USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Hingham > An address delivered before the citizens of the town of Hingham : on the twenty-eighth of September, 1835, being the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town > Part 2
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Your records, Fellow Citizens, bear the most honorable testimony that your fathers were quick to perceive and prompt to resist the first advances of Great Britain towards an infraction upon their rights and privileges. They discussed well-they delib- erated well-they acted well. The alarm at Lex- ington kindled a flame which was seen and felt by a large majority of your citizens. Money, provi- sions, troops were furnished to the full extent of the requisitions of the government. There was no stint -no close calculation-no pusillanimous delays. At Bunker Hill, in Canada, at Crown Point, Brandy- wine, Saratoga, Monmouth, Rhode Island, in South Carolina and at the brilliant close of the contest at Yorktown, there were citizens of this town, who discharged their duties to their country as brave men and patriots should discharge them. Several of
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them sealed their devotion to liberty with their blood. At Brandywine, the gallant Andrews, after receiving a bullet wound which partially disabled him, pressed forward at the head of his company into the hottest of the fight, until wounded by a cannon shot which terminated his life. His valor, on that occasion, was the subject of admiration ; it attracted the notice of the general officers and par- ticularly of La Fayette, who on his visit to this country ten years since, spoke of it with grateful recollection. It was to an accomplished officer of this town, that Washington assigned the merited honor of receiving the submission of the royal army at Yorktown, a suitable recompense for the manner in which he was compelled to surrender to the Brit- ish forces at Charleston. It was also to another citizen of this town, whose fine talents were in a measure lost to his country by his decease in the meridian of life, was reserved the honor of bearing to this country from our Commissioners in France the definitive treaty of peace in 1783.1
We feel as if we were connected with the entire past history of the services and sacrifices of our citizens by the living members of the patriot bands who achieved our independence. I see before me those who devoted the flower of their youth to the great cause of freedom. I sce those who periled every thing in battle after battle for your benefit, and who remain the honorable and honored benefactors of their country and of mankind. I see those who
1 John Thaxter, Esq.
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in the wilds of Canada, under the burning sun of the South, both upon the ocean and the land, amid victory and defeat, bore up the standard of liberty- and who when thrown into bondage whether in the prisons of England or Nova Scotia, or in that hated receptacle of brave men, the very name of which will be handed down to after times with execration -the Jersey Prison Ship-did not yield in the main- tenance of the principles to which they had pledged their lives and fortunes.1
A few years, and the remnant of the heroes of the Revolution will be gone from us forever. They linger yet to enjoy the gratitude of a whole republic and to know that there are those among us, before us, descendants of our pilgrim fathers, who have been just to their merits, and who amid the clamor of parties, have risen above their debasing influences, and have maintained the cause and spoken of the achievements of the soldier of liberty in the loftiest strains of eloquence.
In the midst of our revolutionary struggle we find our citizens assembling with great deliberation and discussing the proposed Constitution of the State, to which they gave their support, thus justifying the character which they have uniformly maintained of adhering to the principles of well regulated liberty. And in the subsequent events which disturbed the peace of this Commonwealth, when the radical and levelling spirit of Shays and his associates threatened the subversion of all law and authority, the energy
1 See Note I.
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and prudence of Gen. Lincoln with many others of his townsmen, were called in requisition and were successfully exerted in maintaining the laws and securing the safety of the State.
Since these events, of which I have spoken, the condition of the country has generally been such as to contribute to the growth and prosperity of this town. The interruption of a short war was percep- tible to a small extent upon its progress in improve- ment, and we find it at the end of 200 years from its settlement distinguished for its social, literary, religious advantages, and enjoying the rich fruits of the intelligence, enterprize and valor of its founders.
I leave these topics of local interest, blended as they are with the traditions and histories which sug- gest to the reflecting mind the most delightful as- sociations, to speak of others which the occasion presses upon my attention.
In looking over our annals, and in reflecting upon the position in which we now stand in relation to the whole country, we feel it to be a subject of con- gratulation that the inhabitants of this town and their descendants have contributed so well to the general stock of wisdom and to the great principles upon which rest the hopes of posterity.
