USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > The bi-centennial celebration of the settlement of Litchfield, Connecticut, August 1-4, 1920 > Part 9
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I did not come here to give a history of the town of Litch-
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field. You all know that. I came here rather to sing Litch- field's praises and to congratulate her most heartily and wish for Litchfield and all within her borders a bright and pros- perous future. I thank you.
ADDRESS BY FORMER CONGRESSMAN THOMAS L. REILLY.
The Playhouse, August 2, 1920.
Mr. Chairman, your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen:
"Bold Wolcott urged the all-important cause;
With steady hand the solemn scene he draws, Undaunted firmness with his wisdom joined;
Nor kings nor worlds could warp his steadfast mind".
The all-important cause that Oliver Wolcott, Litchfield's most illustrious son, urged one hundred fifty years ago, the cause of his country,-that is the all-important cause today. It is just as urgent now as it was then and the same steadfast- ness of purpose to uphold it must be shown now as then if the American form of government is to endure. And we must have no doubt when we talk about the American form of gov- ernment what Americanism is. Unfortunately, there are some people who believe that Americanism is a question of birth- place and lineage, that only those, perhaps, whose ancestors landed on Plymouth Rock have any right to be called Ameri- cans because they alone can realize what Americanism means. It is nothing of the sort. The kind of Americanism, the real Americanism, that the Wolcotts and the Beechers and the Seymours and the scores of other sons of Litchfield exemplified was not a matter of birthplace or descent. It was something that one feels deep down in his heart and has firmly fixed high up in his head. It is an undying, unfaltering, unshak- able belief in the principles in which this country was founded. It is unswerving devotion to that flag that has never known defeat because it never has floated for an unjust cause. It is observance and willingness to observe authority. It is will- ingness to make a sacrifice, the supreme sacrifice if necessary, in defence of the flag for the maintenance of laws or against any foe that may threaten. That is real Americanism. Those who have taken the oath of citizenship and have been true to that oath and those principles are Americans no matter where
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their fathers or grandfathers were born. There are no hyph- ens in their Americanism. Hyphenated Americanism is a counterfeit and does not coincide with the foundation of this town, and counterfeit Americanism is as bad as counterfeit money.
One reason for counterfeit Americanism is that many peo- ple have an idea in their heads that liberty, the pride and boast of America, means something else besides liberty. It means license under which they can do as they please, regard. less of law or interest of state, and the result is that too many latter-day Americans prize their liberty too cheaply. It never cost them one inconvenience even. It came to them as came their wealth-inherited-and they dissipated it without know- ing its priceless value because it cost them nothing. Liberty abides long only with those who are vigilant to guard it. Let us be vigilant. Let us resolve to safeguard that liberty in every way. We have no fault to find with the man born across the seas who comes here and has a warm spot for the land of his birth, but once he has taken the oath of citizen- ship he must in no degree allow that warm spot to divide his allegiance. He must not allow that warm spot for the old country to interfere with his obligations to the new country. When he is faithful to those new obligations only has he a right to the protection that this government extended to him when it wrapped him in sheltering arms. When he has been here long enough to take the oath of allegiance and then fails to live up to that oath, then he has been here long enough and there should be no hesitation in sending him back whence he came as unfitted to be protected by America.
The pioneers, who two hundred years ago made from a wilderness this beautiful American town, did not build for themselves alone. They did not build this town for Americans who were merely born here. They builded it for Americans born everywhere who have taken the oath of citizenship and have lived in conformity to principles of American citizenship. They builded not alone for themselves but they builded for their children and their children's children, they established that foundation of just laws under which the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man might be realized. Let us foster that spirit in view of what this world has recently passed
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through, in view of the furnace of hate and strife. It may appear to some that talk of brotherhood is but an idle dream or vision, but it is not. This world cannot fail to be better because of its chastening. Those Litchfield boys, sons of the founders, those Litchfield boys, sons of adopted citizens, those brave American boys who lie under the poppies, are you going to make their death, their heroism vain by denying there is international brotherhood and that all talk about it is vision- ary and a dream? Let the vision of them who have sur- vived our heroic dead be that of a peace-blest land, safe for ages from foes within and without, its safety in the strength and loyalty of its citizens, of its manhood and of its woman- hood, its glory in the honor of its flag.
