USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Historical addresses, poem, and other exercises at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Rehoboth, Mass., held October 3, 1894 > Part 2
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ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
France, Louis XIV and the astute Richelieu had made their country the most formidable power in Europe, while in England, the mighty Cromwell was leading the revolt of the people against Royalist oppression and corruption.
From such an atmosphere came the men who crossed the seas and founded Rehoboth. In the ranks of these pioneers four figures stand out in bold relief: William Blackstone, the sage and philosopher; Samuel Newman, the scholar and preacher; Thomas Willett, the soldier and statesman, and John Myles, the reformer and liberal leader. They sought a place to write anew the history of the world. Their motto was,
GIVE ME WHITE PAPER.
The sheet you use is black and rough with smears Of sweat and grime and fraud and blood and tears ; Crossed with the story of men's sins and fears, Of battle and of famine all these years.
When all God's children have forgot their birth
And drudged and fought and died like beasts of earth ; Give me white paper.
It is a curious fact that none of these seekers for bet- ter things turned to Rehoboth until they had tried some other settlement. William Blackstone tried Boston ; Samuel Newman, Weymouth ; Thomas Willett, Plymouth ; John Myles, Hingham. Their roseate expectations of what they would find in the new world were not at first realized. They made the inevitable discovery that cross- ing the ocean did not change human nature ; that jealousy, intolerance and self-seeking could live side by side with the severest orthodoxy and the greatest zeal for coloniza- tion. They soon turned, however, in renewed hope, to the fair territory that lay untrodden on the West, as beau- tiful in their eyes as any fabled Eldorado. There their
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250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
ideals were to be realized. In its charmed circle all the virtues were to flourish and error was to halt abashed at its boundaries.
In the organization of the new colony, several notable ideas were incorporated. The first was Independence. This handful of men, led by Parson Newman, recognized no temporal power as having authority over them. The second idea was a government of the people and by the people. Their compact read, "We do covenant and bind ourselves, one to another, to subject ourselves to nine per- sons and to assist them according to our ability and estate, and to give timely notice unto them of any such things as in our conscience may prove dangerous to the plantation, and this combination to continue until we shall subject ourselves jointly to some other government."
But Rehoboth's chief glory is that its founders, with due credit to their Oxford and Cambridge training, origi- nated one institution without which the experiment of a free government on this continent must have proved a fail- ure. It was nothing less than the free public school; the idea of free, universal, compulsory education, maintained by the taxation of all citizens.
The last legislature voted to build a monument on the site of the first free public school. As at present advised, we certainly believe that it should be erected here. There is to be a hearing on the matter before the governor's Coun- cil to-morrow, and we understand that one of the wards of the city of Boston, in whose interests no doubt the act was drawn, will appear and bid for the coveted prize. Reho- both's claim is based on the finding of the learned men who compiled the Digest of the Statutes of Massachusetts, is- sued no longer ago than 1892. The passage reads :-
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19
ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
"The act of 1647 made the support of public schools compulsory and education universal and free. As this was the first law of the kind ever passed by any communi- ty of persons or by any state, Massachusetts may claim the honor of having originated the free public school."
If the compilers of this Digest were right, as they un- doubtedly were, in ignoring Dorchester's claim of 1638 when they set the date of the first free public school at 1647, then the claim of Rehoboth for Dec. 10th, 1643 is good, for the Rehoboth measure went even farther than the act of 1647 and was four years earlier. It provided for the taxation of all citizens for the support of the school master whether they had children to educate or not, while under the Act of 1647, taxation for schools could, by vote, be limited to parents and guardians. The Rehoboth vote es- tablished a school which met all the essentials of public instruction as we understand it to-day, and doubtless the claim of Dorchester was passed by because the authors of the Digest detected in its plan the lack of some neces- sary feature. I doubt whether Parson Newman realized the full significance of his discovery, any more than did Co- lumbus. And, yet, I think there must have been a strange glow in his heart, a thrill of prophetic fervor in his voice that chill winter's night, as he stretched out his hands in benediction over the bowed heads of the discoverers of the free public school.
