USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Barre > Memorial of the one hundredth anniversary of the Incorporation of the town of Barre, June 17, 1874 ... > Part 15
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I have said the call came to the sons of Barre. I have, since I received the notice that I was to speak on this occasion, been to some little trouble to ascertain what kind of a response the sons of Barre who resided here made. I find there were 203 men, out of your population of about 2,600, who enlisted in the army or navy, and served a portion or the whole of the time during the war. Two
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hundred and three men, I think, made twenty-nine more than were required to furnish all the calls made upon you. Of these 203, eleven were commissioned officers, and upon looking over the town record, in which this is all set forth, I find they served in most, if not in all, our great armies. If there is any thing con- nected with the great struggle that will illuminate the page of history, and thrill every American heart with pride in the great campaigns of Sherman and the Army of the Potomac, and the battles of Newbern, Antietam, Wilderness, and Fredericksburg, you, as sons and daughters of Barre, have a right to a participation in the glory of it. For you were represented there. The sons of Barre, on all those and many other fields, did their whole duty ; and many of them have watered the southern soil with their blood. By their efforts, united with those who went out from other towns, other counties, and other commonwealths, we were at last, by the great favor of God, permitted to preserve this country, which had come down to us as a precious heritage, to be transmitted in turn to our children. The sentiment to which I am responding makes reference to the survivors of the war as well as to those who have passed on. I think I may say and express the senti- ment which animates every heart here, - every man, woman, and child within the sound of my voice, - that I sincerely hope those who served in the army or navy may live long to enjoy the bless- ings which a strong and just government confers, and to receive the gratitude of their fellow-citizens.
I have thought that there must be many persons here to-day who, when these matters were referred to, had a pang of regret that some loved one was missing here to-day. The town of Barre has with great liberality provided a splendid monument, upon which are inscribed the names of fifty-nine of her sons who lost their lives during the war. Of course this embraces the names of only those who resided here. I think an equal number of those who are identified with the town either by birth or adoption, but who entered the service from other places, will be found to have lost their lives in the war. By this I mean, that fifty-nine does not represent more than fifty per cent of the men whom Barre has a right to claim. I want to make a simple reference to the organi- zation of the men in the place. Two hundred and three men, I
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have told you, served. Co. K., Twenty-first Massachusetts, a three years' regiment, had thirty-nine Barre men in it. The regiment was mustered in July 19, 1861. They were engaged at Roanoke Island, Newbern, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Knoxville, the Wilderness, and Petersburg. Of the thirty-nine, four were reported to have been killed outright, besides a consid- erable number who died in consequence of exposure, climate, or other causes. I have been told that the departure of that com- pany created a profound sensation here ; that the people of both sexes and of all ages, breaking down the bounds of political party and social condition, came out in order to testify their respect and their love for those men who were willing to take their lives in their hands and go out in vindication of their country, - that they departed amid the tears of the women and the benedictions of the old men. Company K. of the Forty-second regiment, organized for nine months' service, contained thirty-three Barre men. They were mustered in October 14, 1862. Three of them died from disease. Company F. of the Fifty-third regiment contained fifty- four Barre men, and was mustered in October 17, 1862. It was the fortune of that regiment to do a larger amount of service and to lose a larger percentage of its men than any other nine months' regiment. Eleven men lost, six killed in action, and five died from wounds or disease. Captain John G. Mudge - God bless him ! - was in command of that company. He ought to be here to-day, and if you are the men I think you are, you will have him stand up, so that you may testify your respect for him. About thirty men served in the Thirty-fourth, and the remainder were scattered among different regiments and batteries.
