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 9
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ODE. "WAKE, FAIR CITY." Music, -" Hail Columbia."
I.
Wake, fair City by the Sea !
Wake, and keep thy Jubilee ! Now call thy sons and daughters home ; From every quarter bid them come, And join thy children by the sea,
To swell thy song of Jubilee.
Let the sea lift up its voice, Let our rocky shores rejoice, Let our hills and valleys ring, While our Jubilee we sing ! Wake, O people, strong and free, In your City by the Sea ! All our voices join to sing, Make our hills and valleys ring !
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II.
Rise, fair Daughter of the Sea ! Praise the Power that founded thee ! Who scooped thy well-formed basin out, And stocked the waters 'round about, Intent that hither should be drawn Men of the stoutest bone and brawn,
From distant lands and neighboring shores,
In search of ocean's finny stores, From thy fair haven sailing forth To fishing banks south, east, and north. Thus the Power whose forming hand Joined the water to the land, Daughter of the fruitful sea, In his wisdom founded thee.
III.
Crowned with fair prosperity, Growing City by the Sea ! See, rising fair on every hand, What noble structures grace thy land ; See, moored upon thy sheltered tide,
What fleet of swift-winged schooners ride,
Waiting the breath of favoring gale To loose the cable, spread the sail, And o'er the ocean-tide to sweep, The harvest of the sea to reap. City planted by the side Of our pleasant northern tide, Thus the treasures of the sea Bring thee fair prosperity.
IV.
Rock-ribbed City by the Sea ! Thy fair stones shall honor thee, Where'er in stately piles they rise, To meet the gaze of critic eyes ; But most honored art thou when Thou sendest forth thy noble men,
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Thy men of power and probity, Faithful on the land and sea, Trained in thy homes, thy fanes, and schools, To form their lives by Christian rules. Men of high integrity, Travelling on land or sca, Bearing, wheresoe'er they go, Fame that virtue can bestow.
V.
Sons and daughters, fair and frec,
Born and nurtured by the sea,
Let your hearts be brave and wide,
Like the broad Atlantic tide ;
Be your spirits strong and hale,
Like the freshening ocean gale ;
Now heed the call that comes to you,
To make your lives upright and true ;
Let it be your worthy aim
To exalt your city's fame. Sons and daughters by the sea, Called to true nobility, Keep alive the loyal flame ! Honor your fair city's name !
VI.
Fair-crowned Daughter of the Sea ! .
Keep thy fair prosperity ;
If thy crown thou still wouldst wear,
Make thy garments white and fair ;
Let thy marts of trade be clean,
Put away the marts of sin.
By care and art, in due degree,
Be a conqueror of the sea,
So thy brave sons may safer ride While toiling for thee on the tide. Work the work of righteousness, And thy sorrows shall be less ; And the foodful, friendly sea Bring its tributes still to thee.
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VII.
Turn, O City fair, and see What thy future fame may be ; If built on truth, thou shalt be seen Sitting as an Ocean Queen ; Thy queenly port and rule confessed Through all our borders east and west ;
The while thy full, outreaching hand
Scatters plenty through the land ; Thus gaining wealth and true renown, And adding jewels to thy crown. Rise, O City by the Sea ! Reach thy large expectancy ; From thy years of toil and strife, Rise to higher, better life.
Then came the oration by Rev. John L. R. Trask, D. D., of Springfield, Mass. Dr. Trask is of Gloucester parentage, and his oration was a masterpiece of historic research, and was listened to with rapt attention.
THIS ADDRESS IS DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER AND MOTHER,
WHO WERE BORN AND MARRIED IN GLOUCESTER,
AND WHOSE ASHES REST IN THE SACRED DUST OF THE DEAR AND VENERABLE TOWN.
LITERARY EXERCISES. John L. R. Trask, D. D , Orator.
