USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Wilbraham > Historical address, delivered at the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Wilbraham, June 15, 1863 > Part 11
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Yours, most truly,
RUFUS P. STEBBINS.
JOHN B. MORRIS, ESQ., and others, Committee of Arrangements.
Immediately invitations were prepared and sent abroad to the scattered children of the town, and officers appointed to make special arrangements for the celebration. The address was to be delivered in Fiske Hall, and the dinner to be taken in the dining-hall of the Academy boarding-house, by the kind permission of Dr. Raymond, Principal of the Institution.
By a mistake in the printed act of incorporation, the supposed day of the anniversary, the 14th of June, would fall on Sunday, and the com- mittee had determined to have the celebration on the 17th. Several invita- tions had been sent out before the misprint was discovered. It was dis- covered that the parchment copy of the act in the State archives gives the 15th as the day the act was signed by the governor. The time for the services was therefore changed to the real day, Monday, 15th.
The day eame, and was all that could be desired for clearness, though warm. The citizens began to gather at an early hour, and long before the procession was to start from the Congregational church for the Hall, the main street was filled with people exchanging most hearty congratula- tions. Flags were flying, and a band of music was playing. At 11 o'clock the line was formed, and the procession moved for the Hall. When it reached Rev. Dr. Raymond's house, Dr. Stebbins and a few per- sonal friends joined it, and passed up the beautiful academy grounds to Fiske Hall. It was evident that but a small portion of even the proces-
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sion, to say nothing of the multitude standing around, could enter the Hall.
After the Hall, platform, and stairways had all been packed to suffoca- tion, and the band had played a patriotic air, the chief marshal of the day, Samuel L. Bliss, Esq., called the assembly to order, saying, "My services will be relieved for a time, and I take great pleasure in intro- ducing to the audience, as president of the day, the Honorable Oliver Bliss Morris, a native of this town, though now a resident of Springfield, but who has never forgotten the place of his birth, which he now honors by his presence, as he has always honored it by the integrity which has marked his services in so many stations of responsibility in the County "and State."
As Judge Morris rose, ruddy and vigorous, though over eighty years of age, a profound feeling was manifested throughout the hall. He said, " First of all it becomes us to address the throne of grace. I call upon the Rev. Mr. Skeele, of Wilbraham, to lead in prayer." After the prayer, the President said, "I thank you for this honorable position, citizens of Wilbraham. The occasion which has brought us together is one of deep and joyful interest. We have come to do homage to the memory of our fathers, to examine the record of their history, and to bow in humble gratitude to Heaven that we are descended from a most worthy ancestry. I welcome you, therefore to this occasion, fraught with so much interest to all the inhabitants of the town. Especially do I welcome, as the organ of the town, those of her children who have come from abroad. Though civil strife fills the land, and the voice of war sounds through all our borders, we meet in these quiet scenes to forget, for the hour, the distress and tumult around us, and to exchange congratulations that we have so goodly a heritage. Much might be said, but the demands of the occasion will be better met if, instead of saying more, I introduce to you, as I now do, the Rev. Dr. Stebbins, of Woburn, born on the banks of the Scantic, on the very spot where his ancestor pitched his tent, more than a century ago, in the then unbroken wilderness."
Dr. Stebbins then rose, and from a short brief, which he had made of his manuscript, delivered his address, which is printed in this volume. He held the attention of the crowded hall, and even of those in the ante- rooms, and on the stairways, for over two hours, though the heat was most oppressive. When the address was closed, the gentlemen on the platform, near the speaker, crowded around, uttering the most hearty commenda- tions, while the chief marshal gave notice that the procession would be formed at once, and proceed to the dining-hall of the boarding-house.
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The President addressed the audience, saying, "There ean be but one opinion on the motion which I am requested by all those about me to put ; it is this : It is moved and seconded. by those near me, that a copy of the address, to which we have all listened with so much delight, be requested for the press. As many as are in favor of the printing, say, Aye." An unanimous "aye " rose from every part of the hall.
