USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > Memorial of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Gloucester, Mass. August, 1892 > Part 25
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There seems to be every reason to expect a large attendance at the dif- ferent ceremonies, which begin with the commemorative services at different churches on Sunday, the 21st of this month, and close with the fireworks and illuminations of the city and harbor on the following Friday night. Every possible effort has been made to secure the attendance of all the Cape Ann people who now reside in other States or countries. Many of these "absent sons and daughters of Cape Ann " have signified their intention of being present during the " quadro-millennial " week. The fact that a yacht race is to be held with the co-operation of the Gloucester Yacht Club has served to attract yachtsmen from all over the State. The several parades, sports, literary exercises, and concerts, as well as the banquet, reception, and ball, will also prove incentives to a large attendance of visitors. Altogether, then, there seems every reason to expect that a large crowd will visit Gloucester during the gala week.
The Gloucester " quadro-millennial " week will undoubtedly be a pleasant one, under favorable weather conditions, for both the people of Cape Ann and those that go there as visitors. The grand and rugged scenery which presents to the many artists who flock thither an almost unattainable ideal, is well worth the seeing. The cool breezes that blow in from the restless ocean are
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healthful and invigorating, while to all who realize the unwritten tragedies of the fishing industry, there is a real romance, even in the prosaic wharves and in the weather-beaten schooners that lie at anchor in the harbor. Few spots could show such an ideal locality for a celebration of such a character.
NAUTICAL SCHOOLSHIPS AT LAST.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, J. R. Soley, in his speech at the Glouces- ter banquet on Wednesday, conveyed welcome news in the announcement that a government vessel has at last been assigned to serve as a nautical train- ing school for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The vessel selected is the wooden sloop of war " Enterprise."
New York has had such a vessel, the " St. Mary's," for some years past, and Pennsylvania was recently provided with the "Saratoga " for the same purpose. Both these vessels are very old sailing ships, whereas the " Enter- prise " is a steamer, although provided with ample facilities for sail and spar drill. This is a distinct advantage, for the course of training pursued upon her may include the service of the engine and fire-room, in addition to pure seamanship, and the graduates of the Massachusetts nautical school may thus be enabled to qualify either as seamen or engineers.
The arrival of the " Enterprise " is to be looked for with considerable interest, and will not, it is hoped, be long delayed. The sea-faring Common- wealth of Massachusetts, always pre-eminent both in the navy and the mer- chant marine of the country, may be depended upon to put the schoolship to the most profitable use.
THE SPEECH THAT WASN'T SPOKEN.
The New Gloucester correspondent of the Portland Globe writes : The New Gloucester delegation report a most enjoyable affair. The citizens of Gloucester did everything in a large and generous-minded manner. The delegation received a most cordial greeting, and were accorded honors of which our town may well be proud. The Boston and Gloucester papers gave accounts of all the meetings, banquets, and processions, and the half cannot be told. The resolutions passed at the meeting of the citizens of our town were duly forwarded and the same were published in the Cape Ann Breeze, the leading daily paper of the city. The good speech which Selectman True carried up with him in his pocket, an enterprising reporter got hold of. The same was given to the readers of the Globe last week. But the fact was that the banquet was such an immense affair, that in spite of the five hours spent in eating and speaking, there were governors, judges, and generals, etc., whom time did not permit to deliver their speeches. Our genial selectman was among the number. It was too bad. The speech reads well even if it was not delivered. Better luck next time, however. The celebration was a
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great thing, and it is wonderful there were not more miscalculations. The officials and citizens fully deserve all the good words which can be said of their welcome to and treatment of the thousands who accepted their invita- tion to celebrate with them the founding of their city.
GLOUCESTER AND ITS CELEBRATION.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Aug. 24, 25, and 26, will be gala days for Gloucester, for on that week the good old codfish city, set on her granite throne, with the green Atlantic surges washing at her feet, will celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of her incorporation as a town. Great preparations have been made to have this event benefit the importance of the anniversary and the proper dignity of Gloucester. A survey of the field would indicate that the preparations will be crowned with phenomenal success.
