USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 32
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 32
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 32
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The "Farmers' Calendar" for May, 1811, contained a brief sermon which read :
Boston folks, they say, are full of notions-and so are country folks. By this time perhaps you think that I am a silly, notional creature. No matter for that.
Perhaps it is but a notion, but I think it will be for our interest to gratify these Boston people in their notions, by raising peas, beans, beets, carrots, cabbage, squashes, turnips and potatoes, &c., for their market. If you would know how this is to be done, go and look in your old almanacks.
Those who are skillful in tilling the soil find today it is for their inter- est to gratify the Boston market in its "notions" and they find it a re- munerative calling. It is no longer necessary to take instructions from old almanacs, as the Plymouth County Extension Service supplies that need remarkably well and is constantly increasing in usefulness and popularity.
God-father of His Country-George Washington is called "the father of his country" and it required just such a great leader, general, and courageous gentleman to fight the Revolutionary War to a finish and to bring the United States through the hard testing time following its independence. He was one of the greatest military leaders of his time. There is a story that Frederick the Great sent to him a sword on which was inscribed "From the oldest general in the World to the Greatest." This story has been proven untrue, but many will agree that it should have been true. Previous to the Revolutionarry War, Washington had been a successful business man, a success as manager for "Fairfax" and his gallantry in the Braddock campaign made him the logical commander of the undisciplined, ragged, hungry troops which constituted the Revo- lutionary forces. But, if Washington of Maryland was "the father of his country" Samuel Adams of Massachusetts was the God-father. John Fiske said of him "He stands second only to Washington as the greatest of Americans."
James Phinney Munroe has said :
Boston led the movement against the arbitrary rule of Great Britain, but it was Sam Adams who led Boston. Boston stirred up Massachusetts and the other colonies to resist taxation; but it was Sam Adams who stirred up Boston. And he did this, not by eloquence and fiery speech-making-for he was no orator; he stirred up Boston, he stirred up Massachusetts, he stirred up all the colonies by letters to the newspapers, by correspondence, voluminous and fiery, most of all by resolutions passed in that greatest political institution which America ever pos- sessed or ever will possess,-the New England town meeting .... His first writing of consequence was a document prepared for a town meeting, a document which
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was adopted, protesting against the proposed Stamp Act. This paper is important in being the first formal statement ever made by the Colonies that Parliament had no right to tax them, and in containing the very first suggestion that the Colonies get together to secure redress .... At his suggestion town meetings were held throughout Massachusetts to arouse the people against using British goods and to encourage the starting of domestic industries .... The king's government, therefore determined to break the spirit of the colonies by forbidding town meetings, by having such leaders as Adams and Otis arrested, and by sending troops to overawe the people. When the mother country took such violent action as this, Adams fore- saw that reconciliation would be impossible, and from that moment, he afterwards said, he began to work night and day for the absolute independence of America ....
Adams saw that the only way to strengthen the cause of independence would be to bring the force of all the Massachusetts town meetings to bear upon the somewhat wavering policies of the Boston town meeting. Therefore, in the fall of 1772, he moved, in the Boston meeting, that "A committee of Correspondence" be appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons, to state the rights of the colonists, and of this Province in particular, as men and Christians and as subjects; and to com- municate and publish the same to the several towns and to the world .... In Plym- outh the vote showed that there were ninety to one ready, if need be, to fight Great Britain .... His cousin, John Adams, once enthusiastically called him "the wedge of steel which split the knot of lignum vitae that tied America to England," That is a true description of the part he played; and the force he used was the enormous democratic power of the New England town meeting.
James Octavia Fagan, the custodian for many years of the Old South Church in Boston, which contains so many priceless relics, tells in his book, "The Old South," that Case No. 11 in that edifice contains "an old 'Bill of Goods' made out in 1777 by Messrs. Blaisdell, Morrill and King to Thomas Cushing of Boston who as a member of the Committee of Correspondence, ordered the construction of the first ship of war built in America." Of course it is interesting to know about this ship of war, but the Committee of Correspondence referred to was one of the most notable achievements in the story of the Revolution. "This strange in- strument of government was created on the suggestion of Samuel Adams when Massachusetts was at fever heat in its controversies with Governor Hutchinson and his royal master. It was really a new legis- lative body whose transactions, of the most practical nature, were con- ducted by correspondence between the representatives of the people from every nook and corner of Massachusetts. These Committees of Cor- respondence have been aptly called the 'beginning of the American Union.'"
