USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > West Brookfield > Quabaug, 1660-1910 : an account of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration held at West Brookfield, Mass., September 21, 1910 ; > Part 9
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THOMAS G. RICHARDS PATRICK J. DANIELS ALFRED C. STODDARD
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adjacent towns. Daniel Shays, after whom the movement was named, was once a hired man of Daniel Gilbert in North Brookfield and is said to have there married Abigail Gilbert. Captain Francis Stone, whose father was killed at the siege of Quebec under General Wolfe, and who himself acquired a reputation in the War of the Revolution, furnished most of the brains and wrote the proclamations. A large company of Brookfield volunteers, including Dwight Foster, under Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin, transported on sleighs, aided in the suppression of the revolt. Jonathan, the brother of Francis Stone, also took arms in support of the government. In December, 1786, while this war was on, a town meeting sent to the governor a prayer for an act of indemnity. Dur- ing the next month, ninety-six of the inhabitants sent him a protest against this vote. When the decree of amnesty was finally signed by Governor Hancock, Captain Stone returned from Vermont and enjoyed the respect of his neigh- bors, although he never expressed regret. His controversial spirit passed to one of his descendants, Lucy Stone, his grandaughter born in West Brookfield, in 1848, who was well known as an advocate of abolition and of woman's rights.
During their financial distress, the investments of the town funds were not always such as would be approved by modern financiers. In March, 1791, the Second Precinct voted that the proceeds of the continental money in the hands of the treasurer be invested in tickets in the Massa- chusetts Monthly State Lottery. What practices that we now pursue without the slightest scruple will be condemned as immoral by succeeding generations? What acts that we now condemn as immoral will they consider not only per- missible but commendable?
While the inhabitants of Brookfield were in the con- dition of poverty that has been described, no one was poorer or less respected or with less apparent education, than a girl of seventeen, who lived there in the year 1794. She
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afterwards became one of the richest women in New York. She is said to have been the cause of the death of Alexander Hamilton. She married a man who had been Vice-President of the United States and she died in 1865 well known as Madame Jumel.
During the first twelve years of the Nineteenth Cen- tury, little happened here that is worthy of note. North Brookfield, which comprises the northeast corner and about one-third of the original town, was incorporated into a separate township by the act of February 28th, 1812. Pub- lic opinion was divided as to the expediency of the new corporation; but, after two years agitation, the petition for separation succeeded through the support of a political party, which hoped to increase its strength by the separate representation of this district. They were defeated, how- ever, at the first town election. Although the population of the town was largely Federalist and opposed to the War of 1812, the Brookfield Light Infantry Company marched to the defense of Boston and camped in the Rope Walk at South Boston for nearly two months in 1814.
On March 3rd, 1848, the western part of the old town, consisting substantially of the first parish and including the original settlement on Foster's Hill, received a second incor- poration under the name of West Brookfield. The third or south parish in the southeast of the old town, including East Brookfield village, retained the original name of Brook- field. The original square of six miles had, by the act of December 3rd, 1719, been increased to an area of about eight miles square with an addition of 300 acres to the south side, which forms the rectangular piece jutting into Stur- bridge. Subtractions had been made of the territory trans- ferred to Warren, formerly called Western New Braintree and Ware, in 1742, 1751 and 1823 respectively.