Rehoboth holds as distinguished a relation to the an- nals of Indian warfare as Plymouth to the inception of the colonies, or Lexington to the Revolutionary struggle. It was the frontier town during King Philip's war. The first blood of a contest which menaced not alone the very life but the liberty of the colonies was shed in its original boundaries, while within its present limits the last trium-
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250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
phant strategy of that struggle was consummated. If to stand on the confines of savage territory and defend the hearths and homes that lie behind be patriotism, Myles Bridge is as truly historic ground as Lexington Common.
It is not strange, in view of Rehoboth's progressive spirit and conspicuous services, its promising territory and fine frontage on Narragansett Bay, that it should have been selected in 1706 as the place for holding a Conti- mental Congress. When Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies united to form the state, moreover, Rehoboth became Boston's most formidable rival as the capital and missed the honor by less than one hundred votes in a total of nearly four thousand.
Attleboro, worthy daughter of Rehoboth, has two special claims to distinction which I have no doubt will be ably exploited at their 200th celebration on the 18th and 19th of this month. They need only be mentioned here. One was when Col. Daggett and his command bore arms gainst the King of England a week before the embattled farmers at Concord fired the shot, heard round the world. The Attleboro company only missed opening the revolu- tionary struggle, because, in their Assonet Expedition, April 9, 1775, they captured the enemy without a blow. If some Tory had only had spunk enough to fight, the war would have begun then and there.
As another distinction, Attleboro has the honor of an- ticipating the spirit and almost the words of the Declara- tion of Independence, two months before that document was signed. They sent this remarkable message to their representative in Congress : "If the Continental Congress shall think best to declare for independence of Great Brit-
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ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
ain, we unanimously desire you for us to engage to defend them therein with our lives and our fortunes."
We are here to tell the story of 250 years. I have only outlined a few main features of the picture. It re- mains for the representatives of the visiting cities and towns to fill in the details; for the orator and other dis- tinguished speakers to give it the light and shade ; for the poet to add a dash of color.
It merely devolves upon me now to welcome you in behalf of the anniversary committee, the Rehoboth Anti- quarian Society and the old mother town. Your presence in such numbers is all the more appreciated because it has not been easy for you to get here. Rehoboth jealously guards the rare distinction of being one of the few towns in the State where the discordant shriek of the locomotive is never heard. She, at least, gains this assurance by her isolation, that those who visit her are inspired to do so by genuine affection.
She extends her hands in greeting to her mother, Weymouth, and her eight matronly daughters, each "moth- er of a mighty race, yet lovely in her youthful grace." Swansea is here, bringing with her the breath of the sea ; Attleboro and North Attleboro with differences forgotton, sit side by side, twin jewels of the family cirele ; Seekonk, like a modern Ceres, bears in her hands the wealth of her harvests ; while across the imaginary boundary line that divides Rhode Island from the Massachusetts sisters, Cumberland forsakes her spindles and looms, Pawtucket. closes her factories and stores, East Providence and Bar- rington leave their homes and gardens, and a smiling, pros- perous quartette, they greet the venerable mother town on her 250th birthday.
250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
We welcome them and you to our homes and our hearts, to our fields rich with harvests, to our woods decked out in the prismatic hues of autumn. No military com- pany turned out to greet you because we do not beleive in keeping up a gilded fiction of war in time of peace. Our courts have not adjourned, because the fair Portias who rule the only kind of court we ever find necessary here always have an especially heavy docket on 250th anniver- saries. In our reception committee glisten no official in- signia of Worshipful masters, Noble Grands, or Grand Sachems, yet it is but fair to the town to say that we once had a very Independent Order of Red Men here, a thriv- ing Lodge of very free and very acceptable Masons, found- ed by one Sampson Mason, while as for Odd Fellows, un- prejudiced outsiders find even more of them in town than we do.
We trust many of you will be so well pleased with us, despite the lack of some of these modern functions, that you will decide to buy back the farms which your ances- tors tilled for so many years and make your homes here. By that we do not necessarily mean that you should give up your regular business and live here all the year around, but register here, vote here, and spend the six pleasantest months in our matchless climate. Why go to the moun- tains and seashore for country air when we offer every advantage without the annoyance of long journeys in the stifling atmosphere of railway trains ? If your response to our invitation is general and you show a worthy pride in the amount of your personal property when talking with our assessors, we can at least assure you a very attractive tax rate.