THE GLOUCESTER OF YESTERDAY AND THE GLOUCESTER OF TO-MORROW.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS DELIVERED BY REV. J. L. R. TRASK, D. D., OF SPRINGFIELD, AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF GLOUCESTER .*
For the first time in her history, our Mother, venerable and beloved, summons to her ancient home among the rocky hills and beside the responding sea, the sons and daughters nursed along her coves and on her farms who thence have gone to make elsewhere an ampler fortune than she could give. Her voice of invitation and of welcome they have heard, and as they gather with the children who have never left the rude but still attractive hearthstones, they are glad to see that although two centuries and one half of time have risen and set above their parent's face, there is to-day no wrinkle on her brow. The gods of home and love have idealized our Mother in this festal hour, and no fairer light can fall upon these hills than that which lingers on her benig- nant face, nor can any voice more tuneful or attractive echo from these sands along which our ocean rolls, than that which speaks to us from the past out of which she has come to celebrate with her glad children her quarter of a thousand years.
Varied and inspiring are the emotions of the hour -yet full of charm, and how significant ! Happy memories blend with those less joyous as we wend our way hither. It is an hour of triumph, as every pealing bell and voice of cannon and shout of man and swelling strain of song do clearly show, but the struggle and the pain which are the ominous undertone of every victory will play their minor chord in the music of the hour. The voices of those who have made Gloucester what she is will join unheard in the chorus and their reverend forms will reappear on the crowded streets.
* In preparing this address, the writer not only perused with care the Records of the Town of Gloucester, but read also all the local histories which have been published. He spent many hours among the Gloucester archives at the State House. To these sources he owes the historical data which appear in these pages. He collected many other interesting items for which there was no room in this address. Indeed, only a part of the following pages were read to the public on the anniversary day.
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With how royal a welcome should we greet them, could we look into their faces or take their hands ! 'The fathers and mothers of the town who in its early and uncertain years laid the foundations in the lonely hearthstone and built the walls of virtues, strong as adamant ; the first minister, of gentle but adventurous spirit, who on old ruins dared to recreate a community, and all his succeeding sons who gave type and tone to the religious life and kept the altar fire aflame in the midst of dark, sad poverty and depleting war; the teachers who im- parted their personality with the lessons they taught, and were men of power because they made the vocation of the school-master a sacred profession, in which devotion and self-sacrifice were blended with knowledge ; the physician who with scant skill but powerful drug laid down his experience with tender hand and heart at the cottage door, to bring in some new aspirant for life and air, or went on foot through the winter snow to soothe the final hour of one who was about to make his exit into a world, where let us hope the conflict will be less stern than here; the merchant, whose ships flashed their phosphorescent wakes in every sea ; the trader who, over his rustic counter, caught the meagre dollar ; the farmer who extorted from the not over fertile soil the food which in the long, tough winter gave the villager hope of a better harvest in days to come ; the soldier on the grim frontier or off on far away excursions of defence, drilled only in the steady courage of his unshrinking and desperate heart ; the sailor in the pent forecastle or among the whirling shrouds, the bell of whose doomed vessel is muffled in the sands which lie below that ocean whose pitiless storms tossed the seamen into eternity, but whose hardy crew in search of game has given a historic significance to the fish whose golden symbol hangs below our State House dome ; these all and many another by their humble and honorable toil, common workmen and workwomen though they were, contributing to the warp and woof of our present prosperity, and building out of the isolated hamlet the goodly city whose doors swing wide open to us all - these, I say, have a place in the festive processions and mingle their voices in the Te Deum of our praise. But for these, our Gloucester would be as hard to find as the huts of the first fishermen who landed here three years after Plymouth.