I have said that there must be more or less persons here who have a pang of regret that a brother or son or husband is not here to-day to join in this centennial. It happens in some cases that they don't know just where the remains of the loved one repose ; but they have this consolation, at any rate, that whether they repose here among their friends and kindred, or whether they sleep in the valleys or on the mountains of the South, or are rocked in the cradle of the deep, far, far o'erhead the jewelled stars are keeping God's watch above them. His hand reaches very wide ; and they shall all be gathered. Though you cannot
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see the form of your precious one, - fair temple of manliness and honor as he was, - yet may you think of him, with -
" His white tent pitched on the beautiful plain, Where the tumult of battle comes never again ; Where the smoke of the war-cloud ne'er darkens the air, Nor the spirit is troubled by the shadow of care."
To those who were lost in the war, I know this people have the warmest gratitude ; and although they have erected a hand- some monument to their memory, their best monument shall be, their country redeemed, and at last, thank God, wholly free.
Now, then, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a lesson to be derived from all this, - from the toil and labor and sacrifice it cost to preserve this country for transmission to our children ; and I don't know that I can do better than to give you the words of President Lincoln, spoken on the field of Gettysburg. The love we bore that great man, and the appropriate character of his language on that occasion, give it great significance and power. He said : "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here ; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ; to take from these honored graves increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full meas- ure of their devotion ; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." *
IX. Old Men and Women of Barre : Worthy representatives of a past generation. Honored in old age for their sterling worth no less than the respect and deference due from youth and middle life. Fortunate in being permitted to witness this day. May the evening of their lives be calm as a summer's morning, and their final sleep the sleep of the just.
The PRESIDENT. - On this platform, as the First Vice- President, there sits an honored citizen of the town, whose birthday came very near to the day we celebrate, whose
* In obedience to the suggestion of this speaker, the President presented Capt. Mudge to the audience, who received him with three hearty cheers.
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father and grandfather were among the first settlers, who has for near an hundred years gone in and out among this people, in all the varied relations of life, so as to win uni- versal respect, and who, connected as he is with the memo- ries of the past, still retains his interest in the affairs of the present, and honors this day by riding on horseback at the head of the mounted escort that would have escorted the procession through the streets but for the rain, though ninety-two years have passed over his head. I greet him here to-day, and introduce to you Mr. FRANCIS RICE.
REMARKS OF MR. FRANCIS RICE.
Mr. President, - I feel glad so many of my aged friends are able to be here to witness the events of this historic day. Age has wrinkled our brows and whitened our locks, but none of us remember a hundred years.
I can remember when the centre of Barre was a small place ; the common was about one acre, lying on the east side of Peters- ham road; on this was the meeting-house and school-house. Around this acre was one store and dwelling-house connected, a barn, a few horse-sheds, and two taverns, and but few buildings near the centre. The first house on the Dana road was on the Houghton hill. On the Petersham road was Dr. Brooks's house, near where J. F. Woods lives; the next was Esquire Bent's, where Lyman Rice lives. On the Templeton road there was no house between the common and the Samuel Bacon place, where Willard Fessenden lives. What there is of Barre built up since then is within my recollection.
I rejoice to see so many old residents of Barre present to par- ticipate in our social meeting. May you have a pleasant time, and a safe return to your respective homes.
We shall soon part ; many of us will never meet again in this world.
May we all meet again in the fold of the Living God, no wan- derer lost.
X. The Clergy : Everywhere foremost in influencing for good the gener- ations of men, and in Barre not behind. We cherish the memory of a
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Dana and Thompson, of Storrs and Bullard, and Fay and Peck, of Cate and Walker, and all the others whose ministrations here have received their reward in the great hereafter ; and to all who, having served their God and their fellow-man for a season here, have passed to other fields of labor, we send a hearty all hail !
Responded to by Rev. WILLIAM CRAWFORD, a native of Barre, now of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
REMARKS OF REV. WILLIAM CRAWFORD.
