USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > Rehoboth in the past. An historical oration delivered on the Fourth of July, 1860 > Part 7
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Dr. Robertson studied medicine with Dr. Blackington, and after- wards went to Boston and became an eminent physician in that city.
The Drs. Blanding-I might mention several of them of that name- originated in this town. One I must allude to particularly, who studied medicine here in Rehoboth with Dr. Fuller, settled in Attleborough, and afterwards passed to Camden, South Carolina, where he practiced, and became an eminent scholar in natural history. A few years before he died, his cabinet of natural history was probably larger than that of any single individual in the United States. The specimens he left in Camden, where he died, are beautiful and elegant, and would repay any individual who takes an interest in that branch of study for making a journey there to view them.
I now come to my own name, which I would not mention but for the fact that it has been wonderfully prolific in physicians. Rehoboth proper has given rise to certainly eight physicians of the name of Carpenter, and how many more I do not know. A very considerable branch of the Carpenters in Vermont originated in this town of Old Rehoboth. There are a good many of them who are likewise physicians.
Pawtucket gave rise to Dr. Billings, who afterwards left and went to Mansfield, and died in that town. Dr. Davenport also practiced and died in this town. Dr. Manchester was another. There is also the name of Dr. Stanley of Attleborough. Swansea also gave rise to a. hereditary race of physicians-grandfather, father and son all living together at the same time. The elder was a hundred years of age while the younger was living. I know but very little of others in that town except the Winslows.
In addition to these names, there may be mentioned as among the physicians of the past, Drs. Fowler, Rodliff, Bliss, Bolton, Thayer, Wheelock, Johnson and Hartshorn, each of whom were ornaments to the medical profession.
There is one fact which I very much delight to be able to mention in relation to the medical men who have originated in Rehoboth, and that is, their perfect exemption from quackery from the beginning to the end. However scientific they may have been, (and certainly some
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have been very much so,) or however much they may have been want- ing in science, one thing they have been true to, and that is, the opinion that a profession that has existed hundreds and thousands of years must of necessity, from all the knowledge thus transmitted, be a little more learned and scientific than the little windfalls of to-day and yesterday. They have generally pursued that course that has made them an orna- ment to their profession and a blessing to humanity.
Allow me, Sir, in closing, to offer the following sentiment :
Old Rehoboth, in her broadest domain-May she continue to be, as she has been, productive of good men and beautiful women.
The seventh sentiment was-
The Legal Profession of Ancient Rehoboth.
SIMEON BOWEN, Esq., of Attleborough, responded in the fol- lowing manner :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
Convened as we are on this anniversary of our national independence, in the shade of yonder sacred and venerable church erected to God. and on this fair and level plain ; basking as we are to-day in the rich sun- light of a glorious civilization ; rejoicing as we do in the rich fruition of a thousand blessings-the blessing of peace with all nations, the blessing of free schools and of the general diffusion of knowledge, the blessings of a free government, of a political confederacy of States enjoying civil and religious liberty-it becomes us now and here to look both to the past and the future, and to consider by what means, agencies and influ- ences we have reached this national felicity of position, and by what instrumentalities our present glory and prosperity may be augmented and perpetuated.
It is, Mr. President, a little more than two centuries ago that these fair and cultivated fields which we behold to-day rejoicing in peace and plenty. and smiling with fruits and flowers, were only a dark and almost impenetrable forest, inhabited only by wild beasts and by roving tribes of rude and warlike savages.
A little more than two centuries ago it was that an immortal vessel, the Mayflower, with her precious freight of human souls, was first moored in Plymouth harbor ; and then and there the Pilgrim Fathers, our ven- erable ancestors, destined, under Divine aid, guidance and protection, to
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inaugurate a more glorious civilization than the world had ever before beheld, first stepped foot upon our shores. Then and there, as ever true to their noble mission and to the dictates of their consciences, they went forth into the wilderness, under an unpropitious wintry sky, to meet and battle with trials, disasters and difficulties.
