USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield County centennial celebration > Part 11
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moral, educational, and religious, which can promote the benefit and happiness of a community. Amid its magnificent scenery, surrounded by happy influences, and enjoying the advantages there afforded, have been trained numerous sons and daughters, who have emigrated to other portions of the country, most of whom have been prosperous and successful in whatever business they engaged. Many of them have attained high distinc- tion and great usefulness. Go where you may over this extend- ed Union, and we rarely fail to find some of them occupying re- spectable positions and bearing prominent parts in society.
It is to their early education, and those influences and advan- tages that these emigrants are largely indebted for whatever they have accomplished. A broad foundation was thereby laid for their prosperity, usefulness and honor. This, in respect to most of them, constituted their' sole inheritance, and their carcer has illustrated that such an inheritance is immeasurably superior to any other.
Twenty-five years have now elapsed since I emigrated from the town of Salisbury, where I was born, during which period I have been a resident of the State of New York. Although proud to be a citizen of the Empire State, and deeply attached to its honor and prosperity, and having reason to be grateful for favors I have experienced in the community where I reside, I am also proud of the State of my nativity, and especially of the County and town of my birth, and bear towards them a regard and affection which will last through my life. With my native town, are identified many of the most interesting remembrances and associations of the past. It is still the residence of some of my carly friends, and of a few of my beloved kindred. There are the graves of my parents, and of many friends and relatives.
In connection with this reference to my native town, I must, in justice to my own feelings, briefly allude to two valued friends, now in their graves, who emigrated from it shortly previous to myself, who were long inhabitants with me of the County where I reside, pursuing like myself the practice of the law ;- Graham II. Chapin and John M. Holley. They were men of talent, of education, of many noble and excellent qualities, and an orna- ment to their profession and society. I shall ever cherish their memories with affection and pride.
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Again expressing my regret that I cannot be present at the celebration, and tendering my acknowledgments for the honor of the invitation which has been extended to me, I am,
Yours very respectfully, T. R. STRONG.
To Rev. Jonathan Lee and others, Committee of Salisbury.
From Ebenezer W. Bolles, of Delphi, Ind., a native of Litchfield.
DELPHI, IA., August 8th, 1851.
To the Committee of the Town of Litchfield :-
Happening by chance to see the circular addressed to all who had emigrated from the County of Litchfield, to attend a Cen- tennial meeting at its County seat, and some remarks thereon, my heart warmed to be with you, to see and hear you relate what our fathers were and what they have done for us, their children; to again bring up before our eyes those honorable fathers who be- queathed to us, their children, all they had that was of real value. What was it they left us ? was it riches ? It has vanished away. Was it poverty ? It has turned into riches, to again vanish .- Was it honor ? was it liberty ? was it love of country ? was it love of our religious institutions, and its privileges ? was it love of our God? Yes, that which our fathers received from their fathers- that which God in his mercy gave them, and enabled them to keep-that which is better than riches, than gold or silver-that which the more it is used, the greater it grows-that which ex- tends its influence from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and bids fair to still spread, by the blessing of God, throughout the world :- it was that which proceeds from Him-that which He enabled our fathers to defend-that which they cherished as their best gift, and that which I hope their sons, wherever they are, will ever re- member to keep and transmit to their descendants.
Methinks I see that old man, with cocked hat, breeches, knee buckles, shoe buckles broad as my hand, with staff in hand; and now I see that old lady, with large calash-bonnet, red cloak, high- hecled shoes, stays, etc. ;- now she is on horseback, behind her husband, with a large velvet pillion ; now, there are all the little
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boys, hats off, ready to bow to age and honor ; there, the little girls have stepped out of the path, ready with a courtesy :- there goes that old man and woman-they are town poor ; they, too, are honored, and their descendants are as likely to be as honorable as the rich man's. The blood that goes from the heart goes through all the members from the head to the foot, and from the foot again to the head, and then again through the heart ;- all are honorable members in their place, and all contribute more or less to keep and continue that love of those institutions which they have re- ceived from Him who first gave it to our fathers. It may degen- erate and grow sickly in some members, but it is again renovated, and now flourishes. May all those who have descended from such noble stock, never forget their birthright, but wherever they are, still cherish and keep it purc. May the memory of our fathers ever be blessed.
