USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Manchester > History of the town of Manchester, Essex County, Massachusetts, 1645-1895 > Part 25
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Once more, in our commemoration of the two hun- dred and fifty years which have now passed, we may not overlook the support given by our forefathers to the cause of public education and popular intelligence. Wellnigh pathetic is the record of their sacrifices for that great end. In these times of well ordered, fruit- ful peace, it seems but natural that wide and generous attention should be given to mental training. It ac- cords with our physical progress, that vast fortunes should now be bestowed on institutions of the higher learning. In the modern expansion of Christendom ; the inter-rela- tions of advancing peoples; the reflections and counter re- flections of literary achievement and scientific discovery ; it were hardly possible not to feel a virtually constraining impulse toward the fostering of both public and private education. In the days of our colonial history, the circumstances were largely reversed.
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And yet, along with the assiduous toil, in the midst of the incessant tumult, in spite of the desperate conflict, our ancestors established the public school and founded the classical college.
They believed that education was the ally of religion, and that the two were like the pillars of brass which upheld the Temple's porch, whereof the one was named Jachin, "He shall establish," and the other Boaz, " It is strength."
Finally, our commemoration will be incomplete, our memorial will be but partially significant, unless, in loyal remembrance of those who have gone before - those who, in the main, dealt humanely with the In- dian, and were pioneers in the abolition of colonial Negro slavery - we resolve that we will, henceforth, the more revere the brotherhood of man, and the more devote ourselves to Society's noblest welfare. There is a blessedness which is not wholly included, on the one hand, in the good fortune of government, and does not merely consist, on the other hand, in the embodying of religion and culture in the private in- dividual. The state may flourish, and the prosperity of persons may be realized, yet the common-weal be far from perfect. There is a social well-being which comprehends both state and individual, as the multiple includes its factors, or as the circle is made up of cir- cumference and centre. To secure that largest good, individual rights may well be modified. To achieve that highest felicity, government itself may be among us "as one who serves." For Humanity is more than the units that compose it. Philanthropy is greater than domestic or patriotic devotion.
And we stand, my friends, to-day, where circumstances
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make urgent the call for this social good-will. To us there comes with special force, the summons to remember that each soul is sacred and, at the same time, to realize the just preëminence of the collective well-being. The rush and resound of our outward progress, the very radi- ance and richness of our cherished civilization, tend to make us insensible to the finer and more fundamental issues. Things are now to the fore. They crowd the scene. They claim the primacy. They demand of us that we pay obeisance. And thus it is, I add, that class estrangements, class antagonisms, now find place and power. Instead of the choice of those immaterial treasures-piety, wisdom, virtue, magnanimity -- which are ever increased to him who imparts them, the majority are chiefly anxious for the objects, of which, if one has more, another is likely to have less.
Still further, into our social state, thus restless, thus unstable, there are ever coming the insurgent hosts of other lands and other climes. Situate as we are in the very confluence, the very vortex, of the world's migra- tions, the problem of life is made for us the more ap- palling, by reason of the diversity of our tribes and tongues. In the days of our fathers, the social order was more sane and simple. Their communities were homogeneous in race and language. To them it was clear that the life was more than meat, even as the body was more than raiment. Their very presence on these wild shores, fugitives from civil and religious oppression, testified to themselves and the world, that it were well to lose all else, if so the higher interests were saved from harm. The common struggle for the common end, warmed the heart, even as it stirred the mind and trained the hand. At such a time, it was but natural to think of the community's welfare as foremost, since, unless the community throve, no individual might keep either fortune or life.
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By some means, we must win back, we must preserve, the old-time zeal for the common welfare. Custom must reinforce its sanction of disinterested good-will. Law must put its full protection around the humblest. Gov- ernment must find its warrant, in the well-being of the people. The Church must discern her noblest mission, in making universal the kingdom of God on earth. When that day dawns, when by the setting up of such a memorial we show our grateful love, then will the keeper of Israel be our keeper, and His presence be our refuge and defence.
