USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Dover > Old home day : proceedings of the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Dover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, July 7th, 1909 > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
28
DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
could. Three persons could be accommodated on each bench, including the driver.
After the Revolution, horse-back travelling was resorted to largely and then a more modernized stage substituted. Many years passed before any perceptible improvement incurred. In 1812 a regular stage line was first established between Washing- ton and Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. Baltimore had at that time a population of over 50,000 and Washington about 12,000. It took one and one-half days to make the trip. The mail left Washington at 5 A. M. and arrived at the postoffice in Baltimore at 11 P. M. When I first went to Washington, nine years ago, it was still a narrow road, in places not wide enough for teams to pass, with mud here and there in which the wheels would sink half way to the hub in the spring, when the frost was coming out of the ground. If such was its condition between two cities now, one over 600,000 and the other 340,000, we can at least imagine the execrable condition of the roads everywhere and what an undertaking even to make a moderate journey in the century before. Contrast these conditions with the roads of Dover today, smooth, stoneless, rutless, over which the wheels roll without impediment and the traveller glides swiftly on his way. There was very little change in transportation conditions until about 1840 when railways made a transformation.
In most of the Colonial towns, including Dover, a large and architecturally attractive church occupies the central site of the village and, indeed, seems to dominate the town. Usually they are of the Unitarian faith. They illustrate one of the most sin- gular episodes in Massachusetts history. Their origin dates from a discourse by Dr. Channing on the ordination of Jared Sparks over the Congregational Church in Baltimore on May 5, 1819. From that day here in the old Colony, the Unitarian Church, as a rule, became the successor of the old Puritan edifice. The religious pendulum swung the other way. I violate no con- fidence, I think, in quoting from a letter I received from Charles Francis Adams, our ripest scholar, now living, on New England topics, who chrystalizes in a few sentences the character of the change.
" The name 'Unitarian' is a misnomer. The New England Unitarian is a wholly different creature from the English Uni- tarian of whom Dr. Martineau was a leading exponent. The name ' Unitarian ' was adopted in New England merely to dis- tinguish the sect from the 'Trinitarian,' the Church of England people. The Congregational Unitarian, however, eliminated
29
125TH ANNIVERSARY
only the Holy Ghost from the Trinity. He still adhered to the God-head and the Only Begotten Son."
However it may be, none can question that this movement of religious forces has done much to soften the asperities of relig- ious life and spread the love and practice of Godliness which are indeed the fruits of the Spirit.
Finally, it may be said that the simple life is perhaps best illus- trated in the old Colonial town of which Dover is a type. There is a tranquilizing influence felt, but indescribable, about them all. Here the world is at peace. Its people are "far from the madding crowd." There is time afforded for contemplation. Peace is within its borders. A community of common purposes is created. A quarrel means alienation from your neighbors with none to take their place. A feeling of common ownership arises. Factious opposition becomes a present evil and so it is avoided. As you know each other, so you become, as it were, more like a great family, seeking the common interests. Thus life moves on with less friction, appealing to the higher instincts and thereby leading you to a more beneficient, if not more use- ful, life. So that as the sunset glow suffuses the western hills and nature proclaims " the peace that passeth understanding," as you sit upon your porches or under the shade of the over- hanging trees, this admonition nature, history and surroundings each, "modest living and good deeds."
" If you sit down at set of sun,
And count the things that you have done, And counting find some sacrificing deed or word To ease the heart of him who heard One word most kind that fell like sunshine as it went Then you can count that day well spent."
The President : We are glad to have on our programme today several speakers who have become residents of the town in recent years. We have one, who, as a professional man, has more than a national reputation, and, as an instructor in the Harvard Medi- cal School, is laboring to make the best doctors which training and science can produce ; men who are not only learned in their profession, but have high personal honor and public spirit. On his Dover farm he is producing pure milk to save the lives of city children or promote the general health of adults. In his workshop on this farm, under the direction of skilled workmen, he is making scientific instruments which are in demand in many parts of the civilized world. Pardon me, if I say that I am
30
DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
especially interested in all that goes on here, because it was on the old farm that I first saw the light of day. I present Dr. William T. Porter.
