USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Commemorative discourse pronounced at Quincy, Mass., 25 May, 1840 on the second centennial anniversary of the ancient incorporation of the town : with an appendix > Part 1
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FEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
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Gc 974.402 Q43wha Whitney, George, 1804-1842. A commemorative discourse pronounced at Quincy, Mass.
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A
COMMEMORATIVE DISCOURSE
PRONOUNCED AT
QUINCY, MASS., 25 MAY, 1840,
ON THE
·
SECOND CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY
OF THE
ANCIENT INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN.
WITH
AN APPENDIX.
BY GEORGE WHITNEY.
BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. MDCCC XL.
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
CAMBRIDGE PRESS : METCALF, TORRY, AND BALLOU.
Quincy, June 16, 1840.
TO THE REV. GEORGE WHITNEY,
DEAR SIR, -In behalf of the Committee of Arrangements, I have the honor to communicate to you the annexed vote, expressing the thanks of the Committee for the Discourse delivered by you on the 25th of May last, and requesting a copy of the same for publication.
Voted, unanimously, That the thanks of the Committee of Arrangements be presented to the Rev. George Whitney of Roxbury, for the interesting and valuable Discourse, which he delivered on the 25th of May last, in commemoration of the Second Centennial Anniversary of the ancient In- corporation of the Town, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for the press.
In obedience to my instructions I cheerfully communicate this vote, and cordially express my individual desire that you will acquiesce in their re- quest.
Accept, dear Sir, the warmest good wishes of the Committee, and of
Your friend and servant, JOHN A. GREEN,
Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements.
٨
TO
THE YOUNG MEN OF QUINCY, ,
AT WHOSE REQUEST
THIS DISCOURSE WAS DELIVERED,
AND TO ALL WHO CONTRIBUTED TO OUR INTERESTING CELEBRATION,
THESE PAGES
Are Respectfully Dedicated.
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DISCOURSE.
FRIENDS, FELLOW-NATIVES, AND DESCENDANTS
OF THIS ANCIENT INCORPORATION.
WE meet this day, in obedience to the dictates of the highest sentiments in man. We have gathered togeth- er, scattered as we are in our various pursuits, in the spirit of a filial and dutiful reverence, to commemorate the times that have passed, and our Fathers, who made them what they were. We come to testify our admiration of all that was elevating and ennobling in those who first stepped upon these shores, and who in later peri- ods contributed their part towards the good institutions and manifold privileges with which we are surrounded. We come, amidst comforts and ever newly opening blessings, - such as their fondest hopes never dared to dream of, - to be grateful for their patience and sacri- fices, and trust in God in times of peril and darkness and deprivations, such as we may try to describe, but can never adequately conceive. We come, after two centuries and six generations of men have passed away, to stand around their graves, yet among the works, where they most emphatically live, that we may attempt to do some feeble justice to their principles and example, and to our own feelings also, in the trib- ute we thus pay to their memories.
With this day, two hundred years have elapsed, and
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a new century commences, since an act was passed by the General Court incorporating a town in this place. Previously to this period, as is almost too well known to be repeated, a settlement here of civilized men had already been begun, following rapidly in the wake of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. In 1625, fifteen years before the time alluded to, Captain Wollaston, with about thirty in his company, as is supposed, - the number being nowhere, so far as I am acquainted, definitely designated, - landed somewhere on the shore near the mount, which afterwards received his name, and in the language of the old historians " sat down," either upon the mount, or in the region round about. In other words, they came and fixed their abode and planted a colony here. From subsequent events we are left to infer that there were no very exalted aims, like those which actuated many of the early pilgrims, either in the heart of Wollaston or his comrades. And yet with regard both to himself and some who accompanied him, it may possibly have been otherwise. We are sure, there was little to commend in Thomas Morton, or in those who were ready to sympathize with him. At any rate, we learn that after "spending much labor, cost, and time in planting the place,"* things did not answer Wollaston's expectation, and he departed to Virginia. This can be considered, to be sure, no posi- tive proof that Wollaston's aims were not so elevated as the noblest of that long line of self-exiled men, who came out to these distant shores, but the great mass of them were not in the habit of calculating profit and loss in any such way, nor did they think
* Hubbard's History of New England, p. 103.
