USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Suffield > Celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Suffield, Connecticut, October 12, 13 and 14, 1920, with sketches from its past and some record of its last half century and of its present > Part 3
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In 1878 my father and mother moved to New Haven, an undertaking to them attended with considerable courage and sacrifice, done largely, I believe, that I might go to college, thus creating a debt on my part to which I subscribe my acknowledgment. But I hated to leave Suffield and many a homesick day I had for the old place. Since that time to the present, it has been my privilege to visit my native town at more or less frequent intervals. I have noticed the changes, which have been gradual but in the aggregate enormous. Of the older ones I used to know who have gone to their great
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reward are Dr. Rising, my grandfather Daniel W. Norton, the president of the committee of fifty years ago, Deacon Horace Sheldon, the brothers Samuel, Homer and Albert Austin, Nathan and Silas Clark, John, Wells, Byron, William, Charles, Frank and Burritt Loomis, Charles Bissell, Horatio Nelson, Simon B. Kendall, Samuel Reed, Henry P. Kent, Samuel White, Julius Harmon, Hezekiah, Luther, Calvin, Alfred and Thaddeus Spencer, Deacons Spellman and Russell, James Haskins, Wil- liam and Cecil Fuller, George Williston, Gad Sheldon, Cornelius Austin, John Hemenway, Warren Cooper; and of the women, Elizabeth Philleo, Emily Clark, Lucy Pease, the Misses Gay, Mrs. Neland Loomis and the Misses Hemenway; of the later ones, the historian Hezekiah Sheldon, Martin Sheldon, Milton and Safford Hathaway, Martin Smith, Collins Allen, Dr. Street, Newton Pomeroy, Alfred Owen, Frank Fuller, Leverett Austin, Leavitt and Charles Bissell, Edmund Halladay, William Peck- ham, Watson Pease, Clinton Spencer, Asa Strong, Webster Burbank, Ed Latham, Rob Loomis, Charles and Francis Warner, and that sweet soul, Dr. Newton; of the women, Mary Burr, Helen and Cordelia Archer; Carrie Sheldon, Mrs. Byron Loomis, Emily Norton, Emily Gilbert, Polly Austin, Georgie Wadsworth and her daughter, Mrs. Schwartz, Cornelia Pomeroy, Maria Bissell Pomeroy, Frances Birge Loomis, Carrie Spencer, Louise Russell, Emily Spencer, Helen King, Louise Hathaway, Huldah Chamberlain and Mary Robinson.
But the greatest change is in the families. The names on yonder Honor Roll are typical of the residents of Suffield now. New names are added to the old. In some cases the old names have disappeared.
The countrymen of the gallant Kosciusko have found homes in Suffield. They dwell upon her fertile farms, formerly owned by the Spencers, the Bissells, the Warners, the Kings, the Grangers, the Phelpses, the Remingtons, the Sykes, and the Loomises, et cetera.
The house my father built, and where we lived when we moved to New Haven, is now the house of the Polish priest and the barn where we kept the stock is now St. Joseph's Church. Napoleon, in his campaigns, was accustomed to desecrate cathedrals. At Milan his cavalry horses were stabled (it is said,
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however, against his orders) in the refectory of the convent on whose walls Leonardo had painted "The Last Supper". We often now hear of churches being secularized, but we have rarely known of a barn being sanctified. At first I felt sorry that father's place had not remained in private hands, but as I see the uses which are being made of it and the influence for good which may follow among the large number of men, women and children, who frequent it, I am pleased and satisfied that it may serve so good a purpose.
These neighbors of ours should make good citizens. They are destined to play their part in our history. They are as a rule intelligent, hard workers, and when they become citizens, as they all no doubt hope to be, and as their children surely will be, they become Americans first, last and always. This leads me to allude to Suffield's part in the World War. She acquitted herself with glory as she always does.
We look with confidence forward to the next fifty years and know that Suffield will remain steadfast to the lofty principles that actuated the founders two hundred and fifty years ago.
