity, and which merit more elaborate re- 
 cord than they have received, or than can now be given. 
 
 Its ancient territory included the home of that justly 
 celebrated and honored Indian chief, Massasoit, who became 
 the fast and inalienable friend of the English of Plymouth 
 Colony, and whose home was at Sowams, within the territory 
 now covered by the village of Warren. Its soil was prob- 
 ably first trodden by Englishmen when a visit was paid to 
 
14 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Massasoit In the summer following the Pilgrim's landing, by 
 Edward Winslow, afterwards Governor of Plymouth Colony, 
 and Stephen Hopkins. The object of the visit was to ex- 
 plore the country, ascertain the strength and power of the 
 sachem, procure corn, and strengthen the mutual good un- 
 derstanding. They reached Massasoit' s residence July 4th, 
 havlno; crossed the TIticut or Taunton river about three miles 
 from Taunton Green, and passed through what is now the 
 town of Swansea from east to west. 
 
 The next visit of the colonists was that of Capt. Miles 
 Standish and fourteen of the English to the home of Corbi- 
 tant, a petty sachem under Massasoit, who lived " at the head 
 of the Neck," called by the Indians Metapolset, now Gard- 
 ner's Neck. Corbitant's residence could not have been far 
 from this place. Some historians locate it in this village. 
 Capt. Standish and his party came to take vengeance on 
 Corbitant, In case a rumor that he had taken the life of 
 Squanto, a friendly Indian, was true. They attacked his 
 wigwam in the dead of night, badly wounding three of its 
 Inmates. As It was found that Squanto had not been slain, 
 no harm was Inflicted on Corbitant. The wounded were ta- 
 ken to Plymouth for treatment and afterwards returned with 
 their wounds healed. 
 
 In March, 1623, Winslow accompanied by John Hamp- 
 den paid his second visit to Massasoit, having been informed 
 of his serious Illness. They came down the east side of Taun- 
 ton river to what Is now Slade's Ferry ; where they were told 
 that Massasoit was dead. Anxious, in that case, to concili- 
 ate Corbitant, Winslow decided to visit him at Metapoiset. 
 Finding on their arrival that he had gone to visit Massasoit, 
 and being assured that there was no certain news of the death 
 of the chief, Winslow sent a messenger to Sowams who 
 brought back word that he was still alive. Winslow then 
 hastened to Sowams and found Massasoit apparently near 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 15 
 
 death, but by the judicious use of remedies he was able to 
 save his life. This liuiuane act determined the long and 
 effective friendship of Massasoit for the colonists, and so 
 proved of the greatest value. Winslow and Hampden de- 
 parted from Sowams followed by the blessings of the sachem 
 and all his people. At Cor bi taut' s invitation they, on their 
 way home, si)ent a night with him here, being treated with 
 most generous hospitality. 
 
 During the twenty years next succeeding, the colonists 
 added to Plymouth the six settled towns, Duxbury, Scituate, 
 Taunton, Barnstable, Sandwich and Yarmouth. A trading 
 post was located in Sowams as early as 1632, in which year 
 Massasoit fled for shelter from the Narragansetts " to an 
 Enoiish house at Sowams." But there was no settlement in 
 this vicinity sufficient to warrant a town organization till 
 1645, when Rehoboth was incorporated. The same year 
 John Brown bought Wannamoisett Neck of Massasoit. 
 Three years later the church of Rehoboth suffered a " serious 
 schism," the '' first real schism" in religion which had taken 
 place in the colony. Obadiah Holmes and eight others with- 
 drew, set up " a meeting by themselves," and afterwards 
 joined a Baptist church in Newport, whither some of them 
 moved. 
 
 The same year a Baptist church was organized in 
 Swansea, in Wales, under the pastorate of John Myles, who 
 for the previous four years had preached with great success 
 in various places. This was in the first year of Ci^mwelFs 
 protectorate. Under the religious freedom thus gained, the 
 church at Swansea grew to a membership of three hundred. 
 Mr. Myles became the leading Baptist minister in Wales. 
 When the monarchy was restored the act of uniformity was 
 passed, which drove two thousand of the best ministers in 
 England from their places. Mr. Myles, with some mem- 
 bers of his church, came to America in 1663. Finding that 
 
16 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 in Relioboth there were persons holding his faith, he went 
 thither and formed a church of seven members. 
 
 Their '' holy covenant " is a remarkable document, both 
 in respect to the piety, and the spirit of Christian fellow- 
 ship, which it evinces. They declare that union with Christ 
 is the sole ground of their union, and of the Christian fel- 
 lowship which they seek and will give. 
 
 Nevertheless, as soon as it became known that a Bap- 
 tist church had been organized, the churches of the colony 
 solicited the court to interpose its influence against it, and 
 Pastor Myles and James Brown were fined each £5 and 
 Nicholas Tanner 20s. for setting up a public meeting with- 
 out the knowledge and approbation of the court, to the dis- 
 turbance of the peace. They were further ordered to desist 
 from their meeting for the space of a month, and advised to 
 remove to some place where they would not prejudice any 
 other church. This colonial disfavor towards those holding- 
 Baptist views is the fundamental fact in the origin of 
 Swansea. 
 
 A plain house of worship was at once built, just over 
 the southern border of Eehoboth, in New Meadow Neck, 
 the members gradually settling near it. The catholic spirit 
 of Mr. Myles drew thither not only Baptists, Init others who 
 were tolerant of their opinions. 
 
 Being without town government, these settlers thought 
 to secure for themselves that measure of civil autonomy. 
 Previous to Oct. 3d, 1667, Plymouth granted to Thomas 
 Willett and his neighbors of Wannamoisett the privilege of 
 becoming a town. On the above date they signified their 
 desire for incorporation. To the new town was given the 
 name borne by the place in Wales whence Pastor Myles had 
 been driven, Swansea, the Sea of Swans. It lay between the 
 two upper forks of Narragansett Bay, south of the Relioboth 
 and Taunton lines, and extended from Taunton to Provi- 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 17 
 
 dence rivers. It consists of a series of five main peninsulas 
 or necks projecting* southward, and separated by arms of the 
 bay and the streams flowing into them. The first neck on 
 the east is Shewamet, now Somerset, lying between Taunton 
 and Lee's rivers ; the next is Metapoiset, now known as 
 Gardner's Neck, between Lee's and Cole's rivers ; the third 
 is Kickemuit, between Cole's and Warren rivers. This tract 
 is traversed by the Kickemuit river, which, where it broad- 
 ens towards the bay, divides the tract into Toweset and Mont- 
 haup (or Mount Hope) Necks. The fourth is New Meadow 
 Neck, between Warren and Barrington rivers ; and the fifth 
 is Wannamoisett Neck, between Barrington and Providence 
 rivers. The area of the old town has been three times re- 
 duced : first in 1717, by the separate incorporation of Bar- 
 rington ; second by the settlement of the line between Massa- 
 chusetts and Rhode Island in 1747, whereby Little Comp- 
 ton, Tiverton, Barrington, Cumberland and the part of 
 Swansea now known as Warren fell to Rhode Island ; and 
 third in 1790, when the tract known as Shewamet was made 
 a separate town by the name of Somerset. 
 
 As we have seen, the motive to this settlement was 
 religious. Ecclesiastical freedom was the goal which led the 
 founders hither. The church was thus the basis of the town, 
 and the town organization was in order that, in gaining eccle- 
 siastical liberty, they need not sacrifice the high privilege of 
 American citizenship. Some of those who were active in 
 planting the church and town were not Baptists. They, how- 
 ever, saw that underneath the difference which separates Bap- 
 tists from their fellow Christians, there was a fundamental 
 adhesion to the essentials of the faith. Hence they were 
 willing to co-operate with Baptists in extending the bounds 
 both of the kingdom of God and of the Commonwealth. This 
 diversity of opinion resulted in a town where a larger meas- 
 
18 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 ure of religious liberty was enjoyed than anywhere else in 
 the colony. 
 
 Historians agree in calling Pastor Myles and Capt. 
 Thomas Willett the fathers of the town. To Capt. Willett, 
 with four others, was given the trust of " the admittance of 
 town inhabitants.'' The terms of membership which Willett 
 proposed were laid before the church, and, after considera- 
 tion by that body, a reply was made by Mr. Myles and John 
 Butterworth. This document is a careful *' explication" of 
 the sense in which the proposals are to be understood and 
 accepted, and reveals the scholarly and trained mind of the 
 pastor. Like all other documents relating to the settlement, 
 this clearly shows the religious motive to have been domin- 
 ant. The " explications" made by the church were agreed 
 to by the trustees, and the proposals, as thus explained, were 
 adopted by the town February 20th, 1669. 
 
 On the foundation thus laid, Swansea was built. Un- 
 til this time Baptists had been excluded from every colony 
 in New England except Khode Island. The organization of 
 this town on the basis of religious toleration was thus an im- 
 portant epoch in the history of religious opinions and of ec- 
 clesiastical life. This church, which still lives and worships 
 at North Swansea, was the first Baptist church formed in 
 Massachusetts, and the fourth in the United States. Thus 
 this town may justly claim to be the cradle of that branch 
 of the Christian church in this Commonwealth. 
 
 At the close of King Philip's war, owing to the broken 
 condition of his church, Mr. Myles labored three years in 
 Boston. Finally the urgent entreaties of his people caused 
 his return. As the settlement was mainly broken up, and 
 a new one had been started further down the Neck, a parson- 
 age and a church were there built. The death of Mr. Myles 
 in 1683 closed a faithful and fruitful ministry of thirty-eight 
 years. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 19 
 
 EARLY PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 In the original partition of the public lands, there was 
 reserved a pastor's, a teacher's and a schoolmaster's lot. 
 This shows, that, at the outset, the people counted on the 
 establishment of schools. December 19, 1673, it was order- 
 ed " that a school should be forthwith set up in this town for 
 the teaching of grammar, rhetoric and arithmetic, and the 
 tongues of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, also to read English 
 and to write," and " that Mr. John Myles the present pastor 
 of the church here assembling be schoolmaster," or " to have 
 power to dispose the same to an able schoolmaster during the 
 said pastor's life." The salary was to be " X40 in current 
 country funds," but on condition that Mr. Myles and his 
 successor should accept whatever the people would bestow in 
 a weekly contribution for their ministerial services. Mr. 
 Myles accepted the proposition and held his school in vari- 
 ous parts of the town on successive months, to suit the con- 
 venience of pupils. Thus he deserves grateful remembrance 
 not only as the first pastor but also as the early schoolmaster 
 and teacher of youth who laid the foundation of the public 
 schools of Swansea. 
 
 After his death no mention is made of a school till 
 1698, when Jonathan Bosworth was employed at £18, one- 
 fourth in money and the rest in provisions at money prices. 
 He was to teach the first month in Wannamoisett Neck, the 
 second in New Meadow Neck, the third in Kickemuit, the 
 fourth in the Cole neighborhood, and fifth on Metapoiset, 
 and so in succession. Later, John Devotion was engaged at 
 X12 and board and X20 for feeding a horse, to keep a school 
 in succession " in the four quarters of the town." In 1709 
 he engaged for six years, and in 1715 for twenty years more. 
 At this time it was voted that he should " teach our youth 
 to read Inglish and Lattin and wriglit & sifer as their may 
 
20 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 be occation." He was to teacli five montlis each year, from 
 October tlirougli Februaij, the first two months near his 
 own dwelling, and the other three in other parts of the town. 
 His compensation was £11 10s. a year, three ponnds of 
 which was to be paid for the nse of the schoolmaster's lot. 
 Such were the beginnings of our public schools. 
 
 DIVISION OF INHABITANTS INTO RANKS, 
 AND DIVISION OF LAND. 
 
 To the trustees of the town was also assigned the duty 
 of dividing the public lands. The method of division was 
 as undemocratic as it was unprecedented. The men were 
 divided into three ranks, according to the judgment of the 
 trustees as to their standing. Promotions and degradations 
 were made from time to time by a committee appointed by 
 the town. The men of the first rank received three acres to 
 two granted those of the second and to one granted those in 
 the third. The majority were of the second rank, though 
 more were of the third than of the first. For ten years this 
 ranking system was in force. But it broke down when in 
 1681 the committee granted to five men, their heirs and as- 
 signs forever, ''the full right and interest of the highest 
 rank." It was all these freemen could stand to have a landed 
 aristocracy. But to have it made hereditary they would 
 not endure, and so the town by unanimous vote repudiated 
 the act of the committee, and from that time the practice 
 went into disuse. 
 
 CAPTAIN THOMAS WILLETT. 
 
