USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Longmeadow > Proceedings at the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Longmeadow, October 17th, 1883 > Part 8
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 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
Toil on then, my brother,-more cheerful and more hopeful than your immediate predecessors did, trusting that your future, and that of your people, may be what the psalmist so earnestly longed and prayed for ;- "That your sons may be as plants grown up in their youth : that your daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace: that your garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that your oxen may be strong to labor : that there be no breaking in, nor going out ; and that there be no complaining in your streets. Happy is that people that is in such a case ;- yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord."
THE HOOK AR ( FORMERLY BURNHAM ) PLACH.
٦٠٠٠
'H 1
1.1
97
The Address of Rev. Mr. Beebe was followed by that of Rev. Samuel Wolcott, D.D., of Cleveland, O., who succeeded the former in the pastorate of the First Church of Longmeadow in 1843. The President said :
The name of Wolcott the Mother learned long ago to honor and to love. In was in 1704,-the very year in which Deerfield was captured, and her earliest pastor, then a boy of ten years, was seized into captivity,-that a certain Roger Wolcott, near neighbor upon the south, building himself a home, adorned the walls of its parlor with a large fresco painting representing that midnight assault. Familiarity with such a painting could hardly fail of inspiring the rising Wolcott family, both with a strong martial ardor, and a warm Williams attach- ment.
This seed-fact bore fruit first, when, in 1745, this same Roger Wol- cott, as second in command of the famous Louisburg expedition, led to that successful seige a band of the Mother's own sons, with her Pastor Williams as their chaplain ; receiving therefor the public thanks of Governor Shirley of Massachusetts. It bore still further fruit, when, just one hundred years later, a descendant of this valiant Roger Wol- cott entered the line of the Mother's own pastoral succession in this branch of the church militant. The voice of the Rev. Samuel Wolcott will be ever welcome in the ears of the Mother herself, or of any of her children.
REV. DR. WOLCOTT'S ADDRESS.
I am obliged to you, Mr. President, for the very generous terms in which you have referred to me, and should be pleased to honor this flattering introduction with a suitable response ; the waning time admonishes me to be brief.
The reminiscences of a youthful pastorate in this parish are what brought me to this celebration to-day. But the sentiment to which I am asked to respond, has reference to a period much earlier than the date of the event which this centennial day com- memorates, and really includes historic events of still greater antiquity. In late years nearly all the families of this period have been brought into kinship by intermarriages. But in the early history of the place, when the families were fewer, they built themselves up by alliances with families in neighboring
13
98
communities. They crossed the State border for this purpose ; and thus it happens that the family to which I belong became an element in the early and forming period of this community. Two of the grand-daughters of Henry Wolcott, our emigrant ancestor, one of the founders of the town of Windsor, and the Colony of Connecticut, both sisters of Gov. Roger Wolcott, whom the President of the day has named, made their homes in Longmeadow. The elder, Elizabeth, in 1680, more than two centuries ago, in the " Precinct period " referred to by the orator of the day-married Daniel Cooley ; the younger, Joanna. in 1690, married John Colton. These ladies, through their descend- ants, are now represented in most of the leading families of the place. I remember during my residence here to have seen an antique volume of manuscript poems by one Jonathan Stebbins, a native bard, in which the younger lady is the subject of several elegiac stanzas. The tender tribute paid by a cotem- porary to Mrs. Joanna Colton was, I trust, deserved ; it certainly has been due to Colton ladies who have lived here since her day.
Two generations later, a Henry Wolcott married Abigail Cooley, and through a large family of children brought up here, formed still further connections between the Family and the Parish. Still later, a Cornelius Wolcott married in the East Parish, and settled in this region ; and thus it happens that a name which has been borne by two of the governors of Connecticut, appears on the list of your Centennial Committee.
My own pastorate in this parish commenced forty years ago, this autumn. If those were not the palmy days of the place, it certainly was not less true then than now, that it was the best specimen extant of preserved Puritanism. This was manifested in that reverence for sacred institutions, which was always a dis- tinctive mark of Puritan faith. It was conspicuous in their deference toward their minister, whom they treated with thought- ful respect and courtesy. When the parish killed its pig, the minister was sure to receive a spare-rib.