And now in closing may I paraphrase a song my father used to sing:
Old Suffield, dear Suffield, our home on the lea, Our hearts as we wander turn fondly to thee,
For bright rests the sun on thy clear winding streams, And so soft o'er thy meadows the moon pours her beams. Old Suffield, dear Suffield, our home on the lea,
The wanderer's heart turns in fondness to thee.
Thy breezes are healthful and clear are thy rills, The harvest waves proudly and rich on thy hills. Thy maidens are fair and thy yeomen are strong, And thy rivers run blithely thy valleys among. Old Suffield, dear Suffield, our home on the lea, The wanderer's heart turns ever fondly to thee.
Ther're homes in old Suffield where loved ones of thine, Are thinking of days of the dear "Auld Lang Syne"; And blest be the hour when our pilgrimage o'er, We shall sit by those hearthstones and leave them no more. Old Suffield, Our Suffield, sweet home on the lea, Our hearts as we wander turn ever to thee.
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The quartette consisting of Mrs. Augusta Burbank Couch of Suffield, Miss Ruth Remington of Suffield, Mr. Thomas E. Couch of Suffield, and Mr. Robert Winn Jones of Hartford, accompanied by Mr. C. Luther Spencer at the organ, sang "China," which was written by Timothy Swan of Suffield about 1800.
The Historical Address
Mr. Peckham then introduced the historian of the day. "As our historian," he said, "we have secured a descendant of a native of Suffield one who for many years has been a professor of Yale University; a son of the late S. Dryden Phelps, who was deeply interested along educational lines and also wrote and delivered the historical poem fifty years ago. It seems very proper that our program should include the name of this worthy descendant of Suffield. It is with pleasure I present Professor William Lyon Phelps of New Haven, who will deliver the historical address." The address of Professor Phelps follows:
It is a pleasure for me to be asked to come here and appear on the platform in the town that my father loved more than any place on earth. I only regret that when I was a boy I did not come up here and have him show me about and visit the friends he loved. He used to tell me great stories of Captain Phelps, who was the heavy weight champion of the town, and all sorts of splendid tales of our family.
I appreciate more than I can express the honor of being in- vited to speak at the exercises commemorating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Suffield. To me it was an especially welcome invitation, not merely because I am a Connecticut man, by birth, ancestry, and many years of active service, but because my beloved father was born in Suf- field, went to school here, and read a poem on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary in 1870. He was then almost pre- cisely the same age as I am now, the only difference between us being the marked one between poetry and prose. Both my father and my mother were born in Connecticut, as were their forbears; I was born in New Haven, and went to school not far from here, in Hartford. I am a lineal descendant of William
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Phelps, who came to the neighboring town of Windsor in 1636.
I mention these things not because I am proud of them, for no one can be rationally proud of anything with which he had nothing to do; but because I am glad of them; they give me certain privileges, among which is the right to represent Suffield on this occasion.
My father, the Rev. Dr. Sylvanus Dryden Phelps, was born at Suffield, May 15, 1816. His father, Israel Phelps, was a farmer here, who died when his son was ten years old. There was no money; my father worked on a farm, doing a man's work when he was a boy. Despite the hard daily toil, he loved it, and he always looked back to farm life with happy memories. Everything about a farm, the crops and the stock, were always to him matters of vivid interest; and when Whittier's Snow- Bound was published in 1866, my father read it with reminiscent delight. He went to school at the Connecticut Literary Institu- tion, and so, by a curious chance, did my wife's father, Langdon Hubbard. When the time came to go to college, my father was too poor to pay the expense of travelling; he therefore walked from Suffield to Brown University, in Providence, R. I., and was compelled to stay out of college one year later in the course, in order to get sufficient funds to continue.
I have never known a man in whom the principle of loyalty was stronger than in him. He loved the town of his birth with unspeakable affection; he was always talking to me about it; he returned here constantly to revisit the scenes of his youth; and I do not believe there was any historical, religious, or educa- tional anniversary in Suffield where he failed to be present and to take part.