And with what success was their enterprise and achievements attended ? Before their omnipotent arm the forest receded ; under their wise ordina- tion, government was instituted, schools established, churches erected, and towns and villages sprung up as if by magic. Fully imbued with religious zeal, stern in morality, rigid in virtue, patient in toil, brave in the midst of dangers, ardent, earnest and hopeful, they went onward in their great enterprise conquering and to conquer, and there laid broad and deep the foundations of a mighty empire. Heroically they lived, heroically they died; and, dying, they bequeathed to their descend- ants and to us, their posterity, a rich heritage-the glory they achieved and brought with them, and the distinguished example of piety and vir- tue, patience and fortitude and courage. And when I ask to-day, Mr. President, what influences and agencies have contributed to make New England what she now is in morality, intelligence, prosperity and glory, I would point, with reverence and gratitude, to the Pilgrim Fathers. They passed away, and their descendants, fired with the spirit of the fathers, took up the work laid down by them in death, and pushed it on to a glorious triumph.
We have met here to celebrate this day upon which our fathers adopted
the Declaration of Independence, and to commemorate the virtue of those . patriots who there enrolled their names. We have come up here to kindle anew the fires of patriotism on the altars of Freedom, and declare anew our devotion to the cause of Liberty, to renew our mutual pledges of fidelity to the Constitution and the Union.
But, Mr. President, I was called upon to respond to a sentiment,- " The Legal Profession of Ancient Rehoboth,"-and this may seem like a digression from my proper course of remark. I will say, there have been those who were the representatives of that profession within the town of Re- hoboth, though I think their numbers small compared with the other pro- fessions enumerated by those who have spoken before me. There have been but few whose names I can now recall. There is one who is now among the living who was, a few years ago, an humble attorney within the borders of these towns. Upon these plains he had his office. Now he is in honor, and held the last term of our Superior Court at New
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Bedford. I refer to the Hon. Ezra Wilkinson. Others have gone out from this town who have shed lustre upon their profession, and have served and adorned their day and generation.
There is one question which partakes of the nature of an equitable, constitutional question, that it may not be inappropriate to allude to on this occasion. And, Mr. President, I would refer you for a moment, not with the intention of discussing the matter to any length, but briefly refer to it as a question of local interest, and one for the mention of which the day is not too good. I allude to the question of the bound- ary line between this venerable Commonwealth and the State of Rhode Island. There is an attempt made that a portion of our good old town of Rehoboth may be severed and given over, ceded, granted to the State of Rhode Island. Mr. President, it is improper that I should dwell long upon this subject. But it seems to me a fit occasion to refer those who are here present as representatives of those towns which are inter- ested in this question, as a subject worthy of thought. Modern Reho- both to-day will protest against such a procedure on the part of those two States. Seekonk has been inelined, by her aetion in town meeting, and Rehoboth too, I think, to grant even more than our bountiful Com- missioners awarded of our territory to Rhode Island. In the first place, Mr. President, I should object, on the part of Rehoboth, that this thing should ever happen. I protest against it for this reason, that Rhode Island has no legal, equitable and constitutional claim to any of the soil of Seekonk. In the next place, I should protest against it for this rea- son, that it was not intended that a portion of this old town could ever be received and granted to a foreign jurisdiction. Our fathers gave up to Seekonk a portion of this territory bounded on the west and south by the Pawtucket River and Providence River. There are benefits, privileges and immunities which belong to modern Rehoboth which they are very loth this day to relinquish. I do not believe that such a result as has been intended by certain citizens in this vicinity will ever happen. I hope for better things. I hope that these towns will ever remain together. Although they are separate by different town governments, yet they are one in everything that makes up a happy community. They may be distinet like the billows, yet they are ever one like the ocean. One in a common brotherhood; one for the Union; one in reverence for and obedience to the laws; one, in short, in everything that makes a virtuous, happy and prosperous people.
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The eighth sentiment was-
Knowledge and True Religion-The safeguards of American Liberty.