We regret that we cannot, however, hold out such political inducements as were possible when Rehoboth sent
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ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
seven representatives to the general court every year. Now it is one every four years. We should wish to re- serve that office to ourselves and make 20 years residence in the town a prerequisite for the honor. You can have everything but that. An option on our choicest corner lots is yours. You can select your own sites on our pictu- resque hillsides, while plenty of good farms can be had at priees that will lay the foundation for a fortune. We want you : we want your historic names restored to our voting list, and in return we guarantee good schools, good roads, religious harmony, the best of good fellowship, and a wel- come that will warm your hearts.
This celebration will be futile indeed, if it does not inspire us, the residents of the cities and towns that have grown up on the fair territory of old Rehoboth, with a lofty determination to realize more perfectly the noble ideals of its patriotie founders. I fear that if those wor- thies were to return to-day, they might have some pointed suggestions to offer ; and yet with the larger knowledge, the wider charity of another world, I cannot but think their judgments would be tempered with mercy. Let the artificial municipal boundaries which man's convenience has invented be swept aside, and when great moral, eco- nomic and social questions are to be met, may the Rehoboth household stand together as firm in moral purpose and pa- triotic devotion as ever their forefathers were. " To our fidelity," in the words of the immortal Burke, " Let us at- test the retiring generations ; let us attest the advancing generations, between which as a link in the great chain of eternal order we stand."
Ladies and gentlemen, sons and daughters of Old Rehoboth, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you as the presiding officer of this occasion and its toastmaster
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250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
a gentleman well-known within and beyond the bounda- ries of our mother town, and whose birthplace was within the jurisdiction originally ours. I present to you, the Honorable Thomas W. Bicknell, of Barrington and Provi- dence, R. I.
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RECOGNITION OF TOWNS.
Recognition of Visiting Towns and Cities, Mainly Daughters of Ancient Rehoboth
Address by Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, who presided over the forenoon exercises and also acted as Toast Master.
It is at once an honor and a pleasure to be the medium of address between this venerable mother town, Rehoboth, two and one half centuries old, and her chil- dren, grand children, and visiting guests. While formal introduction would cool the ardor of the home greeting, it is quite proper that one " to the manner born " should attempt the word of cordial introduction, and present to the gracious mother, by some fitting thought, her children and guests at this memorable and auspicious meeting.
Two kingdoms and two kings claimed the territory we now occupy, when in 1644, Rev. Samuel Newman and his little company left old Weymouth near the sea, for this frontier of immigration, the Great West of that early day. Britain with Charles the First as its crowned head, held general title, while Massasoit and the tribe of the Wampanoags, of which he was the Chief Sachem, were the owners and occupants of the territory, called by the Indians, Pokanoket, Seekonk and Wannamoisett. Town rights were obtained by purchase and deed from the Great Sachem, and on account of the marvellous room for settlement, Mr. Newman, in reverence for Bible authority called the place "Rehoboth." To the first
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250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
purchase of eight miles square was added in 1661, what was known as the Rehoboth North Purchase by deed from Alexander, brother of Philip and son of Massasoit,
Rehoboth, the mother town, has of her great abun- dance and with generous spirit endowed daughter towns, so that her own possessions, population and wealth, have in large measure gone to these prosperous municipalities. . Swansea on the South, held of Rehoboth by police title, was the first to separate from the mother town in 1667. In 1694, Attleboro on the North, also held by police tenure, took leave of the mother town for an independent life. In 1717, " the Westward end of Swansea " was erected into a town, on account of religious concerns, and called Barrington, the first grand child of old Rehoboth. In 1746-7, Attleboro Gore, the home of William Black- stone, on the Blackstone River, parted from Attleboro to enter upon a corporate being as Cumberland. Seekonk, in 1812, for political reasons, divided equally with the mother town her territorial possessions. Pawtucket for economic purposes was set off from Seekonk in 1828, and East Providence became an independent township in 1862, for political, social, economic and religions reasons combined. The latest and youngest of the grand chil- dren of our mother is North Attleboro, which set up house-keeping in 1887. Nine towns and cities possess the territory of Old Rehoboth, within the states of Massachu- setts and Rhode Island, three of which may be styled children of the first, and five, children of the second descent. These have increased, but the mother town has decreased. Her pride in her offspring and her interest in their growth and prosperity have made her self-forgetful of her own narrowed limits and resources. She had
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RECOGNITION OF TOWNS.