We are all most interested in what concerns us most nearly; it is always the local news in the paper we read first, and we read with most avidity the account of something we saw the day before. Perhaps it is for this reason, that as we grow older, we more often look back to the distant past than to the immedi- ate future; for the past is familiar, and the future is unknown. Certain it is that irreverence, dislike of tradition, and even rebellion, are the characteristics of extreme youth; as we grow older, we become more reverent, more sensible of the unpurchas- able value of tradition, and we become more reconciled to life.
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CHAIRMEN OF PAGEANT COMMITTEES
Mrs. George A. Peckham Cast and Rehearsal W. S. Fuller Stage, Grounds, Properties
Mrs. Charles C. Bissell Music Charles L. Spencer Business and Finance Charles R. Latham Publicity
Mrs. George A. Harmon Costumes and Make-up George B. Woodruff Parking and Policing
George H. Peckham Stephen S. Wise L.L.D.
Hon. Hugh M. Alcorn William Lyon Phelps, Ph.D. Henry B. Russell
Prof. Jack R. Crawford Seymour C. Loomis
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For boys and girls labor under the delusion that man is free, that he owes no tribute either to Cæsar or to God, and that he can follow the path indicated by his own sweet will. As we grow older, we discover that freedom-in any complete sense- does not exist; that the art of life is to realize its limitations, before setting up a practical philosophy; we may then find out, that if we cannot live in absolute independence, we can live the life of reason with some contentment. The familiar quarrel between generations will always go on in the future, as it always has in the past; the folly of impatience in youth being matched by the folly of misunderstanding youth in old age. Perhaps, from a cynical point of view, this quarrel was never summed up better than by the Elizabethan poet and dramatist, George Chapman. "Young men think old men are fools; but old men know that young men are fools."
Whether we like it or not, we are all governed by the past. The books written by men long dead have the largest influence in shaping our minds and ruling our conduct; the laws that control our duties and privileges as citizens were made by men whose names we cannot remember; spirit hands guide our foot- steps through life; we think the thoughts of our ancestors, and carry into execution conceptions formed by them. The muscles of our bodies, and the swifter impulses of our minds are really set in motion by thousands of men and women. We have been shaped by our traditions. We can add something ourselves to these traditions, but we cannot annihilate them, even if we would. They are as real as we are.
Many Americans have such a constant consciousness of in- dependence, that they cannot bear the thought of having America's destiny in any way influenced by hands across the sea. "What! do you mean to say that men in foreign nations shall tell us what we shall and shall not do?" Now the truth is, that not only men in foreign nations have a vital influence on our conduct and future acts, but that this is especially true of those foreigners who have been dead for many centuries. The situation is even more humiliating than we had thought. Bad enough to have an outside absentee ruler who is alive-how much more insupportable when they have all ceased to exist!
Nothing is more foolish than to despise the past, or to attempt
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to rearrange the present without a sound knowledge of history. The difficulty with most exceedingly radical reformers is that they are deficient in historical knowledge. They do not know that the experiment they have in mind has been tried so many times without success that some lesson might possibly be gained by observation of previous results. "Histories make men wise," said Lord Bacon; and they make us wise, not merely because history-books were written by wise men, but because history itself is the accumulation of human wisdom gleaned from human folly. To despise the past is to despise wisdom. For despite the glib way in which the word evolution is used, despite the immense advances made in personal luxuries, housing, and locomotion, despite the amazing diffusion of culture, by which reading and writing have become no more conspicuous than breathing-there is not one scintilla of evidence to prove that the individual mind has advanced a single step, in the power of thought, or in the ability to reason, or in the possession of wis- dom. The men of ancient times-as represented by their lead- ers-were in every respect as able-minded as the best product of the twentieth century.
That "history repeats itself" will seem once more clear if I read a short extract from the admirable memorial address de- livered at Suffield on the occasion of the two hundredth anni- versary, in 1870, pronounced by John Lewis, Esq. Do not the following words sound appropriate to the present year?