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their hardships and disappointments, where once they had planted themselves, of sufficient moment to urge them to try new locations. Wollaston's enterprise bore strong marks, to say the least, of being merely a pecuniary speculation.
The fifteen years, which elapsed from the landing of Wollaston to the incorporation of the town, were somewhat eventful ones, and appear to have been of considerable moment in the annals of those times. Thomas Morton, already alluded to, and one who accompanied Wollaston, proved a disorganizer, and a ringleader of such as were disposed to sympathize with him. It would be difficult, with an eye the most indulgent, and making liberal allowances, in the ex- treme, for the sanctimonious views and rigid discipline of the Puritans, to apologize for his own private irreg- ularities, his conduct to the Indians, whether friendly or inimical, and specially for the contempt with which he treated all order and authority. He became indeed the source of great trouble to the early settlers here and elsewhere, a constant annoyance to those in authority, and withal, in his disposition and conduct, about as incorrigible a subject as they could well desire for their management. Among his notorious acts of dissipation and riot, he set up a May Pole to be danced and sung round, than which, it would not have been easy to have devised anything more odious to the scrupulous Puritans, short of the actual introduction among them of the Evil One himself. Subsequently, also, in various ways, his conduct was exceedingly reprehensible. Af- ter repeated measures had been enforced against him, some of them military and violent, all equally indica- tive of the displeasure of the Government and their de-
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cided purposes in regard to him ; after he had once been sent to England in 1628, and had returned to Mount Wollaston, or, as Governor Bradford somewhere says, to " his old nest at Merry Mount," the name he had himself given it, we find a record left in these words, " September 7, 1630, Second Court of Assistants held at Charlestown. Present, Governor Winthrop, Deputy Governor Dudley, Sir Richard Saltonstall and others. Ordered, 'That Thomas Morton of Mount Wollaston shall presently be set in the bilbowes, [long bars or bolts of iron used to confine the feet of prisoners and offenders on board ships,] and after sent to England by the ship called the Gift, now returning thither : that all his goods shall be seized to defray the charge of his transportation, payment of his debts, and to give satis- faction to the Indians for a canoe he took unjustly from them, and that his house be burnt down to the ground in sight of the Indians, for their satisfaction for many wrongs he has done them.'" *
This was enforced, and in pursuance of the order he was again sent to England. But his annoyances did not end here. He urged complaints to the king, which were likewise sources of difficulty : he returned again to Mount Wollaston, and afterwards in repeated forms disturbed and harassed the colony, so that at last, as Hutchinson says, " Nothing but his age saved him from the whipping-post."+ He died at Agamen- ticus - the town of York, in the state of Maine, about 1643-if not in obscurity, as he resolved not to die, at least in disgrace, and to the promotion of the public tranquillity.
* Prince's Chronology, Vol. I. p. 248.
+ Hutchinson's History, Vol. I. p. 32, London Edition, Note.
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A source of still more ardent and general excitement, if possible, to the people of those early times, was the supposed heretical preaching of Mr. John Wheelwright, a connexion in kindred, and a zealous friend in opinion of the memorable and gifted Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. To some, this latter circumstance was of far deeper interest than the preceding one, as, in their view, no radicalism in politics, no disorderly conduct could com- pare with heresy on that absorbing topic, to which their eyes and hearts were so steadily directed. This gentleman came out and ministered to the people of the Mount, by the permission, if not at the instigation of the First Church in Boston, as early as 1636 - the residents here, on account of their distance from Bos- ton, having previously petitioned to have the benefit of a preacher. The chief excitement, which with all innocence, and sincerity of purpose, too, he seems to have been the cause of brewing up, was that apparently simple thing, the preaching of a Fast sermon. Already the clergy, as a body, and some of the laity had begun to look upon him with fearful and suspicious eyes. But the larger portion of the laity, we have reason to think, went not a little beyond an ordinary sympathy with him. It was in consonance with what, in my opinion, was the prevalent spirit of the times, as, with your patience, in the sequel we may hope to see illus- trated. He was apparently an innovator and reformer : he took one step aside from the trodden way; and the conservatives sounded the trumpet of alarm. His seemingly humble instrument, the Fast sermon, set the whole community into a blaze. From such small be- ginnings do great things grow. Thus does God choose the weak things of the world to confound the things
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that are mighty. He was pursued and arraigned, dis- franchised and banished. Fortunate in his time, that he came off even thus lightly, and escaped the block. A little earlier period would have counted him less venial. A slighter matter, persisted in with the firmness he manifested, might but shortly before his day have crowned him with the honors of martyrdom.
