USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Westminster > Celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Westminster, Mass. > Part 6
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There was formerly an important line of travel passing through this town. The stages from Greenfield and Brattleboro' passed daily, in both directions, through the village, and the stages from Keene passed through the northerly part of the town ; but since the opening of the Cheshire, and the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroads, the travel is diverted in a great degree from the centre of the town. The railroad passes through the northerly and casterly portions of the town, but the station is about two miles from the village.
Lying upon the mountain range, the township is of course elevated. The village is nearly eleven hundred feet above tide- water, and more than nine hundred feet above the mouth of Mil- ler's river at Montague. Situated between the Wachusett and the Monadnock, the winters are more severe, and the snows fall in greater depth, than in most towns in the same latitude. But the summers are delightful ; the pure and bracing air gives a buoyancy of spirits and a glow of health, which richly compensates for the frosts of winter.
The surface of the township is generally rocky and uneven ; but rising in large and gradual swells, the soil is not generally broken. The Wachusett mountain, in Princeton, has the northern portion of its base within the town of Westminster. There are other eleva- tions in the town, of considerable magnitude. The soil is generally moist and strong, and under a high state of cultivation, would be very productive. It is a good grazing town. The territory is remarkably well watered. Being upon the summit, the streams are comparatively small, and yet there is a large quantity of water flowing from the town. The Westminster and Wachusett ponds, containing an aggregate of nearly three hundred and fifty acres, and being fed by springs from the circumjacent hills, furnish a
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good supply of water. Besides, there are several large ranges of swampy land, from which considerable streams issue. Almost the whole of the stream at Fitchburg, which constitutes the north- ern branch of the Nashua, comes from or through the township of Westminster. And in addition to the waters which flow easterly into the Nashua, Westminster sends her tributaries westerly into Miller's, and south-westerly into Chicopee river. Thus standing on an eminence, between the Connecticut and the Merrimack, West- minster regards them with impartiality, and liberally imparts her favors to the two principal rivers in the State.
Westminster has never been particularly noted for being the birth-place or residence of distinguished men. Rev. John Miles, for many years a settled clergyman in Grafton, was a native of the place. Hon. Abijah Bigelow of Worcester, who was Clerk of the Courts of Worcester County, and who represented the District in Congress, originated here. Hon. Solomon Strong, who was also a member of Congress, and afterwards Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, made Westminster, for a time, the place of his residence. Clough R. Miles, Esq., of Millbury, a lawyer of considerable distinction, was a native of this town. Hon. Charles Hudson of Lexington, while residing in Westminster, which he did for nearly twenty-five years, represented in part the County of Worcester six years in the Senate of Massachusetts, three years in the Executive Council, and the District eight years in Congress. Dr. John White, a physician in Watertown, New York, a son of Deacon James White, was born in Westminster, where he prac- ticed medicine more than twenty years. Dr. Flavel Cutting, who practiced medicine in Westminster many years, was born of West- minster parents. Rev. Asaph Merriam, Rev. Charles Kendall, a clergyman now of Petersham, son of Edward Kendall, Esq., were born in this place ; as was Rev. Joseph Peckham of Kingston, and Rev. Franklin Merriam, now of New Boston, New Hampshire. Hon. Giles H. Whitney of Winchendon, who has represented the County in part in the Senate, resided at one time in Westminster. Dr. Cyrus Mann of Stoughton, son of Rev. Cyrus Mann, was born and brought up in this town.
Joseph Wood, son of Abel Wood, Esq , graduated at Williams College, 1815, entered the ministry, and died in Alabama, 1837. Theodore S. Wood, son of Ezra, graduated at Amherst, 1833, and
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died in Andover while at the Theological School, 1835. Franklin Wood, son of Deacon B. F. Wood, graduated at Dartmouth, 1841; is now a teacher in Minnesota. Abel Wood, son of Deacon B. F. Wood, graduated at Dartmouth, 1843, studied divinity, and is now one of the teachers in Meriden Academy, New Hampshire. Dr. Joel W. Wyman, a physician in South Carolina, and Dr. John L. White, were natives of this town. The latter is in Illinois. Westminster has also sent out quite a number of teachers. A. Holden Merriam, J. Russell Gaut, William S. Heywood, Francis S. Heywood, and Porter P. Heywood, William F. and Edward E. Bradbury, besides a large number of females from this town, have been employed as teachers in this and distant parts of the country.