Faneuil Hall in Boston has been called the "cradle of Liberty" and so it was, but there were other cradles in all the towns of the province and they were rocked just as patriotically ; perhaps more so, as in Boston there was a large, powerful aristocracy wholly in sympathy with British rule and Samuel Adams was not at all popular in his home town for the attitude he assumed. Such men as Rev. Gad Hitchcock of Hanson. James Warren of Plymouth, Israel Fearing of Wareham, Josiah Keen
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of Pembroke, Ebenezer Washburn of Kingston, Captain Ichabod Alden of Duxbury, and Colonel Edward Mitchell of Bridgewater, as well as scores of others, all over the Old Colony, helped stir up the spirit which animated Samuel Adams. The New England conscience was rampant.
Not only the men but the women were aroused in every fibre of their being to place their all on the altar of freedom. Deborah Sampson of Plympton, a quiet, unassuming girl, said nothing to indicate her re- sponse to the call to action, but secretly made a suit of boy's clothing for herself, slipped away under cover of darkness, and served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, winning the personal commendation of Gen- eral Washington for her heroism and devotion to duty.
The New England conscience had its great day at Concord and Lexing- ton April 19, 1775, when it fired "the shot heard round the world." When Captain John Parker and seventy undisciplined farmers stood against eight hundred of the King's best troops and their captain would not disperse or lay down his arms, it was an absurd situation. But the New England conscience was on trial and it could not flinch.
Having attended to the work in hand of defending the experiment of democracy and preventing the annihilation of its founders by the In- dians, answering back to the tyranny of England and winning the Revolu- tionary War, starting the abolition movement and saving the Union; going West, to find out what it was all about, and assisting in western development through the injection of Atlantic Coast ideals, the New England conscience has worked in a straightforward manner.
A tourist from Virginia once asked John Adams how to make a New England in Virginia and Adams' recipe was "Town meetings, training days, common schools and ministers." He later recorded in his diary his clear conviction that the meeting-house, the schoolhouse, the training field are the scenes in which New England men are formed.
The early Plymouth colonists worked much as those who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, each with his weapon in his hand. It was necessary at all times to be prepared to defend one's self and his household and indeed his community against savage attacks. Training days were days of instruction in preparedness and the skillful use of the means of de- fence. When the colonists went to church they carried their weapons with them, placed them close at hand in the meeting-house and kept a sharp outlook against surprises by enemies.
There are better ways of expressing this situation, but a recent maga- zine quoted a clergyman in Toledo, Ohio, as having said: "There is nothing that holds the family together like a little family prayer. Our Puritan fathers lived on parched corn, but they talked about God. They shot Indians through the port hole with one eye and taught the Bible to their children with the other." This is one of the Middle Western references to New England history which is not to be taken literally, at
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least not verbatim. The common school trained pupils for a common cause.
The New England conscience, or influence in National legislation is an interesting study, showing how the Compact made on the "May- flower" entered into the scheme of things in making laws through all the epochs and vicissitudes. The Western Reserve was largely settled by emigrants from Connecticut and this vicinity. At first it was a New England outpost; later a fortress for the defense of those principles which underlay social and political life of the New Englanders. Even today it is apparent in that mid-Western locality. Bancroft says of these settlers that "the compact establishment of the culture of New England in that district had a most beneficial effect on the character of Ohio and the development of the Union." Putnam and Cutler and the pioneers on the Reserve never ceased to be New Englanders, nor have their de- scendants forgotten whence came their strength. When Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin came out of the same territory they were es- tablished on the same fundamental law, having the same provisions which proved a source of greatness in Ohio. This salutary influence of New England spirit and character has gone on producing consequences which Daniel Webster said: "We shall never cease to see, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow."
It was an interesting and helpful part which the Plymouth and Massa- chusetts Bay counties, indeed the whole State, took in the colonization of Kansas. The early Abolitionists were agitated in the great Missouri question of 1819 and 1820. The people of Massachusetts vigorously opposed the extension of slavery in the new State. On December 3, 1819, a public meeting was held in Doric Hall in the State House at Boston, over which Daniel Webster presided. He made a speech con- cerning the danger of the further extension of slavery which probably expressed his real convictions on the subject of slavery, as well as any utterances which ever came from his lips.
In 1855 the New England Emigrants' Aid Company was formed and, by virtue of that organization, nearly five thousand emigrants from New England went to Kansas and settled the towns of Lawrence, Topeka, Osawatomie, Manhattan, Wabaunsa and Burlington, taking with them the New England passion for integrity, education, democracy and re- ligion. They also fired the new free state with the spirit of abolition and patriotism, and Osawatomie Brown, who made his raid at Harpers Ferry and whose "soul is marching on," was not the only man in Kansas who had come to the conclusion that much had been said about freeing the slaves and it was time that something be done about it. The New England young men who had emigrated to Kansas were well repre- sented among the Kansas young men who volunteered for the Civil War
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from that new state, which furnished a larger proportion of volunteers than any other state in response to the calls of Father Abraham.