The procession immediately proceeded to the dining-hall, where over three hundred sat down, at three long tables, to a sumptuous repast, pre- pared by the efficient steward, Horace Sessions. Blessing was invoked by the Rev. Dr. Raymond, principal of the institution.
After the physical man had been refreshed, and the Rev. Mr. Peabody, of East Longmeadow, had returned thanks, the President said, "There is something still remaining of the rich feast which the people of Wilbraham have prepared for themselves. Her sons have come from afar, and I know that their voices will be grateful to you. I am most happy to introduee to you Honorable Judge Merrick, of Boston, Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and grandson of the first minister of Wilbraham, the "worthy Rev. Noah Merrick."
Judge Merrick rose and said, -
I do not feel at liberty, Mr. President, to forbear from responding, very briefly, to the call you make upon me. But I may be permitted to say here, the chief mo- tive which has induced me to come and participate with you in this Centennial Commemoration is my desire to revisit a place for which and the people toward whom I cherish, alike from my ancestral and personal relations, an attachment of no ordinary interest ; and that it was, accordingly, my purpose to be only a silent observer of these scenes, and a gratified listener to whatever might be said by the resident or native inhabitants of the town. And although I now waive all ex- cuses, I am not insensible to the serions difficulty of exciting any interest, or of attracting any favorable attention, so immediately after the close of the excellent address to which we have all had the pleasure of listening this morning, and which is justly entitled to the great favor and the becoming applause with which it was received ; and he must be much bolder than I can pretend to be who would will- ingly venture to expose himself to the criticism which might easily be provoked by such juxtaposition. It has been my lot, from my way of life, to have heard not unfrequently some of the ablest scholars and orators of the country, and I think it no exaggeration to affirm that the address, in its exact appositeness to the occasion, in its complete and exhaustive use of all the befitting materials at com- mand, and in the simple, but significant and felicitous langnage in which it was closed, combined all that is really essential to eloquence, and may fairly challenge comparison with the best productions which occasions like this have anywhere elicited.
My own interest iu this Commemoration arises, in no inconsiderable degree, as you will all feel it naturally must, from the relations which those from whom I am descended have, in times past, sustained to the town. Those relations go back to
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a very early period in its history. Twenty-two years before the day of which this is the one hundredth anniversary, and when twenty-five or six families compre- hended the entire population then dwelling upon its territory, my grandfather became the ordained minister of the first religions society organized within its limits, and he continued to serve the people in that capacity during a period of thirty-six years, and to the elose of his life. I was gratified to learn from the mu- nicipal record, of that early date, which was read in your presence this morning, that, when first called to that high service, he was described by those who extend- ed to him their invitation to it, as " the worthy," as well as " the reverend Mr. Merrick." I was touched by the reading of that word the more that I had very recently seen on the plain but enduring tablet, beneath which his remains repose in the neighboring cemetery, the same description of their departed minister and friend, - thus evineing that, to the close of life, he maintained the same good reputation with which he commenced his ministerial career, and left behind him an unblemished name, the best of all riches, as the inheritance of his children.