In behalf of the clergymen who claim to belong to Barre, by the fact either of having been born here or having lived or labored here, allow me to express the gratification we must feel at the honorable mention of us you have been pleased to make. Paying honor as we do to the long procession of workers who for more than a century have worn out their lives to amass the fair heritage into which we have entered, we are glad that we may also pay honor to the faithful and godly men who beat down the rank growth of error and vice and planted here for us the seeds of truth and righteousness. While we float happily upon the tide of this ample civilization, or dwell upon its fruitful banks, we may remember that in the period of wandering and weariness some prophet smote the rock in the desert and waters gushed out ; that when the waters were bitter, some prophet cast his handful of healing salt into the spring, and the sweet stream which issued thenceforth carried life and beauty and joy whither- soever it went.
I say this the more freely, because I feel as if just now I were less of a clergyman than a layman. For a year past it has been my privilege to sit in the pews and hear and criticise, absorb and reject, glow with pleasure or disgust, like the congregation around me. I have learned by experience how vapid and tedious a thing a sermon may be, - how utterly profitless by reason of arid learning or goodish commonplace or absolute controversy. I have learned, also, how vital and stimulating a force a sermon may be,-how, by its just views of life, its sympathy with sorrow and doubt, its rebuke of littleness and wrong, its enthusiasm for what is true and pure and noble, it may kindle ordinary men into heroism, and prove like that meat from heaven in the strength of which the fainting prophet walked for many days.
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In glancing back over the ecclesiastical history of Barre, and gathering up my own fragmentary recollections, my impressions have been strengthened that many good and true men have labored here in the ministry. The unions between pastor and people have been formed for better, for worse ; some of them evi- dently for worse, but most of them for better. In the first class, doubtless many would be disposed to place that bellicose and obstinate man who labored here as the pioneer, - Rev. Thomas Frink. I think this may be the judgment of the committee, as his name is omitted from the sentiment which has been placed in my hands. It certainly was the judgment of the council, who were in session for six days, that Mr. Frink had displayed an arbitrary and passionate temper, and his usefulness was at an end ; and this judgment was endorsed by the people, who assem- bled in large numbers in the old church, and, after being drawn together in a ring near the easterly end of the church upon the green, voted by a great majority that the pastoral relation should be dissolved. It must be confessed that Mr. Frink has not made a very imposing figure, when Mr. Caldwell marches him out of church by the coat-collar. Nor does he exhibit a very Christian spirit in carrying his case into the courts. As an offset to this, however, we recollect that Mr. Frink lived in Rutland close by for thirteen years before he was called here, and the presumption is, that unless he had borne a creditable reputation he never would have been sought by the people of Barre; that he labored here for fourteen years in just the period when every thing was unsettled and perhaps turbulent, and when collision was most likely to oc- cur ; that perhaps his offence may have sprung from great provo- cations ; that he was chosen to perform some important services, such as that of preacher before the General Court ; that he has honorable mention from his successor, Dr. Thompson, for his ability and reputation ; and that his tombstone in the church-yard at Rutland (not always a trustworthy witness) speaks of him as a " reverend and learned " man, who " departed this life for a better " at the goodly age of 73. If we consider the peculiar difficulties of the pioneer, we may be more lenient to his faults.
Of Mr. Dana, his successor, there is but one testimony, - that he was a man of good presence, happy elocution, spicy and
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facetious in conversation, who lived esteemed and beloved, and died lamented, after a pastorate of thirty-four years. That he was also of a thrifty and prudent turn, may be inferred from a sentence in his letter of acceptance of July, 1767, which says, " I must beg leave to desire, expect, and depend upon being provided yearly with a sufficient quantity of firewood fit for use at the place of my abode, if Providence should put me into a family state." The parish did not see the matter in the same light ; it is, nevertheless, handed down by tradition that they provided him with wood by donation for a number of years, and finally by vote.
Of Dr. Thompson, his successor, it is needful I should say but little. His record is in the church he so long served ; in the school which he visited and tended for forty years as chairman of the school committee; in the memories and hearts of those to whom he ministered, many of whom still survive; and in his semi-centennial sermon and the accompanying speeches, which make an impression on the reader of a sweet, mellow, and vener- able old age.