In this enumeration, we should not overlook the pious and devoted females, who have relinquished the pleasures and joys of home, and have voluntarily exiled themselves from the comforts of civilized society, to spread the Gospel among the heathen. Myra Wood, daughter of Abel Wood, Esq., married Rev. David O. Allen, a Missionary to Bombay. She accompanied him, in 1827, to that place, and died there, in 1831, in the thirtieth year of her age. Mary Sawyer, daughter of Jacob Sawyer, and grand- daughter of Rev. Asaph Rice, of Westminster, married Rev. William C. Jackson, a Missionary to the East, and spent several years at Trebizond and vicinity, in the neighborhood of the Black Sea.
The question is sometimes asked, by what title we hold our lands ? Were they purchased, or how was the Indian title extin- guished ? It is not easy, perhaps, to give a specific answer to these questions. But a statement of the facts in the case, will make the matter tolerably clear. So far as the first settlers were concerned, it is sufficient to say that they held under the grant of the General Court. If there is any difficulty in the case-any wrong done to the native tribes, it was done by the body politic, and not by those who established themselves in this township. For at the time of the first settlement here, this region was destitute of inhabitants. .
In order to judge correctly of the justice and equity of the policy of our fathers toward the native tribes, it is important to recur to first principles. When God created man, he said unto him, " Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and
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subdue it." It is apparent that a people who subdue the soil, and fit it for the habitation of man, have in the abstract, a better title to the land, than a people who simply roam over it, to hunt and to fish. It is also apparent that a given section of country will sup- port a vastly greater population of civilized than of savage men ; so that the great and benevolent plan of Providence is promoted, by a savage race giving place to a civilized one. No enlightened Christian, therefore, can lament that an uncivilized, pagan nation, fades away before a civilized, Christian nation. To murmur at this, is to murmur at the order of Providence.
But this can never justify any oppression, or fraud, or injustice, on the part of the stronger or civilized race. Were our fathers guilty of any fraud, or injustice, towards the natives ? This is the question to be settled. For the sake of brevity, I confine myself to this section of the Commonwealth. It is a well known fact, that some eight years before the landing of the Pilgrims, the Massachu- setts, a tribe which held possession of this part of the State, had been visited by a dreadful pestilence, which had reduced their numbers from many thousands, to a few hundreds ; so that this section of the country was almost depopulated, when the Massa- chusett Colony was first established here. It will hardly be main- tained that a few hundred wild men of the woods ought to hold the whole of this delightful country against the claims of a more civilized people, who were driven by oppression from their native land.
The English emigrants were, even in view of the " higher law," entitled to a footing in this country. There was vacant land enough for the red men and for the white. And the toil in cross- ing the ocean gave them a title'to the vacant lands, not much inferior to that of the Indians, who never mingled their labor with the soil. Where the natives were in possession-where they had habitations and fields and accustomed hunting-grounds-their claims should be regarded as paramount, and respected accordingly. But it seems to be straining the point to say, that,a few wild men of the woods had a vendable right in the soil throughout hun- dreds of miles of wilderness, simply because they, or their fathers, had in a few instances roamed over some portions of it in quest of game.
Besides, when the Chiefs of the Massachusetts, the Nashuas, and other tribes, put themselves under the Massachusetts Colony,
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in 1644, they virtually relinquished their jurisdiction over the unsettled sections of the country. Westminster was probably never permanently occupied by any of the native tribes. The Nashuas, who resided in that part of Lancaster which now con- stitutes Sterling, perhaps visited temporarily the section near the Wachusett pond ; but they never made it a permanent place of residence. So that the General Court might have felt themselves at liberty, ever after 1644, to grant this township to any settlers.