 Of Capt. Thomas Willett much might be said. One 
 of the last of the Leyden colony to come to Plymouth, he 
 early secured and always enjoyed the confidence of the col- 
 onists. Their agent at the Maine trading posts, successor 
 of Miles Standish in military command, largely engaged in 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 21 
 
 coastwise traffic, long an assistant in the Plymouth govern- 
 ment, an arbitrator between his colony and lihocle Island on 
 boundary disputes, chosen by Governor Stuyvesant of New 
 Amsterdam as a man of fairness and integrity to represent 
 the Dutch in their controversy with the English. " More 
 acquainted with the manners and customs of the Dutch than 
 any Englishman in the colony," and hence the leading advis- 
 er of the English in the negotiations which resulted in the 
 surrender of New Amsterdam ; prominent in organizing New 
 York, its first mayor, and who " twice did sustaine the 
 place," trusted beyond any other man by English, Dutch 
 and Indians, a settler in Swansea as early as 1659 or '60, 
 and until his death its foremost citizen, dying Aug. 4th, 
 1674, less than a year before Swansea was ravaged by Philip's 
 Indians, buried with his wife near the head of Bullock's cove 
 in East Providence ; such in outline was the life of Capt. 
 Thomas Willett. 
 
 KING Philip's war. 
 
 The gradual alienation of their lands to the English, 
 and the consequent growth of English settlements, threatened 
 the ascendancy if not the existence of the Indian tribes. 
 Against the latter contingency the colonists sought to guard. 
 When the Plymouth authorities gave Capt. Willett liberty 
 to purchase lands in Swansea, they added the express proviso, 
 " so as he do not too much straiten the Indians." But by 
 his land sales, Philip, son and successor of Massasoit, became 
 shut into Mount Hope peninsula, so that his only land route 
 out lay through Swansea. 
 
 We cannot now refer to the events which led to Philip's 
 fierce and fatal outbreak, which, in its course, despoiled 
 New England of a dozen towns, six hundred dwellings, and 
 as many of its choicest young men. Swansea was destined 
 to suffer the first baptism of blood and fire. 
 
22 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Convinced that war was impending, Maj. James Brown 
 of Swansea, on the 14th of June, 1675, laid the facts of the 
 case before Gov. Winslow, and two days later Capt. Benja- 
 min Church brought to Plymouth conclusive evidence that 
 war was at hand. Measures were at once taken to oppose 
 force to force. On Sunday, June 20th, the predicted out- 
 burst occurred. Some of Philip's men raided Swansea, en- 
 tering houses, helping themselves to food, shooting cattle 
 and committing other acts of lawlessness. Most of the men 
 were in church, but one was found at home, whose cattle 
 were shot, and whose house was entered and liquor demanded. 
 When it was refused, violence was resorted to, whereupon 
 the householder shot one of the Indians, inflicting a serious, 
 though not fatal wound. 
 
 A son of Major Brown at once bore tidings of the out- 
 break to Plymouth. A fast was proclaimed for Thursday, 
 June 24th. The troops of all the towns were ordered to 
 rendezvous at Taunton, Monday night, and messengers were 
 sent to Boston to urge prompt assistance. A stone house, 
 upon the farm of Gov. Brenton, at Metapoiset, occupied 
 by Jared Bourne, was used as a garrison, which the Bridge- 
 water company was ordered to re-enforce. This company 
 reached the garrison Monday night and found there seventy 
 persons, all but sixteen, woman and children. The next 
 day, a part of the soldiers having escorted Mr. Brown to 
 his home, on their return met thirty Indians, and a little 
 later met some of the men of the garrison going to a barn 
 for corn. Though warned of their danger, the men pro- 
 ceeded and were assailed, six of them being killed or mortally 
 wounded. 
 
 Thus the first blood of the war was shed on Gardner's 
 Neck. The Bridgewater troops remained at Bourne's gar- 
 rison until re-enforced, when the in)nates were conveyed 
 down Mount Hope Bay to Ehode Island, and the house 
 
The Garrison 
 
 House of John Myles. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 25 
 
 abandoned. This honse stood on the farm long occupied by 
 Mr. Saunders Sherman. 
 
 On the next day, June 23d, another man was shot 
 within the bounds of Swansea, and his wife and chikl scalped. 
 On Thursday, the appointed Fast Day, some of the Swansea 
 settlers returning from church were attacked. One was 
 killed, another was wounded, and two men going for a sur- 
 geon were slain. On the same day in another part of the 
 town others were killed. 
 
 " By this time half of Swansea was burned." By 
 Monday night, June 28th, two companies of foot and one of 
 cavalry from Boston had joined the Plymouth forces already 
 assembled at the garrison house of Pastor Myles, which is 
 now standing near Myles's Bridge, at Barneyville. This 
 bridge spans what is now known as Palmer's river, from 
 Walter Palmer, an elderly settler of Rehoboth, its first 
 representative at Plymouth, whose farm was on its banks. 
 Across this bridge a detachment of cavalry pushed, but were 
 fired upon and driven back with the loss of one killed and 
 two wounded. Tuesday morning several Indians having 
 appeared, were driven across the bridge and five or six of 
 them slain. That night, Philip fearing that he should be 
 caught in his own narrow peninsula, escaped to the Pocas- 
 set country, Tiverton, across the Mount Hope Bay. Major 
 Savage, who had been placed in command of the Massachu- 
 setts troops, having arrived, the combined forces marched 
 into Mount Hope Neck, in search of Philip. On their way, 
 at Kickemuit, near the present village of Warren, they saw, 
 set upon poles, the heads of the men who had been slain at 
 Metapoiset. They continued their march down the Neck, 
 but they found the wigwams untenanted and no Indians to 
 be seen. 
 
 Thursday the Massachusetts troops returned to Myles's 
 garrison, the cavalry going on to Rehoboth for better quar- 
 
26 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 ters. Keturniiig the next morning tliey came upon some In- 
 dians burning a building, and killed four or five of them. 
 On Sunday, July 4th, Capt. Hutchinson brought orders for 
 the Massachusetts troops to go to Narraganset country, and 
 seek an agreement which should hold that tribe back from 
 the support of Philip. 
 
 The next two weeks saw the expedition of Capt. Fuller 
 and Church to the Pocasset and Seaconnet country, which 
 revealed the bitterly hostile temper of these tribes ; the 
 two expeditions which Church led to the Pocasset Swamp, 
 in one of which Philip lost fifteen men, the march of 
 the major part of the Plymouth force by way of Ta-unton 
 toward the swamp, the apparently successful negotiation of 
 the Narragansetts, their return to Swansea and their junction 
 with the Plymouth troops, at Pocasset Swamp, within which 
 Philip had taken refuge. Philip eluded his besiegers on 
 the night of the last day of July, crossing Taunton river, 
 probably near Dighton Rock. Though assailed while cross- 
 ing Seekonk plain by the men of Rehoboth who slew some 
 thirty of his men, he escaped into the Nipmunk country. 
 Thus he was launched upon a life and death struggle with 
 the colonists. 
 
 With unabated fury the contest raged through the re- 
 mainder of 1675 and the first half of 1676. But the san- 
 guinary and ferocious conquest of the Narragansetts, the 
 desertion of many of his confederates and the death of many 
 more, left Philip in an almost hopeless plight ; and after 
 a year's absence he seems to have been resolved to meet his 
 fate in the beautiful land which held the graves of his 
 fathers, and which had been his home. Abandoned by his 
 confederates, betrayed by his friends, his most faithful 
 followers fallen in battle, his wife and son in the hands 
 of his deadly foes, liunted from wood to wood, from swamp to 
 swamp, he had come to his ancestral seat to make his last 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 27 
 
 stand. Yet such was his temper that he wouhl not hear of 
 peace. He even struck dead one of his own followers for 
 suggesting it. A kinsman of the man thus slain brought 
 news of Philip's hiding place to Capt. Church, who with his 
 soldiers was on Rhode Island. They at once crossed to 
 Mount Hope. The informer acting as guide, they made 
 their way up the west side of the Neck, toward the swamp 
 within which Philip had taken refuge. Creeping stealthily 
 up, in the dark of the early morning, the force completely 
 invested the knoll on which Philip was encamped. When 
 the alarm was given, he plunged into the swamp, only to 
 meet two of his besiegers. By one of them, the Indian 
 Alderman, he was shot. Thus the renowned chieftain, who 
 had been the terror of New England, fell, pierced through 
 the lungs and heart. And thus ended the mortal career of 
 the most noted Indian in American history. 
 
 In the times immediately succeeding his uprising and 
 overthrow, no epithet was too bitter for the use of those 
 against whom he rose. 
 
 But history has, in a measure, reversed their judgment. 
 Though all must rejoice in the failure of his attempt, yet we 
 can sympathize with the motives which actuated him. In 
 the classic words of Irving : " He was a patriot attached to 
 his native soil, — a prince, true to his subjects and indignant 
 of their wrongs, — a soldier, daring in battle, firm in ad- 
 versity, patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of 
 bodily suffering, and ready to perish in the cause he had 
 espoused." " With heroic qualities and bold achievements 
 that would have graced a civilized warrior, and have ren- 
 dered him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived 
 a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went down, 
 like a lonely bark, foundering amid darkness and tempest — 
 without a pitying eye to weep his fall, or a friendly hand to 
 record his struggle." 
 
28 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 NOTABLE MEN OF SWANSEA'S FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Among" the best known of Swansea's early settlers was 
 Maj. James Brown, brother of Capt. Willett's wife. He 
 was one of the original members of the Swansea Church, 
 one of the five citizens who were to admit to the town, and 
 divide its lands, long a leading citizen and officer, represen- 
 tative in the Plymouth Court in 1671-2, a local leader in the 
 campaign against Philip, and successor of Capt. Willett, as 
 an " assistant in Plymouth Colony." 
 
 Another name not to be forgotten is that of Lieut. 
 Hugh Cole, an original member of the church, an early se- 
 lectman, representing the town seven of its first fifteen terms 
 in the General Court. Like the immortal Washington, 
 Lieut. Cole was a land surveyor. 
 
 In 1669 he bought of Philip five hundred acres of land 
 on Toweset Neck, on the west side of the river to which his 
 name was given. 
 
 When the Indian War broke out, two of his sons were 
 captured and taken to Philip's headquarters. Philip released 
 them with the advice that their father should seek safety on 
 Rhode Island. He at once took his family thither, probably 
 down the Bay, but he had hardly gone when his house was 
 fired. After the war he settled on the west side of the Neck 
 upon Kickemuit River. His farm, and the well which he 
 dug the year after Philip's death, are still in possession of 
 his descendants. 
 
 With Willett and Brown as the town's first trustees was 
 associated Nathaniel Paine, who afterwards settled on the Mt. 
 Hope lands, and became one of the founders of Bristol, and 
 the third Judge of Probate for Bristol County. The first 
 Judge of Probate was John Saffin, an early jjroprietor of 
 Swansea, admitted to the first rank among its inhabitants in 
 1680, a son-in-law of Capt. Willett, a member of the Gener- 
 
TOWN HxVLL, SWANSEA. 29 
 
 al Court for Boston from 1684 and Speaker from 1686 till 
 the usurpation of Andros, settling in Bristol about 1688, 
 Probate Judge from 1692 to 1702, and also Judge of the 
 Superior Court one year. 
 
 An Associate Justice of the first court established in 
 Bristol County was John Brown of Swansea, a grandson of 
 the first John Brown. 
 
 One of the early large proprietors of Swansea land was 
 Governor William Brenton of Newport, who bought Meta- 
 poiset Neck of the Indians in 1664. Here he lived for a 
 time after King Philip's War. He had been Governor of 
 Rhode Island Colony from 1666 to 1669, having been pre- 
 viously Deputy Governor four years. He became a very 
 extensive land owner. His Metapoiset land was cultivated 
 by Jared Bourne, whose house was garrisoned during the 
 war. He bequeathed it to his son Ebenezer, who in 1693 
 sold it to Lieut. Samuel Gardner and Ralph Chairman for 
 £1700. Mr. Gardner took the south part and Mr. Chap- 
 man the north. Mr. Gardner had been a prominent citizen 
 of Freetown, representing it in the General Court, and hold- 
 ing the offices of town clerk, treasurer and selectman. To 
 the latter office he was at once chosen in Swansea, but did 
 not long survive his removal hither. 
 
 In 1779, Col. Simeon Potter, a native of Bristol, one of 
 Rhode Island's prominent men, settled on Gardner's Neck. 
 His homestead farm extended from Lee's to Cole's rivers. 
 He was the owner of other large tracts of land. For more 
 than a quarter of a century he was one of the prominent 
 figures of this community, a hospitable and generous house- 
 holder, surrounded by whatever wealth could command, 
 owning also a number of slaves. Col. Potter was represen- 
 tative in 1784, to the General Court from Swansea. In 1795 
 he gave a valuable parcel of land in Newport to support in 
 that city a free school forever for the advantage of poor 
 
30 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 children of every denomination. A large school honse erect- 
 ed in 1880 is called the Potter school. He bequeathed a 
 small farm to one of his former slaves, in the possession of 
 whose heirs it still remains. His homestead farm and the 
 house in which he lived are now owned by Mrs. Macomber.* 
 
 SUCCESSIVE PASTORATES OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. 
 
