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 4
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I cannot but feel that there is one man, who, more than any recent improvements, more than any fine estates, has made Dover beautiful in our eyes, and that man is Mr. Frank Smith. So vividly has he portrayed, on various occasions, the past life of Dover; so graphically has he pictured the primitive little homes of our early settlers in the midst of the wilds; the meet- ings at William's Tavern; the Old Pound, whose care was humorously allotted to the most recent bridegroom; the training ground, where martial spirit was inspired; the Common, that sacred plot so dear to every heart; the Meeting House and all it meant to our pious Puritan fathers ; the Cemetery, and the many other reminders of the past which have come down to us - as our heritage from the Dover of long ago.
We cannot prize the few remaining relics of our birth too highly, and the sentiment - the historic interest - which they arouse must appeal to each and every one who thinks of Dover as the home, whether past, present or in the future. Much has been done towards preserving these reminders of our youth, but I wish more might be done, for I feel that the sentiment they inspire, - linking as they do, the past with the present - is the highest type of beauty, that which appeals to the heart, rather than to the eye.
The subject given me, " Dover Beautiful," is like a house with many windows - there are so many points of view. I love to look out of the old attic window with its blue tinted lights of clouded glass which seem to reflect the scenes of long ago, and through whose panes can be seen the huge forests of prime- val growth, crowding down upon the narrow paths, or roads. We see the winding brook so full of trout, with animal tracks along the banks, and hear the songs of the wild birds now almost extinct. We see the miniature home of the miniature clearing and we feel the struggle of life.
What does the window of today show us? We find the primeval growth has long since disappeared, leaving only as
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reminders of their magnificence, a few scattered veterans of the grand old white oak, or perhaps some stately elms, planted and cared for by willing hands of a century or more ago. We see the old paths developed into winding roads, and we see the brook now skirting a carefully cultivated field and dancing in the sun, instead of wending its way through the dark, dense forests.
We see some of the old pioneer farm buildings weathered by the rain of many generations and with the clearings about them now extended into large farms. We see other clearings of recent date upon which country homes have been built. But I am glad to say that not a few of these clearings have developed from the old-time homestead. And so we turn from the window rejoicing that Dover has not developed so as to obliterate the past, but still retains many traces of her founders, and this, it seems to me, is one of the great factors - sentimental if you will - that adds to the beauty of Dover as we find her today.
There may be some who would like to see Dover improved, as they call it, with state highways, trolley lines, electric lights on every corner, and industries ; but I am not one of these.
I feel that Dover's greatest future lies in her developing as a community of country homes - free from the noise and the turmoil of the city; developing but not changing the character of the place or the charm of her individuality; cherishing the sentiments for the past, and rejoicing in the natural picturesque- ness of our township which already has attracted so many to our town. I, for one, hope to see Dover develop, but always in the spirit of simplicity and on those lines which will make her remarkable as the ideal community for country homes.
The President: The town meeting is the oldest institute among us, an institution which demands the loyalty of every voter. In our modern life organizations have a prominent place and when rightly understood are often found to admirably sup- plement the old established institutions. I present the present town moderator, who has also been asked to represent the organ- izations of the town on this occasion, Mr. Hubbard C. Packard.
ADDRESS: HUBBARD C. PACKARD, ESQ.
Mr. President, Friends and Neighbors:
In behalf of the townspeople through their officers, whom I have the honor to represent today, we extend to all who are found within the bounds of our town a hearty greet- ing and a most cordial welcome. I deem it an honor
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as it certainly is a pleasure, to be permitted to speak on this good occasion, because we are all working together to make this an occasion that shall last in our mem- ory for many a year. We want to make this a pleasant occa- sion for those who are with us for a day - prospective neigh- bors, perhaps - for those who are with us every day, born here and have always lived here. How much we miss such when they are taken away! But more especially do we desire to make this an enjoyable occasion to those who here drew their first breath of God's pure air as it came over these old hills of Dover. Here it was they first saw the light of day. It was here they lived through childhood's happy hours to youth, to manhood or womanhood, until circumstances or conditions, perhaps, com- pelled them to go reluctantly away. But you have come back to-day to enjoy with us that sane, sensible, and sanguine enjoy- ment that comes with true old age. For as you know, we are celebrating our one hundred and twenty-fifth birthday.
A gentleman who has recently selected this town for his per- manent residence, said: "I have come to Dover for good fresh air and a quiet place to sleep." Now we certainly have these things here in abundance, and probably if he had continued his remark on the subject he would have said something like this - for he is certainly a most estimable man - " I came also to live, to love, and to die with the people. I come to Dover to ac- quaint myself with her social and religious life; I come to familiarize myself with her school system, for I consider this institution the greatest and most important in ours of any land."
