THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.

Ben F. Butler

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER.

There is a belt extending irregularly across the State of New Hampshire, and
varying in width, from which have gone forth men who have won a national reputation.
From this section went Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, Levi Woodbury, Zachariah Chandler,
Horace Greeley, Henry Wilson, William Pitt Fessenden, Salmon P. Chase, John
Wentworth, Nathan Clifford, and Benjamin F. Butler.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER was born in the town of Deerfield, New Hampshire,
November 5, 1818.

His father, Captain John Butler, was a commissioned officer in the War of 1812,
and served with General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans. As merchant, supercargo, and
master of the vessel, he was engaged for some years in the West India trade, in which
he was fairly successful, until his death in March, 1819, while on a foreign voyage.
In politics he was an ardent Democrat, an admirer of General Jackson, and a personal
friend of Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire.

Left an orphan when an infant, the child was dependent for his early training upon
his mother; and faithfully did she attend to her duties. Descended from the Scotch
Covenanters and Irish patriots, Mrs. Butler possessed rare qualities: she was
capable, thrifty, diligent, and devoted. In 1828, Mrs. Butler removed with her family
to Lowell, where her two boys could receive better educational advantages, and where
her efforts for their maintenance would be better rewarded, than in their native
village.

As a boy young Butler was small, sickly, and averse to quarrels. He was very fond
of books, and eagerly read all that came in his way. From his earliest youth he
possessed a remarkably retentive memory, and was such a promising scholar that his
mother determined to help him obtain a liberal education, hoping that he would be
called to the Baptist ministry. With this end in view, he was fitted for college at
the public schools of Lowell and at Exeter Academy, and at the early age of sixteen
entered Waterville College. Here for four years, the formative period of his life,
his mind received that bent and discipline which fitted him for his future active
career.

He was a student who appreciated [pg 334] his advantages, and acquired all the general
information the course permitted outside of regular studies; but his rank was low in
the class, as deportment and attention to college laws were taken into account.
During the latter part of his course he was present at the trial of a suit at law,
and was so impressed with the forensic battle he then witnessed, that he chose law as
his profession. He was graduated from the college in 1838, in poor health, and in
debt, but a fishing cruise to the coast of Labrador restored him, and in the fall he
entered upon the study of the law at Lowell. While a student he practised in the
police court, taught school, and devoted every energy to acquiring a practical
knowledge of his profession.

MILITIA.

While yet a minor he joined the City Guards, a company of the fifth regiment of
Massachusetts Militia. His service in the militia was honorable, and continued for
many years; he rose gradually in the regular line of promotion through every grade,
from a private to a brigadier-general.

LAW.

In 1840, Mr. Butler was admitted to the bar. He was soon brought into contact with
the mill-owners, and was noted for his audacity and quickness. He won his way rapidly
to a lucrative practice, at once important, leading, and conspicuous. He was bold,
diligent, vehement, and an inexhaustible opponent. His memory was such, that he could
retain the whole of the testimony of the longest trial without taking a note. His
power of labor seemed unlimited. In fertility of expedient, and in the lightning
quickness of his devices to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, his equal has
seldom lived.

For twenty years Mr. Butler devoted his whole energies to his profession. At the
age of forty he was retained in over five hundred cases, enjoyed the most extensive
and lucrative practice in New England, and could at that age have retired from active
business with an independent fortune.

POLITICS.

Despite his enormous and incessant labors at the bar, Mr. Butler, since early
manhood, has been a busy and eager politician, regularly for many years attending the
national conventions of the Democratic party, and entering actively into every
campaign.

Before the Rebellion he was twice elected to the Massachusetts Legislature: once
to the House in 1853, and once to the Senate in 1859; and was a candidate for
governor in 1856, receiving fifty thousand votes, the full support of his party.

In April, 1860, Mr. Butler was a delegate to the Democratic convention held at
Charleston. There he won a national reputation. In June, at an adjourned session of
the convention, at Baltimore, Mr. Butler went out with the delegates who were
resolved to defeat the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas. The retiring body nominated
Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for the Presidency, and Mr. Butler returned home to
help his election. It may be here stated that Mr. Breckinridge was a Southern
pro-slavery unionist. Mr. Butler was the Breckinridge candidate for the governorship
of Massachusetts, and received only six thousand votes.

In December, 1860, after the election of Abraham Lincoln was an established fact,
there was a gathering of politicians at Washington, Mr. Butler among the rest. South
Carolina had passed the [pg
335] ordinance of secession, and had sent commissioners or embassadors to
negotiate a treaty with the general government. Mr. Butler told his Southern friends
that they were hastening on a war; that the North would never consent to a disunion
of the States, and that he should be among the first to offer to fight for the Union.
He counselled the administration to receive the South Carolina commissioners, listen
to their communication, arrest them, and try them for high treason. Mr. Butler
foresaw a great war, and on his return to Massachusetts advised Governor Andrew to
prepare the militia for the event. This was quietly done by dropping those who could
not be depended upon to leave the State, and enlisting others in their stead. Arms
and clothing were also prepared. On April 15, 1861, a telegram was received by
Governor Andrew from Senator Henry Wilson asking for troops to defend the capital. A
little before five o’clock, Mr. Butler was, trying, a case before a court in Boston,
when Colonel Edward F. Jones, of the sixth regiment, brought to him for endorsement
an order from Governor Andrew to muster his regiment forthwith on Boston Common,
prepared to go to the defence of Washington. Two days later Mr. Butler received the
order to take command of the troops.

IN THE WAR.

General Butler’s command consisted of four regiments. The sixth was despatched
immediately to Washington by the way of Baltimore, two regiments were sent in
transports to garrison Fortress Monroe, while General Butler accompanied the eighth
regiment in person. At Philadelphia, on the nineteenth of April, General Butler was
apprised of the attack on the sixth regiment during their passage through Baltimore,
and he resolved to open communication with the capital through Annapolis.

At Annapolis, General Butler’s great executive qualities came into prominence. He
was placed in command of the “Department of Annapolis,” and systematically attended
to the forwarding of troops and the formation of a great army. On May 13, with his
command, he occupied the city of Baltimore, a strategic movement of great importance.
On May 16, he was commissioned major-general, and on the twenty-second was saluted as
the commander of Fortress Monroe. Two days later, he gave to the country the
expressive phrase “contraband of war,” which proved the deathblow of American
slavery.

A skirmish at Great Bethel, June 10, was unimportant in its results except that it
caused the loss of twenty-five Union soldiers, Major Theodore Winthrop among the
number, and was a defeat for the Northern army. This was quickly followed by the
disastrous battle of Bull Run, which fairly aroused the North to action.

On August 18, General Butler resigned the command of the department of Virginia to
General Wool, and accepted a command under him. The first duty entrusted to General
Butler was an expedition sent to reduce the forts at Hatteras Inlet, in which with a
small force he was successful.

Early in September, he was authorized by the war department to raise and equip six
regiments of volunteers from New England for the war. This task was easy for the
energetic general.

Early in the year 1862, the capture of New Orleans was undertaken, and [pg 336] General Butler
was placed in command of the department of the Gulf, and fifteen thousand troops
entrusted to him. After innumerable delays, the general with a part of his force
arrived, March 20, 1862, at Ship Island, near the delta of the Mississippi River, at
which rendezvous the rest of the troops had already been assembled. From this post
the reduction of New Orleans was executed.

On the morning of April 24, the fleet under command of Captain Farragut succeeded
in passing the forts, and a week later the transport Mississippi with General Butler
and his troops was alongside the levee at New Orleans.

On December 16, 1862, General Butler formally surrendered the command of the
department of the Gulf to General Banks. What General Butler did at New Orleans
during the months he was in command in that city is a matter of history, and has been
ably chronicled by James Parton. He there displayed those wonderful qualities of
command which made him the most hated, as well as the most respected, Northern man
who ever visited the South. He did more to subject the Southern people to the
inevitable consequence of the war than a division of a hundred thousand soldiers. He
even conquered that dread scourge, yellow fever, and demonstrated that lawlessness
even in New Orleans could be suppressed.

The new channel for the James River, known as the Dutch Gap, planned by General
Butler, and ridiculed by the press, but approved by the officers of the United States
Engineer Corps, remains to this day the thoroughfare used by commerce.

The fame of General Butler’s career at New Orleans, and his presence, quieted the
fierce riots in New York City, occasioned by the drafts.

General Butler resigned his commission at the close of the war, and resumed the
practice of his profession. He is now, and has been for many years, the senior
major-general of all living men who have held that rank in the service of the United
States.

IN CONGRESS.

In 1867, Mr. Butler was elected to the fortieth Congress from the fifth
congressional district of Massachusetts, and in 1869 from the sixth district. He was
re-elected in 1871, 1873, and in 1877. He was a recognized power in the House of
Representatives, and with the administration. In 1882, he was elected Governor of
Massachusetts, and gracefully retired in December, 1883, to the disappointment of
more than one hundred and fifty thousand Massachusetts voters.

Mr. Butler is a man of vast intellectual ability—in every sense of the word
a great man. He possesses a remarkable memory, great executive abilities, good
judgment, immense energy, and withal a tender heart. He has always been a champion of
fair play and equal rights.

As an orator he has great power to sway his hearers, for his words are wise. Had
the Democratic party listened to Mr. Butler at the Charleston convention, its power
would have continued; had the South listened to him, it would not have seceded. Mr.
Butler is a man who arouses popular enthusiasm, and who has a great personal
following of devoted friends and admirers.

Books have already been written about him—more will follow in the years to
come. He is the personification of the old ante bellum Democratic [pg 337] party of the
Northern States—a party that believed in the aggrandizement of the country, at
home and abroad; which placed the rights of an American citizen before the gains of
commerce; which fostered that commerce until it whitened the seas; and which provided
for the reception of millions, who were sure to come to these shores, by acquiring
large areas of territory.

This hastily prepared sketch gives but a meagre outline of this remarkable man,
whose history is yet by no means completed.

THE BOUNDARY LINES OF OLD GROTON.—II.

The report of the Comitty of the Hon^ble Court vpon the petition of Concord
Chelmsford Lancaster & Stow for a grant of part of Nashobe lands

Persuant to the directions giuen by this Hon^ble Court bareng Date the 30^th of
May 1711 The Comity Reports as foloweth that is to say &ce

That on the second day of October 1711 the s^d comitty went vpon the premises
with an Artis and veved [viewed] and servaied the Land mentioned in the Peticion
and find that the most southerly line of the plantation of Nashobe is bounded
partly on Concord & partly on Stow and this line contains by Estimation vpon
the servey a bought three miles & 50 polle The Westerly line Runs partly on
Stowe & partly on land claimed by Groton and containes four miles and 20 poll
extending to a place called Brown hill. The North line Runs a long curtain lands
claimed by Groton and contains three miles, the Easterle line Runs partly on
Chelmsford, and partly on a farm cald Powersis farm in Concord; this line contains
a bought fouer miles and twenty fiue pole

The lands a boue mentioned wer shewed to vs for Nashobe Plantation and there
were ancient marks in the seuerall lines fairly marked, And s^d comite find vpon
the servey that Groton hath Run into Nashobe (as it was showed to vs) so as to take
out nere one half s^d plantation and the bigest part of the medows, it appears to
vs to Agree well with the report of M^r John Flint & M^r Joseph Wheeler who
were a Commetty imployed by the County Court in midlesexs to Run the bounds of said
plantation (June y^e 20^th 82) The plat will demonstrate how the plantation lyeth
& how Groton coms in vpon it: as aleso the quaintete which is a bought 7840
acres

And said Comite are of the opinion that ther may [be] a township in that place
it lying so remote from most of the neighboreng Towns, provided this Court shall se
reson to continew the bounds as we do judg thay have been made at the first laieng
out And that ther be sum addition from Concord & Chelmsford which we are redy
to think will be complyed with by s^d Towns And s^d Comite do find a bought 15
famelys setled in s^d plantation of Nashobe (5) in Groton claimed and ten in the
remainder and 3 famelys which are allredy setled on the powerses farm: were
convenient to joyn w s^d plantation and are a bought Eaight mille to any
meting-house (Also, ther are a bought Eaight famelys in Chelmsford which are
allredy setled neer Nashobe line & six or seven miles from thir own meeting
house

JONATHAN TYNG
THOMAS HOW
JOHN STEARNS

In the Houes of Representatives
Nov^m 2: 1711. Read
Oct^o. 23, 1713.

In Council

Read and accepted; And the Indians native Proprietors of the s^d Planta^con.
Being removed by death Except two or [pg 338] Three families only remaining Its Declared and
Directed That the said Lands of Nashoba be preserved for a Township.

And Whereas it appears That Groton Concord and Stow by several of their
Inhabitants have Encroached and Setled upon the said Lands; This Court sees not
reason to remove them to their Damage; but will allow them to be and remain with
other Inhabitants that may be admitted into the Town to be there Setled; And that
they have full Liberty when their Names and Number are determined to purchase of
the few Indians there remaining for the Establishment of a Township
accordingly.

Saving convenient Allotments and portions of Land to the remaining Indian
Inhabitants for their Setling and Planting.

Is^a ADDINGTON Secry.

In the House of Representatives

Octo^r: 23th: 1713. Read

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, 600.]

The inhabitants of Groton had now become alarmed at the situation of affairs,
fearing that the new town would take away some of their land. Through neglect the
plan of the original grant, drawn up in the year 1668, had never been returned to the
General Court for confirmation, as was customary in such cases; and this fact also
excited further apprehension. It was not confirmed finally until February 10, 1717,
several years after the incorporation of Nashobah.

In the General Court Records (ix, 263) in the State Library, under the date of
June 18, 1713, it is entered:—

Upon reading a Petition of the Inhabitants of the Town of Groton, Praying that
the Return & Plat of the Surveyor of their Township impowered by the General
Court may be Accepted for the Settlement & Ascertaining the Bounds of their
Township, Apprehending they are likely to be prejudiced by a Survey lately taken of
the Grant of Nashoba;

Voted a Concurrence with the Order pass’d thereon in the House of Represent^ves
That the Petitioners serve the Proprietors of Nashoba Lands with a copy of this
Petition, That they may Shew Cause, if any they have on the second Fryday of the
Session of this Court in the Fall of the Year, Why the Prayer therof may not be
granted, & the Bounds of Groton settled according to the ancient Plat of said
Town herewith exhibited.

It is evident from the records that the Nashobah lands gave rise to much
controversy. Many petitions were presented to the General Court, and many claims
made, growing out of this territory. The following entry is found in the General
Court Records (ix, 369) in the State Library, under the date of November 2,
1714:—

The following Order pass’d by the Represent^ves. Read & Concur’d; viz,

Upon Consideration of the many Petitions & Claims relating to the Land
called Nashoba Land; Ordered that the said Nashoba Land be made a Township, with
the Addition of such adjoining Lands of the Neighbouring Towns, whose Owners shall
petition for that End, & that this Court should think fit to grant, That the
said Nashoba Lands having been long since purchased of the Indians by M^r Bulkley
& Henchman one Half, the other Half by Whetcomb & Powers, That the said
purchase be confirmed to the children of the said Bulkley, Whetcomb & Powers,
& Cpt. Robert Meers as Assignee to M^r Henchman according to their respective
Proportions; Reserving to the Inhabitants, who have settled within these Bounds,
their Settlements with Divisions of Lands, in proportion to the Grantees, &
such as shall be hereafter admitted; the said Occupants or present Inhabitants
paying in Proportion as others shall pay for their Allotments;. Provided the said
Plantation shall be settled with Thirty five Families & an orthodox Minister in
three years time, And that Five hundred Acres of Land be reserved and laid out for
the Benefit of any of the Descendants of the Indian Proprietors [pg 339] of the said Plantation, that
may be surviving; A Proportion thereof to be for Sarah Doublet alias Sarah Indian;.
The Rev. M^r. John Leveret & Spencer Phips Esq^r. to be Trustees for the said
Indians to take Care of the said Lands for their Use. And it is further Ordered
that Cpt. Hopestill Brown, M^r. Timothy Wily & M^r. Joseph Burnap of Reading be
a Committee to lay out the said Five hundred Acres of Land reserved for the
Indians, & to run the Line between Groton & Nashoba, at the Charge of both
Parties & make Report to this Court, And that however the Line may divide the
Land with regard to the Township, yet the Proprietors on either side may be
continued in the Possession of their Improvements, paying as aforesaid; And that no
Persons legal Right or Property in the said Lands shall [be] hereby taken away or
infringed,

Consented to J DUDLEY

The report of this committee is entered in the same volume of General Court
Records (ix, 395, 396) as the order of their appointment, though the date as given by
them does not agree with the one there mentioned.

The following Report of the Committee for Running the Line between Groton &
Nashoba Accepted by Represent^ves. Read & Concur’d; Viz.

We the Subscribers appointed a Committee by the General Court to run the Line
between Groton & Nashoba & to lay out Five hundred Acres of Land in said
Nashoba to the the [sic] Descendants of the Indians; Pursuant to said Order
of Court, bearing Date Octob^r 20^th [November 2?] 1714, We the Subscribers return
as follows;

That on the 30^th. of November last, we met on the Premises, & heard the
Information of the Inhabitants of Groton, Nashoba & others of the Neighbouring
Towns, referring to the Line that has been between Groton & Nashoba & seen
several Records, out of Groton Town Book, & considered other Writings, that
belong to Groton & Nashoba, & We have considered all, & We have run the
Line (Which we account is the old Line between Groton & Nashoba;) We began next
Chelmsford Line, at a Heap of Stones, where, We were informed, that there had been
a great Pine Tree, the Northeast Corner of Nashoba, and run Westerly by many old
mark’d Trees, to a Pine Tree standing on the Southerly End of Brown Hill mark’d N
and those marked Trees had been many times marked or renewed, thô they do not
stand in a direct or strait Line to said Pine Tree on said Brown Hill; And then
from said Brown Hill we turned a little to the East of the South, & run to a
white Oak being an old Mark, & so from said Oak to a Pitch Pine by a Meadow,
being an other old Mark; & the same Line extended to a white Oak near the North
east Corner of Stow: And this is all, as we were informed, that Groton &
Nashoba joins together: Notwithstanding the Committees Opinion is, that Groton Men
be continued in their honest Rights, thô they fall within the Bounds of
Nashoba; And We have laid out to the Descendants of the Indians Five hundred Acres
at the South east Corner of the Plantation of Nashoba; East side, Three hundred
Poles long, West side three hundred Poles, South & North ends, Two hundred
& eighty Poles broad; A large white Oak marked at the North west Corner, &
many Line Trees we marked at the West side & North End, & it takes in Part
of two Ponds.

Dated Decem^r 14. 1714.

HOPESTILL BROWN
TIMOTHY WILY
JOSEPH BURNAP

Consented to
J Dudley.

The incorporation of Nashobah on November 2, 1714, settled many of the disputes
connected with the lands; but on December 3 of the next year, the name was changed
from Nashobah to Littleton. As already stated, the plan of the original Groton grant
had never been returned by the proprietors to the General Court for confirmation, and
this neglect had acted to their [pg 340] prejudice. After Littleton had been set off, the town
of Groton undertook to repair the injury and make up the loss. John Shepley and John
Ames were appointed agents to bring about the necessary confirmation by the General
Court. It is an interesting fact to know that in their petition (General Court
Records, x, 216, February 11, 1717, in the office of the secretary of state) they
speak of having in their possession at that time the original plan of the town, made
by Danforth in the year 1668, though it was somewhat defaced. In the language of the
Records, it was said to be “with the Petitioner,” which expression in the singular
number may have been intentional, referring to John Shepley, probably the older one,
as certainly the more influential, of the two agents. This plan was also exhibited
before the General Court on June 18, 1713, according to the Records (ix, 263) of that
date.

The case, as presented by the agents, was as follows:—

A petition of John Sheply & John Ames Agents for the Town of Groton Shewing
that the General Assembly of the Province did in the year 1655, Grant unto M^r Dean
Winthrop & his Associates a Tract of Land of Eight miles quare for a Plantation
to be called by the name of Groton, that Thom^s & Jonathan Danforth did in the
year 1668, lay out the said Grant, but the Plat thereof through Neglect was not
returned to the Court for Confirmation that the said Plat thô something
defaced is with the Petitioner, That in the Year 1713 M^r Samuel Danforth Surveyour
& Son of the abovesaid Jonathan Danforth, at the desire of the said Town of
Groton did run the Lines & make an Implatment of the said Township laid out as
before & found it agreeable to the former. W^h. last Plat the Petitioners do
herewith exhibit, And pray that this Hon^ble Court would allow & confirm the
same as the Township of Groton.

In the House of Represent^ves; Feb. 10. 1717. Read, Read a second time, And
Ordered that the Prayer of the Petition be so far granted that the Plat herewith
exhibited (Althô not exactly conformable to the Original Grant of Eight Miles
quare) be accounted, accepted & Confirmed as the Bounds of the Township of
Groton in all parts, Except where the said Township bounds on the Township of
Littleton, Where the Bounds shall be & remain between the Towns as already
stated & settled by this Court, And that this Order shall not be understood or
interpreted to alter or infringe the Right & Title which any Inhabitant or
Inhabitants of either of the said Towns have or ought to have to Lands in either of
the said Townships

In Council, Read & Concur’d,
Consented to Sam^ll Shute

[General Court Records (x, 216), February 11, 1717, in the office of the
secretary of state.]

The proprietors of Groton felt sore at the loss of their territory along the
Nashobah line in the year 1714, although it would seem without reason. They had
neglected to have the plan of their grant confirmed by the proper authorities at the
proper time; and no one was to blame for this oversight but themselves. In the autumn
of 1734 they represented to the General Court that in the laying out of the original
plantation no allowance had been made for prior grants in the same territory, and
that in settling the line with Littleton they had lost more than four thousand acres
of land; and in consideration of these facts they petitioned for an unappropriated
gore of land lying between Dunstable and Townsend.

The necessary steps for bringing the matter before the General Court at this time
were taken at a town meeting, held on July 25, 1734. It was then [pg 341] stated that the town had lost
more than twenty-seven hundred and eighty-eight acres by the encroachment of
Littleton line; and that two farms had been laid out within the plantation before it
was granted to the proprietors. Under these circumstances Benjamin Prescott was
authorized to present the petition to the General Court, setting forth the true state
of the case and all the facts connected with it. The two farms alluded to were Major
Simon Willard’s, situated at Nonacoicus or Coicus, now within the limits of Ayer, and
Ralph Reed’s, in the neighborhood of the Ridges; so Mr. Butler told me several years
before his death, giving Judge James Prescott as his authority, and I carefully wrote
it down at the time. The statement is confirmed by the report of a committee on the
petition of Josiah Sartell, made to the House of Representatives, on June 13, 1771.
Willard’s farm, however, was not laid out before the original plantation was granted,
but in the spring of 1658, three years after the grant. At this time Danforth had not
made his plan of the plantation, which fact may have given rise to the
misapprehension. Ralph Reed was one of the original proprietors of the town, and
owned a fifteen-acre right; but I do not find that any land was granted him by the
General Court.