My father, who was his youngest son, spent the early and a very happy portion of his life here; and I know that he always regarded the place of his nativity with filial affection. It was in the indulgence, and in the nurture, of this sentiment that, in my early youth, he sent me here to commence the studies preparatory to my col- legiate edneation, and placed me under the instruction of the Rev. John Witter, then the pastor of the parish over which his father had so long held the ministerial charge. I remained here but a few months, less, I think in the whole, than a year ; but some portions of this period, and not a few of the persons whom I then knew, are still vivid to my recollection ; and it has been most agreeable to me that I have met some of them to-day, who yet hold in remembrance our early acquaintance. Grateful for the advantages I enjoyed, and for the kindness extended to me by all, and particularly by my respected instructor, I am happy to avail myself of this op- portunity to pay to his memory the humble tribute of my lasting esteem. Mr. Witter was a wise, npright, and eminently good man, - conscientiously serupnlons in the performance of all his duties. He was a diligent, faithful, and able teacher, not only to the pupils under his immediate charge, but, in the wider sphere of his profession, to the people to whom he ministered at the altar. Ilis attainments as a scholar were highly respectable, and his knowledge, as well as his collection of books, was wide and various. Assiduously devoted to his calling, he shrunk from no labor which seemed to him essential to its successful exercise. His public discourses were prepared with uncommon care, and were written in a style so clear and perspicuous that they were easily and readily understood and appreciated by his hearers. In the reading of his sermons he was extremely modest and unpre- tending. Invariably calm and dispassionate in manner, he yet always made hini- self felt as a devont and earnest preacher. While he convinced the mind, he did not fail, also, to make effectual appeals to the heart. His power in commanding the attention, and in controlling the emotions of his andience, was quite remarkable ; making upon all, even upon the youngest among them, a deep and abiding im- pression. Even now, after the many years that have since elapsed, and though I was then but in my early childhood, I remember one occasion when, availing him- self of a subject of local, but painful, interest, as the theme of his discourse, he so dealt with it, - in showing how the ways of Providence, if dark in their present aspects, are yet designed in merey, and, if rightly improved, may lead to all the
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best and happiest issues, - that a tearless eye could seareely be found in his eon- gregation. Upon his public ministrations I believe I was a constant attendant, and, in a limited sphere, was in daily intercourse with him ; but of his more imme- diate and personal intercourse with his parishioners, my age and opportunities did not permit me to be either an observer or a judge; but from what I knew of hin in other respects, I feel sure that it must have been, as I have been told at a later period, by some of them, that it was, most agreeable, beneficent, and instructive. He became separated from his parish several years after I was one of his pupils, and from this period I ceased to have further knowledge of his pursuits or life.
Since then many changes have necessarily occurred in the parish and in the town. The excellent educational institution, in whose halls we have assembled, and the beautiful portion of the village built up around it, had then no existence. The men of that generation have nearly all passed away ; but others have been supplied, worthy, I am most happy to believe, to take their places and carry on the good works which, more than a hundred years ago, were here begun. In one of the carly records which was read to us this morning, we find that the inhabitants of the town assembled in public meetings, adopted a resolution in which they warned and instructed their representatives to see to it that the rights, privileges, and liberties of the people should not be sacrificed or in any way invaded or in- fringed. That was a wise and good resolution, very fit, I dare say, then to be adopted, and certainly worthy to be upheld and acted upon at all times, and in all possible circumstances ; and more emphatically so whenever the practical value of the principle involved in it shall be endangered by the treacherous delusions of some pretended present majority, - the ever ready, but deceptive apology for every lawless assumption and encroachment. In the perpetual maintenance of that principle, in the enlargement of your population, and in the advancement of all your moral, educational, and religious institutions, which I believe have hitherto had a constant and regular, though gradual, growth from the first settlement of the town, it is my earnest hope that no impediment may hereafter intereept your still increasing prosperity, welfare, and happiness.
THE PRESIDENT : There is a song, to which the speaker alluded in his address, which we now propose to sing in the old fashion of "lining off."
Judge Henry Morris " did " the " lining," and the band, with a few select voices, led, while all who wished, sung or tried to sing. It was remarked that the " grave and reverend seniors " became very boys again during this exercise.
" A little nonsense now and then, Is relished by the gravest men."
THE PRESIDENT : I see before me a worthy son of Wilbraham, whose ancestor was one of the earliest settlers in the south part of the town. I introduce to you the Rev. Dr. Russell, of East Randolph, in this State.
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MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE TOWN OF WILBRAHAM :
None of us were born at Rome, and for our first views of nature, none of us looked ont upon its eternal hills, and its classic but muddy stream. Such a cruel fate was spared us in the allotments of the Providence of God. This is our Mantua. Here we have driven the flocks and the herds afield, and when the "shadows fell cast from the pile," and the darkness thickened along the woods and the feeding grounds, we have been filled with fearful imaginings at sights seen and unseen, as we have been compelled to return them to their enclosures at night. It is true that there are here within the vision's range no Alps, no Po, and. perhaps no such beauty as is mingled in an Italian sky. But there are attractions here, and they are felt by you, Mr. President, and by this great assembly convened to-day.