Our three eldest sons, now far away, were born here, and their regret is as sincere as my own, that they cannot be present to participate in this festival. Since I stepped upon this platform,
99
the following telegram from two of them has been placed in my hands by the friend to whom it was addressed, with a request that I would read it.
DENVER, COL., Oct. 15th, 1883.
REV. JOHN W. HARDING.
As sons of Longmeadow we congratulate her on arriving at this centennial anniversary in such vigorous health and prosperity; and join in most sincere regrets that we cannot, upon this joyous occasion, unite with her other children and friends in celebrating her one hun- dredth birthday. Horace Greeley's advice has led us a long way from our old home, but we left our hearts behind us.
HENRY R. WOLCOTT :- EDWARD O. WOLCOTT.
In the council which sanctioned the dissolution of my pastoral relation here, the closing prayer was offered by the venerable minister from Braintree, to whom repeated reference has been made. He prayed, I remember, that it might be my privilege to revisit the place and preach again in its pulpit. That prayer waited twenty years for its answer, when on the invitation of the pastor I passed a Sabbath here. Again, on the last summer, in compliance with another invitation from him, Mrs. Wolcott and myself together passed a Sabbath here. We had been looking around a little for a place in the Eastern States to which we could retire, and pass the quiet evening of a busy and diversified life. It seemed to us that our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Leete, had done a sensible thing in securing a freehold here. It occurred to us that if the opportunity should offer, it might not be unwise for us to do the same thing, and close our wedded life where it com- 'menced. I thought of the line in Parnell's Hermit :
" Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise."
And while I could not promise that our pursuits would be exclusively spiritual, I could not but hope that such pursuits would not be uncongenial, as they would not be unbecoming, to our closing days. And I could think of no locality more favorable to meditations and employments of this nature, than these tranquil shades. Should this thought be realized (as it now seems likely to be) it would be but the fulfillment of a desire which I remember to have cherished many years ago-that I might be joined with this people in burial, to await with them an associated rising on the morning of the resurrection.
100
The Address of Dr. Wolcott was followed by that of Rev. Charles R. Bliss, Secretary of the New West Commission at Chicago, introduced as follows by the President:
"Westward ho?" was the inspiration and the watchword of the Mother's own settlement, two hundred years ago. She hath since * heard of a Newer West, of yet brighter beauty and broader bounty than her own. To her this seems scarcely credible, and where ignorance is Bliss, 'tis folly, perhaps, to seek to be wise. Yet she would fain ask of her younger son, the honored commissioner of that New West, whether he hath anywhere there seen aught to shake his allegiance to herself ? Will the Rev. Charles R. Bliss respond ?
RESPONSE OF MR. BLISS.
No, Mr. President,-My heart untraveled fondly turns to home. There are loftier mountains than those skirting this valley, wider plains, more majestic rivers than yonder silver stream, but never did hills and valleys, meadows and streams, combine in a more beautiful landscape than that which met the sight of our fathers, as they wound down the Bay Path to the banks of the Connecti- cut, the vanguard of the mighty army that for two hundred and fifty years has been marching westward.
In introducing me you have taken up the old Elizabethan watchword "Westward ho!" and alluded to the fact that my special work is on our western frontiers, in transplanting, if it may be by God's help, the New England institutions and spirit into the New West
How strange it seems that this old town was once a border town,-an outpost of civilization. Then deep ravines intersected this broad and level street ; a wilderness of oaks and chestnuts stood in place of these overhanging elms; rank vines and impenetrable thickets covered the meadows at our feet. Only the resolution and the sinews of vigorous and brave men could have filled those ravines, felled those forests, and cleared those meadows.
And how different the ideas upon which they built this ancient border town from those on which many border towns are now rising in the New West. On the very spot covered by this
IOI
spacious tent our fathers built a Meeting-House, and not far away a School-house; but where did they put the Saloon, the Dance- house, and the Billiard hall ? Alas, that age was dull and tame. They gave to piety what was due to conviviality ; to God what was due to the devil. How can we forgive them ! Ask those wise gentlemen, who pity and defame the Puritans, what can ever condone the loss of the early saloon, the dance-house, and the billiard hall !
