@112 Zfiutthrsh mth gffiftittlg fgknnihtrsaxg 
& E OF TIIITJ ORGANIZATION OF THE ‘

TOWN OF LEICESTER, V

' M VMJULY 4, 

 

 

   
  

CAMBRIDGE : A A
PRESS OF JOHN w1LsoN AND son.
E1871.

 

 

PROCEEDINGS.

IN accordance with a previous public invitation, the citizens of
Leicester held a meeting at the Town House, February 11,
1871, to consider the subject of celebrating their One Hundred
and Fiftieth A1111iVersa1'yi11 some suitable ma1'1ne1°; and after
discussing the matter it was voted to do so, and a Committee
was chosen to invite an Orator, and other preliminary measures
were taken to carry out that object.

Meetings were subsequeiitly held at various times; and it
was decided that the day of our National Anniversary was the
most suitable and convenient time for this purpose.

 

On the 20th of May, the citizens were again called together ;

  

as’
‘a

to organize for the occasion, and  
JOHNE. RUSSELL, Esq., was chosen Chairman, and D
Dea. O. G. DENNY, Secretary.

AOommittee of Nomination was appointed, who reported the "
following names, which were accepted, as a

Committee of Armazgements. o
J OHN E. RUSSELL. L. S. WATSON. L. D. T:e:tms:ro:N.

 

J OHN’ D. COGSWIELL. J os. A. DENNY. J OHN S. SMITH.

C. C. DENNY. L. G-. STUMEVANT. D. E. Mnmamm.

WM. F. HOLMAN. Cunrams A. DENNY. Envmnn SARGEN1‘.

J osnm MURDOCK. A. I-I. COOLIDGE. J01‘-IN Woonoomc. N p
Smear. MAY. ‘ .. . ALoNzo WHITE. , J osnjon Munnoexc. D V
EDWIN L. WATSON. LUCIUS M. WAI’PE. ERVING SI>RAGrU1e.

CHARLES SIBLEY. J OHN N. Munnooxc. Loews Woonoooxc.

 

  

CHENEY HATCH.

CHARLES W. VVARREN.

H. ARTHUR WI-IITE.
SAMUEL FIRTH.

J OSEPHUS WOODCOCK.

T. E. WOODCOCK.
J AMES A. SMITH.

ANTHONY HANKEY.
O PARLEY HOLMAN.

RUFUS HOLMAN.

4

JOHN W. Brsco.
JOHN N. GROUT‘.

JAMES WHITTEMOEE.

SAMUEL L. Horoems.
J Os. M. TRASK.

H. 0. SMITH. V
BILLINGS MANN.

Trros. S. LIVERMORE.

E. G. CARLTON.
DWIGHT Brsoo.

WILLIAM P. WHITE.
D.EX.TER gKNIGI-IT.
JOHN D. CLARK.
LYMAN I. UPIIAM.
D. W. KENT.

SAMUEL SOUTIIGA'1‘IE.

ALBERT NLARSHALL.
'WILLLiM BOND.
ARTHUR M. STONE.
JOSEPH B. UPHAM.

GEORGE H. MUNROE.

At a subsequent meeting Messrs. RUssELL and DENNY were

made permanent Chairman and Secretary of the Committee of
. Arrangements ; and the vvhole Board were divided into various
Sub-committees to carry out the details of the Celebration.

Weekly meetings were held for some time previous to tl1e
Fourth of July, to report progress in the Work, and provide for
its satisfactory completion. V pp

The following general invitation to the Absent Sons and

A Daughters of Leicester appeared in the daily and Weekly

papers in iWorcester; and five or six hundred copies, in the

form of circular letters, were sent out by mail, by the Com-
mittee on Invitations, to those Whose address could be readily

ascertained : --

SEMI---CENTEl\TNIAL CELEBRATION AT LEICESTER.

The citizens of Leicestertwill celebrate the ensuing Fourth of July, in
Commemoration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Organ-

E ization of the Town, by an Address from Hon. EMORY WASHBURN, and "

A other appropriate exercises.

g A.Din<ner will beprovided at as low a price as can be afforded, not
exceeding $1.507 a plate. E E v
The presentcitizens of Leicester, together with Spencer, Paxton; and

ti  _Aupburu,¥ag‘part“of which territory was originally included in Leicester, and

 Sons \andiDa3ughters of Leicester nowscattered abroad, are cordially .

ti invitedtoruuite withtuison this occasionnvithout’ a more particular invita-T

tion; E

5

All persons intending to be present are respectfully invited to communi-
cate with either of the subscribers, on or before the twentieth day of June,
giving information of the number of Dinner tickets wanted, and provision
will be made for-all who thus apply.

By order of the Committee of Arrangements.

Jos. A. DENNY,"

L. D. Tramnsron, Sub-committee.
7 OLEIARLES A. DENNY,

LEICESTER, May 31, 1871. i

As the day approached, all things seemed to be made ready
for the occasion. I,
Cornmittees had reported that Hon. EMORY WASHBURN, the

Historiaii of Leicester, had been invited, and had consented to i

deliver the Address ; that all needf'ul arrangements for music,“
instrumental and vocal, had been made ; that AUG-Us'rUs Manes,
of Worcester, had engaged to provide a dinner for about one
thousand persons; that a large tent from Boston had been
engaged, to be erected on the common in front of the Town
House, and tables set for over one thousand plates therein ; and
that a suitable place had been prepared in the grove in front
of the Academy for the Orator and his audience.
Officers of the day were chosen as follows: ~—-.--

J 0s. A. DENNY”, E’sq., President. _ A .
Hon. WALDol FLINT, of .Boston,« ABRAHAM Fmrn, Esq., of

Boston, Rev. SAMUEL MAY, L. S. Warsou, Esq., J onu Ween» A “L A A

COCK, Esq., and S. L. HODGES, Esq., V7a'ce—~P9~esi0lsnts.
Capt. JOHN D. COGSWELL, 0/I/iejf Marshal.
Dr. JOHN N. MURDOCK, Toast Master.

. The morning of the Fourth was ushered in, as usual on our a
v National Anniversary, by the firing of cannon and the ringing
of bells; and Leicester Hill was made cheerful by the early

arrival of friends from abroad, who continued to throng to the
village during the early hours of the day. A

 

 

6

U,The weather, though cloudy and somewhat threatening for
a while in the morning, proved to be fine and wholly favorable
throughout the day. The exercises in the grove commenced
at ten o’clock A.M., and were in accordance with the printed

programme.
Rev. SAMUEL MAY said, that in the universally regretted

A absence of Mr. Russell, the duty of acting as Chairman of the

Committee of Arrangements,had been assigned to him. In
behalf of the Committee, and of all the citizens, he congratu-

, lated the large audience on the happy circumstances of the

 

occasion, rejoicing especially to see so great a number of former
residents returning to take part in its memories and festivities.
At his call, the WoncEsrnn,NArIoNaL BAND, which had already
been filling the village with the echoes of its awakening strains,
opened the exerciseswith a suitable piece.
lMr. MAY. --— One of our own posts has said,»-

“" “ The groves were God’s first temples; ”

and in such a temple, fair to see, and, as we can truly say,
i 5‘ not made with hands,” are we met to observe our country’s
  great anniversary, to recall the struggles, sufferings, and virtues
, of those who first planted this town, and to render honor to

their character and their work.
lTl1e whole audience, led by a well-trained choir of thirty
singers, then sang, to the tune of Old Hundred, the following

INVOCATION.

Great God, to thee we raise our prayer,
Our grateful song for thy kind care
And guiding hand, which all our way
Has led us, till this gladsome day.‘

7 Here on our nation’s natal day,
Herehnid our'f'athers’ graves, we pray
That we their virtues may possess,

‘ Their courage, faith, and holiness.

 

 

7

rRev.pA. H. OOOLIDGE, Chaplain of the day, read the following A
passage of Scripture:-— l i

“ Give ear, 0 my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my
mouth. H i

“ I Will open my mouth in a parable : I will utter dark sayings of old: i

“ Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 1

“ We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come i
the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath
done.  ‘V
“For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their _
children : i

“ That the generation to come miglit know them, even the children which
should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:

“ That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the Works of God, i
but keep his commandments.”

After which Mr. Coomnee offered a fervent, appropriate, and
impressive prayer. T T i
The choir next sang the following original Hymn, written,
for the occasion, by Rev. A. C. Dnmson, of Middlelield, Conn,
a former Pastor of the ]3‘irst Congregational Church of this
town :--~~---- ,
From far and near to-day we come,
As children to our early home,
These pleasant scenes again to greet,
' T These friends of by-gone years to meet.

 _ ‘ These smiling Vales, these massive hills,
These gleaming lakes, these laughing rills, a
Are little changed from year to year;

Ah! not so we who gather here!

But where are they who dwelt upon

These hills in seventeen twenty-one?
Life’s busy walks no more they tread,
Their names long numbered with the dead.

 

L t l l T 4 It may be we shall never more

i Clasp hands upon this earthly. shoie;
But may we, an unbroken hand,

All meet at last at Grod’s right hand!

 

. Hymn.”

   r republic.
i r ya i  But, interesting as this might be to any generous mind, there
_ i is a deeper sensibility avvakgenedr in some of us, on revisiting
A    thesie pleasant sceneis. Busy Memory repeoples it with the
_i  l j in , forms of loved ones; and the friendslofi earlier days that used
 I A to meet us in these familiar Walks start up,gin fancy, at every

8

Following which the band played a“ Keller’s American

Mr. MAY said, ---To most of this audience the Orator of the
day needs no introduction. A son of Leicester, he has always
loved his native town, and given her many sure proofs of his
aztfection.

our State. But here and to-day We more gratefully honor
him as the Historian of Leicester, diligent and faithful. To
that history we have summoned him to make to-day a further

a A contribution; and We are all here to listen to the” Hon. EMORY

Wnsnnuan.

ADDRESS BY EMORY WASHBURN.

‘LET us congratulate ourselves, my friends, that, on a day a.

dedicated to the commemoration of a nation’s independence,
we are permitted to gather once more around the altar of a

l common home, and live again in the pleasant memories which

cluster around this consecrated spot. Let us congratulate our-
selves that it is our privilege, at the close of a hundred and
fifty years from the organization of our native town, to read, in

A the prosperity which greets us on every side, how wisely its

founders planted here the germinal principle of a free and in-

‘ dependent community, in the solitude of the Wilderness and
upon the then verge of V civilization.

In the lightof its history, and of that of the little band who

first made a lodgment here, We may read an epitome of the

agencies which, upon a broader field, built up a colony into a
State, and spread out the little belt of population that then
hugged the shores of the ‘Atlantic into a vast and mighty

We recognize him as the “conscientious and able‘
A lawyer, the learned jurist and just judge, and ya Governor of

 

 

 

9

turn, to Welcome us backto our former homes. Households
long since scattered are thus gathered once more around the

hearthstone where they played in their childhood. But, as we i

pause till a sense of what is real com “back upon us, we find
that———- i i'’"'‘ W is

“ Our playmates have passed on,
And left us counting on the spot l
p The faces that are gone.”

There are, iningled with these emotions, lessons of deep phi——
losophy to be drawn from such a commemoration as this. The
busy World stops for a day, and gives us a chance to look back
over the way along; which our fathers and We have been trav-
elliiig, and to measure the pI'Og1“'0SS which, as individuals and
as a conununity, we have been inaking in this lapse of years.

'Oo11n,tix1gl:.>yt1i1ca annual recurrence of the seasons, the pr zscnt
comp the hundred and fiftieth since the people of Leicester
were d1',ganized into a town. The first meeting of its in1ial.)i--
tents for the transaction of nninicipal business appears to have
been held on the first Monday of Marcl1,17f2.1. '1‘he propriety
of coxgnmeincn-atinip; this event was obvious ; and those liaving
the xnatter in (3l‘1tt1'g;0 wisely concluded to unite with it the
celebratic;u1 of the declaration of our national independence.
And it only needs a single s11ggest:i()11 to impress upon every

 

one the fitness of such a union. 'l‘he one event was the birth a
of a town, the other the proclaixning of the birth of a lnation; i

and the relation between the two becomes more apparent as we
trace the connection there was between the action of the towlis

of New lihnglaiid and the achievement of the independence of  

the nation. , 1 r
The real causes and orig-iii of the American Revolution lie far

lJ2tCl{ of’ 1776. The spirit tliatpgavepit life, and animated the l

counsels which guided the Colonies in their struggle with the

mother country, may be traced to the Puritans of Old England, to

but took its most active and efficient form in New England, in

the little independent democracies, called towns, into which the  
Colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were earlydik‘
ivided. »
The country has been so long familiar with this divis.ion‘f  

2

 

  

10

of“ territory into separate townships, that we are apt to overlook
its influence and importance. But I doubt if any one thing
; gr has done so much towards promoting and sustaining their
capacity for self-government, as a people, as the organization
of these little democracies. In this consists the great differ-
ence there is between the people of the old world and our own.
In France, for instance, every thing emanates from a central
power, and the government takes care’ of the internal and
domestic affairs of the people in their cities and villages. The
police is ever present to protect the citizens, and enforce the
. laws. r And when, therefore, they undertake to proclaim a re»-
public, they fail, because, instead of governing themselves from
within, they are so accustomed to an outside force to regulate
them, that they fall into discord and confusion, till some strong

a ;hand seizes hold of the administration and restores order by

t i substituting a single will for the combinedwills of the nation.
t Whereas,from the very first, the people of New England have
been accustomed to manage their own domestic affairs by the

i free and intelligent action of the citizens in theirtown-meet-
ings, and were so far independent of any general government
noverthe whole, that when its administration in Massachusetts

l was suspended from Oct. 5, 1774, to July 20, 1775, the towns
iiwent on conducting their own affairs in quiet and order, and,
in fact, supplying a government for the whole province, till it
was again organized under the advice of the Oontinen,ta1 0011-
gress. Nor. does it speak well for the maintenance of the
democratic form of government which was sustained by the
 itself-regulating power of the towns, that, instead of exercising

 

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  

Armportantdepartrnent of it, upon men appointed by the execu-
Mtive of the State. v Such was not the theory or practical work-

.,eg[l11sa.i36.d republics in New England. While as colonies they

_  The freemen of Massachusetts came together in their
 uponterms of equality of rights, where every one

 

 their own police, they have been made dependent, for the most A

 A of the system which laid the foundation of these self-y

 

yecognized the sovereignty of the home government, they were,
toytheir domestic affairs, as free and independent asnwe are

,.”a;°voic»e~anda vote. They chose their own local officers, pp

 

11

pselected their ministers, regrilated their schools, voted their
i own moneys, and saw to their disbursement. As parts of the a

larger body politic of the colony or province, they chose each
its own delegates to meet in a common assembly to make the
general laws by which they were to be governed. And so im-
portant did they deem this coming together of the representa-
tives of the several towns in what, from the first, was called
the General Court, that the occasion became a general holiday
of the people, which, u11der the name of Election Day, came
down from the planting of the colony till some of us were_ old
enough to enjoy the Well-remembered sports and amusements
to which it was devoted. a A
It was in this way that the colonists not only learned how to
govern themselves, but how to take care of themselves. And

l in doing this, it was the towns which spoke and acted, and their

was that of‘ this town on the 26th May, 17 7 6, upon the subject
of declaring the Colonies independent of the British Cr”own,.

by a like resolve by the people of Spencer. And nobly did A

 

action became the pulse and tone of the sentiment of the colony.  g 
In the absence of newspapers, the tow1ri1—1neetings became the
medium by which the people exaxniiied and discussed the politi-

cal questions of the day; and the dc>in,g;s and resolves of Boston a

were echoed back: from every town in the country. Among the
instances to which I mig'11ta1l11de,wl1e1*e the people came togetl1e1~

in their respective localities to consider the great questions in ‘
which the country was interested, and where a sentiment was
matured upon which the people as a nation ultirnatelyaeted, 

 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
  

On that day the people of Leicester were called upon to con?
sider this mon'1entous question. They came togetlier, and by
a solemn vote, without a dissenting voice, pledged tliemselves,
“ that in case the Honorable the Continental Coiigress should
declare these Colonies independent of Great Britain, they would A
support said Congress in effectuating such measure, at the risk
of their lives and their fortunes.” And this was followed in June

thesetowns redeem that pledge, tl1oug'l1 it is altogether beyond ,
my limits, on this occasion, to dwell upon the details of t thelpart i
they took: in achieving that independence. There is, then, I C  
repeat, a fitness in thus uniting the commemoration of the two « 
events to which this day has been consecrated. A A r t

12

But, in doing this, we are to remember that the men of the ‘

Revolution were not of the generation who planted the town.
More than fifty years had intervened between these events; and,
if we would do justice to the actors in both, we must go back,
and call up before us the men and women who were the pic-4
neers in penetrating this, till then, unbroken wilderness. W110

r and what manner of men they were who laid here the founda-
tion of a community which at the end of a hundred and fifty
years are sharing thefruits of their faith and their fortitude,
is atheme worthy of such an occasion.