It comes within my present plan only to take this passing notice of Mr. Wheelwright, and the excitement which followed him, as one of the remarkable events, which had taken place previously to the incorporation of the town. This event alone would afford an almost interminable field for remark and discussion, were it to be pursued, and more than absorb all the time I ought to claim on the present occasion. Inviting as it is, I leave it with the less regret, as it has recently been so ably and satisfactorily presented to the public in the discourses * consequent upon the return of the second century since the gathering of the first church, to which its further consideration might in every view appear more pertinent.
Other incidents likewise are to be noticed of inferior but still not very slight consequence, considering the circumstances of the times. Intimately connected with much that has already been stated, and in part the cause of it, were first the highly probable fact, that after the departure of Wollaston, some of his company had become stationary at the Mount, thus affording us, at least, the venerable distinction of being the oldest permanent t settlement in Massachusetts ; and secondly, the indisputable fact, that men both of eminence and
* See Lunt's Second Century Discourses.
t See Winthrop's Journal, Vol. I. p. 43.
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industry came out here from the metropolis and had allotments of land made to them, already cleared and in- viting their labors, and thus giving us the less question- able distinction of having had some of the earliest, if not the very earliest, cultivated farms in the colony, possibly in New England. These all rendered the Mount conspicuous - lifting it up before the eyes of the sparse community far above its humble physical elevation. It had early a name, notoriety, and charac- ter. It was a cherished spot both to the Bostonians, to whom in fact it belonged, being by order of court early annexed to it, and to the magistrates and the early settlers generally.
Accordingly, the way was naturally and easily and early prepared for an application, on the part of the residents here, and for a ready acquiescence on the part of the magistrates, that the inhabitants at Mount Wollaston should be incorporated into a town. The benefits of such a measure must be too obvious to be enlarged upon. It it natural that we should turn with some curiosity and interest to the early document - to wit, the petition which was presented to this effect. No very musty antiquarian fondness would seem to be essential in order to reap gratification from its perusal. But that privilege is denied us. It has shared the fate of many more valuable things. It is not extant.
In the first volume of the Massachusetts Colony Rec- ords, under date of 13 May, 1640, is the following account of the action that was had in reply to the ap- plication from the Mount.
" The Petition * of the Inhabitants of Mount Wool-
Massachusetts Colony Records, Vol. 1. p. 277.
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laston was voted and granted them to be a Town ac- cording to the agreement with Boston ; provided, that if they fulfil not the covenant made with Boston and hearto affixed, it shall be in the power of Boston to recover their due by action against the said inhabitants or any of them, - and the town is to be called Brain- tree."
Pretty rigid principle this, on which to base their conditions, whatever the amount or extent of those conditions might have been ! It was, in fact, the very principle, involving the question, which, in our own time, has been mooted, with so much earnestness and cogent reasoning on both sides, whether individuals shall be holden for the liabilities of the corporation, of which they are a component part.
It is not necessary to quote these conditions, extend- ing to considerable length, and being rather minute. They are principally the payment of certain yearly assessments on special parcels of land. One item it is curious at this distant day to observe. Boston resigns* to Braintree, probably as hardly worth the keeping, the rocky hill extending west from where we are assembled, far into the granite quarries, " together with another parcel of rocky ground near to the Knight's Neck."