We can conceive, sir, of circumstances more favorable to mental culture, and to some of the forms of intellectual development and taste, than those in which our existence begun. But we have never regretted that we were born in Wilbraham. There are various methods in which mental powers are unfolded, directed, educated, and the man becomes fitted for a sphere of successful action in life. The work of education is not done exclusively in the school, the college, or the seminary of learning. There are other scenes and other influences that perform for us this work. The mountain-range, the peak, the erag, the valley, the stream, the spread- ing landscape and sky, the fireside, and the mother's smile do for us all this work of education.
It is with unutterable emotions, therefore, that we return to this spot of earth on which our eyes were first opened, and look from the eminence where, eighty years since, last December, yon, Mr. President, were first pressed to a mother's bosom, upon the beautiful panorama among the hills that is from that home of your child- hood spread before us. Those mountain-slopes, those valleys, those woodlands and streams, can never be separated either from the thoughts or the feelings of those whose cradles were rocked in that amphitheatre among the hills. Nay, those streams to-day, as they roll sparkling in the sunshine, the clouds themselves, as they hang over the landscape, are to us all voice, and they call up in our bosom memories that refuse to be nttered save in the quivering lip and the moistened eye. These scenes have done for us, Mr. President, a work that we would not undo if we could ; and
" Time but the impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper wear."
After the able and eloquent discourse to which we have listened with so much pleasure from the orator of the day, and the just and effective tribute that has fallen from the lips of the distinguished gentleman that has just taken his seat, anything beyond a mere allusion to the past will of course not be expected from me. Yet fidelity forbids me to leave unnoticed the first pastor and religious teacher of the South Precinct in Wilbraham.
The Rev. Moses Warren graduated at the University of Cambridge in 1784, was installed and ordained pastor of the Congregational church in South Wilbraham in 1788, where he continued the functions of his office till his death, in 1829. Ile was fond of the Greek and Latin classics, as are all the sons of Harvard, and did himself, during the first half of his forty years' ministry, conduct the preparations
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of some eighteen or twenty young men for college, besides performing the work of a grammar-school instructor for the sons and daughters too of very many of his parishioners. For this noble work that good man should not be forgotten in the festivities of this passing hour.
As a preacher, if not always analytic and profound, he was still earnest, truth- ful, sincere. If he did not always instruct and settle minds perplexed with the unsolved problems of religious truth, he did utter in his preaching the spirit of his Master and exemplify in his life the beauty of his character. His mental disci- pline, his acquisitions of learning, he consecrated on the altar of a confiding peo- ple. Youth's green spring he devoted to his charge, and the vigor and the strength of manhood's prime. The timid he encouraged, the desponding he cheered. Ile wept with his people in their sorrow and anguish, and rejoiced in their success and prosperity. The sick greeted his coming, and his presence lighted up a smile on the countenance that was becoming pale in death. He was
" Simple, grave, sincere, Anxious that the flock he fed should feel it too."
" He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."
Such, briefly, was this good man, who, unnoticed by the world, fulfilled his course among these hills for forty years. There is, in most of our New England villages or communities that shrewd sense, that sound judgment, that unflinching integrity and moral principle and worth, that to every discerning eye constitute their great attraction. This character is a rampart of strength. It resists the encroachments of vice, becomes a lever that elevates the mass, and a power that softens and refines. It is not always deemed best adapted to the purposes of a celebration; it is not often the theme of newspaper commendation. When the subject of discus- sion, it is seldom that it creates any available sensation. But it is this daily life of truthfulness, sincerity, honesty, and strong religious affections, exemplified in the homes of our fathers and our mothers, that invests us, their sons and their daugh- ters, with whatever distinguishes us, - if distinguished we be. It has been to us, and is to-day in its influence upon us, like the dews and the showers that descend on these hill-sides and vales-quickening, refreshing. It has given life here its highest form, its meaning, and invested it with its most substantial attractions and charms. It has made our homes sweet, their memory precious. It will ever be, therefore, the language of each of our hearts, "Wilbraham ! with all thy faults, I love thee still !" The first pastor of the South Precinct in this town did not a little in shaping and moulding this character, to which we have referred, of our fathers and mothers, who have gone with him to their rest, and left it as a " heritage to their children's children."