In the first place, they were of pure English stock. Several of
the families were direct immigrants from England, and none
of them were more than two or three removes from native
English parents. With scarce an exception, they were small
farmers, who did their own work, and relied upon their own
resources. , There must, in this way, have grown up a condi-

 tion of great equality among them, while their isolation from
the rest of the world, which rendered them mutually dependent
upon each other in many things, must have bound them to-
gether by strong ties of sympathy and attachment. The growth
of the town was slow; and the families of which it was com»-
posed were scattered over its entire territory, so that there was
nothing like a village or group of dwellings within it for many

T years. It could have had but few attractions, at first, to draw
i new settlers to it. They were in constant fear of the Indians,
and had to build “ garrison houses” in different parts of the

i town, to which they could flee when threatened with attack.
There is a letter on record which was addressed by some of
the most coiisilerable men of the town to Lieutenant~Grovernor

T Dummer,in 1725, which gives us some insight into their condi-
tion. “It was so late,” say they, “ the last summer, before we

i had any soldiers, that we were exceedingly behind in our busi-
ness.” And in another they tell him that this is a frontier town,

i and has been much exposed, and reduced to very low circum- r
" l r stances, by reason of the late Indian wars. The town, more-

A T over, was so poor that the province abated that year’s tax. which
 been assessed upon it. y A l
   What is said of its being a frontier settlernent was literally

13

true.   There had been one in Brookfield; but it had been A

broken up anddispersed by the Indians during Phi1ip’s war,

and only a few families had begun again to establish them» a l

selves there. With this exception, there were no white
settlers between Leicester and the Connecticut River. On

the cast a few families had gathered in Worcester, after the de-  A

struction of that settlement, in the same year with the one at
Iirookfield. Even with those settlements there was next to no
means of communication.   The only pretence for a road was a

path through the woods, which it was difficult to travel even on

horsebaclsz. It was along; what was called the “Connecticut
IfiIf’atl1,” by which persons goiiig from lfioston to Connecticut
lR.i\rer threaded their way tl,c11*oug;l1 the wilderness. It had never
been laid out as a l,1i5g,'11way until after the organization of the
town; and, when that was done, it took the name of the “ Coun-

i try road,” which was the same, substantially, as that which

 

 

was travelled here fifty years  The roads to the north and
south from the present village were commenced at a still later
period; so that, when the people of the town took upo11tl1e1n-
selves the burdens arid responsibilities of s1:1ppo1‘ti1ig the civil
and 1‘elig;i<)1;1s institutions of a body politic, they were an iso-
lated conlnnunity, dependent upon themselves alone for success.
By a wise fcr~esig;11t, there were reserved, from the guilt of the
township, a lot oi’la1,,d for the ministry, and another fora
school. But as no provision was made for a house for public

worship, the people came tog,'etl1e1~ and erected onein1719, two:

But before we inquire how far they redeemed the pledges
they made to the colony and posterity when they assumed to

years before they had been orggaxiiaed as a town. i  c

act for themselves, it would be pleasant to gratify a natural ,

curiosity which every one must feel to know something more
of the character and condition of the men who laid the founda-
tion of a social structure which has stood firm amidst all the
changes through which the country has been passing. In this
connection, too, we are inclined to ask, What were their aims
and purposes in coniirng here, and under whose patronage didthey
come‘? Unfortunately, they left no record of thernselves, save
here and there an isolated fact, from which, however, we are

  

14;,

able to infer what that record would have been if it had been
gpreserved. Of some things connected with their history, we
can be at no loss fora judgment. And, in the first place,
they recognized no man as master or as patron. They came

in the consciousness of their own integrity, to build up homes ‘

here, and to share the civil and religious privileges of a respect-
able New England town. Witliiri that happy mediocrity of
life for which Agur, in his wisdom, prayed, they had “ neither
poverty nor riches,” and seem to have been content with that
humble lot. Rich and poor are, indeed, relative terms; and I
have sought for some test by which to judge how far these
words were applicable to the first settlers of the town. I have
accordingly looked into the inventories of the estates of sev-
_ eral of them, which were made up at different times, from
, fifteen to forty years after the first settlement of the town.
The real estate of Judge Menzies, which was one of the
largest in the town, although incuxnbered with mortgages, was
valued at £2,700, and his personal at £319. John Lynde, Jr.,
a still richer man, and perhaps the richest of the original
settlers, had lands valued at £1,877, and personal estate of the
value of £900. Of those estates forming something like an
average with others in the town, I find the amounts varying
from £827 to £680. But whileithese statistics help to show
the pecuniary condition of < the first generation, there are other

I facts to be collected from them which throw further light upon
the condition and habits of their domestic life, which are
equally curious and interestincr. Thus, for instance, while
, these inventories are very minute and particular, even to trifling

   
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

lwatoh in any one of them; and while we can imagine that
I they would have substituted, as they used to do, sand for
carpets, and a scratch on the window—sill for a clock, to tell

 Ido in our day, without ever thinking of a razor“; and as for our
   , i;I,m~otll1Iers, it was lucky for their toilets that no evil genius had

I articles of furniture, I have found neither carpet nor clock nor I

  them at what time to eat their dinners, it is difficult to con»
Ijecture how they contrived to live without loolcging-glasses. The
I men must have worn their beards as long and shaggy as some

I   before that day invented that strange outrig for the brain, a A

 

15

c/rzlgnon, or discovered how to pile a bale of dry goods upon a
woman’s back and call it a lady’s dress. In the inventory of

the richest man in town, I find three of those necessaries of V1
life, looking-glasses, varying in value from 63. 9d.to 403.,
In that of another man of substance, I find only one of the

value of 43.; While among the household goods of others no

article of the kind is to be found. But the most curious con— I
trast with the habits of our day is found in the matter of I

books. Inimany a well-to-do family we do not find a single
volume. John Lynde, Jr., whom I have” already mentioned,
was the 'fil”'Sl3 school—master in the town, and held the officc of
justice of the peace, when it was really a mark of distinction.
He had what is called in his inventory a “library of Latin
hooks and E:nglisl1,” which was valued at £1 163. 3d. ; while
the books of three other substantial farmers varied in value
from 53. to 158. Such as had any books generally possessed may
Bible; and we occasionally find a psalter and a psalm-book.

Brit the use of psalm-books was rendered unnecessary by the

universal custom of the deacon in leading the singing in pub-
lic worship, reading a single line of the psalm at a time, which
was taken up by the congregation, and repeated by them in
chorus rather than in harmony. I

I;’er-haps I shall have no fitter place in which to speak further V

of the social habits and domestic lives of the good Puritan fathers

A and ‘mothers who flourishedghere a century and a half ago. I f :

As we look back upon what we know to have been their sur—3
roundings, as well as upon the lives of incessant toil and self-

denial to which they were subjected, it would seem to be a mist

application of terms to speak of their plcasuresor amusements.
Every thing they saw and heard musthave checked every approach
to joyousness and hilarity. In the day-time their vision was
hemmed in by the tangled forest, into which the sunlight hardly
found its way. Their slumbers at night were broken by the
howling of wild beasts around their dwellings; while within,
sickness was often adreaded visitor, and death every now and
then stole in upon their scanty number, to snatch from them
the companion they could least spare. What could there be
in such a life but sadness and sorrow, and the constant forIc—-

16

boding of coming evil‘? But, fortunately for them as for us all,
there is a silver lining to the darkest cloud, and a light that
relieves the most sombre picture. Human nature has an
element of joyousness in the young, the hopeful, and the con-
tented, Wherever they are found; nor was it wanting even here.
That their pleasures partook of what We are_ taught to call
gayety or fashionable life, is not to be imagined.  Such a pro—-
fane thing as dancing must have been unheard of. Dress and
style furnished rather a narrow range for fashion, where the
goodwife spun and wove and dyed the cloths which she after——
Wards [cut and made into garments for the family. They
doubtless had their social gatherings, and the tattle and gossip
which made up the talk of every neighborhood. But they had
never reached the luxury of a “ tea-party,” for the reason
that that delightful beverage first began to be heard of in the
colony in 1720. They had to manufacture their own news, as
there were only two small weekly newspapers then printed in
the province; and as they had neither post, nor mail, nor stage-
coach, these probably never found their way so far into the
country. But, where there are youth and health, nature is not
niggard of its elements of pleasure. There was hunting in the
forest and fishing in the streams. The young men had their
matches of strength and agility, and the old men told to willing
listeners, the stories of English life and what the Puritans had
X suffered. And so life moved on. The young people came to-
gether and loved and courted and married, and started in life
with the same rose~color,ed hopes that they do now, though, in

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

into a “gift enterprise,” by taxing the bounty of every guest
they invited. Children were born to gladden the household, as
they donovv; and in the rearing and training of these, parents

toiland labor put on the garb of pleasure and social enjoyment,
 when neighbors came together to help raise each other’s build-
 , ings, or bythe light of the golden harvest moon sat and husked
, pp ; one another’s corn, or crowned the achievement of a new co-
 T  opmgative bedquilt by an evening of free and cheerful hilarity.
T  T In 13h:e;s,e and a hundredfother Ways the kindlier feelings within

their simplicity, they had never thought of turning a wedding ,

were too busy to feel the want of frivolous amusements. Even A

 7

them found‘ room ‘for free play, and pleasures sprung up as

spontaneously as the wild flowers and fruits around them which
ministered to their senses. M
But we must look deeper than these outside forms of
social life for the emcient causes of the traits of character
which we discover in these earlysettlers. There were a
variety of circumstances which were calculated to foster

within them habits of tllO11g‘l1i3 which made them self'--re1iant .

and independent in sentiment and opinion. In the first place,
there was a practical equality in their social and political
condition, which contributed to their individual independence.

In the next place, a large proportion of them had been born in

Massachusetts, and had imbibed in their childhood the prevail-

ing, notions of "Puritan belief and independent church polity
which the O<:>1igregaiti<.>11al churches of New Engglaiid had adopted. we
Many of them, doubtless, had been more or less trained in the

common schools of the colony, and had learned the important
lesson of self—govc1*1l11:ne11ti11 the town-«meetings in which they
had talren a part. Another circumstance which ought not to be
overlooked was that they owned the lands whieh_they tilled,

and were no 1nan’s tenants. It is cliflicxilt for us, with our r
habits, to realize the practical difference there is, in point of

manliness and independence of spirit, between owiiirig lands

4 and occupying; them as tenants. One sees it everywhere in Ei1g-
land; and in France the old system of feudalism, which kept the  i
great body of the cultivators in the condition of slaves, was  

l i3l”lO11glltS. i

never broken down till the Revolution of’ 1789, -- more than radii

hundred and fifty years after the farmers of New Iilnglandhad A A
been accustomed to till their own lands and to think their own i

re _

The scattered and isolated condition of the carlysettlers of e

the town ‘left them much alone, and drove them to hahitsof
self-reflection and self-examination. If they knew little of the

i outer world and what we call science, they were conversant
with the workings of their own hearts, and dwelt much upon? it

the solemn andaxnysterious connection there is betweenman

M and his Maker, in the light of that revelation which they ac~

 

ycepted without reserve. Darwin’s wonderful discovery of man’s
:3 l t

18

A relation to theape had not disturbed their confidence in the

Bible account of the creation of our first parents. The vaunted
philosophy of Positivism had notthcn got in advance of revela-
tion, as we are now told it has done. Nor had modern theori-

A  zers found out a. better code of moral law than that wliieli our

fathers innocently believed was delivered on Mount Sinai. . And
while it would be out of place to raise questions of creeds on
such an occasion, it is not to be denied, that the Calvinism of

7 that day was calculated to make a class of profound thinkers,

A whatever may be thought of its doctrines as a system of i’aith..

The very effort to comprehend and reconcile with one’s reason

A the inexplicable mysteries of original sin, of free-will and fore-

ordination, was an exercise of intellectual gymnastics which
helped to develop and strengthen powers of the mind which,
under ordinary circumstances, would have been likely to lie

dormant and inactive. Riglit or wrong, it was just such a

system of faith as was suited to fit that generation for the
work which they were commissioned to do. That they were
religious men of the then prevailing school of tlleology is seen

A in every step of their growth and progress. Sunday was to

them a day of sacred rest; a1:1‘l their children, trained in the
mysteries of the Shorter Catechism, grew up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.

3 Another circumstance which showed the character and spirit
of the men of that day was the manner in which they st1*11g~
lgled against their pecuniary embarrassmcnts in their attempts

it to establish and maintain a free school. In 17 31 they made
A provision for such a school, but were obliged to suspend it the
following year, though they resumed it in 17 38. Nor were
r they able to provide a school»-house till 17 36, when they built
A one of the humble dimensions of twenty, by sixteen feet, and
3 six feet and an half “between joints.” Tliis, moreover, was
the only school-house which the town had for many years, and
restored upon the Common, a few rods to the east of the meeting;-»

,,,house, of which I have already, spoken.

  
 

Passiiig from the social and intellectual condition of the

 to the circumstances in which they must have found

  

,; hesyes in respect to the number, size, and situation of 1 A

 

 

 

19

A their dwelling-houses: as near as can be ascertained, when
they built their mereti11g—lr1o11se, it was placed in the woods upon a
the common land, and only two houses had then been built 

near it,---one where Mr. May’s now is, the other where Gap»
tain Knight’s stands. The latter was of a single story, kept

as a public house, and was furnished with wooden hinges and

latches which were raised by strings passing through the door.

And in this respect the same was doubtless true of every
house in town. I have a description of whatiis now the vil»
Iago froin an eyewitness who knew it in 1767, fifty years after t
the first settlement of the town. The public house which I A
have spokeri of had just been burned; the little nondescript A
school-house was still pstanding; a rude brush fence, which i

came up to the xnecting-l1o11se at its rear, inclosed the btiryixigs

ground then in use. The rlvvc11i11g—l1ousc of the first minister e r

stood some iif’ty or sixty rods to the northeast from the meet-

l1’1g'-ll01‘lS0; and a small building, containing two rooms, stood A  

WlTl0l.'0 the tevern now is. If to these we add a small house
near the brook, west of the Cornnion, and another between
that and the Uonnnon, a small house upon the slope of the hill

east of the rnoeting-house, and two or three small housesupon l

the south road (one of them near where the late Mr, Hobart
lived), we have the entire village and its surroundings as they

l were within the memory of persons who heve described them, 
to some of us who are here to~-day. , And I may perhaps eddy,’ , i l
in respect to the style of the buildings of that day, that the lp
house nowistandingi on the east side of the road, lialf s mil “
north of the meeting-house, was, I imagine, one of the most,

imposing structures in the town, and none of theseiwere at
any time painted. ‘ A . i

If new we , attempt to gather hints from the meagre records
before us to guide us in our study into the characteristic

; qualities of the men and women who ‘left their impression?

upon the society which they planted here, our only regret is
that we are so circumscribed in our inquiries. If, as we are

told, “ the child is parent of the rnan,” the first settlers of er ,
town are not only the physical parents of the fuiture geneirlae
tionsof that town, but give to their moral qualities a shape an  

 

   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
 
 
  

20

character asdistinctly marked as the complexion or personal
habits which distinguish families from each other. Applying
this test, I am led to believe that, with all the counteracting

if influences which tended to make them selfish and exclusive, they

had an element of ‘liberality in their natureswhicli amounted
at times to inagnanimity.’ Their convictions in the matter of
religious belief must have been strong and decided. They
took upon themselves a heavy burden when they undertook to
maintain the stated ordinances of the gospel, and must have
felt it ahnost as a personal wrong if one of their number broke

T away from the communion which had bound them together.

It must have, therefore, been a severe trial of their spirit of
forbearance, when, in 17 86, before the troubles in which they

 had been involved in their long controversy with their first

clergyman had been healed, Dr. Green gathered, in what is

' now Greenville, a society of Anabaptists, and became himself
mvtheir preacher. And yet I cannot find that this secession
brought with it any of the accustomed alienation of feeling

between those who composed the two societies. But this, per»

it haps, should excite no surprise after we are told that the town

had already safely passed through a far more severe invasion

 of the Orthodox proprieties of church order in 173:2, when Ralf

Earleand seven others certified to the town-clerk, who, though
an excellent tailor, was an indiflerent modelfor good spelling,

A vthat they were what he chose to record them, 9‘ those people A

called Quackers,” which was followed a few years after by
Steward Southgate leaving Mr. Goddard’s church, and joining

these recusant seceders. What makes it the more remarkable
is, that all this took place while the memory was still fresh of

what the colonists had done to convince these two classes of
religionists of the error of their ways, by hanging a few and

  banishing more.‘ They were too dull to accept the force of 

the argument, and kept on multiplying worse than before.  
hB_ut, from some cause which I am ready to believe was good

sense as well as liberal sentiment, the fathers of this town
i . sieem to have early reached a conclusion to which half the

worldis still slow to yield, that a man maybe a good neighbor

if andia valuable citizen, though he may differ from the majority

5

21

in matters of speculative tlieology. And this sentiment they

seem to have transmitted to their children ; for when a colony A
of Jewish families removed here from Newport, during the 

war of the Revolution, they not only found a ready welcome,
but intimacies and friendships grew up between the citizens

* and them, which lasted as long as they lived. The town and .

parish remained entire’ until 1833 ; and the fact that the pasto- I

rates of six ministers cover the whole hundred and fifty years
shows the general harmony which has prevailed upon subjects
upon which people are so apt to betray feeling and ill-blood.
To understand theforce of this, we oiiglit to remember how
great have been the changes in a deiiominational point of view
within the memory of persons new liviiig. I had grown

almost to nnniliood before I ever saw what I supposed was a a

Catholic in the town; and one or two would, I think, have

covered the entire number of Methodists; and as for Unita- A

rians, the term had then hardly become known here. Whereas
now the i'eg1-et is, not that each of these denominations and
l;+lpisco1‘>a1iaxv1s have a place of worship here, but that the 1'elig~
ions society which was the first to secede from the o1~ig-iiial
parish lives here no longer, save in its honorable history, and

the memory it has left of the worth and intelligence of thosei,

who corrnnanded for it the respect of the entire town.
While we may well honor the catholic spirit which seems to

have characterized the place, we oiiglit to remember how much

of this harmony has been due to one who foriifty—ni11e years

has been the guide and pastor of the church which was be

founded with the town itself. His influence has been feltin
the prosperity as well as harmony of the town, and has

added value to every farm and workshop. and manufactory
within it. Poster-ity will honor his memory, as those who

have met him in his daily walks have honored him. ,
Let it not be supposed, however, that while dwelling upon the

01d—'faSlli0I1Gd ways and notions which had so much to do with I

theeharacter of the earlier and later generations of the peo-
ple here, I have been unmindful of the progress which the
race has everywhere been making, nor how far the world,
through the progress of science, has got inadvance of many

22

of the superstitions which kept down the free action of the
human mind. I have no time to dwell upon the assumed
triumphs of modern science over the credulity of a former age.
But we cannot, in passing, forbear asking ourselves which of
all its discoveries could have supplied our fathers, for an hour,
with the support they found, in their periods of gloom and
discou1~ag'en1e11t, in the evidences they saw around them of a
present God, and the unquestioning confidence with which
they read in their Bibles the sublime truths which in their
simplicity they believed he had himself revealed to man.
There is another characteristic incident in the lives of these

. they were mere farmers’ sons, whose unromantic liabitsp of life
9 I I I were associated with home and the quiet, unexciting pursuits
I I of peace ; and that is the readiness with which they yielded to
it the eallswhich were so often repeated “for men to take part in
the military enterprises of the day. I know not how many of
its citizens went into the service in obedience to these calls;
but wherever I have been able to trace the history of the
expeditions in the “ French wars,” as they were called, I have
found the names of Leicester men upon their rolls. They
, were at the taking~of' Louisburg in 1745, where Captain Brown
. commanded a company. They were in the Canada expedition
in1747, and with General Winslow in that to Maine in 1754.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
  

 and with General Amherst at Ticonderoga in 1759, in both of
I which William Henshaw was a lieutenant. And more than
thirty officers and soldiers from the town took part in the con-
quest of Canada in 1760. Indeed, so many had taken a share
inthese wars, that some of us can remember with what famil-
iarityrthe older men of the town used to speak of the events
of these campaigns, which made the names of Crown Point.