Now while we do have conditions which are conducive to slum- ber, except it be the night before the Fourth, we have a good- sized field in which there are many gardens, splendid places for labor, all of which are demanding laborers.
To name all the different organizations without briefly stating their purposes would be like asking you to be seated at a dining table and giving you a menu card only. First, we have the church, that star of hope which has ever led the nations, which must ever lead them, and he who turns his back on her takes one step at least in the direction of chaos. However we may have erred in our understanding of her mission, however much we may have erred as a people in our understanding and inter- pretation of that grand old book, the Bible, the essentials of religion have never changed; for it is born in the heart of every individual, and it is the work of the church to enable it to flower to true man- and womanhood.
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Next we have the " Temperance Union," an organization that welcomes all. Its meetings are held in this hall every third Sun- day evening in every month,- lectures or addresses, musical and literary exercises, all educational and entertaining in their character - no shall or shan't. Its object is to bring out the good the Creator has planted in us, neutralizing injurious things ; and all honor to its late president, Mr. J. W. Higgins, who did so much, who gave so much of his time, of his very life, to this Union.
The Improvement Society was organized, as its name implies, for the improvement of public roads, parks, grounds and build- ings, all to be done in an artistic, scientific and economical man- ner. If it is inoperative now it is not because of a lack of op- portunity.
Next comes the Patrons of Husbandry, of which we have a grange here in Dover,- an order specially organized for the purpose of stimulating, elevating and educating that class of people whom the entire world is dependent upon, namely, the American farmer, of whom there are ten million in this country. While the first grange was organized in the state of New York scarcely more than forty years ago, we will begin to enumerate its strength in Maine, which has 56,000; coming to Massachu- setts which has 230 granges containing 27,000; across New England with total 1,000 granges, with 140,000 members, to New York adding 70,000; to the West across the Mississippi Valley, and the Great Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, where its membership has now reached a round million souls. Men and women stand equal here as they are destined to in every nation of the earth. This order has stood alone for many of the improvements we now all enjoy, and alone for many bless- ings we all are yet to receive, good roads, rural delivery, parcel post, forest preservation, and others. You may send acknowl- edgments to the grange for them all. It has outlived its critical period ; it is now a recognized power for good.
And last but by no means least comes the "Dover Historical and Natural History Society," organized for the purpose of col- lecting and preserving things ancient and honorable, and listen- ing to a historical lecture now and then. You might ask - Is that all? - and I would answer - By no means all. Simply collecting old things, with some people, is only a fad or fancy, diverting a thing of beauty to something akin to idleness. This organization should stand and does stand for what the review or examination does for the student - to impress on his brain
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the importance of events, causing us to take account of stock in our social, industrial and religious affairs; causing us in our walks over the hills of old Dover, in coming across as frequently as we do, a place where once stood a house, a home, to remove our hats to the parents who once lived and reared here a family. They had few or no historical societies in those days. They were too busy in making history for us.
In closing let me say that the Old First Parish, now town of Dover, owes to you, Mr. President, a debt it can never pay. Yours is a common name, like the one who composed that im- mortal hymn familiar to every man, woman, and child through- out this great, broad, and free country, and which will live as long as America lives. May your lease of life extend into the future, giving you time to delve still deeper and search in the archives of our old town and country, bringing forth gems purchased only by sacrifice.
The President: After the solo by Mr. Tisdale the exercises of this celebration will close by singing " Auld Lang Syne."
Mr. Tisdale sang "Call Me Back, " - L. Deuza.
"AULD LANG SYNE."
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind; Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And songs of auld lang syne? For auld lang syne we meet to-night, For auld lang syne,
To sing the songs our fathers sang In days of auld lang syne.
We've passed through many varied scenes Since youth's unclouded day;
And friends and hopes and happy dreams
Time's hand hath swept away; And voices that once joined with ours,
In days of auld lang syne, Are silent now and blend no more In songs of auld lang syne.
But when we cross the sea of life,
And reach the heavenly shore,
We'll sing the songs our fathers sang Transcending those of yore: We'll meet to sing diviner strains
Than those of auld lang syne; Immortal songs of praise, unknown In days of auld lang syne.
The First Parish Church, the Evangelical Congregational Church and the Dover Temperance Union were invited to hold
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appropriate services in connection with the observance of the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the incorpora- tion of Dover.
FIRST PARISH CHURCH. Organized 1749.
Sermon by the Pastor, REV. WILLIAM ROGERS LORD.
Text - Hebrews XI .: 40. "That apart from us they should not be made perfect."
We begin Dover's Old Home Week in this Meeting House of the old First Parish Society and Church. A fitting place, as the facts of Dover's history evidence.
This is no place or time for even a suggestion of the detailed story of that heroic beginning and continuing by which the men and women here, as elsewhere, made New England forever great. But let us see, at least in outline, the big facts in their historic relation, and thus discover, for our use and inspiration, their meaning.