ADDRESS: DR. WILLIAM T. PORTER.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The invitation to address you upon this happy occasion gives me unusual pleasure. The hills of Dover, the sunny fields, the gentle river moving without haste through restful lowlands, have worked their spell. I love the place and I am proud to have a share, however small, in this historic day.
Four generations have passed since Dover became a Town - one hundred and twenty-five years - a period brief enough when viewed against the long perspective of recorded time, but greater than many centuries if measured by the growth of applied science. Able speakers have told us with affectionate detail the ways of our fathers. They made their wills, those prudent old men, before they journeyed to New York. The metropolis has still its dangers, but they are not the perils of the road. We go round the world with less thought now, and this ease with which we move from place to place is to my mind the greatest phenomenon of our present day. I shall speak, therefore, of the progress of Transportation since Dover was founded.
What miracles of genius have been spent for this material change! What greater miracles have so transformed the spirit that I, a child of the time, in this year of grace nineteen hundred and nine, would rather travel to London than to Natick. To London I may have at will the glorious force of thrice ten thousands horses, - to Natick I must content myself, as becomes a farmer, with one horse, a "general purpose " horse at that. The end is not yet. Today we rush across the waste of waters with the speed of an express train - tomorrow, we fly. We all shall live to see the aeroplane as common as the crow. But every invention is host to an inconvenience. If keeping the crows from the corn calls for a mixture of ferocity and resignation, what emotion shall we have left for driving out aeroplanes ?
The locomotive, the marine turbine, and the explosion engine are great devices for moving men and things from place to place. But it has always been easier to move things than to move ideas. For a penny the seeds of the alfalfa may be sent from Turkestan to Dover, and the alfalfa will take root, blessing us and our children. But the idea of the Dover town meeting has never taken root in Turkestan. The modern task is to overcome this
31
125TH ANNIVERSARY
inertia of ideas. The part that inventions shall play in this sub- lime endeavor should not be too highly estimated. An invention, it is true, is itself a frame for an idea, but the frame limits ex- pansion. The plow has brought forth only plows since first the world began, but the idea of breeding from selected stock advances from pedigree pigs to pedigree corn and will some day double the wealth of every man who sows and tills. The chief value of improved transport is in taking a man to the field of an idea and in bringing him back to enrich himself and his neigh- bors.
It would be cheaper to get an idea in print by rural free de- livery than to send a man to fetch it, and it was hoped that the invention of printing would make it easy thus to move ideas. Indeed, the hope is still wistfully alive in the present speaker. But physiological learning is here of little comfort. The printed word appeals only to the eye that has learned the difficult art of reading words as pictures. The spoken word is far superior, because it demands admittance at the door of many senses. Speech means a man, not a mere inky emanation. When the business is weighty, a man is sent, not a word. Two thousand years ago wise men came out of the East; our only advance in all these ages is that they now sometimes come out of the West.
Even spoken language is of limited use. Words are symbols, pictures, ideographs. If each word make truly a picture in the mind, these pictures may be combined to form what we call a new picture, though it is really an old one with the parts shifted. But the parts must be there before they can be combined. A skilful succession of words, such as green fields, pleasant waters, and the like, will piece together a Paradise, but it is necessarily such a paradise as might be created by the Metropolitan Park Commission. No march of words, however stately, could make the sunset real to a man blind from his birth.
This physiological incompetence of words to convey ideas con- cerning nature's work explains the difficulty which the farmers in one part of the country find in profiting by the experience of farmers in other parts. The average brain is wonderfully forti- fied against assault by any new idea. The tracts of the experi- ment stations do not penetrate. Hence the experimental farms which the Government is establishing throughout the South, the demonstration trains in the West, and the general resolve to bring the mountain to Mahomet.