Transplanting Church, School and Town Meeting-The period when the New England emigrants went west to grow up with the country was a decade or two of great significance to the country as a whole. Over the mountains and across the plains, the emigrants took with them the life and traditions of the early settlers. In the vanguard were rest- less spirits, hunters, trappers and adventurers who built rude cabins. They were followed by farmers who built more substantial log houses, cleared land about these rude habitations and raised their crops amidst the charred stumps, until the roving spirit again influenced them to bundle their families and belongings into covered wagons and again take up the trail toward the setting sun.
Young and ambitious pioneers followed these adventurers, took up the farms which had been cleared, finished the job. They took with them their brides or went on ahead and soon returned for the women of their choice, to share with them the dangers and triumphs of a new country. They were unable to purchase farms in the East but a little money meant plenty of land in the West and youth and ambition supplied the other necessities. Soon harvests showed the results of industry and it was the beginning of what is still more apparent today, large barns and smaller houses, with wide surroundings of fertile acres, with tall corn with its golden ears standing on the stalks, and wheat waving in the winds which sweep over the prairies. Surplus crops were sold and the money bought additional land about their home buildings. The church, the school, the town meeting were there and on the way were the duplicates of Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. Thus was laid the foundation of much of the great West. The names of many of the western towns are duplicates of those in New England.
In recent years the cry has arisen that New England is losing its industries, that the Great Middle West, with its slam-bang, plowing by the mile, killing hogs by the train load, raising corn twelve feet from ground to tassel, with an ear at every joint, and the stalks hollow and filled with shelled corn; and blowing its horn with a steam calliope which slumbers not nor sleeps, was getting so far ahead of the Atlantic Seaboard that the race was like that of the hare and tortoise. If that is not enough, there is a still further cry that the New England textile mills are moving to the South, and the West and South will soon absorb everything in the East except the east wind.
The cry has been heard in Washington and the United States Chamber of Commerce has been doing some impartial investigating. There are major economic factors that keep working indefinitely, and among them are raw materials, agriculture, transportation and other things equally
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as important. The centre of industry is not fixed by temporary move- ments. The native New Englander has been so thoroughly convinced that, after all, New England is the best locality of the whole United States, that he has admitted it instead of going out to prove it. If he has a farm, a home or a factory-and many times he has all three-he wants to keep them, operate them and enjoy them. He does not place any price upon them. They are his, to have and to hold. He does not under- stand the Californian, whose constant theme is glorious climate and un- paralleled felicity in his state, but is anxious to sell everything he owns. He listens to arguments why he should move his business South, but he does not want to live in the South and he wants his business where he lives. He likes to travel and enjoys his visits but, to him, the best of a journey is getting home. He is sold on New England but where he has missed a beat is in selling New England to others. The New Eng- land conscience is a state of mind instead of a state of vocalization. Therefore, New England continues to prosper in spite of the lack of blare rather than by reason of it, and that is where New England shows its "otherwise-mindedness." It may not be a winning trait but it is thoroughly Yankee.
Massachusetts is the nearest to Europe of any commercial State in America and Boston is the only city in the world which has a dry-dock sufficiently large to accommodate the largest ocean liner. Frank S. Davis, m'anager of the Chamber of Commerce Maritime Association, says that the port is not losing business, as many persons have been led to believe, but, on the contrary, is making decided gains. There is much business to and from the Pacific coast by way of the Panama Canal. The power of water transportation and foreign commerce combined is quite likely to attract Western plants eastward to fully as large an extent as raw mater- ials are to develop Western industries. New England's position with reference to such swiftly developing major markets as the Orient and South America is constantly becoming more advantageous. Western and Southern industries are having some advantages at present occasioned by nearness to raw materials, but as these materials and rail transporta- tion become more costly, the present advantages will be reduced to a minimum. New England business men continue to be ship-minded, with the ocean in front of them and the mountains behind them. The Atlantic has always furnished the scene for many activities since the beginning of the Old Colony and is one of the advantages which never dries up. This section is likewise mill-minded, and its industrialists con- stitute an asset not duplicated elsewhere. The skill and availability of labor and inventive genius has been passed on from generation to gen- eration. The spirit of craftsmanship and the desire to work well and produce goods in which the workers can take pride still prevails. Ex-
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cellent transportation facilities to leading central markets encourage in- dustries of all kinds and the diversification of New England's indus- tries, to the square mile, exceed those of anywhere else on earth. New England is well equipped to become the merchandizing laboratory of the country. That being the case, what are New Englanders going to do about it?