* The language of the record runs thus, -" All that rocky ground lying between the Fresh brook and Mr. Coddington's brook, adjoining to Mr. Hough's farm, and from the west corner of that farm to the southmost cor- ner of Mr. Hutchinson's farm, to be reserved and used in common forever." Mr. Coddington's farm, we know, was the present Mount Wollaston farm. Where Mr. Hutchinson's farm was we have no means of determining. But guided by the two brooks mentioned, in all probability the two principal ones which pass through the town at the present day, I have supposed the parcel alluded to would be likely to lie in the direction stated. If I am right in this conjecture it included Mount Ararat, (so called,) with the hilly portion stretching south of it as far as the brook.
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It was reserved for a period, long after their very names had passed from among men, amidst the growing improvements of advancing time, to affix to the worth- less rocks a value surpassing all that could have entered their imagination.
The origin of the name of our ancient town, as thus incorporated, is traced in this way. In 1632, accord- ing to Winthrop,* a company from Braintrey in Eng- land, near Chelmsford, where Mr. Hooker was the preacher, begun to settle at Mount Wollaston. They removed afterwards to Newton, but, as has been con- jectured, it appears to me with good reason,t a part of the company must have returned again, perhaps about 1634, and settled permanently. Unquestionably at their request or suggestion, the name of their former residence was given to the new place of their adop- tion.
It is far from common, I suppose, that in the division of towns, the movement for separation occurs with the old settlement. Such, however, was the fact here; and in the issue, whether from necessity or not, the ancient name was resigned and the present one was taken, in honor of Colonel John Quincy, who had occupied the Mount Wollaston farm. As we have come up, howev- er, to commemorate the original incorporation, there seems a special propriety in doing it where the first settlement and incorporation were actually made, rather than follow the name to a spot where only a feeble settlement, if any, had been begun, and no church gathered till more than half a century afterwards.
* See Winthrop's New England, p. 87, note by Savage.
t See Lunt's Second Century Discourses, Appendix, p. 66.
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I now take leave of the history, which, commencing with the period to which I have arrived, has been stead- ily accumulating for two hundred years, and pass to other considerations, of a more practical bearing, and in which we shall be far more likely to find some end. It would be as preposterous as it would be fearfully tedious, to pursue the history through all the details of two centuries, down to the present hour. This is more properly the work of the annalist. Let us turn, there- fore, to matters of a more comprehensive character.
· And here we may well remark how little history in gen- eral has done to elevate our conceptions of man. Some- thing it could hardly fail to accomplish of good, as from age to age it affords us records of what advancement has been made upon the past. But it tells us little of hu- man capacity. It is, for the most part, the dismal cat- alogue of man's animal conflicts, and the exhibition of his worst passions. War, conquest, ambitious tri- umphs, purchased at the cost of wholesale suffering ; selfish accumulation at the expense of monstrous and revolting miseries, awful and unjust impositions ; these, and the things like them, are what stand out glaringly on its pages. It does no justice to the better part of man. It is no index in itself alone of what he is des- tined to accomplish. He who looks to history in the light of so many facts only, as so many items alone in the amount of mortal action, and takes them for his guide, will be about certain to err. He must of neces- sity be narrow in his expectations of human advance- ment. The true philosopher will go behind history and analyze the picture it presents, find its real ele- ments, and place them in their rightful order. He will sift out the chaff, and set down to the lower propensi-
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ties what belongs exclusively to them. After wading through a century of disheartening events, he will not, therefore, grow hopeless of man ; for he can perceive that scarcely one of the higher powers of his nature has been called into action. Man has not himself been before him, but the deformity of man, which we may justly complain history has been so lavish in por- traying.