 

iihatday. I V .
 it And it may be to this cause that we should ascribe that
rilliliraditional respect for military titles which once prevailed so
,rrniversally here and throughout New England, and of which
has may now I see traces in the prefixes attached to so many

a .

men, which is the more remarlcable, when we remember that.

They were withGre11eral Abercrombie at Crown Point in 17 56,

and “ Old Ti ”almost household words among the people of,

 

 

, were cherished and respected accordingly.

   

23 ‘

 

names which are inscribed on the older headstones in our , A

cemeteries. They were marks of distinction which had been

Won by gallantry and desert in fields of actual service, and s

It was by these “old French” wars, as they were called,
that the men of Newhlnglandewere trained in the schoolof
the soldier for the coming struggle for our national indepen-
dence. And nothing, in all its stirring and memorable events,
was more fraught with hopeful interest to those who were
Watching its progress than the manner iirwhich seemingly

 

raw troops, gathered from the farms and villages of the country, A

without organization or discipline, or even knowing who was
their commanding officer, stood in an unbroken line, and
received the fire of the advancing columns of an enemy whom

 

they were meeting for the first time, until they could deliver a ‘ \
fire in return, with so sure and steady an aim that the finest

troops of England quailed before it, and fell A back with a:‘
recoil from which it was difficult to rally them. Leicester and

Spencer hadtheir men there too; and when the company made

up of these were ordered by the commandant of the regiment
to which it belonged to halt  Oharlestown Neck, which they
reached after the battle had begun, they to a man refused to

\ obey the order, and gallantlyfollowed their captain, who led a

them into the thickest of the fight, and they were among the

~ it last in the retreat} Nor did this martial spirit of its men flag

A for a moment, till their independence had been achieved. A In
addition to those who marched at the alarm of Lexington, and l
tthosewho enlisted in the first eight months’ service, and in

addition to more than thirty who served in the regular Conti-
nental army, the town answered, during the first five years of

the War, twenty-eiglit drafts for men, although the entire num-r ‘
ber in the town capable of bearing arms, in the year 1781, was A

only one hundred and fifty-one.,, With such a history before

a me, It looked with no littlesolicitude for the record of what

Leicester had done during that last grand struggle for the

Constitution and the cause of human liberty against a wicked

....__.....

1 The captain was Seth Washburn, of Leicester; the lieutenant, Joseph Liv-
e w ermore, of Spencer. l ' l v t

 

24

and groundless Rebellion ; and I only wish I could give it entire,
as it has been given to me. I quote whenl say, “Her sons
marched at the first call of the President for the defence of the
capital, and were among the first armed troops to reach
Washington. They received their first baptism of fire in the

 

streets of , Baltimore, with the old Sixth Massachusetts Regi- ~

ment, April 19, 1861; Colonel Jones, its commander, and others
among its officers, being natives of Leicester.” She sent into
the service more than three hundred of her sons. They were
in more than one hundred battles. More than forty of them
were wounded, and twenty-one of them fell on the bloody
field. It was the story of the Revolution over again. It
was the Leicester of the fathers revived in the action of the

., 3,
hit

sons}
In what I have thus far said of the character and intelligence

of the settlers of Leicester and their immediate posterity, as
well as of the part they took in the events of’ the Revolution, I
ought, perhaps, to have spoken more at large of the individuals
who, from education and position, exerted an influence upon
the conduct and opinions of others. A While I should be unable
to name, much less to do justice to, all who deserve notice, I
have ventured to mention a few of these rather as representa-
tives of the period in which they lived, than from any wish to

I signalize any, where so many are equally deserving. Among

them Judge Menzies stands. the earliest in point of time. He
had been bred as a Scotch barrister, andheld the office of Judge

of Admiralty in the province, which was one of much dignity

and importance, and brought him into contact with those en-
gaged in foreign trade, as well as the men of influence in the

province. I Hiscstate was what is now known as the “ Henshaw

place ;” and he could hardly have failed to exert an infl_uencc
over his neighbors by the style in which he lived, and the ex-

ample which he set before them, socially as well as personally,
I “  his manners and address. ’ A
 Of the earliest native—~born children or the town, I have in

 mind two, whoml name in connection with the problem

 how that generation could. have acquired the education which

  

1, see, Appendix.

 

 

 

25  

is now supplied by our schools. But that they were well edu-  

\ cated by some means, is apparent from the history of , the town, A A W

as well as the recollection of some still alive. Tliomas Denny

A was born three years after the town was organized; and his
sister, Mrs. Nathan Sargent, three years after that. This was A

some yearsbefore any school had been established ; and the dis»
tance at which they lived from it must have rendered it of
little or no use to them when it was in operation. And yet

there are those living who remember this lady as a person of A A
agreeable culture and great intelligence; and it would be di'fii- A
cult to name one who could better represent the patriotism of
the women of the Revolution, who were not awhit behind their

brothers in spirit or devotion. It was of her that the incident

has so often been told, how when the company of minute-menA, of 1

whom her son was one, were on their march for Lexington, on

the alarm of 19th April, 177 5, they halted at her door, but not 7
’ being supplied with bullets for their cartridges, she and her
husband took the leadcn weights from their clock and melted 1

them down, to supply the want. It told more than words could
do that war had indeed begun in earnest. The brother, Mr.

Denny, would have been a leading man in any community by 1

his intelligence, patriotism, and public spirit. He died just
before the breaking out of the war; and his loss was felt as a

public calamity inthe province. While a member of the (Ai~en-- 1
eral Court, he was associated with such men as $zt1n1;ielA.da1n‘s, \ W
James Otis, and John l?A§[ancocl:, and is nained by G-overnoyxw

Hutchinson in his History. He had taken a part in the cele- A
brated controversy with the Governor in 1771, wl:1icl;1 was one

of the immediately exciting causes of the Revolution.

Two of her citizens, Colonel William Henshaw and the Hon.
Joseph Allen, by their relation to the leading men of that
day in Boston, formed an important medium by which the

A spirit of Adams and Otis and Warren was widely diffused
through this community. Mr. Allen was a nephew of 1 Samuel ,

 

” Adams, and removed here in 1771, and did muclnby way of his A

pen and his personal influence, to give a right direction‘ to the
sentiment which animatedthe people. Colonel Henshaw was

in the cause from the first. He wasthe Adjutant-Gcneralof   _

4

5

26

the American army until the arrival of General Washington

at Cambridge, and acted in that capacity for some months after.
He was of the Council of War, and recommended the occupation
of Bunker Hill, which led to the battle of the 17th June. He
was afterwards lieutenant~c0l011e1 in the Continental service,
and fought in some of the severest engagements during the war.
He was long a type of that courtesy which distinguished the

gentlemen who had been trained in the military school of the

Revolution. But, in attempting to spealtfi of individuals, I should
at once he at a loss where to stop, if it were only to name the
men and women who in their several spheres did their full share
towards building up the town and sustaining the country in its
struggle. I should have to speak of the farmers who contrib-
uted of their hard and scanty earnings to keep the church and
the school from being closed, as was done in other of the towns,

 carin for the soldiers’ families in their absence and croinw in
g 2 as :3

turn themselves when needed, to fill the ranks of the army.
I should have to tell of the wives and mothers, who, with rnore
than Grecian or Roman heroism, went on training up their
children in the ideas of the true dignity of manhood, and sup-—
plying by their own lessons of wisdom and exzperience the teach-
ings of the schools, and inspiring within their sons a desire for
that learning which their own limited opportunities had denied

to them in their youth. If I have any claims to the place

with which you have honored me to-day, I owe it to the les-

I sons of a mother, who, coming from a neighboring town, had

never enjoyed the advantages of a school beyond a single week.
A history of those days would show that the mothers and
daughters were as much in earnest as the sons and the fathers.

I And, living as we do in an age of progress, the thought starts

up, in spite of the gravity of the hour, how, after having
brought up their children to honorable lives and generous pur-
po.ses, the mothers of that age went down to their graves in

I blissful ignorance that they had been all their days cheated out
of their rights, in never having voted at the hustings, or made A

a speech at at caucus; though, if it would not be turned

I it ’ against us inthe coming contest, we ought in frankness to con-

 

fess that the country would have been quiteas well off, if the

 

 

‘,:v:,

 

27 i

ballots of half the men who did vote had been written for them

by their disfranchiscd sisters who were denied the privilege.

In speaking of the causes which have helped to give a char-
actor to the town, we ought not to forget the influence which
the Academy has exerted in educating the successive genera-
tions who have come upon the stage since it was founded in
1783. Nor should we ever cease to honor the memories of
Colonels Crafts and Davis, who were its lbunders, nor of those
who, from time to time, have been its patrons and benefactors.

But while the town, from the causes to which I have referred,

was able to sustain an honorable rank as an orderly and intel--N
ligeiit community, there were causes at work: adverse to its

material growtll and advancennent. Its soil was hard and un-
suited to profitable ag;i*ici1lt1i1'e. It was remote from market,
and its isolated situation had little to attract new settlers. I
well rennember the nnan whom I knew in early ltife, who “ rode
post,” as it was called, during the lievolntion, between h’-ostoxi
and New York, and carried the public letters and dcspatehes
between those cities. As the journey had to be made on lio’rse-
back, it took an entire fortn;igl1t to go and return. 'l.’he lirst
stag'c~eoacl*1 between Boston and New Yo,rl: was establislicd in
1783, and the town was without any post-olifice until 1798.

For these and other causes the g;1‘owtlr1 of the town was eneeedw “

ing-ly slow. Its territory orig‘iually embraced a portion of .I"a.*.s4~

ton and Auburn ; but, including these, for the first forty yars
after its settlement there had been added less than one hnn--.

drcd families. During the period of the Revolutionit made
no increase, and in 1790 it had added only seventy-one to what
its population was when that war began. And even if we

come down to 1820,alt11oug;li the State, exclusive of Maine,
had since 177 increased more than eigdxty per cent, Leicester, r

between those periods, had added but two hundred and forty»-

seven, or less than twenty-five per cent. In the mean time,
she had been sending out her sons and daughtersto help i
people Vernnont, Maine, New York, Ohio, and Virginia; and .

wherever theywent, they carried with them the habits of thrift,
enterprise, and good order in which they had been trained in
the hon:1.es1in which they had been reared.

28

0 Fortunately for the town, while this had been going on, an
element of prosperity and growth had been «developed which

A has since turned the tide of its prosperity, and scattered
f evidences of thrift on every side, although we look in vain for
many of the farms on which some of the best families who
flourished here in our childhood were reared and educated. c
The manufacture of cards had been begun here soon after the A

Revolution; but that of woollen cloths was inaugurated in 1814,

A by one whom, at the ripe age of elgllty-I1lI1(-3 years, We welcome

here to—day as the pioneer in that great source of the prosperity
which we witness in the villages which have been sp1‘i1,igi11g up
here by the inagic power of niechanical enterprise and inge-
nuity.   0

Never has there been amore signal illustration of the value
of home industry, or of the wisdom of encouraging home manu-

factures, than is here exhibited in the changes tl11*o11gl’1 which
A the town has been passing; during the life of a siiigle individual.

Art has literally triumphed over nature, and turned the once
fitful brooks, which ran to waste between drought andfreshet,
into perennial sources of enterprise and wealth. 0

A 0 If we were to contrast the population and wealth of the;

town at the date of my own birth with what we now [ind it, we
should be told that the eleven hundred and three inhabitants

of that day had multiplied to twenty-seven l1l.1ll(LlI'e(l and sixty-

eight ; and the valuation, as returned by the town, of $182,000,
had grown to that of $iB2,000,0O0.1 Nor is there any secret as
to the manner in which this change has been wroug;11t, when

A we read in the Statistics of the Industry of Massachusetts for

1865, that the woollen goods and cards manufactured here in a
single year exceeded in value 381,600,000, employing a capital

1 The statement here made requires a word of explanation, lest a wrong

1 conclusion should be drawn in undertaking to compare the valuation of the
, town in 1800 with that of 1870. The statement, as to 1800, is taken from Mr.

,Fe1t’s1work on the Statistics of the State, collected from authentic sources. I

9 anr1e»d, however, to conclude that the valuation, as returnedrfor purposes of tax-

 S. ation,r_nust have been below the actual value of the property of the town, for I

S  the assessment of p the United States direct tax in 1799 the houses and
,,;fl1and‘s liable to be assessed in the town were valued at $238,869. Either can prob»
iahilyi be little more than an approximation to the true value. v '

 

 

 

  

 

29

of half amillion, and the services of almost half as many per- i
sons asthere were people in the whole town at the close of the
Revolution. Political economists may speculate about the
fancied benefits which are to flow from free trade. Herewe.
have a living proof around us of the blessings which have
actually flowed from a wise protection of home industry. A
Style and manner of living, in the meantime, may have
changed, and the frugal habits of the fathers may have given
place to what would have seemed to them an unwonted display
of luxury and extravagance. But there is nothing in this for
appreheiision or alarm, so long as the elements of character
which made them what they were, are cherished and respected
by those who are filling their places in the social structure
which they built up here. All will be safe, if, as the passing a i
generations look back upon the institutions which their fathers
planted, and the example of true manliness which they illus-
trated, the sons shall emulate their virtues, and imitate the
courage with which they always stood by the right. V
If there is danger frorn any cause, it is that a generation
shall arise, who, secure in the enjoyment of what their fathers
earned by diligence, frugality, and prudence, shall forget that
the true digiiity of a people is not in the magnitude of their
wealth, orthe splendor and style in which they live. Tliere is
a dignity of manhood which outweiglis them all, and in the loss ‘A
of which a nation is bankrupt, l3lil0ug'i‘l rolling inwcalth and
luxury. i i

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
  

“ I11 fares the land, to liasteriingv ills a prey,
iWherc wealth accumulates, and men decay.”

  

And on such an occasion as this we can hardly forbear to
muse and meditate upon what is to be the future of this our
early, our honored, home. Who is bold enough to read in the
simple annals of its past history a forecast of the next huna ,
dredyears? Is the progress of the last to be an earnest to A
the next century of its growth and prosperity? Less than a A
century ago it took nearly as many days to reach New York or j is
Albany has it now does hours, while we read inpapers of the AI
yimorning the ejventswhich transpired yesterday in Paris arid’

 
  
 
 
  

    

 

30

San Francisco. Science, too, in all its multiform departments,

has been making suchwonderful progress, that the child of
to-day knows Mia thousand of its profoundest mysteries, which
puzzled and confounded the wisest philosophers of that day.
And when I remind you that we ourselves have witnessed the
invention of railroads and telegraphs, and have seen pain and
suffering disarmed of its terrors by the still more signal dis-
covery, by Dr. Morton, of the anaesthetic power of Ether, who
will dare even to guess what a single century is to bring forth?

To us as individuals the question is of but little moment.
But as parts of that endless current of human life which is to
flow on when another generation shall have taken our places,
every generous heart yearns to have the mystery solved, not
for a single town alone, but for this vast and mighty continent,
whose boundless domain had hardly been opened to the tread
of the white man when our fathers chose this spot for a home.
The imagination is lost in conjecture as it vainly attempts to
sketch in outline a picture of what they are to witness who are
to stand where we do at the recurrence of another jubilee. But
may we not rest assured that when that day shall come, it will

find, all over the continent, the ripened fruits of that germ of
a civil liberty which was first planted here in Massachusetts, and
Al to maintain which her sons helped proclaim and establish a

A :nation’s independence, which we have metto commemorate‘? M

May we not glory in the thought that before tliat day shall

,come,even the old world will have started into new life under
the example of what we are witnessing, and that the tinsel and
glitter of rank and royalty will have grown dim in the light of

the noble dignity of a universally free and enlightened man-

hood?

