USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Rehoboth in the past. An historical oration delivered on the Fourth of July, 1860 > Part 6
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Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
Under the circumstances arising from the absence of the gentleman expected to respond to the sentiment here given, I may reasonably be permitted to make a few brief remarks, in a somewhat different direction from what I should if I had intended to make a special response to that comprehensive field of historic truth.
I am well pleased with celebrations of this kind, and particularly with the rapidly increasing efforts which are now so generally being made to collect and preserve the record of the doings, the trials and the suc- cesses of our New England ancestors,-a labor which has been too much and too long neglected by almost all classes of the American people.
Although I cannot trace my pedigree to the first settlers of Old Re- hoboth, and have no ancestral claims to a relationship with that worthy band of men, yet for more than a half century I have been on very inti- mate terms with a portion of their descendants. In 1804 I became a resident of Pawtucket, [on the Massachusetts side of the river,] which was then within the limits of the venerable town whose bi-centennial anniversary we this day celebrate. Here I found a small but godly company of the members of this famous community, who united with the few members of my own order [Baptists] in sustaining religious ser- vices in the only house of public worship then in that place. These people became my steady hearers and supporters until a church of their own order [Congregationalists] arose in that place,-an offshoot from this venerable parent church. With the ministers of this wide spread town and its vicinity, I frequently exchanged pulpits; and I have preached in the double-galleried meeting-house described by the orator of the day. Thus such an intimacy was formed with this people, that I do not come here as a stranger on this joyous and praiseworthy occasion.
And besides, I claim to be a representative of a somewhat numerous portion of the population of this originally widely extended town, in which many of our faith have lived and died ; and from which, at differ- ent times, no inconsiderable numbers of this class of men, [Baptists,] both ministers and laymen, have performed important services in other regions to which they have emigrated.
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Ephraim Starkweather, Esq.,* the very talented gentleman so truth- fully alluded to in the Oration to-day, was the founder of an important and highly respectable family in that part of the ancient Rehoboth now called Pawtucket. He was one of the substantial members of the com- munity to which I have referred. He was a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale College. From this very intelligent and worthy christian citizen, I learned the leading facts of the history of Newman and his adventurous associates, and of the transactions of those men with Massasoit, the famous Indian chief, the early and firm friend of Roger Williams,-the great outlines of those times I learned from Mr. Starkweather, long before the valuable labors of Daggett and Bliss were published to the world.
I had, in my earliest years, formed a very favorable opinion of the Old Plymouth Colony, within whose ancient boundaries we are now assembled, and this opinion was strengthened and confirmed as I became more and more acquainted and familiar, in later life, with the records and character and christian liberality of this ancient people. t
With regard to the toast, to which I have not even attempted to re- spond, I have only time and strength to say : That the evidences of " the difficulties encountered and overcome " by our forefathers, are universally spread over the early history of New England ; they were the schools in which the perseverance, the honor, the integrity and ulti- mate standard of liberality of our far-famed New England character was formed-a character which has left and is yet to leave, and permanently stamp, its impress on the unborn States yet to belong to our glorious Union of confederated members of this great Republic, whose birth we this day also celebrate. Those obstacles, overcome by the toil of perse- verance and high-toned trust in God, will long shine as beacon lights for the stimulation of a laudable pride of nationality to the intelligent future.
But, Mr. President, I must close, and only beg leave to add, that the non-sectarian character of this glorious festival fully appears in the pro-
*That gentleman has a grandson, Hon. Samuel Starkweather, now living in Cleveland, Ohio, late one of the District Judges of that State. A great-grandson, James Oliver Starkweather, Esq., is now Cashier of the Slater Bank at Pawtucket. There is a fact relating to this Ephraim Starkweather of Rehoboth which is not much known in history, and it is this : Gov. John Hancock, while the storm of British oppression was lowering over New England, called to his side a board of private Councillors, as confidential advisors, and this Mr. Starkweather of Rehoboth was one of Hancock's choice, and served in that private but honorable capacity. tSee page 26. S. C. N.