At an early period our Hobart scattered through- out the country a celebrated progeny of divines, several of whom were distinguished for their learn- ing and eloquence. The late eminent Bishop of New York was descended from a brother of our first minister, and was one of the most influential advo-
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cates for Episcopacy in the new world ; and yet the ancestors of this distinguished divine were among the boldest, most persevering opponents of this Church that existed in New England.
The numerous families of Cushings, wherever found, can trace their origin to this village. The branch which flourished in Scituate was distinguish- ed for its production of eminent men. I believe this family has furnished more judicial officers for the State and Union than any other which exists. They were as distinguished for patriotism as for judicial learning, and some of them stood in the front rank of their countrymen with Washington and Adams, Henry and Jefferson, either in times of awful hazard, or in those of prodigious civil labor which laid the foundations of our country's policy.
We recognize with pride borne upon our annals the name of OTIS. The enthusiastic patriot, the brilliant orator who was among the first to warn his countrymen of their danger in the stormy period preceding the Revolution, was a descendant of the associates of Peter Hobart in founding this town. Is it not possible that something of that ardent love of freedom and strong aversion to despotic power which have distinguished the descendants may have been derived from an intelligent and independent ancestry ? The Gilmans and Folsoms of New Hampshire, the Strongs of Northampton, the Spragues of Duxbury and Rhode Island, the Lin- colns of Worcester and Maine, the Pratts of New York, eminent as civilians, jurists, divines and pat-
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riots all can trace their origin to this place. And we can claim the honor, and high honor it is, that here was the birth place of the mother of the illus- trious man who was the first to place his bold and manly signature to the Declaration of Independence.1
It would be interesting to trace out not only the connecting links which unite us to an ancestry dis- tinguished for the virtues which hallow their mem- ory, but to follow out the developement of their excellent qualities among their numerous descend- ants. We should furnish by such a labor no barren genealogies. We could claim no alliance it is true with royalty-we desire none. We should not care to plunge into the records of heraldry for the evi- dence of the noble origin of our fathers. The pages of history, the institutions which their wisdom and piety and valor contributed to establish, give them clearer, more enduring titles to fame. The reced- ing wilderness, the extended villages, the schools of learning, the temples of piety, the institutions of be- nevolence, all speak their high eulogy. Could we ransack the antiquarian repositories of the old and new world-could we indulge the imagination in its highest flights-could we picture for ourselves the character of such ancestors as we should choose to emblazon on the records of our origin-we could find none shedding more glory upon the names we bear, than that noble race of men, the Puritan Fathers of New England. Braver men can be found no where in the annals of heroism-religion 1 See Note J.
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has had no warmer votaries-country no patriots more devoted. Standing amid their sepulchres, may we drink deep of the inspiration of the place-may we resolve to maintain their principles and be just to their fame.
We have reason to rejoice to day, for what our ancestors did for the cause of Education.
In the year 1647, a Colonial Statute was passed relating to education, the preamble to which cannot too often be recited, and with some allowances for religious prejudices, too much admired. It was in these words-" It being one chief project of Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture, as in former times keeping them in unknown tongues, so in these latter times by pursuading from the use of tongues, that so at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of deceivers; to the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, in Church and Commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavours :
It is therefore ordered by this Court and authori- ty thereof ; that every township within this juris- diction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their towns to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read." By the same Statute, towns having one hundred families were required to set up a grammar school.
This Statute was enforced at a very early date in this town. Before Philip's war, a Latin and
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Greek School was established, and since that peri- od there have been teachers, educated at some one of the universities, with very slight if any intermis- sion. About seventy of the natives of thistownhave been educated at the Universities ; and many of them have acquired reputations in the various professions highly honorable to their character. Few lawyers had, in their day, attained to greater distinction than Pratt and the elder Lincoln ; few divines pos- sessed more acuteness or learning than the Hobarts ; and the name of Hersey is a conspicuous ornament to the medical profession.