It has been incorrectly supposed, and more than once so stated in print, that the
gore of land, petitioned for by Benjamin Prescott, lay in the territory now belonging
to Pepperell; but this is a mistake. The only unappropriated land between Dunstable
and Townsend, as asked for in the petition, lay in the angle made by the western
boundary of Dunstable and the northern boundary of Townsend. At that period Dunstable
was a very large township, and included within its territory several modern towns,
lying mostly in New Hampshire. The manuscript records of the General Court define
very clearly the lines of the gore, and leave no doubt in regard to it. It lay within
the present towns of Mason, Brookline, Wilton, Milford, and Greenville, New
Hampshire. Benjamin Prescott was at the time a member of the General Court and the
most influential man in town. His petition was presented to the House of
Representatives on November 28, 1734, and referred to a committee, which made a
report thereon a fortnight later. They are as follows:—

A Petition of Benjamin Prescot, Esq; Representative of the Town of
Groton, and in behalf of the Proprietors of the said Town, shewing that the
General Court in May 1655, in answer to the Petition of Mr. Dean
Winthrop and others, were pleased to grant the Petitioners a tract of Land of
the contents of eight miles square, the Plantation to be called Groton, that
in taking a Plat of the said tract there was no allowance made for prior Grants
&c. by means whereof and in settling the Line with Littleton Anno 1715,
or thereabouts, the said Town of Groton falls short more than four thousand
acres of the Original Grant, praying that the said Proprietors may obtain a Grant
of what remains undisposed of of a Gore of Land lying between Dunstable and
Townshend, or an equivalent elsewhere of the Province Land. Read and
Ordered, That Col. Chandler, Capt. Blanchard, Capt.
Hobson, Major Epes, and Mr. Hale, be a Committee to take this
Petition under consideration, and report what may be proper for the Court to do in
answer thereto.

[Journal of the House of Representatives, November 28, 1734, page 94.]

Col. Chandler from the Committee appointed the 28th. ult. to
consider the [pg
342] Petition of Benjamin Prescot, Esq; in behalf of the Proprietors
of Groton, made report, which was read and accepted, and in answer to this
Petition, Voted, That a Grant of ten thousand eight hundred acres of the
Lands lying in the Gore between Dunstable and Townshend, be
and hereby is made to the Proprietors of the Town of Groton, as an
equivalent for what was taken from them by Littleton and Coyachus or
Willard’s Farm (being about two acres and a half for one) and is in full
satisfaction thereof, and that the said Proprietors be and hereby are allowed and
impowred by a Surveyor and Chain-men on Oath to survey and lay out the said ten
thousand eight hundred acres in the said Gore, and return a Plat thereof to
this Court within twelve months for confirmation to them their heirs and assigns
respectively.

Sent up for Concurrence.

[Journal of the House of Representatives, December 12, 1734, page 119.]

The proprietors of Groton had a year’s time allowed them, in which they could lay
out the grant, but they appear to have taken fifteen months for the purpose. The
record of the grant is as follows:—

A Memorial of Benj^a Prescott Esq: Represent^a of the Town of Groton in behalf
of the Proprietors there, praying that the Votes of the House on his Memorial &
a plat of Ten Thousand Eight hundred Acres of Land, lately Granted to the said
Proprietors, as Entred in the House the 25 of March last, may be Revived and
Granted, The bounds of which Tract of Land as Mentioned on the said Plat are as
follows viz^t.: begining at the North West Corner of Dunstable at Dram Cup hill by
Sohegan River and Runing South in Dunstable line last Perambulated and Run by a
Com^tee of the General Court, two Thousand one hundred & fifty two poles to
Townshend line, there making an angle, and Runing West 31 1-2 Deg. North on
Townshend line & province Land Two Thousand and Fifty Six poles to a Pillar of
Stones then turning and Ruñing by Province Land 31 1-2 deg North two
Thousand & forty Eight poles to Dunstable Corner first mentioned

In the House of Represent^a. Read & Ordered that the prayer of the Memorial
be Granted, and further that the within Plat as Reformed and Altered by Jonas
Houghton Survey^r, be and hereby is accepted and the Lands therein Delineated and
Described (Excepting the said One Thousand Acres belonging to Cambridge School Farm
and therein included) be and hereby are Confirmed to the Proprietors of the Town of
Groton their heirs and Assignes Respectivly forever, According to their Several
Interests; Provided the same do not interfere with any former Grant of this Court
nor Exceeds the Quantity of Eleven thousand and Eight hundred Acres and the
Committee for the Town of Ipswich are Allowed and Impowred to lay out such quantity
of Land on their West line as is Equivalent to what is taken off their East line as
aforesaid, and Return a plat thereof to this Court within twelve Months for
confirmation.

In Council Read & Concurr’d.

Consented to J Belcher

And in Answer to the said Memorial of Benj^a Prescott Esq^r

In the House of Represent^a. Ordered that the prayer of the Memorial be Granted
and the Com^tee. for the new Township Granted to some of the Inhabitants of Ipswich
are hereby Allowed to lay out an Equivalent on the West line of the said New
Township Accordingly.

In Council Read & Concurr’d

Consented to J Belcher

[General Court Records (xvi, 334), June 15, 1736, in the office of the secretary
of state.]

This grant, now made to the proprietors of Groton, interfered with the territory
previously given on April, 1735, to certain inhabitants of Ipswich, but the mistake
was soon rectified, as appears by the following:—

Voted, That one thousand seven hundred Acres of the unappropriated Lands
of the Province be and hereby is given and [pg 343] granted to the Proprietors or Grantees of the
Township lately granted to sixty Inhabitants of the Town of Ipswich, as an
Equivalent for about that quantity being taken off their Plat by the Proprietors of
the Common Lands of Groton, and that the Ipswich Grantees be allowed
to lay out the same on the Northern or Westerly Line of the said new Township or on
both sides.

Sent up for Concurrence.

[Journal of the House of Representatives (page 108), January 12, 1736.]

Groton Gore in 1884

The record of the grant clearly marks the boundaries of Groton Gore, and by it
they can easily be identified. Dram Cup Hill, near Souhegan River, the old northwest
corner of Dunstable, is in the present territory of Milford, New Hampshire. From that
point the line ran south for six or seven miles, following the western boundary of
Dunstable, until it came to the old Townsend line; then it turned and ran
northwesterly six miles or more, when turning again it made for the original
starting-place at Dunstable northwest corner. These lines enclosed a triangular
district which became known as Groton Gore; in fact, the word gore means a lot
of land of triangular shape. This territory is now entirely within the State of New
Hampshire, lying mostly in Mason, but partly in Brookline, Wilton, Milford, and
Greenville. It touches in no place the tract, hitherto erroneously [pg 344] supposed to comprise the Gore.
It was destined, however, to remain only a few years in the possession of the
proprietors; but during this short period it was used by them for pasturing cattle.
Mr. John B. Hill, in his History of the Town of Mason, New Hampshire,
says:—

Under this grant, the inhabitants of Groton took possession of, and occupied the
territory. It was their custom to cut the hay upon the meadows, and stack it, and
early in the spring to send up their young cattle to be fed upon the hay, under the
care of Boad, the negro slave. They would cause the woods to be fired, as it was
called, that is, burnt over in the spring; after which fresh and succulent herbage
springing up, furnished good store of the finest feed, upon which the cattle would
thrive and fatten through the season. Boad’s camp was upon the east side of the
meadow, near the residence of the late Joel Ames. (Page 26.)

In connection with the loss of the Gore, a brief statement of the boundary
question between Massachusetts and New Hampshire is here given.

During many years the dividing-line between these two provinces was the subject of
controversy. The cause of dispute dated back to the time when the original grant was
made to the colony of Massachusetts Bay, The charter was drawn up in England at a
period when little was known in regard to the interior of this country; and the
boundary lines, necessarily, were very indefinite. The Merrimack River was an
important factor in fixing the limits of the grant, as the northern boundary of
Massachusetts was to be a line three miles north of any and every part of it. At the
date of the charter, the general direction of the river was not known, but it was
incorrectly assumed to be easterly and westerly. As a matter of fact, the course of
the Merrimack is southerly, for a long distance from where it is formed by the union
of the Winnepeseogee and the Pemigewasset Rivers, and then it turns and runs
twenty-five or thirty miles in a northeasterly direction to its mouth; and this
deflexion in the current caused the dispute. The difference between the actual and
the supposed direction was a matter of little practical importance so long as the
neighboring territory remained unsettled, or so long as the two provinces were
essentially under one government; but as the population increased it became an
exciting and vexatious question. Towns were chartered by Massachusetts in territory
claimed by New Hampshire, and this action led to bitter feeling and provoking
legislation. Massachusetts contended for the land “nominated in the bond,” which
would carry the line fifty miles northward into the very heart of New Hampshire; and
on the other hand that province strenuously opposed this view of the case, and
claimed that the line should run, east and west, three miles north of the mouth of
the river. At one time, a royal commission was appointed to consider the subject, but
their labors produced no satisfactory result. At last the matter was carried to
England for a decision, which was rendered by the king on March 5, 1739-40. His
judgment was final, and in favor of New Hampshire. It gave that province not only all
the territory in dispute, but a strip of land fourteen miles in width, lying along
her southern border, mostly west of the Merrimack, which she had never claimed. This
strip was the tract of land between the line running east and west, three miles north
of the southernmost trend of the river, and [pg 345] a similar line three miles north of its mouth. By the
decision twenty-eight townships were taken from Massachusetts and transferred to New
Hampshire. The settlement of this disputed question was undoubtedly a public benefit,
although it caused, at the time, a great deal of hard feeling. In establishing the
new boundary Pawtucket Falls, situated now in the city of Lowell, and near the most
southern portion of the river’s course, was taken as the starting-place; and the line
which now separates the two States was run west, three miles north of this point. It
was surveyed officially in the spring of 1741.

The new boundary passed through the original Groton grant, and cut off a
triangular portion of its territory, now within the limits of Nashua, and went to the
southward of Groton Gore, leaving that tract of land wholly in New Hampshire.

A few years previously to this time the original grant had undergone other
dismemberment, when a slice of its territory was given to Westford. It was a long and
narrow tract of land, triangular in shape, with its base resting on Stony Brook Pond,
now known as Forge Pond, and coming to a point near Millstone Hill, where the
boundary lines of Groton, Westford, and Tyngsborough intersect. The Reverend Edwin R.
Hodgman, in his History of Westford, says:—

Probably there was no computation of the area of this triangle at any time. Only
four men are named as the owners of it, but they, it is supposed, held titles to
only a portion, and the remainder was wild, or “common,” land, (Page 25.)

In the Journal of the House of Representatives (page 9), September 10, 1730, there
is recorded:—

A petition of Jonas Prescot, Ebenezer Prescot, Abner Kent, and
Ebenezer Townsend, Inhabitants of the Town of Groton, praying, That
they and their Estates, contained in the following Boundaries, viz.
beginning at the Northwesterly Corner of Stony Brook Pond, from
thence extending to the Northwesterly Corner of Westford, commonly
called Tyng’s Corner, and so bound Southerly by said Pond, may be set
off to the Town of Westford, for Reasons mentioned. Read and Ordered,
That the Petitioners within named, with their Estates, according to the Bounds
before recited, be and hereby are to all Intents and Purposes set off from the Town
of Groton, and annexed to the said Town of Westford.

Sent up for Concurrence.

This order received the concurrence of the council, and was signed by the
governor, on the same day that it passed the House.

During this period the town of Harvard was incorporated. It was made up from
portions of Groton, Lancaster, and Stow, and the engrossed act signed by the
governor, on June 29, 1732. The petition for the township was presented to the
General Court nearly two years before the date of incorporation. In the Journal of
the House of Representatives (pages 84, 85), October 9, 1730, it is
recorded:—

A Petition of Jonas Houghton, Simon Stone, Jonathan Whitney, and
Thomas Wheeler, on behalf of themselves, and on behalf and at the desire of
sundry of the Inhabitants on the extream parts of the Towns of Lancaster,
Groton and Stow, named in the Schedule thereunto annexed; praying, That
a Tract of Land (with the Inhabitants thereon, particularly described and bounded
in said Petition) belonging to the Towns above-mentioned, may be incorporated and
erected into a distinct Township, agreeable to said Bounds, for Reasons mentioned.
Read, together with [pg
346] the Schedule, and Ordered, That the Petitioners serve the Towns
of Lancaster, Groton and Stow with Copies of the Petition, that they
may shew Cause (if any they have) on the first Thursday of the next Session, why
the Prayer thereof may not be granted.

Sent up for Concurrence.

Further on, in the same Journal (page 136), December 29, 1730, it is also
recorded:—

The Petition of Jonas Houghton, Simon Stone, and others, praying as
entred the 9th. of October last. Read again, together with the Answers of
the Towns of Lancaster, Groton and Stow, and Ordered, That Maj.
Brattle and Mr. Samuel Chandler, with such as the Honourable Board
shall appoint, be a Committee, (at the Charge of the Petitioners) to repair to the
Land Petitioned for to be a Township, that they carefully view and consider the
Situation and Circumstances of the Petitioners, and Report their Opinion what may
be proper for this Court to do in Answer thereto, at their next Session.

Sent up for Concurrence.

Ebenezer Burrel Esq; brought from the Honourable Board, the Report of the
Committee appointed by this Court the 30th of December last, to take under
Consideration the Petition of Jonas Houghton and others, in behalf of
themselves and sundry of the Inhabitants of the Eastern part of the Towns of
Lancaster, Groton and Stow, praying that they may be erected into a
separate Township. Likewise a Petition of Jacob Houghton and others, of the
North-easterly part of the Town of Lancaster, praying the like. As
also a Petition of sundry of the Inhabitants of the South-west part of the
North-east Quarter of the Township of Lancaster, praying they may be
continued as they are. Pass’d in Council, viz. In Council, June 21,
1731. Read, and Ordered, That this Report be accepted.

Sent down for Concurrence. Read and Concurred.

[Journal of the House of Representatives (page 52), June 22, 1731.]

The original copy of the petition for Harvard is now probably lost; but in the
first volume (page 53) of “Ancient Plans Grants &c.” among the Massachusetts
Archives, is a rough plan of the town, with a list of the petitioners, which may be
the “Schedule” referred to in the extract from the printed Journal. It appears from
this document that, in forming the new town, forty-eight hundred and thirty acres of
land were taken from the territory of Groton; and with the tract were nine families,
including six by the name of Farnsworth. This section comprised the district known,
even now, as “the old mill,” where Jonas Prescott had, as early as the year 1667, a
gristmill. The heads of these families were Jonathan Farnsworth, Eleazer Robbins,
Simon Stone, Jr., Jonathan Farnsworth, Jr., Jeremiah Farnsworth, Eleazer Davis,
Ephram Farnsworth, Reuben Farnsworth, and [torn] Fransworth, who had
petitioned the General Court to be set off from Groton. On this plan of Harvard the
names of John Burk, John Burk, Jr., and John Davis, appear in opposition to
Houghton’s petition.

The town of Harvard took its name from the founder of Harvard College, probably at
the suggestion of Jonathan Belcher, who was governor of the province at the time and
a graduate of the college.

To his Excellency Jonathan Belcher Esq^r. Cap^t General and Governour in Chief
The Hon^ble. The Council and the Honourable House of Representatives of His
Majestys Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England in General Court
Assembled by Adjournment Decemb^r 16 1730

The Memorial of Jonas Houghton Simon Stone Jonathan Whitney and Thomas Wheeler
Humbly Sheweth

That upon their Petition to this Great [pg 347] and Honourable Court in October last [the 9th]
praying that a Certain Tract of Land belonging to Lancaster Stow and Groton with
the Inhabitants thereon may be Erected into a Distinct and Seperate Township (and
for Reasons therein Assigned) your Excellency and Honours were pleased to Order
that the petitioners Serve The Towns of Lancaster Groton and Stow with a Copy of
their said Petition that they may shew Cause if any they have on the first Thursday
of the next Sessions why the prayers thereof may not be granted.

And for as much as this great and Hon^ble. Court now Sitts by Adjournment and
the next Session may be very Remote And your Memorialists have attended the Order
of this Hon^ble: Court in serving the said Several Towns with Copys of the said
Petition And the partys are attending and Desirous the hearing thereon may be
brought forward y^e former order of this Hon^l Court notwithstanding.

They therefore most humbly pray your Excellency & Honours would be pleased
to Cause the hearing to be had this present Session and that a Certain day may be
assigned for the same as your Excellency & Honours in your great wisdom &
Justice shall see meet.

And your Memorialists as in Duty bound Shall Ever pray.

JONAS HOUGHTON
SIMON STOON JUNER
JONATHAN WHITNEY
THOMAS WHELER

In the House of Rep^tives Dec^r 17, 1730 Read and in Answer to this Petition
Ordered That the Pet^rs give Notice to the Towns of Lancaster Groton and Stow or
their Agents that they give in their Answer on the twenty ninth Inst^t. why the
Prayer of the Petition within referred to may not be granted.

Sent up for Concurrence

J QUINCY Sp^kr:

In Council Dec. 18, 1730; Read and Concur’d.

J WILLARD Secry

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 6-8.]

The next dismemberment of the Groton grant took place in the winter of 1738-39,
when a parcel of land was set off to Littleton. I do not find a copy of the petition
for this change, but from Mr. Sartell’s communication it seems to have received the
qualified assent of the town.

To his Excellency Jonathan Belcher Esq^r Captain General & Governour in
Chief &c the Honorable Council and House of Representatives in General Court
assembled at Boston January 1, 1738.

May it please your Excellency and the Honorable Court.

Whereas there is Petition offered to your Excellency and the Honorable Court by
several of the Inhabitants of the Town of Groton praying to be annexed to the Town
of Littleton &c.

The Subscriber as Representative of said Town of Groton and in Behalf of said
Town doth hereby manifest the Willingness of the Inhabitants of Groton in general
that the Petitioners should be annexed to the said Town of Littleton with the Lands
that belong to them Lying within the Line Petitioned for, but there being a
Considerable Quantity of Proprietors Lands and other particular persons Lying
within the Line that is Petitioned for by the said Petitioners. The Subscriber in
Behalf of said Town of Groton & the Proprietors and others would humbly pray
your Excellency and the Honorable Court that that part of their Petition may be
rejected if in your Wisdom you shall think it proper and that they be sett off with
the lands only that belong to them Lying within the Line Petitioned for as
aforesaid, and the Subscriber in Behalf of the Town of Groton &c will as in
Duty Bound ever pray &c.

NATHANIEL SARTELL

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 300.]

John Jeffries, Esq; brought down the Petition of Peter Lawrence
and others of Groton, praying to be annexed to Littleton, as entred
the 12th ult. Pass’d in Council, viz. In Council January 4th, 1738.
Read again, together with the Answer of Nathanael Sartell, Esq;
Representative [pg
348] for the Town of Groton, which being considered, Ordered,
That the Prayer of the Petition be so far granted as that the Petitioners with
their Families & Estates within the Bounds mentioned in the Petition be and
hereby are set off from the Town of Groton, and are annexed to and accounted
as part of the Town of Littleton, there to do Duty and receive Priviledge
accordingly.

Sent down for Concurrence. Read and concur’d.

[Journal of the House of Representatives (page 86), January 4, 1738.]

In the autumn of 1738, many of the settlers living in the northerly part of
Groton, now within the limits of Pepperell, and in the westerly part of Dunstable,
now Hollis, New Hampshire, were desirous to be set off in a new township. Their
petition for this object was also signed by a considerable number of non-resident
proprietors, and duly presented to the General Court. The reasons given by them for
the change are found in the following documents:—

To His Excellency Jon^a. Belcher Esq^r. Captain General and Governour in Chief
&c The Hon^ble. the Council and House of Rep^tives in General Court Assembled
at Boston November the 29th 1738

The Petition of the Subscribers Inhabitants and Proprietors of the Towns of
Dunstable and Groton.

Humbly Sheweth

That your Petitioners are Situated on the Westerly side Dunstable Township and
the Northerly side Groton Township those in the Township of Dunstable in General
their houses are nine or ten miles from Dunstable Meeting house and those in the
Township of Groton none but what lives at least on or near Six miles from Groton
Meeting house by which means your petitioners are deprived of the benefit of
preaching, the greatest part of the year, nor is it possible at any season of the
year for their familys in General to get to Meeting under which Disadvantages your
pet^rs has this Several years Laboured, excepting the Winter Seasons for this two
winters past, which they have at their Own Cost and Charge hired preaching amongst
themselves which Disadvantages has very much prevented peoples Settling land
there.

That there is a Tract of good land well Situated for a Township of the Contents
of about Six miles and an half Square bounded thus, beginning at Dunstable Line by
Nashaway River So running by the Westerly side said River Southerly One mile in
Groton Land, then running Westerly a Paralel Line with Groton North Line, till it
comes to Townsend Line and then turning and running north to Grotton Northwest
Corner, and from Grotton Northwest Comer by Townsend line and by the Line of Groton
New Grant till it comes to be five miles and an half to the Northward of Groton
North Line from thence due east, Seven miles, from thence South to Nashua River and
So by Nashua River Southwesterly to Grotton line the first mentioned bounds, which
described Lands can by no means be prejudicial either to the Town of Dunstable or
Groton (if not coming within Six miles or thereabouts of either of their Meeting
houses at the nearest place) to be taken off from them and Erected into a Seperate
Township.

That there is already Settled in the bounds of the aforedescribed Tract near
forty familys and many more ready to come on were it not for the difficulties and
hardships afores^d of getting to meeting. These with many other disadvantages We
find very troublesome to Us, Our living so remote from the Towns We respectively
belong to.

Wherefore your Petitioners most humbly pray Your Excellency and Honours would
take the premises into your Consideration and make an Act for the Erecting the
aforesaid Lands into a Seperate and distinct Township with the powers priviledges
and Immunities of a distinct and Seperate Township under such restrictions and
Limitations, as you in your Great Wisdom shall see meet.

[pg 349]

And Whereas it will be a great benefit and Advantage to the Non resident
proprietors owning Lands there by Increasing the Value of their Lands or rendering
easy Settleing the same, Your Pet^rs also pray that they may be at their
proportionable part according to their respective Interest in Lands there, for the
building a Meeting-house and Settling a Minister, and so much towards Constant
preaching as in your wisdom shall be thought proper.

Settlers on the afore^sd Lands

Obadiah Parker
Will^m Colburn
Josiah Blood
Stephen Harris
Jerahmal Cumings
Tho^s Dinsmoor
Eben^r Pearce
Peter Pawer
Abr^m Taylor Jun^r
Benj^a Farley
Henry Barton
Peter Wheeler
Robert Colburn
David Vering
Philip Woolerick
Nath^l Blood
William Adams
Joseph Taylor
Moses Procter
Will^m Shattuck
Tho^s Navins

Non Resident Proprietors

Samuel Browne
W Browne
Joseph Blanchard
John Fowle Jun^r
Nath Saltonstall
Joseph Eaton
Joseph Lemmon
Jeremiah Baldwin
Sam^l Baldwin
Daniel Remant
John Malven
Jon^a Malven
James Cumings
Isaac Farwell
Eben^r Procter

In the House of Representatives Dec^r 12th. 1738. Read and Ordered that the
Petitioners Serve the Towns of Grotton and Dunstable with Coppys of the
petition.

In Council January 4^th. 1738.

Read again and Ordered that the further Consideration of this Petition be
referred to the first tuesday of the next May Session and that James Minot and John
Hobson Esq^rs with Such as the Honourable Board shall joine be a Committee at the
Charge of the Petitioners to repair to the Lands petitioned for to be Erected into
a Township first giving Seasonable notice as well to the petitioners as to the
Inhabitants and Non Resident Proprietors of Lands within the s^d Towns of Dunstable
and Groton of the time of their going by Causing the same to be publish’d in the
Boston Gazette, that they carefully View the s^d Lands as well as the other parts
of the s^d Towns, so farr as may be desired by the Partys or thought proper, that
the Petitioners and all others Concerned be fully heard in their pleas and
Allegations for, as well as against the prayer of the Petition; and that upon
Mature Consideration on the whole the Committee then report what in their Opinion
may be proper for the Court to do in Answer there to Sent up for Concurrence.

J QUINCY Sp^kr.

In Council Jan^ry 9^th. 1738

Read and Concurred and Thomas Berry Esq^r is joined in the Affair

SIMON FROST Dep^ty. Sec^ry.

