USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Framingham > Memorial of the bi-centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, June, 1900 > Part 11
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THE PRESIDENT .- In selecting the Historian we were fortunate in having a lifelong resident of the Town, one who has been familiar with its history, and with the history of many of its families, one who has been identified with its interests and has taken an active part in its affairs, and has held many important offices. I have the pleasure of intro- ducing as the Historian of the day the Honorable C. C. Esty.
ADDRESS OF HON. C. C. ESTY.
On this week, and especially in the delightful hours of this bright day we celebrate the settlement and incorporation of our town, which has ever had the respect of the general community and the warm affection of all born within its limits. From its earliest period it has held a position of influence and distinction throughout our ancient County of Middlesex ; it can ask for no higher honor.
To me has been assigned the pleasant duty of preparing a paper appropriate to the occasion; which, however, is too extended for presentation at this present hour and is placed at the disposal of the town for publication if desired. It treats chiefly, of course, of events since the establishment of the Town in June, 1700, but independently of that paper I purpose this afternoon, having due regard to the limitation of time, to speak especially of prior events and of some representative citizens of each century.
In this now beautiful grove there occurred on the 1st day of February, 1676, with its snows and biting winds, a great tragedy. Within the sound of my voice stood the home of
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Thomas Eames. In the morning there was a happy family of at least ten people; at night six had been slain by the Indians, and the remainder carried into captivity.
King Philip had, in the previous year, committed hostili- ties in the southeastern part of the State, and the dread fear of danger was in the atmosphere here. The father was away on a journey to Boston, whither he had gone a few days before to obtain a guard and ammunition. As he returned by the "Old Connecticut Path," when this side of Lake Cochituate, he doubtless stopped at the house of his friend Henry Rice, his nearest neighbor, though two miles from his home ; fearing, but not receiving bad news, he continued on hopefully. Leaving the "Path " and coming by the north side of Learned's Pond, through the woods to a cornfield on a little height near the present railroad bridge, he saw by the smoke and the slumbering fire and the perfect silence of death, that a terrible fate had come to his family ; the lifeless bodies of six and the absence of the rest, told the entire story. The house was fired by hay taken from the barn upon a rack, and the condition of the snow all about was evidence of the fearful struggle for life and attempts to escape which had been made. One of the Indians had been on guard to give warning in case of the return of the father. The children were scattered in their captivity, being carried to the regions in the vicinity of Concord, N.H., Albany, the Conn- ecticut River and Canada. They had been taught in case of attempt to escape from captivity, to go towards the rising sun. It is strange that no important traditions as to the particulars of this slaughter have been preserved. And passing strange that this event, more tragic in extent than any other recorded of any one family in Massachusetts, is never mentioned in school histories, although earlier than the attacks on Medfield, Marlborough, Sudbury or Lancaster. It would seem that the taste of blood here created the appetite, which was so soon to feed itself elsewhere.
From the conflicting accounts there must always be great uncertainty as to the number killed and taken captive. Some returned and one or more willingly remained in Canada. A list of the Indians who committed the outrage is to be seen
Hon. Josiah Adams
Benjamin Wheeler Hon. Charles R. Train
William Buckminster
Former Distinguished Citizens of Framingham
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in the archives of the State in the handwriting of Deputy Governor Danforth. He issued warrants for the arrest of some of them, and took confessions. Three were executed in September. Netus, the leader, was killed at Marlborough in March by English soldiers. In the present month, the Eames family in this town have caused a large granite boulder, having a suitable inscription thereon, to be placed here upon the site of the destroyed home of their ancestor, and today we dedicate it as a memorial of the fore-runner of the Indian atrocities in King Philip's War in this part of Massachusetts.
NOTED CITIZENS.
Of the able and useful citizens of the past since 1700 the names of three stand out conspicuously as representative of their periods :
EDWARD GODDARD :- Of the first half of the last cen- tury, an educated man, Teacher, Selectman, Treasurer, Town Clerk, Representative eight years, member of the King's Council, a leader in church affairs and a writer of power. His official records as Town Clerk for eighteen years are models and unsurpassed.