Manager Davis of the Chamber of Commerce Maritime Association urges the need of New England pulling together to secure what it wants and needs from Washington officials. A more forceful stand should be taken, after the manner of the demands from other sections of the United States.
New England Always Adaptable-According to Major P. F. O'Keefe of Boston, New England has built most of the rest of the country and is now preparing to tell the world "in no uncertain accents" how prosper- ous she still is. According to the New York "Post," in a recent editorial, "There have been changes since the days when the Dakota wheat fields were unheard of, but New England, contrary to the idea generally held, is adaptable. If she had not been, she would have suffered the com- mercial and financial decline which she is often represented as having experienced. The fact is, we are misled by the shift of the political centre of gravity to the Middle West. Because of New England's small num- ber of electoral votes and the conspicuousness of Ohio as a presidential breeding place, most Americans think of our Northeast group of states as having lost its grip. This erroneous idea will not continue long, if enterprising sons of twentieth century New England, press the cam- paign of education they have so vigorously undertaken."
The New England conscience in Captain John Parker spoke to his seventy comrades that morning at Lexington when he said: "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have war, let it begin here." New England has stood its ground, in spite of contrary rumors, but it is now not unmindful that it has been drawn into the war between the states in the struggle for population, as re- flected in the quest for new industries. Chambers of Commerce in many states let loose a daily barrage of slogans and statistics calculated to lure people from other states to their's, as if they possessed some golden opportunities which made life anywhere else an absurdity. This is still a young country, and every other part of it, with the exception of Vir- ginia, is younger than Massachusetts and Plymouth County. Popula- tion is the primary concern of the Chamber of Commerce campaigns for industries, for there is a strong belief that a constantly increasing population develops a city or town and enhances real estate valuations. There is a craze for bigness, and a cry for development from without rather than from within. It may be in the hope of finding employment
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for people already within its borders or in the hope that new comers will bring money with them which, in some way, may find its way into the pockets of those earlier on the ground. The impression the New Eng- lander has of California and Florida-selected because they have in re- cent years been the most conspicuous types of advertising states-is a place where everyone he meets has a map in his hand and an oleaginous tongue in his head trying to sell land.
Speaking of New England's future, Roger Babson has said:
Her future depends upon what her past has depended upon. Here we have a wonderful location, but there are a lot of other points in Africa, Asia and South America which have as strategic locations as New England. We have natural resources and available labor but there are more natural resources and available labor in China than there are in America. New England's real success, New England's past and her present, are due to something more even than strategic location, natural resources and available labor, or even educational opportunities. New England's position in America and in the world has been due to certain under- lying spiritual forces which have supplied the thrift, the courage, the faith, the industry, which have not only created but which have developed this entire country.
The railroads of the west were built by New England; the copper mines of the north were developed by New England; the mills of the south were built by New England. Yes, most of the cities of the United States were financed from New England. It is not alone through our natural resources, our available labor, our strategic location. There was underlying all that, fundamental religious training that we and our fathers and grandfathers received in some little white-spired country church in some little New England village.
Potential Possibilities Not Yet Tested-So far as developing the re- sources of New England-or let us stay right at home and narrow the statement down to Plymouth County-even the surface has not been scratched in these three hundred years. Even reforestration has hardly been attempted and the growing of forests is a sheet anchor against poverty in lumber, such as is being experienced already. Areas of land, now waste, might easily be made to yield, every thirty or forty years, a crop of great value. There are a few town forests and something in reclamation has been done recently but more will rapidly follow. There is much water power going to waste. Millions of eggs, thousands of cases of dressed poultry, barrels of milk, train loads of vegetables are arriving at Boston daily, to be distributed to Plymouth County and other counties, simply because we have not learned the lesson so well understood in the Middle Western States of scientifically exploiting resources. In recent years Plymouth County has become famous for poultry-raising of quality eggs and chicks and this is the beginning of a vast industry at home, to supply products until recently imported in even larger quantities.
Ex-Governor Channing H. Cox, of Massachusetts, vice-president of the First National Bank in Boston, early in 1927 addressed the Bankers Club of Chicago on "New England Old in Years But Young in Spirit,"
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in which he said: "We rejoice when the West has an abundant harvest of grain, when the South continues her steady advance, and when the communities of the Pacific thrive and expand. We are not interested in our welfare alone, but in the common good of our country as a whole." In that statement he expressed the New England conscience to a large extent. It may be there are other sections of the United States which rejoice in the prosperity of rival sections, but it is doubtful if the state- ment of ex-Governor Cox could be said with as much truth of any other section.
He also said: "Come and spend a summer at our seashore with its rugged cliffs broken by sandy beaches, or among our wooded hills and mountains, or by the countless lakes and streams. Continue to send your boys and girls to our schools and colleges, but come to see them while they are there."
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