Consented to

J. BELCHER

A true Copy Exam^d per Simon Frost, Dep^y Sec^ry.

In the House of Rep^tives June 7^th: 1739

Read and Concurred

J QUINCY Sp^kr;

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 268-271.]

The Committee Appointed on the Petition of the Inhabitants and Proprietors
situated on the Westerly side of Dunstable and Northerly side of Groton, Having
after Notifying all parties, Repaired to the Lands, Petitioned to be Erected into a
Township, Carefully Viewed the same, Find a very Good Tract of Land in Dunstable
Westward of Nashuway River between s^d River and Souhegan River Extending from
Groton New Grant and Townsend Line Six Miles East, lying in a very Commodious Form
for a Township, and on said Lands there now is about Twenty Families, and many more
settling, that none of the Inhabitants live nearer to a Meeting House then Seven
miles and if they go to their own Town have to pass over a ferry the greatest part
of the Year. We also Find in Groton a sufficient Quantity of Land accommodable for
settlement, and a considerable Number of Inhabitants thereon, that in Some Short
Time when they are well Agreed may be Erected into a Distinct Parish; And that it
will be very [pg
350] Form prayed for or to Break in upon Either Town. The Committee are of
Opinion that the Petitioners in Dunstable are under such Circumstances as
necessitates them to Ask Relief which will be fully Obtained by their being made
Township, which if this Hon^ble. Court should Judge necessary to be done; The
Committee are Further of Opinion that it Will be greatly for the Good and Interest
of the Township that the Non Resident Proprietors, have Liberty of Voting with the
Inhabitants as to the Building and Placing a Meeting House and that the Lands be
Equally Taxed, towards said House And that for the Support of the Gosple Ministry
among them the Lands of the Non Resident Proprietors be Taxed at Two pence per Acre
for the Space of Five Years.

All which is Humbly Submitted in the Name & by Order of the Committee

THOMAS BERRY

In Council July 7 1739

Read and ordered that the further Consideration of this Report be referred to
the next Sitting, and that the Petitioners be in the meantime freed from paying any
thing toward the support of the ministry in the Towns to which they respectively
belong

Sent down for Concurrence

J WlLLARD Sec^ry

In the House of Rep^tives June 7: 1739 Read and Concurred

J QUINCY Sp^kr:

Consented to

J BELCHER

In Council Decem^r 27, 1739.

Read again and Ordered that this Report be so far accepted as that the Lands
mentioned and described therein, with the Inhabitants there be erected into a
Separate & distinct precinct, and the Said Inhabitants are hereby vested with
all Such Powers and Priviledges that any other Precinct in this Province have or by
Law ought to enjoy and they are also impowered to assess & levy a Tax of Two
pence per Acre per Annum for the Space of Five years on all the unimproved Lands
belonging to the non residents Proprietors to be applied for the Support of the
Ministry according to the Said Report.

Sent down for Concurrence

SIMON FROST Dep^y Sec^ry

In the House of Rep^tives Dec 28. 1739 Read and Concur’d.

J QUINCY Sp^kr:

Janu^ry. 1: Consented to,

J BELCHER

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 272, 273.]

While this petition was before the General Court, another one was presented
praying for a new township to be made up from the same towns, but including a larger
portion of Groton than was asked for in the first petition. This application met with
bitter opposition on the part of both places, but it may have hastened the final
action on the first petition. It resulted in setting off a precinct from Dunstable,
under the name of the West Parish, which is now known as Hollis, New Hampshire. The
papers relating to the second petition are as follows:—

To His Excellency Jonathan Belcher Esquire Captain General and Governor in Chief
in and over His Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, the
Honourable the Council and House of Representatives of said Province, in General
Court Assembled Dec. 12^th, 1739.

The Petition of Richard Warner and Others, Inhabitants of the Towns of Groton
and Dunstable.

Most Humbly Sheweth

That Your Petitioners dwell very far from the place of Public Worship in either
of the said Towns, Many of them Eight Miles distant, some more, and none less than
four miles, Whereby Your Petitioners are put to great difficulties in Travelling on
the Lord’s Days, with our Families.

Your Petitioners therefore Humbly Pray Your Excellency and Honours to take their
circumstances into your Wise and Compassionate Consideration, And that a part of
the Town of Groton, Beginning at the line between Groton and Dunstable where
inconvenient to Erect a Township in the [pg 351] it crosses Lancaster [Nashua] River, and so up the
said River until it comes to a Place called and Known by the name of Joseph Blood’s
Ford Way on said River, thence a West Point ’till it comes to Townshend line
&c. With such a part and so much of the Town of Dunstable as this Honourable
Court in their great Wisdom shall think proper, with the Inhabitants Thereon, may
be Erected into a separate and distinct Township, that so they may attend the
Public Worship of God with more ease than at present they can, by reason of the
great distance they live from the Places thereof as aforesaid.

And Your Petitioners, as in Duty bound, shall ever Pray &c.

Richard Warner
Benjamin Swallow
William Allin
Isaac Williams
Ebenezer Gilson
Ebenezer Peirce
Samuel Fisk
John Green
Josiah Tucker
Zachariah Lawrence Jun^r
William Blood
Jeremiah Lawrence
Stephen Eames

“[Inhabitants of Groton]”

Enoch Hunt
Eleazer Flegg
Samuel Cumings
William Blanchard
Gideon Howe
Josiah Blood
Samuel Parke
Samuel Farle
William Adams
Philip Wolrich

“[Inhabitants of Dunstable]”

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 274, 273.]

Province of the Massachusetts Bay

To His Excellency The Governour The Hon^ble Council & House of Rep^tives in
Generall Court Assembled Dec^r 1739

The Answer of y^e Subscribers agents for the Town of Groton to y^e Petition of
Richard Warner & others praying that part of Said Town with part of Dunstable
may be Erected into a Distinct & Seperate Township.

May it please your Excellency & Hon^rs

The Town of Groton Duely Assembled and Taking into Consideration y^e
Reasonableness of said Petition have Voted their Willingness, That the prayer of
y^e Petition be Granted as per their Vote herewith humbly presented appears, with
this alteration namely That they Include the River (viz^t Nashua River) over w^ch
is a Bridge, built Intirely to accommodate said Petitioners heretofore, & your
Respondents therefore apprehend it is but Just & Reasonable the same should for
the future be by them maintain’d if they are Set of from us.

Your Respondents Pursuant to y^e Vote Aforesaid, humbly move to your Excellency
& Hon^rs That no more of Dunstable be Laid to Groton Then Groton have voted of,
for one Great Reason that Induced Sundry of y^e Inhabitants of Groton to come into
Said Vote was This Namely They owning a very Considerable part of the Lands Voted
to be set of as afores^d were willing to Condesent to y^e Desires of their
Neighbours apprehending that a meeting House being Erected on or near y^e Groton
Lands & a minister settled it would Raise their Lands in Vallue but should
considerable part of Dunstable be set of more then of Groton it must of course draw
the Meeting House farther from y^e Groton Inhabitants which would be very hurtfull
both to the people petitioners & those that will be Non Resident proprietors if
the Township is made.

Wherefore they pray That Said New Township may be Incorporated Agreeable to
Groton Vote viz^t Made Equally out of both Towns & as in Duty bound Shall Ever
pray

Nat^ell Sartell
William Lawrence

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 378, 279.]

At A Legall town Meeting of the Inhabitants & free holders of the town of
Groton assembled December y^e 24th: 1739 Voted [pg 352] & Chose Cap^t William
Lawrance Madderator for said meeting &c:

In Answer to the Petion of Richard Warnor & others Voted that the land with
the Inhabitance mentioned in said Petion Including the Riuer from Dunstable Line to
o^r. ford way Called and Known by y^e. Name of Joseph Bloods ford way: be Set of
from the town of Groton to Joyn with sum of the westerdly Part of the town of
Dunstable to make a Distinct and Sepprate town Ship Prouided that their be no: More
taken from Dunstable then from Groton in making of Said new town. Also Voted that
Nathaniel Sawtell Esq^r. and Cap^t. William Lawrance be Agiants In the affair or
Either of them to wait upon the Great and Generial. Cort: to Vse their Best in
Deauer to set off the Land as a fores^d so that the one half of y^e said New town
may be made out of Groton and no: more.

Abstract Examined & Compaird of the town book of Record for Groton per

Iona^t. Sheple Town Clark

Groton Decem^br: 24^th: A:D: 1739

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 281.]

Province of y^e Mass^tts Bay

To His Excellency Jonathan Belcher Esq^r Governour &c To The Hon^d. His
Majesty’s Councill & House of Representatives in Gen^ll Court Assembled
December 1739

Whereas some few of the Inhabitants of Groton & Dunstable have Joyned in
their Petition to this Hon^d. Court to be erected with Certain Lands into a
Township as per their Petition entered the 12^th: Curr. which prayer if granted
will very much Effect y^e. Quiet & Interest of the Inhabitants on the northerly
part of Groton

Wherefore the Subscribers most Humbly begg leave To Remonstrate to y^or
Excellency & Hon^rs. the great & Numerous Damages that we and many Others
Shall Sustain if their Petition should be granted and would Humbly Shew

That the Contents of Groton is ab^t. forty Thousand Acres Good Land Sufficient
& happily Situated for Two Townships, and have on or near Two Hundred &
Sixty Familys Setled there with Large Accomodations for many more

That the land pray’d for Out of Groton Could it be Spared is in a very
Incomodious place, & will render a Division of the remaining part of the town
Impracticable & no ways Shorten the travel of the remotest Inhabit^nts.

That it will leave the town from the northeast and to the Southwest end at least
fourteen miles and no possibillity for those ends to be Accomodated at any Other
place which will render the Difficulties we have long Laboured under without
Remidy

That part of the lands Petitioned for (will when This Hon^d. Court shall see
meet to Divide us) be in & near the Middle of one of y^e. Townships

And Althô the number of thirteen persons is there Sett forth to Petition.
it is wrong and Delusive Severall of them gave no Consent to any Such thing And to
compleat their Guile have entered the names of four persons who has no Interest in
that part of the town viz Swallow Tucker Ames & Green

That there is near Double the number On the Lands Petit^d. for and Setled
amongst them who Declare Against their Proceedings, & here Signifie the
Same

That many of us now are at Least Seven miles from Our meeting And the Only
Encouragement to Settle there was the undeniable Accomodations to make An Other
town without w^ch. We Should by no means have undertaken

That if this their Petⁿ. Should Succed—Our hopes must Perish—thay
by no means benifitted—& we put to all the Hardships Immaginable.

That the whole tract of Land thay pray may be Taken Out of groton Contains about
Six or Seven Thousand Acres, (the Quantity and Situation may be Seen on y^e. plan
herewith And but Ab^t. four Or five hundred Acres thereof Owned by the Petit^rs.
and but very Small Improvements On that. Under all w^ch. Circumstances wee Humbly
conceive it unreasonable for them to desire thus to Harrase and perplex us. Nor is
it by Any means for the Accomodation of Dunstable thus to Joyn who have land of
their Own Sufficient and none to Spare [pg 353] without prejudicing their begun Settlement
Wherefore we most Humbly pray Y^or. Excellency & Hon^rs. to compassionate Our
Circumstances and that thay may not be set off and as in Duly bound &c

Benj^a. Parker
John Woods
Josiah Sartell
Samuel Shattuck iu
Joseph Spoaldeng Juner
James Larwance
Jonathan Shattuck
Nath^ll. Parker
James Shattuck
Jacob Lakin
John Chambrlen
Thomas Fisk
John Cumings
Isaac Lakin
Henery Jefes
John Shattuck
David Shattuck
John Scott
Seth Phillips
Benjⁿ. Robines
Samuel Wright
Isaac Woods
John Swallow
Enoch larwance
William Spoalding
John Blood
Jonathan Woods
James Green
Wiliam Cumings
Joseph Blood
Nathaniel Lawrence iu

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 282-284.]

Wee the Sub^rs: Inhab^ts: of y^e Town of Dunstable & Resident in that part
of it Called Nissitisitt Do hereby authorize and Fully Impower Abraham Taylor
Jun^r. and Peter Power to Represent to Gen^ll. Court our unwillingness that any
Part of Dunstable should [be] sett off to Groton to make a Township or Parish and
to Shew forth our Earness Desire that a Township be maide intirely out out
[sic] off Dunstable Land, Extending Six mils North from Groton Line which
will Bring the on the Line on y^e Brake of Land and Just Include the Present
Setlers: or otherwise As y^e Ho^ll. Commitee Reported and Agreeable to the tenour
thereoff as The Hon^rd Court shall see meet and as Duly bound &c

Tho^s: Dinmore, and 20 others.

Dunstable Dece^r; y^e 21^st; 1739

These may sertifie to y^e Hon^rd. Court that there is Nomber of Eleven more y^t
has not signed this Nor y^e Petetion of Richard Worner & others, that is now
setled and About to setle

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiv, 277.]

TUBEROSES.

YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS.

“Deep in unfathomable mines

  With never-failing skill,

He treasures up his bright designs,

  And works his gracious will.”

If in his temporal affairs God cares for man, much more will he do for his soul.
Great multitudes of young men came to be congregated in the cities, and Satan spread
his nets at every street-corner to entrap them.

In 1837, George Williams, then sixteen years of age, employed in a dry-goods
establishment, in Bridgewater, England, gave himself to the service of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He immediately began to influence the young men with him, and many of them
were converted. In 1841, Williams came to London, and entered the dry-goods house of
Hitchcock and Company. Here he found himself one of more than eighty young men,
almost none of them Christians. He found, however, among them a few professed
Christians, [pg 355]
and these he gathered in his bedroom, to pray for the rest. The number
increased—a larger room was necessary, which was readily obtained from Mr.
Hitchcock. The work spread from one establishment to another, and on the sixth of
June, 1844, in Mr. Williams’s bedroom the first Young Men’s Christian Association was
formed.

In 1844, one association in the world: in November, 1851, one association in
America, at Montreal; in December, one month after, with no knowledge on the part of
either of the other’s plan, one association in the United States, at Boston. Was it a
mere hap that these two groups formed simultaneously the associations which were
always to unite the young Christian men of the two countries, and to grow together,
till to-day the little one has become a thousand?

Forty years ago, one little association in London: to-day Great Britain dotted all
over with them; one hundred and ninety in England and Wales; one hundred and
seventy-eight in Scotland, and twenty in Ireland. France has eight districts, or
groups, containing sixty-four associations. Germany, divided into five bunds,
has four hundred; Holland, its eleven provinces, with three hundred and thirty-five;
Romansch Switzerland, eighty-seven; German Switzerland, one hundred and thirty-five;
Belgium, eighteen; Spain, fourteen; Italy, ten Turkey in Europe, one, at
Philippopolis; Sweden and Norway, seventy-one; Austria, two, at Vienna and Budapesth;
Russia, eight, among them Moscow and St. Petersburg; Turkey in Asia, nine; Syria,
five, at Beirût, Damascus, Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Nazareth; India, five; Japan,
two; Sandwich Islands, one, at Honolulu; Australia, twenty-seven; South Africa,
seven; Madagascar, two; West Indies, three; British Guiana, one, at Georgetown; South
America (besides), three; Canada and British Provinces, fifty-one. In the United
States, seven hundred and eighty-six.

In all, nearly twenty-seven hundred, scattered over the world, and all the
outgrowth of forty years. It has been said that the sun never rises anywhere that it
is not saluted by the British reveille. Look how quickly the organization of young
men has stretched its cordon round the world, and dotted it all over with the tents
of its conflict for them against the opposing forces of the evil one.

“The fundamental idea of the organization, on which all subsequent substantial
development has been based, was simply this: that in the associated effort of young
men connected with the various branches of the church of Christ lies a great power to
promote their own development and help their fellows, thus prosecuting the work of
the church among the most-important, most-tempted, and least-cared-for class in the
community.”

BUILDING OF THE Y.M.C.A. IN MONTREAL, CANADA.

The distinct work for young men was thus emphasized at the Chicago convention in
1863, in the following resolutions presented by the Reverend Henry G. Potter, then of
Troy, and now assistant bishop of the diocese of New York:—

“Resolved, That the interests and welfare of young men in our cities demand, as
heretofore, the steadfast sympathies and efforts of the Young Men’s Christian
Associations of this country.

“Resolved, That the various means by [pg 357] which Christian associations can gain a hold upon
young men, and preserve them from unhealthy companionship and the deteriorating
influences of our large cities, ought to engage our most earnest and prayerful
consideration.”

2. It is a Christian work. It stands upon the basis of the faith of the church of
all ages, which is thus set forth in the formula of this organization.

The convention in 1856 promptly accepted and ratified the Paris basis, adopted by
the first world’s conference of the associations, in the following
language:—

“The Young Men’s Christian Associations seek to unite those young men who,
regarding Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour, according to the Holy Scriptures,
desire to be his disciples in their doctrine and in their life, and to associate
their efforts for the extension of his kingdom among young men.”

This was reaffirmed in the convention of 1866 at Albany. In 1868, at the Detroit
convention, was adopted what is known as the evangelical test, and at the Portland
convention of 1869 the definition of the term evangelical; they are as
follows:—

“As these associations bear the name of Christian, and profess to be engaged
directly in the Saviour’s service, so it is clearly their duty to maintain the
control and management of all their affairs in the hands of those who love and
publicly avow their faith in Jesus the Redeemer as divine, and who testify their
faith by becoming and remaining members of churches held to be evangelical: and we
hold those churches to be evangelical which, maintaining the Holy Scriptures to be
the only infallible rule of faith and practice, do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
(the only begotten of the Father, King of kings and Lord of lords, in whom dwelleth
the fulness of the Godhead, bodily, and who was made sin for us, though knowing no
sin, bearing our sins in his own body on the tree) as the only name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved from everlasting punishment.”

But while the management is thus rightly kept in the hands of those who stand
together upon the platform of the church of Christ, the benefits and all other
privileges are for all young men of good morals, whether Greek, Romanist, heretic,
Jew, Moslem, heathen, or infidel. Its field, the world. Wherever there are young men,
there is the association field, and an extended work must be organized. Already in
August, 1855, the importance of the work made conference necessary, and thirty-five
delegates met at Paris, of whom seven were from the United States, and the same
number from Great Britain.

In 1858, a second conference was held at Geneva, with one hundred and fifty-eight
delegates. In 1862, at London, were present ninety-seven delegates; in 1865, at
Elberfeld, one hundred and forty; in 1867, at Paris, ninety-one; in 1872, at
Amsterdam, one hundred and eighteen; in 1875, at Hamburg, one hundred and
twenty-five; in 1878, at Geneva, two hundred and seven,—forty-one from the
United States; in 1881, in London, three hundred and thirty-eight,—seventy-five
from the United States.

At the conference of 1878, in Geneva, a man in the prime of life, and partner in a
leading banking-house of that city, was chosen president. He spoke with almost equal
ease the three languages of the conference—English, French, [pg 358] and German. Shortly after that
convention Mr. Fermand gave up his business and became the general secretary of the
world’s committee of the Young Men’s Christian Associations. He traveled over the
whole continent of Europe, visiting the associations, and then came to America to
make acquaintance with our plans of work. Now stationed at Geneva, with some resident
members of the convention, he keeps up the intercourse of the associations through
nine members representing the principal nations. I have spoken of the three languages
of the conference. It is a wonderful inspiration to find one’s self in a gathering of
all nations, brought together by the love of one person, each speaking in his own
tongue, praising the one name, so similar in each,—that name alone in each
address needing no interpretation.

BUILDING OF THE Y.M.C.A. IN NEW YORK.

The conference meets this year, in August, at Berlin, when probably as many as one
hundred delegates will be present from the United States.

But inter-association organization has gone much further in this country than
elsewhere, and communication is exceedingly close between the nine hundred
associations of America.

The first conception of uniting associations came to the Reverend William [pg 359] Chauncey
Langdon, then a layman, and a member of the Washington Association, now rector of the
Episcopal Church at Bedford, Pennsylvania. Mr. McBurney, in his fine Historical
Sketch of Associations, says: “Many of the associations of America owe their
individual existence to the organization effected through his wise foresight. The
associations of our land, and in all lands, owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Langdon
far greater than has ever been recognized.” Oscar Cobb, of Buffalo, and Mr. Langdon
signed the call to the first convention, which assembled on June 7, 1854, at Buffalo.
This was the first conference of associations held in the English-speaking world.
Here was appointed a central committee, located at Washington, and six elsewhere.

In 1860, Philadelphia was made the headquarters. The confederation of associations
and its committee came to an end in Chicago, June 4, 1863, and the present
organization with its international executive committee was born, with members
increasing in number. The committee now numbers thirty-three, two being resident in
New York City.

In the year 1865, a committee was appointed by the convention at Philadelphia. The
president of this convention became the chairman of the international executive
committee, consisting of ten members resident in New York City, and twenty-three
placed at different prominent points in the United States and British Provinces.
There is also a corresponding member of the committee in each State and province, and
means of constant communication between the committee and each association, and
between the several associations, through the Young Men’s Christian Association
Watchman, a sixteen-paged paper, published each fortnight in Chicago.

On the sixteenth day of April, 1883, the international committee, which had been
superintending the work since 1865, was incorporated in the State of New York. Cephas
Brainerd, a lawyer of New York City, a direct descendant of the Brainerds of
Connecticut, and present owner of the homestead, has always been chairman of the
committee, and, from a very large practice, has managed to take an immense amount of
time for this work, which has more and more taken hold on his heart,—and here
let me say that I know no work, not even that of foreign missions, which takes such a
grip upon those who enter upon it. Time, means, energy, strength, have been lavishly
poured out by them. Mr. Brainerd and his committee work almost as though it were
their only work, and yet each member of the committee is one seemingly fully occupied
with his business or professional duties. See the members of the Massachusetts
committee, so fired with love for this work that, in the gospel canvasses of the
State, after working all day, many of them give from forty to fifty evenings,
sometimes traveling all night to get back to their work in the morning. It is no
common cause that thus draws men out of themselves for others. Then, too, I greatly
doubt where there are such hard-worked men as the general secretaries,—days and
evenings filled with work that never ends; the work the more engrossing and exacting
because it combines physical and mental with spiritual responsibility. We who know
this are not surprised to find the strength of these men failing. Those who employ
them should carefully [pg
360] watch that relief is promptly given from time to time as needed. There
are now more than three hundred and fifty of these paid secretaries. Now, look back
over the whole history of the associations, and can you doubt that he who meets the
wants of his creatures has raised up the organization for the express purpose of
saving young men as a class? And to do this he employs the church itself—not
the church in its separate organizations, but the church universal. A work for all
young men should be by the young men of the whole church. First, because it is young
manhood that furnishes the common ground of sympathy. Second, because the appliances
are too expensive for the individual churches. Large well-situated buildings, with
all possible right attractions, are simply necessary to success in this work. These
things are so expensive that the united church only can procure them. That in
Philadelphia cost $700,000; in New York, $500,000; in Boston, more than $300,000; in
Baltimore, $250,000; in Chicago, $150,000; San Francisco, $76,000; Montreal, $67,000;
Toronto, $48,000; Halifax, $36,000; West New Brighton, New York, $19,000; at the
small town of Rockport, Massachusetts, about $4,000; and at Nahant, $2,000. In all
these are [pg 361]
eighty buildings, worth more than $3,000,000, while as many more have land or
building-funds. Third, how blessedly this sets forth the vital unity of Christ’s
church, “that they may all be one,” and also distinguishes them from all other
religious bodies. “Come out from among them and be ye separate.”

BUILDING OF THE Y.M.C.A. AT JACKSONVILLE, ILL.