Meantime, we who have come back will set ourselves in chime with the sentiment of the hour by visiting once more the house whose roof covered us with our first shelter ; with heart saddened by precious memories we shall go again to the burial places where rests the dust which is kindred with our own. We shall recall the shadowed life of an earlier time, which was not all shadow, though poverty and the pains
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of hardship shed upon it their midnight spell, for that life was cheered by a faith which illumed and by a hope which conquered. We shall walk over the old roads so often trodden by feet which moved to the step of truths which thrill like music and transform drudgery into romance ; we shall listen to the sound of the ocean's manifold voice as it sings among the rocks along which came the pioneers of 1623 who faded soon under the depressing touch of misfortune's dark wand, and the men of 1642 who broke the wand in twain and faced misfortune until it fled. We shall sail dreamily up the full Annisquam amid the odor of the swaying marsh grass and the bayberry from Fox and Wolf Hills, and along the summer islands whose solitudes soothe the heated heart of those who have found in these disdained spots an asylum for their fatigue ; we shall climb the not steep ascent of Railcut, whence the eye can follow the sea all about the old Gloucester, as on the shield of Achilles the ocean was poured round the whole ; we shall encamp at Bass Rocks ; and across the beach of Little Good Harbor and the twin towers of Thacher's melancholy isle see the late moon emerge from the horizon, or shall dally after twilight or in the early day along the old Manchester road, over the slow brook and through the dull pines, carpeted with the leaf of the arbutus, until we hear as we did when we were young the ocean ring his resounding horn amid the fabulous depths of Rafe's Chasm; thence across the bluff - with Norman's Woe in sight - saluted by the fragrance of the magnolia, to the summer city blessed by this gentle name, and on through the woods of the Little Heater to the old lily pond, and so back to the town by the rural highway we used to know as " Apple Row"; or through the embowered lanes of the West Parish and over the sands of Coffin's Beach and across the bar on a sure tide to the rocky headland, and " round the Cape," past a dozen coves and The Three Turks' Heads and the Beaver Dam and the Farms and Vinson's Spring to the Town Pump which for many a generation blessed the town with its ancient gifts, as clear and fresh as that which came from Horeb. By such memories and such revivings of life shall we re-create our home - for this is our Gloucester, and not less ours because the facile hand of improvement has changed many a feature and remanded to the inexor- able past the forms and faces of the olden times.
Gathered on this historic spot, where by undisputed tradition the first settlement was made, and to which the name of "Fishermen's Field " still clings as the only monument of that primitive period of our municipal life, it seems fitting that some notice should be made of that first era of the town, - that we should drop our plummet here among
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these ancient soundings, and apply the square and compass of the builder's art to the rude architecture of that day when the structure was begun, and regale ourselves with the thought that however tempo- rary and meagre was the commencement, yet it was here that the Colony of Massachusetts Bay had its origin ; that Salem is our daughter rather than our sister ; that as Charlestown and Boston and Dorchester were largely founded of Salem men, they too may find their Mother here ; that as Hartford and other towns in Connecticut were settled from Dorchester and vicinity, that colony also may claim inheritance in this ancient cradle ; and as it was in Hartford that constitution was made by the Rev. Thomas Hooker, which furnished the model for the Constitution of the United States, we may with that complacent spirit, which is the right of citizens as they celebrate the life of their native town, take our congratulations in the large and significant history which under the providence of God has been developed in the growth of the Commonwealth and the increasing power of the nation. It was Massachusetts Bay and not Plymouth which shaped the early life of Boston, and it was Boston which, at the head and centre of the colo- nial life hereabouts, gave form and strength to the early struggle, and afterward, at the State House and in Faneuil Hall and in the tower of the Old North and in the pulpits of a hundred adjacent churches, directed the public opinion which ended in the Constitution and the Union. We are like little Bethlehem in the heart of Palestine ; famous, not so much in ourself, as in the great event which had its cradle here.
Among the fables of the Indians is a story of a river with double currents, - its waters ran both ways. It is so with our thoughts in these moments of anniversary. We look backward, and we look for- ward, too. Man is history, he is prophecy also. Hope and memory run in his veins like opposing tides or the two-fold stream of the ancients. If we live only in reminiscence, we shall wither. If we for- get the past, we may forget its foundations, too. The proper attitude of the serious mind is to recall the days which are gone and to antici- pate the future. And as we dedicate our gala days to prophecy as well as to memory, we shall find our theme to be, " the Gloucester of yesterday and the Gloucester of to-morrow."
It was a fancy of our youth that somewhere on this Cape landed the great John Smith, Governor of Virginia, Admiral of New England, voyager in all seas, and adventurer in many climes. He it was indeed who in memory of a maiden who showed him kindness when mis- fortune befell him in the Orient attached her name, Tragabigzanda, to the headland ; and the "Three Turks' Heads " was the pagan christen-
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ing he gave to some of our rocky isles. But, unfortunately for us, since the event would have invested our Cape with a romantic interest, there is no evidence from the captain's travels that he touched our shore with his foot. In that adventurous voyage which he made in an open boat from the Penobscot to Cape Cod, Smith observed with care the features of the land and afterward gave a glowing account of its timbers and its birds, and left names modified at a later date to Cape Elizabeth, Cape Anne, and the River Charles. He made a map of the country, too, which, faulty in some particulars, is remarkably accurate in its general outline of the tortuous coasts. But he left no footprint here. His best bequest is the name Anne, or Anna, in honor of the consort of the king, in whose royal name he sailed.