The value which has been set upon learning in this place is illustrated by the great liberality with which provision is made for the support of Frec Schools. The beautiful and commodious edifices which meet our eyes in every section of the town, the crowd of youth who resort to them for the pur- poses of education, and the fruits which we discover around us, are proofs that the seeds of learning have been sown in a productive soil, and show that, in this point at least, we are acting up to the require- ments of duty, and that a determined spirit exists that the truth shall not be corrupted with false glosses of deceivers. The characters of Derby- and of the Herseys, who laid here, or at the neigh- boring university, the foundations for valuable in- struction, exhibit in a more striking light individual cases of the generous spirit which the claims of learning have excited in benevolent hearts.
Indeed without learning what would be freedom ?
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Every American citizen should reflect much upon this question. Let him study well the history not only of particular communities but of the whole country. Learning is essential to freedom. Nei- ther can stand alone. The ancient republics lost their liberty when they extinguished the light of learning. When their orators became flatterers and their poets parasites, liberty degenerated into licen- tiousness.
We must be careful then not to be se- duced from the maintenance of those Free Schools in which the fathers of New England formed that stern simplicity and strength of character which
constitute the pillars of our social system. With comparatively few advantages for the cultivation of the mind, called continually by professional duties and obligations from the enticements of study into the field of active exertion, in the common business of life, were they not as ripe scholars, as profound theologians, as sagacious statesmen, as those of our own times? Few though they were in number, did they leave upon the age less permanent impres- sions of their character than the scholars of the present day ? Was their morality less pure, were their political opinions less sound, their religion less elevating in its influence than now ? Did infidelity take deeper root when the fountains of science were found only here and there sending forth their re- freshing streams in the wilderness, than now, when they appear to flow in upon us like the ocean waves? We think not ; and we believe we can find the se- cret of all their success in that pure morality and
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that lofty religious principle which were blended with the genial influences of learning, to form the plain, hardy, yet noble simplicity of their republican character. Do we not need this in our own times ? Do we not want the stern principles of the Puritans to combine their power with our multiplied literary advantages ? We wish to see it imparted to every species of literary effort. We wish our poets to be inspired by it ; let it restrain the wandering pen of fiction-let it warm the eloquent appeals of the statesman, and sink deep in the heart and be ever falling from the lips of the divine.
We have reason to day to rejoice for what our ancestors did for the cause of Religion. They al- ways supported a learned ministry ; and the unpre- cedented length of ministerial services of the several pastors, undoubtedly contributed much to impart stability and influence to their religious institutions.
Of all the pastors who have officiated at the vari- ous churches in the present town limits, but four have deceased, Hobart, Norton and Gay of the First, and Shute of the Second Parish. The three first mentioned, lived in the ministry in this place, upwards of 150 years-and for the 152 years from the date of the settlement of the town, the church was destitute of a pastor but one year eight months and a few days. The ministry of Mr. Hobart was upwards of 43 years in length, Mr. Norton's about 38 years, and Dr. Gay's nearly 70 years. The successor of Dr. Gay is still living ; and it is now nearly half a century since he was ordained pastor
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of this church. Dr. Shute was pastor of the Second Church 56 years, and performed his professional duties for the whole of that period except two years. His successor is still living.1 Whatever differences of opinion may exist now in relation to religious tenets, it must be conceded, I think, that the talents, character and long services of the clergy, have exert- ed a most salutary influence over the minds of the people.
When a man like Hobart, whose leading trait was that of " a bold man who would speak his mind," and who rejected the authority both of Church and State, when attempted to be exerted to interfere with the popular rights-when a man like him labored for the largest part of half a century to promote the religious welfare of a people, an impression must have been left upon their minds which would not cease to be felt through a long series of years. In the field which had been broken up with so bold a hand, the mild and conciliatory spirit of his succes- sor was calculated to produce the rich fruits of har- mony and peace. And then again when the strong intellectual powers and commanding influence of the learned Gay, (whose praise was upon every lip, and whose piety warmed every heart,) were devot- ed for three score years and ten, in the " steady" promotion of pure morals and a religion which par- took neither of rank enthusiasm nor wild supersti- tion, his pursuasive arguments could not fail to scatter blessings innumerable through all classes of
1 See Note K.
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society. During a portion of the same period, in which the brilliant light of Gay was seen and felt in all the churches, religion had a zealous, ra- tional and successful support from the strong mind and sound scholarship of Dr. Shute.