Grateful, therefore, for the recorded past; gladly own- ing the inspiration of an example illustrious with religious faith, political fidelity, enthusiasm for learning, and a rare devotion to the common well-being; we turn to the future. At the close of another two hundred and fifty years, when the half of a millennium has been reached, there will be, I trust, another and still grander celebration on this increasingly memorable spot. The celebrants will have changed. Many an outward condition will have been transformed. Dwellings will have become still more beautiful, and temples more grand. The pliant forces of nature will have yielded themselves to new uses. Home industry will have fashioned fairer products. Commerce will have brought hither rarer treasures.
But as surely as these steadfast hills will keep their place ; this rock-bound shore preserve its trend ; the wide ocean roll its tides; and, skyward, the constellations gleam ; the principles of worthy living will remain as they are to-day. They share in the divine permanence. Rev- erence, worship, prayer, praise, intended purity of heart, repentance for sin, faith in the atoning love, toil for the Kingdom's coming -these, toward God; gentleness, good will, the bearing of one another's burdens, the up- holding of justice, the spread of enlightenment, the honor-
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ing of the universal brotherhood - these, toward man ; the whole merged, in reality, into the one glory in which God and Humanity alike rejoice; such is the abiding truth, such the changeless lesson. God grant that while we yet linger, we may be faithful to the heavenly vision, and be cheered by the fulfilment of the gracious promise !
ADDRESS
BY HIS HONOR, THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.
Two hundred and fifty years form no insignificant period in that portion of the history of the human race which is written in books. Not yet have eight such periods passed since the shores of Galilee were trodden by the feet of Him that brought glad tidings, that pub- lished peace.
If we glance at the intellectual product of the period just preceding that the completion of which you to-day commemorate, we are amazed at its splendid vigor and achievement. Across the dark firmament of the Mid- dle Ages had flashed the radiance of mighty spirits, whose potent rays are still undimmed in the growing daylight of our own time. In the hands of Michael Angelo and Raphael chisel and brush had produced forms of beauty and majesty which no succeeding cen- tury has equalled. Columbus had brought a new world to the knowledge of Europe, and from his lonely watch- tower Galileo had read the story of the stars. By the sturdy blows with which Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg, he had shivered the domination over men's minds of religious tyranny, and had aroused liberty of conscience from its almost unbroken slumber. In his immortal novel, Cer- vantes had " smiled Spain's chivalry away." The lofty wisdom of Bacon had taught the stately dignity of the English tongue. Shakespeare had shown the infinite capabilities of the human intellect, and to the ear of Protestant England the verse of Milton had echoed the sonorous tramp of armies.
Such a heritage from the recent past did those bring with them who settled the shores of Massachusetts in
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the early part of the seventeenth century. Marston Moor and Naseby were contemporaneous with the birth of your town, and a few years later the news of the grim execution at Whitehall must have caused a shudder even in those who believed that the hapless Charles had deserved his fate. In " The Beginnings of New England " John Fiske has clearly shown that this migration of English Puritans to scize and occupy a new continent, insignificant though it was in the numbers engaged, meant nothing less than the ultimate " transfer of the world's political centre of gravity from the Tiber and the Rhine to the Thames and the Mississippi." He, however, must have had clear vision who should discern this high destiny from the deck of the Mayflower landing her little company in Plymouth Bay, or from that of the Arbella as she skirted along your beautiful coast, affording opportunity to those who went on shore to note " the strawberries, gooseberries and sweet sin- gle roses," and to be entertained by still earlier settlers on "good venison and beer."