In the long struggle that resulted in the emancipation of the slaves, Brookfield, true to its traditions, early took a position in support of freedom. Through the influence
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of the Reverend Moses Chase, pastor of the First Church, Deacon Josiah Henshaw on January 26th, 1843, was excom- municated because of his advocacy of abolition. This was a not unusual practice in New England churches at that time. Like most ecclesiastical organizations, they were conservative. But as was said by an eminent and scholarly pastor, who later occupied the same pulpit: "It is unneces- "sary to say that the cause of religion languished here; "the heart of this people 'waxed gross'; their ear grew "'dull of hearing'; and the Lord's chosen became 'an "astonishment and a hissing,' in the community-until, "at length the state of things became so intolerable that "the church, failing to secure the concurrence of the pastor "in the calling of a Mutual Council, was obliged to resort "to the extraordinary measure of an Ex-parte Council, "by whose advice Mr. Chase was dismissed October 28, "1843, after a dreary pastorate of twenty-one and a half "tempestuous months." He organized a secession and for a short time expounded in Mr. Lampson's hall the doc- trine that the the slavery of the descendants of Ham was an essential element of Christianity, basing his argument "Cursed be Canaan, a servant upon the words of Noah:
"of servants shall he be unto his brethren." But the town was rid of him before December of the following year, when his followers returned to the original flock under the new pastor, Leonard S. Parker. Within a month of the latter's installation, on January 16th, 1845, the church adopted resolutions condemning slavery as "a flagrant sin in the sight "of God, and an enormous injury to man."
The organization of the Union Congregational Church at North Brookfield in 1854 was principally due to the sympathy that most of its members felt with the advocacy of abolition.
Although mention is made of a few bigots and time- servers who were a disgrace to the cloth, let there be no sug- gestion that may reflect upon the ministry of Brookfield.
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Some of them were scholars, to whose industry we owe the preservation of much of the town's history. And if the tra- ditions of their congregations are to be believed, of nearly all can it be truly said:
"For Christes lawe and his Apostles twelve
"He taught but firste he followed it himselfe."
Throughout our Civil War, the citizens of the Brook- fields proved that they had inherited from their forefathers devotion to the cause of liberty and union. In the war for the liberation of Cuba, they again made sacrifices to give others that independence which they themselves enjoyed.
To describe the rise and fall of the industries upon which the prosperity of these towns have depended, to enumerate the leaders in business, politics, religion, war, and social life, whose presence has been an honor to their fellow citizens, during the last hundred years, would trespass too much upon the time of this patient audience. It would be invidious to make selections from so many who deserve honorable mention, some of whom I see before me. To make such selections adequately and judiciously would be beyond the powers of a speaker whose family left Brookfield nearly a century ago. Still you, who were his neighbors in his boyhood and his old age, must join with me in the regret that this address is not delivered by him who was the most distinguished citizen of Brookfield during the last fifty years, Daniel H. Chamberlain, lieutenant and captain during the Civil War; Attorney General and Governor of South Caro- lina; who displayed all the virtues of the Puritan. He was a soldier, a lawyer, a scholar, a statesman and, above all, a patriot.
The sons of Brookfield are not confined to the town limits. They are found throughout the nation. As its empire has extended from a narrow fringe on the North Atlantic, to the Gulf, across the Great River, to the coast of the ocean discovered by Balboa, even to the islands of Asia, of which no Englishman had heard when this town was
CARLTON D. RICHARDSON JOHN G. SHACKLEY REV. BENSON M. FRINK
ALBERT W. BLISS PHILANDER HOLMES
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HON. ROGER FOSTER
founded, they and the other children of New England have led the way. The problems which they face, where the west meets the east, are in some respects not dissimilar to those with which their forefathers grappled. The Puritan, however, has learned sympathy and religious tolerance through the lapse of generations. And the most savage of the natives of that archipelago have received and will receive more humane treatment-however strong the provocation to cruelty-than was afforded to the Indians of Massachu- setts. The problems upon this continent which must soon be solved are far different from those that confronted the Puritans. The divine right of kings is dead. The struggle for representative institutions is over. They have spread as far as the empires of the Sublime Porte and the Shah. The Church can no longer persecute. Its weapons are no more than sufficient for the defense of its temporal estate throughout the world. The persecution that is suffered in the Twentieth Century is exercised by corporations which are not ecclesiastical. Oppression by an aristocracy has ceased, but democracy has a more powerful enemy