We have come here today, my friends, to gather lessons of
wisdom from the simple annals of the fathers who on this

spot filled their spheres of dutywith honor and fidelity. We

have come here to call up the memories of the past, and to

wipe away the moss and dust.which have been gathering over

the names of loved ones, which affection had carved upon the

h=e,ad»-stones that mark Where they are sleeping. We have

come to spend one more day amidstscencs and associations

over which memory sheds  soothing and a holy calm;

 

31

To-morrow We shall again join the busy throng, and mingle A

in the bustling activities of an anxious World ; and a new cen-
tury will take up its record, to be read when another jubilee

shall again call back the sons of Leicester to the homes of, r

their fathers. With some of us that record is soon to close.
But the mind will, again and again, recall the memories which
this day has awakened, till,,one after another, We shall all

have joined that procession which has been passing off this

stage ever since our fathers planted on this spot the institu-
tions of civil liberty and Christian civilization, a hundred
and fifty years ago.

32

APPENDIX.

LEICESTER IN THE LATE VVAR.

Teteee were representatives of Leicester in nearly every regi-
ment that left Massachusetts during the war, also in many
regiments out of the State and in the United States navy and
regular army.
Her sons marched at the first call of the “President forthe
defence of the capital, and were the first armed troops to reach
Wasliiiigtoii. They received their first baptism of fire in the
streets of Baltimore with the old Sixth Massachusetts Regi-
ment, April 19, 1831; Col. Jones, its commander, and others
among its officers and men, being natives of Leicester ; ---— were
next under fire at Big Bethel and Ball’s Bluff; -——- many of them
participated in the Burnside expedition to North Carolina;--—e
‘A were the first men to land on Roanoke Island, commence the
A battle, and the first to enter the rebel batteries there ; ---were
the first men to enter the battle of N ewbern, and also the first
to break the rebel line and enter their fortifications. They
were in nine regular battles in North Carolina; and one held
an important command on one of ‘the gnnboats, which, under
Admiral Goldsboro, swept the rebel fleet from the waters in
North Carolina. A

Again in Virginia, they were with McClellan in all his Be-
ninsular campaign, from Yorktown to Malvern I~:'[ill;---with
Pope at second Bull Run and Chantilly, at South Mountain

l and Aiitietam again with McClellan, with Burnside at Freder-—
 icksburg,,lwitl1l Hooker at Oliancellorsville, and with Mead at
 Gettysburg, experiencing with the Army of the Potomac its
[varied fortunes. , l t E i

  yLeicester had her representatives at the taking of Forts

 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

 

N ilWa1ker and Beauregard on the South Carolina coast, at the

 

 

 

33

siege of Fort Sumter, at the blockade. of Wilmington and

Charleston, at the taking of FortPulasl<i, Ga.,Forts Macon I

and Fisher, N. 0., with Farragut in the passage of the forts at
the mouth of l the Mississippi (on the frigate Pensacola), also
with him in his great naval battle in Mobile Bay. M

In the West, a Leicester boy was in the battle of Mill Spring,
and witnessed the fall of the rebel General Zollicoffer, was at
Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., and Corinth, Miss. ;i-—-—~l1ad several
representatives with Rosecrans at Perrysville, Stone River, and
other battles ; ————— with Grant at Chattanooga,——-—— one of his
batteries, which helped break the rebel centre on Mission
Ridge, was commanded by a Leicester boy, -——- also at Franklin

and Nashville under Thomas, with Banks at Port Hudson, and A

with Will‘iarns in his heroic defence of Baton Rouge.

They were with Sheridan in all the hard figlitiiig in the
valley of the Shenandoah, at l3‘isher’s Hill and Winchester
battles, and other battles there ;—--—-went with Grant from the
Wilderness to Riclimoncl, in many of the battles at the siege
of Richmond and Petersburg, to the surrender of Lee; after
that marched with Scholield to join Sherman “ COII‘1l11g upfrom
the sea,” and after the battle of Wise’s Forks joined him in
his last blow at armed Rebellion in the South.1 ,

Tliere were something over three hundred men in all, and
the names of over one hundred regular battles in which Leiicesé

ter boys participated can be given. By land and sea they, ii

always did their duty nobly and well. We know the names of

twenty—one killed in battle or died of wounds, of nine who died a

of disease while in the service, besides many who died after
their return in consequence of exposure and hardship while
there.   A

Upwards of forty were wounded, and we know of five who
starved to death in Andersonville, Milan, and other rebel
prisons. S A A

These facts speak for themselves.

1 A son of Leicester parents commanded an Ohio Regiment in Sherrnan’s

march “ to the sea.”
5

  plause gave sign of the general pleasure.

34.   «

I-Ion. EMORY WASHBURN.

Dean Sm, --»-The above items in regard to the Leicester soldiers I gather
from the soldiers’ records and from personal knowledge. If you can make
use of them and any other information in my reach, it will be given cheer-
fully. Very truly yours,

I-I. ARTHUR VVHITE.

The address occupied somewhat over an hour in delivery;
it was pronounced in a full, clear, and strong voice; and it was
readily heard by the large audience in the grove, and from the
neighboring houses. The attention given to it was noticeably
close, and continued to the end, when warm and cordial ap-

The band ave a further and varied :)erformance' at the
9

close of which a benediction was pronounced.

The Chairman then introduced to the assembly the Chief
Marshal of the day, Captain Jenn D. C0oswnLL, who gave
notice of an intermission of half an hour, at the close of which
the procession would be formed, in accordance with an order
which he announced.

Punctually at half past twelve o’c1oek the procession was
formed upon the Common, the right in front of the Town Hall,
marched around the Common, and filed, section by section, each

under direction of its special Aid, into the spacious tent, whose
White and svvayingcanvas was an ornament to the village.

There, at the ample and bountifully fu1'nished tables,‘over
eight hundred of the sons and daughters of Leicester, native
and adopted, were quickly seated; and a more cheerful com-
pany, or one more fair to look upon, it were not easy to find.
A blessing Wascraved by the Rev. Mr. COOLIDGE, Chaplain of

the day ; after which the attention paid to the various courses,

fromyfowl to fruit and ice-cream,'vvas as unremitting and as-
siduous as the high temperature of the Weather would permit.

b A short breathing spell, during which the band played “ Hail
iColumbia,” intervened between the last course and

  

 

TI-IE SENTIMENTS AND RESPONSES.

JOSEPH A. DENNY, Esq., as President of the day, opened

the feast of reason and wit, by the following speech of wel- .

COII18 I -----

FELLOW-CITIZENS AND F1nIJN1)s,—--—We have met this day on
an interesting; occasion, to enjoy together a few hours of social
intercourse. We are happy to greet so‘ many of our friends
and former fellow-citizens, who have in times past gone out

A from us for fields of greater usefulness. We are happy to bring

to mind our earlier days, and to contemplate together the vir-

tues bf our ancestors. We have been led back today to those *

times, now far beyond the memory of any of us, when our an-
cestors planted their homes on these wild and rocky hills, sub-—
dued the wilderness, put in operation those moral forces, and
established those civil institutions which have been to us so
great a blessing. We welcome you now to this festive board,

to the homes of your fathers, to our own hearth-stones, and to .

our hearts. We shall be excused, if on such an occasion, after

coxiteinplating; as we have done the early history of our town, i

we cxpr*ess somewhat strongly our honest pride in this review,

not only in relation to its iirstiscttlers and its Revolutionary W

history, but with its character and standing down to the present

“time. Our fathers exerted an important and salutary influences

in the councils of the Commonwealth and the nation, in tlie

org;anization of the State and general governments; and since
that time we have sent out from our homes many of our choic-
est sons, who have filled stations of importance in various de-

partments of public life, up to the highest civil offices in our 

Commonwealth. We have sent forth our share of soldiers to
figlit the battles of our country in all her wars, and have fur-
nished many of the higher grades of military officers, who have
honored themselves and their country by their skill and brav-

ery. Our sons have been found in the Cabinet of our nation, A

and in various departments of our general governxnent,----in

the executive chair of our good old Commonwealth, as. judges
of the bench and lawyers at the bar, as mayors of our large
cities, as presidents of our important banking institutions, as
managers of our vast railway corporations, as skilful pliysi-

l cians, surgeons, and mechanics, and successful bankers, brokers, A

merchants, and manufacturers, thus taking the lead in the busi—.
ness affairs of our growing country. You have often heard of
the noble Roman matron presenting her children as her choicest
treasure, exclaiming, “ These are my jewels; ” and with a like
pride in our common family, We this day honor our noble ances-

tors by pointing to their descendants, who derived from them

i their habits of 4 industry, their stern integrity, and all the other ~

qualities whichgo to make up the successful business man, the
good citizen, and the patriotic statesman.   “Here they are: look
at them.”

a We trust that the occasion which has brought you together
will cement more firmly the "friendship of the citizens of this

and the neighboring towns, whose common origin leads them to ’

honor the same worthy ancestry, and to increase, if possible,
the love of our absent sons and daughters for their early homes,
our afi°ection for them, and our interest in their future pros-
perity and welfare. Not because you have been prodigal in

wasting your substance in 7‘Z'0l0’tl/8 liviiv/zg, but because you have

been prodigal in dispensing to the world around you the bless-—
ings which you have, inherited from your ancestors, we have
this day killed for you the fatted calf, and called you back to
the homes of your fathers; and again, in the name of the citi-
zens of old Leicester, I bid you all a cordial welcome.

At the close he introduced the Toastmaster, Dr. JOHN N.

l AMURDOOK, who gave as the first sentiment”-—

1. “A 7723 Scattered Olzildren Qf Leicester. Tliough our narrow bounda-

riesatford not scope for the energies nursed in their blood, and they, true

sons of i the Pilgriins, must themselves be pilgrims, and ‘ sing the Lord’s

3 , ,S0i11g in strange lallds ;’ whereveflr their lot may be cast, may they be true to
r the tradmons of their race, and always turn with yearning hearts towards

i i  i , home.”

  

37

The PRESIDENT remarked,--—I am happy to know that there
is a large number of friends present who could with propriety
be called upon to respond to this sentiment, but I see one near
me whose family have taken a prominent part in the business
of the town for nearly a century past, who was himself born

here and spent his youth and active life in our midst, filled

many town offices, and ably represented us in both‘ houses of

our State Legislature, but who has for many years past been A

prominent in the management of the financial affairs of our
State ca ital --- and called on Hon. WALDO FLINT, of Boston
P 2 p 9

_ who said : -——--

I-Ie supposed he had been calledupon to respond to the toast

just read, on the presumption that he could not have lived so it

long without having learned something which might interest,
for the moment, the large audience before him. Hewas not
disposed to deny his age, inasmuch as, in that neig’hborhood,
it could easily be proved against him; nor did he deny that
the "supposed presumption, as a general rule, was fairly deduci-
ble from the fact of his age; and yet, as everybody knows,
circumstances alter cases. Some live long and learn verylite
tie,-—-eat least, little that is worth talking about; others, who

have really treasured up something of what theyhave seen and ii

heard, have not the happy faculty of telling what they lmow

in an agreeable manner ;, and then, again, memory is exceed- r

ingly capricious in its _,moods, sometimes refusingto give out
what is wanted until the occasion for using it has gone by, and
then volunteering to givethe ‘information when nobody wants
it. His own memory, he supposed, might be an average one,
but in no respect equal to that of his friend who had so felici-,
tously instructed and entertained them in the forenoon. For
himself, he must confess’ that he rememberedpnothing which

happened before he was born ; but were his friend _just'r,eferred
to, who had so diligently studied the history of the town from  

its foundation, to be quietly“ interviewed,” it would be no 1nat-

A ter of surprise to any one who knew the loving interest he takes
in the subject, to hear him claim that he was personally ac» A

 

quainted, moreor less intimately, with most of the original

38

settler‘. The speaker’s memory ran fairly back into the last
century. One event near its close (he wasnot sure about any
thing earlier), an event which spread a deep gloom over the
whole land, he certainly remembered, -—--~--- the death of Washing-
ton ; but even that might have gone into the receptacle of things
forgotten, but for the simple fact that he, and all the other
‘children who attended Aunt Hannah’s school, were a badge of
mourning on the left arm. 1

“ The scattered children of Leicester I ” »S’catte/red, indeed I

for there was not, probably, a State or Territory in the Union
wher'e some of them were not to be found.   Could his hearers,
and especially those in middle life, take in, readily, the full
meaning of the word? Could they easily realize the marvel-
, lous changes which had taken place, not since this small mu-
nicipality was organized a hundred and fifty years ago, but
only during the present century ? Seventy years ago the bounda-
ries of the United States were Maine and Georgia, the Atlantic
and the Mississippi ; though even then that great river of the

West was, to most persons, little more than arnyth, --a small , i

French settlement at New Orleans, aimilitary post or two on
its upper waters, to look after the Indians, visited by a few
wandering trappers, and that was about all: almost as little
known as when La Salle floated down its current in his little
canoe, a hundred and twenty years before. A large part of
Pennsylvania and New York, and the whole of the territory
north—west of the Ohio, was an almost unbroken wilderness.
Less than seventy years ago a young man and his wife con-
cluded to remove from Leicester to what was then called the
Black River country, in Northern New York, not far from
Sacket’s Harbor. The enterprise was considered so bold and
daring that it was for weeks the principal topic of conversation
at every fireside in the town. New England was then the
East. Some twenty years ago the speaker met a young gentle-
manlfrom Wisconsin, and asked him whether he had ever been
East before; “ Oh, yes, sir,” he replied ; “ I have been to Ohio
several times.” What was now the East he did not know.
A The present boundaries of the United States were the Atlantic
and Pacific, Oregon (saying nothing of our recent purchase

39 W

from Russia), and the Gulf of Mexico. What will they be
when the children come up here to celebrate their next jubilee,

fifty years hence? Who can tell? Speaking for himself alone,

he would say that, inasmuch as there were now good natural
boundaries on the east and west, and a fair chance for ,_expan-
sion latitudinally, he was inclined to believe that neither Eu-
rope nor Asia would be ariiiéxed before that time ; but further
he would not venture to express an opinion.

. The toast expresses the hope that her scattered children may
ever retain a kindly regard for the place of their birth. lfile had
no commission to speak for others; many were present to an-
swer for themsel.ves; but he had no doubt what their answer
would be. .l3‘or liimself, he would say that he loved the dear

old town from the bottom of his heart. He could apply to it u

in all sincerity the words of the sweetest of lilnglish poets,---—

“ Whcre”or I roam, whatever lands I see,
My heart, uutravell’(l, fonclly‘ turns to tliee.”

llzlow could it be otherwise? Where does the sun rise in such
glory, or set in such a flood of splendor ‘.9 And where‘ has any
wanderer from the fold ever found a more healtl:1-inspiring at-
rnosphere than upon his own native hills ‘B Indeed, it had been

r said that the old law of 1ii:’e----“itlireescore and ten ”-————r-was

overruled in Leicester, and that few died there under the age

of ninety. l3ut the charm for him was not, solely nor iuainly,
in eszternal nature. It was something more closely intwined

round the heart. He could not help associating with the place,
nor fail to remember with the deepest gratitude, the parents
now sleeping in yonder graveyard, who watched oven his child-
hood and youth with the tenderest care and love; nor could he
ever forget the acts of kindness and the wordsof encourage-
ment which he received from all the inhabitants of the little
village, men and women, old and young, and which made his
early life one long summer day of enjoyment; nor could he

 

 

forget the many friends, still living, who, as often as he visited ,

his native home, greeted his coming with a most cordial wel-
come. He would be glad, to present sketches of some of his

,,,, . <

   
 
 
  
  

40

early friends, long since passed away; but he was already

trespassing on time which belonged to others, and he must

close.

The growth of the town had been very slow. In 1765, when
the first State census was taken, the population was 770. In
1865 it was 2,527,—;-—-an increase of only 225 per cent in a
hundred years, or only 17 a year. The increase, however, in

..materialwea1th, and in the comforts of life, had been much

greater. This slow growth (he was free to confess it) suited
his old-fashionednotions; it argued firmness and stability, and
was in harmony with the character of its inhabitants. They

had never been a fast-going people, but still always making

lieadway, though sometimes obliged to beat up against wind
and tide. q

. He beggedleave, in conclusion, to propose a toast which he
thought would meetthe approval of the older, and he hoped
would give no offence to the younger, portion of the audience.

“ T/z.e,1-’ros]9erz?ty qf my Native Town. May it be in the future what it has
ever been in the past, —— sure, though slow.” ‘

2. “ The Old Leicester cmcl the New. On both sides of the sea.”