John Winthrop was born in the memorable year of the Spanish Armada. Even before his time, the su- premacy of the world had left the Mediterranean, and was travelling westward. Since then the destiny of the English-speaking race has marched apace, and though in some far future time God may raise up another race to the leadership of mankind, it seems now probable that for centuries the history of the world will be what the men of our race shall make it. England, with her colonies dotting the globe, whether destined to continue as dependent offshoots or to become independent or federated nations ; America, holding a continent with a population which in the lifetime of some before me will number two hundred millions, - if these two mighty nations escape the corrosion of vice and the rot of lux-
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ury, and remain true to their fundamental beliefs in education, freedom of conscience and popular govern- ment, it is no empty boast to say that the seeptre of dominion will remain for untold ages in their grasp. We need not seek to ask too curiously which shall pre- dominate, for the star of empire still holds its westward way, and its rays of promise, already gleaming from the East, will one day bathe our broad land in their vertical splendor. Yet no nation can continue powerful unless virtue, education and energy are the common possessions of her sons.
How little have the physical features of your town changed since the day of its first settlement. The for- est has in part given way to the ploughed field or past- ure land; the thickly-strewn stones by patient toil have been heaped into walls which mark the boundaries of estates ; human dwellings have multiplied in number and become more and more elaborate and costly ; the railway and the electric car force themselves upon notice; but all else how unchanged! As of old the cool, salt breath of the ocean is wafted inland to meet the hot, resinous fragrance of the pine forests which still clothe the rocky ridges to which the shore slopes upward. The magnolia and dogwood still throw out their blossom-laden branches over the bayberry and ferns beneath. On the surface of peaceful pool or slug- gish brook the pond-lily opens its exquisite chalice, and with the falling dusk of evening folds again its petals, while the whip-poor-will hurriedly reiterates his monot- onous plaint from the neighboring thicket. Otter and beaver, it is true, have sought refuge in Canadian brooks, and bear and wolf are no longer a menace to the farmer's flocks. But the little sandpiper tiptoes just in advance of the rippling wave, and perhaps wonders as he did two hundred and fifty years ago at the weird
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music of the Singing Beach. In autumn the wild-fowl pierce with their wedge-shaped flight the regions of the upper air, or circle downward to some wood-fringed lake to rest on their southward journey. When the storms of winter rage and the sea mingles its driven spray with the rack of the lowering clouds, the sea gulls wheel and eddy with the gusts of the tempest, and their lamenting cries, accordant with the moaning of the gale, seem fit requiem to the drowned on Norman's Woe. In her long struggle with man, Nature gives way but slowly, and contests every foot of vantage-ground she is forced to yield.
But with man how mighty the changes which two and one-half centuries have witnessed ! I shall not attempt to repeat in detail the history of your town, for that duty has been assigned to other and abler hands. Save for some conspicuous incident or char- acteristic which lends local color to the narrative, there is, as might be expected, a marked similarity in the history of most of our New England towns, which is saved from dullness by its intense human interest. Those who first settled these towns were men of the same race, religion and purpose ; the obstacles and dangers they were called upon to overcome were the same; they were similarly affected by the great events of national importance of which they were a part, and, except in the ratio of increasing population, influenced by location and other canses, their growth and develop- ment ran upon parallel lines.
The peculiar feature in the history of Manchester which differentiates it from that of many of her sister towns lies in her proximity to the ocean. The whisper of the sea caught the willing ear of her youth and wooed them to its breast. In these towns of old Essex the sea-captain has been a familiar and venerated figure
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from the earliest days. In time of war the deck of the privateer knew the sturdy tread of the men of Essex as did the fishing-smaek and merchantman in time of peace. Hardy and vigorous, they knew the dangers of the deep and feared them not. Fearless they faced disaster and death, nor were they appalled even by that mysterious tragedy of the sea, the total disappear- ance from the ken of man of some vessel which had left port, well manned and tight, with the sunshine bright upon its straining canvas, the waves laughing in its wake, and the following breeze freighted with the prayers of women and the God-speed of men. No record, however brief, of these coastwise towns of New England can fail to lay weighty emphasis upon the controlling influence which the neighboring sea exerted upon the lives and characters of their inhabitants. They smacked of the salt as does the breeze that blows over seaweed-covered rocks at low tide.
