USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Westhampton > Memorial of the reunion of the natives of Westhampton, Mass., September 5, 1866 > Part 7
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Again, sir, the town has had in it some persons supposed to be skilled in the divining properties of the witch-hazel and sweet apple tree bush. Once upon a time, one of these rod-diviners came into the store of Mr. S. Judd, jr., claiming before a crowd
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that he could tell the precise spot where the money drawer was, if there was any money in it, by the motion of a sprig of witch- hazel. Mr. Judd urged him to try his skill ; and out of the door the diviner goes, after a rod of witch-hazel. While he was out, Mr. Judd slyly moved the money drawer from the west side of the store, where it had always been kept, over to a new place on the east side of the building, and there hid it under the counter. Soon the man came into the store with his crotched stick, and began his operations. Holding the rod tight in his two hands, he moved slowly round and round in the space be- tween the two counters, walking carefully and gravely step by step, and stopping frequently to catch the first symptom of any motion in the rod. The spectators were still as the grave, not a word said lest the charm should be broken. Finally, the di- viner came to the spot front of the counter, behind which the drawer had always been kept. Here he balanced backwards and forwards, going a little to one side and then to the other, until after several vibrations, he came to a stand-still right in front of the place where the drawer used to be. Stopping a moment to feel the pulsations of the rod as it bends forward ; "there," he cries out, pointing the twig to the old spot, "there is the money, see how the rod moves." A loud ring of laughter was poured out upon the magician and sore was his discomfiture, when Mr. Judd took the money-drawer up from the place hid directly opposite to the spot pointed out by the pretended diviner.
It is jocosely remarked, that the town is growing down into a sheep pasture. But, fellow townsmen, let not your hearts be troubled ; there is no danger that it will become a wilderness again. The people of this town have been in former days, and are to-day, a power in the world. Go on, then, in the good old ways trodden by your fathers ; keep up your schools, and your church, preserve your simple habits, live together united as a band of brethren ; and, depend upon it, these hills will continue to flourish with a busy and noble population. The springs of health are all around and within your borders ; the very air teems with the elixir of life. Standing here on these elevations you can see the dense fogs which settle down upon the rich val- ley of the Connecticut, covering the towns with mist. For sev- cral years past the inhabitants of the old mother town have felt the danger and the growing evils caused by the dampness of their river situation, and some of them have annually retired with their families to the back towns, for the purpose of restor- ing their health and vigor, by breathing the bracing and dry air of the hills. They must continue to seek retreats from the mil- dews surrounding them ; and what situation for this purpose holds out so many inducements as the hill tops and valleys of this good town? Pardon me, Mr. President, for having taken up so much of the time on this ever-to-be-remembered day.
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Rev. Osman A. Lyman, Preacher to the Lane Seminary, Ohio, referred to his early associations about the fearful heights of "Pisgah." He 'had not the honor, exactly, of being a son of Westhampton, but this was the birthplace of his father and. mother, of revered memory. He alluded in eloquent terms to the character of his ancestors here, as men of principle, intelli- gent, God-fearing men. He was thankful that his parents were born and reared in the midst of such hallowed influences, for to them he owed whatever aspirations for usefulness in the world he had felt himself. The sons and daughters of Westhampton could in no way so well show their gratitude to their godly parentage, as by spreading through the country and the world the knowledge of those great religious principles, which were their joy in life, and their hope of immortality.
Rev. J. L. Clark, D. D., of Waterbury, Connecticut, said :
He had heard grave doubts expressed since he arrived in this his native town, whether the citizens would be able to feed so great a multitude as were assembled here to-day.
He was sure that a glance at the tables now that we have all received a full supply, would satisfy any one that had we brought all our children with us, we should not have been able to ex- haust the ability or the hospitality of our friends here at home.
The speaker could think of nothing to be added to make this a most happy reunion of citizens, unless some sign could have been suggested, by which those who were very intimate friends once, might recognize each other after a separation of forty or fifty years. He left his home here forty-three years ago, and he had met many here to-day whom he had not seen since. He had been very much embarrassed, as he perceived they were, each waiting for the other's advance to be sure of no mistake.