This endeavor to bring ideas to every man's door has a pro- found economic basis.
32
DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
The economic world is swiftly changing. The walls between men, towns, states, and nations are falling before the genius of transportation. The Arizona melon ushers in the Boston day ; when too many rabbits are born in Australia last year's over- coats are worn in London; the South African zebu paws at the door of the Chicago Beef Trust. A thousand miles separate us from the miners of Illinois, but we, perforce, went cold when their wives found bread too dear. The inference is plain. The sun never sets upon our markets. We must know as much as our neighbor on the other side of the globe or he will under- sell us.
The moral force of the new transportation is not less note- worthy. The unceasing cry of this new dawn is "Prosper you must." In every part of the land the hammers of Science are setting free the streams of Fortune. "Prosper you must, for upon your happiness depends our own."
If we are all to buy from and sell to each other in this new world in which space and time are so strangely shrunken, we must have an eye to the common good. A wretched man is a poor customer. Moreover, the new transportation spreads an industry over continents and across the seas, giving it propor- tions that require co-operation. These vast bulks must be borne on many shoulders. The greater the division the less the prob- ability that the shareholders will fight against their own dividends. The philanthropist and the self seeker have been at war these many generations. The new transportation will unite them. The federation of the pocket will point the way to the federation of the world.
The President: We are fortunate in having on this interesting occasion a soloist, who, not only in name but in descent, repre- sents one of the early setttlers of the town - Henry Tisdale - whose descendants have been prominently connected with Dover for nearly a century and a half - a family which unites the blood of both the Pilgrim and the Puritan, - Mr. James Tisdale.
Mr. Tisdale sang "Song of a Heart," (L. Tunison.)
The President : One reason why Dover has remained so small in population is because so many of her sons and daughters have sought a residence and employment elsewhere. Natives of Dover are scattered from Maine to California. You will find them in the Klondike and in far away China, and wherever you find them, they will be found above the average of their fellows in capacity, in integrity, and in loyalty to New England principles.
33
125TH ANNIVERSARY
I have the pleasure of presenting a native of the town - a suc- cessful merchant - who is a member of one of those good old families of twelve children, who has in his veins the blood of one of the early settlers who assisted in throwing the tea over- board in Boston Harbor, and who took part in the last French and Indian War. - Mr. B. Edwin Guy of Worcester.
ADDRESS: B. EDWIN GUY, ESQ.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am unable to give any reminiscences of Dover, as my home was near the Dedham line, and I attended the Walpole Corner School, which included in the district a part of Dover, Medfield, Walpole, and Dedham. It would seem as if this district ought to be annexed to the town of Dover. If this district were to be annexed to the town, many of the stories I could tell would have an application.
As I look over this audience I do not see any people who are 125 years old - no, nor 100 years old. - and yet it is among the possibilities that people can live one hundred years. Charles Dudley Warner in "Our Italy" tells of Indians in Southern California who lived 125 years, and some who reached a greater age. Some years ago, in Germany, a man died at the age of 140 years and he thought that the Angel of Death had passed him by.
In 1904, in the State of Indiana, there were twenty-five people who reached the one hundred year mark. One man who was sick at 112 years said, " I am not going to die," and would not have a doctor called. He lived to the age of 114. A correspon- dent of the Indianapolis News interviewed the relatives and near friends of these old people. He found that they lived an outdoor life, were poor, - came into the world without anything, and went out of the world without anything. They were not har- rassed by severe brain work; some lived during the great Irish famine in 1842; some were old pioneers of Kentucky - people, as I said before, who lived out-of-doors. If people lived the out-of-door life more, they would live to a greater age. Some time we may see Pegan Hill again covered with wigwams, and people living the same simple life that the Indians led.
Physiologists used to tell us that we should eat to live, not live to eat. There is in New York a club called the Century Club. People join this club with the expectation of living a hundred years. If they die before that time they forfeit their membership.