 The immediate successor of Mr. Myles in the Swansea 
 pastorate was Captain Samuel Luther, a founder and early 
 proprietor of the town, in whose affairs he wielded great in- 
 fluence, sustaining nearly every civil and military office in 
 the gift of his townsmen. He was ordained two years after 
 the death of Mr. Myles, and held the pastorate thirty-two 
 years. The old meeting house at North Swansea, which 
 was familiar to many of you, was built the year after his 
 death, in 1717, and stood until 1845, when it was taken down 
 and the present house of worship erected. Ephraim Wheaton 
 who had been his colleague, became his successor. He was 
 a man of respectable property, of influence and of power, 
 and successful in the ministry, adding to the church by bap- 
 tism about one hundred persons in seventeen years. 
 
 Next come Samuel Maxwell and Jabez Wood, followed 
 by Charles Thompson, probably the most distinguished man 
 in the long line of Mr. Myles' s successors. He was valedic- 
 torian of the first class graduated at Brown University, a 
 chaplain in the American Army, and pastor in Warren. 
 When his church and parsonage in that place were burned 
 by the British soldiers in 1778, he was taken prisoner and 
 confined a month in Newport. His people sought and were 
 welcomed to temporary membership in the Swansea church, 
 of which lie shortly became pastor. During his twenty-two 
 year's pastorate one hundred and seventy-six were baptized 
 into the fellowship of the church. He was a scholarly man, 
 
 * See Appendix Xo. 2. 
 
The old meeting house at North Swansea, erected in 1717 and 
 
 taken down in 1845, it being the house of worship of the 
 
 first Baptist church organized in Massachxisetts. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 33 
 
 a schoolmaster for many years, a man of great pnlpit power, 
 of commanding voice, fine figure, expressive features, tender 
 sympathies, plain and forcible in speech, exalting the great 
 truths of the evangelical system, and using them effectively 
 as the weapons of his spiritual warfare, often a preacher on 
 public occasions, and considered a leader in the denomina- 
 tion whose ministry he adorned. 
 
 Under some of the leaders who followed, the church for 
 a while lost the fellow^ship of the adjacent churches of its 
 order, but recovered it under the ministry of Rev. Abiel 
 Fisher who served it faithfully from 1836 to 1846. More 
 brief pastorates have brought the church down to the present 
 time, and it still stands for the faith once delivered to the 
 saints, in its two hundred and twenty-eighth year. Long may 
 it continue a light to lead the community in ways of truth 
 and righteousness. 
 
 " THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN SWANSEA." 
 
 The distance of the church after its removal to the lower 
 end of New Meadow Neck, caused the residents of the cen- 
 tral portion of Swansea to establish religious services near 
 Luther's Corner, as early as 1680, four years after the death 
 of Philip. Organization was effected and a pastor ordained 
 in 1693. If this be counted a Baptist Church it was the 
 thirteenth in America. Its record book styles it a " Church 
 of Christ in Swansea." No doctrinal tests, but only evidence 
 of Christian character, were required for admission. Thomas 
 Barnes, one of the original proprietors of the town, was 
 chosen and ordained pastor at the time of organization, his 
 death closing a successful ministry of thirteen years. His 
 successor, Joseph Mason, was a son of Samson Mason, who 
 was a soldier of Oliver Cromwell, and who on coming to 
 America settled in Rehoboth. Another of his sons was the 
 first deacon of the church. John Pierce became colleague 
 
S4 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 of Joseph Mason in 1715. These two men " continued in 
 good esteem in their offices until the death of Elder Mason in 
 1748 and of Elder Pierce in 1750, being each of them near 
 ninety years old." 
 
 Ten years before the death of Elder Mason, upon the 
 request of the two pastors for a colleague, his nephew, Job 
 Mason, was appointed. He proved a judicious pastor and 
 an able preacher, so that, in later years, the era of his pastor- 
 ate was regarded as the golden age of the church. His 
 brother Russell became his associate in 1752 and his success- 
 or in 1775, ministering to this people forty-seven years and 
 dying just before the dawn of this century. A cousin of 
 these two, Benjamin Mason, became the colleague and the 
 successor of Elder Russell, his labors continuing to his death 
 in 1813. 
 
 Thus, for one hundred and seven consecutive years, the 
 pastoral office in this church was filled by a son or a grand- 
 son of Samson Mason. With the latest of the line, Philip 
 Slade, Jr., was associated in 1801, whom he succeeded in 
 1813, being dismissed in 1820. He was succeeded by Ben- 
 jamin Taylor, who spent ten useful and successful years in 
 the ministry here, being held in honor throughout the region. 
 Want of time forbids even the merest mention of his suc- 
 cessors. Two years hence this church will pass the two hun- 
 dredth anniversary of its organization. It is, perhaps, the 
 oldest church in the Commonwealth which has never had any 
 legal connection with a town. 
 
 Some of the older members of the Second Church, not 
 satisfied with the dismission of Elder Philip Slade, left the 
 church and held services under his conduct at the house of 
 Deacon Ellery Wood, about a mile north of Luther's Corner. 
 They were organized as a church by the Six Principle Bap- 
 tists. Deacon Wood bequeathed his homestead for the 
 maintenance of worship and it became the home of Elder 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 35 
 
 Comstock, (the only pastor after Elder Slade,) and the honse 
 of worship as well. The proceeds of the property which has 
 been sold, are now held in trnst for the benefit of the denom- 
 ination. 
 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 
 
 Her contributions for the support of the war for national 
 independence constitute an im^jortant and honorable chapter 
 in the history of Swansea. 
 
 At a meeting held Sept. 26th, 1774, the town chose Col. 
 Andrew Cole, Capt. Levi Wheaton, Capt. Philip Slade, 
 Richard Cornell and Capt. Luther Thurber a committee to 
 meet with the delegates from the other towns of the county, 
 in Taunton " then and there to deliberate and devise meas- 
 ures sutabel to the exigency of the times." 
 
 A Hampshire county convention had just been held " to 
 consult upon measures to be taken in this time of general 
 distress in the province, occasioned by the late attack of the 
 British Ministry upon the constitution of said province." 
 That attack had come in the shape of an act of Parliament 
 " For the Better Regulating of the Province of Massachu- 
 setts Bay." The principle of this act, Bancroft says, " was 
 the concentration of all executive power, including the courts 
 of justice, in the hands of the royal governor. Without a 
 previous notice to Massachusetts, and without a hearing, it 
 took away rights and liberties which the people had enjoyed 
 from the foundation of the colony" with scarcely an excep- 
 tion. It superseded a charter, " which had been the organic 
 law of the people of Massachusetts for more than eighty 
 years." It provided that the Governor's Council should be 
 appointed by the King, rather than chosen by the representa- 
 tives of the people. The Governor appointed by the Crown, 
 without even consulting his council, might appoint and re- 
 move all judges and court officers. The selection of jurors 
 was taken from the freeholders and given to the sheriffs, who 
 
36 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 were appointees of the Governor. Worse than all, the regu- 
 lating act sought to throttle the town meeting, that dearest 
 of all institutions to New England, whose people, as Ban- 
 croft so well puts it, " had been accustomed, in their town 
 meetings, to transact all business that touched them most 
 nearly, as fathers, as freemen, and as Christians. There 
 they adopted local taxes to keep their free schools ; there 
 they regulated the municipal concerns of the year : there 
 they chose their representatives and instructed them : and 
 there most of them took measures for the settlement of min- 
 isters of the gospel in their congregations : there they were 
 accustomed to express their sentiments upon any subject 
 connected with their interests, rights, liberties, and religion." 
 
 The new act allowed only two town meetings annually, 
 in which town officers and representatives might be chosen, 
 but no other matters introduced. Every other assembly of 
 a town was forbidden, except only upon written leave of the 
 Governor, and then only for business expressed in that 
 leave. Thus the King trampled under foot the customs, 
 laws, and privileges of the people of Massachusetts. 
 
 This act went immediately into effect, and at once 
 forced a choice between resistance and submission. 
 
 In this juncture, the Committee of Boston sent a circu- 
 lar letter to all the towns in the province, in which they 
 said : '' Though surrounded by a large body of armed men, 
 who, having the sword, have also our blood in their hands, 
 we are yet undaunted. To you, our brethren, and dear 
 companions in the cause of God, we apply. To you we look 
 for that advice and example which with the blessing of God 
 shall save us from destruction." This urgent message 
 roused the State : William Prescott of Pepperell, who in 
 less than a year was to stand at the head of a band of 
 American soldiers to dispute with the British regulars the pos- 
 session of the Bunker Hill redoubt, expressed the mind of 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 37 
 
 'the State, when he wrote for his neighbors, " We think, if 
 we submit to these reguhitions, all is gone. Let us all be 
 of one heart and stand fast in the liberties wherewith Christ 
 has made us free." Everywhere the people were weighing 
 the issue in which they were involved, and one spirit ani- 
 mated the country. 
 
 This was the situation in view of which Swansea sent 
 Col. Andrew Cole and his associates " to deliberate and de- 
 vise measures sutabel to the exigency of the times." And 
 this was why in a town meeting which the new regulating 
 act interdicted but whicdi was nevertheless held, Swansea 
 chose Colonel Andrew Cole, Col. Jerathmiel Bowers and 
 Capt. Levi Wheaton as ''a committee for said town to meet 
 with other committees of the several towns in the province, 
 at Concord to act on measures agreeable to the times." This 
 was why later, they chose a Committee of Inspection to ex- 
 ecute the wishes of the Continental Congress. 
 
 Thus by their votes in town meeting. New England 
 everywhere bade defiance to Great Britain. In this town 
 twelve of these meetings were held in one year. 
 
 Committees of Inspection, Correspondence and Safety 
 were appointed by all the towns, composed of their leading- 
 men. Through them the authorities reached the people at 
 large, and secured the execution of their plans. 
 
 The events of the fateful morning of Aj^ril 19, 1775, 
 are known to all. The six companies of Rehoboth are all 
 on record as responding to the Lexington alarm. It is not 
 likely that the three Swansea companies, which with those 
 of Kehoboth constituted the first Bristol regiment, failed to 
 respond to the call, though no record of such response has 
 come to my knowledge. The town, two days later, ordered 
 the Selectmen to provide 40 '' gons" 250 lbs. of powder, 700 
 lbs. of lead and 600 flints, and directed " that fifty men be 
 enlisted to be ready at a minute's warning." May 22nd a 
 
88 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Committee of Insi^ection was appointed, and it was voted 
 " that the town will secure and defend said committee and 
 empower them to follow and observe such directions as 
 they shall receive from time to time from the Provincial 
 Congress or Committee of Safety." At this time five sliill- 
 ings penalty was imposed for wasting a charge of powder, 
 and the offender's stock of ammunition was forfeited. 
 
 In order to ascertain Swansea's response to the call for 
 troops the muster rolls of the Revolution have l)een examined 
 and a book has been placed in the library into which such 
 parts of them as relate to Swansea have been transcribed. 
 An indexed alphabetical list has been prepared which shows 
 that not less that four hundred and sixteen Swansea men 
 bore arms in the War for Independence, many of them how- 
 ever, only for brief periods along our own shores. On this 
 list the surnames which occur oftenest are Peck, Martin, 
 Anthony and Bowers, which each have seven representatives, 
 Kingsley nine. Wood and Pierce each eleven. Cole and 
 Barney each twelve. Mason eighteen. Chase nineteen, while 
 Luther leads all the rest with a record of twenty-seven. 
 
 From such rolls as are extant the following facts are 
 gathered : Seven Swansea men served at least five months 
 of 1775 in Col. David Brewer's regiment near Boston, as 
 did a few in other regiments doing duty there. Probably 
 many more did actually serve that year. The alarms of war 
 were brought close home to this section. From the time 
 when the British took possession of the island called 
 Rhode Island in December, 1776, till they abandoned it two 
 years later, the militia were often called into service. Troops 
 were repeatedly called to Slade's Ferry, Rowland's Ferry, 
 (now the Stone Bridge in Tiverton) to Bristol, to Warwick 
 Neck, (a part of which is now known as Rocky Point) and 
 even to the Island itself. 
 
 In May 1779, it was '^ voted that there be a guard on 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 39 
 
 each of the necks for safety of the good people of the town." 
 Later in 1779 " voted 22 men to guard the shores." Eight 
 Swansea men served in the artillery company of Capt. Tales 
 of Taunton, at Blade's Ferry in December, 1776. 
 
 Of three militia captains of this town Peleg Sherman, 
 afterwards Colonel, was a leading factor in the conduct of 
 Swansea's relation to the great struggle. He was often 
 moderator of town meetings and at the head of important 
 committees on military affairs. He was in active service 
 along our shore during the British occupation of Rhode 
 Island, e. (/. at Slade's Ferry from January 6 to June 5, 
 1777, and at Bristol later in the same year. He also served 
 the government as commissary for the supply of stores to 
 the troops. His home, where at one time troops were quar- 
 tered, was at Shewamet Neck, at what is now known as the 
 the Henry H. Mason place, where he died Nov. 20, 1811, 
 aged sixty-four. 
 