The PRESIDENT said that in all the ‘preceding remarks of the
day, we had only gone back to the organization of this town ;.
but we were ready for any emergency, and he was happy to in-
troduce a gentleman to respond to this sentiment who was old
enough to have been born in Old Leicester of Old England, and
who early in life came to this town, was an honored and respected

citizen for many years, was one of the “ fathers ” of the town,

and faithfully represented us in the State Legislature. He had
now for many years acted a prominent part in the management
of one of our great railroad corpor‘ations,“and he hoped that
he and the directors of the Boston and Albany Railroad Gom~
pany who were present would live long enough to improve

  their road by bringing it where it ought first to have been built,
‘passing very near this and the centre village of Spencer. He
called upon ABRAHAM , FIRTH, Esq., of Boston, who said, --~

41

Ma. PRESIDENT AND DEAR. FRIENDS,——-—-I have abundant rea—
sons to remember gratefully this town. Your kind introduc-
tion, sir, and this generous Welcome, are in harmony with all
the past. I was always treated as one of your kith and kin.
The name of Leicester is near my heart for all this, and also V
because it is that of the city of my birth on the other side of
the sea. , i   \

But before I go further, let me thank the Committee of Ar-.
rangements and whoever first suggested this gatherinou There
are generous men, you know, who decry giving prominence to
places, and who advocate a cosmopolitanism which would indeed
almost put them beyond our remembrance or serious thought;

but I am of those who believe, undoubtingly, that he who is
the best son, brother, husband, and father, the best lover of
his native or adopted town, state, and nation, is the very best 
citizen of the world; and that these relations prepare the way, ‘ __ 
and are the indispensable steps to the larger citizenship. it ”

And bntfor the committee, we should not have had, on this
charrning day, the pleasure of the many meetings of long-tried
and, in so many cases, longseparated friends; nor. the retro-
spect of the past honorable history of this town, by one of the
ablest and most loyal of her sons, to whiclii we have all lis—L
toned with so much delight today.

Your toast speaks of the old and new. To the child, yester-
day is old; but the higher and broader the culture of the ma-
ture man, the farther away is the old, and the contrasts of time
are but the shifting scenes in one great drama, while

 

 
   
   
    
 
 

i “ To Trrnn! there’s nothing old appears:
Great God 1 there’s nothing new.”

But the old, on this occasion, prefers to our personal recollee- pl
tions and experiences in this town. Mine go back forty-—four
years, or nearly one-third of the time since the town had a
municipal organization. ‘ y it A

I rerneinber the drinking habits of that time vividly. The
country store in the east village kept an open bar, and no
thought of shame attached to it. Strong liquors were oflered
on all social occasions go at weddings and funerals ; pdrunken-

6,, y 

 

42

ness was common; and the general opinion was that all efforts
to change these ancient customs were fanatical and absurd.
Experience was on their side, and all experience was against
the new reform. I remember Dr. Nelson, then in his prime,
happily yet spared to witness, although not to participate in
these services, I remember his“ coming into the school-house,
and telling us the time had come to abstain wholly. Scoffs
and jeers passed idly by him. I honored him then, and have

  honored him ever since for the kind, pious, and brave way in

which he delivered the truth on this subject. And there
came with him “ Addison” Denny to circulate the pledge.
All tha'nl~:s and honor to him for that. To-day he is our
honored President. I

I You know, sir, it is sometimes said that the temperance
etlbrts of the past did little permanent good; but every one
whose memory runs back no farther than mine, and contrasts
that time with the present, knows better. Bllt don’t let me
deny there were fanatics. Why, sir, how rare it was and is
to find ‘a man whose reason is so clear that he always maintains
a true poise; who neither inclines to the right hand of pre_j1i1-
dice nor to the left hand of wilfulnessg who is open to the re-
ception of alltruth; who is

“ Strong without rage,
Without o’erflow:ing, full.”

Rare indeed! How preposterous, then, to expect organizations
to be always led by such men. No! no! we must continually
act with the fanatics for good, or the fanatics for evil; for tern-
perance, or against it. And the appeal then wisely was to be
right on that grand issue, no matter who were for or who
against. I .

I A ‘ Mr. President, another of the well-remembered facts is the
long days of labor. In the summer time the factory bell

rang in at five in the morning, and out at seven and one-half

in the evening; one half-«hour being given to breakfast, and
I 4 another half-»hour to dinner. a During the winter it was rung
later in the morning and later at night, the number of hours

not being lessened. In other factory villages I have heard

 

 

43

of, moreyhoursrwere required and given. On the farms, in
the shops of carpenters, blaclcsmiths, audall other trades I
knew any thing of, no given number of hours were recognized

"as a day’s work. The right of every human being to be pro-

tected bylaw against the uiireasonable demands of employers,
and the fact, which later observations have demonstrated, that
more work is usually done in the shorter tiine, were un-

recognized, if not unknown. Inventions since that time have  

also powerfully aided discussion in awal~:ening the tl1o1igl.‘1t of
the civilized world, from which has come the legislation; here
and in Europe on this subject. I hail it, as I pass, with devout
thankfulness and hope. I
Wednesday was a memorable day then, Mr. I’resident, be—-
cause it li1'o1:igl1t us the “ Massachusetts Sp>y.” Worcester had no
daily paper, nor was a daily paper taken in the east village. One
semi-weekly paper, the “ Courier” from Boston, had one suh-5
scriher. When I was in the post—oilice in the centre of the town,

in 1832, only four dailies were taken. '1.‘hey were all from ]:3os— "

ton, and arrived the day after their date. fl;”erhaps no one prod»
uct orl'pl1un:1an skill and tl1oup;l1.t more conclusively shows the
quickencd iiitelligeiiee and la1'geel1' activities oi’ the present, as
compared with the past, than the newspaper. Of course the tele-
graph, the wonder of wonders, has done much in e.lteetinp; this

change 5 but the extent of it, and the power of the press as one A

of its results, are aiiiong: the many rooemorahle tl1i.I1g'S of our
time. Last year, lotus remind ourselves, we read of the battles
of the Franco-German war hefore their smoke had passed away.
The Louvre and the Hotel de Ville were yet l")l.i1l"lllIlg as we
read the astounding news. Forty years ago, no miracle
would have been more marvellous than this! Contrast these
with the declaration of waragai11st'l‘i11'1cey, made at St. Peters-
burg, April 26,1828, and which was published in the Boston
papers June 18, fifty-tthree days afterwards. The bursting of

I the Thames into Bruue1’s Tunnel occurred May 17, 1827;

and the accountof it appeared in the Boston papers of June

30, forty/—four clz.z.;y.§ afterwards.

I turn now, Mr. President and friends, to a few of the men

whom I most distinctly call to mind. One of great age” was

44

Mr. Benjamin Watson, many of whose descendants are before
me. He went about in his “one-hoss shay.” He always
sat in the pulpit, because he could there hear best the public
service. Over these pleak hills he camein all seasons. I
was a boy, but the impression he made on my mind of a saintly
man yet remains. When I have seen in certain pictures ven-
erable and exultant faces, Waiting for the summons to depart
hence, they have brought to my mind that humble and rev-
erent listener. ’

Another was Mr. Solomon Parsons. He was in the battle
of Monmouth, and told often in  hearing of the oppressive
heat of that day, and of the wounds and sufferings he passed
through, which had disabled him for life; but I remember
mostdistinctly of all his account of General Washington. My

. friend, Hon. W. Flint, who has just sat down, told us he
remexnbered his death. This man had often seen him, had.

fought under him, and spoke in such terms of him as one might
fitly use of a being from another and brighter sphere.

One whom I need notname was a militia “ Captain,” -----the
first I had ever seen. .He would sit in “ that ” store and tell

. how “ we had whipped the Britishers,” and “ how we always

should whip them.” They Were, indeed, a very contemptible

foe. . Now you will readily believe a good deal of what he said

was new to me. He told the otlwr side of the oft-repeated
story. I was no little indignant. Often he seemed to me to

in impersonatel\i[ars. Yetta. later experience has shown that the

' captain in real war may give a differeiit lesson. Did you not see"

how the sentiments of peace were applauded to the echo lately
in Boston, when the war-scarred veterans of the Army of the
Potomac were in council? And have you not also been glad»-
dened by the sight of our greatest leader in the recent war --—-r

hewho received Lee’s sword at Appomattoxmtalciurig the initia~—
tive in the Treaty of Washington 2’ So that tlieppflgraiidest title
of all shall be his, great as were 13l10S8«Wl1lCl1 vvent before; the T

divinest of all benedictions: ‘‘ Blessed are the peacemakers,

_ for they shallbe called the children of God.” And to-day we

all see, behind the dark visage of that brave warrior of ours,
era gennianerllove of his country.  a  

A for they were the product of large and long es:pe1rience;.of gt

4.5.

Dr. Austin Flint has been referred to, who was known so

well as the “ Old Doctor.” No boy of my time will forget him.

His grasp was like that of a vice, and he had great joy in  

giving us a Welcome by hand-shaking. It showed no want of
respect when we sometimes went out of our wayto avoid his
all too affectionate greeting. And what a loyal, firm, cheerful,
trusty citizen he was! Towns and States and Kingdoms,
under God, rest upon such men, and rest securely. This
town was fortunate in having some men of great nobility of
character, of which class Dr. Flint may stand as a type.

T And there was a “ Young Doctor; ” a true son of the old.

“Doctor Ned,” We then called him. There he sits ; but he does a i i

not new rank among the young men, nor do we nowaddress
him by his given name. The truth requires me to say that, as
hoys, we had mingled feelings towards him professionally; but

it may be some satisfaction to him to know that some of us A
have since gone farther and fared Worse.

Mr. P1‘0SiCl€31‘li3, one of the events of each day in that feriner

time, as you well. remember, was the passing of the stages to

and from Siiii-ixigfield and Albany. How we all stopped to
watch them as long as they were in sight! and well we might;

greatlcapital, judged by the standard of’ that day, and met and

A were themselves the evidence of the increasing intercourse

§

 

among men. Here thestage is not quite among the things of
the past, and soxncpeople are glad of it. They den’t like
changes, and they don’t want railroads. A. few weeks ago an
Indian chief from the far West was in Boston. . Iiiis name was
“ fdtone Calf,” and he said, “ Save as from railroads;” “Don’t

have them” built through our territory ; ” A,“ They bring there
bad ,rnen;’.’ “ Jteilz-and men. are bad men.” , I fear he spoke

from a bitter experience, and it was reason enough for him.

I was asked to say something on railroads. It is plain that A

you cannot compete with other communities, on equal terms,

in any branch of industry, while you areiwitl1out one. It is
the fact which explains yourslow growth- To be without an
railroad, to uselan expressive phrase, “is to be out in the 
cold.” Your youngblood andenterprise go elsewl1ere,i,and. 

46

will more and more; your wealth will slowly follow. You
cannot stand still ;you must feel the throb of a growing and
expanding life in your material interests, ..or that torpidity
which is the sure symptom of decay. Allow me to say,
friends, you are abundantly able to‘ supply this want, and the

expenditure would repay your community «many fold. I think,

too, you will have to depend upon yourselves for it.

There are two reasons why you are not likely to get a rail»-
road in any other way.

1st.I Branch roads have not generally been found profitable,
and stockholders don’t expect their Directors to do what will
not pay dividends.

2d. The managers of existing lines have great outlays be-
fore them to keep abreast of their urgent needs. Take, for
illustration, the Boston and Albany. It ought to have a great
passenger station in Boston on the scale of some of the 111ag—«
nificent London stations. It is to have a great one in Worces-

l ter in due time. It needs, and is building and buying

more and more cars, for its urgent necessities. It is i.ntro-e
dncing steel rails; laying new tracks; straightening its curves;
increasing the number and quality of its trains. And to do
all these things, many hundreds of thousands of dollars are,
or will be required. I respectfully submit, then, that there is
no just ground of complaint, if the Boston and Albany will not
lenild your road.

Of course, Mr. President, a road may be built by, and be
profitable to, a town, although it may never pay a dividend.
Am I asked how to proceed? Ascertain the best points of

connection and the best routes. Look it through thoroughly.
Then the question of gauge must have careful attention. If
 the common one of 4 feet 8% inches is chosen because of its

manifest advantages in enabling the rolling-stock of other

A roads to pass over it; in saving the breaking of bulk, an.d in

enabling you to make better terms with the trunk line with
which you would connect, build one of that gauge and accord-
ing to your means, having regard mainly to safety. A

Consider, however, the claims of the narrow gauge, which
means one between 9. feet and 3 feet 6 inches. For branch

47

lines, or for main lines in mountainous districts, it is received
with deserved favor. Last summer I went out of my way to

North Wales, between one and two hundred miles, to see the

Festiniog railway, pronounced, truly, the most wonderful road
in the world. Its gauge is 23 inches. It is about 13 miles long,
and climbs up 700 feet among the Welsh hills to bring slate to

the coast at Portmadoc. It has been the most profitable one i

in Great Britain. Its dividends have averaged 1223- per cent
upon its total cost, after all its changes from horse to steam.
I rode upon it at a speed of not less than twenty-five miles an
hour. Tlie best engineers said before parliamentary commis-
sioners it was too narrow for steam to be used upon it with
safety, and they thought it impracticable ; and but one locomou
tive firm, the Messrs. England, of l":ilatcham, would undertake
it. But the impossible was accomplished. Its speed was
restricted to twelve miles, on the ground again of safety, but
e;r.'perience showed this was a mistake; and it is now unre-
stricted. With its Fairlie engines, which have proved very
successful, its capacity has been greatly enlarged. Mr. Spooner,

its engineer, who has had more experience with the narrow

 

gauge than any other man living of his profession, advises a
gauge of 2 feet and (13 inches. It is his opinion that even the

business of the London and Northwestern might be done

upon it.

In the early part of last year a body of engineers and com-
missioners of several foreign governments, all ofthe highest
character, visited this road, and, after careful observations
agreed in opinion “ that the common gauge is far beyond ordi-
nary requirements.” (laptain Tyler, government inspector
of the English railways, has said that a system of narrow-»
gauge lines would cost only two-A-thirds as much, and be main-
tained at three-fourths of the expense of those in general use.

But how came this“ battle of the gauges”? Tracks were

used, as you know, in the coal~mines, on which cairswerel
pushed by hand. Afterwardstliese tracks were extended

outside of the mines, and drawn by horses. No one knows
when, or why, or by whom, it was decided that theifirst

wooden tracks should be 4 feet 8% inches wide. It was

48

l enough that they answered their purpose. When, however,

Stephenson made his locomotive for the Liverpool and Man-

chester road, the question of gauge seems not to have had

much attention. That of the mines was adopted, as of course ;
and that decision, as we now see, settled 0‘ the question for
nearly all the great lines since constructed.l Afterwards Mr.
Brunel took the ground it was toonarrow for speed, comfort,

and safety; and the Great Western, of England, was built ‘

with 7~ft. gauge. On this side we had the Erie, of 6 feet; the
Ohio and Mississippi, the same ; the Great Western and Grand
Trunk, of Canada, 5% feet. The decision has been made to
change the Great Western,.of England, to the 4 feet 8;‘; inch
gauge; the Ohio and Mississippi has been changed already,
and the Great Western, of Canada, has a third rail, giving it
the same gauge. And now, Mr. President, the battle con»-
tinnes; but the position of the parties has changed. It is

0 o no longer between the 4 feet 253% inches and the wider, be it 5,

or 6, or 7 feet. In that contest the Ilarrower is master of
the field, to find itself on the defensive, and assailed by the
same arguments its friends so successfully urged against its

, rivals. , V
But my toast speaks of an old Leicester; and, in conclusion,
. let me say a few words about the Leicester beyond the sea.

It is a city of some 90,000, and is known, wherever stockings

A 0 are worn, for its hosiery trade. One account I have seen states
the number engaged in it there at 00,000. Tradition dates the

settlement of the city as far back as 800 years before the Chris-

tian era, when a King Lear lived there. Shakspeare received;

from it the chief incidents of the tragedy of that name,
varying, however, in this, that the old chronicler had the

, abused king and Cordelia restored to their rightful authority. ‘

It was near Leicester that Richard III. was killed, and there
he was buried, giving the great drarnatist another subject to

0 make asimmortal. asiour English speech. Cardinal Wolsey;

 died in its Abbey with the pathetic words, ---

pl “ Had I but served my God with half the seal
I served rny king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.”

 

 

4:9

 

It has parts or the old wall behind which it withstood.  

sieges of Cromwell and Rupert. To the antiquarian there are
Roman, Danish, and Saxon memorials, of which time will not

allow me to speak. It has a Castle in which courts of justice have i

been held for five hundred years. A houseis shown where
both Bunyan and Wesley preached. Wycliffe is believed to have
spoken in St. Mary’s, and Milman tells us the city was full
of his followers. It has oldchurches, ---—- St. Margaret’s is one of
them,--- which Saxon and Norman helped to build, and whose
roofs have heard the prayers of many centuries. The chapel
is shown where the noble missionary Carey once labored, and
in which, also, Robert Hall delivered sermons which have gone
wherever our language is spoken. De Montford, one of its
Earls, called the Oxford Parliament in which representativesof
bo1*oL1gl1s had seats, and from which dates the House of Com-
mons. His statue, and that of other benefactors of the town,
adorn a handsome mode:rn memorial structure, in one of its

 
 

squares, known as the “ clock-tower.” And now, friends, as

we have with that really old city, a common name, faith,
speech, and literature, ought they not to awaken a'common
interest in each other’s history, past and future? I think
so. And to that end your excellent free public library, it is

hoped,‘,wil1 soon be enriched with Nicholl’s “History of

Leicester and Leicestershire,” a work full of local details,land

illustrated with pictures of churches, castles, abbeys, Roman

remains, and private residences. To the Literary and .I’l1iIo-4
sophical Society of that city will be sent Was1xbnrn’sHistory
of our Leicester, together with such other publications as may
interest an inqtiirer there who may desire to know what dtlied
Leicestermen and women of this new world have thought and

l dne. . .