34
DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
There is much to criticize in the lives of our ancestors, and much to commend. When they spoke of a physician in olden times, they did not say allopath or homeopath, osteopath, or any other path, but simply used the name "doctor." There were no tram-cars, but the old stage-coach. In those school days boys had no athletics, but instead the woodpile. School teachers were somewhat different from what they are at the present time. They sometimes worked during the school hours, had a spin- ning wheel, and spun. It is related of one person that she used to spin yarn, and make it up into large skeins, and if the small boys didn't behave themselves, she would wind the yarn under their arms and hang them up around the room. A row of them must have been a comical sight. We use milder terms than they did in my school days. Then, if a person told an untruth, it would be said that he told a lie-now, that he prevaricates. They had different ideas of living, and they got along on smaller salaries. When a man would receive his wages once a month or once a quarter, he would lay up a part of it; now he gets his pay every Saturday night, and it all goes. The average man is not capable of taking care of his own money. People's ideas of economy are different. A London woman speaks of living on a mere pittance of $10,000 a year. It costs Katherine Gould $120,000. People were reverent, and there was a greater respect shown the ministers than today. When Rev. Calvin S. Locke or Rev. Dr. Chaplain passed the Walpole Corner School, the children felt that a servant of God was passing, and there was a reverential feeling that was commendable, and that we should do well to consider at the present time. One hundred years ago America was a small country, had a small population, and was just at the door of being a republic.
At some future time I shall be glad to be present and find that you have learned the secret of living to be a hundred years old.
The President: I recall that the next speaker was one of the first among the many residents who have settled in Dover in re- cent years to appreciate her natural beauty. He is also deeply interested in her history and traditions - Richard W. Hale, Esq.
ADDRESS: RICHARD W. HALE, ESQ.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
We all here today seek to emulate the example of the Presi- dent of the Day in making our more modest contributions to the History of Dover. I wish to speak of one thing with which we
35
1146757
125TH ANNIVERSARY
are all familiar but with the weight and importance of which we are rather unfamiliar. I speak of Greater Dover, of the great body of those who have gone out from Dover into the world and have been our contribution to the rest of the country. With the specific examples of these, we are all acquainted. You have heard Governor Draper's letter in which he asserts his right to be credited to Dover, although his claim comes through an ancestor of long ago. In the example of the President of the Day himself we have all that could be asked for as a sample of what Dover has produced and sent out for native born citizens.
Turning to another description of the same thing, the Presi- dent of the Day has prepared a list of the soldiers whom Dover has contributed to the wars of the nation. We have a just claim to be proud of our soldiers. Every community has as great a right to be proud of its soldiers in the field as it has to be solicitous for peace rather than war in the future. The biogra- phies of these soldiers have been prepared and printed and will be in the hands of the citizens before this week comes to an end.
Good as these examples are, it is not of the examples but of the mass or body that I wish to speak. We celebrate today the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the founding of the town. Making a liberal allowance we may describe this as a period in which five generations have grown up in Dover. Not all families have contributed so much to the country and the nation as the mother who gave us Mr. Guy and also the family of twelve which he represents, but it is a safe and conservative allowance to suppose that during this time there have been four children in each family and in each generation. If we allow one son to stay at home and take over the farm and one daughter to marry here in Dover and to make a good wife to some son of another like family, we may reckon that in each generation one-half of the children have gone out into the world. In the five generations this means that there are now sixteen families where there was one in Dover upon the anniversary which we celebrate. The population of the town has scarcely increased. Where there was one family then there is one family now. The other fifteen families have been our contribution to the nation and to the growth of the country, and they represent in them- selves the population of a small and thriving city, although we commonly think of Dover as a country town. This is the city of Greater Dover.