Hon. and Rev. SIDNEY DEAN, ex-member of Congress from Connecticut, now Pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Pawtucket, responded as follows :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
I am a son of Connecticut, a genuine, old-fashioned Connecticut Yankee, and probably her only representative present, and, in her name, I thank you for this kind invitation. It has been generally sup- posed that a Connecticut Yankee carried about with him, in one pocket, a whetstone, and in the other, a handful of sharpened pegs, which he wished to " dicker " off as oats, and that, in general terms, he was a sharp trader. But do not be frightened ; I do not intend to ask any of you to trade jack-knives. [A voice-All we want now is some of your tricks.] We learn those after we come to Massachusetts, and are capi- tal imitators.
While listening to the able historical Oration of our friend, Mr. New- man, upon the men of marked ability which this ancient and honorable town of Rehoboth has given to the world, and also the professional re- sumé and classification by the gentlemen who have preceded me at this table, I have almost wished that I had been born in Rehoboth myself. It would be an honor to any man to find his birth-name enrolled among such a list of eminent fellow townsmen, filling as nobly as they have the different professions. But I can claim a Massachusetts relationship, for my honored mother was a Plymouth woman, in regular lineage from the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, and my revered father was a Taunton man, and, with the usual pride of Tauntonians, in the time of herring fishery, if asked where he came from, could say, "Taunton, Good Lord !" And thus I claim a kinship with you all. All the idol worship I ever performed in my life, was performed over a piece of granite rock broken from the great boulder upon which the Pilgrims landed, and which I depos- ited years ago among the treasures of the Connecticut Historical Society.
The good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, God bless her ! She is one of the brightest stars in the whole American galaxy. There is nothing that is solid in morals, high-toned in honor, beautiful in affec- tion, sterling in education, brave in patriotism, that can excel the old Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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I know Massachusetts and her leading sons well. It is an honor to be born, to live or to die upon her soil. Her people are intelligent, educated, generous and brave. I have had the honor to stand by the side of her selected Representatives, in seasons of trial and of mad ex- citement, when it required a cool head, a steady and a lion courage ; and I know that, for high-toned purpose, courteousness of bearing and true heroism, they bore the palm proudly. I have seen them stand just like anvils to the stroke of the sledge, without flinching a hair, but giv- ing back the true ring of the genuine metal. The race of great men will never die out of the " Old Bay State," for it will take a thousand generations to perceptibly dilute her Puritan and patriot blood ; and I trust she will stand in her integrity until the foundations of the ever- lasting hills are finally removed.
The toast to which I am called to respond is a great truism. Per- haps I should have reversed the order of statement if I had written it, if by "knowledge " the author of this toast meant scientific acquire- ments only. In our history, the church preceded the school-house, and the minister the schoolmaster. True religion was the basis upon which our civil, and I may also add, our political education was reared. I am not a betting man, but so prominently is this fact in our history, that I would wager a fortune against a dime, that if any considerable body of the descendants of the Puritans-say these citizens of Rehoboth-were to emigrate and settle a township upon some part of our great West, they would take a meeting-house and minister with them. The school- house would follow as a necessity ; for where the heart is right, it will crowd its great powers up into the brain, and demand for it the education of the school-room. A christian people is perforce an educated people.
The Puritans found in the Bible the great foundation principles of all personal, social and political rights. In their structure of government, they differed with the rest of the entire world. The goverments of the world were monarchical, either absolute or limited, but they all em- braced the fundamental idea of the rightful exercise of power by one man over another. Our government was based upon the freedom of the individual. And the nearer we approximate that, the more simple and perfect will be the governmental machinery. Governments are a necessity, but should only be constructed to preserve intact the individ- ual rights of all within the limits of their jurisdiction. The moment government becomes a power to rob the individual citizen of one of his inherent and social rights, that moment it has adopted the monarchical
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basis, and the tendency is to a monarchical machine. The principles which underlie the two systems, constitute the great rock of difference between the government established by our fathers, and those of the Old World.
