USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Springfield > Springfield, 1636-1886 : history of town and city, including an account of the quarter-millennial celebration at Springfield, Mass., May 25 and 26, 1886 > Part 50
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 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
584
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
ANNIVERSARY ODE.
BY JUDGE WILLIAM S. SHURTLEFF.
A timely thought, - Heaven sent, or by a happy fortune caught As it was wandering, like a floated seed, Seeking a soil in need,
Its lodgment finding in a troubled brain That had been querying long, in vain,
Why God in his just providence had wrought
That reason should in all be free But action sometimes held in slavery, The servant of a single equal's will, - That somewhere in the new-found West There might be still,
As yet concealed from keen Oppression's quest, Beyond the circle of the chainless sea, A haven God-reserved for Liberty.
On Leyden strands
A kneeling minister with heavenward hands Amid a tearful throng, Embraces close, and lingered long, Of separating friends, In parting that a life's association ends, And fervent farewells spoken fearing- ly, - A shallop beating out to sea, To westward sailed. Upon its prow a stately figure veiled, A cross within her hand.
Her foot on Plymouth strand, And Freedom reached her heritage ! Repressed in every Eastern land, Oppressed in every earlier age, At last she stood
Untrammelled in the Western solitude, Wherein, since air to sound was stirred, No irritated ear had heard The tones of tyranny, whose soil no step had trod
Subservient to any one but God! Above her haughty head Her pure white banner to the free air spread,
Her cautious veil forever cast aside, Upon her girded waist displayed A gleaming blade
She cared no more to hide, And facing to the Eastern sky Together sword and cross she lifted high.
And, swiftly following hers, The feet of many hasteners, From out the cruel lands of eld, - The throne-emburdened lands, - Around the standard that she held Quick gathered on the narrow strands Between the wilds of wave and wood,
A mightful multitude With eager eyes
Alight with hope and grand emprise, And hearts resolved with her to share Whatever fortune should await her there. Three thousand miles of separating sea Between them and the tyranny From which they fled, Three thousand miles
Before them, open to their trustful tread, Of land in liberty ;
Above them Heaven's smiles Around them everywhere
Extending to their bold adventurous eyes A new world uncorrupt and fair And free for every enterprise Consistent with their Christian creed, And in their ears God's own "God-speed !"
'Tis near three hundred years ago Since that brave pilgrim band Led by God's hand, As they believed and we their children know, (Accrediting the good that is the sequence of that planned In their heroic exodus), The pioneers for us And all who shall hereafter be Ileirs of this land of liberty Upon this Western coast with Freedom made their stand.
585
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
A quarter of a thousand years ago, These pilgrim-pioneers
To westward wended from the eastward bay And hither plodded sturdily but slow (As needs they must through wilds would stay Their steps intrusive - from well- grounded fears
That these stern strangers ill-disposed
The calm in which the wood had long re- posed),
And there, yon hill-top's brow below, They halted, pleased upon their rugged road,
Where frequent fountains of sweet waters flowed,
For needed rest awhile, and he
Who led them, mindful of his English home, To which his exiled thoughts would oft- times roam
And mindful of the many springs that yield Their largess still into the lower field,
By cooling draught refreshed said grate- fully, " Henceforth this spot shall ' Springfield' be ! "
Thus in their van,
Leader by nature, and elect of man, Born to command, unfitted to obey,
Spake William Pynchon, marshal of the day !
" Had those adventurous men The troublous times that intervene Between the now and then, The toils and dangers Fate before them laid With sight prophetie seen, Would they have undismayed Still followed Freedom in her perilous Cru- sade? "
Ask of the Pilgrim statue there
So sternly standing on our central square !
O Hartley ! you, upon yon pedestal of stone, Have better shown Than ean the tongue of orator or poet's song Or History's pen, The spirit, mould, and measure of the men To whom the greatest glories of our belong; You have personified The pilgrim-pioneer and Puritan,
Than which there none
Of all the heroes yet by History descried In all the centuries tlown,
Since bravery in the world its deeds began, Stands forth so strong
As type of God's intended manly man ! The speech of orator, the poet's lay,
And History's elearest printed page
Will pass from memory of men's minds away,
But there your work will linger long
To passing generations' thoughts engage, And make them mindful of what men should be
To win, and what they were who won, their liberty.
Go, patriots of the present day Who valiantly at odds contend
With every evil as it strides upon the way,
And from those bronzed lips take cheer,
And conrage new that shall your hearts defend
Against each fearing Doubt, each doubting Fear.