JONATHAN MAYNARD : - Leaving Harvard College to participate in Bunker Hill battle, he afterwards had an eventful and romantic army career, and for many years was our first citizen in civil life, as is fully set forth in the paper referred to.
CHARLES R. TRAIN : - Framingham born, with father and brother of high rank as clergymen and citizens. He was the favorite son of Framingham and everywhere popular. Of bright talents, and a leader in town improve- ment and general public affairs, high honors were placed upon him. He was early a Representative in the Legisla- ture from this town and later from Boston, member of the State Constitutional Convention, District Attorney in Middlesex County, a member of the Governor's Council, Representative in Congress, on the Staff of his friend and our townsman, General Gordon, at the Battle of Antie- tam, and Attorney General of the State. He was offered by
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Pres. Fillmore the U. S. District Judgeship for Oregon, and if he had been willing to be untrue to his political principles and friends about forty-five years ago, and have made even a bow of allegiance to the then all powerful political organiza- tion, he could have been Governor of this State. He was a brilliant lawyer and successful advocate.
How sweet a thing it were to have had him here today. He would have been foremost and efficient in all the pro- ceedings. "One blast upon his bugle horn were worth a thousand men." There would have been combined in him, if his three friends, the Orator, Toastmaster and Historian, could so direct, all the duties assigned to them, and their parts would have been simply to lead in the applause for him. But they can only yearn for one hour with Charles R. Train, and with all his townsmen and troops of friends throughout the State cherish his memory.
SALEM END.
That beautiful part of the Danforth Plantation, which for more than 200 years has borne the name of Salem End, is closely connected with the witchcraft delusion of 1692 at Salem Village, now Danvers. Among the victims were three sisters, Rebecca (Towne) Nurse, Mary Esty, who were executed, and Sarah Cloyes who, after many months' imprisonment, escaped by night to this place, as tradition says. The purity and nobility of their lives are fully attested in Bancroft's History of the United States, and Upham's History of Witchcraft and Salem End. Precisely when Sarah Cloyes, accompanied by her husband and children, by the name of Bridges by a former marriage, and Benjamin Nurse, a son of Rebecca Nurse, came hither is not known, except that it was probably in the Winter of 1692-3.
There is nothing on record to indicate why their choice of the new home was made, but it is a pleasant and probable thought that Mr. Danforth who had been connected with and a close observer of the persecutions and knew these families well, feeling the great and tragic wrong that had
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been done, though in accordance with public sentiment, desired to provide a future home for their broken hearted and suffering families, and therefore arranged with them that they should spend the remainder of their lives in his own loved Framingham, " the home of the stranger," and named for his own native castled home of Framlingham, in England. The particular route from Ipswich Jail, where Peter Cloyes for weary months had attended upon his wife, to where they struck the Old Connecticut Path, is wholly unknown, but was probably near Weston, when, passing by the "Devils Den," they followed the "Path " by Lake Cochituate leaving it near the present State Muster Field and passing through Mount Wayte close by the scene of the Eames tragedy of 1676, and crossing the Sudbury river at the fording place west of Mount Wayte, thence to the great boulder on the heights which was to them literally a "shadow of a great rock in a weary land," they came to their promised land which proved to be a home to them and their descendants to the present day.
Immediately on the organization of the Town in 1700. different members of the family were made prominent in all town matters. At the first meeting Peter Cloyes, husband of Sarah Cloyes, and John Towne, her nephew, were chosen Selectmen ; Benjamin Bridges, son by a former marriage, was elected an Assessor, and Peter Cloyes, Jr., her son, the Highway Surveyor. In the second year Mr. Cloyes, the father, was elected Treasurer and Grand Juryman. He was also the Chairman of the Committee on the building of the first Meeting House, and Chairman of the Committee, of which Benjamin Bridges was also a member, to get the opinion of three ordained ministers as to the qualification of John Swift to be minister, and Peter Cloyes, John Towne and Benjamin Bridges were selected to extend the call to Mr. Swift.