"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! We know what master laid thy keel, What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel;
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee;
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee, are all with thee".
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STATE DAY :
BAND OF SECOND COMPANY, G F. G
OUR ANCESTORS. Address by Major John L. Gilson. (Second Company, Governor's Foot Guard.)
The Playhouse, August 2, 1920.
Nothing can be more wholesome,-more fitting-than for all true Americans to contemplate studiously the lives of the builders of the republic and to pay to their memory on appro- priate occasions, the tributes of respect, of devotion and of gratitude their service and patriotism so worthily deserve.
The place, the day and the occasion upon which we assem- ble, fill us with patriotic emotion. They are happily and appropriately united. This ancient and historic town is filled with hallowed memories,-for this day registers the two-hun- dredth anniversary of the coming of those sturdy, God-fearing founders, whom we today especially reverence,-under the lead- ership of the intrepid Captain John Marsh and the militant Deacon John Buel,-from Hartford,-from Windsor, -- from Wethersfield, - from Farmington, - all seeking the healthful skies and verdant fields of this charming garden-spot of the Berkshires.
Theirs was the rigorous life of the pioneer, where every man provides for his own needs. Although filled with dis- comforts, it developed that splendid independence which comes only from being sufficient to your own needs. They held the strong un-tainted blood of a stalwart race, for generations fighting the arduous battle of existence against the wilderness and the savage. They loved liberty, religious and civil; they loved fireside and family and friends and country with an insuperable love; and they loved God. With astounding patience and unquestioned confidence they had abandoned almost everything else that the world values to worship God after their own fashion, yet they were among the first in all the world to establish religious toleration.
They were poor-yet their poverty proved a real advantage. Most of the moral and intellectual giants of the universe have been nourished amid the struggling myriads of the poor. But
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they possessed a tenacity of purpose, a lofty and inflexible courage, and an unbending will that never flinched, however harsh a problem presented itself, however keen the sorrow and suffering they encountered. What wonder then that these con. stant, courageous and reverent forbears brought forth sons who,-while enduring hardships,-could yet conceive and nour ish the ideals and enthusiasms that inspired and energized them to reach for higher things,-and led these pioneer youths to feel that the day was approaching when to them should be addressed the stern admonition of the apostle, "Quit you like men, be strong!"
On this festal day, then, from every quarter of the republic, the sons and daughters of old Litchfield gather in spirit around the old West Green,-their hearts filled with filial gratitude and affection, performing in fancy a pious pilgrimage, in sacred remembrance of the fortitude, the perseverance, the piety and the industry of the founders which laid for posterity the sure and permanent foundations for a free government.
While I would not presume,-being all unworthy,-to enter into a history of these past two centuries, can we not together for the moment visualize, as in a magic mirror, a few of the greater events which have controlled the fortunes of those who have preceded us, and still in a measure influence our own, -- as we gaze down the long corridors of the past upon the gener- ations that have gone forth from this lovely town?
First of all must obtrude upon our vision the stalwart and fearless Ethan Allen, born in 1739 almost within sound of my voice. He remained in Litchfield County for thirty years before the trend of events inspired him, at the head of the Green Mountain Boys, who were raised by the aid of the Connecticut Assembly, to capture the Gibraltar of the North-Fort Ticon- deroga,-"in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continen- tal Congress". And one who even now inspects that apparently well-nigh impregnable fortress must be thrilled with patriotic fervor, when he realizes that only rash and reckless heroism could accomplish this seemingly impossible feat.
Scarce a year elapses and we find him intrepid, undaunted, pressing forward to aid Montgomery in the attack upon Que- bee, with the Second Company of the Governor's Foot Guard of Connecticut, under the command of Benedict Arnold.
