USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield County centennial celebration > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
William Ray was a Salisbury man, born in 1771, and while a lad developed a taste for poetry, but early destitution and mis- fortunes pressed upon him and drove him into the Navy of the United States. He was for some time a captive in Tripoli, and in 1808 he published the Horrors of Slavery, and in 1821 a volume of Poems.
Ebenezer P. Mason was a native of Washington. Very few men gave more early promise of literary and scientific distinc- tion than young Mason. His life and writings were published in 1842, by Professor Olmsted, of Yale College.
Washington has been a nursery of eminent men, of whom I cannot now speak without violating my purpose of speaking of the dead, and not of the living.
Mrs. Laura M. Thurston, of Norfolk, permitted. to be pub- lished by her friends, several poetical pieces of uncommon sweetness and excellence,-the Paths of Life, the Green Ilills of my Father Land, and others.
There are but few occasions, and these extreme ones, which call out the qualifications for military life.
Gen. Peter B. Porter was the youngest son of Col. Joshua Porter, of Salisbury, of whom I have spoken before. He was
65
ADDRESS.
a graduate of Yale College and pursued the study of the law where so many of the noted men of the country have-at the Litchfield Law School. He was among the carly emigrants from this County to the Genesee country. He was soon called to occupy places of trust and power in the State of his adoption. He was a member of Congress when the project of the Erie Canal was first suggested, and was one who, with De Witt Clinton, originated that important national work, and is entitled to equal honor with him for its projection. He urged it, when in Congress, as a national work, in a speech of great strength, and asked for the aid of the nation. As a member of the House of Representatives, he was associated with Henry Clay on a Committee to consider the causes of complaint against Great Britain, and drew up the report of that Committee, recommend- ing the declaration of the war of 1812. He thus carly ardently espoused the cause of his country, and stood by the side of Tompkins and other patriots, in their efforts to prosecute that war to an honorable result.
He was then a civilian only ; but, impatient and mortified at the ill success of our arms upon the northern frontier-his own house pierced by the enemy's shot, on the banks of the Niagara River-he threw off the civil and assumed the military attitude. He raised a regiment of ardent volunteer troops, and at their head, soon contributed to turn the tide of success. His services at Fort Erie and the battles at the Falls, have been repeatedly told by the writers of the country's history. I will not repeat them. So highly were they esteemed by the general Government and the State, that thanks and medals were presented, and before the close of the war he was offered the chief command of the army, by the President. Under the administration of the younger Adams he was offered, and accepted, the place of Secretary of War.
My time confines me to the notice of the most conspicuous of our sons, native and adopted ; but there were others, in every town, perhaps of equal merit but with fewer opportunities of display. The list of our members of Assembly, and of men by whose efforts the foundations of society were laid here, and by whom this County has been brought from a repulsive region of mountains and rocks to its present condition of fertility and
66
ADDRESS.
wealth, would show an aggregate of moral and intellectual worth which no region, equal in extent, has surpassed .*
And by whom were all these eminent and excellent men reared and prepared for the stations which they have occupied in society ? By fathers, whose own hands have toiled-by mothers, who were the spinters of the days in which they lived, and who knew and practised the duties of the kitchen as well as the parlor, and to whom the music of the spinning-wheel and the loom was more necessary than that of the piano and the harpsichord.
The spirit of strict economy has marked our progress from the beginning, and by no other could our fathers have left to us this heritage of good! Removed from the profusion, and from what is esteemed the higher liberality of city habits, our County has not fallen behind other kindred communities in encouraging the benevolent operations of these latter days.
A Missionary Society, auxiliary to the Board of Commission- ers of Foreign Missions, was established in this County, in the year 1813, and has been in active operation since. This noble charity, since its organization, has received and paid over, as near as I can ascertain, the sum of about $125,000. The benevolent offerings of other denominations-the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists, to the purposes of their respective religious opera- tions, I have no present means of knowing; that they have been equally liberal, in proportion to their means, with their Congrega- tional brethren, I have no reason to doubt.