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Ah ! Mr. Chairman, the lapse of years has changed our coun- tenances, but it has not chilled our hearts. And yet we cannot, in a few burdened hours, show each other how we remember our companions in childish sports, or our early teachers in useful knowledge. I recognize here present one of my early teachers, the Rev. Dorus Clarke, to whom I have always felt I owed a large debt of gratitude. He was my schoolmaster, against whom I once bravely ventured to oppose my will, and soon found that the way of safety as well as of wisdom was to submit. As I have not had an opportunity before, I will avail myself of this, to return to my former master my sincere thanks for his kind fidelity.
Many years ago, perhaps twenty-five, I saw advertised a vol- ume of "Lectures to Young Men," published by that gentle-
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man. I took the earliest opportunity to get it, and have read it with deep interest and much instruction. Permit me, Mr. Chair- man, to commend that volume to the young here present. You will find there a lecture on the " Importance of Established and Correct Religious Principles Early in Life." You will see there in what gloom and horror, the most distinguished infidels have been compelled to leave the world and enter eternity. Voltaire, one of the greatest champions of which infidelity could boast in the last century, was made an infidel for life, he says, by committing to memory, when eight years of age, a deistical pamphlet which was put into his hands.
Much of the popular literature of the present day, though not so bold in attacks upon revealed truth as that of fifty to eighty years ago, is even more dangerous, because the poison is more insidious and more generally diffused. It comes in the shape of periodicals as well as books, such as monthly and quarterly magazines, with too often the tacit endorsement of the good, by being found on their tables. Youth and even children will inhale the poison. Its authors may have highly cultivated minds, but they have unhumbled hearts. They may have taste and imagination which will attract, and entertain, and instruct for this world, but here their ability as teachers ends, for they have never spent a day, earnestly preparing their own souls for the life to come. A life of faith here, such faith as works by love and overcomes the world, is the hate and scorn of these teachers.
Books were few in number, Mr. Chairman, in our homes when we were children. But they were such books as Baxter's " Call to the Unconverted," Baxter's "Saint's Rest," "Life of Rev. Henry Martyn," of "Harriet Newell," and that monthly jour- nal of the missionaries who left this country in 1812 and 1814, and onward, under the American Board for Foreign Missions. Such, Sir, fed and strengthened the mind, under the Divine blessing, and prepared the young for usefulness on earth and happiness through eternity.
Rev. Dorus Clarke, of Waltham, Mass., next responded to the call of the President. His intended remarks, which follow, were somewhat abridged in the delivery for want of time.
Mr. President :- Not long since a young lady was asked, "where is your native place?" and she replied, " I never had any native place ; I am the daughter of a Methodist minister." Our fathers and mothers were not so peripatetic as the good Methodist, and their descendants are not so unfortunate as his daughter. We have a native place. We know where it is, and what it is, and we have come here to-day, from our wide disper- sion, to do it merited honor. Westhampton ! one of the least, in-
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deed, of the tribes of our Massachusetts Israel, but one of the most deserving. Seven cities of Greece contended for centuries for the high honor of being the birthplace of Homer, and more than seven of the towns of the Bay State may well desire the credit of having given birth to this large and highly respectable assemblage. There is music in the very name of this good old town.
"Where e'er I roam, whatever realms I see, My heart, untravelled, fondly turns to thee."
It was a great mistake that Boston and New York were built so far from Westhampton. Coleridge tells us of a man who had such a high sense of self respect, that whenever he referred to himself he took off his hat ; but we would pay more appropriate homage, as we stand, uncovered and reverent, in this presence.