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gramme of your Committee, and their admirable execution of it; and if I were to offer a sentiment, it would be something like this :
The grave is the sepulchre of all human creeds ; and beyond it will be the entire harmony of all their pious advocates. Fideli certa merces.
The fourth sentiment was-
The Early History of this Colony-It awakens an honest pride in the hearts of the people.
Hon. JOHN DAGGETT of Attleborough, President of the " Old Colony Historical Society," responded in the following manner :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
I am happy to respond to such a sentiment as the one just proposed. It is worthy of remembrance on this occasion. The Plymouth Colony- the " Old Colony," as we familiarly call it-has become a great historic name. It will fill a noble page in history ; and, as the population of this country flows westward from the Pilgrim shore, the Old Colony looms boldly up to view, and will ever be a prominent object through the vista of the Past. There is the old, lowly home of a great nation- there, its birth-place.
The general character of the Pilgrims should be held up to coming generations in everlasting remembrance. They were the unconscious founders of a great Western Empire. As the swelling population of this country expands and spreads itself over a vast continent, the fame of the Pilgrims will go with it, and " grow with its growth and strengthen . with its strength."
Yes, we are proud to claim such an ancestry-to belong to the land of the Pilgrims. You are natives of the Old Colony. This ancient town, whose birth you have met to celebrate, was included in the limits of this time-honored colony. You are assembled on sacred ground, --- standing on Pilgrim soil,-that land to which history will look for the foundations of our institutions and the germs of great events.
The founders of the Old Colony were fitted to carry on, successfully, the apparently humble, but eventually great enterprise for which Provi- dence had designed them. They were men of faith and men of courage.
They were men of genuine faith and trust in Providence, or they never would have forsaken, as they did, their native land for conscience' sake -that land to which they were bound by the ties of kindred and home.
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It was a trying moment when, in the frail Mayflower, they, exiles though they were, looked for the last time, with eyes bedimmed with tears, on the green fields and white shores of England-that " dear old England," the home of their fathers and the home of their own childhood ; they never would have severed those ties nor quit those scenes endeared to them by so many associations, to meet the perils of a wide ocean and an unknown world, if they had not been moved by a great moral power,- with hearts trusting in Providence,-sustained by an unfaltering faith,- men who valued conscience above all other things. If they had not been of such a stamp, they would not have turned away from the comforts and endearments of their native land, to banish themselves to the then uttermost parts of the earth, and to plant their homes in the wilderness.
They were also men of true courage, or they never could have faced the dangers and endured the trials to which their situation exposed them during the early periods of their history. The public and private his- tory of their lives furnishes decisive evidence of this fact. There were many occasions during their colonial existence which " tried men's souls." Their readiness to meet danger and death in their most appalling forms was fully tested in the bloody scenes of Philip's war, which swept with such terrible destruction over the infant colony. Within our own limits was the scene of the most disastrous and hard-fought battle of the whole war, in proportion to the numbers engaged. One of its severest blows fell upon the settlement around the very spot on which we stand, in the destruction, by the torch of the enemy, of the dwellings of the settlers.
You have all read the sad story of " Pierce's Fight ;" how with his sixty-three English and twenty Cape Indians he passed over these Plains with his little army, doomed so soon to perish on a bloody field ; how on his passage through the place he was joined by five of our townsmen, and all went in search of the foe, who were supposed to be in the vicin- ity ; how they courageously attacked the enemy and pursued them till they were drawn into an ambuscade and were finally surrounded by more than five times their own number. They were thus completely encom- passed by the enemy. They must then have known their fate. There was no retreat and no quarter-it was victory or death !