 Philip Slade, another of the militia captains, was also 
 often on important committees. He was selected to wait 
 upon General Sullivan, " to represent to him the fenceless 
 condition of the town, and pray him to be pleased to order a 
 gard for us against our enemies on Rhode Island." He 
 was on July 5th, 1779, appointed one of the committee "to 
 confer with General Gates at Providence upon some meas- 
 ures for the safety of the town," and at the same meeting 
 he and John Mason " were chosen deligates to represent the 
 town at Cambridge in forming a new constitution." 
 
 The same thing can be said in perhaps less degree of 
 the third Captain Peleg Peck, whose company served fre- 
 quently along our shores, as for instance, at Bristol, in 
 December 1776, on a secret expedition to Tiverton, where 
 it was stationed from Sept. 29th, to Oct. 30th, 1777, at 
 Warwick, R. I., from January to April 1778, and later in 
 the same year, on Rhode Island about six weeks. 
 
40 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 A pay roll for the Continental pay of Capt. Peck's 
 company who were called ont by an alarm to Tiverton, 
 states that " by order of Col. Peleg Slead all the men in 
 Swansea were joined in one company under Capt. Peck," 
 to respond to an alarm at Tiverton. The roll bears one 
 hundred and seventy-eight names, and shows that the men 
 served from four to nine days. In the expedition of Gen. 
 Sullivan on Rhode Island, Col. Carpenter's regiment of 
 Rehoboth and Swansea men distinguished themselves for 
 their bravery, Benjamin Smith of Swansea being wounded 
 by a bursting shell. 
 
 Another of the local leaders in this struggle was Col. 
 Peleg Slead, one of the largest land owners of the town, who 
 was called to fill many important offices of town and State, 
 and who proved himself an ardent friend of his country's 
 cause. He died Dec. 28, 1813, at the age of eighty-four, 
 and is buried in the cemetery on his homestead farm, not 
 far from this village. 
 
 On a muster roll dated Sept. 16th, 1777, eight Swansea 
 men are returned as enlisted for the present war in Col. 
 Henry Jackson's regiment, which was probably in service 
 on the Hudson. On the 19th of June, 1778, ten men were 
 drafted for nine months from their arrival at Fishkill, and 
 about the same time three for nine months from their ar- 
 rival at Springfield. 
 
 April 10th, 1778, the General Court having ordered 
 2,000 men to be raised to recruit the State's fifteen battalions 
 of Continental troops for service either in Rhode Island or 
 on the Hudson, twenty-six Swansea men were sent to Col. 
 William Lee's regiment. In 1779, twelve Swansea men 
 were in Continental regiments on duty in Rhode Island. 
 During this year one-seventh part of the male population 
 was ordered under arms in the national service. Swansea 
 was behind on its quota only three men, few towns showing 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 41 
 
 a better record. 1780 and 1781 saw other men in small 
 numbers enlisted for three years or the war. 
 
 Thus, with constant drafts for men and money, the 
 war wore on to its triumphant close in 1783, when the 
 people had the joy of knowing that the last British soldier 
 had left our shores, and that through great sacrifice in blood 
 and treasure Independence was secured. 
 
 SHIP BUILDING. 
 
 One of the earlier industries of the colonies was that of 
 ship building. 
 
 For several years the immigration of shipwrights was 
 encouraged, and special privileges were given them, such as 
 exemption from the duty of training, and from the taxation 
 of property actually used by them in their business. These 
 inducements brought hither a number of good carpenters. 
 In 1694 a sloop of forty tons burden was built in Swansea, 
 and in 1697 a ship of seventy-eiffht tons. In the early part 
 of the last century, Samuel Lee came to this country in the 
 interest of English people, to look after timber land. He 
 settled on Shewamet Neck and built a house near the resi- 
 dence of Mr. Levi Slade, establishing a shipyard at the land- 
 ing, where for several years he carried on a large industry. 
 In 1707 a ship of 120 tons, — a large craft for those times — 
 was launched. In 1708 abrigantine of fifty tons and a ship 
 of one liundred and seventy tons, in 1709 two brigantines of 
 fifty -five tons each, and in 1712 a sloop of eighty tons were 
 built in Swansea. The river upon which Mr. Lee located 
 his yard soon after his advent took and has since retained 
 his name, Lee's River. 
 
 Vessels have been built near the residence of Mr. Wil- 
 liam H. Pearce, on Cole's river. 
 
 Prior to 1801, when he moved to New York, Jonathan 
 Barney built several small vessels on Palmer's river. In 
 
42 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 1802 his son, Mason Barney, being then less than twenty 
 years of age, contracted to build a ship. Although young 
 Barney was acquainted with the nature of ship building, 
 through his father carrying it on, he himself did not know 
 the use of tools. His courage and self reliance in takino' 
 such a contract, when so young and inexperienced, fore- 
 shadowed the character of the future man. By his zeal, en- 
 thusiasm and determined will he overcame the great difficul- 
 ties which to most men would have been insurmountable. 
 From this beginning sprung up the ship building business 
 at Barneyville, and Mr. Barney's subsequent great promin- 
 ence in business circles. He sometimes employed two hun- 
 dred and fifty men, annually disbursing large sums of money. 
 The sails of the good substantial vessels, which in the course 
 of a half a century he built, whitened almost every sea. 
 
 During his business career he built one hundred and 
 forty-nine vessels, from the small fishing smack to the ship 
 of 1,060 tons, the largest vessel that had then been launched 
 in this section of New England. 
 
 It has been publicly stated, without denial, that Mr. 
 Barney built more vessels than any other man in this coun- 
 try had then built. 
 
 The financial crisis of 1857 found him with two large 
 ships upon his hands, with no market. In them he had invest- 
 ed a large part of his fortune, which was thus entirely dissi- 
 pated, and he was compelled to give up business. With him 
 passed away the ship building interest of Swansea. 
 
 Mr. Barney died on the first day of April, 1869. The 
 house in which he was born in 1782 is still standing, and 
 dates from old colonial times. 
 
 He was a fine specimen of an earnest, enthusiastic and 
 persevering man. He was unaffected, original in his charac- 
 ter, simple in his tastes and habits, always genial and hospit- 
 able. In his death the community lost an enterprising, 
 honest and eminent citizen. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 43 
 
 OTHER MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Richard Chase began the manufacture of shoes here in 
 1796, and pursued the business for nearly fifty years, em- 
 ploying more people than any other man in town except Mr. 
 Barney. 
 
 Other industries have been pursued in a small way, 
 such as the making of paper and the manufacture of cotton, 
 which last industry was commenced at Swansea Factory in 
 the year 1806 by Oliver Chace, and it was also carried on 
 at a small mill at what is now Swansea Dye Works ; cotton 
 was carded and spun, and the yarn sent out to be woven into 
 cloth by farmers' wives and daughters, as was the case in all 
 cotton manufactories in those days. 
 
 All these early industries, with others of which I cannot 
 now speak, have passed away. 
 
 POST-OFFICES. 
 
 The first post-office in Swansea was established on the 
 first day of Jnly, 1800. Mr. Reuben Chace was appointed 
 post-master. He opened an office at his dwelling-house, for 
 many years known as ''The Buttonwood," some three 
 quarters of a mile west of Swansea village. 
 
 On the 17th day of June, 1814, Mr. John Mason was 
 appointed post-master, and he removed the office to the 
 village, where it has since been located. Mr. Mason con- 
 tinned in office until the 12th day of June, 1849, when Mr. 
 John A. Wood was appointed post-master, who retained the 
 office until the sixth day of June, 1853, when Mr. John 
 Mason was again appointed, and who remained in office until 
 the 23d day of March, 1864, when Mr. John A. Wood was 
 reinstated as post-master. Mr. Wood held the office until 
 the 18th day of June, 1867, when his son, Mr. Henry O. 
 Wood, was appointed his successor. Mr. Henry O. Wood 
 served as post-master for twenty years, having resigned on 
 
44 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 the 24th day of May, 1887, when Mr. Lewis S. Gray, the 
 present post-master was appointed. 
 
 A post-office designated ^' Barney ville " was established 
 at North Swansea, and Mr. Mason Barney appointed the 
 first post-master on the 20th day of February, 1830. The 
 name of this office was subsequently changed to North Swan- 
 sea. Mr. Barney was superseded as post-master by Mr. 
 Alvan Cole on the 28th day of June, 1836. Mr. Cole re- 
 tained the office until the 28th day of February, 1838, when 
 Capt. James Cornell was appointed post-master, and remained 
 in office until the 24th day of June, 1841, when Mr. Mason 
 Barney was reappointed as post-master. Mr. Barney, Sr., was 
 followed in office by his son, Mr. Mason Barney, Jr., on the 
 15th day of April, 1867, who continued post-master until 
 he was succeeded on the 12th day of February, 1872, by the 
 present post-master, Mr. William P. Mason. 
 
 The post-office at Swansea Center was established on 
 the 29th day of December, 1888, when Mr. Seth W. Eddy 
 was appointed post-master, and now holds that office. 
 
 The post-office at Hortonville was established and Mr. 
 L. L. Cummings, the present post-master, was appointed to 
 that office on the 19th day of January, 1885. 
 
 On the 24th day of October 1890, a post-office, '' South 
 Swansea," was established on Gardner's Neck at the station 
 of the Old Colony Railroad Company. Mr. Frank J. Arnold 
 was appointed post-master, and began the business of the 
 office on the 20th day of November, 1890. He is the present 
 post-master. 
 
 THE POPULATION OF SWANSEA. 
 
 The population of Swansea from the time of the first 
 State census in 1765 has never varied greatly. The total 
 at that time was 1,840 which has never been exceeded save in 
 1820, when it reached 1,933. The lowest point was touched 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 45 
 
 in 1870, when it fell to 1,294. Since that date it has been 
 slowly bnt steadily rising. In 1890 the number was 1,456. 
 
 The stationary character of Swansea's population is due 
 largely to the fact that its chief industry is agricultural. At 
 the hist census, though it ranked as low as the two hundred and 
 eleventh town in the State in population, it stood thirty-sixth 
 in value of agricultural products. 
 
 The fixed tenure of many of its farms is worthy of note. 
 Some of them are still owned and oc(nipied by the lineal 
 descendants of the first proprietors, having descended from 
 father and son to the sixth and seventh generation. The 
 Masons, the Browns, the Woods, the Gardners and other 
 families are now living on their ancestral acres. 
 
 Though the industry of Swansea has been largely agri- 
 cultural, its citizens have had no unimportant agency in the 
 development of the cotton manufacture in Fall River. 
 When that industry was there begun, a very considerable 
 portion of the money invested came from the country towns. 
 
 The Fall River Manufactory, the first cotton mill erected 
 there, was built in 1813. Its capital was divided into sixty 
 shares, of which William Mason and Samuel Gardner, 2d, of 
 Swansea, took two each. Mr. Mason soon added to his 
 holdings, so that one twelfth part of the stock was held in 
 this town, and at a subsequent date a still larger percentage. 
 
 The Troy Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company 
 was organized a little later, the originator of which was 
 Oliver Chace, who had had some experience in a small way 
 in the manufacture of cotton at Swansea Factory, and who 
 moved to Fall River where he could embark on a more ex- 
 tensive scale. He took one tenth part of the stock in the 
 new company, wdiile an equal amount was taken here by 
 Benjamin Slade, Moses Bui^nton, Oliver Earle, Joseph 
 G. Luther and Joseph Bufftnton, making one fifth of its 
 entire capital. 
 
46 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Thus Swansea men and Swansea money essentially 
 aided in the early development of cotton manufacture. 
 
 Many of Swansea's young men have become the skilled 
 mechanics, artisans and contractors who have been important 
 factors in the growth and development of the cities of 
 Taunton, Providence, New Bedford and Fall River. Some 
 of the prominent business men of these cities originated here. 
 Fall River's first mayor, the Hon. James Buffinton, who so 
 long and ably represented this district in Congress, spent 
 years of his boyhood in this village. Another mayor of 
 that city, the Hon. Samuel M. Brown, was born and reared 
 in Swansea ; also the Hon. Caleb Earle, who was Lieutenant 
 Governor of Rhode Island from 1821 to 1824, and Col. 
 John Albert Munroe, recently deceased, who filled a marked 
 place in the military and professional history of Rhode Island. 
 
 REPRESENTATION IN THE GENERAL COURT. 
 
 The first representation of Swansea in the General 
 Court was in 1670, when John Allen was sent to represent 
 it at Plymouth. 
 
 Of the long line of men who, in the last two hundred 
 and twenty years, have represented the town in the General 
 Court, Col. Jerathmiel Bowers had the longest term of ser- 
 vice, in all nineteen years. Next to him in length of service 
 comes Daniel Haile, with fourteen terms ; Ephraim Pierce, 
 with twelve; Christopher Mason, with eight; Hugh Cole, 
 with seven ; Ezekiel Brown, with six, and Joseph Mason, 
 Jr., with five. 
 
 Several of its citizens have been honored with a seat 
 in the State Senate. 
 