I do not know, sir, that there is any law aginst it, but if there is, my friend, Mr. Judd, the historiographer of the day, who knows all about the law, can tell us ; but I do not know that there is any law against resolving ourselves into a sort of Mu- tual Admiration Society ; and, as for the ethics of such a pro- ceeding, the numerous clergymen around me are abundantly competent to settle that question. At any rate, such a society, if savoring a little of vanity, I think it will be admitted, would "lean to virtue's side," quite as much as the Mutual Detraction Societies which exist in many of our country villages, where the gossip of unbridled tongues keeps whole communities in ceaseless strife ; institutions, which, I believe, are not very pop- ular in this peaceful and harmonious town of our nativity. In Boston and Vicinity, we enjoy the reputation of having several such Admiration Societies,-the conductors of the Atlantic Monthly, it is said, form one of them, among others. As the manners of the metropolis are often imitated in the country, and sustained, as we are, by such high authorities, I will take the liberty to say,-that whenever and wherever I see a Westhamp- ton man, I always feel that he is made of little finer mould than other folks, and especially do I expect to find him a man of larger intelligence, wider comprehension of duty, and a more assured preparation for the Great Hereafter. And why should it not be so, if the "fruit" indicates at all the character of the "tree?" The Providence of God sifted Northampton, and Hock- anum, and Southampton, and Dedham, to find seed good enough wherewith to sow these hills and valleys. The early settlers of this town were a godly generation, and if they had one desire which was paramount to all others, it was that we, their descend- ants, would adhere to their religious faith, and far excel them in the fervor of our piety. How many thousand times did they pray, to use their own stereotyped and sacred phraseologies, that their "children and their children's children, down to the
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latest generation, may be converted to Christ," and that "their souls with ours may be bound up in the sure bundle of eter- nal life." Their parlance has been stigmatized as "divinely il- literate ;" but it had a heavenly ring, to which, it were well, if the style of their erudite detractors could make some preten- sion. What children, the world over, have had so christian an ancestry ?
The monuments of their consecration to Christ stand here all around us. For where will you find better common schools than on this consecrated spot? Where can you find another commu- nity where the Assembly's Shorter Catechism, for more than half a century, formed the common moral pabulum of all the people? In my childhood and youth, we had it for breakfast, we had it for dinner, and we had it for supper. It was thor- oughly taught in nearly every family, and in all the common schools of the town ; and was regularly recited in the old church to Father Hale, from year to year, by all the children between the ages of eight and fifteen. The old church, beaten by the storms of many years, and innocent of paint and bell and stee- ple, was equally innocent of a thin attendance on the Sabbath both forenoon and afternoon, and would admit within its doors, only with the greatest reluctance, any child of proper age, who did not know the catechism by heart, verbatim, et literatim, et punctuatim. As might be expected under such thorough evan- gelical tuition, revivals of religion have been of frequent occur- rence, and of great purity and power. More than one third of the inhabitants, all told, are to-day members of this beloved Con- gregational Church ; nine tenths of all the people are stated attend- ants on public worship ; and thirty-eight of the young men have obtained a liberal education, most of whom have entered the learned professions, and especially the christian ministry. Sev- eral others have gone through regular courses of professional study. This, it is believed, is a larger percentage of educated men than has been reared in any other town in this or any other Commonwealth. These thorough educational and religious in- fluences have here wrought out their legitimate results, and the same causes will work out, and they only can work out the same results in other communities. These influences have made West- hampton what it is, in comparison with many other towns in the State, which, locally, are more highly favored ; and New Eng- land what it is, in comparison with the Southern States ; and the United States what they are, in distinction from Mexico and Japan.