in plu- tocracy. Aristocracy was controlled by the traditions of the past, which established a code of honor that, although in many respects false, still recognized some obligations to magnanimity and generosity. A plutocracy which is igno- rant of the names of its grandfathers and is ashamed of the fact that its fathers used a pick and shovel, does not under- stand the meaning of the word tradition, respects no code except that enforced by the criminal law and does not have the right to be called democratic, because it is vulgar. The time has passed when a duke had the power to force a man out of an English county. A Captain of Industry who, by unfair trade and legislative corruption, has usurped the control of a branch of manufacture, can now drive an ob- noxious competitor out of business in the United States. He can destroy the prosperity of a city by the removal of a factory or by a discrimination in the price of carriage. He
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can compel the subservience of its citizens by the threat of his displeasure. Monopolies are no longer granted to the flatterers of kings. They exist, however, in this republic, built up by statutes procured from the people's representa- tives by corruption and drafted in deceptive and fraudulent language by counsellors of high repute. The highwayman no longer infests our roads and the robber baron does not exist to levy toll upon passing merchandise. Those who withhold cars from the manufacturer, keeping him from fulfilling his contracts and forcing him toward bankruptcy, until he gives them a share in his profits, reap a richer harvest The stories told in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries of the extortions and extravagances of the farmers of public revenues, are insignificant beside those of the controllers of public utilities that we daily read in the financial reports and the society columns of our newspapers. The rules of our criminal law, which developed in the struggle by the judges to protect the weak from oppression and to save the innocent, are now obstacles against the conviction of the powerful who are guilty and the strong who are oppressors. To remedy these evils; to prevent violence and fraud from continuing to amass huge bulks of riches, which exceed the dreams of the avarice of former generations; to check the oppressive use of wealth after its acquisition; without at the same time destroying property itself, or removing the incentives that alone preserve most of mankind from in- dolence and improvidence, without weakening the founda- tions of society, upon which civilization has grown from barbarism: this is a task that will require all the intelligence, courage and devotion of the descendants of the Puritans. Their hereditary obedience to conscience, regardless of a public opinion that they deem to be perverted, should make them face unperturbed the storm of sneers obloquy and abuse from hired advocates and a subsidized press. The patience and courage that enabled their ancestors to conquer the wilderness and refound this town after its destruction;
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to endure the miseries and discouragement of Valley Forge; to brave uncrushed the enormous weight of public disappro- bation, in the exercise of which the respectable class of the community even denied the hope of religious salvation to some of the abolitionists; should prevent their sinking in the slough of despond, after the repeated failure of their earlier efforts. For the encouragement of traits of character like these, not because of vainglorious living in the past, it is right that the deeds and virtues of our forefathers should be honored at stated anniversaries. The descendants of the citizens of Brookfield may fitly say: "One generation "shall praise thy works to another and shall declare thy "mighty acts."
MME. TRYPHOSA BATES-BATCHELLER
Mme. Tryphosa Bates-Batcheller received an ovation, as, at the close of Mr. Foster's oration, she rose to sing. Her highly cultivated voice and the artistic perfection of her singing made her appearance one of the most delightful fea- tures of the afternoon. She graciously responded to an en- core with a charming rendering of "The Last Rose of Sum- mer."
GOVERNOR EBEN S. DRAPER
When His Excellency, Governor Eben S. Draper, ap- peared upon the platform, the audience rose to its feet with a cheer that could have left him no doubt of their hearty support. He said:
"What a great relief it is to stand up once in a while at a ball game. The same, I suppose, applies to the recent courtesy you extended me, and on that account I am glad you showed me that mark of respect.
"Coming here today, I am not expected to give a talk concerning historic Brookfield. That has been done by the
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previous orator far better than I could possibly do. The history of your town for 250 years is the history of the Com- monwealth. Any town that has been incorporated this length of time has been through experiences well illustrating the story of the Commonwealth and its growth.
"Your town went through the Indian wars; massacres were abroad in the land; women, men and children were ruthlessly destroyed with frequency, and existence was a continual battle. This warfare developed one great prin- ciple, that of depending on each other. No family could hope to withstand the onslaughts of the savage foe, or con- tend successfully with the Indians by itself.