Let us be just to the clergymen of former days. They were to us not merely the apostles of heav- enly truth, but the eloquent advocates of learning, the friends of good laws, the bold defenders of civil and religious liberty.
In a review of the past, it would be ungrateful to overlook the character, services and sufferings of another class, whose cheerful aid and encouraging voices strengthened the arm and animated the hearts of our ancestors. I mean the mothers of New Eng- land. Is it a story of romance that their paternal homes, the scenes of social enjoyment and youthful pleasure-the graves of their fathers could not di- vert their minds from the perilous undertaking of braving the storm and the billows of the ocean, or from the still more hazardous trials in a gloomy wil- derness where the foot steps of civilization, refine- ment, christianity had never trod-where the wild beast and the untamed savage ranged in unrestricted freedom-and all this in obedience to the dictates of conscience and that attachment to principle which were the moving causes of their anxious pilgrimage ? My friends, there is no fiction in this representation -it glows in the liveliest colors of history. When calamity hung over the hopes of your fathers in a heavy cloud, when desolating war carried dismay to
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the stoutest hearts, and the smoke of your villages almost darkened the horizon, when the war cry of the savage brought terror to every fireside and crush- ed the hopes of affection almost to despair, it was then that the boldest spirits were sustained, encour- aged by the animating tones of woman's voice and the tender solicitudes of woman's hearts.
Well may we be grateful to day for such examples. Well may we spread our feasts of thanksgiving for such exhibitions of the power of the female mind. We feel that New England derives as much of true glory from the virtues which formed and em- bellished the minds of her youth-and inspired them with an undying attachment to the blessings of freedom, as to the courage by which her institutions have been defended and those blessings preserved. The stirring associations of this occasion, the events of two hundred years, with all their instructive ad- monitions, do but deepen the impression that patri- otism has no exclusive character ; it is confined to no age or country or sex-and if it shines with pe- culiar lustre in the lives of the great and the good men who have been prompted by it to manly action, to brilliant achievement, whether in peace or war, it has appeared with attractions none the less lovely as the graceful ornament of the female character.
We are permitted to live at an interesting epoch -at a point of time which must have seemed to our ancestors, far, very far veiled in the mists of futurity. Two HUNDRED YEARS ! a period which required of them strong effort of the imagination to embrace in
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all its interesting aspects. They could form no ac- curate conception of the wonderful revolutions which would in this period agitate, improve and embellish society. The visions of hope might occasionally animate them, but the gifts of prophecy were not theirs. When the accomplished Gay, one hundred years ago, within these walls discoursed of the events of the century which had then expired, from the words " For we are strangers before thee and so- journers, as were all our fathers," we can form some feeble idea of the impressive scene. One solitary individual then lived, (himself more than a century old,) of all the race who founded this settlement. He alone was spared to bear testimony of the entire history of his early associates-of their unmeasured sacrifices. He must have seemed like a monarch of the forest, scathed by the lightnings and torn by the rude blasts of heaven, standing in solitary and mel- ancholy grandeur amid the ruins of his affections, and broken hopes.1
We have no one to day to tell us of the events of an entire century-to form the connecting link be- tween the present and the past.2 We have no living records, none but history and tradition. Nor will we shun the impressive thought that of all this throng of youth, who come here to day in all the buoyancy of hope and elasticity of spirit, to do honor to those to whom they are indebted for their great privileges, not one will be spared in the rapid current of time to carry to those who may gather around the