Go, trifler of the present age, Whose longest pilgrimage Extends from pleasures wearied of to pleasure's quest,
And there, before that statute, prone, Your missing manliness bemoan,
And, self-confessed, A pigmy by a giant's side, Make question then, If retrograding from his soul's selected plan Was possible for such a man. Ah no! Those mighty men - Miles Morgan and his mates - Held God's commission here to bide And found His sovereign States;
And bide they did and would have done, And biding, would have won, Against the threatnings of a thousand worser fates ! The forest trees,
Deep rooted here for centuries,
Not firmer than their purposes; The prehistorie hills Not stronger than their steadfast wills, The river at their side, - The massing of a myriad rills,
586
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Resistless sweeping downward to the seas - Had not more trenchant tide
Than their concurrent courses overwhelm- ing all Would hold their bodies or their souls in thrall.
But, ah ! could they have peered Adown the coming centuries, And seen in sequence swift unfold What our now retrospecting eyes behold, How had their hearts been cheered ! Here, where they stood,
With anxions but unfearing eyes,
Surveying doubtfully the dismal wood
That held, from them concealed, the wealth to be
Their gift to their posterity.
Ah! had there been with them some bard Inspired to see, and seeing sing
To them the pennant that they bore, Succeeded by the banner many starred Round which our cheers rejoicing ring From eastern to the western shore, On land and ocean never fearing furled, Afloat above a crowded continent Of freemen of their own enfranchisement, Proclaiming to the watching world, Her latest and her greatest peril passed, Freedom secure at last,
.
What comfort and content Would his inspiring song have brought, To them so perit-fraught !
Ah! had to them some secr foretold What now our prideful eyes behold Within the fairest bay
That shelters commerce from the sea Where rises all triumphantly to-day The giant statue that shall stand Extending in its mighty hand
To all oppressed of every other land The beacou light of liberty !
Ah! happy sequence of the timely thought On Leyden strand ! O happy inspiration heaven taught !
O generous genius of Freedom - loving France !
Bartholdi ! you have wisely wrought In that momentous monument
Expression of the end of God's intent
When to the Plymouth sands He bid the pilgrim bands As pioneers advance To found a nation that should be The host of all the hosts that dare be free,
But neither bard nor seer
To them gave prophecy or cheer ; Nor did their visions seek to stray Beyond the dawning duty of each day.
If bards or seers there were they neither spoke
Or sung of warning or of hope;
Theirs only then to bend them to the yoke Of present toil and stubbornly to cope With obstacles on every side
Their onward movement stubbornly denied;
They dealt with stern prosaic facts; And had no time or mood for carolling;
Nor were those days the days for poet's dreams; - They never sing
Who are themselves for song fit themes, - Their poems are their acts ! And those men stood
As Freedom's allies in her direst needs, The actors of an epic fuller of events, Of rare romance and daring deeds,
Than any that the muse of any age pre- sents, - An epic we continued, banishing the brood Of Freedom's foes in her fast fray subdued, Of which the bronzed soldier there Now picketed upon our public square Companioning his Pilgrim prototype so well, Will to the Future's pilgrims tell.
A quarter of a thousand years have passed Since these few pioneers, Though peril-hunted and harassed
Their courage still outmarching far their fears, Hither hewed the earliest pathway from the bay, By battling underwood At every step withstood ; - And homing halted here and were content to stay ; No thronging to the self-same road - " The Bay Path "-now by steeples forested, And garland-strewed, A vast procession of their sons appears -
587
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
In long and serried phalanx lined and massed, And at its head, As chosen leader still bestowed
To guide these later pilgrims on their easy way, Rides William Pynchon, marshal of the day !
Aye! still a Pilgrim band, Upon this midway mound (A foothill to the mountain of our hope, An Alpine altitude Unto our fathers, when they stood Upon their halting-ground,
Below upon the pathless plain) We make a momentary stand ·To take new horoscope And measure progress, and in resting gain Fresh breath for climbing to the higher height They scarcely saw with Faith's prophetic sight.
And here we well may proudly pause And backward trace with well-contented eyes
Each happy consequent to happy cause, - As lusty toilers, at noon-rest a-field,
Review the well accomplished work that lies
Behind them, promise of the generous yield
With added toil in loaded wains shall come
To glad their granaries at the harvest home- And here we might repentingly review
The errors led our careless steps astray To wanderings untrue Unto the God-appointed path Whereon the pilgrim fathers took their patient way, To which turned backward by his wrath, Rebuked and lessoned, we at last have found Our feet upon this vantage ground, Successors of the pilgrim pioneers, And bearing still the standard that they bore (With added laurels wreathed)
Each one a peer, and only such, 'mong only peers, Inheritors of all the wealth and lore Of all the centuries that have gone before, And heirs-apparent of the coming years, Inhaling freer air
Than man in any other age or land has breathed,
Our paths to choose, constrained alone to care
To follow in the course that trends the way The Father of our fathers led them from the Bay.