"Later the people, as a result of their combinations against their foes, came into a closer union. When the col- onies found they had grievances against their lord and king, they discovered that they must combine to get their rights. These independent States, which found they had no inter- dependence, combined for the common foe. The colonies, as they then were, fought to a successful issue the War of Independence, and finally a union in embryo was born.
"From the first, State rights were considered most im- portant. Each State was jealous of giving up any rights, and it was long a mooted question whether the union was a nation or a confederation of sovereign States. The Civil War settled the question of whether this is a nation or not, in the affirmative, once and for all.
"The War of 1812 found us a homogeneous people. The citizens came at that time from European countries having common traditions and language, and with the same aims.
"The question of slavery later arose and was settled. When I go to a gathering of this sort and see so many men wearing the button of the Grand Army, living veterans of that notable struggle, the greatest war in all history, I realize that I stand in the presence of men connected with the grandest event in American annals. I revere all of them.
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FRANK E. PROUTY EMERSON H. STODDARD ARTHUR F. BUTTERWORTH
ARTHUR H. DRAKE
WILLIAM MULCAHY
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GOV. DRAPER-CONG. GILLETT
"Today we have no war, but the questions before us as a nation are all the more important on that account. You are a New England people. You know the problems of to- day which you will have to settle are vastly different from those of our forefathers. Now all our immigrants come from a world-wide sweep, they speak all tongues, are of all religions and all degrees of intelligence. Many of them do not know what freedom means. They think liberty is li- cense, not having learned the lesson that all liberty must be founded in a respect for law.
"I agree with the previous speaker on the dangers of plutocracy, and in my opinion it must be settled by the proper training of the youth of our land, as the citizens of the future.
"This mass of humanity being dumped upon our shores must be made to imbibe the true spirit of liberty, before we can teach them to be intelligent American citizens. I am an optimist, not a pessimist. There are no terrors of mind to be called up by the conditions we have before us, but we must face the issue, just the same. We may have a little trouble in settling our difficulties, but a people which has been through as much trouble as we have need not fear some more of the same sort.
"You must settle this question through your children and their training. See that they are brought up to know the pride of being an American citizen. You have a duty to see that they are worthy of you and your fathers.
"Then Massachusetts will stand, as she does today, in the lead of the greatest procession of States on God's green earth."
CONGRESSMAN FREDERICK H. GILLETT
Congressman Frederick H. Gillett commenced his re- marks by quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes on the transi- toriness of most things after the lapse of a hundred years. Brookfield, he said, appeared to be one great exception to
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the old adage that aged things run slowly and finally decay. He continued:
"I cannot help contrasting the condition of our ances- tors, as pictured by the orator of the afternoon, and our con- dition of life today. There are certain traits of the Pilgrim Fathers from which we are glad to escape. They were crus- ty, and no doubt the Pilgrim mothers had much to endure from them, in addition to the rigors and privations of the New England settlement.
"The Pilgrims and the Puritans would be amazed and bewildered at the changes which the years have wrought. Much as we are disposed to grumble at the high cost of living, and other modern conditions, yet, looking back, we have much to be thankful for. Compare the conditions in Eng- land at the time the Colonists came from that country with the conditions that surround the humblest workingman and cottager today. The greatest nobleman of two hundred and fifty years ago would stand in envy before the cottage comforts we now possess throughout our land.
"We live better now than we did in those days. We have our hot and cold water, and the countless little things that go to make up the comforts of the modern house, and little thought is given to the progress that has been made. The Puritans would say that this age gives to the humblest laborer a better living than they ever received or than ever was given the wealthiest plutocrat of ancient times. Let us be thankful.
"The Pilgrims might consider us frivolous, but they would decide that we had maintained their fundamentals of public schools and education, which in every State are the cornerstones of civil and religious liberty."