But another important event occurred before this township was granted. When the Nashuas joined Philip, in 1675, as they did in a good degree, in violation of their treaty, they put all their country at the hazard of the contest ; and the English settlements in the Colony, by the arbitrament of arms, came into possession of this portion of the country, though they did not in fact take pos- session of it till more than half a century after, when it had been for years abandoned by the Indians.
This general view of the subject shows, that the General Court had a title to this section of the State, at the time they granted the township, which would then, and now, be considered valid by the law of nations, as it is understood in the most enlightened and civilized countries.
But behind all this lies a question of moral right, which we have no disposition to overlook. The rights of war will never justify fraud or injustice. How then did our fathers treat the natives ? In most instances they were treated fairly, and even kindly, by the Massachusetts Colony. After their voluntary submission, in 1644, wherever they had settlements, they were protected in their pos- sessions ; and whenever they desired grants of land, these grants were cheerfully made. The Natick Indians had a plantation laid out for them, as early as 1652 ; and even earlier than that, they were allowed to bring actions in the Courts of the Colony to main- tain titles to their lands. And in 1652, it " was ordered and enacted by this Court, that what lands any of the Indians, within this jurisdiction, have by possession, or improvement, by subduing the same, they have just right thereunto." These rights were, I believe, in all cases, respected by the Colony, and in numerous cases grants were made to them. We might instance the grants at Marlborough, Grafton, and many other places. And to show that this faith has been kept, we can point to the grants that are made to this day to the Indians at Grafton, Gay Head, Marshpee, and
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other places. We could also point to numerous localities, where the Indian titles have been extinguished by purchase.
That there are individual cases, where the Indians have been de- frauded, there can be no doubt. But this was generally done by unprincipled individuals, rather than by the body politic. And wherever injustice has been practiced, the fact that the defrauded party was the uncivilized Indian, aggravates, rather than extenu- ates the crime. An expiring nation, like expiring individuals, should be regarded with sympathy, and treated with kindness ; and the individual, or the community, which violates this obvious principle, is guilty of a wrong, for which they must atone.
If it were possible, I should like to present an exact picture of the condition of society as it existed one hundred years ago, that you might see what strange mutations a century has wrought. These hills and dales are in their general outlines the same ; but all their surroundings are changed. Thick forests of pine have given place to fields of golden grain, and the rivulets which then forced their way amid decaying trunks of prostrate trees, or gurgled through dense thickets of alders, now flow gracefully through meadows waving with grass, and yielding a full repast for the tenants of the stall. The hillsides, which resounded with the wild howl of beasts of prey, are now vocal with the lowing of gentle herds.
And the general condition of the inhabitants relative to their houses, their furniture, their dress, their food, and their modes of life, has undergone a change as great as that of the face of nature. We have seen that the first habitations of the settlers were only about eighteen feet square, and some of these were but little larger than the huge stone chimney which, for want room in the house, was actually turned out of doors. The size of the houses had increased before the district was incorporated ; but the people had not, at that time, run to the other extreme, which was afterwards adopted, of erecting a large house which they were unable to finish.
But we should not suffer the rough boards, on the outside of their houses, to hide the primitive simplicity which reigned within. If you were to approach one of their humble and unpretending dwellings, on a winter's evening, avoiding the wood-pile in front of the house, three or four lusty raps with the knuckles on the door
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would bring a hearty response of " walk in," when, by pulling the latch-string, which was always out, and so lifting the wooden latch, the door would open, and you would find yourself in the presence of the whole family, of ten or a dozen persons, of all ages, seated around a crackling fire. The huge back-log, which was rolled into the fire-place in the morning, and which had manfully resisted the blazing element through the day, would be seen yielding the ascendency, and furnishing a mass of burning coals, sufficient to smelt the most sullen ore.