In other respects, too, they were peculiar. In the administration of law they were slow, submissive to magistrates, careful of legal forms, anxious to guard human rights. But they committed one mistake ; they never saw the advantages of putting the judicial ermine upon the allies of criminals, and then appealing to popu- lar fury to punish crime. Being in Salt Lake City the past sum- mer, I saw one day an unusual commotion. A negro had shot a white man, and been himself hung by the mob; and the second transaction followed the first in less than twenty minutes, and cost nothing. What a saving of time, and legal costs !
But dropping the tone of satire,-it was an honor beyond that of titles and crowns that the founders of this town brought every popular purpose, practice, and current of feeling to the test of the word of God. Commissioned in His providence to build a town, they put into their work not only toil and daring and endurance, but fidelity to moral ideas, and obedience to divine instructions. Would that the founders of the countless towns now springing up in the far West were actuated by similar principles ; but, as the spent ripples on a lee-shore so are the conservative influences of justice, intelligence, and religion upon many of those towns. A revival of the rigid and uncompromising virtues that brought our fathers here, and sustained them till their work was grandly done, is needed from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean; and upon its coming, we cannot doubt, rests the safety of the republic.
But I do not forget, Mr. President, that I am expected to speak as a representative of the family whose name I bear. The earliest authentic records of the family take us across the sea to the Parish of Belstone, Devonshire, England, and back to the year 1550. About that year was born Thomas Bliss-although
102
the names of his parents cannot be traced in the illegible records of the parish. He succeeds to valuable estates, belongs to the yeomanry, and is a Puritan. From this fact arise persecu- tions. He is imprisoned, fined, and almost ruined in health and purse. He has five children, three of whom are sons; Jonathan, Thomas, and George. The famous Parliament of 1628 is about to assemble. The country is deeply excited over the usurpations of King Charles, and members of Parliament are escorted to London by their determined supporters. Among these are the two elder of the Bliss brothers, mounted upon iron-grey steeds. The King's spies learn their names, and they are fined a thousand pounds for non-conformity and thrown into prison. The three brothers, with several others, are led through the market-place in Okehampton with ropes around their necks. Jonathan dies from a disease contracted in prison.
From these indignities and wrongs the family soon decided to escape by coming to America. Thomas, with his wife Margaret and six children, his brother George, and his nephew Thomas, son of Jonathan, embark in 1635. The nephew settles in Reho- both, George in Newport, R. I., while Thomas and his family go first to Newtown, and then to Hartford. Thomas soon dies, and Margaret, with her family increased to ten children, removes to Springfield. And from that ten have sprung the larger part of the entire family, now living, reaching the number of nearly nine thousand souls.
The eloquent remarks that have been made to-day upon this platform, concerning early New England women and their influence in molding society, apply with emphasis to Margaret Bliss. She was a woman of remarkable energy, force of char- acter, and intellectual ability. In the midst of the severe hard- ships of new settlements, she reared a large family, whose characters bore the impress of superior training. She conducted business affairs with great discretion and success. She made exhausting journeys, endured many privations, and, having reached the great age of ninety years, passed away, leaving the record of a noble life. She is described as good looking, with a broad open brow, fair hair, and blue eyes; and the family
IO3
traditions declare her to have been, in character, manners, and personal appearance, worthy of any rank in life. How rich was early New England in women of that stamp, and how much of the moral force for which she is distinguished is due to them.
The Blisses have always been an indefatigable and plucky sort of people. Feats of remarkable physical prowess are nar- rated of some of them. Others have lived to very great age, not seldom passing eighty years, sometimes ninety, and in some instances measuring the limit of a full century. And tradition has it that sometimes they have disputed the advance of death itself. One of our ancestors, though bearing another name, actually died, as was supposed, and was laid out for burial ; when she suddenly sat up, and afterward became the mother of nine- teen children .- Where is Brother Colton now! The plethora of deacons in his family is hardly worthy of mention in com- parison with a fact like this.
By the way, however, that abundance of deacons in the Colton family is easily explained. Not only did the original Captain Thomas Colton, and also his nephew, Samuel, marry Blisses, but the great Quartermaster himself married the widow of a Bliss. The Longmeadow diaconate, it may also be in order to say, has for sometime lacked a Colton. There is none in it now, though there is a Bliss, whose name is Noah ; and for forty years before his elevation to office, there was no Colton, but there was a Bliss, whose name was Ebenezer. Evidently, a few more Coltons should have married Blisses.