There is another aspect of it none the less important. the side of wealth rather than of the individuals and their lifeblood. If
36
DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
Dover had been an English Parish, the eldest sons would have stayed at home and the wealth of a century would have rolled up in Dover in their possession. Here, under our system of equal distribution of property, there has been a division in every generation. We are all familiar with the side of this which we see at home. There is none who knows the history of any old house in Dover who cannot point to an example of the son who stays at home with the farm, beginning life with the burden of a mortgage on his back, giving the proceeds of the mortgage and the savings of a generation to the children who go out in the world. He begins with debt where his father ended in the ease brought by a life of thrift. But we must remember also that the money which goes to the other children has gone out with them and it is from such sources as this that our coun- try has acquired its present growth, wealth, and strength. These are the things which we have done for the country. We are entitled to credit for them and to claim a reward for the service which our little town has done. This is the day upon which we claim that reward. And in the pleasure which we receive from the welcome visitors who are with us today, because of the things which we have done for the whole country, we may find and enjoy our just return.
The President : I will read an original poem which has been anonymously contributed.
ORIGINAL POEM .*
Homeward, turn homeward, O child! on your way, Back to the old town if just for to-day, Back to your hearthstone, and back to your kin, Long, you have strayed in your wandering, Longing she seeks you, wherever your roam, Hoping to gather her fond children home: Now you are coming, though short be your stay, Welcome! glad welcome! in Dover, to-day.
Brightly, so brightly, gay banners greet you, Flowers and music and glad faces meet you, Round you she gathers her clasping arm, Staying the rush, for this moment of calm. Honor her pride, she stands in her beauty, Bidding you share in her pleasant duty ; Storing your greetings, like pearls away, Hoping for many returns of the day.
*Written by Mrs. Joshua L. Woodward.
37
125TH ANNIVERSARY
Wanderers! Wanderers, what do you see, Changes unceasing, for you and for me : Smother the heartache, and look to the hill, Pegan, fair Pegan, is changeless still; And sweetly the river and valley and springs, Echo the songs the trout brook sings, And the factories' whistle, disturbs not her age, For beautiful homes are her heritage.
Children ! O children, what matter I say, If the sunny hair has turned to gray, If the once sunny smile still warms and cheers As you greet your playmates of former years. And think as you gather, of those away, But whose fondest thoughts are with us to-day Cherishing memories of olden times, Heaven's blessings reach them, in other climes.
Forget not! forget not, our history's page, "The deeds of our fathers," the stirring age, The wrongs they resisted, the rights upheld, Dying for country or serving as well, Not flinching or swerving, with one accord, Their life for their country, their soul for God. And think of the mothers, bless them above, They fought life's battles with sweet patient love.
Remember! remember, joy is not all: And the sad hearts yearning for something call, Call for a moment to be quite alone- Alone,-in "God's Acre" with some little stone, And there are so many, mound after mound, Tells of some affection and life laid down, Of sad burden lifted or fair spirit free, Dear Father, our loved ones, they sleep with Thee.
And our children's children, down through the age,
Dover ! dear Dover, our pride and our home! Back to your call we stand ready to come, - Shall render unsullied your civic page : Will stand for your rights, and so year by year, Cherish the sentiments that make home dear, Children by birthright or adoption the same, We cherish and honor and love thy name.
The President: Probably the narrative history of Dover has been as fully written as the history of any people in the United States; but that older history which goes back thousands and thousands of years has not been touched upon at all, that history which gives the reason for the exceeding beauty of this town. Only one subject has been assigned to any speaker, that of " Dover Beautiful," which was given to one especially qualified to treat it, your fellow townsman, Mr. George D. Hall.
38
DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS
ADDRESS: GEORGE D. HALL.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
As one of the last speakers I hope you will not look upon me as you would at the dentist about to extract a tooth, when I say, " Please be patient - I shall only be a minute."
The subject of "Dover Beautiful " is so broad that in the few minutes allowed, I shall speak only of the influence of the past in adding to the beauty and charm of the Dover of today.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.