Speaking with measured care, it is true that, but for the spirit and life of which the First Parish Church was the expression, there never would have been a town of Dover in the 18th cen- tury, as there would not have been a Boston, a Dorchester, Rox- bury, Dedham, and the rest, all of which were born of the same inspiration.
In a word, under all and through all the first two hundred years of Dover's history, we shall find a religious motive sat- urating its political and social life, and expressing itself directly in all that this Meeting House symbolizes.
Let us first see clearly some maps, as it were, of facts and dates by which we can the more easily and swiftly move through our story.
Geographically, with the slightest alteration, Dover was in the beginning what it is to-day, - its boundaries being at the present time, Wellesley and Needham on the north, Dedham on the cast, Walpole and Medfield on the south, and Sherborne and Natick on the west.
And then a map, so to speak, of its settlement and growth into a town.
For one hundred years Dover was an undivided, even an indistinguishable part of Dedham, - I mean from 1640, when the first family moved within the present town boundaries and made a home. And not for one hundred years more did Dover enter into the last full privilege of a New England town proper.
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In 1748, however, 108 years after the coming of its first settler, this territory subsequently named Dover, became a par- tially independent precinct of Dedham, known as the * Spring- field Precinct, and having thereby certain rights of church at- tendance and ministerial support in nearer towns.
This partial independence became full independence in 1784, thirty-six years later, when a sufficient population enabled the Legislature or General Court to set off this territory as the Dover District, incorporated and in every way a town, save that, owing to the lack of a sufficient number of voters, 150, it was not entitled to a representative in the Legislature.
Not until 1836 was the electorate large enough to give Dover its title of a township. So we have 196 years from the begin- ning of what was to be the town, i. e., from its first settler, to its full title. And from the end of that time till the beginning of the present year, 1909, sixty-three years, - with a total, from its first inhabitant, of 269 years.
Now, a historic map of the several First Parish Meeting Houses that have been reared during the life of this church.
The first one stood upon the ground across the way, where today stands the house of worship of the sister of this church, the Second Congregational Church.
The frame of that first Meeting House was raised August 30th, 1750. Gradually, according to the time for such service as the farmers themselves could give, the work progressed, till the building was dedicated, unfinished but fit for use, in Decem- ber, 1754. It was not lathed and plastered until 1758, with, as the records have it, " an alley left in ye Meeting House from ye front door to ye pulpit." A house not different from this one, less six feet in length and width, - 42 x 32 x 20 feet, - but " without steeple, chimney or ornament."
In 1810 this first building burned.
The second building was placed upon this spot where we wor- ship today in the years 1810-'11. It was a structure of which the people may well have been proud, and in which we here today would also have taken pride, had not fire destroyed it in 1839. It was modeled after the First Parish Church in Eliot Square, Roxbury. It was said that the distinguished architect Bulfinch had something to do with the plans. It was large, too large for the population. As I have said, this too was burned in the year 1839.
*Named from the springs of pure water which still flow within the town.
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The third church building, erected in the same year with the destruction of the second, is the one in which we are gathered today, - and it should be here observed that it is not an unbe- coming building, judged by the pattern of the New England Meeting House.
Now, what living throbbing story gives interest and meaning to these dry "maps " of territory, dates and facts ?
The first settler, Henry Wilson, when he crossed the line which now separates Dover from Dedham, brought with him in his heart, the First Parish Church. That is to say, it was inconceivable to him, we may presume, that a community of men could anywhere dwell without a Meeting House as the center of their life. Why so? Because Henry Wilson and the men and women who had sailed the seas and entered this, the then untamed wilderness, were driven hither by a spirit like that which, in the Hebrew story, carried Abraham from his old home; these also went out, " not knowing whither they went," being only sure that they sought after a church and common- wealth which had real foundations in God's life and laws.
The church was the center of their hearts' devotion. And thus the Meeting House was naturally the center of every vil- lage and scattered town. So significant was the church in the thought of these people that they did not see how they violated the fundamental principles of their own religion, when they made laws compelling from every one, not only church support in the financial sense, but church attendance, under penalties not light, - a severity from which we draw back and which we censure, not realizing that we, too, in their time, would have done as they did.
To them, religion meant so much, and the church, as a means of religious culture, so much, that they could not bear the thought that any, through carelessness, should miss its advan- tages, even as we now are so sure of the necessity and benefits of the public school, that we compel all people to support it and all children to attend it, or its equivalent.
A church, church support, and church attendance were the first thought of the first Dover settlers. Every Sunday, for the first 100 years, husband and wife, and the children, as many as could cover the distance, walked or rode on horse-back, four. five, six or even ten or twelve miles, over the trail or rough. newly-broken road, on what was then wooded or stone-covered country, to the Dedham Meeting House. It was a long way to go, but few, I suspect, were driven thither through fear of the
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penalties of non-attendance, for this exacting law was of their own getting. No! It was conscience and something more, that drew them.