1 With profound thanks for your close attention, I close with
thissentiment : -——- i l to l

“ The Leicester of ’71. Too high for a railroad, it has been said too low
to be contented without one. ' A liberal public spirit, courage, and the NAR——

now Gauezn are the reconcilers by which its valleys may be exalted, its rough d

places made smooth, and the locomotive be brought to the ‘ I-Ii1l.’”

  

50

3. “ The City of Worcester. While pure water bears health to her
homes, she cannot forget its source in the green hills of Leicester. The
current of her busy life is strengthened by our sons and daughters; and she
honors us by choosing for her chief magistrate an Earle of Leicester.”

EZOILEDWARD EARLE, Mayor of Worcester, was introduced
to respond, which he did, as follows : ——

MR. PRESIDENT, --- It does me good to look over an audience
like this, and feel thatl hold such a connection as this occasion
denotes with so much intelligence and worth as is here repre-
sented. I was invited to be present at this time ...and respond
to the sentiment just read by the Toastmaster; and feeling
that if I was titled by Worcester I could not do her justice
without a few words in reply, but hearing five minutes was
the time not to be exceeded, concluded as much less as was
convenient might be chosen, and prepared a short set speech,
which I now give you.

My few months’ study in yonder academyldid not embrace
rhetoric, neither did. our alma mater endow all her sons with
the gift of oratory, like the one we have listened to with so
much interest this forenoon. But of the city of my adoption
Ifeel a just sense of pride in saying she ever stands ready to
accord to all herneighbors full credit for all these good things.

i And who can say she has not laid some pipes and pulled many

wires for Leicester? Her loulwarks are her shops of industry
and her temples of education. Her palaces are the IIOIIIOS of
their directors; her people proclaim with open arms, Come one,
come all ; all may come that will come.

Now, my friends, the five minutes, and the three times five,
which one if not both of those who preceded me have occupied,
seems to give me libert°y to say a few words in regard to my
position. Till within a littlemore than two years past my life

I had been an active, practical one, so much so that I felt my

time had come for some change '; and with a View to devote

I I much of my future to charitable,benevolent, and patriotic pur~- .

i poses, I closed my most active business connections, and had
truly enjoyed the benefit and comfort of». the change. Last
I autumn I was called uponto spend tliree months out amongst

 

51
the Indians in connection with the measures being carried on
; by Friends, under the peace policy of PresidentGrrant. On my
return the first of the year, the city of Worcester had not for-
gotten to mourn for him who had so long and so faithfully

served them as their chief magistrate. He had been taken
from them by a sudden and unlocked»-for death in my absence,

and they were now to look for a new man, and soon approached, I’

me. I could not listen to it at all for a time, and resisted as
long as I honorably could, but to no purpose. They over-
powered me, and bestowed upon me what they termed an honor
(I have of'ten i}l‘10l1glll3 they must have been hard pushed for ,a
candidate); as the world goes it is esteemed an honor, and it
was honorable both to Leicester and ‘Worcester, in one point,
for the present incumbent was elected really as a temperance
man, -———- which is the general character of Leicester men.
Were I totakie myself’ back in memory fifty years,I could talk
in a broken way for a long time; but fearing I 111igl1t stand in
the way of others and weary you, I will now close, feeling that
this day is one that all of us must remember with much joy.
4. “ Spencer. Our eldest daughter, -—-—-chi1d of our youth. Though she
has far orutg*x*own her parent, we glory in her enterprise, industry. and

wealth. Her children are as welcome as our own.”

I I EMERSON SroNn,Esq.,respo11dcd. He related the difficulties

ex1::>erie11eed in procuring the act of incorporation for Spencer  I ‘I

in 1742, twenty-one years after the incorporation of Leicester,

at which time it passed the General Court, but was vetoed by I
I Governor Shirley; seven yearslater it was again attempted,and ,

I again vetoed; but in 1753, an act of incorporation was granted,
andtlqie town was named Spencer, in honor of Governor Spcn-

oer Phips. He spoke of the years of toil and hardship experi-I f

encedby the settlers after they set up in a town by themselves,
until, after thirty-three years of uncertainty and homesickness,
they hadbeen smiled upon by prosperity at every decade, and A
from five houses the number had grown to six hundred, with
nine boot shops, four Woollen mills, two wire mills, and a
population of four thousand, He: added thatiif Spencer con-

tinued to prosper, she might yet be able to take charge of. her

 

 

52

mother town of Leicester, like a dutiful and affectionate child ;

andthen, perhaps, further prosperity would enable her to take

charge of Worcester, which city would then be able to vote
“ No ” on the beer question. i

5. “.Paan/072.. A child that has inherited the quiet, easy disposition of
its parent. Unainbitious of wealth or fame, her ways are pleasantness, and

, her paths are peace.” by

H. W. HUBBA.I?.D, Esq., responded as follows: —--—~

Paxton is pleased to be recognized by old Leicester on this
glorious Fourth of July. She has not increased in population

" as some of the other daughters ; cannot show such maxnmoth

wa1"ehouses and gigantic 1nanuf’a(:turing establislnnents; but
she hopes to gladden the old n:1other’s heart by that inward

P A purity and grace that is so becoming to little people and towns

of the size of Paxton; she is young, and few in years,----being
only about one hundred years old or so, ——-while Leicester is
one hundred and fifty. 4

Oh 1 strong may be Paxton in the power of loveliness and youth,
And rice/i in her hearts’ treasured dower of st1'ong, unchanging truth.

6.i“Aubu~m. The only portion of our original territory which can be
described as a ‘ village of‘ the plain.’ May it more and more entitle itself to
that other appellation which Goldsmith gave its prototype, and all men hon-4

r , fess it to be the ‘ loveliest,’ as it is the youngest of the family.”

J onu M1«3LI.1s1-1, Esq., responded.

MR. Pn.ssInnNr,LAn1ss AND GENTLEMEN,-—-After what we
have ‘heard from the distinguished and learned gentlemen who
have so fully furnished the intellect with its treat, nothing re-
mains but to respond as I may, in few words, to the sentiment
which embraces the name of the town which I have adopted as

my home. "" .

By the act of incorporation of the town of Ward, Leicester

lost its south--easterly corner, in form approximating that of an
equilateral triangle, and containing about 2,500 acres. Worces-

ter contributed about 2,200 acres; and the rest of the town

A was taken from the towns of Suttonand Oxford, and ifrom and

  

 

53

unincorporated tract of land called the “ Oxford orth Gore.” 

It was named in honor of Major—G‘renera1A.rtemas Ward, of i A

ASl1reWsbury.  _ i p 
In 1837 , the name of the town was changed from Ward to i i r A

Auburn, not, as some have seemed to suppose, for the reason

that the latter is the more poetic name or moreeuphonious

 

Word,but mainly because the name of the town of Ware so

nearly resembled that of Wa1'd, when not carefully written, as _, 

to cause provoking delays in letters arriving at their intended
destination.

The sentiment designates Auburn as the “village of the
plain,” for the reason, it may be, that the eminence on which
it is situated is less in its altitude than is the “ hill” onwhich
this beautiful village of Leicester is built ;or from the ideaAasso-
ciated with the village called its prototype, referred to in the
sentiment. A A

But let me say of Auburn, It is a place where “industrious
habits reign ;” hence it is a place of tln-ift; and here, if any-

where, it is that the poet’s idea of the “golden mean” is A i

realized ; where none

“ Feel the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagguos that haunt the rich r.nan’s door.”

Auburn is a peaceful town; so that no pettifogger would be
able to incite litigation sufficient to rfurnish him the most mea-
gre support. A i . A p .A A

It is also a healthy town ; so that a physician, however skil-
ful, must to a great degree rely for support on such practice as
may be obtained outside of its limits. A A A

Auburnhas also a healthful regard for moral and religious

principle ;» consequently its inhabitants, in goodly numbers, = AA

obey the summons of the “ church-going bell.” A
Someinteresting facts pertaining to the history of the town,
or anecdotes of its people of bygone generations,AAmight .here
be related; butl refrain from trespassing on your time for
that purpose, and only ask, Mr. President, permission as an

old man to offer a single piece of advice to such of the young

in this great company as enjoy the perusal of books which

54

shall at once afford amusement, entertainment, and instruction,
I say, let them for a time give the go-—by to the newest novels,
and rather obtain and read the “Historical Sketches of the

Town of Leicester,” by Emory Washburn.

I will close by giving you --

,“ The Towns of Leicester, S_pe7tce-r, Paxton, and A.ub2mt. May their

prosperity be secured for the future by their continuing their habits of’ in-
dustry, and their regard for moral and religious principle.”

7. “Our iS'olclz'ers in the late War. We delight to cherish the n.ernory
of their deeds, with those of their Revolutionary sires. May their example
ever inspire their countrymen in the hour of peril; may they live w¢:l1~—
rounded lives, as happy in the future as they have been glorious in the past,
and find in the honor and prosperity of their count‘:"ry their highest reward.”

I Lieutenant-Oolonel J. A. TI'rUs, of Worcester, responded as

V follows i -—-—-

Me. PnnsI1)11N:r,---«It is not my purpose to pronounce an
eulogy on the conduct of your brave citizen-soldiers. That
duty properly belongs to others who surveyed the ‘Field with

it more disinterested thought and observation.

l But I may be indulged for a moment in an effort to uphold
the patriotic rectitude which summoned these men to the con-

  test when the country whose birth we celebrate was threatened
l by its disorganizing foes. That hour, indeed, tried men’s souls;

ignorance of duty then bespoke a nerveless and sickly ambi-

ition, beautiful in the serene atmosphere of peace, but helpless

and useless in the moment of exigency. I
Not such, however, was the spirit which animated the breasts
of the noblemen who represented the ancient town of Leices-
ter in the late war. .They responded to a sublime principle
of true patriotism, and offered their services on every field.
The detached records kept by the variousmen who served in

I  separate organizations, and on widely separate fields, disclose
the interesting and important fact that in nearly every impor-

tantcampaign of the war, and in most of its principal battles,

old Leicester was represented by some brave son.

 _ This fact, with itsdetails, forms the nucleus. of a luminous I

N

 

_ 55

 

chapter in the history of the Leicester of to—day ;and the mate

rials should be at once intrusted to the hands of a faithful and
discerning historian.

The veterans of to-day, with a proud conception of the duty
done and of the institutions perpetuated by their efforts, as-

semble here to share with you the abundant fruition of their

labors“: they boast of no inborn inspiration to noble and patri-
otic deeds and ’ sufferings, but fully attribute to their country,
and their country’s religion and law, the credit of educating
them to the rational defence of civil liberty.

Those of us who bore a humble part in the war gladly recog-

nize, in the age in which we live, the courage to do and dare =

which was so illustrious in our Revolutionary fathers. The

 

iron blood matured in their veins by frequent conflict with in- a

justice, has not turned to water in its transmission to us througli
three generations of their successors; their motives, their prin-
ciples, their fidelity and resolution, have been faithfully reflected
in the conduct of their children.

They planted seed whose product has enriched the soil that
nourished it. To us has fallen the duty of preserving this
rich patrimony from unskilful and thriftless management.

The present comes to us laden with weiglity responsibilities

A and trusts: with these responsibilities properly perforined, and '
these trusts faithfully’discharged, the future will be safe. The

history of the past is sealed, but not without its testimony to

the brave and true. "l‘he names of the ‘dead shall be the choic-i

ests relics of the household shrine. Their memories shall
gather deeper verdure and fresher fragrance as time. glides on.

Heaven grantthat the living, with? their enviable and glorious of

experience, with their recollection of the past fI‘fLl.1g‘l'li1 with
danger to freedom, and their renown resting on their heads,
may,by a strict adherence to truth, transmit the legacy of their
fathers tolworthy sons,havi11g enriched the bequest with
all the embielllislnnents of wisdom’, and the achievements of
progress!‘ A i f A A

Fellow-soldiers! Fame has bestowed on you herrichest ,

praise. Our flag, unsullied, waviirig serenely over our country

and her commerce ; our laws,‘ assuring justice and equality to

 

 

56

every son of Adam; our institutions of learning, scattering their
treasures among all classes of our busy population,----these
and the tl1ousand other blessings clustering about our govern-
ment, all saved by your efforts, shall, by their beneficence
at home and their power abroad, perpetually repeat, through
coming generations, the encomium which is ever the greatest
reward of the sincere and faithful citizen.

A choir of singers, on a raised platform at the west end of
the tent, here sang the “ Star-spangled Banner,” accompanied
by a piano and several band pieces, with fine effect.

8. “ T/te Orcttor of the Day. A. son of Leicester, who, in the Legisla-
ture, at the bar, on the bench, in the chair of; the chief magistrate, and in
that of a professor of Harvar<l _University, has reflected honor upon the
place of his birth. We rejoice that his fondest memories linger here, and
that through his living efliorts our local history has been preserved to pos-
terity.”

Mr. WASEIBUItN, in response, said he had already taxed the
indulgence of his friends too severely that day, to be willing to
trespass upon their attention again, if the sentiment had not
made certain personal allusions, which ought not to pass un-
noticed. His fondest memories were, indeed, connected with
this spot, because they were associated with the scenes of his
childhood, and the hopes. of his early manhood. "Every object

around him on which his eye rested had a story to tell of a
happy hours spent here, and brought back the recollection of a

friends whose kindness he .could never forget. He would not
have referredto the marks of public favor which he had shared,
l to which allusion had been Iihade, if it had not been to acknowl--
edge, ashe desired to do, how much of whatever of success he
had enjoyed in life he owed to the aid and encouragement
, which he received from friends here in his early life. They
had taken him by the l‘1€l.}f1Cl. and helped him on his way, and
had been willing to overlook the follies and mistakes of his

 
 
 
 
 
 
  

 "and encouragement. But above all he ought to acknowledge
A A irthat he owed whatever he had achieved to one whose memory
vwould ever be sacred in his thouglits. Theyrall knew that by

 

youth,while they cheered him in his efforts with words of hope

 

57

 

the early death of a father, he had been left an orphan boy,

dependent alone upon the kindness of a mother for his support,
and upon her counsels for guidance and direction in his child-
hood, and for whatever aid or patronage he had received in
fitting him to start in life. And it was to her influence and
example that he was indebted for whatever claims he might
have been supposed to have evinced for the favor with which
he had been regarded.

And in paying this humble tribute to his own mother, he
was but doing that justice which was due to the mothers as a
class, Who, in his early days, were emulating the example of
those who had illustrated the noble sphere of Woman, by in-
spiring the traits of character in this community which had
honorably distinguislied the town in its earlier history. The
proprieties of the occasion would not admit of calling these by

name, and he must content himself with offering as a semi»

1nent,—--—-

“ The ,7l4'e77zor3y of our Jlfot/ears. 'I‘l'1ei.rinfluence san(_:tiiiecl and their wisdom
helped to form the policy anal opinions wliioh in times past have made Leices-
ter honored among her sister eomrn1.1nities.”

9. “ The Cllerm/. New England owes much of her greatness to their
liberal and scholarly Clhristian spirit; and Leicester, on this anniversary,
gratefully recognizes her indebtedness to her own ministry, whose interest

is manifest in her character and in all her best institutions.”

J osmrn »L.l PAIi.raInc»E, Esq., responded to this by readingthe
following, letter from Dr. NELSON, whose age forbade his re»
spouse in person: ——--

FELLOW——’1‘OWNSMAEN_ AND FaInNns,—-.—Leicester. has been set-

tled as a town one hundred and fifty years. Ten years more I

than“half of this W,,l”10l6 period Irhave lived in the world; and

I nine years more than one-third of it I have been an inhabitant.

of the town.

The first time I saw Leicester, in about 1800, I rode on I
horseback from Worcester behind myuncle, who was then at- .

tending the Academy. I Went intothe Academy building with
him, which was long and shapeless in its form, and situate,
. . A 8 A A i

 

58

quite down to the road. ‘It was interesting to me, as Leicester

Academy was then famous, not only in the county, but through-

out the Commonwealth. Besides, the building, as I understood,
had been the trading-hous_e of a rich company of Jews during
the Revolutionary war, of which I had heard marvellous
stories. ,

In 1812, I began my permanent residence in Leicester; and
now the memories, the associations, and the attacliments of all
but sixty years from that date cause me to feel, as it were,
fused into it, and to become almost a native. It is indeed a
trial that age and weakness must prevent my being present
with the fcwmilyj gathering to-—day, if only as a specimen of its
antiquity. Much more I regret it, as. these infirniities niust
prevent my expressing by the living voice the many good
things I would be glad to say of the old homestead.

Certainly it would’ give me pleasure to call attention to a few
of the interesting occiirrexices and changes that have taken
place during the long time of my residence in the town. But
this, if it were otherwise desirable, is rendered unnecessary hy
the fact that the Orator of the day, always interested in his
native town, and always devoted to its honor and welfare, has
gone side by side with me in his ohservations, and put on rec-
ord more of the history of Leicester than I could have gathered
from the failing storehouse of my memory. ~ But the old man
and the scarcely less aged companion and fellow»-pilgrim of his

A long and favored life can and do unitcdly send their cordial

g'I‘€Gi)l1‘1gE-3 to Leicester’s gathered sons and dauglvv1te1*s with their
friends and guests. May l}Ieaven’s choicest blessings rest on
them, and the coming generations that may dwell in these val-—
leys, or that may emigrate from them!

The PI~:.EsID:ENT then introduced Rev. A. O. DLENTSON, of Mid-
dlefield, Gt, who was settled in Leicester, as the first colleague
of the Rev. Dr. Nelson, in 1851, and was for five years the
much»-loved junior pastor of the original society in that place.