A century with all its cares, toils, hardships, hopes, fears, joys, which it brought to the bosoms of our fathers, has passed away. Like them, we are passing, too, our human duration ; and when
" That lingering star, with lessening ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn,"
shall usher in the 15th of June, 1963, you and I, Mr. President, and this great
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assembly, will be elsewhere, amid other scenes, and forever engaged in other employments.
Long have you, sir, already lingered here, and brightened the pathway that you have trod. In your responsible position, with the property of the whole county passing through your hands, as it must have done, the ermine of the judge has remained unstained, and the blessings of widows and of orphans have fallen thick on your head. You, doubtless, are little aware of the influence of your own exam- ple in stimulating others of your native town to exertion in the career of an hon- orable ambition. The seventeen from the little parish of South Wilbraham, that have received a public education, could probably state things unknown to yourself in this regard. If Cicero, as he assures us, was vehemently stirred to action as he looked on the marble statues of his distinguished countrymen, surely none of us can be excused for not being moved by the salutary example of a fellow-townsman who lives not in the marble, but walks in his own person among us. Your years are not yet full, we devoutly trust. Long may the freshness and the vigor ex- hibited to-day linger here and bless our vision.
Serus in Culum redeas !
Ladies, gentlemen, fellow-citizens of Wilbraham, I have detained you too long. For us all there yet remain duties, trials, conflicts. Our country is in a furnace of fiery flame. Its agony is intense. A parallel to it in the history of the world can nowhere be found. But if just, true, faithful, in all our relations, however dark and appalling the prospect in any of our circumstances, prosperity and joy will in the end spread their wings over every son and danghter that has waked to life on the slopes and plains and valleys of this our native town.
THE PRESIDENT : Wilbraham is rich in her children, who do her honor wherever they go. I see down the table another of her sons, who has come from a remote State to enjoy and honor this day. Iintroduce to you the Rev. Horatio Stebbins, of Portland, Maine.
MR. PRESIDENT, FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS, KINDRED, NATIVES OF WILBRAHAM :
Let not my unwillingness to take the place offered me upon the platform in the hall, neither my declining the uppermost seat at the festive board, nor yet my reluctance, which the President has hinted at, to speak on this occasion, be con- strned into any indifferenec or want of sympathy with the occasion itself. Indeed, the distance I have come to be here to-day would be a sufficient answer to all that; and if you needed anything more to persuade you, I might tell you how light and happy that journey has been, - my heart throbbing with all boyhood sympathies, and gladness of homeward return. I have declined to sit near you, Mr. President, and your filial mind will not esteem it any disrepect, because this place in company with the remnant of my father's house has a greater persuasion for me; and I have shown thus far a reluctance to open my month, because the occasion oppresses me and distracts my thoughts, 'twixt the memory of the past and the associations of the present. My kinsman, the orator of the day, who has rendered us such dis- tinguished service, and for which I desire to thank him, will pardon me if I have
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seemed to listen with half-intent and wandering mind, for I have been everywhere to-day, not by my own will or forethought, but drawn by magic powers of the air whithersoever they would. I have lived my life over. I have been back to child- hood, laugh and rollic and morning sunshine of existence, and all the varying cloud and sky of human lot have passed over. All the hilltops have blazed in recoller- tion, and cast their light and shadow far down the slope, and across the level plain. How delightful and refreshing the sensation of boyhood and youth ! - like a gentle wind from the sweet southwest coming in upon noontide heat and dust ! How wonderful to be renewed in feeling, and to look upon this world afresh ! How sweet that youthful sensibility which exalted everything it looked upon, and nestled in the heart a source of beauty and wonder! It comes back to me to-day, and I am a boy again ! My senses have been renewed, and I see the earth and sky again as they seemed spread above and around my father's house ! All things are enhanced and glorified !
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