No doubt, as the population increased, the prospect of a meeting-house of their own, in the center of their town-to-be, was discussed, in neighborly gatherings, till the church took form on the hill over the way, and in the year 1754 was ded- icated. There, upon that hill, was at once the sign of the essen- tial life of the people and their common home.
In the picture of the first house they built, we may again see how much religion meant in their lives. Behold a structure not different in form, as I have said, from the one, but " without steeple, chimney, or ornament; " and for some years without lathing or plastering. Without chimney, mark you. And no Sunday was too cold in those earlier years, or while that build- ing stood, to prevent the whole parish from gathering to express in congregational form their spiritual aspirations. Foot-stoves for some of the women were the only means of tempering the air to the bodies of the most sensitive, - and after an inter- mission at the "Noon House " (a school house nearby), again the people gathered to their worship.
Was I wrong, then, in remarking that the first settler and settlers carried this First Parish Church in their bosoms, and were not satisfied until they saw it standing here, their Zion, to which they went up every Sunday, saying each one, in his heart, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord " ?
These first generations (I say generations, for there were four of them up to the ending of what may be reckoned the Puritan rule and custom) - these first generations set this greatest value on their Meeting House not only because it served as an expression of their religious devoutness, but because in it and through it there came educational influences that were very effective in the days when schools were inadequate, and public journals almost or altogether unknown.
The minister was not only a preacher but a teacher. Every minister in the earlier days was truly liberally educated. The two pastors of long settlement in this First Parish, Mr. Caryl and Mr. Sanger, were Harvard men of high standing as scholars, and of the others who preached for a time in the pulpit of this church, one afterward became President of Harvard College, Dr. Samuel Locke.
The associations, the social meetings, the gatherings in the
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interest of public welfare were educational then as they are now. The church was not only in itself educational, but begin- ning with the minister, its officers and leaders were the prime movers in the schools of Dover, as in every New England town. The leading deacon in this church, in the year 1789, Mr. Joseph Haven, is the only person historically recorded as having given money for public education. Dr. Sanger, for forty-seven years pastor of this church (1812-1859), was the public school system itself in power and efficiency, while he started and kept a public library at his own house.
Again, these men of the first four generations believed that the church was the natural center of moral reform, - not only the inspiration of individual regeneration, but the voice in the community through which any morally certified reform might speak. Then, as in later times, the Temperance reformation took hold of pastors and people.
In those days, when ministers and church officers were ex- pected to use intoxicants even to excess in social intercourse, it was in the church, through its ministers and officers and leaders, mainly, that the great wave of Temperance reformation was carried over the land.
Further, the old First Parish Meeting House was here, as elsewhere in New England, a Meeting House. It was here and here only that all the people met together. It was the social center where brother men saluted, or more intimately com- muned at least once a week.
Now, in the Puritan mind, the idea of Church and State was altogether democratic. But the full logic of this doctrine these people were not, at this stage of their development, prepared to accept. Even in the seating of the people, aristocratic con- siderations were observed, so that the most trying experience that the committee had, in ordering the arrangements for occu- pancy, was in the matter of seating the families according to recognized dignity, for, by the social customs of those times, " the first families" sat in the front seats. And this was not the only social distinction granted in that time, for those "first families " were permitted to leave the church first. following the minister, who led, with his wife upon his arm, the rest of the congregation respectfully standing meanwhile.
But in some sense, in every way that the enlightenment of the time would permit, in the church-meeting was the democratic touch of all ages and classes and races. All had seats assigned them, and they came, and no doubt, in the free air outside, be-
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fore, between, and after the services, the rich and the poor, even master and slave, did touch each other's hearts in the glow of the heavenly vision of the gospel of love.
Once more, in this very Meeting House in which we sit to- day, this church came consciously to the logic of the premise upon which the religion of Puritanism (much more the religion of Christianity) is founded, viz .: to the discovery that individ- ual freedom, the right of private judgment in religion, means liberal religion. Not all, - not every one in Dover, that is, - were prepared to accept this conclusion; a very few dissented, and two left the First Parish Church, to help establish the sister church, whose Meeting House is now across the way. Between these two churches have always been the happiest and most friendly relations.
But it was a great deal to find out that no man had a right to bind another's thought and conscience in matters religious, or further still, to deny him fellowship in worship, word and work. There were steps yet to be taken, to be sure, by the com- ing generations, before religious freedom could be perfectly real- ized. But here, as elsewhere throughout New England, the door was opened, till now men and women of all Protestant religious faiths are rapidly coming to the bond of fellowship with each other which has been for a long time the only bond in many of our Liberal Churches, viz .: "In the love of the truth, and in the spirit of Jesus, we unite for the worship of God and the service of man."
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