In the year 1817, the Foreign Mission School was established in Cornwall, with the special object of spreading Christian truth and the means of civilization among the heathen. The origin of this effort, if not accidental, was gradual in its conception and development. Two young natives of the Sandwich Islands were, by the directing, and alnost visible hand of Providence, thrown among us and fell under the notice of Mr. Elias Cornelius, in 1815, then a student in Yale College, and since distinguished as a Divine and Philanthropist. The names of these young heathen,
* IIere may be mentioned Col. Charles Burrall, of Canaan ; Fiteh, Nortons, Lee, John- ston, of Salisbury ; Pettibone, Battell, and Stevens, of Norfolk ; llon. Aaron Austin, of New Ilartford ; Sedgwick, Burnham, and Swift, of Cornwall ; Whittleseys and Brinsmade, of Washington ; Ilales, Lymans, and Norton, of Goshen; Mil s and Perry, of Kent ; Bost- wick, Boardmans, and Merwin, of New Milford ; Pardee, Kellogg, and Jewett, of Sharon ; Smith and Potter, of Plymouth, and Catlin, of Harwinton ; Marshs and Seymours, of Litch- field ; Talmadge, of Warren ; Rockwells, of Colebrook, and many others in other towns.
67
ADDRESS.
as known among us, were Henry Obookiah and William Tenoe. These young men were carefully instructed by Mr. Cornelius, Samuel J. Mills, and Edwin Dwight, with a chief object of pre- paring them to become Christian Missionaries among their coun- trymen. They were soon after placed under the care of Rev. Joel Harvey, then a Congregational minister in Goshen ; at his suggestion, the North Consociation of Litchfield County, became their patrons. They were, not long after, joined by Thomas Hopoo, their countryman, and all were placed under proper instruction for the great object designed. But a more liberal and enlarged project was conceived ; a Seminary in a Christian land, for the instruction of the heathen, joined with the purpose of pre- paring young men here for missionary service in heathen lands. It was a splendid thought, and the American Board attempted its consummation.
Rev. Timothy Dwight, Hon. John Treadwell, James Morris, Esq., Rev. Drs. Beecher and Chapin, with Messrs. Harvey and Prentice, were authorized to devise and put in operation such a Seminary, and the result was, the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall. Young natives of the Sandwich Islands, and from China, Australasia, and from the Indian nations on this Conti- nent, as well as American youths, were instructed there. The school continued successfully until 1827. The establishment of the Sandwich Island Mission, was one of the important results of this school.
Many years before the modern movement in a temperance reformation was suggested, such a project was conceived in this town, and encouraged by the most prominent men here. A Tem- perance Pledge was signed in May 1789, repudiating the use of distilled liquors, by 36 gentlemen ; and among the names an- nexed to it, were those of Julius Deming, Benjamin Tallmadge, Uriah Tracy, Ephraim Kirby, Moses Seymour, Daniel Sheldon, Tapping Reeve, Frederick Wolcott, and John Welch-names well known and well remembered here. I believe the first tem- perance association of modern date, in the County, was formed among the iron operatives at Mount Riga, in Salisbury. The results of this grand effort have been as successful here as else- where. If any special cause has operated to retard the final success of this charity, it has been the strangling, death-ensuring embrace
68
ADDRESS.
of party politicians-the scathing curse of many a good thing. As long ago as 1816, there were distilleries in every town in the County ; and in New Milford, as many as 26, and in the whole County, 169! and, besides these, there were 188 retailers of spirits, who paid licenses under the excise laws of the United States, to the amount of $3,760. Whether there be a distillery in the County now, I am not informed ; I believe but very few.
I have not attempted to trace the modifications of society here -its progressive changes in modes of opinion and consequent action. It would lead me too far from my object, which has been only to speak of events, and the men who have been engaged in them.
Before the Revolution there was little to excite. There was a common routine of thinking, which had been followed for years- somewhat disturbed, to be sure, by what were called " new lights" in religion. But the results of our emancipation from the mother country turned every thing into a different channel, opinions and all. A new impulse broke in upon the general stagnation of mind which had been, and made every body speculators in morals, religion, politics, and every thing else. My own memory runs back to a dividing point of time, when I could see something of the old world and new. Infidel opinions came in like a flood. Mr. Paine's " Age of Reason," the works of Voltaire, and other Deistical books, were broad cast, and young men suddenly became, as they thought, wiser than their fathers ; and even men in high places, among us here, were suspected of infidel opinions. At the same time came the ardent preachers of Mr. Wesley's divinity, who were engaged in doing battle with Infidelity on the one hand, and Calvinistic theology on the other. Here were antagonistic forces and influences, which introduced essential changes, and both have been operating ever since. And it would afford an interesting subject of investigation, to trace these influences to their results. The Methodist preachers first visited this County about the year 1787, and organized their first classes in Salisbury and Canaan. This was their first appearance in the State, and, I believe, in New England. In this County they were received with courtesy, and found many to encourage them among those who did not well understand the old divinity.