E. W. BOLLES.
P. S. Oh, what a crowd there is of those same old people; they are without number; like Jacob's ladder they extend from earth to heaven !
From Amos Seward, of Tallmadge, Ohio,-a native of Warren ; enclosing a list of the names of sixty-one persons, natives of Litchfield County, now living in the town of Tallmadge.
TALLMADGE, OHIO, August 5th, 1851.
Gentlemen :-
I shall make no apology for addressing you on the present occasion. Your century celebration, about the middle of the present month, will be interesting to all that may meet with you. Presuming that you would be gratified to know the number who, by birth, were citizens of Litchfield County, and are now located in every State of the Union, I have, at some pains, collected the names, together with the date of their birth and date of their leaving your County, of those now living in this township, Tall- madge-named after one of your prominent citizens, Col. Benja- min Tallmadge, late of your place. The township is five miles square, and was first settled by Rev. David Bacon, father of Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., in the year 1806. Possibly there may
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be some inaccuracy in the date of their birth, and of their leaving the County.
Should any one say, that none of this list have shone con- spicuous in science, military or politics, I would reply that, nei- ther have we in crime. Our criminal courts have never been troubled with those from your County, settled in this township. We aim to be an industrious and law-abiding people.
I close by giving the following sentiment.
The citizens of Litchfield County in the coming century ; may they faithfully copy the virtues, and carefully shun the errors of their predecessors.
. The enclosed list contains the names of sixty-one persons, all natives of Litchfield County, now residing in the single township of Tallmadge, Ohio.
Respectfully yours, AMOS SEWARD.
Committee of Arrangements for the Century Celebration in Litch- field County.
MEETING AT RICHLAND.
PROCEEDINGS of a meeting of residents of the town of Rich- land, in the County of Kalamazoo, Michigan, who emigrated from Litchfield County, were next read :-
At a meeting of those citizens of the township of Richland, in the County of Kalamazoo, and State of Michigan, who emigrated from the County of Litchfield, in the State of Connecticut, held at Richland, the 8th of August, 1851, for the purpose of pre- paring a statement to be presented at the Centennial Celebration, to be held in Litchfield, on the 13th and 14th of August :
On motion, Samuel Woodruff was chosen Chairman, and Eli R. Miller, Secretary.
Whereupon, the following 49 persons, heads of families, citi- zens of the town of Richland, and emigrants from said County of Litchfield, were found now to reside in this place ; together with their 98 children and 109 grand-children .*
* The list of names are omitted.
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On motion,
Resolved, That we would ardently desire personally to attend the Jubilee, to be held on the 13th and 14th, in the land of our fathers and County of our birth, and that we do hereby appoint and constitute E. R. Miller, Esq., our representative in said convention.
SAMUEL WOODRUFF, Moderator.
E. R. MILLER, Secretary.
RICHLAND, August 8th, 1851.
SPEECH OF HON. D. S. DICKINSON.
THE President then introduced the Hon. DANIEL S. DICKINSON, late Senator in Congress from New York, a native of Goshen, who addressed the audience as follows :-
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN :-
FEW recollections, indeed, are of deeper or holier interest, than those associated with the home of our childhood. When the mind, like the Patriarch's dove, seeks repose from its wanderings, and returns to the place of its nativity, how many emotions rise up where pleasing, painful memories struggle for the empire of the heart ! How is the perilous journey of life, from its cloud- less morning, with its joys and sorrows, its lights and shadows, its smiles and tears, made to pass in rapid yet serene review before us. The parts we have severally been called to act upon the great theatre of life,-the relations we have formed and the bereavements we have experienced, all rush in with their attend- ing joys and sorrows and swell the heart too full for utterance. I am proud to boast myself a native of the town of Goshen, in this County, though removed to another state by the varying currents of fortune, while still a child. Yet, by the favor of Him, " who doeth all things well," I have been permitted, after forty-four years absence, to stand upon the threshold of what was once my happy home, and to realize the imaginings of poetic beauty in --
" The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood, And every lov'd scene, which my infancy knew."