The dwellers in this beautiful Valley of the Connecticut are under greater obligations to a former resident here, than lan- guage has yet found power to express. JONATHAN EDWARDS- clarum et venerabile nomen ;- JONATHAN EDWARDS,-by common
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consent, the ablest theologian and metaphysician our country has produced-left the impress of his thorough orthodoxy and devoted piety upon all this section of the State. That heavenly. stamp seems almost ineffaceable. More than a century has. rolled away since he left Northampton, yet his influence is still perpetuated here. You see it in the peculiar moral and relig- ious grain of this community. I have resided in this town six- teen years, in Williamstown four years, in Andover three years, in Blandford twelve years, in Springfield six years, in Boston six years, and in Waltham sixteen years; and have therefore had some opportunities to form an intelligent judgment of the relative condition, moral and religious, of different parts of the Commonwealth. And I say it " without fear, or favor, or hope of reward ;" I say it with no invidious comparisons, for the comparisons are in no sense invidious, but just ; I say it simply because historic verity peremptorily requires that it should be said, that I have nowhere found, in these communities generally, such profound reverence for the name of JEHOVAHI, the In- finite and Personal GOD ; such unquestioning faith in the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures ; such conscientious observance of the Sabbath ; such habitual practice of family prayer ; such respect and anxiety for revivals of religion ; such serious deter- mination to enter into the kingdom of heaven ; and such deep conviction that it never can be reached, except through repent- ance for sin, and faith in a crucified and Atoning Redeemer, as I have found on this very spot, That the condition of things here is what it should be, is far, very far from being the fact ; but that it is, on the whole, better than in almost any other sec- tion of the country or of the world, is my honest belief. This superior christian tone of society must have had an adequate cause ; and that cause, I apprehend, can be found only in the more thorough indoctrination of the people, from the time of Edwards down to this day, in the great truths of the Bible,- creating public sentiment, permeating domestic life, energizing conscience, converting men to Christ, and impregnating society with a deeper sense of moral obligation. Calvinism has formed the warp and the woof of this community.
But has Westhampton done anything for the world at large? Yes. Old ÆEsculapius would gladly surrender his pill-box and scalpel to his more scientific disciples from this town, and the mantles of Coke and Webster sit gracefully on her sons. She has sent a worthier representative of christianity than Colenso to enlighten the kraals of Southern Africa ; and " how beauti- ful upon the mountains " of Western Asia " are the feet of him " of Westhampton, who is there publishing the Gospel of peace ! She has adorned the pulpits of Boston, and presided over the school of the prophets at Andover. She devised the famous
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" pledge," which is working out the temperance reformation ; and has taught the world that industrial prosperity, no less than the Bible, requires us to keep the Sabbath holy. She has fur- nished pastors for several of the churches of Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and New York; has sent her sons and daughters to form and support new churches in Ohio ; has added moral lustre to the gold of California ; and is rapidly transform- ing Wisconsin and Michigan into gardens of the Lord. By her editorial labors, she has moulded the political and religious opin- ions of the times ; and by her engineering skill, she directed the construction of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, and intro- duced the Cochituate into Boston. She has sat in the Common Council and in the School Committee of that city ; has accumu- lated materials for a history of several towns in Hampshire County ; enriched the world by her literary, pathological and theological productions ; aspired to the van of the conflict with the hosts of rebellion ; taught numerous "young ideas how to shoot ;" mapped out the world for the public benefit; one of her manufacturers has done business at the rate of $500,000 a year, and the orders of her merchants are sought for in London.
All this, Mr. President, is not rhetorical embellishment, but a statement of facts. That this small town, which, in its palm- iest days, numbered scarcely more than 900 souls, and now counts 300 less, has done all this for the world, is a marvel. No history of it, then, can be complete, which ignores the influence of the school, the catechism, and the church, or which does not make these institutions stand out, in the boldest, strongest re- lief in the portrait. You may as well attempt to enact the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet all left out, as to account for the strict morality and eminent piety of most of the fathers and mothers who sleep in yonder cemeteries awaiting "the resurrection of the just ;" or for the intelligence, energy, practical good sense, piety and success of many of their descendants, in their diver- sified forms of usefulness in the world, by proposing any other solution of the problem, than the grace of God, sanctifying the thorough drilling of the schools, and the undiluted truths of the catechism upon the intellects, the hearts, and the lives of the people.
Lord Macauley, the celebrated English historian, says, that "any people who are indifferent to the great deeds of those who have gone before, are not likely to perform deeds to be remem- bered by those who follow them." Let us be faithful, then, Mr. Chairman and friends, to the high trust which our plain, but no- ble and godly ancestry have imposed upon us. Let us be true to their pure and renovating Faith. Let all men do the same, and then, when our descendants, of a distant generation, shall assemble here, to celebrate the Second Centennial of the settle-
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ment of this town, they will assemble in the sunlight of the MILLENNIUM.