By the blaze of the pine knots, which illuminated the room, you would have the family group in full view before you. In one corner sits the aged grandma'am, in a rude oaken chair, bottomed with strips of elm bark or raw hide ; while in the other corner, on a huge settle, whose high-boarded back was designed to intercept old Boreas in his passage from the shrunken boards and broken windows, to the open-mouthed chimney, are seen three or four children, giving visible symptoms that the time had arrived to draw out what, in latter days, and in more advanced stages of civilization, would be denominated a " trundle bed," and to con- sign them to repose. On the long block within the jambs, and yet at a respectable distance from the fire, two or three older urchins are playing their sly tricks, and endangering the vessel near them, filled, not with Tyrean dye, but with what would suffi- ciently tinge the four-skein yarn, which the hum of the wheel gives evidence is being produced, and so fit it for use.
If the blaze of the green wood falters, or the pine lamps become dim, they are revived and replenished, by the shavings produced from the birch broom, which the good man of the house is peeling, or from those of the wooden spoons, which another member of the masculines is whittling out for the next repast from the tray of bean porridge, still in its minority, being less than " nine days old."
A survey of the furniture would at once convince you that nature's wants were few, and easily supplied. The settle supplied the place of the sofa-the form, of the lounge-and the block, of the ottoman. A single rude table sufficed for a centre, a dining; and a tea-table ; and in its composition, a pine board supplanted the marble slab, the mahogany, and the black walnut. Their china closet, or what was then generally denominated a dresser, consisted of two or three shelves, nailed to the side of the house,
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on which were deposited a few wooden trenchers or plates, a tray, wooden spoons and wooden bowls, all of home production, a pewter or brown earthen mug, and a few knives and forks. A wooden shovel or peel, served to stir the embers, or rake up the fire ; and a broom, of peeled birch or of hemlock boughs, to sweep the room or brush up the ashes.
Their dress was in keeping with their furniture. Plain, simple home-spun, excluded the silks and the satins, and linsey-woolsey displaced a hundred nameless French fabrics, with which the market at this day is glutted. The checked apron, the "sheep's giay" trowsers, the woolen or tow shirt, and the various articles of wool or flax, colored with maple, walnut, apple-tree, or some other bark, constituted the dress of the family, on ordinary occasions ; while the Sabbath might bring to view a calico dress, or some article of foreign production. On the fashion of dresses, however, I shall not dwell. This subject is too expansive to be encircled on an occasion like the present. But in the midst of this simplicity, we find some article of furniture, like a clock, a chair, or a look- ing-glass ; or some ornament, like a pair of shoe or knee-buckles, which had come down from European ancestors, cherished with a fond pride, and displayed with an air of no small satisfaction.
Their living, a hundred years ago, was as simple as their dress. Meat, and bread and milk, were their principal dependence. Salt beef and pork, rye and Indian bread, beans, turnips and cabbages, constituted their daily fare. The potato being at that time in a great measure unknown, and rarely cultivated, the bean was extensively used, both as a solid and a liquid food ; so that bean- porridge was not only a household word, but a household repast. Tea was but little used, and coffee scarcely known. Beer and cider constituted their principal beverage ; though the bewitching drink of distilled spirits was indulged in on public occasions.
In taking a survey of the past, not only the manners and customs, but the characters of our fathers naturally present them- selves. Without attempting a full analysis of their characters, we may safely say, that being men, they had their follies and infirmi- ties, and were characterized by the faults of the age in which they lived. I shall be pardoned, I trust, if I say a word on their religious character, which was the most salient point among our forefathers. That they were a religious people, no one can doubt ; and that their religion assumed a stern and uncompromising type,
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is readily admitted. We may concede, too, that they were tinctured with superstition, and cherished, in some degree, a persecuting spirit.
Let us contemplate their character as thus presented. Their habitual trust in God, and their abiding conviction that they had a great work to perform, amid difficulties and dangers, and were in a manner the appointed agents of the Most High, to establish a pure and vital religion in this wilderness, gave them an energy, a zeal, and persistency of character, which showed itself in their whole life. And if they manifested inordinate zeal, or exhibited too much sternness of character, these were but the infirmities of that vigorous faith which they so fondly cherished. And if they imbibed something of a persecuting spirit, they have the apology, that the spirit of toleration, and the virtue of forbearance, were in a great measure unknown in that age of the world.