 Hon. John Mason, a life-long resident of Swansea vil- 
 lage, was colleague in the Constitutional Convention of 1820 
 with Daniel Haile, who had then had a dozen terms in the 
 House. That year Mr. Haile was defeated by Dr. John 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 47 
 
 Winslow, who was a Federalist in politics. In 1821, John 
 Mason was bronght forward by the Democrats as the only 
 man who conld defeat Dr. Winslow. The two men were 
 next door neighbors, and with their families were on most 
 intimate terms. Mr. Mason won by six votes. In the fol- 
 lowing year he was elected to the House, in which he served 
 two terms, after which lie was four in the Senate and four in 
 the council of Gov. Levi Lincoln. Later he was four years 
 a county commissioner, and was town clerk fifty of the years 
 between 1808 and 1865, and postmaster forty-six of the years 
 between 1814 and 1864. 
 
 At the November election in 1850, three senators were 
 elected for Bristol County, one of them being Hon. Geo. Aus- 
 tin of Swansea. Soon after the General Court convened 
 in 1851, Mr. Taber of New Bedford, resigned his seat 
 and the two branches of the Legislature, as then required 
 by the constitution, met in convention to choose a person to 
 fill the vacancy from the two defeated candidates who receiv- 
 ed the highest number of votes at the autumnal election. 
 The choice fell upon Hon. John Earle of this town, and thus 
 Swansea had two senators, Messrs. Austin and Earle, for the 
 remainder of the session, an unprecedented honor. Mr. 
 Austin was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 
 1852. 
 
 The Hon. Frank Shaw Stevens, whose name appears 
 upon the tablet on the outer walls of this building, was sen- 
 ator from this district in 1884. He modestly declined a re- 
 election, which would have been triumphantly accorded him. 
 
 PHYSICIANS. 
 
 As the Masons have been prominent among those who 
 have ministered to the souls of Swansea people, so the Win- 
 slows were ministers to their bodily health for three quarters 
 of a century, from 1765, when Dr. Ebenezer Winslow lo- 
 
48 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 cated here. He became one of the most widely known 
 physicians in Southern Massachusetts. He died in 1830, 
 in his ninetieth year. His son, Dr. John Winslow, rivalled 
 even his eminent father in the successful practice of medi- 
 cine, to which he devoted his entire life, dying in 1838. 
 Though their patients were widely scattered, yet these 
 physicians never drove in a wheeled vehicle, always trav- 
 elling on horseback, carrying their medicines in saddle-bags, 
 the custom of those days. Dr. John W. Winslow, son of 
 Dr. John Winslow, early became well and favorably known 
 as "young Dr. Winslow," and gave promise of eminence in 
 his profession. But he died at the early age of thirty-two 
 in 1836. For several years these three generations of phy- 
 sicians were here together in the practice of their profession. 
 Dr. A. T. Brown began here, in 1836, a successful prac- 
 tice of sixteen years duration. 
 
 For nearly half a century Dr. James Lloyd Wellington, 
 a Harvard classmate of Gen. Charles Devens, James Russell 
 Lowell, the sculptor William W. Story, William J. Rotch 
 and George B. Loring, has been the highly esteemed phy- 
 sician of this place. By his self-sacrificing devotion to the 
 noble but exacting profession he adorns, he has won, what 
 is far better than wealth, the gratitude of the whole commu- 
 nity which he has served so skilfully and successfully. 
 Long may he continue to be to this people, what he has 
 already been to two generations, the trusted friend, the wise 
 counselor, and the good physician. 
 
 LAWYERS. 
 
 Several lawyers, previous to the year 1832, lived and 
 practiced their professions here, among whom were the 
 Hon. Pliny Merrick, for eleven years an Associate Justice 
 of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth ; 
 Hezekiah Battelle and Eliab Williams, who moved to Fall 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 49 
 
 River and formed there the law co-partnership of Battelle & 
 Williams, so long and favorably known in this section of 
 the State. 
 
 Among the present leaders of the Bristol Bar, Swansea, 
 by one of her sons, is represented in each of the three cities 
 of this county : Hon. Edwin L. Barney of New Bedford, 
 Hon. James Brown of Taunton, and Jonathan M. Wood, 
 Esq., of Fall River. 
 
 UNION MEETING HOUSE. 
 
 This structure in which we are now assembled occupies 
 the site of a Union meeting house which was built by the 
 joint efforts of people of several denominations resident here. 
 In the dedication which occurred Dec. 29th, 1830, Method- 
 ists, Baptists, Swedenborgians and Universalists partici- 
 pated. The hymns sung were composed by Elder Baker, a 
 Six Principle Baptist clergyman. Services were maintained 
 some years, but as the building was not owned by any one 
 denomination, timely and needed repairs were not made, for 
 want of which it became unfit for use and was finally demol- 
 ished. The site was for a number of years disused. Since 
 it seemed impracticable for a private title to be acquired, it 
 was finally condemned and taken into possession by the 
 town, upon the generous offer of Mr. Stevens to erect for 
 the town's use a public building suited to the needs of the 
 place. 
 
 Thus, in the order of occupancy, upon this spot there 
 has been reproduced a picture of early New England. 
 The primary organization was the church, as we have seen 
 in the history of Swansea ; after the church the town ; so 
 here, we have had first the house of religious worshi]), and 
 now the hall for municipal use and the library. 
 
50 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY. 
 
 Some of the prominent men of this and adjoining 
 towns, who had maintained occasional religious services, 
 were organized in 1838 as the First Universalist Society of 
 Swansea . 
 
 The Kev. Aaron L. Balch, who was a preacher to this 
 people before the organization of the society, died in this 
 village Nov. 4, 1837, and was buried in the cemetery. The 
 society has not maintained regular services for many years, 
 and the members have to some extent become connected 
 with other religious bodies. 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, SWANSEA. 
 
 In May, 1845, Kev. A. D. McCoy, rector of the Church 
 of the Ascension in Fall River, opened a Sunday evening 
 service here which he maintained till November, 1847. A 
 church was organized January 7, 1846. A Sunday school 
 was established and superintended by Dr. Geo. W. Che vers, 
 a physician of Fall River, afterward a clergyman, who dur- 
 ing the greater part of 1847 conducted lay readings on 
 Sunday, morning and afternoon. 
 
 The services were at first held in the Union meeting 
 house. A neat and attractive church edifice was shortly 
 erected and dedicated December 2, 1847. The first resident 
 rector was Rev. John B. Richmond, who served the church 
 four years from January 1st, 1848. The duration of most 
 of the subsequent pastorates has been brief, though that of 
 Rev. N. Watson Munroe lasted eleven years. 
 
 The only survivor of those who were active in the or- 
 ganization is the Rev. Benjamin H. Chace, who when about 
 40 years of age gave up his secular occupation, and prepared 
 himself for the ofEce of the Christian ministry, being or- 
 dained in 1854. In the serene evening of a long and useful 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 51 
 
 ministerial life he has returned to this his native village to 
 await the call of the Master to come up higher. With the 
 work of the church which he and his wife did so much to 
 establish, he is in active sympathy. 
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 
 
 The war to preserve the Union, on account of its near- 
 ness to our time, interests us more deeply than does the war 
 which made us an independent nation. But in some re- 
 spects it called for less endurance and sacrifice. The clash 
 of arms and the alarms of war did not vex these hillsides 
 and echo across these bays as they had done in Philip's and 
 the Revolutionary wars. It was not so long continued nor 
 financially so disastrous as was the war for independence, in 
 which the financial system of the country went to wreck, and 
 its promises to pay became worthless, insomuch that, even 
 three years before the war ended, this town voted f 140 for 
 an axe, and ^50 a day to its selectmen. Let us honor the 
 heroic endurance of the fathers, while we also cherish with 
 pride the valor of their sons, our brothers, who responded 
 nobly to the call of the nation, when threatened with dis- 
 union. For it is to be said that in the later struggle this 
 town did its full duty. At the close the town stood credited 
 with twelve more men than the State had required. It is 
 true that some of them were not its own citizens, but hired 
 substitutes ; but it is also true that from these farms and 
 hamlets enough perhaps to balance the hired contingent went 
 into Rhode Island regiments and batteries. Your rebellion 
 record contains the names of one hundred and thirty soldiers 
 who went from or who were hired by and for this town. 
 
 Your sons were widely scattered among our State or- 
 ganizations and were in all branches of the service. One or 
 another of them faced the nation's foes on most of the battle- 
 fields of the Atlantic slope and of the Gulf. They helped 
 
52 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 to roll back the haughty and desperate tide of rebel invasion 
 that was twice shattered on the glorious fields of Antietam 
 and of Gettysburg. They fought with Hooker at Chancel- 
 lorsville, with Burnside at Fredericksburg, with Sheridan in 
 the Shenandoah. They were with McClellan in his march 
 to Richmond by the bloody peninsula, and they followed 
 Grant through the Wilderness and beyond, to Richmond 
 and to Appomattox. Others of them shared the fortunes 
 of the forces which captured the coast and river cities of 
 the Confederacy, and raised the blockade of the Mississippi. 
 Every man had his story. Each looked armed battalions 
 in the face and sustained the hostile shock of the assault. 
 They heard the whistle of the rifle ball which was seeking 
 their life, the shriek of the exploding shell, the clatter of 
 galloping squadrons, the clash of sabres, the roar of the 
 cannonade, the cries of the wounded, the groans of the dying, 
 the mournful dirge over the dead. The blood of some of 
 them was shed, and that of them all was offered, in defense 
 of the Union. Some languished and died in hospitals or 
 Southern prisons. 
 
 " When can their glory fade?" 
 
 Write down, so that your children of coming time may 
 read, the story of their sacrifices, who perished of diseases 
 consequent upon the experiences of camp and field. Such 
 Swansea men were Daniel Tompkins, Frank R. Chase, 
 Stephen Collins, William H. Hamlin, Martin L. Miller, 
 Charles H. Eddy, Josephus T. Peck, Joseph Whalen, 
 Captain Edwin K. Sherman, all of whom by death in hospital 
 made a soldier's greatest sacrifice. 
 
 Look at the roll of the slain : Andrew S. Lawton, a leg 
 shattered at the battle of Williamsburg early in the Peninsu- 
 la campaign, and dying within a few hours. Joseph T. Bos- 
 worth of a Rhode Island battery, killed on the bloody field 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 53 
 
 of Antietam by an exploding shell. Oliver R. Walton slain 
 when the war was far advanced, at the battle of Winchester 
 in the Shenandoah, after nearly three years service. Edward 
 G. West, like Lawton, a member of the Bristol county 
 regiment raised by Gen. Conch, which followed the varying 
 fortnnes of the Army of the Potomac and shared its ex- 
 perience of battle and of blood. Early in the victorions 
 bnt costly campaign in the Wilderness, West paid the price 
 of his patriotism by a soldier's death. Mark the heroism, 
 the valor, the Christian resignation of Alfred G. Gardner, 
 of Battery B. of Ehode Island, who at the battle of Gettys- 
 burg fell beside his gun, with his arm and shoulder torn 
 away. With the other he took from his pocket his Testa- 
 ment and other articles and said, '' Give them to my wife 
 and tell her that I died happy," and with the words of the 
 soldier's battle hymn, ''Glory, glory hallelnjah," on his lips, 
 his soul went marching on — a striking illustration of the 
 spirit which breathes in the immortal words of Horace, 
 
 Dulce et decorum est iwo patria morl. 
 
 Who can forget the deeds of such men ? Let their 
 names be written on the enduring granite of the memorial 
 shaft or tablet, on the page of the historic record, and 
 on the hearts of their grateful countrymen. And let all 
 who, on the blood-red field offered their bodies a target to 
 the enemy's assault, whose deeds of daring and self-devotion 
 we cannot here recite, be also held worthy of our undying 
 gratitude. 
 
 An address on an occasion like this can at best do but 
 scant justice to a history such as that of which Swansea can 
 boast. The deeds of these two and a quarter centuries 
 deserve elaborate record. Let it be one of the offices of the 
 Library Association, for whose literary stores and work 
 ample provision has been made within these walls, to gather 
 
54 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 all tliat has been or may yet be written of Swansea, to 
 cultivate tlie taste for historic research, and to collect and 
 preserve such memorials as will illustrate the past and per- 
 petuate its fame. 
 
 The past is fixed and is amply worthy of record. But 
 what of the undetermined and oncoming future ? Will it 
 reach the height of the standard set by the achievement of 
 days gone by ? Will it display equal or superior fidelity to 
 the eternal principles which alone make a community strong ? 
 Will the men of to-day and of to-morrow, for whose use 
 this structure has been reared, rise to the level of their his- 
 tory and their high j^rivilege ? Let them emulate the ex- 
 ample of the brave and godly fathers of the town who laid 
 its foundations in righteousness and in piety — foundations 
 more imperishable than the solid boulders which have been 
 built into these massive walls. 
 
 The oration of Mr. Bray ton was followed by brief ad- 
 dresses by Jonathan M. Wood, Esq., of Fall River, Maj. 
 James Brown of Taunton, and Hon. E. L. Barney of New 
 Bedford, all natives of Swansea, who have distinguished 
 themselves in Bristol county as honored members of the legal 
 profession. 
 