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From across the square yonder, within sight of this spot, had come too Aaron Burr, a student of the Litchfield Law School, founded and conducted by his brother-in-law,-Tap- ping Reeve,-in all the brilliant enthusiasm of youth. Fired with the patriotism engendered in the atmosphere of Litch- field, this fearless son of an illustrious president of Prince- ton, and grandson of a more illustrious son of Yale-in the after years a senator of the United States and its Vice-Presi- dent under the immortal Jefferson,-advanced to join Arnold at Boston as a sergeant in our own Second Company, and with him to make the toilsome journey to Quebec. Disguised as a priest, he as a spy penetrated through one hundred and twenty miles of the enemy British Lines, with indomitable courage and almost superhuman endeavor, to the headquarters of Montgomery, to announce the arrival of Arnold, and we of the Second Company, who eight years ago followed the identical trail of Arnold through the wilderness of the Maine and Canadian Woods can keenly appreciate the lion-hearted valor of this achievement.
By some inscrutable mystery of Providence it was ordained that both of these brilliant patriots should die, disgraced and dishonored in alien lands, far from the country they in youth so nobly served.
How refreshing to recall Ira Allen, brother of Ethan, Major-General of the forces of Vermont, through whose unsel- fish generosity and perseverance the great University of Ver- mont at Burlington was founded and established for all time, his gift of his entire fortune of Four Thousand Pounds,- during his lifetime-insuring its perpetuity.
There still stands in stately dignity a noble dwelling, scarce a few rods from where we are now assembled, sturdily withstanding the shocks of more than a century and a half, dear forever to every loyal son of this Commonwealth. Here Oliver Wolcott, illustrious son of Yale, the first Sheriff of the County of Litchfield, of ever-living memory, first conceived and formulated the doctrine of our American Faith. That all men have certain inalienable rights; that there should be a complete separation between the functions of Church and State; that all government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed; these fundamental principles of 1776 that
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even now every American is ready to maintain even to the supreme sacrifice against all the alien world, he had the courage and the valor, putting everything at hazard for his Country's cause, to subscribe to when he signed for Con- necticut the Declaration of Independence.
A member of the Continental Congress, Major-General in defence of New York City in 1776, and later in the campaign against Burgoyne, Commander-in-Chief of the forces against the British invasion of Connecticut in 1779, First United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs, he ended a brilliant and dis- tinguished career by his death while Governor of Connecticut. And no son of New England can forget how, in this very house, a devoted and patriotic wife and daughter - and oh! how proud old Litchfield should be of these splendid fearless women, -melted into bullets for the American Army the leaden statue of that bigot and tryant, George III, erected in Bowling Green, New York City, in 1770 and torn down by its citizens on July 9th, 1776, when it was cut up and taken to Litchfield.
Ilere too, in this spacious homestead, was born that worthy son of a sire endowed with such extraordinary genius and patriotism, Oliver Wolcott, Jr., who upon his graduation from Yale entered into public life as a militant champion of the rights and prerogatives of Connecticut, and who succeeded Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury,-became the first Justice of the Circuit Court of the United States for New York, Connecticut and Vermont and resigned to accept the Governorship of his native State, which distinction he tells us was prized as the highest honor that could come to him.
The world-famous Litchfield Law Shool, the first insti- tution of its kind in all America, was established in 1784 by Judge Tapping Reeve, who had married the only sis- ter of Aaron Burr, she being a grand-daughter of our own Jonathan Edwards, distinguished divine, and the first chaplain of the Second Company Governor's Foot Guard, who, as all of the members of the Second Company know, delivered the now famous address to the Command, prior to its departure to Cambridge with Arnold in 1775.