The early settler in Manchester, like his fellow-pio- neer elsewhere in the Colony, made timely provision for a saw mill, in order that he might be saved some of the labor necessary to produce the roughly fashioned timbers of his house and fishing-boat. He held out special inducements to tempt some townsman to set up a grist mill for the grinding of his corn. He toiled unremittingly with imperfect tools in felling the forest and preparing the ground for his rough husbandry. He took much pains that his children should receive such education as was then obtainable, and built a primitive meeting-house to which he not only went himself but compelled the attendance of others.
And yet it may well be doubted whether the lot of teacher or minister was an altogether pleasant one. The nominal salary was small, and was not always promptly paid ; the fire-wood which was included in the pay was
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either not forthcoming or seemed to have concentrated in itself the sap of the forest. In 1681, a schoolmaster in an older and richer town than Manchester complains as follows: "Of inconveniences, I shall instance no other, than that of the school house, the confused and shattered and nastie posture that it is in, not fitting to reside in ; the glass broken and thereupon very raw and cold, the floor very much broken and torn up to kindle fires, the hearth spoiled, the seats, some burnt and others out of kilter, so that one had as well nigh as goods keep school in a hog stie as in it." It is feared that a similar lament might have gone up from many a town had the poor pedagogues possessed an equal power of vigorous expression.
Our Manchester settler heard but little news from the outer world and read few books. He knew well his Bible, which he read with a stern but exalted faith; he may have had access to the grim theology of Michael Wigglesworth's "Day of Doom," or the glowing visions of Johnson's " Wonder-working Providence," and from these he may have turned to the more pleasing allegory of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." Let us hope that the golden light from the Delectable Mountains illumi- nated his life of incessant hardship and privation.
He stamped his character upon his descendants, and the generations that succeeded him were like him. His sons marched with Captain Lothrop and the " Flower of Essex" to meet an ambushed death at Bloody Brook. When the early winter twilight seemed to liberate all evil spirits that ride the night wind, they told in awed whispers, as they clustered about the glowing hearth, the ghostly tale of the strange happen- ings at Salem, and shudderingly prayed that the afflic- tion might pass their children by.
The overthrow and imprisonment of Andros early
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taught a lesson of resistance to irresponsible tyranny which was held in retentive memory for future use. The men of Manchester sat down with Pepperell before Louisburg, and the capture by raw Colonial levies of this famous fortress, the Gibraltar of America, defended by the veteran troops of France, planted a seed of self- reliant confidence in the breasts of the Colonists, which was to bear ruddy fruit at Concord Bridge and in the redoubt on Bunker Hill.
Events now crowded thick and fast that were to pre- cipitate the war of the Revolution. With what im- patience must the tardy news from Boston have been awaited, when every rider might bring the message that the smouldering fire had burst into flame !
In the long and dubious struggle that was now ushered in, amphibious old Essex played well her part. On land her blood tinged many a battle-field, but it was on the sea that her fame was won. The splendid seamanship, the cool courage, the intelligence fertile in expedient to meet any peril -these were the qualities shown by her sons wherever American privateer and English war- vessel grappled upon the deep. They were no accidental inheritance. They were bred in the bone of these men of Essex; they were transmitted from sires, who had spent their lives in sailing their fishing boats through tempest and darkness over the storm-driven Banks of Newfoundland and along the rock-bound and unbuoyed shores of New England, to sons whose earliest instinct had bidden them embark upon floating plank and seek the main.
With the other colonies they shared the sufferings and discouragements as well as the triumphs of the long years that closed with Yorktown. With some misgiv- ings they adopted the Constitution, and slowly thereafter came to see that from the mighty birth-throe of the
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Revolution a nation had been born. They were hard hit by the Embargo Act of 1808, and endured the con- sequent distress with commendable but not entire patience.
In the War of 1812 the young nation won little glory on land save in the belated battle of New Orleans, but on ocean and lake the mighty sea-power of England found its match, and again and again her flag was struck to vessels of smaller tonnage and less armament than her own. Of this renown no small part is the heritage of Essex County.