This association work is divided into local (the city or town), state or home
mission, the international and foreign mission.

The local is purely a city or town work. The “state,” which I have called the home
mission, is thoroughly to canvass the State, learn where the association is needed,
plant it there, strengthen all existing associations, and keep open communication
between all. This is also the international work, but its field is the United States
and British Provinces, under the efficient management of this committee.

As has been said, the convention of 1866 appointed the international committee,
which was directed to call and arrange for state and provincial conventions. This is
the result: in 1866, no state or provincial committee or conventions. Now,
thirty-three such committees, thirty-one of which hold state or provincial
conventions, together with a large number of district and local conferences.

BUILDING OF Y.M.C.A. AT LYNN, MASS.

In 1870, Mr. R.C. Morse, a graduate of Yale College, and a minister of the
Presbyterian Church, became the general secretary of the committee and continues such
to-day. Of the missionary work of the committee the most conspicuous has been that at
the West and South. In 1868, the convention authorized the employment of a secretary
for the West. This man, Robert Weidansall, a graduate of Pennsylvania College,
Gettysburg, was found working in the shops of the Pacific Railroad Company at Omaha.
He had intended entering the ministry, but his health failed him. To-day there is no
question as to his health—he has a superb physique, travels constantly, works
extremely hard, and has been wonderfully successful. When he began there were
thirty-nine associations in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee. There was only
one secretary, and no building. Now there are nearly three hundred associations,
spending more than one hundred and [pg 362] ten thousand dollars; twenty general secretaries, and
five buildings. Nine States are organized, and five employ state secretaries. The
following words from a recent Kansas report sound strangely, almost like a joke, to
one who remembers the peculiar influence of Missouri upon the infant Kansas: “Kansas
owes much of her standing to-day to the fostering care and efforts of the Missouri
state executive committee.” In 1870, two visitors were sent to the Southern States.
There were then three associations only between Virginia and Texas. There are now one
hundred and fifty-seven.

BUILDING OF THE Y.M.C.A. AT TORONTO, CANADA.

Previous to the Civil War the work was well under way, but had been almost
entirely given up. Our visitors were not at once received as brethren, but Christian
love did its work and gradually all differences were forgotten by these Christians in
the wonderful tie which truly united them, and when, in 1877, the convention met at
Richmond, not only harmony prevailed, but it seemed as though each were trying to
prove to the other his intenser brotherly love. The cross truly conquered. No one who
was present can ever forget those scenes, or cease to bless God for what I truly
believe was the greatest step toward the uniting again of North and South. Mr. T.K.
Cree has had charge of this work since the beginning. Not only has sectional
spreading of associations been done by the committee, but, in the language of the
report already quoted: “Special classes of young men, isolated in a measure from
their fellows by virtue of occupation, training, or foreign birth, have from time to
time so strongly appealed to the attention of the American associations as to elicit
specific efforts in their behalf.” Thus, in 1868, the first secretary of the
committee was directed to devote his time to railroad employees. For one year he
labored among them. The general call on his time then became [pg 363] so imperative that he was
obliged to leave the railroad work. This work had been undertaken at St. Albans,
Vermont, in 1854, and in Canada in 1855. The first really important step in this work
was at Cleveland in 1872, when an employee of a railroad company, who had been a
leader in every kind of dissipation, was converted. He immediately began to use his
influence among his comrades, and such was the power of the Spirit that the Cleveland
Association took up the work and began holding meetings especially for these men. In
1877, Mr. E.D. Ingersol was appointed by the international committee to superintend
the work. There has been no rest for him in this. A leading railroad official says:
“Ingersol is indeed a busy man. Night and day he travels. To-day a railroad president
wants him here, to-morrow a manager summons him. He is going like a shuttle back and
forth across the country, weaving the web of railroad associations.” When he entered
on the work there were but three railroad secretaries; now there are nearly seventy.
There are now over sixty branches in operation; and the work is going on besides at
twenty-five points; almost a hundred different places, therefore, where specific work
is done for railroad men. They own seven buildings, valued at thirty-three thousand
two hundred and fifty dollars. The expense of maintaining these reading-rooms is over
eighty thousand dollars, and more than two thirds of this is paid by the corporations
themselves; most of the secretaries are on the regular pay-rolls of the companies.
How can this be done? Simply because the officers see such a return from this
expenditure in the morals and efficiency of their men that they have no doubt as to
the propriety of the investment.

Mr. William Thaw, vice-president of the Pennsylvania Company, writes: “This work
is wholly good, both for the men and the roads which they serve.” Mr. C. Vanderbilt,
first vice-president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, writes: “Few
things about railroad affairs afford more satisfactory returns than these
reading-rooms.” Mr. J.H. Devereux, of Cleveland, president of the Cleveland,
Columbus, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis Railway, writes: “The association work has
from the beginning (now ten years ago) been prosecuted at Cleveland satisfactorily
and with good results. The conviction of the board of superintendents is that the
influence of the room and the work in connection with it has been of great value to
both the employer and the employed, and that the instrumentalities in question should
not only be encouraged but further strengthened.” Mr. John W. Garrett, president of
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, says: “A secretary of the Young Men’s
Christian Association, for the service of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company,
was appointed in 1879, and I am gratified to be able to say that the officers under
whose observation his efforts have been conducted informed me that this work has been
fruitful of good results.” Mr. Thomas Dickson, president of the Delaware and Hudson
Canal Company, writes: “This company takes an active interest in the prosperity of
the association, and will cheerfully co-operate in all proper methods for the
extension of its usefulness.” Mr. H.B. Ledyard, general manager of the Michigan
Central Railroad Company, writes: “I have taken a deep interest in the work of [pg 364] the Young Men’s
Christian Association among railroad men, and believe that, leaving out all other
questions, it is a paying investment for a railroad company.”

BUILDING OF THE Y.M.C.A. IN CHICAGO.

These are a few out of a great number of assurances from railroad men of the value
of this organization. In Chicago, the president of one of the leading railroads, the
general superintendent of another, and other officials, are serving on the railroad
committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and it is hoped that at every
railway centre there may soon be an advisory committee of the work. Such a committee
is now forming in Boston. This work should interest every individual, because it
touches every one who ever journeys by train. [pg 365] Speak as some men may,
faithlessly, concerning religion, where is the man who would not feel safer should he
know that the engineer and conductor of his train were Christians? men not only
caring for others, but themselves especially cared for.

Frederick von Schluembach, of noble birth, an officer in the Prussian army, was a
leader there in infidelity and dissipation to such a degree as to drive him to this
country at the time of our Civil War. He went into service and attained to the rank
of captain. His conversion was remarkable and he brought to his Saviour’s service all
the intense earnestness and zeal that he had been giving to Satan. He joined the
Methodists and became a minister among them. His heart went out to the multitudes of
his countrymen here, and especially to the young; thus he came in contact with the
central committee and was employed by them to visit German centres. This was in 1871,
in Baltimore, where took place the first meeting of the national bund of
German-speaking associations. At their request Mr. Von Schluembach took the field,
which has resulted, after extreme opposition on the part of the German churches, in
eight German Young Men’s Christian Associations, besides an equal number of German
committees in associations. When we remember that there are more than two million
Germans in this country, and that New York is the fourth German city in the world, we
can scarcely overestimate the greatness of this work. Mr. Von Schluembach was obliged
on account of ill health to go to Germany for a while, and, recovering, formed
associations there,—the one in Berlin being especially powerful, some of
“Caesar’s household” holding official positions in it. He has now returned, and with
Claus Olandt, Jr., is again at work among his countrymen. His first work on returning
was to assist in raising fifty thousand dollars for the German building in New York
City.

Mr. Henry E. Brown has always since the war been intensely interested in the
colored men of the South. Shortly after graduation at Oberlin College, Ohio, he
founded, and was for two years president of, a college for colored men in Alabama. He
is now secretary for the committee among this class at the South, and speaks most
encouragingly of the future of this work.

In 1877, there was graduated a young man named L.D. Wishard, from Princeton
College. To him seems to have been given a great desire for an inter-collegiate
religious work. He, with his companions, issued a call to collegians to meet at the
general convention of Young Men’s Christian Associations at Louisville. Twenty-two
colleges responded and sent delegates. Mr. Wishard was appointed international
secretary. One hundred and seventy-five associations have now been formed, with
nearly ten thousand members. These colleges report about ninety Bible-classes during
the past year. Fifteen hundred students have professed conversion through the
association; of these forty have decided to enter the ministry, and two of these are
going to the foreign fields.

The work is among the men most likely to occupy the highest position in the
country, hence its importance is very great. Mr. Wishard is quite overtaxed and help
has been given him at times, but he needs, and so also does the railroad work, an
assistant secretary.

There is a class of men in our [pg 366] community who are almost constantly traveling. Rarely
at home, they go from city to city. The temptations to these men are peculiar and
very great. In 1879, Mr. E.W. Watkins, himself one of this class of commercial
travelers, was appointed secretary in their behalf. He has since visited all the
principal associations, and has created an interest in these neglected men. Among the
appliances which are productive of the most good is the traveler’s ticket, which
entitles him to all the privileges of membership in any place where an association
may be. A second most valuable work is the hotel-visiting done by more than fifty
associations each week. The hotel-registers are consulted on Saturday afternoon, and
a personal note is sent to each young man, giving him the times of service at the
several churches and inviting him to the rooms. Is it necessary to call the attention
of business men to the importance to themselves of this work? Is it not patent? You
cannot follow the young man whose honesty and clear-headedness is of such consequence
to you. God has put it into the heart of this association to try and care for those
men, upon whom your success largely depends. Can you be blind to its value? Every
individual man who employs commercial travelers should aid the work. But how is all
this great work for young men carried on? It requires now thirty thousand dollars a
year to do it. Of this sum New York pays more than one half, Pennsylvania about one
sixth, and Massachusetts less than one fifteenth. But to do this work
properly,—this work of the universal church of Christ for young men,—at
least one third more, or forty thousand dollars a year, is needed. There is another
need, however, much harder to meet—the men to fill the places calling earnestly
for general secretaries. There are nearly three hundred and fifty paid employees in
the field, representing about two hundred associations. Since every association
should have a secretary, and there are nearly, if not quite, nine hundred, the need
will be clearly seen. This need it is proposed to meet by training men in schools
established for the purpose. Something of this has already been done in New York
State and at Peoria, Illinois, and there must soon be a regular training-school
established to accommodate from fifty to one hundred men.

This is a very meagre sketch of a great work. How inadequately it portrays it,
none know so well as those who are immediately connected with it. Could you have been
present at a dinner given a few months ago to the secretaries of the international
committee, and heard each man describe his field and its needs; could you have seen
the intensity with which each endeavored to make us feel what he himself realized,
that his special field was the most important,—you would have come to our
conclusion: that each field was all-important, and that each man was in his proper
place, peculiarly fitted for it and assigned to it by the Master.

A prominent divine has lately said: “I believe the Young Men’s Christian
Association to be the greatest religious fact of the nineteenth century.”

What has been effected by this fact? Thousands of young men in all parts of the
world have been brought to Jesus Christ. It has been the training-school for Moody,
Whittle, and hosts of laymen who are to-day proclaiming the simple Gospel. It has
organized great evangelistic movements both here and [pg 367] abroad. It formed the
Christian Commission, which not only relieved the wants of the body during our war,
but sent hundreds of Christ’s missionaries to the hospitals and battle-fields. It has
gloriously manifested the unity of Christ’s true church. It stands to-day an organic
body, instinct with one life, spreading its limbs through the world, active, alert,
ready at any moment to respond to the call of the church, and enables it to present
an unbroken front to superstition and infidelity, which already rear their brazen
heads against Christ and his church, and will soon be in open rebellion and actual
warfare, and which Christ at his coming will forever destroy.

[NOTE.—Through the kindness of Messrs. Harper and Brothers, of New York, we
present to our readers the two portraits in this article. For the cuts of the
buildings we are indebted to the Chicago Watchman, mention of which is made
above.—R.S., Jr.]

GEORGE FULLER.

The death of George Fuller has removed a strong and original figure from the
activity of American art, and added a weighty name to its history. To speak of him
now, while his work is fresh in the public mind, is a labor of some peril; so easy is
it, when the sense of loss is keen, to make mistakes in judgment, and to allow the
friendly spirit to prevail over the judicial, in an estimation of him as a man and a
painter. Yet he has gone in and out before us long enough to make a study of him
profitable, and to give us, even now, some occasion for an opinion as to the place he
is likely to occupy in the annals of our native art. Mr. Fuller held a peculiar
position in American painting, and one which seems likely to remain hereafter
unfilled. He followed no one, and had no followers; his art was the outgrowth of
personal temperament and experience, rather than the result of teaching, and although
he studied others, he was himself his only master. In other men whose names are
prominent in our art, we seem to see the direction of an outside influence. Stuart
and Copley confessed to the teaching of the English school of their day—a
school brilliant but formal, and holding close guiding-reins over its disciples;
Benjamin West became denationalized, so far as his art was concerned; Allston showed
the impression of England, Italy, and Flanders, all at once, in his refined and
thoughtful style, and Hunt manifested in every stroke of his brilliant brush the
learned and facile methods that are in vogue in the leading ateliers of modern Paris.
In these men, and in the followers whom their preëminent ability drew after
them, we perceive the dominant impulse to be of alien origin; Fuller alone, of all
the great ones in our art, was in thought and action purely and simply American. The
influence that led others into the error of imitation, seems to have been exerted
unavailingly upon his self-reliant mind. We shall search vainly if we look elsewhere
than within himself for the suggestions upon which his art was established.
Superficial resemblances to other painters are sometimes to be noted in his works,
but in governing principle and habit of thought he was serenely and grandly
alone.

We must regard him thus if we would study him understandingly, and gain from our
observation a correct estimate of his power. We think of our other painters as in the
crowd, and amid the affairs of men, and detect in their art a certain uneasiness
which the bustle about them necessarily caused. We perceive this most in Hunt, who
was emphatically a man of the world, and in Stuart, who shows in some of his later
work that his position as the court painter of America, while it aided his purse and
reputation, harmed his repose; least in Allston, whose tastes were literary, whose
love was in retirement, and who would have been a poet had not circumstances first
placed a brush and palette in his hands. Allston, however, enjoyed popularity, and
was courted by the best society of his time, and was not permitted, although he
doubtless longed for it, to indulge to its full extent his chaste and dreamy fancy.
It may be said without disrespect to his undoubted powers, that he would have been
less esteemed in his own day if his art had not been largely conventional, and thus
easily understood by those who had studied the accepted masters of painting. He
lacked positive force of idea, as his works clearly show,—that quality which
was among the most characteristic traits of Fuller’s method, and made him at once the
greatest genius, and the man most misunderstood, among contemporary American
painters.

Although men who have not had “advantages” in life are naturally prone to regret
their deprivation, they frequently owe their success to this seeming bar against
opportunity. We have often seen illustrated in our art the fact that favorable
circumstances do not necessarily insure success, and now from the life of Fuller we
gain the still more important truth, that power is never so well aroused as in the
face of obstacles. Few men endured more for art than he; none have waited more
uncomplainingly for a recognition that was sure to come by-and-by, or received with
greater serenity the approbation which the dull world came at last to bestow. His
history is most wholesome in its record of steadfast resting upon conviction, and
teaches quite as strongly as his pictures do, the value of absorption in a lofty
idea.

If the saying that those nations are the happiest that have no history is true of
men, Mr. Fuller’s life must be regarded as exceptionally fortunate. Considered by
itself, it was quiet and uneventful, and had little to excite general interest; but
when viewed in its relation to the practice of his art, it is found to be full of
eloquent suggestions to all who, like him, have been appointed to win success through
suffering. The narrative of his experience comprises two great periods—the
preparation, which covered thirty-four years, and the achievement, to the enjoyment
of which less than eight years were permitted. The first period is subdivided into
two, of which one embraces eighteen years, from the time when, at the age of twenty,
he entered upon the study of his art, to his retirement from the world to the exile
of his Deerfield farm; the other including sixteen years of seclusion, until, at the
age of fifty-four, he came forth again to proclaim a new revelation. The first part
of his career may be dismissed without any extended consideration. Its record
consists of an almost unrelieved account of struggle, indifferent success, and lack
of appreciation and encouragement, in the cities of Boston [pg 369] and New York. In Boston he
appeared as the student, rather than the producer of works, and laid the foundation
of his style in observation of the paintings of Stuart, Copley, Allston, and
Alexander,—all excellent models upon which to base a practice, although
destined to show little of their influence upon the pictures which he painted in the
maturity of his power. It is not to be doubted, however, that all these men, and
particularly Stuart, made an impression upon him which he was never afterward wholly
able to conceal. We may see even in some of his latest works, under his own peculiar
manner, suggestions of Stuart, particularly in portraits of women, which in pose and
expression, and to a considerable degree in color, show much of that dignity and
composure which so distinguish the female heads of our greatest portrait-painter. He
always admired Stuart, and in his later years spoke much of him, with strong
appreciation for his skill in describing character, and the refined taste which is
such a marked feature of his best manner.

His work in Boston made no particular impression upon the public mind, and after
five years’ trial of it he removed to New York, where he joined that brilliant circle
of painters and sculptors which, with its followers, has made one of the strongest
impressions, if not the most valuable or permanent, upon the art of America. During
his residence in that city he devoted himself almost exclusively to
portrait-painting, in which he developed a manner more distinguished for conventional
excellence than any particular individuality. It was remarked of him, however, that
he was disposed, even at this time, to seek to present the thought and disposition of
his subjects more strongly than their merely physical features, and among his
principal associates excited no little appreciative comment upon this tendency. In
some of his portraits of women of that period, wherein he evidently attempted to
present the superior fineness and sensibility of the feminine nature, this effort
toward ideality is quite strongly indicated; they are painted with a more hesitating
and lingering touch than his portraits of men, and with a certain seeming lack of
confidence, which throws about them a thin fold of that veil of etherialism and
mystery which so enwraps nearly all his pictures of the last eight years. This
treatment, however, seems to have been at that time more the result of experiment
than conviction; later in life he wrought its suggestions into a system, the
principles of which we may study further on. His earlier work, as has been said, was
chiefly confined to portrait-painting, although it is a significant fact that among
his pictures of that time are two which show that the feeling for poetical and
imaginative effort was working in him. At a comparatively early age he painted an
impression of Coleridge’s Genevieve, which showed marked evidence of power, and
later, after seeing a picture of the school of Rubens, which was owned by one of his
artist friends, produced a study which he afterward seems to have developed into his
well-known Boy and Bird; a Cupid-like figure, holding a bird closely against its
breast. These exercises, however, seem to have been, as it were, accidental, and had
little or no effect in leading him to the practice in which he afterward became
absorbed.

His life in New York, which was [pg 370] interrupted only by three winter trips to the South,
whither he went in the hope of securing some commissions for portraits, was an
uneventful experience of very modest pecuniary success, and brought him as the only
official honor of his life an election as associate of the National Academy of
Design. He then went to Europe, where, for eight months, he carefully studied the old
masters in the principal galleries of England and the Continent. This visit to the
Old World was of incalculable value to him in the method of painting which he
afterward made his own, and, in point of fact, gave him his first decided inclination
toward it. Its best influence, however, was in giving him confidence in himself, and
assurance of the reasonableness of the views which he had already begun to entertain.
He had been led before to regard the old masters as superior to rivalry and incapable
of weakness, superhuman characters, indeed, whose works should discourage effort.
Instead of this, however, he found them to be men like himself, with their share of
defect and error, yet made grand by inspiration and idea, and this knowledge greatly
encouraged him, a man who of all painters was at once the most modest and devoted.
Most painters who resort to Europe to study the old art find there one or two men
whose works make the strongest appeals to their liking, and, devoting their attention
chiefly to these, they show ever after the marks of an influence that is easily
traced to its source; Fuller, however, observed with broader and more penetrating
view, and, as his works show, seems to have studied men less than principles, and to
have been filled with admiration, not so much for particular practices as for the
common and lofty spirit in which the greatest of the world’s painters labored. The
colorists and chiaroscurists, such as Titian on the one hand and Rembrandt on the
other, seem to have impressed him particularly, and of all men Titian the most
strongly, as many of his pictures testify, and as such glowing works as the Arethusa
and the Boy and Bird unmistakably show. Yet it was not in matter or in manner, but in
the expression of a great truth, that the old masters most strongly affected him. He
felt at once, and grew to admire greatly, their repose and modesty, calm strength and
undisturbed temper, and drew from them the important principle that true genius may
be known by its confessing neither pride nor self-distrust. The serenity of their
style he sought at once to appropriate, and thereafter worked as much as possible in
imitation of their evident purpose, striving simply to do his best, without any
question of whether the result would please, or another’s effort be reckoned as
greater than his own. It became a governing principle with him never to seek to outdo
any one, or to feel anything but pleasure at another’s success, for he was not a man
who could fail to recognize the truth that envy is fatal to a fine mood in any labor.
Few artists, we may well believe, study the great art of the world in this spirit, or
derive from it such a lesson.

On his return to America, he betook himself to his native town of Deerfield, to
assume for a time the care of the ancestral farm, which the death of his father had
placed in his hands. He had returned from Europe full of inspired ideas, and was
apparently ready to go on at once in new paths of labor; but the voice of duty seemed
to him to [pg 371]
call him away from his chosen life, and he obeyed its summons without hesitation.
Moreover, he loved the country and the family homestead, and may have perceived,
also, that the condition of art in Boston and New York was not such as to encourage
an original purpose, and that, if he was ever to gain success, he must develop
himself in quiet, and aloof from the distracting influences of other methods and men.
It is easy to perceive, with the complete record of his life before us, that this
experience of labor and thought upon the Deerfield farm, although at first sight
forming an hiatus in his career, was really its most pregnant period, and that
without it the Fuller who is now so much admired might have been lost to us, and the
spirit that appears in his later works never have been awakened. It is, indeed, a
spirit that can find no congenial dwelling-place in towns, but makes its home in the
fields and on the hillsides, to which the poet-painter, depressed but not cast down
by his experience of life, repaired to work and dream. For sixteen years, in the
midst of the fairest pastoral valley of New England, he lived in the contemplation of
the ideas that had passed across his mind in the quiet of European galleries, and now
became more definite impressions. The secret of those years, with their deep, slow
current of refined and melancholy thought, is now sealed with him in eternal sleep;
but from the works that remain to us as the matured fruits of his life, we may gain
some hint of his experiences. It is not to be questioned that he drew from the
New-England soil that he tilled, and the air that he breathed, an inspiration which
never failed him. The flavor of the quiet valley fills all his canvases. We see in
them the spaciousness of its meadows, the inviting slope of its low hills, the calm
grandeur of its encircling mountains, the mysterious gloom and wholesome brightness
of its changing skies, the atmosphere of history and romance which is its breath and
life. Song and story have found many incidents for treatment in this locality. Not
far from the farm where Fuller’s daily work was done, the tragedy of Bloody Brook was
enacted; the fields which he tilled have their legend of Indian ambuscade and
massacre; the soil is sown, as with dragon’s teeth, with the arrow-heads and
battle-axes of many bitter conflicts; even to the ancient house where, in recent
years, the painter’s summer easel was set up, a former owner was brought home with
the red man’s bullet in his breast. The menace of midnight attack seems even now to
the wanderer in the darkness to burden the air of these mournful meadows, and
tradition shows that here were felt the ripples of that tide of superstitious frenzy
which flowed from Salem through all the early colonies. No place could have furnished
more potent suggestions to the art-idealist than this, and although it did not lead
him to paint its tragic history (for no man had less liking for violence and passion
than he), it impressed him deeply with its concurrent records of endurance and
devotion. Nor did it invite him, as it might have done in the case of a weaker man,
into mere description, but having aroused his thought, it submitted itself wholly to
the treatment of his strong and original genius. He approached his task with a broad
and comprehensive vision, and a loving and inquiring soul. He was not satisfied with
the revelation of his eyes alone, but sought earnestly for the secret of [pg 372] nature’s life,
and of its influence upon the sensitive mind of man. He perceived the truth that
nature without man is naught, even as there is no color without light, and strove
earnestly to show in his art the relations that they sustain to each other. He saw,
also, that the material in each is nothing without the spirit which they share in
common, and thus he painted not places, but the influence of places, even as he
painted not persons merely, but their natures and minds. It is for this reason that,
although we see in all his pictures where landscape finds a place the meadows, trees,
and skies of Deerfield, we also see much more,—the general and unlocated spirit
of New-England scenery.