The emotion which the occasion inspired, deepened by pecu- liar circumstances, are too sacred to pass beyond the heart where
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they were so painfully felt, and the fragment of the little domestie circle who lived and loved upon that cherished spot, and are yet of earth .* We have assembled here, my friends, in obedience to one of the strongest laws of our nature,-one of the best and loftiest impulses of the human heart. When we have attained the meridian of life, and see age approaching, though yet in the distance-when the passions and impulses are subdued and chastened-when we cease to believe that the " deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by to-morrow," and Hope, that terrestrial charmer, no longer promises her after-growth of joy, we turn with a feeling of devotion which the heart has never before experienced, to cherish that holy love of home which God, for benevolent purposes, has established in the deep well-springs of the heart,-to repose our head, throbbing with the busy cares of life, upon which time, perchance, has written his untimely furrows, like a wayward child, upon that pure and holy altar of domestic love-a mother's knee-saying in the language of a native poet-
" Oft from life's withered bower, In sad communion with the past I turn, And muse on thee, the only flower, In memory's urn."
The children of New England, of which this State, and espe- cially this County, has furnished her full and honorable share, have been thrown broad-cast upon the great battle-field of life, where they have been pre-eminently distinguished for their practice of the sterner virtues of manhood, and their disregard of ease, indolence, and sensual enjoyment. Though pro- verbial for religious veneration, and their devotion to religious observances, they have never been idle waiters upon Providence, but have acted upon the suggestion of Frederick the Great, who declared that, Heaven always favored the course of the best disciplined troops ! But the excellencies of our common mother, have been too truthfully portrayed by others, to permit one further word of eulogy. Her sterling virtues have been traced in sober narrative, and her brow garlanded with the choicest
* Mr. Dickinson received intelligence at the celebration that an elder brother was dying.
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specimens of poetry and eloquence, which modern times can furnish. All that is left me, is to cast my humble chaplet at her feet, and to declare that, though she has many sons who can bring her choicer offerings, she has none who love her more.
From the life-like delineations of the New England character, in the inimitable productions to which we have listened, we have seen that it is no extravagance to say that her sons have virtually climbed every hill-side, threaded every mountain-pass, explored every valley, fathomed every cave, analyzed every mineral, classed every plant and shrub, and "wrung their shy, retiring virtues out," passed over every lake and river, and navigated every sea ; they lasso the wild horse of the Pacific border with the Indian hunter, gallop by the side of the natives upon the ponies of the Pampas, and are first and last in the mines of California. Nor is their enterprise confined to one element alone, but they pur- suc with success the monsters of the deep, and achieve that which in the days of the patient but afflicted Idumean was re- garded so formidable, and draw out leviathan with a hook. In short, such is their manly independence and characteristic self- reliance, that if cast naked and helpless upon the banks of the Ganges, instead of becoming objects of charity or commisera- tion, they would be sure to gain a livelihood and accumulate wealth, by furnishing fuel for the Hindoo Suttees by contract. And what, it may well be enquired, is the secret power by which they move the moral, and change the face of the natural world ? It is knowledge,-knowledge, industry, and virtuc. What enables one hundred thousand Englishmen, in India, to cast down the temples, overthrow the idols, uproot the heathenism, and play the tyrant and tax-gatherer over seventy millions of savage black- heads, glittering in barbaric wealth, abounding in all the terrible elements of war, and burning with wild ferocity to expel the intruders from their soil ? Alas! with all their natural elements of power the answer is given in this :-
" But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er reveal."