But, if Capt. John Smith did not give celebrity to our Cape by disembarking here, we can claim some honor in being visited by Samuel De Champlain, founder of Quebec, an earlier navigator, who with the spirit of adventure and discovery common to his times is sailing to find what he can of land and knowledge. What a gentle picture is that given by De Champlain himself, as in that mellow summer day in 1605, he saw afar the eastern shore of our familiar cape, and in the early twilight of the following morning dropped his adventurous anchors near the rocky coast.
The Indians creeping down through the timber, their quick, keen glance to see if the visitor is friend or foe, the launched canoe, the dance of joy on the shore to mark their own good will, the landing of the French explorer, the reception in the rude gorgeousness of the native fashion, the exchange of knives and bread for beads and plumes, the crayon and the chart, the lines the Indian drew as teacher of geography to the expedition, imitating unconsciously his red brethren, who before this time, with a piece or chalk, had made sketches of the New England coast for Gosnold - marking northerly the coast to show where the Merrimac met the sea behind the sand bar of Plum Island, and southerly to note how the shore swelled and sagged between the Cape and the River Charles and beyond - the six pebbles on the sand by which the Sachem became first university professor of history to the navigator, the friendly farewell, and the sailing away to Cape Cod to return in September, -is any painting in the gallery of our primitive New England more pleasing or more suggestive ?
The autumn interview is less ideal, but its incidents are set forth in a pre-Raphaelite way .. The grapes are well ripened. The common vegetables are in abundance, for nature has had one of her phenomenal years. The harvest is nearly done. Two hundred savages are here.
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The walnut and the cypress and the oak and the ash and the beech make up the rich woodland, under whose leafy roof these men abide, while the odorous sassafras luxuriates at the tent door.
The chief approaches and brings a friend, both of whom are enter- tained by De Champlain in noble style. Were it Henry IV. of France, King Henry of Navarre and the white plume, Champlain's own mon- arch, he could not have been received with a finer grace or have been invited to sit at a more splendid banquet. The Emperor of the Woods is here and duc honors are paid to his rustic majesty. Another chief is presented with a garment, which does not hang with the ease and freedom of the flowing Indian robe, and he gives it away. It is clear that the Parisian draper's art is not deemed good form in the American woods. The ship's surgeon cures a native of some pestilent malady, and thus the navigator blends humanity and skill with fashion and the sumptuous board. Next day there is an Indian dance with some omi- nous phases in the figures the dancers make, but ten musketeers appear in a manner apparently very casual, and the dancers change partners and vanish. Soon the Frenchman plans for his departure. If he will but stay a day longer, the natives will bring two thousand friends to call. But whether this seems too large a number to entertain or whether he fears the Greeks bearing such a gift, the gracious captain is persuaded that a deeper comfort dwells in the deep sea and under the sailor's benign stars, and he goes away forever, having given the place the mellow name of Le Beau Port, - the Charming Harbor.
Since our Cape, in a clear sky, can be seen from Plymouth, it is not improbable that some of the Pilgrims had sailed across the bay and made a visit to our shore, before the date usually assigned as the time of occupation under the charter issued by Lord Sheffeild. But the real date of the beginning here was in 1623, when the Dorchester Company, under the leadership of the Rev. John White, sent a colony of men, with a due supply of farming tools, and all the necessary equipment for industry on land and sea. It was daybreak at Cape Anne.
Three thousand pounds sterling were raised for the Dorchester Company. Winslow and Robert Cushman were enlisting supporters in the mother country. Articles were written and published, which were afterward supposed to have set " to faire a glosse " on Cape Anne.