rather be the mother of the Gracchi than a desolate Rachel, without hope or progeny.
On the area purchased and settled by Willett, New- man, Myles, Brown and their associates in 1644 and 1661, dwells in 11,000 busy homes, a prosperous population of 50,000 people in as many as fifty cities, towns and hamlets. Education has planted schools of all grades from the Kindergarten to the College, in which every child may receive free school training, preparatory for the University, at the expense of the State. Religion ministers its living grace, instruction and consolations to the people through fifty organized churches and Sunday Schools, with as many ordained ministers and teachers of various faiths.
The appraised wealth of the nine towns is estimated at $50,000,000
The real wealth is probably 75,000,000
With a per capita wealth of 1,500
Agriculture and the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods, jewelry, and implements and products of wood and iron employ the well protected capital and labor of thousands of people. Steam and electricity have been active agents in developing the industries of the people, but the slumbers of the citizens of the parent town have never been disturbed by either. Goldsmith's "Sweet Auburn " has been her type of character and progress. The rural and suburban life of these municipalities has illustrated in most complete fashion the virtues of the founders.
To the brief stories of these daughter towns through their chosen representatives we will now address ourselves.
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250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
Weymouth, 1635 :
A liberal town in a liberal colony sent a liberal com- pany, of her abundance, to level the wilderness, break the virgin soil, subdue wild beasts and more savage men, and sow good seed beside strange waters. The mother town by the sea comes to visit her once Western frontier and may exclaim as she sees the growth and progress of two and one half centuries, "What hath God wrought" through these brethren of that day of grace and greatness.
RESPONSE BY BRADFORD HAWES, ESQ., OF WEYMOUTH, MASS.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
It gives me sincere pleasure to bring to you the con- gratulations of Weymouth on this the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Rehoboth, and to add what I can to the rejoicing of this pleasant occasion.
I have been introduced to you as the representative of the mother town. I might be inclined myself to re- gard the relationship between Weymouth and Rehoboth, in view of the comparatively brief difference in their ages, as that of sisters; but I will not as a loyal son of old Weymouth, relinquish for her the honor of giving birth to so comely and vigorous a daughter. I find at the head of my toast, Weymouth, 1635. This was indeed the year of her incorporation under her present name, but as the plantation of Wessagussett her age dates back to within two years of the time when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, so we see that when she became the mother of Rehoboth she was not so very young as would appear but was already verging on toward a matronly age. The first settlers who came to Weymouth were a
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RECOGNITION OF TOWNS.
colony of adventurers consisting of sixty men, gathered from the streets of London and sent out by Thomas Weston in 1622.
The life of hardship and privation to which they were unaccustomed told heavily upon them, and many of them died during the first winter: the remainder became discouraged and returned the following summer to Eng- land; but the tide was setting westward and in 1693 Robert Gorges came with a company of settlers, many of them being men with families, but their experience was much like that of the first comers and at the end of the year saw many of them scattered or returned to England.
No element of stability actuated the first comers to Weymouth, unlike the Pilgrims at the south or the Puritans at the north of them ; no great religious or politi- cal principle bound them together and they left no per- manent impression on the life of the new colony.
Weymouth was never proud of her first settlers, but would not at this late day judge them harshly; they probably compared favorably with the generality of fron- tier settlers ; at any rate they were pioneers for a better element, which, from this time, continued to build up slowly but surely the foundations of the young colony, until the coming of the Rev. Joseph Hull in 1635 with a company of twenty-one families, or about one hun- dred souls, (the largest number recorded as ever coming to the town in any one year), gave an element of per- manence and prosperity to the new town now incorporated which it had not before attained.