 The president, in presenting the next speaker, said : — 
 I have the honor of introducing to you Jonathan M. Wood, 
 Esq., of Fall River. It may not be out of place to remark 
 that Mr. Wood is one of four brothers, natives of Swansea. 
 In the war of the rebellion his three brothers served respect- 
 ively in the cavalry, infantry and navy. Each in his depart- 
 ment did faithful service. One was severely wounded and 
 taken prisoner at the battle of Pittsburg Landing. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 55 
 
 Address 
 
 OF JONATHAN M. WOOD,ES(^, OF FALL RIVER. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 I have a right to claim Swansea as my birthpLace, 
 for on the western hillside, where linger the last rays of the 
 setting sun, in the centre of a hundred acre farm, near the 
 old brick mansion house, is the old family burial ground 
 where sleep six generations of ancestors and kindred. And 
 there was plenty of room for the progeny to multiply, for 
 until within a few years there were five contiguous farms in 
 the family name. 
 
 The place of my birth being one of the reasons of the 
 honor done me to-day, I may be indulged in referring to an- 
 cestral lineage, for few families, even in this ancient town, can 
 trace a longer continuous line of ownership and residence on 
 the same farms, and within its borders ; and to-day one of your 
 citizens is of the eighth generation, still continuing the farm 
 and the old mill in the family name. And the old mill flume 
 repeats the murmurs of more than two hundred years ago : 
 
 "That mill will never grind again 
 With the water that has passed." 
 
 In common with many of the citizens, my first impres- 
 sions were formed in Swansea, in the toil of the field, and 
 that best of all schools, — the old district school, — the influ- 
 ence of which upon the public mind as far surpasses that of 
 
56 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 the higher institutions of learning, as the im])ressions of 
 youth are more lasting than those of later life. 
 
 Swansea is more than twice as old as the government it- 
 self of which it forms a part. More than half of its political 
 existence as a municipal corporation was passed in colonial 
 days. 
 
 A reference to its map shows the inconsistency of grants 
 and charters. It would seem that, for some reason, in the 
 adjustment of boundary lines, Swansea got piqued and in re- 
 taliation made a sharp point on Barrington, Seekonk and 
 Rehoboth. The same irregularity appears also on the east- 
 ern boundary. Until recently one could not drive between 
 North and South Somerset without getting one wheel into 
 Swansea. The shape of the town shows that even in old 
 times things were not always done on the square. 
 
 Swansea is fortunate in her natural location, her rivers, 
 her fisheries, her clam shores. It is a high recommendation 
 of a town to have good roads. This title to favor Swansea 
 can claim. Good roads are a source of wealth. Even the 
 hundred years old walls, though not horse high, bull stout 
 and hog tight, are yet so far serviceable that they never 
 allow the claim of a fraudulent title to pass over them. 
 
 Swansea has contributed liberally to peopling the far 
 west. She has sent forth to the cities some of the best me- 
 chanics and builders in the land. Her sailors and command- 
 ers have been upon every sea ; and her merchants to all parts 
 of the world. 
 
 In her sacrifices for the country on sea and land, in 
 bloody battle, in hospitals, in rebel prisons, in glorious graves 
 and in widows' and orphans' homes, her record has been most 
 honorable. 
 
 In most of the Western States, a township means, not 
 a municipal organization but thirty-six square miles of land, 
 in sections of one square mile. In New England a town 
 has greater powers than anywhere else in the Union. A town 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 57 
 
 here is a small republic, — ^a municipal corporation, possess- 
 ing political powers. The people tax themselves ; make their 
 own appropriations for highways, for the support of schools, 
 paupers and police. They choose their own town officers, 
 selectmen, assessors, collectors, school officers and the like. 
 The town meeting is their legislature, and every voter a 
 member ; every voter has a voice in more than three fourths 
 of all the laws he lives under in the land. 
 
 This building has been given to the town of Swansea. 
 The gift is the greater because by a citizen of the town, and 
 it is dedicated to the noblest purpose in a free government. 
 
 The citizens will meet here in free town meetings, and 
 their children after them. Under the constitution of our 
 State it is their right also peaceably to meet and discuss 
 public questions, to instruct their representatives and to 
 petition to those in office for redress of grievances. 
 
 Free schools, free churches, the free town meeting and 
 free discussion, have been, as we hope they will continue to 
 be, the promoters of a citizenship worthy of the town and 
 this great republic. 
 
 Let us all hope that not only the years, but the centuries 
 shall be many before the people of the town of Swansea, 
 with its hills and its valleys, its rocks and its rivers, shall en- 
 joy less blessings than those that flow from free schools, free 
 town meetings, and happy homes. 
 
58 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Address 
 
 OF MAJOR JAMES BROWN. 
 
 Introducing Major James Brown of Taunton, tlie presi- 
 dent said lie was the first native inhabitant of Swansea to 
 graduate from a college, and was highest in rank of Swansea's 
 sons who participated in the civil war. His response was 
 substantially as follows : 
 
 Mr. President : — 
 
 I thank you for your highly complimentary introduc- 
 tion. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, directly in front of me, 
 across the street, not three hundred feet from where I stand 
 is the place of my birth. The old two-story house is gone, 
 and a beautiful cottage has taken its place. The big wil- 
 low tree that stood in the corner of the yard, the pear tree 
 and the apple trees are gone, but I revere the spot, and I 
 love my native village with greater intensity as the years 
 roll by. Memory of the playmates of my childhood, the 
 pleasures of youth, and the steadfast friendships here of 
 maturer years bind me to you as with " hooks of steel." I 
 have always been proud to say I was born in the ancient 
 town of Swansea. I firmly believe that breathing its health- 
 giving air during my childhood and early youth contributed 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 59 
 
 largely to the robust health I have always enjoyed. My 
 aiieestors from the earliest colonial times — seven generations 
 — were tillers of the soil in the town of Swansea. They 
 were farmers, and as a farmer boy I lived and toiled among 
 you. I cannot claim that I took to its duties with that 
 avidity which evinced a strong and abiding love for plough- 
 ing ftnd planting during the cold days of the spring, pulling 
 weeds and hoeing in the early summer days, pulling potato 
 vines and onions in August and September, together with 
 milking the cows at sunrise and again at sunset, and the 
 other varied duties of a farmer boy. 
 
 I am introduced here as the first native inhabitant of 
 Swansea to graduate from a college. My home was here 
 until I was admitted to the bar just before I was 24 years 
 of age. A man's surroundings have great influence in 
 determining his course of life. In my childhood and early 
 youth religious polemics were the order of the day.- The 
 Methodists discussed doctrinal points with Baptists, and the 
 Universalists with both the others. In passing let me 
 remark that there never was a Congregational Society in the 
 town of Swansea. Nothing but Baptist meeting-houses had 
 been built within its present limits. The beautiful edifice of 
 the Episcopal Church was erected when I was well advanced 
 in my youth. The Union meeting-house, as has been said by 
 the orator of the day, was on the site of the building we now 
 dedicate. My father's house, directly opposite, was a com- 
 mon resort for Methodists, Baptists and Universalist min- 
 isters. My parents received and entertained them in a 
 most hospitable manner, and I heard much of their dis- 
 cussions. I listened to their arguments as I grew older, and 
 begun to take part in their discussions at an early age, 
 involving a thorough study of the Bible, and a familiarity 
 with its doctrinal passages, together with a study of the 
 controversial books, a few of which were within my reach. 
 
60 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 Then came the old debating society. The Hon. John 
 S. Brayton, the orator of the day, as well as myself attended 
 it, as its youngest members. Among them were the Eev. 
 Benjamin H. Chace and Hon. Daniel Wilbur, who sit here 
 on this platform with us to-day ; there was Royal Chace 
 of Swansea, one of the most brilliant and gifted young men 
 among us ; there were also Peleg S. Gardner, Avery P. Slade 
 and Benjamin G. Chace of Somerset, Edward F. Gardner 
 of Swansea, and Nathaniel B. Horton of Rehoboth, and 
 others I do not at this moment recall ; but I must not omit 
 to mention that our records were kept, regularly read, and 
 signed by Joseph Shove, clerk. 
 
 The meetings we held in this village, Somerset town- 
 house, Swansea Factory, Rehoboth and elsewhere, were 
 always well attended and excited the most lively interest. 
 Political questions, involving research of history, biography, 
 and the writings and speeches of great men, were frequently 
 discussed. The question " Does man act from necessity or 
 from free will ?" excited deep interest. These discussions 
 were oreat incentives to studv, and awakened a desire for a 
 solid and thorough education. 
 
 I then conceived the idea of going to college. My 
 father, with a good and well-stocked farm, could not afford 
 to pay the expense of two years preparation and four years 
 sojourn in college. I doubt whether there was then a farmer 
 in Swansea that could, from the profits of his farm. I was 
 told that I could have a comfortable home there, and I 
 always did. My dear mother ever afterwards did all she 
 could (and more than she ought) in caring for my wants 
 during the struggle that followed. My father was always 
 ready to lend a helping hand. 
 
 After teaching school, boarding round, four months at 
 $15 per month in the Nathaniel Mason district in Somerset, 
 John S. Brayton and I entered Pierce Academy at Middle- 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 61 
 
 boro during the last week of Mareli 1846, and we eliuninied 
 together, paying 11.75 per week for our board and wasliing. 
 Before then I had never seen a Latin or a Greek grannnar, 
 and I think my chum had not, though he did not then begin 
 to prepare for college. In June 1850, 1 had passed my final 
 examinations, and received my degree of Bachelor of Arts 
 at the Annual Commencement at Brown University in Sep- 
 tember. My labors during the first two or three years in col- 
 lege commenced at half past four in the morning ; by lamp- 
 light during the frosts of winter, and when the birds began 
 to sing in the spring, and by daylight in the early summer. 
 Yes, my friends, it was work — constant, continuous work, — 
 work with a free will. It might be said the task was accom- 
 plished so soon, by necessity of earning the means as I went 
 along. I taught school fifty-four weeks during the time. My 
 friends, you are acquainted with my life since, and know 
 how dearly I have loved to visit old Swansea during the 
 years that have followed. 
 
 But, Mr. President, you introduced me also as the 
 highest in rank of Swansea's sons who participated in the 
 civil war. I was not aware of this. I am proud to say that 
 having belonged to a company of the volunteer militia for 
 five or six years prior to the civil war, playing soldier for 
 fun, upon call of the Governor April 16, 1861, I went with 
 my company (G. 4th Regt.) as corporal, and had the good 
 fortune, as right company of the regimental line, to be a 
 part of the first company of organized troops that trod upon 
 rebel soil, and subsequently to be in the first organized duly 
 planned battle of the rel)ellion between organized troops, 
 that of Big Bethel, June 10, 1861. The fact that I after- 
 wards became a field officer and rode on horseback, you 
 have alluded to. Every man, officer or private who went 
 forth to do battle in that conflict and performed his duty, 
 came home justly proud that he went. If I have added 
 
62 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 anything to the laurels of the sons of old Swansea, I am re- 
 joiced indeed. 
 
 Swansea Village was my home. It has changed, greatly 
 changed during the last forty years. As a business locality, 
 except at the old paper mill, it no longer exists. In 1840 
 in this village there were no less than five places where shoe- 
 makino- was carried on as an active and remunerative in- 
 
 o 
 
 dustry, employing some fifteen to eighteen men. Now as 
 a regular business it is not carried on at all, and in fact 
 there is no active mechanical or manufacturing business here. 
 The same is true of the neighborhood of Swansea Factory, 
 where my maternal grandfather, Benajah Mason, carried on 
 an extensive business as a tanner, currier and a manufacturer 
 of boots and shoes, employing a dozen or more men accord- 
 ing to the season. That has passed away, as well as Swan- 
 sea Factory itself, once a flourishing manufactory within two 
 miles of this village. What has been the cause of this 
 change ? It was not from lack of enterprise here, but it is 
 to 'be found in the superior advantages of the then small 
 villages, through which the lines of railroad were run. With 
 better facilities for transportation they started forward and 
 soon left the outlying villages far in the rear. Stagnation 
 soon commenced, and the result was an abandonment of all 
 mechanical or manufacturing industry where a railroad 
 station was not near at hand. Brockton and other villages, 
 now cities, have grown with phenomenal ra])idity, and the 
 old familiar landmarks known to the village boy of forty or 
 fifty years ago are covered with big blocks built of brick and 
 mortar, and the peaceful quiet of the country village is 
 disturbed by the rattling of machinery, the hum of business, 
 and the crowding of people in the streets. 
 