Over a year ago the preliminary steps were taken and since then unre- mitting energy, hearty co-operation, liberality, public spirit, and a practically perfect organization have placed the people in a position to say positively that Gloucester's celebration will not be surpassed by anything in that line which her sister cities of the Commonwealth have hitherto shown.
What is it that is celebrated ? What past does the city possess that such a great public enterprise should be set on foot to perpetuate its memory ? Gloucester has a past to be proud of. She has produced but two principal crops in her two centuries and a half of corporate existence, but they are crops of sterling worth and great renown. One of these crops was fish ; the other men. The one is harvested in the unquiet and treacherous ocean by the other. Sturdy, heroic, simple, pious men are the homesters who liter- ally builded their houses on the rocks and put forth in their little schooners, at the risk of their lives, in quest of the fish.
Many a lonely cottage, many a desolate heart, many a stone in the strag- gling graveyard on the hill, inscribed " Lost at Sea," testifies to this risk and its often fatal outcome.
Gloucester has two daily newspapers, the Cape Ann Breeze and the Gloucester Daily Times. Both these journals have been potential factors in making the celebration a success.
The Times particularly has advocated it in season and out of season, in time of stress and in time of favor. Editor Procter keeps a noble scrapbook filled with clippings from all sources, and the writer acknowledges its kindly assistance in the preparation of this article.
The fishermen's race is the greatest event of Friday, and every old salt in town and a good many who are not salts have their eyes on this, to the exclusion of everything else. - The Boston News.
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Every one had a smile on when he landed from the judges' tug at the Gloucester regatta, and well they might. The day was one to try men's stomachs. The popular song of the day was sung by a party of young men. It was sung to the tune of " Old Hundred," and ran as follows : -
"Oh, how sick I am ! Oh, how sick I am ! Nobody knows how sick I am."
It was true, too. - Boston Record.
The Boston Traveler has the following : -
Gloucester's celebration of her quarter millennium has proved itself as unique an affair as often occurs. In the naive words of its chief executive, a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary doesn't occur but once in a lifetime. This sentiment seems to have been the keynote of the whole affair.
It was quite appropriate that a native musician (Professor Watson) should have a prominent place in the celebration, for she has been loved and fre- quented by musicians all through her history. Lillian Norton (Madame Nordica) is closely allied by ties of relationship with it. Emma Abbott called it her home, and here lie her ashes, in a funeral urn, under the most magnificent private monument in America. Then, again, the musical feeling abroad on the Cape at the present time is stronger than in almost any city of its size, as is shown by the enthusiastic admiration and support accorded that eminent musical critic and lecturer, Louis C. Elson, who, as a summer resident, contributed also to the entertainment.
It was no wonder that there was a high literary tone to the proceedings. Cape Ann was the summer home of Richard Henry Dana, the birthplace of Edwin P. Whipple, Epes Sargent, John T. Sargent, and William Winter. It is the summer home of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward.
About the biggest man in Gloucester kept very quiet, and merely went with his wife from his boarding place to the various occurrences of interest, but was upon no program, and was not even an invited guest. This man was Capt. J. W. Collins of the United States Fish Commission, a man who has risen from a fisherman and skipper to be one of the most successful specialists and authorities on the habits of fish and the construction of fishing craft. The entire fisheries exhibit at Chicago will be in his hands One of the most becoming things about him is his modesty.
After all, the thing which will linger longest in the memory of those who spent the week on the Cape will be the reunion of the so-called "absent " sons and daughters Tuesday night. It was informal, easy, memory-awaken- ing, and altogether refreshing.