This is the true impressionism—a system to which Fuller was always constant
in later life, and which he developed grandly. He was, however, as far removed as
possible from that cheap, shallow, and idealess school of French painters whose
wrongful appropriation of the name “Impressionist” has prejudiced us against the
principle that it involves. The inherent difference between them and Fuller lies in
this—he exercised a choice, and thought the beautiful alone to be worthy of
description, while they selected nothing, but painted indiscriminately all things,
with whatever preference they indicated lying in the direction of the strong and
ugly, as being most imperative in its demands for attention. Fuller’s subjects were
always sweet and noble, and it followed as a matter of course that his treatment of
them was refined and strong. His idea was also broad; he sought for the typical in
nature and life, and grew inevitably into a continually widening and more
comprehensive style. He taught himself to lose the sense of detail, and to strike at
once to the centre, presenting the vital idea with decision, and departing from it
with increasing vagueness of treatment, until the whole area of his work was filled
with a harmonious and carefully graduated sense of suggestion. He arrived at his
method by an original way of studying the natural world. He did not, as most artists
do, take his paint-box and easel and devote himself to description, and from his
studies work out the finished picture. Instead, he disencumbered himself of all
materials for making memoranda, and merely stood before the scene that impressed him,
looking upon it for hours at a time. Then he betook himself to his studio, and there
worked from the impression that his mind had formed under the guiding-hand of his
fancy, the result being that nature and human thought appeared together upon the
canvas, giving a double grace and power. The process was subtle, and not to be
described clearly even by the painter himself, who found his work so largely a matter
of inspiration that he was never able to make copies of his pictures. They grew out
of his consciousness in a strange way whose secret he could not grasp; to the end of
his life he was an inquirer, always hesitating, and never confident in anything
except that art was truth, and that he who followed it must walk in modesty and
humbleness of spirit before the greatness of its mystery. A man of ideas and
sentiment, remote from the clamor of schools and the complaints of critics, with
recollections of the grandest art of the world in his mind, and beautiful aspects of
nature continually before his eyes, he could hardly fail to work out a style of
marked originality. The effort, however, was slow; one does not erase on the instant
the impressions that [pg
373] eighteen years of study and practice have made, and Fuller found his life
at Deerfield none too long to rid him of his respect for formulas.

His experience there was a continuous round of study. He completed little,
although he painted much, inexorably blotting out, no matter after what expenditure
of labor, the work that failed to respond to his idea, and striving constantly to be
simple, straightforward, and impressive, without being vapid, arrogant, or dogmatic.
He possessed in large measure that rarest of gifts to genius—modesty—and
approached the secrets of nature and life more tremblingly as he passed from their
outer to their inner circles. It was a necessity of his peculiar feeling and manner
of study that he should develop a lingering, hesitating, half-uncertain style of
painting, which, however variously it may be viewed by different minds, is
undoubtedly of the utmost effectiveness in describing the principles, rather than the
facts, of nature and life. This way of presenting his idea, which some call a
“mannerism,”—a term that has wrongly come to have a suggestion of contempt
attached to it,—was with him a principle, and employed by him as the one in
which he could best express truth. Art may justly claim great latitude in this
endeavor, and schools and systems arrogate too much when they seek to define its
limitations. Absolute truth to nature is impossible in art, which is constrained to
lie to the eye in order to satisfy the mind, and continually transposes the harmonies
of earth and sky into the minor key. Fuller offended the senses often, but he touched
that nerve-centre in the heart, without which impressions are not truly recognized.
He won liking, rather than startled men into it, and his art, instead of approaching,
retired and beckoned. His figures never “came out of the frame at you,” as is the
common expression of admiration nowadays. He put everything at a distance, made it
reposeful, and drew about figure and landscape an atmosphere which not only made them
beautiful, but established a strange and reciprocal mood of sentiment between them.
He alone of all American painters filled the whole of his canvas with air; others
place a barrier to atmosphere in their middle distance, and it comes no farther, but
he brought it over to the nearest inch of foreground. This treatment, while it aided
the quietness and restful mystery of his pictures, also strengthened his constant
effort to avoid marked contrasts. He sought always a general impression, and
ruthlessly sacrificed everything that called attention to itself at the expense of
the whole. Yet he was not a man of swift insight in comprehensive matters, nor one
who could be called clever. Weighty in thought as in figure, he moved slowly and in
long waves, and although of marked quickness in intuition, he seemed to distrust this
quality in himself until he had proved it by reason. He received his motive as by a
spark quicker than the lightning’s, and when he began a work saw its intention
clearly, although its form and details were wholly obscured. Out of a mist of
darkness he saw a face shine dimly with some light of joy or sorrow that was in it,
and at the moment caught its suggestion upon the waiting canvas. Then came inquiry,
explanation, reasoning, the exercise of a manly and poetic sensibility, and endless
experiment with lines and forms, of which the greater part were meaningless, until by
[pg 374] unwearied
searching, and constant trial and correction, the complete idea was expressed at
last.

When a painter produces works in this strange fashion, an involved and confused
manner of technical treatment becomes inevitable. The schools, which glorify manual
skill and the swift and exhilarating production of effects, cannot appreciate it, for
all their teaching is opposed to the principle that makes technique subordinate to
idea, and they cannot look with favor upon a man who boldly reverses everything. The
perfect art undoubtedly rests upon a combination of sublime thought and entire
command of resources, but while we wait for this we shall not make mistake if we
consider the effective, even if unlicensed, expression of idea superior to a facility
that has become cheap from hundreds mastering it yearly. We cannot close our eyes to
Fuller’s technical faults and weaknesses, but his pictures would undeniably be a less
precious heritage to American art than they now are, if he had not been great enough
to perceive that academic skill becomes weak by just so much as it is magnified, and
is strong only when viewed in its just relation, as the means to an end. We perplex
and confuse ourselves in studying his work, and are naturally a little irritated that
he keeps his secret of power so well; yet we cannot help feeling that his style is
wonderfully adapted to the end in view, and perhaps the only appropriate medium for
the expression of a habit of thought that is as peculiar as itself. Schools will
insist, and with reason, upon working by rule; yet in art, as in other discipline of
teaching, genius does not develop itself until it escapes from its instructors.

Mr. Fuller’s life was constantly swayed by circumstances, and through it all he
was impelled to steps which he might never have taken of his own accord. He was drawn
by influences that he could not control into his fruitful course of study and
experience at Deerfield, where his farm gave him support, and permitted him to
indulge in an unembarrassed practice of his art; then, when his time was ripe, he was
driven by the sharp lash of financial embarrassment into the world again. Eight years
ago he reappeared in Boston, with about a dozen paintings of landscapes, ideal heads,
and small figures, which were exhibited and promptly sold amid every expression of
interest and favor. Confirmed and strengthened in his belief by this success, he
again established his studio here, and began that series of remarkable works which
have given him a place among the greatest of American painters. The touch of popular
favor quickened him into a lofty and quiet enthusiasm, and stimulated both his
imagination and his descriptive powers. During all his experience at Deerfield a
certain lack of self-confidence seems to have prevented him from making any large
endeavor, but with his convictions endorsed by the public, he attempted at once to
labor on a more ambitious scale. He broadened his canvases, and increased the size of
his figures and landscapes, and where he was before sweet and inviting, became strong
and impressive, yet still holding all his former qualities. The first year of his new
residence in Boston saw the production of The Dandelion Girl, a light-hearted,
careless creature, full of a life that had no touch of responsibility, and
descriptive of a joyous and ephemeral mood. A long step forward was taken in The
Romany Girl, which immediately followed,—a [pg 375] work full of fire and freedom,
strongly personal in suggestion, and marked by a wild and impatient individuality
which revealed in the girl the impression of a lawless ancestry, that somehow and
somewhere had felt the action of a finer strain of blood. The next year Fuller
reached the highest point of his inspiration and power in The Quadroon, a work which
is likely to be held for all time as his masterpiece, so far as strength of idea,
importance of motive, and vivid force of description are concerned. Without violence,
even without expression of action, but simply by a pair of haunting eyes, a
beautiful, despairing face, and a form confessing utter weariness and abandonment of
hope, he revealed all the national shame of slavery, and its degradation of body and
soul. Every American cannot but blush to look upon it, so simple and dignified is its
rebuke of the nation’s long perversity and guilt. The artist’s next important effort
was the famous Winifred Dysart, as far removed in purpose from The Quadroon as it
could well be, yet akin to it by its added testimony to the painter’s constant
sympathy with weak and beseeching things, and worthy to stand at an equal height with
the picture of the slave by virtue of its beauty of conception, loveliness of
character, and pathetic appeal to the interest. It was in all respects as typical and
comprehensive as The Quadroon itself, holding within its face and figure all the
sweetness and innocence of New-England girlhood, yet with the shadow of an
uncongenial experience brooding over it, and perhaps of inherited weakness and early
death. And the wonder of it all was that the girl had no sign about herself of
longing or discontent; she was not of a nature to anticipate or dream, and the
spectator’s interest was intensified at seeing in her and before her what she herself
did not perceive. That art can give such power of suggestion to its creations is a
marvel and a delight.

Following these two works—and at some distance, although near enough to
confirm and even increase the painter’s fame—came the Priscilla, Evening;
Lorette, Nydia, Boy and Bird, Hannah, Psyche, and others, ending this year with the
Arethusa, whose glowing and chastened loveliness makes it his strongest purely
artistic work, and confirms the technical value of his method as completely as The
Quadroon and Winifred Dysart do his habit of thought. He painted innumerable
landscapes, portraits, and ideal heads, and in figure compositions produced, among
others, two works of great and permanent value, the And She Was a Witch, and The
Gatherer of Simples, to whose absorbing interest all who have studied them closely
will confess. The latter, particularly, is of importance as showing how carefully
Fuller studied into the secret of expression, and of nature’s sympathy with human
moods. This poor, worn, sad, old face, in which beauty and hope shone once, and where
resignation and memory now dwell; this trembling figure, to whose decrepitude the
bending staff confesses as she totters down the hill; the gathering gloom of
the sky, in which one ray of promise for a bright to-morrow shines from the setting
sun; the mute witnessing of the trees upon the hill, which have seen her pass and
repass from joyful youth to lonely age, and even her eager grasp upon the poor
treasure of herbs that she bears,—all these items of the scene impress [pg 376] one with a
sympathy whose keenness is even bitter, and excite a deep respect and love for the
man who could paint with so much simplicity and power. It is not strange that when
the news of his death became known, many who had never seen him, but had studied the
pictures in his latest exhibition, should have come, with tears in their eyes, to the
studios which neighbored his, to learn something of his history.

Such works are not struck out in a heat, but grow and develop like human lives,
and it will not surprise many to know that most of them were labored on for years.
With Fuller, a picture was never completed. His idea was constantly in advance of his
work, and persisted in new suggestions, so that the Winifred Dysart was two years in
the painting, the Arethusa five, and The Gatherer of Simples and the Witch, after an
even longer course of labor, were held by him at his death as not yet satisfactory.
The figures in the two works last mentioned have suffered almost no change since
first put upon the canvas, but they have from time to time appeared in at least a
dozen different landscapes, and would doubtless have been placed in as many more
before he had satisfied his fastidious and exacting taste.

The artist found as much difficulty in naming his pictures when they were done as
he did in painting them. It is a prevalent, but quite erroneous, impression that his
habit was to select a subject from some literary work, and then attempt to paint it
in the light of the author’s ideas. His practice exactly reversed this method: he
painted his picture first, and then tried to evolve or find a name that would fit it.
The name Winifred Dysart, which is without literary origin or meaning, and yet in
some strange way seems the only proper title for the work to which it is attached,
came out of the artist’s own mind. His Priscilla was started as an Elsie Venner, but
he found it impossible to work upon the lines another had laid down without too much
cramping his own fancy; when half done he thought of calling it Lady Wentworth, and
at last gave it its present name by chance of having taken up The Blithedale Romance,
and noting with pleased surprise how closely Hawthorne’s account of his heroine
fitted his own creation. The Nydia was started with the idea of presenting the
helplessness of blindness, with a hint of the exaltation of the other senses that is
consequent upon the loss of sight, and showed at first merely a girl groping along a
wall in search of a door; and the Arethusa was the outgrowth of a general inspiration
caused by a reading of Spenser’s Faerie Queen, and did not receive its present very
appropriate name until its exhibition made some designation necessary.

I have devoted this study on of Mr. Fuller to his quality as an artist rather than
to his character as a man, but shall have written in vain if some hint has not been
given of the loveliness of his disposition, the modesty of his spirit, the chaste
force of his mind. A man inevitably paints as he himself is, and shows his nature in
his works: Fuller’s pictures are founded upon purity of thought, and painted with
dignity and single-heartedness, and the grace of his life dwells in them.

[GEORGE FULLER was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1822. He was descended
from old Puritan stock, and his ancesters were among the early [pg 377] settlers of the Connecticut
River valley. He inherited a taste for art, as an uncle and several other relatives
of the previous generation were painters, although none of them attained any
particular reputation. He began painting by himself at the age of about sixteen
years, and at the age of twenty entered the studio of Henry K. Brown, of Albany, New
York, where he received his first and only direct instruction. His work, until the
age of about forty years, was almost entirely devoted to portraits; but he is best
known, and will be longest remembered, for his ideal work in figure and landscape
painting, which he entered upon about 1860, but did not make his distinctive field
until 1876. From the latter date, to the time of his death, he painted many important
works, and was pecuniarily successful. He received probably the largest prices ever
paid to an American artist for single figures: $3,000 for the Winifred Dysart, and
$4,000 each for the Priscilla and Evening; Lorette. He died in Boston on the
twenty-first of March, 1884, leaving a widow, four sons, and a daughter. During May,
a memorial exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Fine
Arts.—EDITOR.]

THE LOYALISTS OF LANCASTER.

The outburst of patriotic rebellion in 1775 throughout Massachusetts was so
universal, and the controversy so hot with the wrath of a people politically wronged,
as well as embittered by the hereditary rage of puritanism against prelacy, that the
term tory comes down to us in history loaded with a weight of opprobrium not
legitimately its own. After the lapse of a hundred years the word is perhaps no
longer synonymous with everything traitorous and vile, but when it is desirable to
suggest possible respectability and moral rectitude in any member of the conservative
party of Revolutionary days, it must be done under the less historically disgraced
title,—loyalist. In fact, then, as always, two parties stood contending for
principles to which honest convictions made adherents. If among the conservatives
were timid office-holders and corrupt self-seekers, there were also of the
Revolutionary party blatant demagogues and bigoted partisans. The logic of success,
though a success made possible at last only by exterior aid, justified the appeal to
arms begun in Massachusetts before revolt was prepared or thought imminent elsewhere.
Now, to the careful student of the situation, it seems among the most premature and
rash of all the rebellions in history. But for the precipitancy of the uprising, and
the patriotic frenzy that fired the public heart at news of the first bloodshed, many
ripe scholars, many soldiers of experience, might have been saved to aid and honor
the republic, instead of being driven into ignominious exile by fear of mob violence
and imprisonment, and scourged through the century as enemies of their country. In
and about Lancaster, then the largest town in Worcester County, the royalist party
was an eminently respectable minority. At first, indeed, not only those naturally [pg 378] conservative by
reason of wealth, or pride of birthright, but nearly all the intellectual leaders,
both ecclesiastic and civilian, deprecated revolt as downright suicide. They
denounced the Stamp Act as earnestly, they loved their country in which their all was
at stake as sincerely, as did their radical neighbors. Some of them, after the bloody
nineteenth of April, acquiesced with such grace as they could in what they now saw to
be inevitable, and tempered with prudent counsel the blind zeal of partisanship: thus
ably serving their country in her need. Others would have awaited the issue of events
as neutrals; but such the committees of safety, or a mob, not unnaturally treated as
enemies.

On the highest rounds of the social ladder stood the great-grandsons of Major
Simon Willard, the Puritan commander in the war of 1675. These three gentlemen had
large possessions in land, were widely known throughout the Province, and were held
in deserved esteem for their probity and ability. They were all royalists at heart,
and all connected by marriage with royalist families. Abijah Willard, the eldest, had
just passed his fiftieth year. He had won a captaincy before Louisburg when but
twenty-one, and was promoted to a colonelcy in active service against the French; was
a thorough soldier, a gentleman of stately presence and dignified manners, and a
skilful manager of affairs. For his first wife, he married Elizabeth, sister of
Colonel William Prescott; for his second, Mrs. Anna Prentice, but had recently
married a third partner, Mrs. Mary McKown, of Boston. He was the wealthiest citizen
of Lancaster, kept six horses in his stables, and dispensed liberal hospitality in
the mansion inherited from his father Colonel Samuel Willard. By accepting the
appointment of councillor in 1774, he became at once obnoxious to the dominant party,
and in August, when visiting Connecticut on business connected with his large landed
interests there, he was arrested by the citizens of the town of Union, and a mob of
five hundred persons accompanied him over the state line intending to convey him to
the nearest jail. Whether their wrath became somewhat cooled by the colonel’s
bearing, or by a six-mile march, they released him upon his signing a paper dictated
to him, of which the following is a copy, printed at the time in the Boston
Gazette:—

STURBRIDGE, August 25, 1774.

Whereas I Abijah Willard, of Lancaster, have been appointed by mandamus
Counselor for this province, and have without due Consideration taken the Oath, do
now freely and solemnly and in good faith promise and engage that I will not set or
act in said Council, nor in any other that shall be appointed in such manner and
form, but that I will, as much as in me lies, maintain the Charter Rights and
Liberties of the Province, and do hereby ask forgiveness of all the honest, worthy
Gentlemen that I have offended by taking the abovesaid Oath, and desire this may be
inserted in the public Prints. Witness my Hand

ABIJAH WILLARD.

From that time forward Colonel Willard lived quietly at home until the nineteenth
of April, 1775; when, setting out in the morning on horseback to visit his farm in
Beverly, where he had planned to spend some days in superintending the planting, he
was turned from his course by the swarming out of minute-men at the summons of the
couriers bringing the alarm from Lexington, and we next find him with the British in
Boston. He never saw Lancaster again. It is related that, on the [pg 379] morning of the seventeenth of
June, standing with Governor Gage, in Boston, reconnoitring the busy scene upon
Bunker’s Hill, he recognized with the glass his brother-in-law Colonel William
Prescott, and pointed him out to the governor, who asked if he would fight. The
answer was: “Prescott will fight you to the gates of hell!” or, as another historian
more mildly puts it: “Ay, to the last drop of his blood.” Colonel Willard knew
whereof he testified, for the two colonels had earned their commissions together in
the expeditions against Canada. An officer of so well-known skill and experience as
Abijah Willard was deemed a valuable acquisition, and he was offered a colonel’s
commission in the British army, but refused to serve against his countrymen, and at
the evacuation of Boston went to Halifax, having been joined by his own and his
brother’s family. In 1778, he was proscribed and banished. Later in the war he joined
the royal army, at Long Island, and was appointed commissary; in which service it was
afterwards claimed by his friends that his management saved the crown thousands of
pounds. A malicious pamphleteer of the day, however, accused him of being no better
than others, and alleging that whatever saving he effected went to swell his own
coffers. Willard’s name stands prominent among the “Fifty-five” who, in 1783, asked
for large grants of land in Nova Scotia as compensation for their losses by the war.
He chose a residence on the coast of New Brunswick, which he named Lancaster
in remembrance of his beloved birthplace, and there died in May, 1789, having been
for several years an influential member of the provincial council. His family
returned to Lancaster, recovered the old homestead, and, aided by a small pension
from the British government, lived in comparative prosperity. The son Samuel died on
January 1, 1856, aged ninety-six years and four months. His widowed sister, Mrs. Anna
Goodhue, died on August 2, 1858, at the age of ninety-five. Memories of their wholly
pleasant and beneficent lives, abounding in social amenities and Christian graces,
still linger about the old mansion.

Levi Willard was three years the junior of Abijah. He had been collector of excise
for the county, held the military rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was justice of the
peace. With his brother-in-law Captain Samuel Ward he conducted the largest
mercantile establishment in Worcester County at that date. He had even made the
voyage to England to purchase goods. Although not so wealthy as his brother, he might
have rivaled him in any field of success but for his broken health; and he was as
widely esteemed for his character and capacity. At the outbreak of hostilities he was
too ill to take active part on either side, but his sympathies were with his loyalist
kindred. He died on July 11, 1775. His partner in business, Captain Samuel Ward, cast
his lot with the patriot party, but his son, Levi Willard, Jr., graduated at Harvard
College in 1775, joined his uncle Abijah, and went to England and there remained
until 1785, when he returned and died five years later.

Abel Willard, though equally graced by nature with the physical gifts that
distinguished his brothers, unlike them chose the arts of peace rather than those of
war. He was born at Lancaster on January 12, 1731-2, and was graduated at Harvard
College in 1752, ranking third in the class. His wife was Elizabeth [pg 380] Rogers, daughter of the
loyalist minister of Littleton. His name was affixed to the address to Governor Gage,
June 21, 1774, and he was forced to sign, with the other justices, a recantation of
the aspersions cast upon the people in that address. He has the distinction of being
recorded by the leading statesman of the Revolution—John Adams—as his
personal friend. So popular was Abel Willard and so well known his character as a
peacemaker and well-wisher to his country, that he might have remained unmolested and
respected among his neighbors in spite of his royalist opinions; but, whether led by
family ties or natural timidity, he sought refuge in Boston, and quick-coming events
made it impossible for him to return. At the departure of the British forces for
Halifax, he accompanied them. A letter from Edmund Quincy to his daughter Mrs.
Hancock, dated Lancaster, March 26, 1776, contains a reference to him: … “Im sorry
for poor Mrs Abel Willard your Sisters near neighbour & Friend. Shes gone we hear
with her husband and Bro and sons to Nova Scotia P’haps in such a situation and under
such circumstances of Offense respecting their Wors^r Neighbours as never to be in a
political capacity of returning to their Houses unless w^th power & inimical
views w^ch God forbid should ever be ye Case.”

In 1778, the act of proscription and banishment included Abel Willard’s name. His
health gave way under accumulated trouble, and he died in England in 1781.

The estates of Abijah and Abel Willard were confiscated. In the Massachusetts
Archives (cliv, 10) is preserved the anxious inquiry of the town authorities
respecting the proper disposal of the wealth they abandoned.

To the Honourable Provincial Congress now holden at Watertown in the
Proviance of the Massachusetts Bay.

We the subscribers do request and desire that you would be pleased to direct or
Inform this proviance in General or the town of Lancaster in Partickeler what is
best to be done with the Estates of those men which are Gone from their Estates to
General Gage and to whose use they shall Improve them whether for the proviance or
the town where s^d Estate is.

EBENEZER ALLEN,
CYRUS FAIRBANK,
SAMLL THURSTON,

The Selectmen of Lancaster.

Lancaster June 7 day 1775.