Like the Coltons, the Blisses are proud of their deacons; but they do not rest their claims to fame on them alone. Look at the facts. Fifth from Thomas of Belstone, through Margaret and Samuel of Springfield, is Daniel, who graduated at Harvard, became pastor at Concord, Mass., was a leading pulpit orator of his day, a friend of Whitefield, and through Phebe, his daughter, who married an Emerson, was the great-grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The Blisses have always despised pettifoggers, but taken very kindly to good lawyers, and not a few of them have risen to eminence in the legal profession. Sixth from Thomas of
104
Belstone, through Lawrence of Springfield, was Jonathan, Chief Justice of New Brunswick. William B., his son, was Chief Justice of Nova Scotia. Seventh from Thomas of Belstone, through Samuel of Longmeadow, was John Murray, Solicitor General and Judge of New Brunswick. Eighth in the same line was Lemuel Wilmot, Solicitor General and Governor of New Brunswick. Ninth from Thomas of Belstone, through Nathaniel of Springfield and Samuel, 2d, of Longmeadow, is Philemon, Chief Justice of Dakota, and afterward Supreme Judge of Missouri. But time would fail me to speak of all our eminent lawyers,-of Alexander of Boston and Washington ; of George, and George his son, and George his grandson of Springfield and New York; of Metcalf of Troy; of Asahel of Michigan ; of Neziah of Chicago; of William H. of St. Louis, and scores of others who have not only won success as lawyers, but have been advanced to high responsibilities by their fellow citizens. One man of the last century should not be forgotten. Hon. John Bliss of Wilbraham, born and brought up in Longmeadow. and early a member of this church, became one of the most prominent men of his time in this region, serving many years as Judge, in three Provincial Congresses, and twenty-eight years in the Legislature, or in the Executive Council.
It also reflects honor upon the family that religious motives so much shaped their actions. How could it be otherwise. springing from such a parentage. The forces of personal char- acter that lead men to look calmly upon the spoiling of their goods, imprisonment, and even death itself, rather than be false to their religious convictions, do not expend their strength in one generation. They perpetuate themselves, and become the unconscious springs and sources of character through successive centuries.
As might be supposed, ministers and missionaries have been numerous in the family. Eighth from Thomas of Belstone, through Nathaniel, one of the founders of this church, is Asher, once a devoted missionary of the American Board to the Indians. In the line of Samuel, are Edwin N. and Isaac G., who have long
IO5
been honored missionaries resident in Constantinople ; also Daniel, missionary President of Beirut College, Syria. Nor is the last that I mention the least-Emily Bliss Gould, eighth from Thomas, through Lawrence of Springfield,-a devoted Christian woman, who employed her means and leisure, during an ex- tended residence in Rome, to establish a Christian school and church.
Many other honorable professions and pursuits bear a similar witness. Nor has the country, in her repeated perils, called upon them in vain. More than two hundred and fifty have shouldered arms in her defense, serving her in all ranks from the private to the general, and scores of them have died in her behalf. This well accords with the heroism and moral earnestness of those ancestors, who so appreciated the priceless value of a free country, as fearlessly to demand it of a tyrannical king ; and failing to obtain the boon from him, sought it in the wilderness, which their self sacrifice has converted into the free and fruitful land we to-day call our own.
Never can we extol too highly the deeds of our fathers. By whatever names our families are known, they all strike their roots into the same rich soil. We are not so much Coltons, or Cooleys, or Keeps, or Blisses, as descendants of the Puritans ; of the lineage and household of men who, with cruel persecutions behind them, and hardships and disasters before them, erected here altars whose fires, after two and a half centuries, are to-day burning brightly as ever. No other people upon this round earth have a richer heritage of glorious memories and inspiring examples, than we. In a land made free to us by their toil and sacrifice, with moral purposes inherited from them throbbing in our veins, and with every door of opportunity wide open, we must not,-cannot,-fail to complete their work. When the next centennial shall come, it may be our privilege to revisit with them, in spirit, these scenes of their and our toil and love. If that shall be, God grant that we may then discover no broken links in the golden chain that shall bind the First Puritan Century with the Fourth, in rich and glad prosperity.