The planters of Plymouth sent of their small number to aid in building the fishing stage. A great frame-house is set up. The harbor speaks of safety, and the shore and the near sea invite for fishing. Cattle are introduced, and of good grade. Salt works are established, as there is at present no connection with Cadiz. The land is not
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greatly promising, but wise heads for planning, and steady arms for work, will coax some kind of a harvest from the laziest soil. Two overseers are appointed, -one for the land and one for the sea. Mr. Conant soon comes to be the Governor. He is only thirty years of age, but the precious quality of manhood is in him, and not having this, if he were sixty years old, he would be an idle officer. Lyford is here and perhaps Oldham, too, both of whom Governor Bradford thinks little of. Lyford, he says, is the evil genius of New England. Oldham is not much better. Perhaps it was these men - it was certainly men of their unfortunate temper, who had to do with the disturbance which brought Capt. Miles Standish to our Cape for his only known visit. It was then that the doughty soldier of Plymouth met the gentle Mr. Conant, and found out that "moderation and prudence " are a good match for military aggressiveness, especially when the right is on the gentler side .* "Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just." The Sheffeild Charter provides not only for liberty " to fish & fowle & hawke & hunt," but furnishes land for public uses, "for the building of a Towne, Scholes, Churches, Hospitals," and for the support of ministers and magistrates. Religion and law shall be the twin guardians of the young town, and humanity and education shall join hands for the pro- tection of the people.
Fourteen persons winter here, in 1623-24, and perhaps fifty people, of all ages and of both sexes, had been here at the time of the dissolu- tion of the enterprise. But these were enough to create a permanent community had they all been of the spirit of Conant, who, when he was urged at a later date to return to England, says, " I gave my utter deniall to goe away with them." Of like temper was John Winthrop, brave as he was devout and religious as he was resolute, who in the cabin of the " Arbella," drew up a small paper, in which are these words, "For this end [i. e., to make the expedition a success], we must be knit together in this work as one man. . . . We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others necessities." But, all the men were not of this unflinching cast. The fishing did not prosper. The shipping depreciated in value. The salt works were destroyed by fire. There are hints of bad government - of troubles in the domestic camp, which we may well believe, if Lyford and Oldham are using their natural gifts. Some of the men lost their heart and went back to their English home, and disappointment and
* A gentleman from Plymouth, who listened to the address, took exception to this paragraph, in a kind letter to the writer. The writer has reviewed the history at this point, but does not find any good reason for revising his opinion.
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dismay shadowed the land. And the morning and the evening were the first day. The sun had set in clouds, and the " Fisherman's Field " became a name for the historian to conjure with. In 1626 the few hardy spirits who had braved the disaster embarked for Salem and gave their heart and life to make the history of that typical New England town.
What an air of romance and of mystery too, hangs about that first Gloucester ! On what rock was it of this rugged shore that these later Pilgrims landed, the first settlers of Massachusetts Bay? Where is the path they trod through the inhospitable woods or along the lonely sands as they went from the shore they touched to the place where they slept that first long, dark, and uncertain night? Whom did they meet on the way? Who was the first sentinel of that scant encampment? That earliest home, where did it stand, or any of the houses beneath whose roofs of thatch they made their homes and lit the unquenched fires of affection and of peace? Who has found the stones which were deeply laid for the hugh chimney stack? Where were the first meeting house and the first school? Where was the first town meeting held, for although no organized town was here, can it be that fourteen or forty primitive New Englanders could be together and not take a vote about something, or nominate a committee to investigate and report? And the burial place too - who knows its location ? - for it is not to be supposed that all of those hardy pioneers escaped the prostration of disease or the sad fate which waits like a black angel at the couch of pain? What were their thoughts, gloomy or inspiring, as in the cold, still twilight, they heard the surge and the moan of the ocean which lay stretched from their doors to the happy Motherland - country of green meadows and prosperity, which just now they had left? What music was it, and who sang, which by its sweet chords brought to these men in the subdued pathos of memory the vision of Cathedral towers whose chimes had summoned them to its places of prayer, or of lowly meeting houses where Sternhold and Hopkins had set the key to the praises of the Lord? Alas ! that we know so little of it all. A few prosaic incidents ; one or two names like Conant and Woodbury and Goodman and Norman and Palfrey, and the volume closes.
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