Hence the difference among men in their visions of the future. One takes history for his exclusive guide, its bare, dark chapters. Another takes his stand upon principles - the elements and capacities of human na- ture, what man was evidently designed by his Creator to be. Can we doubt how meagre, unsatisfactory, and delu- sive in comparison history thus becomes ? An Egyptian colony, we are told, planted Athens ; a band of robbers and outcasts laid the foundations of Rome, -her sons in time left Carthage a heap of ashes, and transferred her glory to the beautiful Italian shores. William the Conqueror invaded and overran Britain ; the Turks, during more than double the centuries we have had a name on the earth, planted their feet with a gigantic power on the neck of Grecian valor, refinement, and unsurpassed literary fame ; meanwhile the mighty sway, and the feeble are ground in the dust. Where do we get the intimation that the feeble band of the Puritans, at very sight of whom the imposing court of Charles curl their lips in scorn, shall one day push off to these ends of the earth, and here kindle up on new principles the dawn of a better hope for man ? The convents of the middle ages, the castle-crowned cliffs of Lords and Barons ministered, in part, to the physical wants of the human race. It was their pride and glory that the
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beggar knocked never at their gates in vain. But nothing was done, nothing even attempted to lift the unfortunate or the indigent above the necessity of beg- gary. Let him, who counts history thus all-sufficient, lay his finger upon those hopeful premises, whence we may safely make the glad deduction that, far in the distant future, a better almsgiving shall call forth the sympathies of humanity, - that all their bounties and charity shall look poor and shallow, the merest surface work by the side of a truer benevolence, which, strik- ing deeper than physical want, aims at individual self- respect and social elevation.
Nevertheless, history in its place is not to be dis- paraged. It has its lessons, and it is fruitful of instruc- tion. Only let not man grow faithless under it. They who left the smiling scenes of England, and built up in this wilderness, first the humble towns, and, through their growing strength, our present wide domain, till " the little one has become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation," came forth here and conquered and took the victory, as had been done times without number before. History records for us their doings, fortunately also some of the elevated objects at which they were aiming. What was there in their coming forth here, and in the prosperity that has followed them, differing from those of all other conquests or coloniza- tions? Let us briefly look into this, and trace, as I think we may, to the same cause the success of their enterprise at the beginning, and the surpassing pros- perity that has risen up to honor their memories since.
If we step for a moment behind history and look at it as it passes before us, we shall perceive that there have been two preeminently distinct and prominent classes of
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principles, which have prevailed among men, and by which communities and the world in general have been swayed. These are the binding and the dissevering principles, founded the one upon the moral sentiments, the other upon the animal propensities in man. Neither of these has as yet ever existed, without any alliance with the other. The latter has pre- vailed in by far the largest measure. The binding principles, founded as they are upon the moral sen- timents, have reference to the everlasting laws of rectitude, and to a conformity with the will and de- signs of the Creator. The dissevering principles, on the contrary, founded upon what is low, are shallow, superficial, extraneous, - they are attendant upon ar- bitrary will or artificial circumstances or temporary necessity, or what is worse, error, folly, ignorance, or crime. Thus, for example, all the principles which go to the support of a despotism are dissocial, dissevering, and shattering in their very nature. They tend natur- ally and inevitably to nurture passions and promote objects, which must as certainly divide men, as a decree of fate. They set one against another, and bring on opposing interests and factions, weakness and downfall. On one side, the side of the despot, there are pride, arrogance, indolence, oppression, inordinate selfishness, the idea of inherited or inalienable right over the prop- erty, persons, freedom, and happiness of others ; and on the other, the side of the overpowered, envy and hatred, the desire of liberty, the chafing feeling of rights trampled on and human nature abused. In these there is no permanent germ, no bond of union. They can no more coexist eternally, they can no more draw naturally and willingly in any harmonious fellowship,
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than the hungry tiger can gambol with the lamb. Those principles, on the contrary, which are at the foundation of a true republic, are naturally binding ; never as yet, indeed, have we seen them anything like generally prevailing, or freely and fully acted out. Whenever we do see them, we shall find them exercis- ing this influence ; as far as we witness them at all, we perceive this to be their character ; - and reason- ably, for their object is to call out individual action in its legitimate and noblest sphere, and to respect, de- velop, defend all human rights. The disconnection of religion from the state, the union of taxation and representation, the right of private judgment, the prin- ciple of toleration, and in morals the principle of doing unto others what we would wish they should do to us,- these all are binding principles. The more they get into operation, the more will they cement men and prosper their union, - fixing their eyes and hearts on one common good, the highest happiness, the greatest and universal elevation of the human race.
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