"The historian of Suffield labors under certain intrinsic disad- vantages. Especially is this true in the present age, when we have become so accustomed to grand and startling events. We have witnessed the conflicts of mighty armies joined in battles more terrific than the world has ever seen before. We have witnessed the successful completion of vast industrial enterprises, enterprises that revolutionizecommerce, and modify the thoughts of Christendom. We have mingled in the discussion of social and political questions of the most vital and absorbing interest. And we have become so familiar with these magnificent displays of power and with these intense nervous and intellectual excite- ments, that we are in danger of losing our interest in the ordinary affairs of life. It is necessary, therefore, to realize at the outset that the history of Suffield will not lead us through a succession of these grand events; that its history is not that of a great nation, controlling millions of men, dealing with vast resources
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and setting on foot mighty armies, but simply the history of a town. . . , But notwithstanding this lack of general inter- est, the subject possesses one great advantage which to us may well compensate for all others; it is the story of our fathers and the history of our native place."
Why is it that it seems natural, not only to us but to others less fortunate, that we should celebrate in this formal and public manner the two and one-half centuries of the existence of Suf- field? Why is it, that no matter what may be its present condi- tion or the possibilities of its future, we are glad of its past? Why is it that those who leave the little town and go into huge Western cities so often look back with a heartache to these quiet scenes? By the rivers of Babylon they sit down and weep, when they remember Zion.
It is because we know the imponderable worth of traditions; and we know they come only from years. Even if every man had his price, which is not true, there are things beyond all price. An English boy who goes to Cambridge or Oxford has something in his education far removed from the price he pays for his tuition, from the instruction he receives in lectures, and from the advantages of modern laboratories. The gray walls of the cloisters, the noble old towers, the quiet beauty of the quadrangles, represent not only the best in architecture, but they are hallowed by the memories of thousands of ghosts who once were young men. Lowell once used the phrase, "God's passionless reformers, Influences." These influences which are silently but chronically active, give something that no recently- founded institution can bring, and something that makes the so-called almighty dollar look foolishly impotent. Any well disposed multi-millionaire can start a well-equipped university; but the centuries of tradition that give a tone and a stamp to every student in an old college are not for sale.
A certain independent humour accompanies those who live in ancient surroundings-and this humour is the Anglo-Saxon way of expressing pride. After dining in Hall with the Dons one evening in a college at Oxford, we adjourned after dinner to three rooms in succession. I asked one of my hosts if that had always been the custom. "No, indeed," said he, with a smile; "in fact, it is comparatively recent. We have been coming in here after dinner only since the seventeenth century."
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A wealthy American was so pleased with the velvet turf of the quadrangles that he asked an Oxford janitor how such turf was produced; it appeared that he wished his front lawn in Chicago to wear a similar aspect. The janitor said it was a simple matter; all you have to do is to wait a thousand years. Some foreign visitors, in talking with Cambridge undergraduates, asked them why they persisted in adhering to certain customs that once were perhaps fitting, but in modern days seemed absurd; the only reason returned to the energetic questioners was, "We have always done these things." And there was the implication, unspoken, but easy to divine, that if strangers did not like these customs, they had the privilege of going somewhere else.
When the Englishman Thomas Hardy sits down at his house in Dorchester to write a poem or a novel, he knows that the ground in his garden is filled with the relics of Roman occupa- tion-glass, pottery, utensils, and human bones. Twenty centuries are in his front yard. No wonder that there is dignity to his compositions when their roots go so deep.
So our village of Suffield may be an insignificant spot on the map. We cannot compare with cities of recent growth, nor has the census for 1920 any particular excitement for us. We do not study the growth of our population year by year, for our estimate is not quantitative. If certain towns boast that they have advanced in the census fifty per cent. in ten years, we may reply that we took a census two hundred years ago. From this point of view, Suffield is a perpetual rebuke to those who would judge everything by size and number. Why should there be rejoicing simply because there are more people in a city than there used to be? Why should there be boasting when the claim is made that we have doubled our population in ten years? What of it? We do not rejoice on a trolley-car when the population doubles in two minutes.
We should ask other questions and have other standards. How about quality? Are the standards higher than they used to be? Are our inhabitants better educated, more civilized, growing in grace?