At the commencement of the fight, Capt. Pierce formed his men into a circle " double-double distance all round," so as to present a front to the enemy in every direction. There and thus they stood for nearly three hours in these appalling circumstances, till almost every man fell either dead or wounded ! This was a test of their courage. Even the
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coward, when surrounded by the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war," inspired by the enlivening strains of martial music, and attended by numerous hosts, may rush boldly onward in the hour of battle, but here our friends had no external aids-nothing to sustain them but their own brave hearts ! Well did the old chronicler call this battle-ground the " Bed of Honor." Honor, then, to the memory of the brave men who thus died in defence of their firesides and their homes. To be de- scended from those men is a prouder title of nobility than
" All the blood of all the Howards."
The orator of the day has alluded to some of the eminent men that have been born in Rehoboth. Within this plantation was born one per- son who has presided over Yale College ; another who has been Chief Justice of our Supreme Court ; Benjamin West, a distinguished Profes- sor in Brown University, whose name is co-extensive with astronomical science ; Dr. Nathan Smith, a man eminent in literature and philosophy. All will remember the name of Maxcy, who was born within the limits of Rehoboth, President of three colleges, one of the most eminent moral philosophers, and one of the most brilliant pulpit orators of his day.
This is a family gathering-a meeting of the descendants of the early inhabitants of Rehoboth. Shall we eall the roll of the revered dead ? Did time permit, it would be interesting to read over the names on the list in the presence of their descendants. Some one here present could respond to almost every name on it. Every one of the founders of Rehoboth is probably represented here to-day.
Oh, that I could, by some magic art, or rather, by some Divine power, recall the forefathers of the town from their sleep of two hundred years, and restore then, for a brief time, to their earthly homes, and here let them pass in review before us in their antique costumes, with their Puri- tan manners and customs ; let them here meet their children face to face ; let them cast a new glance over these once familiar places of their earthly pilgrimage ; let each venerable form, as he enters and surveys the assem- bly, recognize his own children in the names and the features we bear ! What a strange vision to them; how interesting to us ! And how changed the scene from the early days of the Pilgrims ! Here is the Great Plain, once encircled by the "ring of the town ;" above is the same blue sky and smiling sun ; and there are the bright waters of the Narragansett. But all else is changed ; all other things have become new! The log house, the red Indian, the interminable forests, have all vanished.
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Forever honored be those who, with brave hearts and unwavering faith,-patient to endure so many sufferings, and to meet so many dan- gers,-came here to subdue the wilderness, and to plant, on these beautiful shores of the Narragansett, the institutions of Religion, and Learning, and Freedom-that priceless heritage which you, their chil- dren, are now enjoying ! Their remains repose in that old Burying Ground within our sight, and have long since returned to their native dust ; but they still live in these their children-in the names you bear- in the example of their lives ;- in the principles which they have trans- mitted to you ; they still live in that influence which lingers around to hallow these scenes of their earthly pilgrimage. God bless their memory.
The fifth sentiment was-
The Clergy of Ancient Rehoboth.
Rev. CONSTANTINE BLODGETT, D. D., Pastor of the Congre- gational Church in Pawtucket, responded to this sentiment in the following appropriate remarks :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
You can scarcely be aware of the task which you have assigned, in your call upon me. You have called me to retrace through all the past of the ancient Rehoboth, the character and influence of a succession of lmumble, modest men, who pursued the "even tenor of their way " among the successive generations of this rural population. How shall I measure the influence, how weigh the moral power, of these ministers of the gospel-whom many, even yet, persist in regarding as little better than a series of town paupers, for whose support the town has been chargeable from year to year ?
But, Mr. President, there is a great law of social and moral influ- ence, under the action of which it may be seen that the clergy of this ancient town have been a power among this people, and have left a record, alike honorable to themselves and to the wisdom and grace of God, who called them into such a ministry. By office and position they have been benefactors in many ways, and to a degree which we may fail adequately to estimate.
And yet there are two lines of illustrative argument by which we may make, in a measure, obvious and appreciable the benign influence of the men who have filled the place of ministers of religion among this people.