Mr. D:eN1soN said : ---- v A

MR. Pnnsinnnr, -—,-— With great satisfaction has one of the

a wandering prodigals to whom you have referred, accepted the

59

invitation to return to-day to this paternal board. But not

with equal satisfaction can he respond ‘to the call with which

l1e has been so unexpectedly honored, of contributing to this
entertainment. For after that feast of reason (and turkey)
and flow of soul (and the cup which cheers but not inebriates)
with which we have been so sumptuously regaled, he may well
fear that the few crumbs which he may bring will be stale and
insipid enough. There are a thousand tongues here today to
which he would much rather listen than to his own; and this
shall soon be silent, that those may be the sooner and the
longer heard. I

In behalf of my profession, however, Iwould gratefully ac»
knowledge the compliment which your toast pays the clergy of
New England. And having personally so little claim to the
credit it ascribes to the clergy of Leicester‘, I may the more
freely speak of those to whom such honor is justly due. I
need not speak (as my heart would prompt) of the character
and ability of those now on the stage of active life; for their
acceptable and beneficent labors are actions which speak louder
than words, and render words superfluous. Nor need I speak
for those so abundantly able to speak for themselves, to whose
dissent I cheerfully accord my assent, and whose names and

memory Leicester will never cease to cherish. But, on such an I
occasion as this, we surely cannot forget one who has been so I
long and so closely identified with all the interests of this  
town, and who is himself so prominent a part of its history for
about two-flfths of the entire period of its corporate existence.

It were well worth the journey hither to see again that vener-

able form, and to hear as few words from the lips which haveso I

often taught our willing ears lessons of heavenly wisdom. But,

though we see him not before us here today, we cannot fail to I
see all around us the impress and reflection of his character
  and influence. The temporal prosperity of this community, the

temperance, morality, industry, public spirit, and good order
which here prevail, are the result in no small degree, as has
well been said, of his teachings and example. It is a blessing
which falls to the lot of few communities to enjoy so long the
labors of such a man,---- a blessing whose value is not easily

60

computed; and in the present case we rejoice to say the time

for justly estimating it has not yet arrived; It is to the credit
s of this good pastor and this good town, that each has appre-

ciated the other so well as to live together so long and so
happily.

sflistory tells us that an ancient potentate, to commemorate
his memory, caused a mountain of rock to be carved into a
likeness of himself, hoping thus to perpetuate his features to
the remotest time. Our venerable friend has done better than
this. N ct with selfish ainbition or for ostentatious display, but

, in the earnest, quiet labors of a Christian pastor and friend, he

has impressed his moral features on what is more imperisliable
than the mountain rock,-wtliese thousands of loving, Chris-
tian hearts. These shall be his memorial when the mountains
shall crumble, and the rocks decay, and the elements melt
with fervent heat. How many of these have already gone be»-
fore to welcome him to the heavenly land! How many yet on
earth “ rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the
old man, and call him blessed” I , How many can unite in that

prayer, uttered for another in another age and tongue! --—-~--

‘‘ Serus in corlu'In '2‘eciZe«.t,” --~
“Late may he return to heaven.”

God bless the dear old pastor of this dear old First Church !
May the sun of his life set in peaceful serenity, after its declin-
ing rays have long gilded, with a gentle radiance, the scenes

T i which its mid-day beams have made so liriiglit and fertile!

The PRESIDENT then said,---—-We have another member of the
honored clergy among us, who belongs to a difi"erent religious
denomination from that just represented, and who was for
many years the loved and respected pastor of one of our
churches in the village, and always a valuable member of our
community, —-——-+- and called on Rev; SAMUEL iMAY for remarks;

r Mr. MAY said: The kind and courteous introduction of our

President deserves and hasyiimy warmest acknowledgment;

And I wish to join, sir, in the heartiest and most unqualified

 

 

61

manner, in the tribute of respect nowpaid to the clergy of this

‘town, and of New England generally. I speak now of the regu-
lar Congregational ministry of New England for two hundred ‘A if
and fifty years. It is impossible to account for the confessedlyr  
high character which New England, as a whole, has borne,

without giving a large and leading place to the influence of her
clergy. This is recognized not less by the evil than by the
good elements of American society. There are those who
strive and desire to break down that influence ; but none who
value intelligence, probity, high principle, and manly character
are of the number. For fully two centuries the influence of
the New-England ministry and pulpit overtopped all others,
not excepting the press. And, that their influence was essen-
tially good and sound, the appeal may safely be made to that
rule,~———-—-tlie only rule I know which can justly claim the char-
acter of mfczllzibilitg/, -4--—-~“ Ye shall kI1ow tl1em by their fruits.”
Not only theology and religion and good morals, but all the
interests of good learning, of science, of popular education,
depended chiefly upon them. Even the shaping of our social
system, the enactment of wllolesome laws, and the support of
an honest and beiieficelit government, were for a long period
almost exclusively with them. i
Others have more appropriately represented to-day‘, than I
can pretend to do,,the great body of the New-Engla11d.1ninis~
try. Let me, then, speak a few words for the clergy of dis-

sent, --— for the heretical clergy, as the phrase is,--— for what in

England is called the non-conforming ministry; and let me
put in", without vanity or boasting, a claim on their behalf for
valuable services rendered to New England’s best institutions
and character. a

It isn’t well for anybody, you know, Mr. President, to have

too easy a life. So, sir, if the lesser and heretical sects did no i

other good, they were useful, perliaps, on the principle of “ the

thorn in the flesh,” in stirring up their orthodox brethren to A

more vigorous efforts for the faith committed to their charge.
The heretics were doubtless not untruly accounted troublers of
the N ew-{England Israel ; but they also afforded favorable sub-

jects for the spiritual doctors. to er.ercise their dissecting skill

62

upon, and so lcefit those gentlemen in good dialectic and rhe~5
torieal practice, and their instruments from getting dull and
rusty; and it must be confessed that the latter were not back-
ward in administering some very vigorous treatment to such as
came in their way.

But seriously, sir, the influence of dissent, in a moral and
religious sense, is an important one,‘ and not to be lightly es—-
teenied.

What, sir, is the great Protestant body, the world over, to
which nearly every one of us present belongs, but a dissenting
body? a forsaker of the One only Apostolic and Catholic Church,
 it calls itself. Who were the Puritans, the very fathers, and
founders of this New England of ours, but seceders from the
established Church of their country, distnrbers of the English
Israel, leaving the long-trodden ways of their fathers, and corn--
pelled to fly, for conscience’ sake, from their homes and native
land, under pains and penalties, and in peril of their lives?
To--day We all honor them, and deem our descent from them
our highest honor, and the he'rita.ge they left us our best pos-
session. Yet in their day they were accounted pestilent fol»
lows, and old England tlioiight herself a great gainer in being
Well rid of them. L ;

Sir, but for dissent, but for that spirit which asserts its free-
dom against all ecclesiastical as well as kingly authority, our
New England had never been; and whatever she has eontrib-
uted to the good of our eountryand the world would have
been lost. That spirit agitates and purifies the world’s moral
atniosphere. When guided by a sense of duty and allegiance
to truth, it is the inightiest power for reform and recreation

that the world can know. It is the divinity itself stirring r

within the soul, contending sharply and vehemently soinetinies,
yet striving for the “ more light to break forth from God’s
word,” and giving strength to rise above persecution, and hard-
ship and dangers, and death even. By its means, too, we get
that unity in diversity which St. Paul so, eloquently describes

A when he speaks of “ differences of adxninistration,” of “ diver-
sities of roperation,” but “ the same spirit, the same God, work-

ing all in all.”

 

63

On this theme it were easy and pleasant to “enlarge, but the
time does not allow, and I forbear.

We all recognize to~day itlie high character and valuable
services of the New~England clergy. Let us also willingly
and even gladly honor the principle of dissent; for of that
principle we and our fathers all were born. Let us not fear to
follow the motions and leadings of the soul within us. Let us

 

encourage the search for all truth, and make it fearless,

while we keep it reverent and modest. And let us willingly
believe that, “ after the way some call heresy,” men may truly
“ worship the God of our fathers.”

So to-day, sir, we cheerfully recognize the good Work done
for Leicester and for all New England by her clergy of every A '

name. Most of all must we honor them, when above all forms
they prefer the life and freedom of the human soul; when their
service is rendered “in newness of the spirit, and not in the
oldness of the letter; ” when, with a manly and far-reaching
vision, they subordinate all ecclesiastical rules and arrange-
ments to the frecd.o1:n and growth of God’s children upon the
earth. , ,
Nor can we forget, sir, on this historical occasion, that por-.
tiou of the people of Leicester, of whom scarcely more than a
single member now remains, who accepted no clergy, recog-
nized no special ministry,--—-—-the so-called _“ l3‘riends.” Once
they were numerous here, and that within the recollection of
most of this audience. But now their house of meeting and
worship stands silent in yonder woods, and the venerable forms
of men and women which once gave such a dignity and charm
to those precincts lie around it in many unnamed graves. We

  do not, and we cannot, forget their worth, the influence of their

 

peculiar spirit, the lessons of integrity they taught here, the
courtesy and good-will of their simple manners.

 

Therefore we rejoice to-day in all these memories, in all that .
God has done for us and for~our fathersi. We recognize, joy—l

fully, his providence upholding all, leading us all, saving our

nation in many a fearful peril, even with a mighty hand and

an outstretched arm. We gratefully bless him for the peace,
prosperity, and ample field of progress in knowledge and in

64:

justice, which he’ grants us; and reverently say, May God be
with us and our children, as he was with our fathers I

10. “ Lc2'cesz‘cr Academy. Coeval in its origin with the American Repub-
lic, and like it still flourishing in vigorous and useful 1i_f'e, its benign influ-—
ences have been felt for nearly a century in every part of the land. May
it remain to tell future generations of the wisdom and liberality of its
founders.”

J osern L. Panrmnen, Esq., of Lawrence, responded, in the
absence of J ridge OHAPIN, as follows : -—--

A MR. PRESIDENT, —-1-1-I do exceedingly regret, and I know that
this large company must much more regret, that the gentleman
who was ezxzpected to respond to this sentiment fails to do so.

It certainly is appropriate, on this day of so many liallowed
and happy reminiscences to this assembly, that I.n2ucnsr:nn

t ACADEMY should receive honorable mention.

In the ‘fail1i1*e to which I have alluded, you may perhaps,
sir, have been led to call upon me for a response, by the fact
that I am now the oldest surviviiig principal preccptor of the
institution. Uxoiezrpectedly called upon, as I am, my remarks
will have one element which I know Will be acceptable at this
late hour,—-—- they will be tiny‘.

I This Acadcxny, chartered in 178§:3,—---- the third in the State,
---~ was early among the leadixtig influences in sl:1aping the civil

V and religious institutions of the Commonwealth. lriiiglily

creditable, too, has been her standing among scientific and lit-
erary institutions, as they have multiplied from that period to
the present.

In her material embodiment here, she stands lockixig down
upon her sons and daughters with silent approval, in the midst

A of these festivities. But her spirit pervades the continent.

We have had portrayed to us, by the Orator of the day, the
origin and the progress, from her infancy, of this among the earli—

nest townships of the colony, the influence of her civilians in
the legislative councils, and the prowess of her soldiers on
A * numerous battle-fields, early and recent,“ which established and
* have, secured the nation’s liberties. We point with pride to
= thisA.cadern?y as among the chief sourcesof this influence.

 

  65

We have been reminded, too, how widely scattered, from A
North to South, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are the   A
sons and daughters of Leicester, and of their honorable posi- I

tion wherever located. I

In a word, then, sir, as the most fitting response that can be
made to the sentiment you propose to “Leicester Academy,” I
appeal to the /rig/z standing in intelligence and virtue of thesuc-
cessive generations whose characters have been formed under
the shadow of this institution, both those who have “ tarried

by the stuff,” and those who, in person, have disseminated this i

influence to the boundaries of the nation. or

The band was called upon to play at this point, the regular A I

toastshaving been disposed of ; and voluntary sentiments and
speaking were called for.

I The 1’nnsIDENrre1narked that, in the address of this fore-
noon, allusion had been madeto the resistance ofliered to the A

passage of the Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers
through the streets of Baltimore in 1861, and said that he saw

before him an honored son of Leicester who commanded that ”

regiment at the time, and could tell us all about it.

He introduced General EDWARD F. J ‘ONES, of Binghampton,

N. Y., who responded as follows ; --l------—, A A y I

Ma. ‘Pnnsrnnnr AND Fsmnns or MY_ BOYHOOD, -~—--I camehere

today to mingle my greetings with yours, not expecting to
speak ; but I should be sadly wanting in courtesy, did I not at
least thank you for the compliment conveyed by your call;
which I heartily do. Your toast  that you expect me

to recount the scenes of the first blood  the Rebellion, when  l

the mob attached the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment (which I

had the honor to command) on its passagethrough Baltimore,

on the 19th of April, 1861. Those scenes, long since passed,
furnish a prominent page in the history of our country; and,
being so familiar to all, need not be further adverted to here,

  



except to say that the sons of Leicester did not disgrace their

66

old mother on that occasion,nor in the hundreds that followed,
in which they were engaged with either the army or the navy.

r“ Out of the fulness of -the heart the mouth speal«:.eth.” How

can I, on such an occasion as this, think, much less speak, on
any subject but the scenes of my childhood? Their memory
crowds away all other subjects ; and I am for the moment a boy
again, and feel as if I could only with trembling lips say, —-———-~

‘‘ You’d scarce expect one of my agce
To speak in public on the stu.ge.”

But, my friends, if I must talk to you about the army and

navy, the onlyipictuie of the army that is at all fresh in my

mind is that of my barefootcd playfellows, who, with tin pan
for a drum, Wooden swords, and broornsticks for guns, made

I every 11eiglr1bo1'l1ocid which we invaded uninhabitable, more
from the din of our o2.»z./sic than the devastation of our rnarclig

and as for the navy, none is at this moment remcrnberable,
unless it be the two old flat-bottom boats that were on Upper
Toiphet Pond. I

, As I came into town this morning, after an absence of more
than twenty—five years, I stopped for a inoxncnt at the house of

I the Rev. Dr. Nelson, that good old man who has been so l’ee1-

sympathies, and as

ing,-ly referred to in to~day’s proceedinp;s, and who fills so largée
a place in the hearts of the people of Leicestei-. ’l‘11e grasp of
his hand did not seem to saltisfy inc; and, had I followed the
impulse of my heart, with bended knee would I have craved a
blessing from this patriarch in Israel.

Passing up the street, by the residence of Dr. Flint, the
remembrance of an old grudge against him came fresh to my
mind. I am sorry that he has left, but will appeal to your
 there isnot justification for a 724:1/z?7'7,/it.l

 

r recollection of him. After suffering beyond my boyish endur-

ance with the toothache, it" was finally decided that nothing but
a judicious application of cold steel could stop it. After re--

peated failures Ifinally mustered up sufhcient courage to start
for the doctor’s; but it seemed to be a question whether I had
pluck enough to last me the quarter of a mile I had to go,

but ‘got l3l10I‘8 somehow, You uodouhthave heard the say-

 

 

V67

ing, “ The sight" of you is good for sore eyes; ” well, the sight I

of the doctor cured my toothache, and I wanted to go home,
but it was of no use; it was a very healthy season, and

the doctor had a plenty of leisure and but few patients; he

was bound to have that quarter, the mew_:er2m'y ’LIJ’I‘6Z'()/t ; it was
finally compromised by his agreeing to give, me a ninepence,
and I, like a fool, sat down on the floor and trusted my head
between his knees—— ough—-—--do any of you remember his old
turnkey? he was a tender man, he was; and so,not to hurt
my mouth with his old snag—pnller, he took his redrbandalnia

and woundaronnd the instrument so that it filled my mouth I

and some to spare; and what added to the enjoyment of the
occasion, as if any addition was necessary, the it doctor took
s1n1ff,———bal1 I ——-~ and to this day I have never been able to decide
which was the worst, the toothache, the snuffy handkerchief,

or the pulling. Did any of you ever get as much for a nine»

pence? ,

Sitting here today on these hard seats l:n*ings to mind these
other hard seats over there in the Academy; and, in further-
ance of the illusion, there sits our old preceptor, Mr. I’a.rtri,dge.
Whispering to a friend just now, I looked up and caught Mr.
]?a1*t1‘idge’s eye: he either did not see me wliisperiiig, or
thought he would overlook it for this once. I

But, my friends, with all our lriaiid-—sl1akings and glad greet-
ings, there is a sad side to our festivities. To those like my-
self wllohave not been here for many years, there seem many

vacant places at this “festive board. Many a face whose smile ,

of welcome we expected has vanished from earthly scenes.
We miss the warm l1and~clasp of almost numberless expectant

friends. In my fi1'Sl3 greetings this morning, I gayly asked after i

the absent ones, but the a11SW0I‘,I)EAD,Vsl1OGl{eCl and startled
me by its frequency; so I gladly welcomed those I saw, and
asked not for the absent,for ’tis pleasanter that one’s friends
should live in memory than to know that they are dead.

Again thanking you for your kindly welcome, I bid you good-
by, hoping that youiwill not let many years pass before you
bid your sons and daughters home again.

 

68
The PRESIDENT read th_e following volunteer sentiment: --—~-

“ H092. Nathrm Sargent. An honored descendant of a patriotic ancestor
of the same name, who has exhibited in the civil service of the government
the ‘sterling honesty and integrity of character he inherited from his
ancestors.” ‘ I

I!‘

To which Hon. NATHAN SARGENT, of VVashington, D. 0.,
responded as follows:--—-

MR. PRESIDENT,-—---I11 rising to respond to the sentiment you
have kindly announccd,I must first express the very great
pleasure it has given me to receive an invitation to be present

I at this celebration.