Connecticut has sent forth her children, armed with a good common school education, which, like the battle blade of Fitz
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James, the Saxon, has been both "sword and shield," and carved out for them success wherever it has pleased Providence to cast their lot. But it is not to the success of ordinary temporal enterprise, or the accumulation of material wealth alone, that its benefits have been limited. Its teachers and those who minister in holy things, have been forth upon their mission of light throughout the habitable globe. It has gone down to the cottage of the lowly and abject, and led its humble inmates, if deserving, to the most distinguished stations. It has triumphed in the halls of legislation, and shed a lustre upon the pathway of the most illustrious of its votaries. By its light our mothers, sisters, and daughters have fixed their gentle yet mighty impress upon our social structure, as noiseless as the dews of evening fall upon the vegetable world, and have adorned it with all that is virtuous, refined, and elevated. It has served to bind together, in ties of amity and interest, in singleness of heart and sympathy of soul, a great family of states, whose hearts throb responsive to the pulsations of liberty throughout the world,-glowing, like beacon lights upon the mountain, to warn mankind of the dangers of ambition and despotism, and to beckon them onward, through liberty and intelligence to the temple gates of happiness and peace.
The sons of New England who have participated in this sys- tem of popular beneficence, comprise a large class in the Empire State, which has generously adopted them as her own, and cast her choicest laurels upon some of the most humble ; they mingle numerously with the staid and sturdy yeomanry of the Keystone ; they brush the earliest dew-drops from the vast prairies of the West, and mingle their voices with the hum of the Pacific's waves. In the sunny South they stand "like men "-high minded men- like men who know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, invoking the constitution as the ark of their political safety, and guarding their own institutions, as the vestals preserved the sacred fire. And they all, whether from the north, the south, the east, or the west, love, with the deep, pure, gushing love of sinless childhood, their dear native New England still ;- love to gaze upon her cloud-cap'd hills, her fadeless sky, her sunny slopes, her smiling vales, her laughing streams ; and to contemplate, with filial reverence, the condition of her refined, joyous, and
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happy people. But the institutions from which these blessings, under a beneficent Providence, spring, are not ours to sport with, jeopard, or destroy. We hold them in sacred trust, during the pleasure of Him who conferred it, for the benefit of those who shall come after us, to guard and preserve at the cost of life, fortune, and honor. The states of this confederacy were united to "form a more perfect union,-cstablish justice, insure do- mestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." In a few years, we who are assembled here shall all be laid in the dust. When we go hence, we shall separate, many of us for years-most of us forever ; but the same blue heavens and beauteous earth will be here; the same rugged hills will remain, and the same streams will dance along as merrily as now, at the music of their own rippling. Our children and children's children will be here, too, for weal or for woe,-basking in the sun-light of our heaven-favored free- dom, invigorated, perfected, and beautified by the tests of time and experience, or torn by the conflicts of rival states, and despoiled by domestic violence.
Oh! what modern Erostratus shall seek to hand down an execrable name to undying infamy, by raising his parricidal hand against institutions such as these. Are we not all brethren of one tie upon this great question, which so deeply concerns our integrity and being ? Let us, then, by all the bright memo- ries of the past, by the present fruition, by hope of the future, by the spirits of just patriots made perfect, invoke all to pre- serve, entire, a fountain from which so much goodness flows.
SPEECH OF HON. A. J. PARKER.
Hon. AMASA J. PARKER, of Albany, Judge of the Supreme Court of New York, a native of Sharon, was next called upon, and addressed the meeting.
MR. PRESIDENT :-
WE have come from afar, to revisit the graves of our fathers and the homes of our childhood. The sentiment that prompts us lies deep in the human heart. It is akin to that which impels the faithful mussulman to visit the tomb of the Prophet, and urges the pious pilgrim on his way to the Holy Sepulchre. We stand among the weather-beaten tombs of the Puritans. Our memories recall their stern virtues, their devoted patriotism, their indomita- ble perseverance. Who is not proud of such an ancestry ? We are indeed upon sacred ground. Our tongues refuse to give utterance to the emotions that swell our hearts, and to the recol- lections that crowd our memories.