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One line of such argument is, to suppose that from the beginning there had been no such class of men in the town of Rehoboth. Sup- pose there had never been a Sabbath observed, a sanctuary erected, a sermon preached, a prayer offered in public assemblies of worship, at marriages or at burials. What kind of a town would this have become ? What had been the character of the people ? What the state of educa- tion ? What the progress in learning, arts, sciences, and all the amenities and adornments of a christian civilization ? What would have been from year to year the value of real estate in the towns into which the ancient Rehoboth has been partitioned ? What would be the value of real estate this day under such a regimen ? We instinctively elose our eyes on the gloomy reality. We dare not picture to ourselves the results of such an experiment in eivil, social, moral and religious training. Ye minis- ters of the altar of God ! we honor your memory ; we embalm in our grateful hearts your holy lives and your manifold works of love for the blessing of your own generation and the generations following ! Blessed are ye, and blessed shall ye be among men,-to the praise of the glory of Divine grace !
The other line of illustration is this. Let every minister of religion be this day banished from all these goodly municipalities into which ancient Rehoboth has grown. Let every meeting-house be demolished, and a solemn and perpetual covenant be enacted that there never shall be another minister of religion, another sanctuary, another sermon, an- other publie or social prayer, in all future years. What would be the effect of such a measure upon the present condition and the future pros- pects of this population ? What would become of our moral, benevolent, religious, social and educational institutions ? How would fare our in- dustrial pursuits ? What would be the effect from year to year on the value of these farms and goodly homesteads, where the fathers dwelt and prospered and worshiped in their day ? How would the grand list of the towns stand from one decade of years to another ?
Think out the true answer to such questions, and you will agree with me in the conclusion that we owe an immense debt of gratitude to the clergy of Rehoboth, and to that God who appointed them to such ministry.
But who shall attempt to measure the magnitude of the results which they achieved, when we rise to a view of the influence which they have exerted on the spiritual and immortal interests of those who have lived and died under their ministrations, and been sharers in the priceless
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benefits which they were enabled to bestow on their contemporaries, and through them, on after generations ?
On the broad fields of eternity, our illustration must find its comple- tion. Into that blessed state we may not follow them now. But in it, may we ourselves read their completed histories, and learn to bless God anew for the works and benign influence of the "Clergy of Ancient Rehoboth."
I only add that it would not become me to attempt to speak of the personal character and attainments and labors of men so far removed from our day as are the Newmans and their successors in the ministry. Of the sacred learning of the elder Newman, we have heard from the orator of the day. We may suppose them all to have been sound, able, learned men, qualified for the high functions of their office, and con- mending themselves to men's consciences, in the sight of God, by their holy lives and their publie teachings, drawn, in the true Protestant method, from the oracles of revealed Truth.
Be it ours, who have entered into their labors and embraced from the heart their Protestant faith, to imitate their virtues, and to reverence, cherish and obey that sacred Word, of which they were such devout students and such able expounders. Thus may we, and those who come after us, stand accepted before the God of our fathers, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The sixth sentiment was-
The Medical Profession of Ancient Rehoboth.
Doct. BENONI CARPENTER of Attleborough responded to this sentiment as follows :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
It is good for us to be here to-day. We all claim to be directly or indirectly, as I suppose, the descendants of Ohl Rehoboth ; and if there be one sentiment stronger than another, if there be one internal instinct more potent than all others, it is where a man desires at some time in his life to return to the spot that gave him birth. I claim, Mr. Presi- dent, to be one of the direct and lineal descendants of the first William Carpenter, who lived over on the other side of this Common. Though born in a different county, I delight to be here, and to see so many of the Old Rehoboth people surrounding me. And, Sir, I suppose from
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the sentiment that I am expected to answer particularly for the medical profession that originated in this town; and when I say this town, I mean within the limits of Old Rehoboth, including this town and the towns surrounding. Were I to go into details in relation to these men, my task would be a difficult one, for whatever else Rehoboth has been, it certainly has been exceedingly prolific in physicians. I can do no more in this connection, nor is it proper that I should so do, than sim- ply give you the names of the medical men who have originated in this town. I will begin first with that part of Rehoboth now designated Seekonk.