Later on Mr. Bridges and Peter Cloyes, Jr., were a Com- mittee to arrange with the first school master of the town, and Benjamin Nurse was one of the Selectmen. These actions of the town indicate that these were of the best of its people.
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Centuries ago it was said that "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church," and certain it is that the blood of these Salem martyrs was the seed of the Framingham church.
The late Hon. and Rev. Peter Parker, M.D. was a de- scendant of Rebecca Nurse, and through him Salem End has the distinction of being the birthplace of one who was for thirteen years in the service of the United States in China, and who in 1857 closed a highly useful and distinguished official career as Commissioner and Minister Plenipotentiary in negotiating that treaty with the Chinese government under which, for the first time, the United States was accorded the privilege of a Resident Minister at the Imperial Court of Pekin, and which contained, through his foresight and in- sistency, the following clause:
"The principles of the Christian Religion as expressed by the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, are recognized as teaching men to do good, and to do to others as they would have others do to them. Hereafter those who quietly profess and teach these doctrines shall not be harrassed or persecuted on account of their faith. Any person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, accord- ing to these tenets, shall peaceably teach and practice the principles of Christianity, shall in no case be interfered with or molested."
We read this with peculiar interest today, because the exigency provided for in the treaty has now arisen and our military forces are on Chinese soil and at this very hour are pressing their way to Pekin for the preservation of the lives of " citizens of the United States and Chinese converts."
Framingham may justly take pride in the fact that the benign influence of its once farmer boy, by his missionary, medical and diplomatic services, extends throughout the empire of China.
THOMAS DANFORTH.
Above all the names to be considered today is that of Thomas Danforth, son of Rev. Nicholas Danforth, a dis- tinguished English Puritan who came to this country in 1634.
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Most of those familiar with the name think of him only as a person occupying some public position, but especially noted " as the proprietor of 16,000 acres of land called the Danforth Plantation and Farms," extending from the Sudbury lines southerly into Sherborn, as it anciently was, crossing the river at Ashland, embracing nearly all of that village, thence on the northerly side of the river through Cordaville, Southville and into the lines of Westboro. His possessions were made up, chiefly, of grants from the General Court, and from a deed of land where we now stand, from Richard Wayte and one from Thomas Russell. These two purchases adjoined each other, and extended southerly from the river. The area of his ownership was about equal to that of Fram- ingham as it now is, though the boundary lines are different. Governor Danforth was the founder of this town, to which he gave the name about twenty-five years before his death, in 1699, and also, in fact, one of the leading founders of the Massachusetts Colony. He was Treasurer of Harvard College, Magistrate, member of the General Court, Assistant for twenty years, Clerk of the County of Middlesex, Deputy Governor of the Colony under its two charters for ten years, and one of the two Commissioners of Massachusetts of "The United Colonies " of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Haven for seventeen years. During a part of that period he was President of the Board, which had the fullest authority in the joint interest of the Colonies, especially in the management of Indian affairs and wars. At one time he was President of the Province of Maine, having with him six assistants as his Council. As a magistrate he partici- pated in the prosecutions for witchcraft at Salem, but was not a Judge on the special court that tried any of those who were convicted, but was appointed Judge of the new Superior Court in December, 1692, by which convictions were made but no executions followed ; and it is written of him that " to his credit be it spoken, his influence was entirely in opposi- tion to the melancholy witchcraft delusion." Chief Justice Sewall wrote that "he had as Judge of the [new] Court, a chief hand, under God, in putting an end to the troubles under which the country groaned in 1692." His public life
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extended over more than forty years, during which period he was brought into close intimacy with the public men from Maine to New Haven and many of the ablest of Colonial State papers were prepared by him.