 Now, my friends, so far as I am concerned, I am glad 
 that Swansea Village remains as she is. It is selfish, I 
 know, but it is a selfishness engendered from a love of the old 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 68 
 
 scenes as they were in my boyhood. Nearly every dwelling- 
 house and shop are still standing-. The trees on the street 
 planted by the villagers some fifty years ago, (Rev. Ben- 
 jamin H. Chace leading in the enterprise) have justified the 
 predictions of those who toiled to put them in their places. 
 The residence of Mr. Stevens, with its beautiful grounds and 
 surroundings add new attractions to our beloved village. It 
 is truly the most charming rural retreat in this section of 
 the State. When Mr. Stevens first came here with his wife, 
 some thirty odd years ago, the thought did not occur to him 
 that this might become his permanent home. Leading, as 
 he had, an active and busy life, full of adventure and ex- 
 citement, it was not natural for us to even hope that he 
 would settle down and become a citizen of the ancient town 
 of Swansea. But the place grew upon him. He began to 
 love it and the people, and they in return loved him and his. 
 They learned to respect him and be guided by his counsels. 
 He has been a leader among business men and in the councils 
 of the State. The name of Frank S. Stevens has lono- been 
 a synonym for all that is good, noble and generous in thought 
 or deed. This beautiful building, which we dedicate to-day 
 is a tribute of love from him to the people among whom he 
 has cast his lot. How many of us may envy him. In the 
 dreams of our youth we may have looked forward to the 
 time when we might be author of some substantial benefaction 
 to the people of the place where we were born. That dream 
 is seldom realized. Mr. Stevens is not " native and to the 
 manor born," like many'of us. He did not play as a child 
 in the street, here, as we did. He did not mingle with us, 
 as boys and girls together, and have impressed upon him 
 scenes that last for a lifetime. Here he cannot say with us, 
 
 " How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood 
 When fond recollection presents them to view, 
 The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild wood, 
 And * Abram's Rock' that my infancy knew." 
 
64 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 But he can say, " how dear to my heart are the place 
 and the people with whom I have lived during the last gen- 
 eration of men. Happy is my home, where peace and 
 affection abide. Respected and beloved of my fellow men, 
 the heart's fondest wishes are satisfied." 
 
 If he has sorrows of mind or heart we know them 
 not. To-day we know his heart must beat tumultuously 
 in response to our grateful appreciation of this noble bene- 
 faction. This building, so unique in design, so perfect as a 
 specimen of architecture, so well adapted to its purposes, will 
 stand through the centuries as a monument perpetuating 
 the memory of Frank S. Stevens. " Sculptured stone or 
 ever 'during brass" could never attain that end so well as 
 this beautiful and useful benefaction. 
 
 Mr. Gardner, in introducing the next speaker, said : — 
 In the very excellent historical address to which you have 
 listened, honorable mention has been made of Mason Barney. 
 I have the pleasure of introducing to you his grandson, the 
 Hon. Edwin L. Barney of New Bedford. Mr. Barney is 
 also a native of Swansea. His extensive law practice has 
 not only made his name familiar in Southeastern Massachu- 
 setts, but also in other parts of the State. * 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 65 
 
 Address 
 
 OF HON. EDWIN L. BARNEY OF NEW BEDFORD. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen of Swansea. : 
 
 Not as a stranger coming into a land which he knows 
 not, and where he is not known, but as a native among his 
 okl friends and neighbors, I join with you to-day. Although 
 my labors are in other scenes, my coming here is not after 
 many years and much wandering. It has been my good 
 fortune to be near my old home all my life, and to visit 
 it often. I feel that I know Swansea's people, not as old 
 acquaintances merely, but as townsmen, fellow townsmen. 
 I am proud of the town ; I am proud of her people. I re- 
 joice to be present to-day and participate in this dedication. 
 Not only the fact that we are here for the purpose of throw- 
 ing open and accepting this grand building, is before us ; 
 but the great generosity of the giver and the inestimable 
 benefit of the gift appear to us, and you ought, and I think 
 you do, fully appreciate them. 
 
 This edifice is worthy of its noble donor. It is beauti- 
 ful in its architecture and complete in all its arrangements. 
 Frank S. Stevens has shared his prosperity with you. He 
 
Q6 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 lias built for the people. As I stand here it occurs to me 
 how wisely and judiciously he has made and constructed 
 this house for the whole people ; with what fidelity to all 
 has his plan been wrought out. This structure is not for 
 one purpose only. Built to accommodate the various uses 
 of town government, education and recreation, it is not too 
 small for either, and is fully adequate for them all. Monu- 
 mental to the liberality of the name of Stevens, this building- 
 shall no less stand symbolical of the loyalty of the good 
 people who shall maintain and protect it. 
 
 This Town House is not of stone finished and trimmed 
 by the skillful hand of the mechanic ; not huge blocks of 
 granite or brick pressed to a severe smoothness ; not arti- 
 ficial or manufactured substance, but of the natural boulders 
 that have lain for years in the soil, or marked the boundary 
 lines of your forefathers ; rock upon rock, boulder upon 
 boulder, does not the house they make, represent the natural 
 solidity of character the building commemorates. 
 
 My friends, Mr. Stevens has been wise ; he has made 
 a fitting combination of beauty and great utility in this 
 bountiful work he has done for his adopted home. He has 
 been generous, and with a lavish hand has made you part- 
 ners of his good fortune. A monument to his honorable 
 name, a standing tribute to good citizenship, and a light- 
 house for future advancement, let this edifice be accepted 
 by you. Here you, and future generations, can come to ex- 
 ercise the right of elective franchise, the highest political 
 privilege of American citizenship. Within these walls you 
 will elect and choose your town officers. This place shall 
 be the scene of your balloting for State officers, and here 
 you will manifest your choice for a President of the United 
 States. Beautiful as is this building, so is the right to bal- 
 lot as sacred. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 67 
 
 In search of learning the yonng will come. From the 
 volumes they can study political economy to guide them 
 in their action as voters, or they can pore over the pages of 
 history and science to aid them in their knowledge of the 
 world in which they live. In fiction they can find a pastime ; 
 in the graver works they can seek instruction. Confined to 
 neither sex alone, it belongs to you all, — truly, in every 
 sense of the words, it is the Town House. What noble 
 acts may the walls echo ! 
 
 How changed is all this from a century and more ago. 
 If the dead could look down from the skies and see the work ■ 
 that is done upon the earth, what would old John Brown, or 
 Major James Brown, Thomas Willett the first mayor of 
 New York, Eev. John Myles the fighting pastor, John 
 Myles his son, the first town clerk of Swansea, Samuel Myles 
 the second pastor of King's Chapel, Boston, Rev. Samuel 
 Luther, Hezekiah Luther, Hugh Cole, Thomas Easterbrooke, 
 John Butterworth, Francis Stevens, and of more recent date 
 Mason Barney, Thomas Peck, John Mason and a host of 
 other immortal spirits, who used to walk these fields and 
 gather in the old meeting house that stood upon this spot, 
 what, I repeat, would they say ? Would they not rejoice 
 with us ? Would they not delight in our good fortune ? I 
 almost think that the redeemed and regenerate soul of King- 
 Philip would be touched in beholding the very stones his 
 feet may have trod, in his wild and weird chase of the white 
 man, two hundred and odd years ago, rising into a building 
 on almost the very spot that English blood was first spilled 
 in the Old Colony. Commemorative of Old Swansea, typi- 
 cal of the present progressive age, and exemplifying the 
 open-heartedness of your leading citizen, this building shall 
 stand through the years to come. 
 
 Of a family whose name is historical comes Frank S. 
 Stevens. We find it often in the records of the Plymouth 
 
6S DEDICATION OF. THE 
 
 and Massachusetts Colonies. As early as 1658 a Francis 
 Stevens held property and had his residence in this town, 
 and now 233 years afterwards we have with us a high-mind- 
 ed, liberal, patriotic and distinguished man of the same name, 
 who worthily upholds the family distinction. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen of Swansea, see to it that the 
 purposes for which this pile was erected are not averted. 
 Keep it as befits the honor of the town. Encourage its use 
 by all. Do this and the future generations will be nobler, 
 better, more independent and enlightened. 
 
 Adherence to high principles, fidelity to the causes of 
 progress, patriotism and liberality, cannot fail to produce 
 what Tennyson felt when he wrote, — 
 
 " Yet I doubt not through the ages, 
 One increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened 
 With the process of the suns." 
 
 The chairman then asked if there was any business be- 
 fore the meetinof. 
 
 Mr. James H. Mason moved that the selectmen be re- 
 quested to convey to the Hon. Frank Shaw Stevens the 
 grateful thanks of the citizens of Swansea for his gift of 
 this beautiful and commodious town hall ; and that the pro- 
 ceedings of this meeting, together with this vote, be incor- 
 porated in the records of the town. 
 
 Mr. E. M. Thurston moved that a vote of thanks be 
 extended to the Hon. eTohn S. Brayton for his very interesting, 
 instructive and valuable address ; also, to Messrs. Wood, 
 Brown and Barney for their interesting addresses, and that 
 a copy of each address be requested for publication. 
 
 Both resolutions were adopted. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 69 
 
 The interesting exercises were then brought to a close 
 by the venerable Rev. Benjamin H. Chase, of Swansea, who 
 pronounced a benediction. 
 
 The audience then dispersed ; many people took ad- 
 vantage to press to the platform and thank Mr. Stevens for 
 his sjilendid gift, and Mr. Brayton for his magnificent address. 
 
 There were none in the audience more deeply interested 
 in the proceedings then the special guests of the honored 
 donor of the building : 
 
 Mrs. Louisa E. Stevens, of Cleveland, Ohio, mother of 
 Hon. Frank S. Stevens ; Mr. N. C. Stevens, of Toledo, Ohio ; 
 Mrs. A. K. Spencer, of Cleveland ; Mr. and Mrs. Geo. H. 
 Allen, of New York ; Mrs. J. Barstow, of New York ; Mrs. 
 F. Hoard and Miss H. M. Kelton, of Providence. 
 
 The ushers of the day, who performed their duties in a 
 successful manner, were Messrs. Henry O. Wood, Nathan 
 M. Wood, James Easterbrook, Mason Barney and Elijah P. 
 Chase. 
 
 At the close of the exercises in the hall, the Swansea 
 Brass Band gave an elaborate clambake, near the hall, and 
 entertained a large crowd in a satisfactory manner. 
 
70 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 APPEjNTDIX I. 
 
 gccxL 
 
 Knoav all Men by these Presents, that 1, Frank 
 S. Stevens of Swansey in the State of Massachusetts, in con- 
 sideration of one dollar and other considerations to me paid 
 by the Town of Swansey, a municipal corporation situate in 
 the County of Bristol and State of Massachusetts aforesaid, 
 the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, do hereby re- 
 mise, release and forever quitclaim unto the said Town of 
 Swansey the following lots of land situate in said Town. 
 The first lot is bounded beginning at the southeast corner of 
 the lot to be described on the northeasterly side of the high- 
 way, and running thence northerly by the fence, building, 
 and wall now there, one hundred and two feet (102) by land 
 of Elizabeth R. Stevens to a wall, thence westerly one 
 hundred and sixty feet (160) by the burying ground and 
 the wall as it now stands, to a wall and land of the heirs now 
 or formerly of Mason B. Chase, thence southerly by said 
 last named land and wall sixty-five feet (65) to the highway 
 aforesaid, thence westerly by said highway one hundred and 
 eighty-six feet (186) to the point of beginning, containing 
 by estimation fifty-five rods more or less. Said tract of land 
 is subject to a right of way to and from the highway and 
 the burying ground. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 71 
 
 Also, one other lot of land situate in said Swansey and 
 bounded beginning" at the southwest corner of the lot to be 
 conveyed, thence running by the wall forty feet to the pass- 
 way, thence northerly by said passway to the lot formerly 
 occupied by John Mason, Esq., thence west by said Mason lot 
 to the wall, and thence by the wall to the first named corner, 
 being the lot conveyed to me by John S. Sprague by deed 
 dated June 16th, 1890. 
 
 Also, one other lot of land situate in said Swansey and 
 next to the lot last described above, and bounded beginning 
 at the southeast corner thereof by the lot first described 
 above, thence running northerly by the wall twenty-four (24) 
 feet for a corner, thence westerly by a lot now or formerly 
 owned or occupied by Richard Chase to the center of the 
 path, forty-four feet (44), thence southerly l)y said path 
 twenty-four feet (24) to a wall, thence easterly by said wall 
 forty-four feet to the point of beginning, being the lot con- 
 veyed to me by William H. Chase and others by deed dated 
 June 25th, 1890. 
 
 This conveyance is made upon the express and precedent 
 conditions that the building which said Frank S. Stev^ens is 
 erecting or has erected upon said land for a Town Hall and 
 Public Library, and which is conveyed by him as a free gift 
 to said Town as part of the premises included in this con- 
 veyance, shall be devoted to public purposes and forever used 
 as a Town Hall and Public Libraiy by the inhabitants of 
 said Swansey ; that the room designed for the use of a Pub- 
 lic Library shall be used, rent free, for library purposes by 
 the organization known as the Swansey Public Library, or 
 such other library as may succeed to or take the place of 
 the same, and that any Christian denomination desiring the 
 use of said Town Hall for funeral services shall be allowed 
 to use the same, subject to such equal and reasonable regu- 
 lations as the Selectmen of said Town may prescribe. 
 
72 DEDICATION OP THE 
 
 To have and to hold the granted premises, with all the 
 privileges and appurtenances thereto belonging to the said 
 Town of Swansey and its successors and assigns, to their 
 own use and behoof forever. 
 