I might detain you in speaking of the prevalence and effects of
69
ADDRESS.
party spirit here ; but as this, as well as denominational contro- versy, is unpleasant to me, I forbear. There was a time, about the year 1806, when this spirit was rife here, and led to prosecu- tions, fines and imprisonment, and a disturbance of social rela- tions, which has never since re-appeared to the same extent.
I need not say any thing of the present condition of the County. This you see and know. Its Rail Roads, penetrating regions not long since supposed to be impenetrable ; villages rising up in the deep valleys, whose foundations have been hidden for nearly a century ; and fertility and thrift, where a few years ago were uncultivated forests and wasting water-falls.
Of what shall we complain ? Is it that we do not, all of us, make haste to be rich? Ah! is it so, my brethren ? Is there nothing but wealth which can satisfy a rational mind and an immortal spirit ?
Of the future we may indulge proud hopes, while we doubt and fear. Progress is the word of modern theorists, but of doubtful import. Innovation is not always progress towards useful results. Of this we, who are old, believe we have scen too much, within a few years, and fear much more to come. Our County is but a small part of a State and Nation, and so our fate stands not alone. We can but look to our political institutions as our ultimate protectors, and I urge upon you all, my brethren, their unwavering support. Our Constitution requires no innovating process to improve it. It demands of us more than a mere po- litical respect and preference-almost a religious reverence. Love for it, in all its parts, in every word and sentence which compose it, should be interwoven into all our notions of thinking, speaking and acting. Disturb but one stone in this great arch-but one compromise in this holy covenant-and the whole must tumble into ruin !
MUSIC BY TIIE WATERVLIET BAND.
5
1
POEM,
DELIVERED AT LITCHFIELD, CONN.,
ON THE OCCASION OF THE
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 1851.
BR
REV. JOHN PIERPONT.
-
POEM.
THE following Poem was then delivered by Rev. JOHN PIERPONT, of Medford, Mass.
ONE hundred times hath this celestial sphere Marked, on its orbit, a completed year, Since, with a bandage over both her eyes, And her scales lifted level towards the skies, Her drawn sword waiting on her royal will, Justice first took her seat upon this hill, In legal form her judgments to dispense, And make her shield the citizen's defence :- Justice, the regent spirit that presides In every hut, where love with peace abides ; In every shop, where thrifty labor delves, And piles his honest carnings on his shelves ; In every church, whose preacher stands unawed, Though rich men frown, and no man dares applaud, And, bold as Paul, and yet as Moses meck, Speaks out God's truth, as God would have him speak ; In every hall, where righteous laws are made, Or, of a state, the sure foundations laid ; Where senates counsel wisely for the realm, Or, with true greatness, monarchs hold the helm
74
POEM.
Of the wide empire given to their trust ; Nay ! where, in heaven, the Almighty and All-Just, Over all empires and all worlds supreme, Weighs kings and culprits with an even beam.
One hundred times hath Winter, drear and chill, In his snow blanket wrapped this sleeping hill ! One hundred times hath Spring, her naked feet All red with snowbroth and dissolving sleet, With snail pace, toiling up her cold sides, crept, And drawn that blanket off, while yet she slept, And, blowing hard, to kindle up a flame, Hath started out some wind flowers, e're June came : One hundred times hath Summer, bright and brief, Robed in green grass, in blossom, and in leaf, This and the sister hills, that, on each side, Smile on her, as do bride-maids on a bride ; And then, one hundred times, hath Autumn come, " And that right early," to sing Harvest Home ; And, dreamy Indian Summer being o'er, Hath given her back to Winter's arms once more.
One hundred years have brought their bloom and fruit, Since " every one who had a cause or suit," Might " come up hither " and present his claim, With no misgivings, that, whoever came With a good cause, good witnesses, good men Upon the bench as judges, and, again, With twelve good honest jurors ; if he saw That well-fee'd " counsel, learned in the law," Had courage, after half a dozen fights, Would-stand an even chance to get his rights.
75
POEM.
And then, at last, the controversy o'er, The case all settled, to be tried no more, Those hundred years, as onward they have swept, Have seen how calm the litigants have slept :- Judge, jury, counsel, parties have withdrawn, And to a higher bar together gone, Where every right decree is ratified, And every wrong, reversed and set aside.