But not to us, as unto them, The task to stem
Oppression's still pursuing wave That everrode the servient sea With following throngs of tyranny;
Not ours, as theirs, to brave
The inland peril of the ambuseade.
Our path secure is made ; On neither side
Our ocean-guarded continent
Dares any foreign foe display his tent ; On all the seas,
Our ships at ease, Offending not, and unoffended ride,
Protected by the menace of a flag that vies In glory won with all in all the skies ; No savage foes
Disturb the quiet of our home repose; As safe as any star in heaven From onset from another star,
Our perils come not from without or far- The wounds we have to fear are those self. given,-
But this is festal day ; A day for gratulating song and speech ; The pulpit and the press may preach But not the poet's lay Around this happy homestead hearth,
Whereto are called the wanderers, from the path
Begun with us, who sought in pastures new A herbage sweeter than their home hills grew.
And they have come at our behest ; - Across broad prairies of the widening West ; Great oceans passing (pathways still For pilgrims that with freemen will Yet people every vaeant rood remains Between the eastern and the western mains) ; From Northlands they persuade to yieldl The harvest of New England's fertile field ;
588
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
From Southern plains whose sensuous ease They have aroused to active industries; From crowded cities of the eager East Where Enterprise sits golden-fleeced ; Each prideful of his later choice, But all avowing with accordant voice Their loyalty, all other homes above, To this the city of their earliest love, Who, like a mild-eyed mother, at her mid- dle age,
Content and cosey and serene and sage, With every added year
Become more lovable and dear, As all New England mothers do
Who Time to gentle treatment gently woo, Outspreads the old Thanksgiving cheer
Before her children guests, assured that they With her are glad of one more homelife holiday !
And at the banquet she has spread Sit many not " unto the manor born," But to the manor warmly welcomed The fugitives forlorn : - And aspirants for liberty From every yet unliberated land
Around her crowded table stand, And she is smiling equally on all, Nor makes distinction, at her festival, Of race or color, rank or nationality.
The Scotsmen with their kindred gift - New England thrift, - With Bismarck's absentees sit side by side Contented both to bide With us and Freedom fortune here;
And, gladdened, draws a-near
The sad Italian, in whose darkened eyes The gathered gloom of ages of depression lies :
And haught Hungarians, ever mutinous Against the edicts of the fateful day
That gave them to the hated Austrian sway, Forego their fierceness here in feast with us;
And here, the wrathful Russian refugees, Sojourning at their ease, Watch safely, from afar, The cordon closing round the Czar ; And hardy sons of Switzerland
Have left their mountains grand With tales of glory of their own to tell, HIalf free at home, all free with us to dwell.
And loiterers from the land of Lafayette, Whose gallant lance, - (Let no American forget
On such a day as this that still uncancelled debt) -
Stood for the sympathy and aid of France When both were sorely needed here, Take as of right a portion of the cheer ! And strangest sequel of our strange ro- mance,
The self-expatriated Englishman, Withdrawing his allegiance
From service of the gentlest Queen That ever sceptre swayed, Has here his home in preference made,
Escaping so his part as actor in the scene That closes now the act America began ; And, near him at the banquet table sit (Of their parts, too, not yet acquit, Postponing them perhaps a while) The ousted owners of that injured isle - Ah! once the land of laughter, song, and wit, - Where only Nature now is seen to smile- The ire-ful sons of well named Ire-land, Compatriots of Parnell
" The king uncrowned," whose more than sceptred hand
Is raised to retribution's ready bell, In warning and command, -
Descendants of the Pilgrims, in your needs
They were your comrades in courageous deeds,
Upon your every freedom-perilled plain Their blood as freely flowed as yours ;
The conquest that your peace secures They helped you gain.
Send forth to-day across the sea
To ears that wait it wistfully
Your " God-speed Ireland to like victory ! " And last, but far from least of all Who come to share our festival, Forgiving generously the wrong
Repaired so late, endured so long,
Sit those we have from our own slavery released. At such a feast
There should not be-nor shall my sum- mons call - One spectre of the past ; one Futured fear. Naught should be here
589
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
That Faith and Hope and happy Memory Would have away ;
Distrust and Gloom and boding Prophecy Must bide some other bard and day !
A quarter of a thousand years ago Our faith-led pioneers Here made an end of pilgrimage, Their object, as they thought, accomplished so, Contented in their simple spheres, No further purpose did their thoughts engage Than to God's instant willing know And do it instantly. But what say we,
O Pilgrims of this later eager age? Where shall we fix in all the coming years The ending of our willing way?