The Hon. John G. Palfry, in his History, in speaking upon a report upon Colonial affairs made in 1661 says, that it was " probably from the pen of Thomas Danforth, who had now become one of the most important men of the Colony ;" also that in 1679, when the Colonial Charter was in danger, " the administration acquired character and strength by the election of Danforth" as Lieutenant Governor; again, that in 1682, "Danforth who had come from his government in Maine to take his place in General Court, was now chairman of the committee for special instructions," for the representa- tives of the Colony addressing the King in England, and that in the same year, " of the popular party, Danforth, the Deputy Governor, a man of excellent abilities and virtues, was the acknowledged head." Another writer says, "in the troublous times which preceded the subversion of the Charter (1688), Mr. Danforth ever stood forth as the unflinch- ing advocate of popular freedom ; the fearless denouncer and opponent of ministerial despotism." In truth what Samuel Adams was in our Revolutionary period, such was Thomas Danforth in his day in defense of chartered rights and op- position to the tyranny, of the brother kings, Charles the Second and James the Second.
Governor Danforth was a man of broad views and fore- sight in pratical private life, as is shown by his setting apart several thousand acres of land, including Salem End, west of Sudbury River and south of Stoney brook as the "Common" lands for the free and perpetual use of the purchasers of his other lands, for pasturing, timber and wood.
That he was fearless appears by his protection of friendly or "praying " Indians after the Eames massacre, regardless of the threats of his assassination therefor, contained in placards posted up in Boston. "As Christians we warn them [Danforth and Gookin] to prepare for death, for they will deservedly die, yet we wish them the health of their souls," "By the new Society A.B.C."
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Within a few weeks later when the tidings of the Sudbury fight reached Danforth while attending the Thursday lecture at Charlestown, an organized company of friendly Indians at once answered his call and marched to the relief of Sudbury settlers.
He was bold in public life in his defiance of the threats of the Royal Governor Andros, and in resistance to the op- pressive acts of the Kings.
His devise of lands in Framingham to Harvard College indicates his generous spirit.
Considering the large number and the important character of the various offices held by him, and the extended period of his services we can justly claim that no one was more useful or distinguished in the Colony of Massachusetts. This town should have borne his name if he had not given to it that of his English home, and when Framingham as a city shall out of its own treasury erect its stately edifice for public purposes, let it bear the name of the Thomas Danforth Hall.
Without Governor Danforth to participate in the cere- monies of this occasion, is to omit Hamlet from the play. Some believe in visions and we will indulge in that illusion at this hour. We present Governor Danforth. He speaks :
" I need no introduction to this place. You are the stranger. I stood on the top of this mountain 230 years ago with my friend, Richard Wayte, and looked down upon the quiet stream flowing at its base, upon the meadows near by and the distant hills, and I then became the purchaser of these woodlands. I came with Thomas Eames who, through our friendship, planted his home here, and a few years later I consoled with him here because of the tragedy of King Philip's Indians. I knew Philip well. We had met in the little meeting house in Taunton in council, with his men on the one side, and myself as the Colonial Commissioner, and the men of Plymouth on the other. Philip had feared treachery before coming and required hostages : - and well he might, for some of the Plymouth men were faithless and would have attacked him even then had I not personally prevented them. Later on he came to meet me in Boston; and again for the last time, we held council in Plymouth.
"I stood this morning on the top of Bare Hill where I once saw the lonely sentinel stand as he looked about and
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guarded the little Meeting-House in the now ancient burial ground, where the emigrants from Salem and others of
"'The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.'
"I gazed on Nobscot with its grand outline rising above all the hills of Middlesex, and in imagination saw Tantamous, 'Old Jethro,' the famous 'medicine-man' with whom I once strolled through his ancient apple orchard on the southern slope of the mountain, and with whom I walked upon its summit to view our neighboring domains. He was after- wards basely induced to go to Cocheco and there, with other Indians, by strategem, made prisoner, taken to Boston and hanged. And from Nobscot I could have looked down upon the scene of the Sudbury fight, where Captain Wadsworth and his brave ambushed soldiers fell, to which place I sent a company of friendly Indians. I looked upon the hill-top home of ' Captain Tom,' the Indian, east of the muster field, who also was unjustly executed. My eyes rested on the scene of the Apostle Eliot's labors, and then in another direction on the delightful homes of the descendants of the Salem refugees.
"I looked upon the rivers, and the natural and artificial lakes beautifying the landscape and pouring their waters into thirsty Boston, and I recalled the words of the favorite son of my and his Fair Harvard :
" 'Framingham ; fair cupbearer, leaf cinctured Hebe of the deep bosomed Queen sitting by the Seaside on the throne of the Six Nations.'- O. W. Holmes.