We have re-visited this morning the old historic structure, preserved with kindly care by the citizens of Litchfield. How
STAFF OF THE FIRST COMPANY, GOVERNOR'S FOOT GUARD
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ennobling, -how inspiring to read inscribed high upon the scroll of the thousands of its students such patriots as the bril- liant John C. Calhoun,-Levi Woodbury, Senator of the Uni- ted States from New Hampshire, Secretary of the Navy, Sec- retary of the Treasury and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,-John Y. Mason and John M. Clayton, Cabi- net Members and illustrious jurists,-our own Henry Baldwin, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1830,- who could undertake in these few moments to enumerate the distinguished leaders of the Bench and Bar of the Republic, who here were trained in the first principles of jurisprudence and patriotism? Who, among the glorious hills of old Litch- field, engendered an invincible confidence in the truth of those principles in which the foundation of the Republic had been laid, and acquired too, with these very principles of juris- prudence and practice, an unselfish purpose to maintain them, despite the perils, grave and portentous, that confronted them.
In 1792, another pioneer, imbued with the identical senti- ments of militant progress displayed by its founders brought Litchfield into conspicuous prominence before the eyes of the citizens of the new Republic by her first successful efforts toward the higher education of women, and for many years Sarah Pierce dominated by her influential and remarkable career this field in all the United States. Among the prominent Alumnae we find Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Marshall O. Roberts, Mrs. Cyrus W. Field, Mrs. Hugh MacCulloch and an umnumbered host of women of high influence in the land. Could we but reproduce in our mirror of fancy the scene, the sur- roundings, the situation of a hundred years ago in this stately village,-the charm, the certain stateliness in the air, the cer- tain ceremoniousness in the manners, all long since changed and banished, it would afford an ever unending delight; it all made a tremendous force for good,-for character so fine and high and pure, that we even now involuntarily pay homage to the approval it so richly merits.
I have referred to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Litchfield's most illustrious daughter, who was here prepared for the great work which came to her as a religious message which she must deliver. The publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a compelling factor which ever must be reckoned in summing
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up the moving causes of the war for the Union. My mother, who as a young girl in Hartford knew her somewhat intimately, has so often described her pleasant manners, her quaint man- nerisms, her charming personality and her delightful and naive conversation, that I can ever visualize her life here in the quiet atmosphere of the hills.
When Lyman Beecher, her father, born in New Haven in the same year and almost on the same day that marked the organization of our Foot Guard, came here to Litchfield as pastor of the historic First Congregational Church, this ven- erable town received a preacher whom Yale regarded as pos- sessing the most magnetic personality, as one endowed with the most incisive skill and with the most powerful manner of expression,-in short the most eloquent of all her pulpit ora- tors. Four daughters and seven sons, the latter all becoming Congregational Clergymen, were born to this talented divine, foremost among the theologians of his day. His eighth child, Henry Ward Beecher, became by his mastery of the English tongue, by his dramatic power, by his art of impersonation, by his breadth of intellectual view, by his passionate enthusi- asm,-a preacher without a peer in his own time and country.
I must not unduly trespass upon your patience, but I can- not, even in this brief recital, forbear repeating a paragraph from the world-famed sermon of Wendell Phillips, the most talented of all Abolitionist orators,-delivered in Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, while John Brown was awaiting his trial in Virginia. "Connecticut has sent out many a schoolmaster of the other thirty states, but never before so grand a teacher as that Litchfield-born schoolmaster at Harper's Ferry, writ -- ing upon the Natural Bridge in the face of Nations his simple сору,
'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God' ".
Proud and glorious old Litchfield! Still true to all the noblest memories of the past; still worthy after the lapse of two centuries of all the honors and lofty traditions of thy ancestors! Would that they might, on this festal day, through some magic alchemy, be permitted to behold the consummation of their own work in the stability of our government, forever upheld by the loyalty and patriotism of its citizenry. In this calm atmosphere of tranquility, recollections of their early
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life come flooding back to arouse a nameless responsive thrill of something deep within us. Like morning mists on its own immovable mountains cling magic memories of Litchfield of the Revolution, raising a throb in every heart that loves lib- erty,-rekindling the fires of patriotism in our own breasts, engendering never ceasing admiration of its splendid exem- plification in the lives of the patriots.