Though not one of the sons of Leicester, I am, at least, a
grcmdson, since. both of my parents were “ to the manor born,”
and Leicester holds within her bosom all that was mortal of my
grandparents, paternal and maternal, and great numbers of

in others of my kith and kin. Her soil is, therefore, sacred
to me. I

You have been pleased to remember, on this occasion, the
Sargent family; and it strangely happens that I am the only
representative of that family now present, bearing the Sargent

, 4 name, though one of them owns and occupies the old homestead

wherehe whose honored name I bear settled about one hun--
dred and thirty years ago, and upon which he lived fifty-si.x or
fifty-eight years, and his second wife, my grandmother, SG'V‘011l3_Y--
one years. The name of Nathan Sargent was therefore, for
the period of two generations, familiar to the Leicester people,
and few were more respected.

But, Mr. President, I came not to pronounce a eulogy upon
my ancestors, nor to exhume them; but, representing and
being expected to say something of them, though in the brief»
est manner, I will simply illustrate their character by one or
two personal anecdotes, _ I

 
    
 
  

trtlinking, the soil they tilled, and the climate by which they
w *'rsurrounded. The two latter wereirough and ungenial.

\ , And first, let me say, their characters were formed, as others
l;are,, by the times in which they lived, the general mode of I

 could be obtainedifromthe soil but by ceaseless labor ;;

 

   
  
 

69

and, duringvthe few months of “seed-I-time, growth,and harvest, I
they had to provide the necessary food and clothing for them-
selves and families, and sustenance for their stock during the
long months and short days of snow and frost. I A

They had little time or money to spend in amusements or
pleasure, and none to throw away upon the luxury of lawsuits.
I hope the anecdote I am about to relate may be as character»-
istic of the good people of Leicester now as it was a hundred
years ago. I

One of the judges of the county court, which sat at Worces-
ter, in conversation with Colonel Seth Wasl1burn,asked him how
it happened that there were never any suits in that court from
Leicester. Colonel Washburn replied, “Because our land is
poor, cold, and rocky, and we have as much as we can do to get
a living off of it, and no time nor money to spend in lawsuits.” C A C ,
But they had time and money to spend in establishing ’ an  I
Academy, which is a monument to their appreciation of learn- 
ing, their desire to benefit their children and their children’s
Cl.1lldI'0Il, and an enduring honor to the town. AA

Mr. President, anticipating that I might be called upon to
contribute my mite to this entertainment, and expecting; to tell
you something about the “Sargent family” which was not A
familiar to you all, and which should at the same time illus-
trate the average character of a Leicester man a century ago, A
I had got together a nice string of anecdotes, set off witha I

A few brilliant thoughts and wise reflections, whicli I calculated I

would be received with great attention, interest, and applause,
amidst which I should resume my seat full of calm delight and
self’-appreciation. But I I

 

 
 
  
    
 
 
 
    
  

“ The best«laid scliemes 0’ mice an’ men
A Gang aft a-gley.” I

And sodid ‘mine, and that highly interesting speech I was
to make here was knocked in the head; for, on looking over
Wasl1burn’s “ History of Leicester,” I found, to my chagrin, A
he had written it all out there a dozen years ago.

He has told you that my grandfather, discoveringl that the I
company of “ minute-men,” commanded by Captain Washburri, I

 

70

L which had halted in front of Mr. Sargent’s house, on its march

to Boston, were destitute of bullets, took the weights from his
clock and had them run into balls, and that the company was
thus supplied. Now there is no doubt of the truth of this
anecdote; and I have here one of the very bullets thus cast,
which was picked up on Bunker Hill twenty-odd years ago,
where that company was engaged in battle. If any one doubts
whether it is one of the clock-weiglmt bullets, let him prove that
it is not.

My paternal ancestor, like the Leicester people generally of

olden time, had a kindly, benevolent heart hid away under a
rough exterior, with a stnrdiness of manner more resembling
the roiigh climate of Leicester than that of the palm and the
orange, as will be illustrated by the following anecdote, not to
be found in VVasl1hurn”s “ History of Leicester.”
1 There were seasons in the olden time when, owing to late
or early frosts, the crops, and especially the corn crop, failed.
To you, people of Leicester, it is new matter of small moment
whether your corn crop is a full or a short one, because you
depend mainly upon other parts of the country for your bread-
stuffs, which are brought to your doors by means of cheap and
rapid transportation.

my  N ct so with our ancestors ; no railroads or steaxnhoats ena-
bled them to draw supplies from distant parts ; nor did those

supplies thenlexist. They had to depend solely upon what they
themselves raised; and when an early frost deprived them of tlxeir
necessary supply of corn, they were reduced to great straits.
During one of these seasons, Colonel Washburn came down,
like the children of Israel of old, to buy corn, not of Joseph,
but of Nathan, who, ownirxg and running a mill, had corn to
sell. “ Have you the money to pay for it ‘B ” asked Mr. ‘Sar-

i gent. “ Yes,” was the reply. “ Then you can’t have it,” said

Mr. Sargent. “ Why not ‘B ” asked Colonel Washburn. “ Be-
cause youhave money, and can go into some other town and
buy what you need ; the poor of our town have no money, and

can’tget it elsewhere; and my corn is for them.”

Such was an old-time Leicesterian, or, in the language of the

A day,“ arepresentative man,” honest, l;;i,nd,benevolent,pconsid~
“crate, plain-spoken.   i A l

 

71

 

My friend and kinsman,the Oratorllof the day, and the
Historian of Leicester, has spoken with filial respcctaiid
affection of his mother ; and has said that, if hedeserved any I

of the honors that had been so liberally (and permit me to

say justly) bestowed ‘upon him by his native town and State, ,

he owed it all to the influence of his mother.

Let me follow his example, and say that, if I am deserving
of any of the kind expressions contained in the toast you have
done me the honor to announce, I owe it to a mother born
and reared in Leicester ; a woman not unworthy of the exem-
plary and patriotic mothers and daughters among whom she
was reared,—-— a pious, intelligent, loving “ mother in Israel.”
I was ‘reared under all those influences which formed the
character of both my parents, and which have come down to
us all here present from the first settlers of Leicester, our

 

noble alicestors. What I am, therefore, I owe in a great .,

degree to Leicester.

Mr. l’resident, I will detain you only to express the hope
that those who shall celebrate the two hundredth anniversary
of the organization of this town, among whom I hope may be
my graiidson, Nathan Sargent, may find themselves as far in
advance of us in all that contributes to the health and comfort
of man, in the industrial arts, education, and general diffusion

[ of‘ knowledge, as the present age isin advance of those who I

first put the plough into therocky hills of your new beautiful
town. I l I
I give you in conclusion,---———-

“ The Mowers qf Leizlcester. To them we owe a debt of gratitude for the

moral and religious principles they instilled into the minds of those whose p
lives daily illustrate them at home, as wellas those who have carried them I
I to distant parts, to take root and spread abroad.”

A The toast-—-

“ Zllulberry Grove,—-the Home of the Ir‘-rz‘emZs. Their firesides were

love an.d affection; their time and thou, the ever—ready welcome”—-—-

was responded to by T. K. EARLE, Esq., of Worcester, as fol-
lows:+e it it I I

 

 

72

As I turn back the record of the past, and live again in the

 i “scexies of my childhood)’---“ the orchard, the meadow, the
M 1  deep-lta“ngled lwildwood, and every loved spot that mine in-

. fancy knew,”l--,-.- there comes such a rush of memory, such
anavalanclie of thought," that the poor common words of ex-

pressioncan give no measure of the heart’s intensity. "“ Mul-
berry Grrove I ” What «a volume in a word! The hill of my
home, the home of my boyhood, the joy of my youth, the

strength of my manhood I Oh! as memory goes~bacl{ to those

summer Sabbath mornings, I see, in the valley of its worship,

, the gathering of its people in silent devotion, where in the

stillness of the hour they called for the prostration of the soul
before the Majesty of heaven, for the offering of spiritual sac-~
rifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. A
There was no architectural display, no external rites and
ceremonies, no delusive charms of musical excitement, save
the pine—tree’s anthem, the warbling birds, and the babbling
brook. These remain, all else is gone. '1.‘heir sweet melody
is ever sounding a requiem over the departed, and “ Mulberry

A Grove ” has ceased to be, and footsteps of angels mark the re-

pose of its simple people.
. i But why look mournfully into the past? It comes not back;
again. Wisely improve the present: it is ours. Let us go
forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with manly
hearts, for it is big with momentous events. We are Sl3I‘llg-
gling in the throes of a new birth: a mighty revolution is
upon us. A i

This labor question will move the foundations of society,
social and political. Very few comprehend its magxs1rit1:1clc.
Let us read ax-iglit the signs of the times, that we may carry

it it to its successful issue; and by the light of the glorious

gospel, our wills falling in with Grod’s, the problem shall be

M n A solved.

lMr.WASHBURN asked permission to remind the company of

 what he had already spoken in his address,--the sources of the
M ltgrorwtliiaild present prosperity of the town. It led him to re-

call the changes through which the productive industry of the i A

 



town had beenpassing within his own recollection. , Heire-
calledian incident, which served to mark someiof these clipanjges,

  

They were all familiar with the succession of manufacturing 

establishments along thestream which flows towards the east
i into the Blackstone, that are now in constantipand suecessful

operation. l But they should remember this Was the result of ,‘

artificial skill and enterprise. He well recollected that, twlien he

was ten years old, he, in" company with some mates, attempted A
to “go in a-sdvvimming” in that stream, but could not find ea ~

spot vvhere there was sufiicient depth of water to admit ofdoing
it. It was upon that stream that a Woollen maiiufactory was
commenced in1814=, and became the pioneer enterpriseof all
the establishments which Were now in operation in the town.

The name of the individual to which the town owes so much it

ought to be gratefully remembered; and he begged, therefore,
to offer as a sentiment, ---~

“ Samuel Watson, the father and founder of the woollen-manufacturing
of Leicester. Let his name be honored, for his enterprise has blessed his

” native town.”

ISAAC T. I~IU'rOI:IINs, Esq., of West Killingly, Ct., who mar-I
ried the Cla11gl‘1i3eI' of SAMUEL ,WATSON, Esq., and who was

, seated by the side of his venerable father-in~law, responded by

MR. PRESIDENT, -— Although uninvited and unannounee,r   
and Withal almost an entire stranger, I cannot keepimy seat   
while a father near and dear to me has been so highly com——  
plimented, as well inthe address tolwhich we have listened as
here. I Was, I confess, as one born to him outof due time ; and, ,
 What may appear anomalous, I am honored by being his oldest

as well as youngest child. , I am thinking that it is aboutitime we

I idispersed; else we may perchance,:like the threedisciples, desire A
to make tabernacles, and remain here permanently. It has ,i

seemed to me, While listening to the laudations of this locality

as if, through some oversigl1t,»a circuit hereabouts was omitted
in the otherwise universal apostasy. Indeed, I cannot avoueh _

  I i  for the truth of the assertion ; but I have often heard iiitulsaidyi

10

      

74

that long ago the citizens of Massachusetts, both male and

female, met and without a dissenting voice 5 formed themselves

I into a mutual admiration society. I hail, sir, from the land
I of steady habits,———-unfortunately as steady to bad ones as

good; the first State in the Union and probably spot on the
globewhere education was made substantially free, and will
probably be the last to exercise the foul taint of slavery from
its Constitution. I do not Wonder, Mr. I’resident, that you are
proud of your Commonwealth, among the oldest in the sister-
hood, -—-- altliouggli I have allowed myself to speak thus lightly
of her. Rev. Mr. May was truly magnanimous, as well as

eminently just, in his estimate of our Puritan fathers and their

stern orthodoziz 1'eligious faith. I felt myself personally com»
plimented, for I claim to be a descendant of one of the passengers
of the Mayflower. Mr. President, did it ever occur to you that
the two greatest discoveries noacle in the World, during the

A period you today celebrate, were made by the two sons of

Massachusetts »OO1lg‘1‘0g‘€tl3l0llal clergy1‘nen?—-+—-t11e one liavingg
l3€t1.1glI'1l2 us to speak so loud as to be heard around the world,

and the other having instructed us how to send xnessages of
. love, thanksgiving, and praise through the depths of the ocean,

thus making “ dragons and all deeps ” to utter the praises of
their God. Do you doubt, stir,-—--I do not,----tliat both of

these were rocked to sleep in their infancy by the music
I of Watts’s cradle hymns, and that both were in their boyhood

faietlifully instructed in the now nearly obsolete Assernb1y’s
Catechism. ,

That one of these was thus early instructed in the puritanic
faith is faintly shadowed forth by his reverent repetition of a

f passage of Scripture, at the recent unveiling of a xnonurnent I

erected to his honor: “ Not unto us, not unto us, but to Thy

A  name be the praise.” I will detain you only to add that while

thus taking a cursory retrospect of the vastrdiscoveries made,

and the signal events which have transpired, during the last
“century and  half, the inquiry comes unbidden, What shall
rcromei topass during the same period in theifuture? ,We at-
ftentively listen, and the only responsewhich returns back to us

 faint whisper, Wl1ati?.,i I

+15

SIMON P. rHAS’l‘INGS, Esq., of Philadelphia, was then called
out, who said, —- I I I I

It is with mingled feelings of pain and pleasure, of joy and I

sadness, that a crowd of reminiscences, covering a period of

more than fifty years, co1ne rushing in upon me, in spite of it I
myself and all I see. around me. Itecollections of innocency ,

and tender childhood, of a devoted and dearly beloved
mother, my father and eleven loving brothers and sisters,I----
eight of whom, with father and mother, have gone to their
reward.

Thefathers and mothers of fifty years ago,and their children I
who were my play and school companions,----wliere are they?

With few exceptions, their perishable bodies lie in yonder com»
etcries, mouldering and mingling with the common earth, the
way of all flesh.  ‘

Forty—-seven years have been numbered with the pa.St.lSl11C6'I,
a lad of thirteen, left, with her blessing and benediction, the
hospitable home of the sainted mother of the honored, beloved,
and respected orator who has today charmed us with his
eloquence; and today I am permitted to return to the loved

scenes of childhood with a heart overflowing with gratitude to I
our Heavenly Father, whose loving kindness and tender mercies
have followed me all my life long. I I congratulate you, my I

fellow-townsmen, on the success which has attended the cele-I
bration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary , of the
organization of the town of Leicester; and I tender the Com-A»
mittee of Arrangements my thanks for giving me the opportu-«I
nity of being present on this occasion : it has afforded enjoyment

and pleasure that will go with me through the remaining days i  I

of my life. A

“ Dear old Mother Leicester. May she ever be, as to—day, by her devo-g
tion to the cause of education, by her enterprise, her industry and prosperity,
a spring of joy and pride to her returning sons and daughters! ” I I

'I‘he following sentiment was announced from Rev. J AMES
Tnunsrou, of West N ewton : --— I I

'76

“ The Good Town of Leicester ; one hundred and fifty years of age, her
sunnyihills, her shady groves, her 1"erti1e_fic1ds, her happy and cultured
homes, her sons and daughters far and near. May her future prosperity be
as conspicuous as her hills, as refreshing as her groves, as fertile as her
fields, as lovely and attractive as her homes, as honorable to the connnunity

- as her sons and daughters.”

From Miss PHILENA UPHAM, Leicester :--~

“ When Governor Corwin, of Ohio, returned after a long absence at
Washington, he thus addressed a gathering of‘ neighbors: ‘ I rejoice once
more to bathe in the faces of the people.’ The crown and conifort of this
exultant day to us is derived from our expectations fulfilled and our design
accomplished. The sons and daughters of Leicester, who from time to time
have taken flight, are now returned to the parent nest; and once more, ere we

it wrap the drapery of our couch about us and lie down to pleasant dreams, i

we can ‘ bathe in the faces of the people; ’ once more we can greet them as we

were wont to greet them in our greener years, and vvith doors free and open V

e prate to them of ‘ye olden time.’ This occasion gives us, as Viola said,
‘ a very. echo of the seat where love is throned.’ May this festival he rose-
maryin our remembrance till we ‘ hear the rush of angel wings upon God’s

M errand speeding’! ” -

From Mrs. CAROLINE I-I. Mnroaw, Worcester : -----~

‘‘ The memories of the fathers are the inspiration of the sons. May the

spirit of our fathe1~s be revivedin their children to the latest generations.”

A From J. Panrnrnen, Esq., P£tXl1OI1:-—----

“ May the policy of the government of the United States with l'oreigu
nations be the same in the future as it has been in the past, ——--to ask nothing

but that which is right, and to submit to nothing wrong.”

Rev. Mr. MAY read the beautiful lines from Dr. Holmes, as
expressive and pertinent: --

. “‘ There are no times like the old times, -——- they shall never be forgot!

There is no place like the old place, --- keep green the dear old spot!
‘ i There are no friends like the old friends, --—-may I-Ieaven prolong their lives I
A There are no loves like our old loves, -—-— God bless our loving wives ! ”

7"/A

“Yankee Doodle” and “ _Auld Lang Syne,” by request,
played with spirit and earnestness by the band, at half past fives
o’c1ock, were the last of the exercises. i.The success of the days A
was complete. The gun that awakened the good people of the i‘ "

town at sunrise, spoke again at sunset; and a concert by the
i band on the Common was the chief feature of the evening. A A