The early English Puritans learned these primary truths by studying the Bible at the side of their hearth-stones, and in its exposition by their venerated ministers at their covenant gatherings. It was upon English soil that this conflict began, and it culminated in Magna Charta, in the reign of John, in the year 1215. That instrument, the basis of all English freedom, from which our Puritan fathers copied, and upon which they improved, embraces four points, all striking at despotic power, and enlarging the area of individual liberty :
1. The sacredness and perpetuity of the right to the writ of habeas corpus upon the part of the people.
2. The trial of an accused person by a jury of his peers, and no conviction without the evidence of credible witnesses.
3. The freedom of every person to travel in and out of the Kingdom at pleasure, except in a time of war.
4. No taxation without representation, the people, in the persons of their chosen representatives, having the control of the purse.
These were the great landmarks of all liberty ; and under these, the British government has stood up as a bright light to the Old World. What is the difference between France and England ? I know we sometimes think how strange it is that the volatile Frenchman should be always in trouble, brave as he is and lion-hearted as he is. Do you not know that nowhere in the history of the French government has it learned the great lesson that for a nation to be free, the individual citi- zens must be free in every particular ? It has waded through seas of gore ; its guillotine has been perfectly baptized, time and again, with the blood of the flower of France, in the great washings of its national sins, and yet it has never reached that sublime idea of the perfect and complete liberty of the individual citizen. Neither has Russia learned it ; and Italy is even now testing the problem, under the leadership of the brave Garibaldi and his compatriots. Whether she has sufficient of the Puritan in her composition to give her permanent success, time alone will determine.
I cannot, in the few moments allowed me, mark the points of im- provement in our own republican form of government. Thank God, the American people learned this great truth carly. But the moment
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we depart from it as a national policy, and set up a class that shall hold the power to control the rights of the people, that moment our galaxy will go down to its bloody baptism of death.
This is Freedom's natal day, and our festivities are natural, and must meet the approbation of every patriot. But, as christians and philan- thropists, let us pause in our rejoicings, and in remembering that we have four millions of slaves upon American soil, drop a tear over their sad condition. Their individuality is utterly annihilated. They are the governed, without a voice in the character of the government. To them, our system is the most absolute and odious of monarchies. The system of chattelism is not a legitimate offshoot of our republican princi- ples, but a barbarous excresence, fastened upon us in spite of its incon- gruity. I will close by suggesting to you that our brethren of the South and their Northern sympathizers are fast departing from the great prin- ciple of individual freedom, the bulwark of national liberty, and imita- ting the clan government of past ages.
Mr. President, I am glad to be here to-day and mingle with the citi- zens of Massachusetts in what I call a new-fashioned, godly celebration of the Fourth of July, without powder, without drums, and best and bravest of all, without intoxicating liquor.
The ninth sentiment was-
Our Common and Sabbath Schools.
Rev. A. C. CHILDS of Rehoboth responded in the following manner :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
I have heard of a young African who once listened to a sermon from one of our missionaries and afterwards repeated it to a group gathered about him ; and when the missionary told him that he was doing that which he himself could not do, without being conscious of any superior ability, the untutored negro touched his forehead with his finger, and said, " When I hear anything great, it remains there." By great, he probably meant good. Now, Sir, I have heard so many good things here to-day, and they have so filled up the space there [pointing to his forehead] that I am afraid the little I was intending to say is actually crowded out.
The sentiment to which I am invited to respond is, " Our Common
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and Sabbath Schools." These are some of the institutions in which we as an American people are wont to glory ; not that they are altogether peculiar to us, but because on the influences which go out from them we are especially dependent for our success as a people. Education and religion are the two main pillars on which a republic must rest for its support. It is one thing to say this and another to feel it ; and he who has caught such a view of his own wants and the wants of the people as to feel and acknowledge this, is one on whom we may rely for assistance in every hour of peril.