The Provincial Congress placed the property in question in the hands of the
selectmen and Committee of Safety to improve, and instructed them to report to future
legislatures. Finally, Cyrus Fairbank is found acting as the local agent for
confiscated estates of royalists in Lancaster, and his annual statements are among
the archives of the State. His accounts embrace the estates of “Abijah Willard, Esq.,
Abel Willard, Esq., Solomon Houghton, Yeoman, and Joseph Moore Gent.” The final
settlement of Abel Willard’s estate, October 26, 1785, netted his creditors but ten
shillings, eleven pence to the pound. The claimants and improvers probably swallowed
even the larger estate of Abijah Willard, leaving nothing to the Commonwealth.

Katherine, the wife of Levi Willard, was the sister, and Dorothy, wife of Captain
Samuel Ward, the daughter, of Judge John Chandler, “the honest Refugee.” These
estimable and accomplished ladies lived but a stone’s throw apart, and after the
death of Levi Willard there came to reside with them an elder brother of Mrs. Ward,
one of the most notable personages in Lancaster during the Revolution. Clark Chandler
was a dapper little bachelor [pg 381] about thirty-two years of age, eccentric in person,
habits, and dress. Among other oddities of apparel, he was partial to bright red
small-clothes. His tory principles and singularities called down upon him the jibes
of the patriots among whom his lot was temporarily cast, but his ready tongue and
caustic wit were sufficient weapons of defence. In 1774, as town clerk of Worcester,
he recorded a protest of forty-three royalist citizens against the resolutions of the
patriotic majority. This record he was compelled in open town meeting to deface, and
when he failed to render it sufficiently illegible with the pen, his tormentors
dipped his fingers into the ink and used them to perfect the obliteration. He fled to
Halifax, but after a few months returned, and was thrown into Worcester jail. The
reply to his petition for release is in Massachusetts Archives (clxiv, 205).

Colony of the Massachusetts Bay. By the Major part of the Council of said
Colony. Whereas Clark Chandler of Worcester has been Confined in the Common Prison
at Worcester for holding Correspondence with the enemies of this Country and the
said Clark having humbly petitioned for an enlargement and it having been made to
appear that his health is greatly impaired & that the Publick will not be
endangered by his having some enlargement, and Samuel Ward, John Sprague, &
Ezekiel Hull having Given Bond to the Colony Treasurer in the penal sum of one
thousand Pounds, for the said Clarks faithful performance of the order of Council
for his said enlargement, the said Clark is hereby permitted to go to Lancaster
when his health will permit, and there to continue and not go out of the Limits of
that Town, he in all Respects Conforming himself to the Condition in said Bond
contained, and the Sheriff of said County of Worcester and all others are hereby
Directed to permit the said Clark to pass unmolested so long as he shall conform
himself to the obligations aforementioned. Given under our Hands at ye Council
Chambers in Watertown the 15 Day of Dec. Anno Domini 1775.

By their Honors Command,

James Prescott
W^m Severs
Cha Channey
B. Greenleaf
M. Farley
W. Spooner
Moses Gill
Caleb Cushing
J. Palmer
J. Winthrop
Eldad Taylor
John Whitcomb
B. White
Jedⁿ Foster
B. Lincoln
Perez Morton
Dp^t Sec^ry.

The air of Lancaster, which proved so salubrious to the pensioners of the British
government before named, grew oppressive to this tory bachelor, as we find by a
lengthy petition in Massachusetts Archives (clxxiii, 546), wherein he begs for a
wider range, and especially for leave to go to the sea-shore. A medical certificate
accompanies it.

LANCASTER, OCT. 25. 1777

This is to inform whom it may Concern that Mr. Clark Chandler now residing in
this Town is in such a Peculiar Bodily Indisposition as in my opinion renders it
necessary for him to take a short Trip to the Salt Water in order to assist in
recovering his Health.

JOSIAH WILDER Phn.

He was allowed to visit Boston, and to wander at will within the bounds of
Worcester County. He returned to Worcester, and there died in 1804.

Joseph Wilder, Jr., colonel, and judge of the court of common pleas of Worcester
County,—as his father had been before him,—was prominent among the
signers of the address to General Gage. He apologized for this indiscretion, and
seems to have received no further attention from the Committee of Safety. In the
extent of his possessions [pg 382] he rivaled Abijah Willard, having increased a
generous inheritance by the profits of very extensive manufacture and export of
pearlash and potash: an industry which he and his brother Caleb were the first to
introduce into America. He was now nearly seventy years of age, and died in the
second year of the war.

Joseph House, at the evacuation of Boston, went with the army to Halifax. He was a
householder, but possessed no considerable estate in Lancaster. In 1778, his name
appears among the proscribed and banished.

The Lancaster committee of correspondence, July 17, 1775, published Nahum Houghton
as “an unwearied pedlar of that baneful herb tea,” and warned all patriots “to
entirely shun his company and have no manner of dealings or connections with him
except acts of common humanity.” A special town meeting was called on June 30, 1777,
chiefly “to act on a Resolve of the General Assembly Respecting and Securing this and
the other United States against the Danger to which thay are Exposed by the Internal
Enemies Thereof, and to Elect some proper person to Collect such evidence against
such Persons as shall be demed by athority as Dangerous persons to this and the other
United States of America.” At this meeting Colonel Asa Whitcomb was chosen to collect
evidence against suspected loyalists, and Moses Gerrish, Daniel Allen, Ezra Houghton,
Joseph Moor, and Solomon Houghton, were voted “as Dangerous Persons and Internal
Enemies to this State.” On September 12 of the same year, apparently upon a report
from Colonel Asa Whitcomb, it was voted that Thomas Grant, James Carter, and the
Reverend Timothy Harrington, “Stand on the Black List.” It was also ordered that the
selectmen “Return a List of these Dangerous Persons to the Clerk, and he to the
Justice of the Quorum as soon as may be.” This action of the extremists seems to have
aroused the more conservative citizens, and another meeting was called, on September
23, for the purpose of reconsidering this ill-advised and arbitrary proscription, at
which meeting the clerk was instructed not to return the names of James Carter and
the Reverend Timothy Harrington before the regular town meeting in November.

Thomas Grant was an old soldier, having served in the French and Indian War, and,
if a loyalist, probably condoned the offence by enlisting in the patriot army; his
name is on the muster-roll of the Rhode Island expedition in 1777, and in 1781 he was
mustered into the service for three years. He was about fifty years of age, and a
poor man, for the town paid bills presented “for providing for Tom Grant’s
Family.”

Moses Gerrish was graduated at Harvard College in 1762, and reputed a man of
considerable ability. Enoch Gerrish, perhaps a brother of Moses, was a farmer in
Lancaster who left his home, was arrested and imprisoned in York County, and thence
removed for trial to Worcester by order of the council, May 29, 1778. The following
letter uncomplimentary to these two loyalists is found in Massachusetts Archives
(cxcix, 278).

Sir. The two Gerrishes Moses & Enoch, that ware sometime since apprehended
by warrant from the Council are now set at Libberty by reason of that Laws Expiring
on which they were taken up. I would move to your Hon^rs a new warrant might Isue,
Directed to Doc^r. Silas Hoges to apprehend & confine them as I look [pg 383] upon them to
be Dangerous persons to go at large. I am with respect your Hon^rs. most obedient
Hum. Ser^t.

JAMES PRESCOTT.

Groton 12 of July 1778.

To the Hon^e Jereh. Powel Esq.

An order for their rearrest was voted by the council. Moses Gerrish finally
received some position in the commissary department of the British army, and, when
peace was declared, obtained a grant of free tenancy of the island of Grand Menan for
seven years. At the expiration of that time, if a settlement of forty families with
schoolmaster and minister should be established, the whole island was to become the
freehold of the colonists. Associated with Gerrish in this project was Thomas Ross,
of Lancaster. They failed in obtaining the requisite number of settlers, but
continued to reside upon the island, and there Moses Gerrish died at an advanced
age.

Solomon Houghton, a Lancaster farmer in comfortable circumstances, fearing the
inquisition of the patriot committee, fled from his home. In 1779, the judge of
probate for Worcester County appointed commissioners to care for his confiscated
estate.

Ezra Houghton, a prosperous farmer, and recently appointed justice of the peace,
affixed his name to the address to General Gage in 1775, and to the recantation. In
May, 1777, he was imprisoned, under charge of counterfeiting the bills of public
credit and aiding the enemy. In November following he petitioned to be admitted to
bail (see Massachusetts Archives, ccxvi, 129) and his request was favorably received,
his bail bond being set at two thousand pounds.

Joseph Moore was one of the six slave-owners of Lancaster in 1771, possessed a
farm and a mill, and was ranked a “gentleman.” On September 20, 1777, being confined
in Worcester jail, he petitioned for enlargement, claiming his innocence of the
charges for which his name had been put upon Lancaster’s black list. His petition met
no favor, and his estate was duly confiscated. (See Massachusetts Archives, clxxxiii,
160.)

At the town meeting on the first Monday in November, 1777, the names of James
Carter and Daniel Allen were stricken from the black list, apparently without
opposition. That the Reverend Timothy Harrington, Lancaster’s prudent and
much-beloved minister, should be denounced as an enemy of his country, and his name
even placed temporarily among those of “dangerous persons,” exhibits the bitterness
of partisanship at that date. This town-meeting prosecution was ostensibly based upon
certain incautious expressions of opinion, but appears really to have been inspired
by the spite of the Whitcombs and others, whose enmity had been aroused by his
conservative action several years before in the church troubles, known as “the Goss
and Walley war,” in the neighboring town of Bolton. The Reverend Thomas Goss, of
Bolton, Ebenezer Morse, of Boylston, and Andrew Whitney, of Petersham, were
classmates of Mr. Harrington in the Harvard class of 1737, and all of them were
opposed to the revolution of the colonies. The disaffection, which, ignoring the
action of an ecclesiastical council, pushed Mr. Goss from his pulpit, arose more from
the political ferment of the day than from any advanced views of his opponents
respecting the abuse of alcoholic stimulants. For nearly forty years Mr. Harrington
had perhaps never omitted from his fervent prayers in public assemblies the form of
supplication for [pg
384] divine blessing upon the sovereign ruler of Great Britain. It is not
strange, although he had yielded reluctant submission to the new order of things, and
was anxiously striving to perform his clerical duties without offense to any of his
flock, that his lips should sometimes lapse into the wonted formula, “bless our good
King George.” It is related that on occasions of such inadvertence, he, without
embarrassing pause, added: “Thou knowest, O Lord! we mean George Washington.” In the
records of the town clerk, nothing is told of the nature of the charges against Mr.
Harrington, or of the manner of his defence. Two deacons were sent as messengers “to
inform the Rev^d Timo^o Harrington that he has something in agitation Now to be Heard
in this Meeting at which he has Liberty to attend.” Joseph Willard, Esq., in 1826,
recording probably the reminiscence of some one present at the dramatic scene, says
that when the venerable clergyman confronted his accusers, baring his breast, he
exclaimed with the language and feeling of outraged virtue: “Strike, strike here with
your daggers! I am a true friend to my country!”

Among the manuscripts left by Mr. Harrington there is one prepared for, if not
read at, this town meeting, containing the charges in detail, and his reply to each.
It is headed: “Harrington’s answers to ye Charges &c.” It is a shrewd and
eloquent defence, bearing evidence, so far as rhetoric can, that its author was in
advance of his people and his times in respect of Christian charity, if not of
political foresight. The charges were four in number: the first being that of the
Bolton Walleyites alleging that his refusal to receive them as church members in
regular standing brought him “under ye censure of shutting up ye Kingdom of Heaven
against men.” To this, calm answer is given by a review of the whole controversy in
the Bolton Church, closing thus: “Mr. Moderator, as I esteemed the Proceedings of
these Brethren at Bolton Disorderly and Schismatical, and as the Apostle hath given
Direction to mark those who cause Divisions and Offences and avoid them, I thought it
my Duty to bear Testimony against ye Conduct of both ye People at Bolton, and those
who were active in settling a Pastor over them in the Manner Specified, and I still
retain ye sentiment, and this not to shut the Kingdom of Heaven against them, but to
recover them from their wanderings to the Order of the Gospel and to the direct way
to the Kingdom of Heaven. And I still approve and think them just.”

The second charge, in full, was as follows:—

“It appears to us that his conduct hath ye greatest Tendency to subvert our
religious Constitution and ye Faith of these churches.—In his saying that the
Quebeck Bill was just—and that he would have done the same had he been one of
ye Parliament—and also saying that he was in charity with a professed Roman
Catholick, whose Principles are so contrary to the Faith of these
churches,—That for a man to be in charity with them we conceive that it is
impossible that he should be in Charity with professed New England Churches. It
therefore appears to us that it would be no better than mockery for him to pretend
to stand as Pastor to one of these churches.” To this Mr. Harrington first replies
by the pointed question: “Is not Liberty of Conscience and ye right of judging for
themselves in the matters of Religion, [pg 385] one grand professed Principle in ye New England
Churches; and one Corner Stone in their Foundation?” He then explicitly states his
abhorrence of “the anti-Christian tenets of Popery,” adding: “However on the other
hand they receive all the articles of the Athanasian Creed—and of consequence
in their present Constitution they have some Gold, Silver, and precious stones as
well as much wood, hay, and stubble.” He characterizes the accusation in this pithy
paragraph: “Too much Charity is the Charge here brought against me,—would to
God I had still more of it in ye most important sense. Instead of a
Disqualification, it would be a most enviable accomplishment in ye Pastor of a
Protestant New England Church.” A sharp argumentum ad hominem, for the
benefit of the ultra-radical accuser closes this division of his defence. “But, Mr.
Moderator, if my charity toward some Roman Catholicks disqualified me for a
Protestant Minister, what, what must we think of ye honorable Congress attending
Mass in a Body in ye Roman Catholic Chappel at Philadelphia? Must it not be equal
mockery in them to pretend to represent and act for the United Protestant States?”
…

The third charge was that he had declared himself and one of the brethren to “be a
major part of the Church.” This, like the first charge, was a revival of an old
personal grievance within the church, rehabilitated to give cumulative force to the
political complaints. The accusation is summarily disposed of; the accused condemning
the sentiment “as grossly Tyrannical, inconsistent with common sense and repugnant to
good order”; and denying that he ever uttered it.

Lastly came the political charge pure and simple.

“His despising contemning and setting at naught and speaking Evil of all our
Civil Rulers, Congress, Continental and Provincial, of all our Courts, Legislative
and Executive, are not only subversive of good Order: But we apprehend come under
Predicament of those spoken of in 2 Pet. II. 10, who despise government,
presumptuous, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of Dignities
&c.”

Mr. Harrington acknowledges that he once uttered to a Mr. North this imprudent
speech. “I disapprove abhor and detest the Results of Congress whether Continental or
Provincial,” but adds that he “took the first opportunity to inform Mr. North that I
had respect only to two articles in said Results.” He apologizes for the speech, but
at the same time defends his criticism of the two articles as arbitrary measures. He
also confesses saying that “General Court had no Business to direct Committees to
seize on Estates before they had been Confiscated in a course of Law,” and “that
their Constituents never elected or sent them for that Purpose,” but this sentiment
he claimed that he had subsequently retracted as rash and improper to be spoken.
These objectionable expressions of opinion, he asserts, were made “before ye 19th of
April 1775.”

It is needless to say that the Reverend Timothy Harrington’s name was speedily
erased from the black list, and, to the credit of his people be it said, he was
treated with increased consideration and honor during the following eighteen years
that he lived to serve them. In the deliberations of the Lancaster town meeting, as
in those of the Continental Congress, broad views of [pg 386] National Independence based
upon civil and religions liberty, finally prevailed over sectional prejudice and
intolerance. The loyalist pastor was a far better republican than his radical
inquisitors.

[Since the paper upon Lancaster and the Acadiens was published in The Bay State
Monthly for April, I have been favored with the perusal of Captain Abijah Willard’s
“Orderly Book,” through the courtesy of its possessor, Robert Willard, M.D., of
Boston, who found it among the historical collections of his father, Joseph Willard,
Esq. The volume contains, besides other interesting matter, a concise diary of
experiences during the military expedition of 1755 in Nova Scotia; from which it
appears that the Lancaster company was prominently engaged in the capture of Forts
Lawrence and Beau Séjour. Captain Willard, though not at Grand Pré, was
placed in command of a detachment which carried desolation through the villages to
the westward of the Bay of Minas; and the diary affords evidence that this warfare
against the defenceless peasantry was revolting to that gallant officer; and that,
while obedient to his positive orders, he tempered the cruelty of military necessity
with his own humanity.

The full names of his subalterns, not given in the list from General Winslow’s
Journal, are found to be

“Joshua Willard, Lieutenant,
Moses Haskell, Lieutenant,
Caleb Willard, Ensign.“

Of the Lancaster men, Sergeant James Houghton died, and William Hudson was killed,
in Nova Scotia.

The diary is well worthy of being printed complete.

H.S.M.]

LOUIS ANSART.

One of the notable citizens of Revolutionary times was Colonel Louis Ansart. He
was a native of France, and came to America in 1776, while our country was engaged in
war with England. He brought with him credentials from high officials in his native
country, and was immediately appointed colonel of artillery and inspector-general of
the foundries, and engaged in casting cannon in Massachusetts. Colonel Ansart
understood the art to great perfection; and it is said that some of his cannon and
mortars are still serviceable and valuable. Foundries were then in operation in
Bridgewater and Titicut, of which he had charge until the close of the Revolutionary
War.

Colonel Ansart was an educated man—a graduate of a college in
France—and of a good family. It is said that he conversed well in seven
different languages.

His father purchased him a commission of lieutenant at the age of fourteen years;
and he was employed in military service by his native country and the United States,
and held a commission until the close of the Revolutionary War, when he purchased a
farm in Dracut and resided there until his death. He returned to France three times
after he first came to this country, [pg 387] and was there at the time Louis XVI was arrested, in
1789.

Colonel Ansart married Catherine Wimble, an American lady, of Boston, and reared a
large family in Dracut—in that portion of the town which was annexed to Lowell
in 1874. Atis Ansart, who still resides there, in the eighty-seventh year of his age,
is a son of Colonel Ansart; also Felix Ansart, late of New London, Connecticut, and
for twenty-four years an officer of the regular army, at one time stationed at Fort
Moultrie, South Carolina, and afterwards at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he
remained eight years, and died in January, 1874.

There were five boys and seven girls. The boys were those above named, and Robert,
Abel, and Louis. The girls were Julia Ann, who married Bradley Varnum; Fanny, who
died in childhood; Betsey, who married Jonathan Hildreth, moved to Ohio, and died in
Dayton, in that State; Sophia, who married Peter Hazelton, who died some twenty years
ago, after which she married a Mr. Spaulding; Harriet, who married Samuel N. Wood,
late of Lowell; Catherine, who married Mr. Layton; and Aline, who died at the age of
eighteen years.

Colonel Ansart was trained in that profession and in those times which had a
tendency to develop the sterner qualities, and was what would be termed in these
times a man of stern, rigid, and imperious nature. It is said he never retired at
night without first loading his pistols and swinging them over the headboard of his
bed.

After settling in Dracut,—and in his best days he lived in excellent style
for the times, kept a span of fine horses, rode in a sulky, and “lived like a
nabob,”—he always received a pension from the government; but his habits were
such that he never acquired a fortune, but spent his money freely and enjoyed it as
he went along.

Before he came to America he had traveled in different countries. On one occasion,
in Italy, he was waylaid and robbed of all he had, and narrowly escaped with his
life. He had been playing and had been very successful, winning money, gold watches,
and diamonds. As he was riding back to his hôtel his postilion was shot. He
immediately seized his pistols to defend himself, when he was struck on the back of
the head with a bludgeon and rendered insensible. He did not return to consciousness
until the next morning, when he found himself by the side of the road, bleeding from
a terrible wound in his side from a dirk-knife. He had strength to attract the
attention of a man passing with a team, and was taken to his hôtel. A surgeon
was called, who pronounced the wound mortal. Mr. Ansart objected to that view of the
case, and sent for another, and with skilful treatment he finally recovered.

It is said that he was a splendid swordsman. On a certain occasion he was
insulted, and challenged his foe to step out and defend himself with his sword. His
opponent declined, saying he never fought with girls, meaning that Mr. Ansart was
delicate, with soft, white hands and fair complexion, and no match for him, whereupon
the young Frenchman drew his sword to give him a taste of his quality. He flourished
it around his opponent’s head, occasionally stratching his face and hands, until he
was covered with wounds and blood, but he could not provoke him to draw his weapon
and defend himself. After complimenting [pg 388] him with the name of “coward,” he told him to go
about his business, advising him in future to be more careful of his conduct and less
boastful of his courage.

During the inquisition in France, Colonel Ansart said that prisoners were
sometimes executed in the presence of large audiences, in a sort of amphitheatre.
People of means had boxes, as in our theatres of the present day. Colonel Ansart
occupied one of these boxes on one occasion with his lady. Before the performance
began, another gentleman with his lady presented himself in Colonel Ansart’s box, and
requested him to vacate. He was told that he was rather presuming in his conduct and
had better go where he belonged. The man insisted upon crowding himself in, and was
very insolent, when Colonel Ansart seized him and threw him over the front, when, of
course, he went tumbling down among the audience below. Colonel Ansart was for this
act afterward arrested and imprisoned for a short time, but was finally liberated
without trial.

History informs us that a combined attack by D’Estaing and General Sullivan was
planned, in 1778, for the expulsion of the British from Rhode Island, where, under
General Pigot, they had established a military dépôt. Colonel Ansart was
aide-de-camp to General Sullivan in this expedition, and was wounded in the
engagement of August 29.

On a certain occasion he was taking a sleigh-ride with his family, and in one of
the adjacent towns met a gentleman with his turn-out in a narrow and drifted part of
the road, where some difficulty occurred in passing each other. Colonel Ansart
suggested to him that he should not have driven into such a place when he saw him
coming. The man denied that he saw the colonel, and told him he lied. Colonel Ansart
seized his pistol to punish him for his insolence, when his wife interfered, an
explanation followed, and it was ascertained that both gentlemen were from Dracut.
One was deacon of the church, and the other “inspector-general of artillery.” Of
course the pistols were put up, as the deacon didn’t wish to be shot, and the colonel
wouldn’t tell a lie.

In his prime, our hero stood six feet high in his boots, and weighed two hundred
pounds. He died in Dracut, May 28, 1804, at the age of sixty-two years.

Mrs. Ansart was born in Boston, and witnessed the battle of Bunker Hill, and often
described the appearance of the British soldiers as they marched along past her
residence, both in going to the battle and in returning. She was thirteen years of
age, and recollected it perfectly. She said they were grand as they passed along the
streets of Boston toward Charlestown. The officers were elegantly dressed and were in
great spirits, thinking it was only a pleasant little enterprise to go over to
Charlestown and drive those Yankees out of their fort; but when they returned it was
a sad sight. The dead and dying were carried through the streets pale and ghastly and
covered with blood. She said the people witnessed the battle from the houses in
Boston, and as regiment after regiment was swept down by the terrible fire of the
Americans, they said that the British were feigning to be frightened and falling down
for sport; but when they saw that they did not get up again, and when the dead and
wounded were [pg 389]
brought back to Boston, the reality began to be made known, and that little frolic of
taking the fort was really an ugly job, and hard to accomplish.

Mrs. Ansart died in Dracut at the age of eighty-six years, January 27, 1849. She
retained her mental and physical faculties to a great degree till within a short time
before her death. She was accustomed to walk to church, a distance of one mile, when
she was eighty years of age. Colonel and Mrs. Ansart were both buried in Woodbine
Cemetery, in the part of Lowell which belonged to Dracut at the time of their
interment.

BEACON HILL BEFORE THE HOUSES.