HON. CHARLES G. WASHBURN
Hon. Charles G. Washburn of Worcester spoke without notes; the following brief abstract will indicate the trend of his remarks:
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HON. C. G. WASHBURN-MAYOR JAMES LOGAN
He spoke humorously of his regret in not being permitted to represent West Brookfield in the revised Congressional districting. He dwelt upon the austere and somber qualities of the Pilgrims and the Puritans, in whom were to be found the incarnation of conscience, an influence that had leavened the whole lump of our National life. He spoke of the vast scale upon which we are demonstrating in this country the success of a democratic form of government, and in this connection referred to the Oriental method-conquest without incorporation; the Roman method-conquest with incorporation but without representation; the Teutonic, or English method, which was based upon the principle of representation, the only form of government which can achieve national unity on a large scale without weakening or destroying the sense of local independence. He said that while he had no quarrel with a broad federal spirit, we should, with our enormous foreign immigration, insist upon inde- pendence in local affairs so essential if the fundamental prin- ciples of a democratic form of government are not to be sub- verted.
MAYOR JAMES LOGAN
Mayor James Logan, of Worcester, was the last speaker. He said:
"The towns that surround the city of Worcester have contributed their full share to the wonderful material growth of the city. They have sent and are still sending their brightest and best, the young men and women of sterling worth, on whom the world can lean, and lean hard, the pro- duct of the godly home and the hill-town Christian church. It is from such springs of virtue, integrity, and ambition, rising far up in the hill-towns of the country, that the great reservoir of city life has been fed.
"It is because of the new blood which has been poured into the cities from the country towns during all these years, that the body politic has been kept strong and healthy.
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"So I say it is fitting and proper, on an occasion like this, that the chief executive of the city of Worcester should be given an opportunity to look into the faces of the men and women, fathers and mothers, many of whom have given to the great city their sons and daughters, who have helped to make a city over which any man might thank God and be reasonably proud that it was his privilege to preside and serve.
"So I come to you today, not alone to extend the greet- ings of the city of Worcester, but to return thanks for the services rendered by the men and women who have done their part to create the Worcester that now is, thus laying deep and broad the strong foundations of the Worcester that is yet to be.
"In the language of some countries there is no word that corresponds with our word 'home'; that word, with all its sacred, tender memories, is ours. Some languages have no word that corresponds with our word 'citizen.' The word that they must use corresponds with our word 'subject,' and there is a vast difference between being a subject and being a citizen.
"In like manner, no nation on the face of the globe has a word, with perhaps the exception of 'Christmas,' around which there cluster so many sad, sweet and joyous memories as cluster around the word 'Thanksgiving,' and today in the Brookfields we are having an Old Home Week and Thanks- giving combined in one.
"Those days come to us who have been reared in New England, with the sweet fragrance of the piney woods of our dear old New England hills. They come to us laden with the best traditions of the noblest section of this land we love.
"On this day the fire burns brightly upon the old hearth- stone and the thoughts of sons and daughters far away over land and seas turn lovingly and longingly toward the old fireside in Brookfield.
"Those who have been permitted to return to this good
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old town have been living over again the days of long ago. We have been meeting old-time friends and acquaintances, and though our hair has been whitened by the years, once again we are boys and girls together.
"In imagination we have visited the old swimming- hole, where we learned to swim; we have stood on the rocks where as boys we used to sit to dry off, and untie the knots which the other fellows had tied in our shirts.
"We have recalled the promises made to fathers and mothers to come straight home from school, and not go into the water; and we remember the nights when we were being put to bed and our dear mothers discovered that our shirts were on inside out, or wrong side on, and yet, unmindful of the awful fate which befell Ananias and Sapphira, we would not own up that we had even been near the water.
"In imagination we have crawled under the fence and secured the material for a corn roast in the woods. What wouldn't we give today for corn that would taste as that did!
"We have visited the old cider mill and have sucked the cider through a straw, but we remember no more the aches and pains we had after the visit in days of yore.
"We have once more in imagination smoked that first cigar. We did not in those days have those nasty little ciga- rets to lead us up to the cigar. Those were heroic days and we started in on what they called a 'long nine,' and it cured some of us, so that that one smoke in forty years has been all we wanted.
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