Those hundred years have seen great changes here, For changes come with every circling year. No little change this very hill hath felt ; Time's patient eye can see it slowly melt, With every rain ;- see Bantam River take Some of its soil to fill up yonder lake, And, as the wind sweeps o'er it, sce each gust Take on its wings a portion of its dust, And bear it off forever :- thus this hill Itself is changed ;- nothing on carth stands still. The earth itself, since from God's hand it came, HIath never scen two centuries, the same. Its Alpine " Needles," shooting up, in front Of melting glaciers, annually grow more blunt ; Some of their cragginess its crags have lost, Under the power of water and of frost. Heights grow less high, with every shower, that sheds Its softening influence on their rocky heads : And, as the rocks, disintegrating, throw Their fragments, crumbling into soil, below,
76
POEM.
The " water-brooks, that run among the hills," To cheer the valleys, and to drive the mills, On their way sea-ward, bear the mountain's gift, The river's bed, or sunken plain to lift, And push old Neptune, though he storm and roar, Back from the line, that marked his ancient shore. The Nile, the Mississippi, and the Po, Bear thus, exulting, as to sca they go, Each his own burden, to enrich his plain, Or win, for man, new conquests from the main.
So, every year, does this, our beauteous star, Borne round her orbit in her viewless car, Her smiling face more beautiful display, As, every year, dark forests melt away, And, in their stead, glad husbandmen behold Fields, now all green, now ripening into gold ; While those old central fires, that ever glow In the deep caverns of the world below, From age to age, the fossil wealth refine, That lies, locked up in quarry and in mine, In God's own time to grope its tardy way, Up, from eternal darkness, into day ; To bask in sunshine, on a mountain's head, To roll, with sands, along a river's bed, To gush, for sick ones, in a mineral spring, To blush, for fair ones, in a ruby ring, For orient queens their radiance to throw, With gold and silver, from a rich trousseau, To grace a noble, as a star of gems, For kings to sparkle, in their diadems.
77
POEM.
So with the dwellers of this changeful earth ; Birth, growth, maturity, decay, death, birth, In one perpetual circle roll along ; The strong grow feeble, and the feeble strong ; The children's massy locks grow thin and gray ; Their children take their place, and " where are they ?"
Thy fathers, Litchfield County, are at rest : Thy children meet, to-day, to call thee blest. Honored and loved, as by them all thou art, They leave their homes, and gather to thy heart, To see once more thy venerable face, Once more to feel thy motherly embrace, Each other's voice to hear, to clasp once more Each other's hand, still warm, and to implore God's blessing on thee, for all coming time :- Me have they asked to bring a gift in rhyme, To thee, our mother : cheerfully I bring The best I have ;- pray take my offering.
My native County, from thy nursing breast, Young I withdrew ; unpledged I left my nest, A modest mansion, in a sunny nook, Tall trees behind it, and a babbling brook Flowing in front : not that I spurned the spot, Nor, good old Litchfield, that I loved thee not ; But that, where broader fields before me spread, With my one talent I might buy my bread. And now, for more than half the time that fills The century's circle, since upon thy hills
78
POEM.
Hath justice, laying judgment to the line, Made thee her home, thou never hast been mine ; So that, while many a worthier son hast thou, To wreath a garland for thine honored brow, Worthier, since having longer seen thy face, Lain in tliy lap and felt thy kind embrace. He better knows thee, and might now rehearse, Our common mother's praise in loftier verse, Than can the wandering, yet not wayward child, Upon whose face thou hast so rarely smiled ; None is more happy, at thy knee to stand, And lay his filial offering in thy hand, Of all who fill thy halls, and throng thy door, Who know thee better,-not who love thee more.
When, on a day like this, we come, dear mother, To honor thee, and welcome one another To the old homestead, nature bids us look, To see what names are blotted from thy book, And what remain, of those we used to see Honoring themselves, and, in that, honoring thee. Myself-a stranger, I can only touch Upon a few,-perhaps e'en that's too much. O'er once familiar names a shade is thrown, And names now honored are to me unknown ; Those from my memory I may never blot ;- Will these forgive me if I name them not ?
Thy Reverend Champion,-champion of the truth ;- I see him yet, as in my early youth ; His outward man was rather short than tall, His wig was ample, though his frame was small,
79
POEM.