I do not believe that the world in general or Suffield in par- ticular is degenerating. History moves in spirals, and the world has recently had an appalling lapse. But I do not believe
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in general that we are going back. I do not share the general mistrust toward the younger generation, partly because I re- member what elders used to say of youth when I was young. Now those times once so loudly denounced are held up as an edifying model for the youth of today. I rejoice that we have a long line of Suffield ancestors in our blood; but I do not be- lieve that Suffield then or America then was better than it is today; and, if I did think so, don't you see that I should be false to my faith in my ancestors? If they, with all their virtues, were such poor stock that their descendants are all going to the everlasting bonfire, how could I regard them with admiration and reverence? The youth of today are better because the original stock was good.
There is a dramatic side to progress, so dramatic that it is almost amusing. There are many who would thoughtlessly say that America is now pagan, frivolous, irresponsible and irreligious, in contrast with the "good old times" when our Puritan ancestors were so stern, strict, and devout. But how amazed one of those old Puritan divines would be if he should revisit the glimpses of the moon and find it absolutely impossible to quench his thirst. In the days when our godly ancestors drank often and copiously of heady vintages and distilled liquors, when the parson in his pulpit fortified himself for the second hour of his discourse with a mug of flip, what would they have thought, if they had been informed that their so-often-called degenerate descendants could not get a drink at any price? Possibly we are the real Puritans.
Consider this charming resolution, passed at a society meet- ing of the Church here in 1749, when they were considering ways and means toward building a new meeting-house for the worship of God. It was voted that "the committee should provide Rhum, Cyder, and Beer for Raising the new meeting- house, at their discretion." Such a program today would raise something besides a church.
I believe in old times, old traditions, old customs, old memo- ries; but I do not believe, in comparison with the present, in the good old times. That is a lusty myth. Some one dug up a fragment in the sands of Egypt that had lain forgotten for three thousand years. On it was an inscription that it took a scholar
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to decipher. When finally translated, it was seen to say, "Ah, we are degenerate and evil; we are not noble and strong, as they were in the good old times."
In one of his shorter poems, Tennyson said,
"That man's the best Cosmopolite Who loves his native country best."
I suppose he meant by that statement, that the man who loved his own country was better fitted to love all countries and thus become a true citizen of the world, than anyone who, while professing to be swayed only by international sentiment, should have little affection for any country in particular. We are all familiar with the type of man whois filled with enthusiasm for humanity, but who never helps any individual; love, like charity, should begin at home. It is a singular but a happy human characteristic that we all love with unspeakable affec- tion the scenes of our birth and childhood; even those who are brought up in a particularly detestable climate, will, when far away in golden sunshine, become homesick for the fog, the mists, and the rain. Many who have left their home in early manhood, will return to it in old age, as though drawn thither by invisible but irresistible bonds. There is something almost holy in this devotion; and it is inspired by such sentiments that we meet today.
It is pleasant to remember that our two hundred and fiftieth celebration should come in the same year with the three hun- dredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. The greater event does not erase the less, but it includes it. If the Pilgrims had not come to America, no one can say what the history of this locality might have been. We came from them, and they came from England. I suppose there never has been a moment in the last three hundred years when it was more necessary and desirable to dwell on the relations between ourselves and the parent stock than now. Although the World War made us ally ourselves with England in an endeavour to free the world from threatened despotism, no sooner was that definite peril passed than new dangers appeared. The natural jealousy be- tween allies, the old sentimental antagonism to Great Britain, the exigencies of party politics, all worked together for evil.
It is my belief, that whenever we celebrate the anniversaries
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of New England towns, we should look back with affection to the mother country from which we sprang. At all events, noth- ing is more necessary today than open, frank, hearty friendship and good will between Great Britain and the United States. In fact, all the English-speaking people in the world should regard themselves as members of one family; for if these people can stand together, peace on earth and good will to men are assured; if we allow anything whatever to sow among us the seeds of discord, strife, and bitterness, then war will become not an acute, but a chronic disease. Little did the settlers of Suffield in 1670 think that the language they spoke with each other was to be the world-language in the twentieth century; for while it is not only impossible, but undesirable that sepa- rate nations should give up their native tongues, we have lived to see the day, my friends, when the English language is the commonest means of communication among the children of men. In fact, with the one exception of music, English is now the universal language.
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