I hold in my hand, Mr. President, two specimens of antiqui- ty, which it may not be inappropriate to exhibit here. One of them is a Deed, in " sere and yellow leaf," of a parcel of land in Southampton, given by Jonathan Clark to his son, Jonathan Clark, Jr., and dated July 1767, " in the seventh year of the raigne of George the Third,"-more than ninety-nine years ago. Curiously enough, this Deed, which was executed by my great grandfather, was witnessed by Rev. Jonathan Judd, the great grandfather of Mr. Judd, one of the orators on the present oc- casion. Jonathan Clark, Jr., my grandfather, removed to this town in 1774, selected a site for his residence on the hills, one mile west of the centre, with an outlook upon a wealth of nat- ural scenery, which would have enraptured the taste of Shen- stone and Ruskin. From that spot, the Connecticut River, Mt. Tom, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst College, Williston Seminary, Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, and several churches and smil- ing villages now appear, inlaid in variegated mosaics, in the landscape below. Often was my youthful imagination regaled with the beauties of that scene ; and well, too, do I remember how, sometimes, the heavens gathered blackness, the thunders crashed, the lightning's gleamed along the mountains, and the earth rocked under the fury of the tempest, as it swept sublimely along down into the vast valley beneath ; and how the comming- led elements raged, and rolled, and surged over Easthampton and Northampton, and sent back their deafening roar to my ears ; while the setting sun lighted up the hills around me with his smiles. painted the rainbow on the departing storm, and every twig, and leaf, and flower glittered with tears of gratitude that the fearful tornado was overpast !
It was there that my grandfather felled the wilderness, erected a house, barn and other buildings, and in 1777, at the call of patriotism, he left his young wife and his infant son, Jonathan, my father-the third Jonathan in the series-then two years old, to struggle along in the woods as best they might, while he went to defend his imperilled country at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. He returned from that expedition with broken health, which was never afterwards restored. As his son grew up, he sent him to the school of the celebrated Master Curson, in Hatfield, at that time perhaps the best in Western Massachu- setts. Here he remained till he acquired an education, which was quite superior for those days. He had a strong desire for professional life, and was partly fitted for college with his cousin, Tertius Strong, the first graduate from this town ; but being an only child, his parents thought it his duty to remain at home, and filial obedience was with him a stronger principle
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even than his love of letters. His education qualified him for usefulness in several public stations which he was afterwards 'called to fill. Sylvester Judd, Esq., Major Aaron Fisher and himself were the delegates of this town to the Convention of Hampshire County,-then comprising the present counties of Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampden,-which met at Northamp- ton in 1813, to inquire if any measures could be devised to ter- minate the war with Great Britain, which was very unpopular throughout the New England States. The noble resolutions, adopted by the town on that great public exigency, were the production of his pen. and are still extant. Less than forty years of age, he died suddenly, February 23, 1814, of typhoid fever. which spread epidemically through the town, and swept away several of its more eminent men.
Upon his decease, a set of Addison's Spectator, in eight vol- umes, which was a part of his library, came into my possession. He had imported it from London in his early manhood, and at a time, I venture to say, when there were but few copies of that excellent classic in any of the retired towns in the State. I find upon the fly-leaves his name, written in his beautiful, bold, John Hancock style, and upon the covers of all the volumes nu- merous memoranda, in the hand writing of my grandfather, of his appreciation of different articles. In the volume now be- fore me, he refers, with marked approbation, to the lyrical and religious beauties of the Ode-
"When all thy mercies, O my God ;"-
and it is something to the credit of the discriminating literary taste of a farmer and soldier of the last century, that his judg- ment is confirmed by the highest criticism of the present day.
At this point, Mr. Clarke observed at the tables Mr. Asa Parsons, who, more than sixty years ago, was his teacher in the Centre School, and Mrs. Sybella Hale Hall, of Boston, who was many years one of his classmates, and an earnest and very often successful competitor with him for the honor of being at " the head ;" and at his request, the master, now more than eighty years of age, and his two young pupils now approaching seven- ty, rose in the presence of the audience. Conscious that he is largely indebted for what little he knows of his mother-tongue to those early and friendly competitive efforts, and wishing to stim- ulate others to make the same, he presented to the town a small donation, and the President read the following Article of Con- veyance :
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