The visitor to the dome of the Capitol of the State, as he looks out from its
lantern and beholds spread immediately beneath his feet a semi-circular space, whose
radius does not exceed a quarter of a mile, covered with upward of two thousand
dwelling-houses, churches, hotels, and other public edifices, does not in all
probability ask himself the question: “What did this place look like before there
was any house here?” When Lieutenant-Colonel George Washington visited Boston in
1756, on business connected with the French war, and lodged at the Cromwell’s Head
Tavern, a building which is still standing on the north side of School Street, upon
the site of No. 13, where Mrs. Harrington now deals out coffee and “mince”-pie to her
customers, Beacon Hill was a collection of pastures, owned by thirteen proprietors,
in lots containing from a half to twenty acres each. The southwesterly slope of the
prominence is designated upon the old maps as “Copley Hill.”

We will now endeavor to describe the appearance of the hill, at the commencement
of the American Revolution, with the beacon on its top, from which it took its name,
consisting of a tall mast sixty feet in height, erected in 1635, with an iron crane
projecting from its side, supporting an iron pot. The mast was placed on
cross-timbers, with a stone foundation, supported by braces, and provided with
cross-sticks serving as a ladder for ascending to the crane. It remained until 1776,
when it was destroyed by the British; but was replaced in 1790 by a monument,
inclosed in a space six rods square, where it remained until 1811. It was surmounted
by an eagle, which now surmounts the speaker’s desk in the hall of the House of
Representatives, and had tablets upon its four sides with inscriptions commemorative
of Revolutionary events. It stood nearly opposite the southeast corner of the
reservoir lot, upon the site of No. 82 Temple Street, and its foundation was sixty
feet higher up in the air than the present level of that street. The lot was sold, in
1811, for the miserable pittance of eighty cents per square foot!

Starting upon our pedestrian tour from the corner of Tremont and Beacon Streets,
where now stands the Albion, was an acre lot owned by the heirs of James Penn, a
selectman of the town, and a ruling elder in the First Church, which stood in State
Street upon the site of Brazer’s Building. The parsonage stood opposite, [pg 390] upon the site
of the Merchants Bank Building, and extended with its garden to Dock Square, the
water flowing up nearly to the base of the Samuel Adams statue. Next comes a
half-acre lot owned by Samuel Eliot, grandfather of President Eliot of Harvard
University. Then follows a second half-acre lot owned by the heirs of the Reverend
James Allen, fifth minister of the First Church, who, in his day, as will be shown in
the sequel, owned a larger portion of the surface of Boston than any other man, being
owner of thirty-seven of the seven hundred acres which inclosed the territory of the
town. His name is perpetuated in the street of that name bounding the Massachusetts
General Hospital grounds. Somerset Street was laid out through it. The Congregational
House, Jacob Sleeper Hall, and Boston University Building, which occupies the former
site of the First Baptist Church, under the pastorship of the Reverend Rollin H.
Neale, stand upon it. Next comes Governor James Bowdoin’s two-acre pasture, extending
from the last-named street to Mount Vernon Street, and northerly to Allston Street;
the upper part of Bowdoin Street and Ashburton Place were laid out through it; the
Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, formerly Freeman-place Chapel, built by the
Second Church, under the pastoral care of the Reverend Chandler Robbins, and
afterwards occupied by the First Presbyterian Church, the Church of the Disciples,
the Brattle-square Church, the Old South Church, and the First Reformed Episcopal
Church; so that the entire theological gamut has resounded from its walls; the
Swedenborgian Church, over which the Reverend Thomas Worcester presided for a long
series of years, also stands upon it. Having reached the summit of the hill, we come
abreast of the five-and-a-half-acre pasture of Governor John Hancock, the first
signer of the immortal Declaration of American Independence, extending from Mount
Vernon Street to Joy Street, and northerly to Derne Street, embracing the Capitol
lot, and also the reservoir lot, for which last two he paid, in 1752, the modest sum
of eleven hundred dollars! It is now worth a thousand times as much. For the
remainder of his possessions in that vicinity he paid nine hundred dollars more. The
upper part of Mount Vernon Street, the upper part of Hancock Street, and Derne
Street, were laid out through it. Then, descending the hill, comes Benjamin Joy’s
two-acre pasture, extending from Joy Street to Walnut Street, and extending northerly
to Pinckney Street; forty-seven dwelling-houses now standing upon it. Mr. Joy paid
two thousand dollars for it. At the time of its purchase he was desirous of getting a
house in the country, as being more healthy than a town-residence, and he selected
this localty as “being country enough for him.” The upper part of Joy Street was laid
out through it. Now follows the valuable twenty-acre pasture of John Singleton
Copley, the eminent historical painter, one of whose productions (Charles the First
demanding in the House of Commons the arrest of the five impeached members) is now in
the art-room of the Public Library. It extended for a third of a mile on Beacon
Street, from Walnut Street to Beaver Street, and northerly to Pinckney Street, which
he purchased in lots at prices ranging from fifty to seventy dollars per acre.
Walnut, Spruce, a part of Charles, River, Brimmer, Branch Avenue, Byron Avenue, [pg 392] Lime, and
Chestnut Streets, Louisburg Square, the lower parts of Mount Vernon and Pinckney
Streets, and the southerly part of West Cedar Street, have been laid out through it.
Copley left Boston, in 1774, for England, and never returned to his native land. He
wrote to his agent in Boston, Gardner Greene (whose mansion subsequently stood upon
the enclosure in Pemberton Square, surrounded by a garden of two and a quarter acres,
for which he paid thirty-three thousand dollars), to sell the twenty-acre pasture for
the best price which could be obtained. After a delay of some time he sold it, in
1796, for eighteen thousand four hundred and fifty dollars; equivalent to nine
hundred dollars per acre, or two cents per square foot. It is a singular fact
that a record title to only two and a half of the twenty acres could be found. It was
purchased by the Mount Vernon Proprietors, consisting of Jonathan Mason, three
tenths; Harrison Gray Otis, three tenths; Benjamin Joy, two tenths; and Henry
Jackson, two tenths. The barberry bushes speedily disappeared after the Copley sale.
The southerly part of Charles Street was laid out through it. And the first railroad
in the United States was here employed. It was gravitation in principle. An inclined
plane was laid from the top of the hill, and the dirt-cars slid down, emptying their
loads into the water at the foot and drawing the empty cars upward. The apex of the
hill was in the rear of the Capitol near the junction of Mount Vernon and Temple
Streets, and was about sixty feet above the present level of that locality, and about
even with the roof of the Capitol. The level at the corner of Bowdoin Street and
Ashburton Place has been reduced about thirty feet, and at the northeast corner of
the reservoir lot about twenty feet, and Louisburg Square about fifteen feet. The
contents of the excavations were used to fill up Charles Street as far north as
Cambridge Street, the parade-ground on the Common, and the Leverett-street jail
lands. The territory thus conveyed now embraces some of the finest residences in the
city. The Somerset Club-house, the Church of the Advent, and the First African
Church, built in 1807 by the congregation worshiping with the Reverend Daniel Sharp,
stand upon it.

MAP OF BEACON HILL AND WEST END IN BOSTON

Bounded southerly on Copley’s pasture, westerly on Charles River, and northerly on
Cambridge Street, was Zachariah Phillips’s nine-acre pasture, which extended easterly
to Grove Street; for which he paid one hundred pounds sterling, equivalent to fifty
dollars per acre. The northerly parts of Charles and West Cedar Streets, and the
westerly parts of May and Phillips Streets have been laid out through it. The Twelfth
Baptist Church, formerly under the pastorship of the Reverend Samuel Snowdon, stands
upon it. Proceeding easterly was the sixteen-and-a-half-acre pasture of the Reverend
James Allen, before alluded to as the greatest landowner in the town of Boston, for
which he paid one hundred and fifty pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to
twenty-two dollars per acre. It bounded southerly on Copley’s, Joy’s and Hancock’s
pastures, and extended easterly to Temple Street. Anderson, Irving, Garden, South
Russell, Revere, and the easterly parts of Phillips and Myrtle Streets, were laid out
through it. Next comes Richard Middlecott’s four-acre pasture, extending from Temple
Street to Bowdoin Street, and from Cambridge Street to Allston Street. Ridgeway Lane,
the lower parts of Hancock, Temple, and [pg 393] Bowdoin Streets, were laid out through it. The
Independent Baptist Church, formerly under the pastorship of the Reverend Thomas
Paul; the First Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1835 by the parish of Grace
Church, under the rectorship of the Reverend Thomas M. Clark, now bishop of the
diocese of Rhode Island; the Mission Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, which was
erected in 1830 by the congregation of the Reverend Lyman Beecher, just after the
destruction of their edifice by fire, which stood at the southeast corner of Hanover
and (new) Washington Streets, stand upon it. Next comes the four-acre pasture of
Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Capitol at Washington, also of the
Massachusetts Capitol, Faneuil Hall, and other public buildings, and for fourteen
years chairman of the board of selectmen of the town of Boston, extending from
Bowdoin Street to Bulfinch Street, and from Bowdoin Square to Ashburton Place, for
which he paid two hundred pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to six hundred and
sixty-seven dollars. Bulfinch Street and Bulfinch Place were laid out through it. The
Revere House, formerly the mansion of Kirk Boott, one of the founders of the city of
Lowell; Bulfinch-place Church, which occupies the site of the Central Universalist
Church, erected in 1822 by the congregation of the Reverend Paul Dean; and also Mount
Vernon Church, erected in 1842 by the congregation over which the Reverend Edward N.
Kirk presided, stand upon it. Then follows the two-acre pasture of Cyprian Southack,
extending to Tremont Row easterly, and westerly to Somerset Street, Stoddard Street
and Howard Street were laid out through it. The Howard Athenæum, formerly the
site of Father Miller’s Tabernacle, stands upon it. Then follows the
one-and-a-half-acre pasture of the heirs of the Reverend John Cotton, second minister
of the First Church, extending from Howard Street to Pemberton Square, which
constitutes a large portion of that enclosure. And lastly, proceeding southerly,
comes the four-acre pasture of William Phillips, extending from the southeasterly
corner of Pemberton Square to the point of beginning, and enclosing the largest
portion of that enclosure. The Hotel Pavilion, the Suffolk Savings Bank, and Houghton
and Dutton’s stores, stand upon it.

Less than a century ago Charles River flowed at high tide from the southeast
corner of Cambridge Street and Anderson Street across intervening streets to Beacon
Street, up which it flowed one hundred and forty-three feet easterly across Charles
Street to No. 61. When Mr. John Bryant dug the cellar for that building he came to
the natural beach, with its rounded pebbles, at the depth of three or four feet below
the surface. It also flowed over the Public Garden, across the southern portion of
the parade-ground, to the foot of the hill, upon which stands the Soldiers’ Monument.
A son of H.G. Otis was drowned, about seventy years ago, in a quagmire which existed
at that spot. It also flowed across the westerly portion of Boylston Street and
Tremont Street, and Shawmut Avenue, to the corner of Washington Street and Groton
Street, where stood the fortifications during the American Revolution, across the
Neck, which was only two hundred and fifty feet in width at that point, and thence to
the boundary of Roxbury. A beach existed where now is Charles Street, and the lower
part of Cambridge Street, on both sides, was a marsh.

Less than a century ago, land on [pg 394] Beacon Hill was as cheap as public documents.
Ministers are enjoined not to be worldly minded, and not to be given to filthy lucre.
But the Reverend James Allen would furnish an excellent pattern for a modern
real-estate speculator. In addition to his pasture on the south side of Cambridge
Street, he had also a twenty-acre pasture on the north side of that street, between
Chambers Street and Charles River, extending to Poplar Street, for which he paid one
hundred and forty pounds, New-England currency, equivalent to four hundred and
sixty-seven dollars, equal to twenty-three dollars per acre. He was thus the
proprietor of all the territory from Pinckney Street to Poplar Street, between Joy
Street and Chambers Street on the east, and Grove Street and Charles River on the
west; for which he paid the magnificent sum of nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars!
It was called “Allen’s Farm.” The Capitol lot, containing ninety-five thousand square
feet, was bought by the town of Boston of John Hancock (who, though a devoted patriot
to the American cause, yet in all his business transactions had an eye to profit),
for the sum of thirteen thousand three hundred and thirty-three dollars; only
twenty times as much as he gave for it! The town afterward conveyed it to the
Commonwealth for five shillings, upon condition that it should be used for a Capitol.
In 1846, the city of Boston paid one hundred and forty-five thousand one hundred and
seven dollars for the reservoir lot containing thirty-seven thousand four hundred and
eighty-eight square feet. In 1633, the town granted to William Blackstone fifty acres
of land wherever he might select. He accordingly selected upon the south-westerly
slope of Beacon Hill, which included the Common. Being afterward compelled by the
town to fence in his vacant land, he conveyed back to the town, for thirty pounds,
all but the six-acre lot at the corner of Beacon and Spruce Streets, and extending
westerly to Charles River, and northerly to Pinckney Street, where he lived until
1635, when he removed to Rhode Island, and founded the town which bears his name.

It will thus be perceived that the portion of Beacon Hill, included between Beacon
Street, Beaver Street, Cambridge Street, Bowdoin Square, Court Street, Tremont Row,
and Tremont Street, containing about seventy-three acres, was sold, less than a
century ago, at prices ranging from twenty-two to nine hundred dollars per acre,
aggregating less than thirty thousand dollars. It now comprises the ninth ward of the
city of Boston, and contains within its limits a real estate valuation of sixteen
millions of dollars. Its name and fame are associated with important events and men
prominent in American annals. Upon its slopes have dwelt Josiah Quincy, of
ante-Revolutionary fame, and his son and namesake of civic fame; and also his
grandson and namesake, and Edmund, equally distinguished; Lemuel Shaw, Robert G.
Shaw, Daniel Webster, Abbott Lawrence, Samuel, Nathan, and William Appleton, Samuel
T. Armstrong, Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, J. Lothrop Motley, William H. Prescott,
Charles Sumner, John A. Andrew, John C. Warren, Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, Lyman Beecher,
William E. Channing, and Hosea Ballou. Lafayette made it his temporary home in 1824,
and Kossuth in 1852. During the present century, the laws of Massachusetts have been
enacted upon and promulgated from its summit, and will probably continue so to be for
ages to come.

BRITISH FORCE AND THE LEADING LOSSES IN THE REVOLUTION.

At Boston, in 1775, 9,147.

At New York, in 1776, 31,626.

In America: June, 1777, 30,957; August, 1778, 33,756; February, 1779, 30,283; May,
1779, 33,458; December, 1779, 38,569; May, 1780, 38,002; August, 1780, 33,020;
December, 1780, 33,766; May, 1781, 33,374; September, 1781, 42,075.

CASUALTIES.

Bunker Hill, 1,054; Long Island, 400; Fort Washington, 454; Trenton, 1,049
(including prisoners); Hubbardton, 360; Bennington, 207 (besides prisoners);
Freeman’s Farm, 550; Bemis Heights, 500; Burgoyne’s Surrender, 5,763; Forts Clinton
and Montgomery, 190; Brandywine, 600; Germantown, 535; Monmouth, 2,400 (including
deserters); Siege of Charlestown, 265; Camden, 324; Cowpens, 729; Guilford Court
House, 554; Hobkirk’s Hill, 258; Eutaw Springs, 693; New London, 163; Yorktown, 552;
Cornwallis’s Surrender, 7,963.

HISTORICAL NOTES.

BIRD AND SQUIRREL LEGISLATION IN 1776.

“Whereas, much mischief happens from Crows, Black Birds, and Squirrels, by
pulling up corn at this season of the year, therefore, be it enacted by this Town
meeting, that ninepence as a bounty per head be given for every full-grown crow, and
twopence half-penny per head for every young crow, and twopence half-penny per head
for every crow blackbird, and one penny half-penny per head for every red-winged
blackbird, and one penny half-penny per head for every thrush or jay bird and
streaked squirrel that shall be killed, and presented to the Town Treasurer by the
twentyeth day of June next, and that the same be paid out of the town treasury.”

BARRINGTON, RHODE ISLAND.

At the meeting of the town held on the fourteenth of March, 1774, James Brown, the
fourth, was the first on the committee to draw up resolves to be laid before the
meeting respecting the infringements made upon the Americans by certain “ministerial
decrees.” These were laid before a meeting held March 21, 1774, and received by the
town’s votes, as follows:—

“The inhabitants of this Town being justly Alarmed at the several acts of
Parliament made and passed for having a revenue in America, and, more especially the
acts for the East India Company, exporting their tea into America subject to a duty
payable here, on purpose to raise a revenue in America, with many more
unconstitutional acts, which are taken into consideration by a number of our sister
towns in the Colony, therefore we think it needless to enlarge upon them; but being
sensible of the dangerous condition the Colonies are in, Occasioned by the Influence
of wicked and designing men, we enter into the following Resolves;

“First, That we, the Inhabitants of the Town ever have been & now are
Loyal & dutiful subjects to the king of G. Britain.

“Second, That we highly approve of the resolutions of our sister Colonies
and the noble stand they have made in the defense of the liberties & priviledges
of the Colonys, and we thank the worthy Author of ‘the rights of the Colonies
examined.’

“Third, That the act for the East India Company to export their Tea to
America payable here, and the sending of said tea by the Company, is with an intent
to enforce the Revenue Acts and Design^d for a precedent for Establishing Taxes,
Duties & Monopolies in America, that they might take our property from us and
dispose of it as they please and reduce us to a state of abject slavery.

“Fourth, That we will not buy or sell, or receive as a gift, any dutied
Tea, nor have any dealings with any person or persons that shall buy or sell or give
or receive or trade in s^d Tea, directly or indirectly, knowing it or suspecting it
to be such, but will consider all persons concern^d in introducing dutied Teas …
into any Town in America, as enemies to this country and unworthy the society of free
men.

“Fifth, That it is the duty of every man in America to oppose by all proper
measures to the uttermost of his Power and Abilities every attempt upon the liberties
of his Country and especially those mentioned in the foregoing Resolves, & to
exert himself to the uttermost of his power to obtain a redress of the grievances the
Colonies now groan under.

“We do therefore solemnly resolve that we will heartily unite with the Town of
Newport and all the other Towns in this and the sister Colonies, and exert our whole
force in support of the just rights and priviledges of the American Colonies.

“Sixth, That James Brown, Isaiah Humphrey, Edw^d Bosworth, Sam^l Allen,
Nathaniel Martin, Moses Tyler, & Thomas Allen, Esq., or a major part of them, be
a committee for this town to Correspond with all the other Committees appointed by
any Town in this or the neighboring Colonies, and the committee is desir^d to give
their attention to every thing that concerns the liberties of America; and if any of
that obnoxious Tea should be brought into this Town, or any attempt made on the
liberties of the inhabitants thereof, the committee is directed and empowered to call
a town meeting forthwith that such measures may be taken as the publick safty may
require.

“Seventh, That we do heartily unite in and resolve to support the foregoing
resolves with our lives & fortunes.”

JOHN ROGERS, ESQUIRE.

A descendant of John Rogers, of Smithfield farm, came to America in the early
emigration. Can any one give any information as to the life and death of a son, John
Rogers, Jr., of Roxbury?

Answer.—John Rogers, Jr., or second, was born at Duxbury, about
February 28, 1641. He married Elisabeth Peabody, and, after King Philip’s War,
removed to Mount Hope Neck, Bristol, Rhode Island, about 1680. He again removed to
Boston in 1697; to Taunton in 1707; and to Swansea in 1710. He became blind in 1723,
and died after nine days’ sickness, June 28, 1732, in the ninety-second year of his
age, leaving at the time of his death ninety-one descendants, children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He was buried at Prince’s Hill Cemetery, in
Barrington, Rhode Island, where his grave is marked by a fine slate headstone in
excellent preservation.

M.H.W.

PUBLISHERS’ DEPARTMENT.

We propose to make THE BAY STATE MONTHLY an interesting and valuable addition to
every library—prized in every home—read at every fireside. We want all
who sympathize with our work to express their goodwill by ordering the publication
regularly at their book-seller’s, or at the nearest news stand, or, better yet, remit
a year’s subscription to the publishers. After all, financial sympathy is what is
needed to encourage any enterprise. Next in importance is the contribution of
articles calculated to interest, primarily, the good citizens of this
Commonwealth.

And one feature will be to develop the Romance in Massachusetts Colonial and State
History. Articles of this character are specially desired. In the meanwhile, the
publishers invite contributions of works upon local history, with view to a fair
equivalent in exchange. New England town histories and historical pamphlets will be
very readily accepted at a fair valuation.

The encouragement given to THE BAY STATE MONTHLY warrants the publishers in
assuring the public that the magazine is firmly established. Many of the leading
writers of the State have promised articles for future numbers.

IF you have a son settled in California, farming or cattle-raising, or among the
Rocky Mountains, or in some wild mining camp exposed to every temptation, or,
perhaps, on some lonely prairie farm, away from neighbors, send him THE BAY STATE
MONTHLY for one year. It will come to him like a gentle breeze from his native
hillside, full of suggestive thoughts of home.

In the announcement of THE BAY STATE MONTHLY, and the issue of the first number,
it was perfectly understood that the enterprise was a bold piece of magazine
work.

The purpose was to begin the year with the first number, and that was carried out.
No apology is made for neglect of notices, whether of review, or otherwise. In fact,
it was not supposed that the readers would care for editors, if, only, they had fresh
matter for their perusal.

It is also perfectly understood by the editors of THE BAY STATE MONTHLY, that
every author, and publisher, will look at the numbers, with keen outlook, for
immediate recognition. That is quite right; but recognition is not less valuable,
when it comes in due turn; and no patron will be overlooked.

It may have been an error, that the editors did not more fully elaborate their
plan, in their Prospectus. The intent was right. The real plan is this:

(1) “THE BAY STATE,” in its memorial biography, illustrated by portraits and
historical notes, takes a new field.

(2) “THE BAY STATE,” in its revolutionary and historical record; illustrated by
maps, mansions, and local objects of memorial and monumental interest, invites
support.

(3) Historical articles, of national value, which illustrate the outgrowth of the
struggle for national independence, which had its start at Concord and Lexington, was
developed in the siege of Boston, and culminated at Yorktown. In this line we
obtained from General Carrington, the historian, an article and maps to start this
series.

(4) The best historical, educational, and general literature, with no exclusive
limitation of authorship or subject; but with the aim at a high standard of
contributions, so that the magazine should be prized, as a specialty.

Perchance a dearly-loved daughter is carrying New-England ideas to some dark
corner of the South or West, leading the young idea, or surrounded by ideas of her
own,—what more appropriate present to the absent one than THE BAY STATE
MONTHLY?

In the old-fashioned farm-house where your youth was passed so happily, there may
be the dim, spectacled eyes of the good father and mother—perhaps one without
the other—awaiting the approach of spring and summer, to welcome home their
child. Herald your coming by sending to them THE BAY STATE MONTHLY, to relieve the
monotony and awaken reminiscences of their youth.

There are indications that the unjust postal law, which provides that THE BAY
STATE MONTHLY can be delivered in San Francisco, New Orleans, or Savannah, for less
than half the money required to deliver it in Boston and its suburbs, will be
repealed by the present Congress, and a more equitable law established.

SUBSCRIBE FOR THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.

THE BAY STATE MONTHLY has found a home at 31 Milk Street, room 46, (elevator).

A reliable boy from thirteen to sixteen years old can find employment at our
office. Write, stating qualifications, references, and wages expected.

JOHN N. MCCLINTOCK, of THE BAY STATE MONTHLY, has written and has in press, a
History of the town of Pembroke, New Hampshire. Modesty prevents our dwelling at too
great a length upon the merits of the book. The historical student will find within
its covers a wealth of dramatic incidents, thrilling narrative, touching pathos,
etc.