We, the sons of this grand old Commonwealth of Connecti- cut of the present generation, fondly nourishing these ideals and traditions, must bear too the solemn obligations and responsibilities which devolve upon us as a sacred heritage. Their great work of helping to establish for all time a free nation,-of wresting the independence of the Republic from the power of princes and kings, by them so nobly consummated, must by us be defended and preserved forever.
Inspired and sustained by their precepts and accomplish- ments, let us calmly look into the future "with fearless and eager eyes, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, challenging the proud privilege of doing the work Providence shall allot to us,-facing the coming years high of heart and resolute of faith". Let us recall the admonition of the greatest Ameri- can of our generation. "The century looms before us, big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by,-if we seek merely swollen slothful ease and ignoble peace,-if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and the stronger peoples will pass us by and will win for themselves the domination of the world. Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave-to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified,-for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national great- ness".
In the discharge of this sacred trust, how refreshing,- how ennobling, - how energizing, - how inspiring - is a
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contemplation of the lives of the Litchfield Founders, Pioneers and Patriots!
Mr. Chairman, your Excellency, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: I have the honor of pledging you,-in reverent . fancy, a toast:
"The immortal memory of the Founders of Litchfield!"
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STAFF OF FIRST AND SECOND COMPANIES, G. F. G.
THE BEECHER FAMILY.
Address by Lyman Beccher Stowe, Esq. Congregational Church, August 2, 1920.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I feel like very much of an impostor, for my ancestors did not come here until one hundred years later than the ancestors of your chairman.
It is a saying that New England was inhabited by saints, sinners, and Beechers. That saying has always pleased me because it indicates that the contemporaries of my ancestors must be neither saints nor sinners. Whenever I am called upon to represent this once numerous and powerful family, powerful in physique, powerful in brain, powerful in spiritu- ality, powerful in everything but finances and always far from powerful in that respect, I am reminded of an episode in the life of Charles Stowe when he was pastor of the First Con- gregational Church in the town of Salisbury. It became his
duty to visit his parishioners and it was his function to find whether the people had Bibles. If he found that they had none, he was to sell them one if he could, and if they were in such poverty that he could not, he was to give them one. He went to a cottage where he found a woman scrubbing the cottage floor. "Got a Bible in the family?" he asked. "What do you think we are, heathens?" the woman snapped. He called to the children and said, "Go into the parlor and bring out the Bible and show it to me". They returned with one hundred leaves of worn parchment adhering to the back. "I declare, I didn't know we were so near out", the woman remarked, as she glanced up from her work.
It is a greatly over-rated privilege to possess famous ancestors. I have found in my experience that whenever I do anything creditable they get all the credit for it; when I do anything discreditable I get all the blame for it.
This powerful and numerous family is identified with vari- ous spots in New England, among them Brunswick, Maine; Andover, Mass .; Boston; Hartford, Conn; but first and fore-
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most this beautiful town whose 200th anniversary we are cele- brating.
Theodore Parker once remarked that Dr. Lyman Beecher was the father of more brains than any other man in America. If that were true, and if we believe, as I suppose we do, that environment plays an equal part with heredity, we must credit to this beautiful town an equal share with the blood for that successful result.
Dr. Beecher had eleven children who grew to maturity. Of those eleven children two became famous and all the rest became more or less distinguished.' They were all of great physical strength. I do not believe that any amount of mental equipment would have enabled them to do what they did with- out that physical strength. Physical strength is almost an inevitable heritage of the life they led in Litchfield. It is almost impossible for people to grow up in Litchfield and not have physical strength. Another heritage carried through life was a love of nature. There, again, I do not see how they could avoid a knowledge of nature in these beautiful hills. Another quality they carried through life was an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and for power. I attribute it, in a large part, to the splendid educational advantages they had in Litchfield. Particularly in the case of Henry Ward Beecher, I attribute it to Miss Sarah Pierce and her associate, James Pierce Brace. I am interested in schools. I am impressed that Miss Pierce and Mr. Brace employed methods that we are now pleased to call modern.
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