Everybody seemed to have a kodak. The snap of the camera was heard upon every side. For once the brush and palette were laid aside for this quicker method of obtaining views. Next week and for half a dozen weeks more the brush and pencil will reign again, for Cape Ann is as full of artists to-day as
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if Hunt and Lane, Harvey and Elwell, Green, Chapman, Whittemore, and a hundred others had not already made its scenery immortal.
Thursday morning, before the parade started, there were bits of startling realism to be seen. At one time, for instance, Capt. Myles Standish, with his bold company of Plymouth Puritans and with a couple of savages in con- voy, marched through Main Street. They were not spirits, but a part of one of the tableaux, prepared by James R. Pringle, Gloucester's latest historian.
Gloucester, town of sea-bred heroes, who go forth each spring to brave the storms and fogs of the ocean to catch fish and earn their own livelihood thereby, knowing that scores of them will surely find their graves on the Banks in the fogs, - old Gloucester has had a grand celebration of her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. A fine picturesque old town she is, six years younger than Springfield, her inland sister of the early days, but far more venerable in appearance, with her steep streets crowding around her beautiful harbor. The orator of the day made a link of union between Springfield and Gloucester, and in his address one could breathe the scent of the bayberry, the salt aroma of the surf, and feel that endless beating of the spray over the Point, or on the headland of Bass Rocks; and see the lights that gleam nightly from "the twin towers of Thacher's melancholy isle "; and visit the thunders of Rafe's Chasm and the cruel reef of Norman's Woe, compassing, indeed, the whole wild and attractive scenery of Cape Ann. The occasion was well sung also by several poets, and will be memorable in retrospect. - Springfield Republican.
Heavy weather does not discourage the stanch fishing craft of Glouces- ter. They are accustomed to it, and they sailed their race with as much con- fidence as though a ten-knot breeze had been blowing. They crowded on sail, too, for the spirit of rivalry is strong among these hardy Gloucester fishermen, and the fact that not even the slightest disaster occurred speaks well for the seaworthiness of the boats and the nautical skill of the captains. - Boston Record.
Gloucester is celebrating her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary and enjoying herself with her children and admiring friends. Our congratulations to the ancient settlement of Cape Ann, and may the city live a million years. - Lynn Item, Aug. 24.
Gloucester can now settle down into its old life, with the confidence of having covered itself with glory - Boston News.
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THE GLOUCESTER CELEBRATION.
Happy is the city which has a history, and it is a proud distinction of a large number of the seaboard towns and cities of New England that they have a notable history. Gloucester was one of the earliest Massachusetts towns in its settlement and incorporation, and the celebration ordered for this week, and which began with appropriate religious services yesterday, is one that will give this somewhat isolated city a new lease of life, and help to reassure its citizens that they have a sure place in the history of their country. Any one who visits Gloucester will see that its chief industry was inevitable. A farmer who lived entirely upon the produce of his farm around that city would not be likely to grow rich, and, as a matter of fact, the people of Gloucester have been wise enough to avoid the impossible, and to find in the ocean the wealth which they could not secure on the land. Gloucester enjoys two distinctions. It contains the first Universalist parish ever organized in this country, and it has retained down to the present time its early prestige as one of the chief fishing towns in New England. The week of celebration pro- vides for nearly every interest, and during its exercises every historic point of note will receive its share of attention, and the part which the town has had in the development of the State will be duly presented to the world.
Nothing better helps the people of a community than to cultivate in their minds the historic sense. What would Marblehead be, if it ever thought of itself apart from its history ? What would Newburyport or Salem be, if the citizens of these places ever for a moment forgot their memorable share in our colonial history ? Gloucester has retained, like Marblehead, a great many traces of its individual and colonial life, and visitors to the old town will note and enjoy this as one of the most impressive features of the exercises of the week. - Boston News.
GLOUCESTER'S QUARTER-MILLENNIAL.