The next name mentioned in the sentiment is that of Mr. Storrs, the first pastor of the Evangelical Church. I have had the means of learning but little of him, save that he was esteemed by all as a man of good ability and consistent Christian char- acter. Toward his death, which occurred after his removal from this charge, it was his earnest desire that all his children should receive a liberal education, though to an observer it might have been a puzzling question from what source the means were to be drawn. As an illustration of what tact and perseverance can do, it is of interest to know that his three sons graduated at one of our best colleges, and his two daughters at one of our best semi- naries, and that all occupy places of credit and usefulness.
Mr. Fay's name - the next one mentioned in the sentiment - is mingled with my earliest recollections, but I cannot recall his features, and perhaps I never saw them. His letter accepting his call is long, carefully worded, and breathes good taste, sincerity, and earnestness in every line. During his pastorate of three years, he acquitted himself as a workman "needing not to be ashamed," in pulpit and parish, and the regrets and affection of the people followed him as he retired from his work only to die.
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Succeeding him, for a few months only, was Rev. Mr. Spofford, a young man pale and consumptive, who worked the more ear- nestly because he knew the night was soon coming, and was consumed the more rapidly from the exceeding brightness of his burning. Upon my imagination, too young to measure but old enough to feel, his energy left the impression of unexampled heroism.
Of Mr. Bullard my impressions are more definite. A graduate of Amherst, where, I think, he bore away the highest honors of his class, and a successful teacher in Leicester Academy, he came here at the age of thirty-five with a high reputation, which he sustained and increased during a pastorate of seven years. A careful scholar and a logical thinker, he employed the forms of argument rather than of appeal, and excelled more in addresses to the reason than in the fervid and sympathetic discourse which finds its way by the straighter avenues of intuition and feeling to the heart. Once or twice a year he would visit our home and remain at tea ; and on such occasions we children felt that we had received a peculiar honor, though we regarded him with reverence and awe. I do not think he knew how to approach nearer to the young than bowing distance, though perhaps in those days I was too shy to be approached. His pulpit per- formances were listened to with admiration and pride. One dis- course on the " dignity of labor" received much praise ; and some here may recall with a smile the repetition of it at a brill- iant wedding, and what emphatic honor he then gave not only to those who till the soil and provide for our material wants, but to those who secure our rights in the courts of justice. He must have had a hearty hatred of dogs, for in his discourse at the dedi- cation of the new church he deemed it necessary to say, with great energy of manner, with reference to them he could use the language of a lieathen poet, " Procul, O procul, este profani," or the plainer injunction of an inspired apostle, " Beware of dogs." He was a man of rare power and purity of character, and when he died it was felt that there was a singular fitness in the text chosen by Dr. Paine, of Holden, for the funeral : " Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel." The house on that occasion was full of people gathered from near
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and from far. As the preacher drew towards the close of his discourse, he spoke of some engagements he had recently made with the deceased, " engagements," he continued, " which can now never be fulfilled." Here his voice faltered and broke, and as he paused to recover his self-possession, the sobbing of the whole congregation told how deeply they were moved. After the ser- vices the coffin was placed upon a table on the green in front of the door, and as the people passed by and gazed with reverence on those pale features, they certainly felt, if they did not say, -
" He was a man, take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again."
Mr. Cate, of the Baptist Church, I recollect as an eminently good man and deservedly beloved. Mr. Walker was exceedingly plain, rather long and prosy, but evidently sincere. I think he might have said, as did that Scotch minister who was asked, after having preached for an hour and a half, " if he was not tired," " Ha ! ha ! I was as fresh as a new-blown rose ; but it would have done your heart good to have seen how tired the people were." One of his texts, " Go and speak to that young man," is still fresh in my mind. My whole heart pays its homage of respect to that plain and guileless man, who toiled in his field all the week and preached the word of God upon the Sabbath, and I have no doubt that he has received a good reward.