We have been wanderers from our early homes. In the great living tide of emigration, we have been borne onward to other States and other lands, sceking our fortunes among strangers, mingling in all the exciting and busy and various scenes of life ; and now, after many-many long years of absence, we turn our faces once more towards the place of our birth." We come to greet with delight those so long separated from us,-to gather around the ancient hearth-stone ;- to rejoice in the remembrance of early associations,-to recount the various adventures of our lives, and to pay a sad tribute of respect to the memory of the departed. Can any pilgrimage be more sacred than this ?
The homes of our childhood ! Our hearts throb at the mention of it. Among all the labors, successes and reverses of life, it has been a green spot in our memories. It was the proof-impres-
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sion of early life-ever distinct-ever bright-ineffaceable. We think of it with love and gratitude, and with a feeling of reverence that belongs only to sacred things. The home of our childhood !
" Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see, My heart untraveled fondly turns to thee."
We think of it-we dream of it-we return to it. It is still home-in miniature. The fields, the buildings, the rooms, seemed much larger to our childish vision, and we recollect them as they seemed to us then. That was then our world, and of course it seemed large to us. We gaze at them, and their proportions change. Yes-they are indeed the same. They are old friends, silent but true-immoveable at least. That old stone-wall has grown a little more gray and moss-covered. It was my early friend,-my defense,-my fortification in my boyish sports and contests. It has stood, many a time, between me and harm. It looks as if it would like to speak to me now ; but it is eloquent, even in its silence. And that tree, too, near by, that I climbed so often in my boyhood, and whose spreading branches furnished me a grateful shade in summer, and pockets full of chestnuts in the autumn, who will say that it is not a kind hearted old tree still ? Though hollow, I am sure it is not false ; and that is more than we can say of all the world. If time has made some inroads on the house, it has only kept pace with myself in that respect.
And there is the dear old hearth-stone, around which we were all gathered, as soon as it was sundown, on Saturday night ; for in those days the Sabbath, with commendable promptness, was made to begin thus early. From around that hearth, ascended the morning and evening prayer : instruction, admonition, advice, affection, kindness and hope-all were centered there.
If the sons of Litchfield, who emigrated to other lands, have generally been successful in the battle of life, the reasons are ob- vious. While the pure atmosphere of these rugged hills, and their simple and active habits of life, gave them vigorous consti- tutions and physical strength, there were implanted in their hearts a high toned morality, a respect for religion and a love of good order, such as could be no where better taught than in the New
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England homes of their childhood. The effect of this teaching has been felt throughout the Union :- its influence will last for ages to come.
The young man of New England,
" indocilis pauperiem pati,"
tempted by the more dazzling prospects in newer States, with a sad heart, but full of hope, leaves the comfortable roof of his father, and turns his face westward. He bears with him a good education, habits of industry and frugality, and an energy and firmness of purpose characteristic of his race. In whatever pur- suit he engages, he never doubts, and rarely fails of success. Educated in the practical science of self-government, he is ready to draft constitutions and enact laws ; and new States spring up along his pathway. He never forgets the institutions of his early home ; and churches and common schools and colleges cluster around him. New England morals and character, though some- what modified by a change of circumstances, are thus transmitted to the prairies and forests of the west and south. While the emi- grant loses none of his attachment to the place of his birth, and none of his allegiance to his native State, he loves too the State of his adoption, and glories in the growing prosperity of the Union. With him it is no sectional feeling, but all is absorbed in his love of country. The stars and the stripes are his banner, and under them he is ready to do battle against the world. He sheds his blood freely in their defense, whether it be on the plains of Mexico or the heights of Bunker Hill. The New England emigrant is ubiquitous. You find him in every State of the con- federacy, upholding the principles, the constitution and the flag of the Union, and ready, if needs be, to die in their defense. Can a Union, so bound together, be severed ? Never ! never! The New England emigrant has already reached the shores of the Pa- cific, and is looking out for a foothold beyond it ; and it is certain he will be satisfied with no resting place till he has planted on it the flag of his native land. Astronomers have discovered several new planets within the last few years, but unless they rub up their glasses and keep busily employed in their observations, Jonathan will beat them in adding stars to our national galaxy.
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