It was twenty-two years ago that Plymouth celebrated her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and since then there has been a procession of these quarter-millennial anniversaries in the Old Colony and in the former Massa- chusetts Bay province, the observance at Gloucester the present week being the latest. Each of these early New England towns and cities has developed in its two hundred and fifty years of history an individuality of its own, - an individuality growing, to some extent, out of location, but also growing out of the peculiar character of the earliest settlers and the circumstances which led to settlement Two hundred and fifty years is a long time to Americans. It takes us back to the beginning of things, and opens to our view one of the most interesting periods in the history of the mother country. The genera- tion of men that saw the planting of the little hamlet by the sea was the same that signed the famous petition for the bill of rights, that elected the members of the Long Parliament, that brought Charles to the scaffold, that established the Commonwealth, and that made the people supreme instead of the throne.
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Gloucester has a history of which her sons and daughters may well be proud, and which deserves their careful study. The reunion of these sons and daughters last evening was a notable occasion, and the events of to-day will make it a notable one in her history.
The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Gloucester may well be celebrated with rejoicing. Nor in summing up the history of the town should the bravery of the men and the women be forgotten, - a bravery displayed not only occasionally, as in times of war, but daily in the pursuits of peace. The fishermen are they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters. Too often they snatch in vain the food for others from the jaws of death. The women endure patiently the strain of waiting, and bear up heroically under suspense and certain loss. Without doubt, because the tugs at their own heartstrings are so severe, their hearts go out so generously toward the sufferers by fire and flood in other towns. - Journal.
ANNIVERSARY NOTES.
The Beverly Citizen had nearly a column article on the Gloucester Anniversary Celebration in which it says : -
The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Gloucester is going to be a grand affair. For more than a year the citizens of that city, and especially the committees and members of the city government, have worked hard to arrange plans, to bring to the celebration the absent sons and daughters of Cape Ann, and to interest the people of Massachusetts in the affair. To their credit let it be said that they have accomplished much, and in the two months remaining before the final preparations, no stone will be left unturned to make it a success.
GLOUCESTER'S ANNIVERSARY.
Yesterday that great quarter-millennial anniversary celebration of the founding of Gloucester may be said to have fairly begun, with the reunion of " Gloucester's absent sons and daughters " at City Hall. To-day it is expected that the firemen's parade will take place during the forenoon. For the after- noon, there have been prepared what to many people must prove the central and culminating events of the week, the literary exercises in the mammoth tent at Stage Fort. The program includes an historical address, the sing- ing of an original ode, the recital of a poem written for the occasion, and other such appropriate features. That the attendance will tax severely the vast accommodations provided, that from first to last interest will be maintained at a high point, none can doubt who take into consideration either the excep- tional importance of the occasion itself or the high character and known ability of those on whom the success of the anniversary chiefly depends. Not only will the multitudes in personal attendance be greatly impressed, but countless thousands will eagerly peruse the reports as they appear in the newspapers.
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Perhaps the first thought suggested to many reflecting minds will be that the "New World " is becoming quite an old world. Not until within recent years has such a celebration as is now taking place been possible in New England. Our very oldest town, Plymouth, commemorated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its origin a little less than twenty-two years ago, five years this side of the close of our Civil War; and only thirty-four years ago, or three years before the firing on Fort Sumter, occurred a similar event with reference to the settlement of Jamestown, Va., where the first British colony in North America was established. But a very small beginning indeed had been made toward the mighty republic which we now live in when the earliest white settlers took up their abode on the wild, rugged, desolate, yet picturesque, shores of Cape Ann. If we think of what has since been wrought, if we compare that which is with that which was, two centuries and a half seem a small lapse of time for changes so marvellous. On the other hand, if we look back along the path of the generations and seek to form a mental picture of the civilized world as it existed in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and forty-two, it will seem that the city of Gloucester, together with the Commonwealth to whose renown it contributes so considerable a part, are venerable with antiquity. For, measured by the standard of human progress, the inhabited earth was young then and is ancient now.