When in 1644 Rev. Samuel Newman left Weymouth with his company the population of the town had in-
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250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
creased to nine hundred souls. He had been called some four years before to heal a breach which had arisen in the church, and appears to have been at the time successful ; but whether some new difficulty, born of the diverse re- ligious elements of the time had arisen, or whatever the cause, the imperfect records existing do not enable us to determine, but certain it is that he left Weymouth with forty families or about two hundred persons. We may pause here to enquire, in what consisted the liberality of the mother town ? Not in worldly goods, of these she had but little to bestow upon her daughter. Nor yet in, her ideas, although these, owing to the more varied ele- ments of her population, were not perhaps run so much in one groove as were those of her neighbors to the north or south. I deem that her liberality consisted rather in the giving of her men and of her women, even to one-fourth of all she had to the founding of the infant colony ; and certainly on this line Weymouth has never ceased to be liberal; with the ever widening and advancing line of our frontier, her sons and daughters have been freely given to help in peopling the land, until in every state, and I had almost said in every city and town the men from Wey- mouth or their descendants are to be found.
" This liberal company then from a liberal town came to level the wilderness, subdue wild beasts and more savage men, to break the soil and to sow good seed beside strange waters."
As I came down this pleasant October morning I tried to picture to myself the wilderness through which they toiled, to cover the hills and the plains over which they passed with the primeval forest where danger lurked at every step.
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RECOGNITION OF TOWNS.
The hills and the plains are there to-day, but where then was a forest wilderness, to-day stand busy cities and thriving towns, with the intervening landscape covered with fruitful farms, the abodes of peace and plenty, with the church and the school-house, the twin factors in our Nation's progress, within reach of all whether rich or poor.
They did well their work. That they sowed good seed the harvest which you to-day reap abundantly testi- fies ; these thriving towns, these happy homes, these fertile fields, the industrial, political and religious insti- tutions which bring to us daily benefits are not the fruits of vice or sloth or carelessness.
But let us not in our rejoicing forget the great lesson of the hour. It is not ours alone to gather the fruits of their toils, but ours also to transmit unimpaired' and ever increasing to our posterity the blessings which their wis- dom and piety, their valor and industry gave to us.
"The mother town may well exclaim as she visits her once western frontier and sees the progress of two and one-half centuries, wha thath God wrought?" but if it be put as a question who shall answer it ?
The results of their toils and suffering we cannot see in their fullness, they are world-wide, and shall reach through time.
If we are faithful to our trust, these evidences which we see to-day may well be but tokens of the greater har- vest which the coming years hold in store.
You cannot answer, I cannot answer, only He who knows the end from the beginning, and to Whom the future is an open book,-only Ile can tell what He hath
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250TH ANNIVERSARY OF REHOBOTH.
wrought " through the men of that day of grace and greatness."
Swansea, 1667 :
The home of Rev. John Myles and the first Baptist Church in Massachusetts. Her founders, through perse- cution, illustrated and advanced the great principles of religious freedom and toleration.
RESPONSE BY EDWARD M. THURSTON, ESQ., OF SWANSEA, MASS. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
It is a pleasure to respond for the town of Swansea.
Prose and Poem have vied with each other through- out this Commonwealth in describing the sterling qualities, profound convictions and strong courage of the defenders of the principles held by the Rev. John Myles, of Swan- sea, Wales, as carried out and embodied in a church cov- enant in New Swansea, New England. There was not "room" enough in the great township of Rehoboth for the Newman Congregational church, and the seven men who held to what was then called heretical doctrine, believed by Rev. John Myles and the six layman, who, when driven from your territory, were incorporated into a church. They located on a strip of land now known as New Meadow Neck, but so far from the church in Seekonk, that although within the borders of the town- ship of Rehoboth at that time, distance would give the old church peace. But soon men of equal courage united with the bold pastor, and were given a grant of land by the Plymouth colony for a new town which they named Swansea, for the Swansea in Wales, from which the pas- tor and some of the settlers had been driven. We can
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