Then followed the period of marvellously swift national expansion. The Louisiana Purchase had ceded the vast territory of the Mississippi Valley, and had given an outlet on the Pacific. Florida was bought of Spain; Texas and California were forcibly taken from Mexico after a war which added something to our mili- tary fame, but brought no new glory to our political history. To people these new and limitless tracts the men of New England went out by thousands, and join- ing the hosts from the Middle States and the tide that now set towards our shores from Europe, felled forests, ploughed prairies, built cities and created those mighty commonwealths over whose area the centre of national population from decade to decade slowly shifts west- ward. In 1849 the discovery of gold in California renewed those eager dreams of El Dorado which had been fading since the early Spanish occupancy of Central and South America, and caused a new exodus from the Atlantic to the Pacific. All these great movements the generations of your townsfolk beheld, and in them they had their share.
During the whole of this period the horizon, other- wise fair, was ominously clouded by slavery. From this fateful institution the politics of the nation seemed
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to take direction and form; it involved us in war with a foreign power; new states were admitted only as it willed; if ever the Scriptural image of the enemy sowing tares amid the good grain was realized, it was in the accursed crop of hatred and distrust which slavery sowed between North and South.
Manchester was not slow to read the signs of the times and to throw its influence on the side of freedom. In 1853 its citizens in town meeting recorded their indignant protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and in 1856 the Free Soil Party found here earnest sup- port for its candidate for the presidency, John C. Frémont.
Soon burst the terrific hurricane of civil war, and the stately edifice which had been reared on the foundations laid by our fathers was rocked to its base, but, thank God ! the structure held. Blood and treasure were poured out with lavish hand, and the sacrifice was accepted. Lincoln died, scores of thousands of the best and noblest youth of the land gave gladly their lives, and from that awful stress the nation rose mightier, purer, more worthy of man's devotion and God's favor. In the War of the Rebellion Manchester sent to the front nearly one in ten of its entire population.
These great political events which have illustrated the last two centuries and a half, and which I have briefly sketched, stand out with startling distinctness on history's page and are known of all men. We are not so apt to realize how recent is the origin of the vast changes wrought by applied science in many of the most familiar aspects of our social life. For over one hundred and fifty years from the first settlement of New England the daily life of its people underwent but trifling change. Popula- tion had increased, the fear of the lurking savage had passed away, there was doubtless a gradual amelioration in the stern conditions of hardship and suffering which
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environed the earlier generations, but at the beginning of the present century the life of the New England farmer or fisherman varied but little from that of his ancestor. Luxury was scarcely known, and few even were the com- forts in his home. His journeys were for business and not for pleasure, and were made in the saddle over well- nigh impassable roads. Not before 1804 was there a daily stage from your town to Boston, and regular trains were not running until 1847. Steamers began to cross the Atlantic in 1819, but bore but a remote resemblance in speed or accommodation to the great liners of to-day.
As a boy in his native town my father used to bear to the meeting-house on Sabbath mornings the foot-stove, filled with live embers, which yielded some little warmth to the mother at the further end of the family pew, while father and children shivered on hard board seats, and gave what attention they could to lengthy sermons which were not wanting in lurid glow. The first church stove in Manchester was set up in 1821, and had been long opposed as smacking too much of effeminate luxury.
The electric telegraph has been in operation but fifty years, and the telephone but half that time. The appli- cation of electricity as a motive power, which seems destined to revolutionize transportation, is confined to a decade, and for the illumination of our streets and houses, oil, tallow and gas are but now yielding to the incandes- cent light. Machinery, driven by water or steam, has within the memory of those now living multiplied in infinite ratio the efficiency and product of man's labor. In the history of New England towns the recurring visi- tations of small-pox find frequent mention : immunity from this dread disease was not obtained until the present century was well advanced. Modern bacteriology holds out the hope that other terrors which have ravaged the world unchecked for centuries may be abated.
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