A single one of the States of this Union contains nearly as many people as dwelt in England when Gloucester was founded. In the United States are nearly ten times as many. Two hundred and fifty years ago the mother country was in the midst of that momentous revolution which resulted in the downfall of the Stuart kings and the era of Oliver Cromwell's triumph. There were planted on English soil, to be transplanted, through successive migra- tions, on American soil, never to be permanently uprooted on any soil where the Anglo-Saxon race is dominant, the seeds of civil and religious liberty. The same generation that helped to found Gloucester sent members to the Long Parliament, furnished signatures to the petition for the bill of rights, and attached their names to the compact in the cabin of the Mayflower. At that time men were yet living who fought the Spanish Armada, witnessed the first performance of Shakespeare's plays, and read the first edition of Bacon's "Novum Organum." Many of the witnesses of that day were in doubt whether to accept the new Copernican or to adhere still to the old Ptolemaic theory of the starry universe.
It is by such facts as these, and many more which will throng upon the thoughts of any one who indulges in historical retrospect that the significance of this past quarter millennium will be made to take its due proportions. It will be useful to try to gain some such perspective while listening to or read- ing the recital of the deeply impressive Gloucester story. The less will not be dwarfed by the greater, but will partake of its greatness. We may fittingly think of the grand old town as adopting, to-day, in view of such an inter-con- tinental retrospect, the classic words of Aeneas to Dido, when recounting the siege of Troy : " All of which I saw and part of which I was."-Boston Press.
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THE ROLL OF HONOR.
In the records of the celebration there will be kept a very accurate list of the generous subscribers to the anniversary fund, so that in years to come future generations will be enabled to ascertain who supplied the sinews of war which enabled the committee having charge of the details of the celebra- tion to carry it through with such marvellous success.
The record is one which every lover of old Gloucester may be justly proud of, representing all classes of society, the men and women of wealth, with their hundreds, and the working men and women with their smaller but equally as generous amounts, - all of which was gratefully received and judi- ciously applied for the expenditures of the greatest celebration ever known in this section of New England.
This list represents the public spirited men and women of Gloucester in 1892, who gave of their substance to honor the grand old fishing town. -- Times.
Well, the anniversary has come and gone, leaving behind it a wealth of pleasant memories. Your Uncle Ezra and all his relatives were in it from the start and will never regret what they did toward making it a success. The croakers croaked, and the faint-hearted smiled sickly smiles as they saw the arrangements being perfected, but all cheered and were willing to be counted in it when they witnessed such magnificent success as followed the several days' program. Who will ever forget the speeches at that banquet, or those two parades? And then those tent exercises ! What an audience, and how smoothly everything passed off! That reunion of the absent sons and daughters was indeed a happy thought, and everybody was delighted - a fitting commencement of the grandest time old Cape Ann ever witnessed. We will talk about it and think about it as long as we live, and our children will long remember it after we have gone home. - UNCLE EZRA in Glouces- ter Times.
Nature did not bestow all her favors upon the people of Gloucester during their festivities. It was characteristic of the place to celebrate amid a north- easterly storm, but it did not dampen the enthusiasm or lessen the enjoyment of the company who gathered in the ancient city. We congratulate the people of that wonderfully vigorous and independent borough upon their success in reviving the old town's memories and in bringing its citizens and the whole community to a larger consciousness of what Gloucester has been to this Commonwealth. If some of the seaboard towns have been surpassed by those farther inland, those on the coast have been able to make up for the departure of some kind of business by turning to their attractions as places of resort in the summer, and many of them in this way, and Gloucester not the least among them, have more than regained their old eminence and pros- perity. - Boston Herald.
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Gloucester has been the resort of eastern Massachusetts the past week. Lawrence adds its congratulations to those of the sister cities for the suc- cessful carrying on of a worthy and magnificent celebration. The educa- tional value of such celebrations, marking eras in municipal history, cannot be overestimated. - Lawrence American.
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