Of Rev. David Peck, the last called from the world, I must say a few words. He was a man of slight frame and delicate health, and was weighed down during a part of his ministry by peculiar domestic afflictions. He was often obliged to spur him- self through his tasks, and could not help betraying the languor which he felt. He was, nevertheless, a man far above the average in scholarship, literary taste, and oratorical ability. In his last years he wrote frequently for the papers, and a series of articles on the development hypothesis obtained much commendation. In botany he was an enthusiast, and amid his severer studies he diverted himself by his love of flowers. There were probably few professional botanists in the State who had made larger col- lections in this department. One of his discourses for the spring was from the text, " Thou blessest the springing thereof ; " and I
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can remember how, with the precision of a scholar and the enthu- siasm of an amateur, he described the tender bud folded in down and shielded by an impenetrable covering until Providence sent upon it the reviving airs of spring and called it forth to the light. A beautiful park, which was set off by his efforts in his last parish of Sunderland, will remain as one of his memorials.
As a matter of interest, I have endeavored to ascertain how many clergymen the town has produced, and I give you the list made out, imperfect as it doubtless is. You may be reminded of the net which was cast into the sea and "gathered of every kind."
Rev. Seth E. Winslow; Rev. James W. Thompson, D.D. ; Rev. Abraham Jenkins, Rev. James T. Bixby, Rev. A. W. Ste- vens, Rev. Elijah Demond, Rev. Robert T. Conant, Rev. R. T. Robinson, Rev. Thomas G. Grassie, Rev. William Craw- ford, Rev. Sidney Crawford, Rev. David Sherman, Rev. M. V. B. Johnson, Rev. Charles L. Howe, Rev. Owen Patterson, Rev. A. Cleaveland, Rev. Alpheus Harding, Rev. Charles Jenkins.
XI. Schools and Education : As very early in our history it has been seen that our fathers recognized the importance of education, and provided for the support of the schools as the basis of our prosperity and safety as a community, - and as along the progress of the century we have kept up with the progress of the times, - so to-day we appreciate our school sys- tem, and honor all connected with its administration as holding in their hands the future character of the town.
Dr. JOSEPH W. GROSVENOR, of Lockport, New York, was introduced, who said : -
REMARKS OF DR. GROSVENOR.
The schools of a town are the exponent of its character. De- scribe to me the schools of any community, and I will paint for you, in accurate outline and correct coloring, its character, moral, intellectual, æsthetical.
My knowledge of the educational pulse of this goodly town excites in me no surprise, as I behold the array of talent and beauty exhibited by the sons and daughters of Barre here to-day.
Memory takes me back nearly a quarter of a century to the
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·
school-room under the hill, with its theatrical rows of seats, the monster stoves, ofttimes made savory with the spices of India, the chalk-line along the floor where we were made to toe the mark, huge benches carved by youthful artists with caricatures worthy of the pencil of Thomas Nast, and written all over with hieroglyphics of which Egyptian scribes never dreamed. Here fought with bullets of paper the same boys who in after years, as men, on a wider field fought with bullets of lead. The girls fought with billets-doux. The snowy forts were but miniatures of the fortifications of stone and earth behind which, in after-time, many a brave son of Barre maintained the law, the liberty, and honor of his country. Oft did the walls of that very room resound with the eloquence of Webster and Clay, as the juvenile orators decided the fate of states and nations ; oft on the rostrum there did Norval feed his father's flock on the Grampian hills; oft was heard, " You'd scarce expect one of my age to speak in public on the stage ;" and oft mid snow and ice bore a youth a banner with this strange device, "Excelsior."
Mathematics, reading, and spelling went hand-in-hand with the birchen rod. Whoever broke a rule of school was sure to feel the breaking of another rule. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was the educational philosophy of those days. Seeds of rudi- mentary knowledge, of science and philosophy, were sown in rich mental soil, and cultured with a careful hand. The developed trees have blossomed and borne abundant fruits of usefulness, integrity, and honor, which have influenced for good nearly every quarter of the globe. Schools similar in character have crowned the hills of this fair centre of the Commonwealth ever since the corner-stone of its foundation was laid.
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