"I have not been unobservant of events both great and small in this my loved town. I have seen the Framingham soldiers of the Revolutionary War in the 6th Regiment, from Bunker Hill to Saratoga ; and the 6th Regiment from Middle- sex County, in the War of the Rebellion, as it passed through in April, 1861, taking from you a national flag which it carried through Baltimore to the senate chamber at Washing- ton and again to Federal Hill in Baltimore where it waved triumphantly over the rebellious city ; and again, two years ago I saw your company of brave youths of the 6th Regi- ment going forth to a foreign soil to fight for humanity under the command of that gallant colonel who bears the name which has descended from generation to generation of my ancient friend and co-laborer, Edmund Rice, who was promi- nent in the history of three towns.
"In the grove across the Lake thirty-eight years ago, I witnessed the citizens' presentation, through the hands of the Historian of this occasion, of a sword to a young lieutenant, who with nearly fifty comrades, was leaving home for
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service in a Southern state; and Lieutenant Hurd is today an honored citizen of the County, holding an office once held by me, and is on this platform as the Orator of this occasion. I salute him.
"Three days since in the Sabbath afternoon I heard the voice of that noble woman participating in the earliest exercises of this eventful week in one of your churches, whose magnificent Battle Hymn of the Republic, I listened to blending with the praises of Washington, when it was for the first time presented in song in public in another of your churches .*
"The 'Wilderness' that I possessed has been made to ' bud and blossom as the rose.' Having named the town I trusted to have lived to see its legal establishment. I made plans and hopeful prophecies. Through the wisdom of your ancestors they have been carried out and realized. As I wit- ness your thrift, prosperity and progress, and see your well tilled farms and well ordered homes, your shadowy streets and parks, your Public Library, -emblem both of patriotism and learning, -your schools and the churchesofvariouscreeds but of one great purpose, and when I view the pioneer noble State institution of instruction, in queenly beauty over- looking the town, and listen today to the joyous ringing of the morning bells in all your churches, my heart in exultant gratitude exclaims :
"'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ! '
" Hail ! and for a half century, Farewell ! "
THE PRESIDENT .- The author of the Poem needs no intro- duction to this audience. Her reputation as an authoress is not confined by town or state lines, but is national. It gives me pleasure to present to you Miss Edna Dean Proctor.
FRAMINGHAM. EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.
Fair, to the Red Man, was Framingham When deer were plenty, and salmon swam By Merrimack west to Sudbury river And the brooks that wind where the tall reeds quiver, -
* Plymouth Church, February 22, 1862, on the occasion of the celebration of Washington's Birthday by the citizens of the town. The hymn was first published in the Atlantic Monthly for that month.
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Up from the sea to the lakes that lie Pleasant and cool the pine woods by ; When the bowery streams were the beaver's right, And the blue was the eagle's sunward flight, And only the wind, or the wolf, or the loon, Broke the silence at night or noon. Ah well! nor hunter, nor chief, nor maid, Is left by the falls or the forest glade ; Their weirs, their cornfields, their paths, their graves, Are gone from the meadows the river laves, Vet Waushakum, Cochituate, Nobscot hill, Speak of their old dominion still !
A resolute, reverent race were they Who up from the coast-line made their way To the woods and meads of Cochituate - Strong of purpose and stern as fate.
For present good and for future bliss - An eye to both worlds - they wrought in this, Building the meeting-house, bridging the ford, Fighting the Indians and fearing the Lord. And bitter the deeps they sometimes crossed : " Imprimis - a wife and nine children lost, Murdered and captured," the record ran Of Thomas Eames when the town began, And fair Mount Wayte, with its Christian fame, Heard the war-whoop and saw the flame.
Vet the hamlets here in the wilderness Were a refuge to those in storm and stress. Rough was the road to Salem then, But hunted women and helpless men Fled through the forest's darksome door From the witchcraft horror that swayed the shore, And Salem End was a nook of peace Where from courts and prisons they found release.
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