Active his step, and cheerful was his air, And O, how free and fluent was his prayer ! He sleeps in peace and honor ; but no son Upholds his name. His followers, Huntington, Beecher, and all who, since, have filled his place, Are running yet, and running well, their race. Collins, who prophesied ere Champion came, Has heirs, to uphold his venerable name ; But other names-names honored more or less, Known or unknown to me, around me press : Some were familiar to my childish ear, Others I knew not till I saw them here ;* A few of them into my verse I weave ; The rest, to fate and tardier Fame, I leave. This is demanded by the fleeting hour ; And over that, not bards themselves have power. As thine old Forests from thy hill-sides fall, Thy Mills grow rarer, and thou need'st them all. Thy Sawyers have withdrawn to newer lands, Yet, here and there, a Boardman by thee stands ; And with them, close as any woodland tick, To thy broad skirts thy faithful Burr-alls stick .--
That thou, with comfort o'er thy hills may'st ride, Some of thy Colts within thy call abide : Thou ne'er hast had a Trotter, that I know ; Thine aged Gallup left thee, long ago : Yet canst thou ride-way-wise and strong of limb, Thine Ambler's left,-so trust thyself to him.
* On the printed list of the several Committees of Arrangement.
80
POEM.
No Seaman do I find upon thy roll, To take thy Northway towards the Arctic Pole ; No needle guideth thy adventurous tars ; So much the rather may'st thou thank thy Starrs. Not naked art thou by thy children left, Nor of thy raiment shalt thou be bereft ; For though, as now, for aye should keep aloof, From thee a Weaver, with his gorgeous woof, Yet, hath the tide of time, that knows no ebb, Brought for thy use a Webster with a Webb.
Some of thy Birds are flown, I grieve to say, Scared by thy Fowlers and thy Hunts away, Still do thy Robbins cheer thee with their throats, And all thy Downs and Fenns are gladdened by their notes. Nor, by thy Hunts is all thy larger game Chased from thy soil ; for, whether wild or tame, Unharmed and seeking from no foe to hide, No arrow quivering in his bleeding side, When the fierce summer sun upon him looks, Thy " Hart still panteth by the water brooks." Thou hast an Adam,-not " the first," I trow, Nor yet " the last," as any man may know :- And, Mother, will thine Adam give me leave To speak one word of counsel to his Eve ? 'Tis simply this-Whene'er you're tempted, madam, If you will yield, do so, but-don't tempt Adam. Mother, I marvel, while thou claim'st to be The very type of pure democracy, Through the historian's and the poet's pen Giving due honor to thy working men-
81
POEM.
Thy Fuller, Carter, Cutler, Taylor, Smith, Potter, and Cooper, with their kin and kith,- That thou shouldst dandle, on thine aged knee, The remnants of a by-gone royalty ; That a whole "house of Lords" thou shouldst embrace, Nor, from thy Nobles turn away thy face ; Nay, if the truth must out, that thou shouldst cling, With motherly affection, to a King. Mother, this hint from no unkindness springs ;- No doubt thou art the better for thy Kings.
No mines of coal, with its bitumen fat, Sleep in thy breast-thy granites tell us that ;- Yet have thy laboring Colliers done their part, Thy head to enlighten and to warm thy heart. Their Sibyl leaves upon the winds were thrown, For others' benefit, if not their own. Long since, they left thee ; - but do not repine ! If others are enriched by what was thine, Thou art, in turn, enriched at others' cost ; Thou'st saved thy Bacon, whatc'er else is lost.
Thy sunny slopes boast not their loaded vines, Nor laudest thou thy brandies or thy wines ; No golden barley gilds thy round hill-tops, Nor bend thy poles beneath their weight of hops ; No corn of thine ferments in brewery vats, Nor foams for thee the cream of murdered cats,*
* On trial of the action, " Taylor vs. Delavan," in Albany, it was proved by the defendant that the water used in the brewery of the plaintiff, from which issues so much of the colebra - ted " Albany Ale," was taken from a filthy pond, into which were thrown the carcasses of cats and other animals.
82
POEM.
Bursting from bottles labeled " Brown " or "Pale," And sold and swallowed as the best of ale. Still, when thou standest up among thy peers, Thou need'st not blush, my County, for thy Beers ;- Not "small," not " ginger," not a medley mass, With froth redundant, and explosive gas, But "stout " and " strong " as ever came to hand, Ne'er growing "stale," however long it stand, And as well "worked " as any in the land.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.