The first physician in this town of whom I have any knowledge (and the knowledge I have of him I obtained from my grandmother, who died one hundred years old,) was Dr. David Turner, residing in the southern part of Rehoboth proper, near Palmer's River-a physician of the soul and of the body ; a preacher on the Sabbath, administering to the moral and religious necessities of men, and during the remainder of the week taking care of their physical health. He was a man of a good deal of wit and a good deal of sensitiveness, a man very much esteemed by the people of his time. He died in 1757, aged 63.
Dr. Thomas Bowen, who lived near the time of Dr. Turner, was also a distinguished physician, as well as a military colonel.
One of the first physicians of this town of whom I have any knowl- edge was Dr. Joseph Bridgham. From him descended the Bridghams of the adjacent city ; and their name has spread from this town over different parts of the country.
One of the most distinguished names in science, especially medical science, but not limited to that entirely,-a name known all over New England for the energy of its bearer,-was that of Dr. Nathan Smith. He originated in that part of Rehoboth near the residence of Dr. Whit- marsh, in the southern part of this town. A poor boy, he fought his own way along through life. He had an especial taste for surgery, and became Professor of Surgery in Yale College. After continuing there in that capacity a great many years, he left and founded the medical department in Dartmouth College. He was the father of scientific sur- gery in New England. Nearly all his descendants were physicians. One died in the city adjacent nearly a year ago.
Another physician originating in this town was Dr. Daniel Thurber, born not far from Newell's Tavern. He studied medicine and settled in Bellingham, and was extremely endeared to his people there. There
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may be those here who knew his value among those who employed him, and how greatly he was lamented when he passed away.
A family of physicians originated in this town by the name of Bunn, who were men of great celebrity, and practiced, I think, in Providence.
Another name was that of Dr. Levi Wheaton, who also originated in Rehoboth, in the southeast part of what is now Seekonk. I will say of him, in passing, in the language of Pope,-
" An honest man's the noblest work of God."
If I was ever acquainted with a man whom I believed to be strictly and purely honest, and whom I believed to be devoted to his profession, who did everything in his power, by study and seientific research, for the purpose of mitigating the sufferings of mankind, that man was Dr. Levi Wheaton.
Another name known to this town was Dr. Ridley. He practiced during the Revolutionary war in the army. He was a man of a great deal of eeeentricity, and not remarkably well acquainted with the insti- tutions of this country. I remember attending a patient in some part of the town where he had previously been visiting. The man had wanted him to take his pay in eorn, and shelled out to him all the pig corn. The old gentleman was not particularly well pleased. But by and by the same man was siek again, and sent for the Doctor to attend him. He did not get well, but kept lingering along in his illness for some time, and finally said to the Doetor, " What is the reason I do not get well faster? Here I am, unable to get about, and yet I have been under your treatment for a long time." " Never mind," said the Doc- tor, "I am only trying to work that pig corn out of you."
Dr. Hutchings, who died a few years sinee, and Dr. Allen, of whom I knew but little, were among the earlier physicians in this vieinity.
This town also gave rise to several men of the medical profession by the name of Bucklin. One of them went South, and died on his way to Texas. Another was settled in Holliston ; while a third was settled adjacent to this place, and some of us attended his funeral a few years since.
I would not forget to mention in the catalogue of medical men who have originated in Old Rehoboth, the name of Miller, of whom I need say nothing to any citizen of this vicinity.
In the town of Rehoboth proper, the name of Fuller occurs to me as
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about the first physician that practiced here-a man of skill and emi- nence, especially as a surgeon.
The name of Bullock is also prolific in physicians. One venerable man of that name, who resided in the southwestern part of the town, lived to be one hundred years old.
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