Next to the family, there is no place where the child is so much in- fluenced as in the Common School and the Sabbath School. If it is true, as has been said, " that the child is father of the man," then we need to watch and see what sort of influences these institutions are send- ing forth ; for it is not the schools that educate, but the teachers who are employed in them. As some one says : " School-houses do not educate the inmates, and lazy, ignorant schoolmasters quite as little." What we want is competent teachers ; persons who are in love with their em- ployment, and who will teach the truth in all exactness and precision, and with the greatest fullness. We need then have no fear as to the kind of scholars we shall have. With such institutions and such teach- ers, "our sons will be as plants grown up in their youth, and our daughters as corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace."
The tenth sentiment was-
The Day we Celebrate.
Rev. A. H. RHODES, Pastor of the Universalist Church at Seekonk, but residing in Providence, responded to this senti- ment as follows :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
In the few remarks I shall make in response to this sentiment, I pro- pose to be rather desultory. In the first place, I would remark that such an occasion has never before been granted to me, and may never be again. Dr. Carpenter must have forgotten Dr. Martin. It is my pleas- ure to say hore that I believe I owe the duration of my mortal life, under God, to the scientific medical skill of that man. I am not at present a resident of Seekonk. I live in that border State to which allusion has been made as having attempted to deprive you of some of
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your territory. But as a protest has been made against our marriage, I will not enforce the bans, as forced marriages do not amount to mueh. But I suppose, though you will not join us, you will still bring your corn to market at Providence.
When Napoleon, with his mighty hosts of French soldiers, trod the soil of Egypt, he presented himself before that powerful army of brave Mamelukes, and stimulated his men to their mightiest efforts by pointing them to the pyramids and saying to them, "Soldiers ! from the heights of yonder pyramids, forty generations behold your actions." So I would say, that I believe that the spirits of our fathers are to-day bending over us from the high battlements of heaven, taking cognizance of this meet- ing, and reading the motives of our hearts ; and I believe that our course is meeting their approbation, and that it is our duty so to cultivate our spiritual and moral energies that here in this existence we may be able to apprehend the great fact that those sainted dead are ministering spirits here.
I am called upon to respond to the sentiment, "The Day we Cele- brate." To-day we have a lively sense of the privileges of independ- enee. Tingling in the veins of our fingers is the sense of the great fact of our fathers' physical emancipation from George the Third. But, my friends, men and women of America, let me tell you, while you boast over the glorious achievements of their Revolutionary efforts, while you glory over the historic fact, while you joy over your inalienable rights, there is an emancipation in the future of which you now but little dream, one which shall eclipse that from George the Third as much as that great temple which stood upon Mount Moriah eclipsed this humble church of the Most High. It is that private emancipation of which we read, when Christ shall have destroyed the devil and all his works, and shall bring to an end all transgression and sin, and the Great Father-not only of the American brotherhood, but the Great Father of all the generations of humanity-shall raise us up and make us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The eleventh sentiment was-
The Fourth of July, 1776-A day of trial to our fathers, but one of joyful remem- brance to their posterity.
Rev. FRANCIS HORTON, Pastor of the Congregational Church at Barrington, R. I., made the following response :
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Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
To one born almost under the shadow of Bunker Hill, and whose earliest recollections of a venerable grandsire are associated with details of that memorable field where Warren fell, and whose residence for years was not far from the spot where was shed the early blood of the Revolution, nothing can be more grateful than to respond to the senti- ment just expressed. The 4th of July, 1776, is nearly related to the 17th of June preceding, and to the 19th of April, 1775. The latter of those historic days is commemorated all the way from Cambridge to Lexington, with enthusiasm scarcely surpassed by that which is common to our country on this national holiday. The first martyrs of the Ameri- can Revolution were found in that vicinity ; and the fair heritage which they have left to their descendants is pre-eminently precious on that account. Where now are seen richly cultivated gardens, and splendid villas, and populous villages, resistance to royal authority was manifes- ted in deeds of heroic daring and sacrifice, that have rendered the names of those men immortal.
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