14
106
The President :- In days long gone, the name of Keep was a familiar one to the Mother's ear, and dear also to her heart. She numbers, indeed, fewer of that lineage among her present children, than of some others ; but the name itself is not therefore less dear to her. Any reminiscences connected with it will be gratefully received by her from Rev. John R. Keep of Hartford.
REV. MR. KEEP'S ADDRESS.
There are but few of the Keep name, and for this reason; the usual three brothers did not come over, but only a single ancestor; and he with his wife and infant child were cut off by the Indians. The line had to commence again, which it did in the person of an orphan boy of six years old. For what he was -- for he became a mighty man of valor, and bore the name of Ensign Samuel Keep-he was indebted to his uncles, Samuel Bliss and Joshua Leonard, under whose guidance he remained until he was twenty-five years old. And what did he do then ? Why, he married Sarah Colton, and thus incorporated into his line all the sterling qualities which the Rev. Mr. Colton has so vividly portrayed in his ancestors. Having left his impress, and that of all the Coltons also, upon the appropriate number of Johns, and Samuels, and Matthews, and Stephens, not to mention the daughters, he fell on sleep at the age of eighty-five, and his mili- tary title went sacredly upon his tombstone.
A son of Ensign Samuel was my father's grandfather, and the father of my great uncle, Rev. John Keep, the minister of Sheffield. Of the latter I will say a few words. He was born in 1648, and graduated at Yale in the class of 1669 with Dr. Dwight and Dr. Strong of the First Church in Hartford ; being the first Yale graduate from Longmeadow. He was a man of deep piety, and was, according to Dr. West of Stockbridge, a man of rare pulpit eloquence ;- " the finest pulpit orator he ever heard," are Dr. West's words. As might have been expected, he was the resort of his people in every emergency. The fol- lowing will suffice as an example. During the Revolutionary war, when the post-riders were infrequent in their journeys through the country, the post-rider who passed through Sheffield
107
was greatly annoyed by the hindrances which he met with from one woman, who, whatever the weather, would run out and waylay him with the demand for the news. Tired of the interruption, he at length determined to teach her a lesson. Accordingly, one fierce November day, out she comes with her hair and her apron streaming in the wind, and laying hold of the post- rider demanded as usual, " What's the news ?" "News enough !" says the postman, " The Indians have cut through the great lakes, and we are all going to be drowned." Without stopping to get her breath, she flies to the minister, Mr. Keep, and rushes in upon his studies, exclaiming in her sharpest tones, " We are all going to be drowned." "O, no, my good woman," said the venerable minister, "we have the promise of the Lord for that." " The Lord! The Lord's nothing to do with it ;- it's them plaguey Indians." At the early age of thirty-six, this godly man passed to his reward. His older brother, my grandfather, lived to be eighty-four.
In the next generation, Samuel remained a farmer, and John became a minister. He is within the remembrance of many of you. On his settlement at Blandford, he first put the roads in order, then he rebuilt the school-houses, then set the people an example of good farming. He thus gained their respect and sympathy, and so was sure of a willing ear when he spoke to them. He made his wit subservient to the great end of leading men to God. He was reputed to be an excellent judge of a horse. A man came to him one day to get his judgment respecting a horse which he wished to buy. After carefully looking him over, he observed that his knees were strained and bruised. "Bruised knees are an excellent thing in a minister," said he, " but I should not recommend them in a horse." Later in life he went west and became identified with the institution at Oberlin, Ohio, in whose behalf he undertook a mission to England, and brought thence thirty thousand pounds as the fruits of his solicitations.
Of my brother, Dr. N. C. Keep, I may be permitted to say that in his busy professional life, and amid his new associates, he never forgot his early home, nor ceased to feel a warm interest in the town and in all connected with it.
.
108
The President :- It is remembered by the Mother as one of the quaint sayings of that venerable man, Rev. Dr. Robbins of the Hart- ford Antiquarian Society-himself apparently its greatest antiquity- that whenever he met a Longmeadow man whose name he could not positively recall, he always first addressed him as Colton, and that in nine cases out of ten it proved to be the right name.
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.