Apropos of town histories, the publishers of THE BAY STATE MONTHLY would be
willing to confer with authors upon the subject of publishing their manuscripts.

We copy, by permission, from the Boston Daily Advertiser, the following

RECORD OF EVENTS IN JANUARY.

1. President Clark of the New York and New England Railroad appointed its
receiver.

Successful opening of the improved system of sewerage in Boston.

2. James Russell Lowell declines the rectorship of St. Andrew’s University, to
which he was elected.

3. Inauguration of the Hon. George D. Robinson as governor.

7. Inauguration of the Boston city government, and of the new governments in the
cities of the Commonwealth.

8. Appointment by the governor of Mrs. Ellen C. Johnson, of Boston, as
superintendent of the Sherborn reformatory prison for women.

12. Close of the foreign exhibition in Boston.

15. Minister Lowell accepts the presidency of the Birmingham and Midland
Institute for 1884.

17. Francis W. Rockwell elected to Congress from the twelfth Massachusetts
district to succeed Governor Robinson.

Mr. Robert Harris elected president of the Northern Pacific Railroad, in place
of Mr. Henry Villard, resigned.

18. Steamer City of Columbus of the Boston and Savannah line wrecked off Gay
Head, Martha’s Vineyard, with the loss of one hundred lives.

28. The State Senate votes to abolish the annual Election Sermon.

DEATHS IN JANUARY.

3. The Rev. Lawrence Walsh, of Rhode Island, treasurer of the American National
Land League.

9. Brigadier-General James F. Hall, of Massachusetts.

10. The Rev. George W. Quimby, D.D., of Maine.

12. John William Wallace, president of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

[pg iii]

13. The Hon. Francis T. Blackmen, district attorney of Worcester County,
Mass.

16. Amos D. Lockwood, of Providence, R.I. Dr. John Taylor Gilman, of Portland,
Me.

19. General William C. Plunkett, of Adams, Mass.

21. Commodore Timothy A. Hunt, U.S.N., of Connecticut.

The History of Georgia, by Charles C. Jones, Jr., LL.D. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co., 2 vols.) This is one of the most important recent contributions to
American history. Mr. Jones has done for Georgia what Palfrey did for New England.
The first volume deals with the settlement of the State, while the second covers its
history during the war of the Revolution. With the single exception of omitting to
give a picture of the manners and customs of the people, which is always essential to
a comprehensive history of any community or nation, the work merits the high praise
it has already received.

The first volume of Suffolk County Deeds was published more than two years ago, by
permission of the city authorities of Boston. The second one, upon petition of the
Suffolk bar, was also printed and distributed at the close of 1883. These volumes
contain valuable original historical information of the county, and of the city
itself. Among other historically-famous names appear those of Simon Bradstreet, John
Endicott, John Winthrop, and Samuel Maverick. The Indian element of the colony, also,
is shown here several times. The local topography of Boston and its suburbs, as they
existed more than two centuries ago, are all preserved in this second volume. Other
volumes will no doubt follow in time, thus preserving records that are indeed
precious.

The advanced state of our civilization, and the general prevalence of
intelligence, naturally leads to the desire to contrast the past with the present;
and to trace to their origin, the laws, customs, and manners of the leading civilized
nations of the world. Much research and strength have been expended in this
direction, with gratifying results. Two such accomplishments have been recently
published, which discuss the early history of property. The first is entitled The
English Village Community, by Frederic Seebohm, (London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1
vol.) The other, by Denman W. Ross, PH.D., treats of The Early History of Landholding
among the Germans. (Boston: Soule & Bugbee. 1 vol.) It is generally admitted that
the earliest organization of society was by family group, and that the earliest
occupation of land was by these same family groups, and it is with the discussion of
the theories growing out of these two that both books are occupied.

An Old Philadelphian contains sketches of the life of Colonel William Bradford,
the patriot printer of 1776, by John William Wallace. (Philadelphia. Privately
printed, 1 vol.) “He was the third of the earliest American family of printers, and
his memoir serves as an admirable account of the interesting period in which he was
one of the prominent figures in Philadelphia, and when that city was, in every sense,
the capital of the country.” It should be printed for public sale.

The initial volume of American Commonwealths, edited by Horace E. Scudder, and
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, was Virginia: A History of the
People, by John Esten Cooke. This is followed by Oregon: The Struggle for Possession,
written by William Barrows. The books are intended to give a rapid but forcible
sketch of each of those States in the [pg iv] Union whose lives have had “marked influence upon the
structure of the nation, or have embodied in their formation and growth, principles
of American polity.”

A History of the American People, by Arthur Gilman, published by D. Lothrop &
Co., Boston, I vol. Illustrated. This is a compact account of the discovery of the
continent, settlement of the country, and national growth of this people. It is
treated in a popular way, with strict reference to accuracy, and is profusely
illustrated.

History of Prussia to the accession of Frederick the Great, 1134-1740, by Herbert
Tuttle. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, I vol. The author, who is
Professor of History in Cornell University, “spent several years in Berlin, studying
with the greatest care the Germany of the past and present. The results are contained
in this volume, with the purpose to describe the political development of Prussia
from the earliest time down to the death of the second king.”

The Magazine of American History, No. 30 Lafayette Place, New York. Terms, $5 per
annum, single numbers 50 cents. Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, editor.

This is the only periodical exclusively devoted to the history and antiquities of
America; containing original historical and biographical articles by writers of
recognized ability, besides reprints of rare documents, translations of valuable
manuscripts, careful and discriminating literary reviews, and a special department of
notes and queries, which is open to all historical inquirers.

This publication is now in its seventh year and firmly established, with the
support of the cultivated element of the country. It is invaluable to the reading
public, covering a field not occupied by ordinary periodical literature, and is in
every way an admirable table companion for the scholar, and for all persons of
literary and antiquarian tastes. It forms a storehouse of valuable and interesting
material not accessible in any other form.

Mrs. Lamb is the author of the elaborate History of the City of New York, in two
volumes, royal octavo, which is the standard authority in that specialty of local
American history.

We welcome The Magazine of American History, and thank the accomplished editor for
her appreciation of our own more especially New England enterprise.

The Magazine of American History, has one element which insures its merit and its
permanence, and that is its list of contributors. Its previous editors have included
John Austin Stevens, the Rev. Dr. B.F. DeCosta, and others. Its contributors include
such names as Bancroft, Carrington, DePeyster, George E. Ellis, Gardner, Greene,
Hamilton, Stone, Horatio Seymour, Trumbull, Walworth, Rodenbough, Amory, Cooper,
Delafield, Brevoort, Anthon, Bacheller, Arnold, Dexter, Windsor, etc.

Historical students will find that the facile pen, the painstaking research, and
the scholarly taste of Mrs. Lamb, assure her a place with the first of American
female writers; and that she deserves most considerate and enthusiastic support.
Steel engravings, historical maps, and many illustrations, add beauty, character, and
dignity to the work.

ERRATUM. In the January number, on pages 39 and 41 the word “Gates” should read
“Gage.”

AN

ORATION,

PRONOUNCED AT

HANOVER, NEW-HAMPSHIRE,

THE 4th DAY of JULY,

1800;

BEING THE TWENTY-FOURTH

ANNIVERSARY

OF

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER,

Member of the Junior Class, DARTMOUTH UNIVERSITY.

ADDISON.

(PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SUBSCRIBERS.)

PRINTED AT HANOVER,

BY MOSES DAVIS.

1800.

AN ORATION.

We are now assembled to celebrate an anniversary, ever to be held in dear
remembrance by the sons of freedom. Nothing less than the birth of a nation, nothing
less than the emancipation of three millions of people, from the degrading chains of
foreign dominion, is the event we commemorate.

Twenty four years have this day elapsed, since United Columbia first raised the
standard of Liberty, and echoed the shouts of Independence!

Those of you, who were then reaping the iron harvest of the martial field, whose
bosoms then palpitated for the honor of America, will, at this time, experience a
renewal of all that fervent patriotism, of all those indescribable emotions, which
then agitated your breasts. As for us, who were either then unborn, or not far enough
advanced beyond the threshold of existence, to engage in the grand conflict for
Liberty, we now most cordially unite with you, to greet the return of this joyous
anniversary, to hail the day that gave us Freedom, and hail the rising glories of our
country!

On occasions like this, you have heretofore been addressed, from this stage, on
the nature, the origin, the expediency of civil government.—The field of
political speculation has here been explored, by persons, possessing talents, to
which the speaker of the day can have no pretensions. Declining therefore a
dissertation on the principles of civil polity, you will indulge me in slightly
sketching on those events, which have originated, nurtured, and raised to its present
grandeur the empire of Columbia.

As no nation on the globe can rival us in the rapidity of our growth, since the
conclusion of the revolutionary war—so none, perhaps, ever endured greater
hardships, and distresses, than the people of this country, previous to that
period.

We behold a feeble band of colonists, engaged in the arduous undertaking of a new
settlement, in the wilds of North America. Their civil liberty being mutilated, and
the enjoyment of their religious sentiments denied them, in the land that gave them
birth, they fled their country, they braved the dangers of the then almost
unnavigated ocean, and fought, on the other side the globe, an asylum from the iron
grasp of tyranny, and the more intolerable scourge of ecclesiastical persecution. But
gloomy, indeed, was their prospect, when arrived on this side the Atlantic.
Scattered, in detachments, along a coast immensely extensive, at a remove of more
than three thousand miles from their friends on the eastern continent, they were
exposed to all those evils, and endured all those difficulties, to which human nature
seems liable. Destitute of convenient habitations, the inclemencies of the seasons
attacked them, the midnight beasts of prey prowled terribly around them, and the more
portentous yell of savage fury incessantly assailed them! But the fame undiminished
confidence in Almighty GOD, which prompted the first settlers of this country to
forsake the unfriendly climes of Europe, still supported them, under all their
calamities, and inspired them with fortitude almost divine. Having a glorious issue
to their labors now in prospect, they cheerfully endured the rigors of the climate,
pursued the savage beast to his remotest haunt, and stood, undismayed, in the dismal
hour of Indian battle!

Scarcely were the infant settlements freed from those dangers, which at first
evironed them, ere the clashing interests of France and Britain involved them anew in
war. The colonists were now destined to combat with well appointed, well disciplined
troops from Europe; and the horrors of the tomahawk and the scalping knife were again
renewed. But these frowns of fortune, distressing as they were, had been met without
a sigh, and endured without a groan, had not imperious Britain presumptuously
arrogated to herself the glory of victories, achieved by the bravery of American
militia. Louisburgh must be taken, Canada attacked, and a frontier of more than one
thousand miles defended by untutored yeomanry; while the honor of every conquest must
be ascribed to an English army.

But while Great-Britain was thus ignominiously stripping her colonies of their
well earned laurel, and triumphantly weaving it into the stupendous wreath of her own
martial glories, she was unwittingly teaching them to value themselves, and
effectually to resist, in a future day, her unjust encroachments.

The pitiful tale of taxation now commences—the unhappy quarrel, which issued
in the dismemberment of the British empire, has here its origin.

England, now triumphant over the united powers of France and Spain, is determined
to reduce, to the condition of slaves, her American subjects.

We might now display the Legislatures of the several States, together with the
general Congress, petitioning, praying, remonstrating; and, like dutiful subjects,
humbly laying their grievances before the throne. On the other hand, we could exhibit
a British Parliament, assiduously devising means to subjugate
America—disdaining our petitions, trampling on our rights, and menacingly
telling us, in language not to be misunderstood, “Ye shall be slaves!”—We could
mention the haughty, tyrannical, perfidious GAGE, at the head of a standing army; we
could show our brethren attacked and slaughtered at Lexington! our property plundered
and destroyed at Concord! Recollection can still pain us, with the spiral flames of
burning Charleston, the agonizing groans of aged parents, the shrieks of widows,
orphans and infants!—Indelibly impressed on our memories, still live the dismal
scenes of Bunker’s awful mount, the grand theatre of New-England bravery; where
slaughter stalked, grimly triumphant! where relentless Britain saw her
soldiers, the unhappy instruments of despotism, fallen, in heaps, beneath the nervous
arm of injured freemen!—There the great WARREN fought, and there, alas, he
fell! Valuing life only as it enabled him to serve his country, he freely resigned
himself, a willing martyr in the cause of Liberty, and now lies encircled in the arms
of glory!

But, haughty Albion, thy reign shall soon be over,—thou shalt triumph no
longer! thine empire already reels and totters! thy laurels even now begin to wither,
and thy fame decays! Thou hast, at length, roused the indignation of an insulted
people—thine oppressions they deem no longer tolerable!

The 4th day of July, 1776, is now arrived; and America, manfully springing from
the torturing fangs of the British Lion, now rises majestic in the pride of her
sovereignty, and bids her Eagle elevate his wings!—The solemn declaration of
Independence is now pronounced, amidst crowds of admiring citizens, by the supreme
council of our nation; and received with the unbounded plaudits of a grateful
people!!

That was the hour, when heroism was proved, when the souls of men were tried. It
was then, ye venerable patriots, it was then you stretched the indignant arm, and
unitedly swore to be free! Despising such toys as subjugated empires, you then knew
no middle fortune between liberty and death. Firmly relying on the patronage of
heaven, unwarped in the resolution you had taken, you, then undaunted, met, engaged,
defeated the gigantic power of Britain, and rose triumphant over the ruins of your
enemies!—Trenton, Princeton, Bennington and Saratoga were the successive
theatres of your victories, and the utmost bounds of creation are the limits to your
fame!—The sacred fire of freedom, then enkindled in your breasts, shall be
perpetuated through the long descent of future ages, and burn, with undiminished
fervor, in the bosoms of millions yet unborn.

Finally, to close the sanguinary conflict, to grant America the blessings of an
honorable peace, and clothe her heroes with laurels, CORNWALLIS, at whose feet the
kings and princes of Asia have since thrown their diadems, was compelled to submit to
the sword of our father WASHINGTON.—The great drama is now completed—our
Independence is now acknowledged; and the hopes of our enemies are blasted
forever!—Columbia is now seated in the forum of nations and the empires of the
world are loft in the bright effulgence of her glory!

Thus, friends and citizens, did the kind hand of over-ruling Providence conduct
us, through toils, fatigues and dangers, to Independence and Peace. If piety be the
rational exercise of the human soul, if religion be not a chimera, and if the
vestiges of heavenly assistance are clearly traced in those events, which mark the
annals of our nation, it becomes us, on this day, in consideration of the great
things, which the LORD has done for us, to render the tribute of unfeigned thanks, to
that GOD, who superintends the Universe, and holds aloft the scale, that weighs the
destinies of nations.

The conclusion of the revolutionary war did not conclude the great achievements of
our countrymen. Their military character was then, indeed, sufficiently established;
but the time was coming, which should prove their political sagacity.

No sooner was peace restored with England, the first grand article of which was
the acknowledgment of our Independence, than the old system of confederation,
dictated, at first, by necessity, and adopted for the purposes of the moment, was
found inadequate to the government of an extensive empire. Under a full conviction of
this, we then saw the people of these States, engaged in a transaction, which is,
undoubtedly, the greatest approximation towards human perfection the political world
ever yet experienced; and which, perhaps, will forever stand on the history of
mankind, without a parallel. A great Republic, composed of different States, whose
interest in all respects could not be perfectly compatible, then came deliberately
forward, discarded one system of government and adopted another, without the loss of
one man’s blood.

There is not a single government now existing in Europe, which is not based in
usurpation, and established, if established at all, by the sacrifice of thousands.
But in the adoption of our present system of jurisprudence, we see the powers
necessary for government, voluntarily springing from the people, their only proper
origin, and directed to the public good, their only proper object.

With peculiar propriety, we may now felicitate ourselves, on that happy form of
mixed government under which we live. The advantages, resulting to the citizens of
the Union, from the operation of the Federal Constitution, are utterly incalculable;
and the day, when it was received by a majority of the States, shall stand on the
catalogue of American anniversaries, second to none but the birth day of
Independence.

In consequence of the adoption of our present system of government, and the
virtuous manner in which it has been administered, by a WASHINGTON and an ADAMS, we
are this day in the enjoyment of peace, while war devastates Europe! We can now sit
down beneath the shadow of the olive, while her cities blaze, her streams run purple
with blood, and her fields glitter, a forest of bayonets!—The citizens of
America can this day throng the temples of freedom, and renew their oaths of fealty
to Independence; while Holland, our once sister republic, is erased from the
catalogue of nations; while Venice is destroyed, Italy ravaged, and Switzerland, the
once happy, the once united, the once flourishing Switzerland lies bleeding at every
pore!

No ambitious foe dares now invade our country. No standing army now endangers our
liberty.—Our commerce, though subject in some degree to the depredations of the
belligerent powers, is extended from pole to pole; and our navy, though just emerging
from nonexistence, shall soon vouch for the safety of our merchantmen, and bear the
thunder of freedom around the ball!

Fair Science too, holds her gentle empire amongst us, and almost innumerable
altars are raised to her divinity, from Brunswick to Florida. Yale, Providence and
Harvard now grace our land; and DARTMOUTH, towering majestic above the groves, which
encircle her, now inscribes her glory on the registers of fame!—Oxford and
Cambridge, those oriental stars of literature, shall now be lost, while the bright
sun of American science displays his broad circumference in uneclipsed radiance.

Pleasing, indeed, were it here to dilate on the future grandeur of America; but we
forbear; and pause, for a moment, to drop the tear of affection over the graves of
our departed warriors. Their names should be mentioned on every anniversary of
Independence, that the youth, of each successive generation, may learn not to value
life, when held in competition with their country’s safety.

WOOSTER, MONTGOMERY, and MERCER, fell bravely in battle, and their ashes are now
entombed on the fields that witnessed their valor. Let their exertions in our
country’s cause be remembered, while Liberty has an advocate, or gratitude has place
in the human heart.

GREENE, the immortal hero of the Carolinas, has since gone down to the grave,
loaded with honors, and high in the estimation of his countrymen. The corageous
PUTNAM has long slept with his fathers; and SULLIVAN and CILLEY, New-Hampshire’s
veteran sons, are no more numbered with the living!

With hearts penetrated by unutterable grief, we are at length constrained to ask,
where is our WASHINGTON? where the hero, who led us to victory—where the man,
who gave us freedom? Where is he, who headed our feeble army, when destruction
threatened us, who came upon our enemies like the storms of winter; and scattered
them like leaves before the Borean blast? Where, O my country! is thy political
saviour? where, O humanity! thy favorite son?

The solemnity of this assembly, the lamentations of the American people will
answer, “alas, he is now no more—the Mighty is fallen!”

Yes, Americans, your WASHINGTON is gone! he is now consigned to dust, and “sleeps
in dull, cold marble.” The man, who never felt a wound, but when it pierced his
country, who never groaned, but when fair freedom bled, is now forever
silent!—Wrapped in the shroud of death, the dark dominions of the grave long
since received him, and he rests in undisturbed repose! Vain were the attempt to
express our loss—vain the attempt to describe the feelings of our souls! Though
months have rolled away, since he left this terrestrial orb, and fought the shining
worlds on high, yet the sad event is still remembered with increased sorrow. The
hoary headed patriot of ’76 still tells the mournful story to the listening infant,
till the loss of his country touches his heart, and patriotism fires his breath. The
aged matron still laments the loss of the man, beneath whose banners her husband has
fought, or her son has fallen.—At the name of WASHINGTON, the sympathetic tear
still glistens in the eye of every youthful hero, nor does the tender sigh yet cease
to heave, in the fair bosom of Columbia’s daughters.

Although we must feel the keenest sorrow, at the demise of our WASHINGTON, yet we
console ourselves with the reflection, that his virtuous compatriot, his worthy
successor, the firm, the wise, the inflexible ADAMS still survives.—Elevated,
by the voice of his country, to the supreme executive magistracy, he constantly
adheres to her essential interests; and, with steady hand, draws the disguising veil
from the intrigues of foreign enemies, and the plots of domestic foes. Having the
honor of America always in view, never fearing, when wisdom dictates, to stem the
impetuous torrent of popular resentment, he stands amidst the fluctuations of party,
and the explosions of faction, unmoved as Atlas,

Yet, all the vigilance of our Executive, and all the wisdom of our Congress have
not been sufficient to prevent this country from being in some degree agitated by the
convulsions of Europe. But why shall every quarrel on the other side the Atlantic
interest us in its issue? Why shall the rife, or depression of every party there,
produce here a corresponding vibration? Was this continent designed as a mere
satellite to the other?—Has not nature here wrought all her operations on her
broadest scale? Where are the Missisippis and the Amazons, the Alleganies and the
Andes of Europe, Asia or Africa? The natural superiority of America clearly
indicates, that it was designed to be inhabited by a nobler race of men, possessing a
superior form of government, superior patriotism, superior talents, and superior
virtues. Let then the nations of the East vainly waste their strength in destroying
each other. Let them aspire at conquest, and contend for dominion, till their
continent is deluged in blood. But let none, however elated by victory, however proud
of triumphs, ever presume to intrude on the neutral station assumed by our
country.

Britain, twice humbled for her aggressions, has at length been taught to respect
us. But France, once our ally, has dared to insult us! she has violated her
obligations; she has depredated our commerce—she has abused our government, and
riveted the chains of bondage on our unhappy fellow citizens! Not content with
ravaging and depopulating the fairest countries of Europe, not yet satiated with the
contortions of expiring republics, the convulsive agonies of subjugated nations, and
the groans of her own slaughtered citizens, she has spouted her fury across the
Atlantic; and the stars and stripes of Independence have almost been attacked in our
harbours! When we have demanded reparation, she has told us, “give us your money, and
we will give you peace.”—Mighty Nation! Magnanimous Republic!—Let her
fill her coffers from those towns and cities, which she has plundered; and grant
peace, if she can, to the shades of those millions, whose death she has caused.

But Columbia stoops not to tyrants; her sons will never cringe to France; neither
a supercilious, five-headed Directory, nor the gasconading pilgrim of Egypt will ever
dictate terms to sovereign America. The thunder of our cannon shall insure the
performance of our treaties, and fulminate destruction on Frenchmen, till old ocean
is crimsoned with blood, and gorged with pirates!

It becomes us, on whom the defence of our country will ere long devolve, this day,
most seriously to reflect on the duties incumbent upon us. Our ancestors bravely
snached expiring liberty from the grasp of Britain, whose touch is poison;
shall we now consign it to France, whose embrace is death? We have seen our
fathers, in the days of Columbia’s trouble, assume the rough habiliments of war, and
seek the hostile field. Too full of sorrow to speak, we have seen them wave a last
farewel to a disconsolate, a woe-stung family! We have seen them return, worn down
with fatigue, and scarred with wounds; or we have seen them, perhaps, no
more!—For us they fought! for us they bled! for us they conquered! Shall we,
their descendants, now basely disgrace our lineage, and pusilanimously disclaim the
legacy bequeathed us? Shall we pronounce the sad valediction to freedom, and immolate
liberty on the altars our fathers have raised to her? NO! The response of a nation
is, “NO!” Let it be registered in the archives of Heaven!—Ere the religion
we profess, and the privileges we enjoy are sacrificed at the shrines of despots and
demagogues, let the pillars of creation tremble! let world be wrecked on world, and
systems rush to ruin!—Let the sons of Europe be vassals; let her hosts of
nations be a vast congregation of slaves; but let us, who are this day FREE, whose
hearts are yet unappalled, and whose right arms are yet nerved for war, assemble
before the hallowed temple of Columbian Freedom, AND SWEAR, TO THE GOD OF OUR
FATHERS, TO PRESERVE IT SECURE, OR DIE AT ITS PORTALS!

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