Our Fathers were in advance of the age in their ardent devotion to God, in their trust in divine Providence, and in their uncon- querable love of civil and religious liberty ; and it is requiring too much of them to expect perfection in all things, because they excelled in many. Admit, if you please, that they had defects of character ; they were the very defects which would naturally flow from their stern, manly virtues, and from the spirit of the age in which they lived. The part they had to act in the plan of divine Providence, led them to contemplate the Almighty in the character of a Ruler, rather than that of a Father, and fitted them to perform the important duty of establishing our civil institutions on a broad, religious basis. Had they been less stern in their manners, less fixed in their principles, and more yielding and compromising in their policy, they would probably have failed in their grand enterprise, of founding a free state on the great principles of religion.
Though we may find some things in their conduct to condemn, there are more to approve. Their stern, incorruptible integ- rity, their persistent perseverance, and their self-sacrificing spirit, have given to New England a character of which we may justly be proud. "History," it is said, "shows their faults." We rejoice that it does ; for this proves the fidelity of history, by show- ing that they were men. We rejoice that faithful historians have pointed out their failings as well as their manly virtues ; so that we may have many things to imitate, as well as a few things to
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shun. And happy will it be for us, if after-generations can review our characters, with as few regrets, and with as much satisfaction as we experience, this day, when we contemplate the characters of our ancestors. Give me the stern integrity, the fixed determina- tion, the manly, unconquerable perseverance, and the unfaltering faith of our Puritan ancestors, and I have the very materials of which to form characters which will stand in the day of trial. Give me these, and I will readily dispense with the easy virtue, the compromising policy, and the etherial, speculative doubtings of this age of boasted progress and refinement.
Fellow Citizens of Westminster :
Though I cannot claim kindred with your inhabitants, or boast of being born upon your soil, yet your town is endeared to me by a residence of a quarter of a century, and your people by a long, friendly, and intimate acquaintance. Here I have mingled with your people in every situation of life. I have stood by the bed-side of the dying, shed the sympathetic tear with the mourner, and followed some of your valued citizens to the grave. Here I have visited your children in the schools, united some of you in bands of holy wedlock, and joined in your social circles. Here, too, I received the first testimonial of political confidence, which brought my name before a confiding and generous public, which for twenty-five years in succesion, sustained me in places of honor and of trust.
There are associations of a more private and tender character, which ally me to this place. It was here that I commenced my domestic life, by assuming the interesting and responsible relations of a husband and a father. It was here, that, amid a tender and generous sympathy, I was called to part with my early companion and two endearing children, whose earthly remains rest beneath your soil. This town is the birth-place of my surviving children, who drew their first vital breath upon this consecrated Hill.
The familiar faces I see before me ; the cordial greetings I have received this morning ; your beautiful natural scenery ; the trees by your road-sides ; " your rocks and your rills ;" your fresh and invig- orating atmosphere, whose gentle breezes move your leafy groves, and whose stronger blasts murmur through the bending branches of these aged elms ; the school-houses dedicated to the young, and the village spires pointing upward as if to guide us to heaven, or
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draw down blessings upon our heads ;- these conspire to revive former recollections, and more youthful feelings, and create in my breast the emotions of the child who has returned to his father's house to spend a true and joyous Thanksgiving, in the old family mansion.
And never, oh never, while memory remains, shall the recollec- tions of WESTMINSTER cease to retain a place in my thoughts and affections. And while many of her absent native sons have this day returned to lay their filial offering of joy and gratitude at her feet, I fondly hope that I may, without intrusion, join in the general tribute ; and, with them, unite in a fervent prayer for her future prosperity and happiness.
APPENDIX.
A LIST OF THE GRANTEES FOR THE NARRAGANSET TOWN- SHIP, NO. 2, AS MADE UP IN 1732.
CAMBRIDGE.
William Russell, (then living.)
Gershom Cutter, (then living.)
Joseph Bemas, for his father, Joseph. Jonathan Remington, Esq., for his father, Capt. Remington. Downing Champney, for his father, Samuel.
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