 And I do hereby, for myself and my heirs, executors 
 and administrators, covenant with the said grantee and its 
 successors and assigns, that the granted premises are free 
 from all incumbrances made or suffered by me, except the 
 right of way aforesaid, and that I will, and my heirs, execu- 
 tors and administrators shall warrant and defend the same 
 to the said grantee and its successors and assigns forever, 
 against the lawful claims and demands of all persons claim- 
 ing by, through, or under me, except said right of way, but 
 against none other. 
 
 And for the consideration aforesaid I, Elizabeth R. 
 Stevens, wife of said Frank S. Stevens, do hereby release unto 
 the said grantee and its successors and assigns all right of or 
 to both dower and homestead in the granted premises. 
 
 In witness whereof, we, the said Frank S. Stevens and 
 Elizabeth R. Stevens, have hereunto set our hands and seals 
 this twenty-third day of June, in the year one thousand eight 
 hundred and ninety-one. 
 
 Signed, sealed and delivered ( Frank S. StevenS. ( Seal.) 
 
 in presence of ) 
 
 Andrew J. Jennings to F.S.S. ) _ ^ ^ 
 
 N. C. Stevens to E. R. S. ( ELIZABETH R. StEVENS. ( Seal.) 
 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
 
 Bristol ss. June 24, 1891. Then personally appeared 
 the above-named Frank S. Stevens and acknowledged the 
 foregoing instrument to be his free act and deed, before me. 
 
 Andrew J. Jennings, 
 Justice of the Peace. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 73 
 
 APPEI^DIX II. 
 
 [Copy of a communication from the Newport corre- 
 spondent of the Providence llorning Star, published in that 
 paper on the 15th day of December, 1880.] 
 
 THE POTTER SCHOOL HOUSE. 
 
 The new school house to be erected and presented to 
 the city by the trustees of Long Wharf, is to occupy 18,000 
 feet of land on Elm street, and the trustees have decided to 
 christen it, " The Potter School House," for the following- 
 reason : In 1795, Simeon Potter of Swansea, Mass., made 
 a free gift to the trustees of an estate owned by him near 
 the wharf, which the following copy of Mr. Potter's letter, 
 making the donation, will more fully explain : 
 
 SwANZEY, Aug. 16, 1795. 
 
 Messrs. George Gihhs and George Champlin : 
 
 Gentlemen : — I saw in the Boston Centinel a scheme 
 of a lottery, for the laudable intention of re-building Long- 
 Wharf in Newport, the building a Hotel, and more especially 
 establishing a Free School, which has determined me to make 
 
74 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 a free gift of my estate on the point called Easton's Point, 
 which came to me by way of mortgage, for a debt due from 
 Hays and Pollock, if you will accept of it in trust to support a 
 Free School forever, for the advantage of poor children of 
 every denomination, and to be under the same regulations as 
 you desired the Free School should be that you designed to 
 erect. If you, gentlemen, will please to get a deed wrote 
 agreeably to the intentions here manifested, I will sign and 
 acknowledge the same, and send it to you for recording. I 
 would only mention that if the situation is agreeable to you, 
 the house and garden would do for a school-master, and the 
 oil-house, which is large, might be fitted up for a school-house. 
 This as you may think proper. There is no person here who 
 understands writing such a deed, or I would have sent it to 
 you completely executed. 
 
 I am, gentlemen, with respect. 
 
 Your very humble servant, 
 
 Simeon Potter. 
 
 It is needless to add that the gift was accepted and the 
 property used as proposed, a free school having been main- 
 tained there for many years, or until the State, through the 
 " School Fund Lottery," which many will remember as exist- 
 ing for many years, took charge of the education of its youth. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 75 
 
 APPEI^DIX III. 
 
 THE NEW TOWN HALL. 
 
 The Town Hall, of which the cut on the frontispiece is an 
 illustration, is the gift to the town of Swansea of Hon. Frank 
 S. Stevens. The building is located upon a lot nearly oppo- 
 site the residence of its donor. The dimensions of the land 
 are 193x122 feet. It is placed about the center of the lot, 
 some 30 feet back from the street, and its dimensions are 
 61x80 feet. The building is of rough field stones, taken from 
 the walls on farms owned by Mr. Stevens, with Longmeadow 
 brown-stone used for trimmings, all laid in pure Portland 
 cement. The arched entrance seen in the cut, is eight feet 
 in width and handsome blue-stone steps lead to the entrance. 
 The vestibule is spacious, being a square room twelve feet four 
 inches. Directly in front, to one entering this vestibule, are 
 wide folding doors opening directly to the town hall. By the 
 only condition of the donor this is to be open to every and 
 any religious society desiring to hold funeral services there. 
 The hall is a magnificent room, 40x50 feet, with recess for 
 a stage 10x34 feet. The platform extends slightly into the 
 
76 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 hall, and its dimensions are 16x30 feet. The hall -is finished 
 with a dado four feet high, and has a cove ceiling on all 
 sides 16 feet above the floor, which height marks the tie 
 beams of three ornamented trusses, 10| feet apart. The 
 vaulted or dome ceiling, 29x13 feet, is designed to break 
 sound waves and assure good acoustic properties. For further 
 decoration the cove ceiling is broken by wooden ribs, form- 
 ing panels three feet wide and the height of the cove around 
 the hall. The finish is of hard pine, in shellac. The 
 seating capacity of the hall is 500. On the west side a fire- 
 proof vault for the town records is provided, lined with brick 
 and with vaulted ceiling, with double steel doors. Besides 
 the folding doors to the vestibule, similar doors open into 
 the library and selectmen's rooms at the front of the build- 
 ing, thus increasing the capacity of the main hall, should 
 occasion require. Heat is provided by furnace. 
 
 The southwest corner of the building is for the library 
 and reading room. Book cases run the whole width of its 
 walls and to the ceiling. The dimensions of the room are 
 23x18 feet exclusive of an alcove, 6x13, with open fireplace. 
 Spacious window seats are provided at the front windows. 
 The southeast corner is the selectmen's room, 18x20 feet, 
 and opening into a circular stairway that leads to the bell 
 deck and clock tower. A fireplace ornaments the east side 
 of the room, and both this and the library are heated by 
 grates sufficiently large for the purpose. Provision has been 
 made whereby an extension can be made on the east for a 
 room for kitchen purposes on festal occasions, though this 
 was not contemplated in the original plan nor in the cut 
 presented. This vestibule entrance formed by the tower is 
 finished in brick, and in one of the sides a bronze tablet will 
 be set suitably inscribing the gift and the purpose of the 
 donor. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 77 
 
 The perspective of the building, as seen by the ilhistra- 
 tion, is very pretty and pleasing. The style at once excites 
 commendation from all who see it. It is nearer " rustic" 
 than anything else, and the architect has evidently had ever 
 in mind the location for which it was intended. The tower 
 shown is 13 feet square and 56 feet high, and its roof is 
 covered with red slate, while the roof of the main buildino- 
 is of dark blue. The tower, with its bell and clock, marks 
 the memorial feature of the structure. A memorial tablet, 
 cut from a slab of brown freestone, bears the inscription : 
 
 1890 
 
 PRESENTED TO THE TOWN OF SWANSEA, 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK S. STEVENS. 
 
 One of Howard's best movement clocks has been fur- 
 nished, and a fine-toned bell of 715 pounds weight accom- 
 panies it. It will be noted that the ornamentation of the 
 building is all in front, the roof being kept j^lain, and so 
 easily in repair. The front is ornate with brown stone and 
 carving. The tower treatment, its rounded arches marking 
 the Romanesque, is indeed picturesque, and the turret for 
 the clock is a distinctive and important feature for this part 
 of the tower. The chimney, for the library fireplace, is 
 carried on the tower on the opposite side and as a balance 
 to the clock turret, and rises to a height of 52 feet above 
 grade. Another architectural feature to show that the tower 
 is for a bell as well as for a clock is seen in the large opening 
 below the clock, through which the bell will show, and the 
 sound waves have nothing to check and subdue them. 
 
 As the building is only designed for the three rooms 
 which have been described, a town hall, library and select- 
 
 LOfa 
 
78 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 men's room, there being no second story, the roof is designed 
 in keeping with this fact. The large roof covers the large 
 hall only, and the roofs are low over the other two rooms. 
 And to make the alcove a distinctive architectural feature 
 of the front it is marked by a steep gable, which also acts as 
 a screen for the roof of it. 
 
 The building is piped for gas. Mr. J. Merrill Brown 
 of Boston, was the architect, Mr. J. J. Highlands of Fall 
 River, did the masonry, and Mr. Angus McDonald of Boston, 
 the carpentry work. 
 
TOWN HALL, SWANSEA. 79 
 
 APPENDIX YL 
 
 FRANK SHAW STEVENS, 
 
 The donor of the town hall, was born in Rutland, 
 Vermont, Ang. 6, 1827. He received a common school edu- 
 cation, and at the age of seventeen entered a store in West- 
 field, N. Y., as a clerk. He served in this capacity four years, 
 when the California gold fever excitement allured him to the 
 great West, and he joined his fortunes with a company of 
 Forty-niners for a trip across the great American Desert, 
 in the spring of 1849. They left Omaha in May of that 
 year for Sacramento, Cal., and reached their destination in 
 the latter part of August. Mr. Stevens did not like the life 
 or the work of a miner, and soon gave up this business for 
 something more to his liking. He entered into partnership 
 with Mr. Henry Durfee, for the purpose of hauling goods 
 and provisions to the miners and travellers in the mountains. 
 The enterprise was proving to be a profitable one when high 
 water came on and they were obliged to give it up. He then 
 successfully engaged in the restaurant business and after- 
 wards ran a staae line from Sacramento to Placerville. In 
 1854 all the stage lines in California united to form the 
 California Stage Company, and Mr. Stevens was chosen vice 
 president, having charge of one of the most important di- 
 visions until 186G. In the fall of 1858 he came to Wash- 
 
80 DEDICATION OF THE 
 
 ington, D. C, to look after the interests of his company, and 
 made several trips to and from California from that time to 
 1866. 
 
 In 1858 he visited Swansea for the first time, and in 
 1866 he settled in the town which has since been his home. 
 In 1862, he became a member of the firm of Paris, Allen & 
 Co., of New York. Mr. Allen died abont a year ago and 
 Mr. Paris died September 2, 1891. 
 
 Mr. Stevens has been prominently identified with the 
 business interests of Fall River for nearly a quarter of a 
 century, and at the present time is president of the Globe 
 Street Eailway Co., president of the Fall River Merino Co., 
 vice president of the Metacomet National Bank, and a direc- 
 tor in the following corporations : Bourne mills, Chase Ele- 
 vator Co., Edison Electric Illuminating Co., Fall River 
 Electric Lighting Co., Fall River and Providence Steam- 
 boat Co., Granite mills. Mechanics mills, O shorn mills, 
 Richard Borden mills, Slade mills and the Stafford mills. 
 
 Up to the opening of the war of the rebellion Mr. Stevens 
 was a Democrat, but since that time he has been actively 
 identified with the Republican party. He was a member 
 of the Republican State Central Committee from this district 
 for several years, and in 1884 was a member of the State 
 Senate, declining a re-election the next year. 
 
 He was a delegate to the National Republican conven- 
 tions of 1884 and 1888. 
 
 Mr. Stevens has been twice married. In July, 1858, 
 he married Julia A. B., widow of James E. Birch, of Swan- 
 sea. She died in February, 1871, and on April 22d, 1878, he 
 married Miss Elizabeth R. Case, of Swansea. He is an at- 
 tendant and supporter of the Protestant Episcopal church 
 of Swansea. His farm is one of the finest in the vicinity of 
 Fall River, and is well stocked with fine horses and a large 
 herd of pure Jersey cattle. 
 
Table of Contents, 
 
 Page 
 FllONTISPIECE. 
 
 Letters of the Selectmen of Swansea, - - - - 3 
 
 Dedication of the Town Hall, ----- 5 
 
 Presentation, Address of Mr, Stevens, - - - . - 8 
 
 Portrait of Frank Shaw Stevens, - - - opp. 8 
 
 Response of Mr. Mason, the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, 10 
 
 Historical Address of Hon. John S. Brayton, - - - 12 
 
 Vie\v of the Garrison House of Ptcv. John Myles, - - 23 
 
 View of the Old Meeting House at North Swansea, - - 31 
 
 Address of Jonathan Wood, Esq., - - - - - 55 
 
 Address of Major James Brown, _ _ _ - 58 
 
 Address of Hon. Edwin L. Barney, - - - - - 65 
 
 Vote of Thanks to 
 
 Messrs. Stevens, Brayton, Wood, Brown anrl Barney, - 68 
 
 Appendix I. 
 
 Deed of Mr. Stevens to the Town, - - - - 70 
 
 Appendix II. 
 
 Letter of Simeon Potter, _ - - - - 73 
 
 Appendix III. 
 
 Description of Town Hall, - - - - - 75 
 
 Appendix VI. 
 
 Frank Shaw Stevens, Notice of, . - - - 79