1 See Note L. 2 See Note M.
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altars of religion a century hence, an account of the events of another period of our political existence. Would that we could form some faint conception of the events and the circumstances of those times. Would that we could know something of the mi- raculous works of science, the fruits of learning, the progress of civilization, which a century is des- tined to produce. But infinite wisdom has limited our powers and shaped them for wiser ends. It is the Past-the glorious Past which is given to us for instruction and admonition. We can use no magic wand to call up the scenes of futurity. As we glide along the shining stream which bears us onward to one common ocean, and gaze upon the receding lights of other days, we can learn to guide our barks in safety through the rushing tides. Voy- agers, as we are, we can follow with ease those who precede us, and in our turn we should aspire, at least, to cheer and guide upon their course those who are hurrying rapidly after us.
What are the duties which the interesting reflec- tions of this day suggest to us ? What is the voice of the past-what the demands of the future ?
It is in vain that we glory and justly glory in the progressive emancipation of mind from the trammels of superstition, and the degrading state of a blind submission to temporal or spiritual authority, if we cannot make our advantages available in urging on- ward the great cause of truth and freedom. It is in vain that we are placed upon the proud intellec- tual eminence of modern times, thrown up by the
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accumulated labors of gifted spirits in past ages, if we are not sagacious to perceive, in our elevated po- sition, the wide field for our duties as citizens and patriots. We have a solemn charge to us from the virtuous dead. Their sepulchres are eloquent in admonition and warning. Their history imparts the brightest hopes. Their fame is in our keeping. Their institutions are to be maintained by our pat- riotism. To make their glory ours, their sacrifices, if need be, must be ours also.
The demands of posterity are pressing upon us. They will claim of us a discharge of the sacred ob- ligations which an ancestry whom we reverence, a country which we honor, impose on us. They will look to this point of time as an era from which to trace far reaching views of the duties of citizens, fresh impulses in all that shall elevate the moral and intellectual nature of man.
We will resolve to day, here-in view of the graves of the illustrious dead-around the altar where their prayers ascended in devout aspirations to God-in the midst of the young and the beautiful, who repose their best hopes under the shield of our protection- that we will be true to our high responsibilities- that we will guard well the fame and defend the principles of the Puritan Fathers of our Country.
NOTES.
NOTE A, TO PAGE 7.
The names of those who drew house lots on the 18th of September, 1635, were the following :
1. James Cade (Cady,)
2. Abraham Martin,
3. William Nolton (Knowlton,)
4. John Otis,
5. Thomas Loring,
6. John Strong,
7. David Phippen,
8. Thomas Andrews,
9. Joseph Andrews,
10. William Walton,
11. Richard Betscome (Betsham,)
12. Thomas Wakely,
13. William Arnall (Arnold,)
14. Nicholas Jacob,
15. Edmund Hobart, Jun.
16. John Smart,
17. Edmund Hobart, Sen.
18. Joshua Hobart,
19. Peter Hobart,
20. Nathaniel Peck,
21. Richard Osborn,
22. George Marsh,
23. George Lane,
24. George Ludkin,
25. Nicholas Baker,
26. Nathaniel Baker,
27. Andrew Lane,
28. George Bacon,
29. Thomas Collier,
30. Francis Smith.
Of the above 1, James Cade or Cady, came from the West of Eng- land with three sons. The same name appears in Yarmouth in 1640, and in the same year there appears to have been a person of the same name in Boston .- Farmer's Register.
2. Abraham Martin removed to Rehoboth. His name is on the list of freemen of that town in 1657. His will was proved Sept. 9, 1669. In it he gave £1 10 to Rev. Peter Hobart. Martin was a Weaver.
3. William Nolton, (invariably written thus in records of Hingham,
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but properly Knowlton,) probably removed to Ipswich. His naine appears there in 1644.
4. John Otis, the ancestor of all of the name of Otis in this coun- try. He came from Barnstable, Devonshire, England. He was a freeman in 1635-6. He died at Weymouth, May 31, 1657, aged 76. His son John removed to Scituate in 1661. In 1678, he removed to Barnstable, but returned to Scituate, and died there in 1683, leaving a son John at Barnstable, and others at Scituate.
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