When will your followers halt for hermitage, O William Pynchon, marshal of the day ?
Ah, not until our latest energies Are lent nnto the purposes That led our fathers here across the seas ; The pilgrimage by them begun Can be abandoned by no pilgrim's son.
We have their duties with their dower inherited ;
And go not of ourselves but, Heaven-led, Each one an instrument Of God's will clearly manifest, On to the doing of his next behest. Search through the fabric of the Past, And trace the thread -
Unparted and unfrayed from first to last That makes the warp on which is spread The wondrous woof of our heroic history, And not one moment missed Nor once involved in mystery - The thread of God's intent - That will forevermore insist Till man shall weave thereon the last event Of Freedom's full accomplishment. From hence straight on, Upon the uncompleted pilgrimage Still Freedom's wars perhaps to wage, Our course and our successors' course is laid, .And cannot be evaded or outstrayed
Until the latest pilgrim's foot shall rest upon That farthest strand Which Time's last wasting wave Shall lapsing lave, Upon whose shining shore, With pilgrims who have gone before,
Shall angels watching stand,
With brightened eyes, to see
The ending of the Leyden shallop's voyage of liberty.
A quarter of a thousand years from now Another band of pioneers Shall pause to rest upon the brow Of some far loftier height, We only see with Faith's prophetic sight, And, gazing back adown the years Upon our age shall say,
" Ah, then and there the crncial time ap- pears !
They were wise men who met the issues of that day, -
Men just, who set their bondmen free, - Men brave, who shed their blood, In lavish flood,
Not for their own, but all men's liberty, - Men fair, who filled the flaws Of justice - meting equitable laws ; That was the age
When regnant stood Reform npon the civil stage ;
The era when the red men long aggrieved Their wrested rights received ;
The century when the color line No longer could the rights of man define;
" When Capital and Labor sensibly agreed That each the other equally did need ;
When Mammon was from power dismissed;
When politics were purified And office its official sought And only merchandise was sold or bought; And, side by side,
Accounted equals on the civil list, The Woman and the Man
Commenced anew upon God's primal plan. Ah! those were pure and patriotic day's !" -- Unto such praise,
By us to be deserved, from hence to-day
The Pilgrim Pynchon's spirit marshals us away !
590
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
This memorable meeting closed with the singing of " America," and a benediction pronounced by Rev. John W. Harding, of Long- meadow.
4
The event in the evening of Tuesday was the banquet at the Mas- sasoit Hotel. The dining-hall was decorated, and the guests were disposed at the tables as follows : -
Table No. 1. - Hon. L. J. Powers, Hon. W. E. Locke, Hon. H. C. Greely, Hon. L. J. Logan, Hon. A. B. Coffin, Hon. A. C. Chapin, Hon. J. Bonrne, General Dalton, Governor Robinson, Hon. E. D. Metcalf, Hon. E. H. Lathrop, Lieutenant-Governor Ames, Hon. H. L. Dawes, Hon. G. M. Stearns, Hon. A. E. Pillsbury, Hon. F. D. Allen, Hon. H. B. Peirce, Hon. J. H. Butler, Rev. T. R. Pynchon.
Table No. 2. - Geo. R. Dickinson, Hon. E. Wight, G. Bill, E. S. Flower, J. H. Newton, E. K. Bodnrtha, A. F. Allen, N. C. Newell, C. L. Covell, Wm. Birnie, E. Stebbins, James Abbe, W. F. Fletcher, F. W. Dickinson, J. B. Clements, H. S. Dickinson, J. S. Sanderson, John Olmsted, L. S. Stowe, E. HIedges, E. A. Russell, C. D. Rood, D. Beebe, Rev. J. W. Harding, Hon. J. J. O'Connor, Hon. S. Winslow.
Table No. 3 .- Hon. G. Bliss, Judge W. S. Shurtleff, Rev. J. Cuckson, Samuel Bowles, Hon. W. H. Haile, E. W. Bond, Chas. Marsh, H. S. Lee, J. B. Steb- bins, Captain Emery, A. Rumrill, Jas. Kirkham, J. S. Hurlbut, J. M. Cooley, H. D. Carroll, A. B. Underhill, E. Gallup, R. F. Hawkins, J. D. Safford, G. H. Bleloch, Hon. G. Wells, E. W. Kinsley, N. A. Leonard, Hon. J. L. Houston, HIon. W. L. Smith.
Table No. 4. - Judge A. L. Soule, Col. J. A. Rumrill, Hon. D. A. Wells, Wm. Bliss, Col. Wm. Edwards, Hon. H. S. Hyde, C. A. Nichols, D. P. Crocker, Hon. E. Gaylord, E. C. Rogers, F. A. Judd, W. K. Baker, Rev. M. Burnham, R. O. Morris, W. O. Day, Col. W. P. Alexander, Maj. Z. C. Rennie, Dr. T. F. Breck, E. Morgan, Col. M. V. B. Edgerly, Hon. H. M. Phillips, Col. M. P. Walker, Colonel Boynton, Colonel Greenough, General Nettleton.
Table No. 5. - Colonel Whipple, Colonel Currier, Colonel Stearns, Hon. W. Smith, C. P. Deane, G. N. Tyner, J. T. Abbe, W. H. Brooks, W. J. Denver, J. N. Keller, R. W. Day, J. G. McIntosh, J. D. Gill, A. B. Forbes, A. B. Wal- lace, W. H. Wright, C. W. Mutell, T. M. Brown, J. L. Shipley, Hon. M. G. Bulkeley, Colonel Blakeslee, Colonel Ilyde, D. J. Marsh, Gen. II. C. Dwight.
Table No. 6. - Hon. B. Weston, J. II. Hendricks, Dr. Carmichael. E. Beld- ing, H. Smith, E. D. Chapin, E. P. Chapin, C. Fuller, Dr. Birnie, A. Birnie,
591
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Campbell Chapin. C. R. Stickney, N. D. Bill, Oscar Ely, F. D. Foot, C. A. Birnie, C. A. Fisk, E. Luther. Homer Foot, S. B. Stebbins, O. HI. Greenleaf. F. H. Harris, J. W. Cumnock. E. F. Hamlin.
E. H. Lathrop being presented to the company by Mayor Metcalf, as toast-master, began the speaking by these remarks : -
Appreciating the kindliness and courtesy of my introduction by His Honor the Mayor, it nevertheless is not my province or purpose to intrude upon the oc- casion with a speech. I am but the torch-bearer. and if I am successful in firing the fuse of eloquent talk of gentlemen about us, I am content. This anniver- sary marks the advance of successful civil government, and is the result of our American method of law, good morals, and good order, as well as of our local pride, enterprise, and growth. It is peculiarly appropriate that we should recog- nize now in our first sentiment a citizen loyal to good government, the repre- sentative head of the nation. As his representative, therefore, I call upon a gentleman as well known in this community as he is loved and respected, United States District Attorney, George M. Stearns.
Mr. STEARNS. - Mr. President and Gentlemen, - I thank you very heartily for the courtesy and the kind remembrance with which you thus compliment the President of the United States of America. I also thank you for permitting me to respond for him here to-night. It would be strange, indeed, if I were not desirous of so doing in view of the fact that by his generous favor I am now roll- ing in princely affluence, and I am just entering upon the rot and degeneracy engendered by luxuries which my magnificent salary affords. I can speak with the fullest confidence of the deep affection and high regard of the President of the United States for the city. [Tremendous applause. ] For whom he loveth he chasteneth, and has he not just laid the warm. hot hand of his love upon you? No city east of the rolling waters of the Mississippi has thus been distinguished, and no other city has received such tokens of his fervent and abiding affections. I read in the " Union " of Saturday that the true reasons for the veto of the port of delivery bill were not contained therein, but that down under the surface, and deep in " unfathomable mines of never-failing skill," were treasured up dark designs and undeclared causes. I am not authorized by the President to reveal those secrets, but any inquisitive Yankee can readily guess some of them. How could any one view this fair city, fringed with the daisy and the buttercup, the green fields and the silver river, its embowered homes, its shady streets, its hill and dale, its Stearns park [merriment]. its Morgan monument. its City Hall. in
592
SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
which no words of contention or dispute were ever heard, and in which none ever will be, until the human voice attains proportions unknown even to Homer's giants, - endure the thought of casting over all the shadow of a great national mart? Do you think of the consequences that would have fallen on this city if they had not been averted by the President's generous act? Your elections, now so peaceful, so simple, so friendly, so neighborly, conducted under the guileless guardianship of our friends, Powers, Hyde, Phillips, and a host of others, who, like them, have never sampled the arts of politics, nor been brought within the withering influence of a custom-house ring. Have you thought of the awful scramble for office that would have ensued? Do you say you could easily settle those matters among yourselves? Then you reckon without your host. Do you think the resources of Chicopee are exhausted? [Laughter. ] Do you imagine that the few contributions we have made to office have left us without a supply of material for public service? Do you forget that Berkshire lies within thirty miles of your custom-house door? and do you think that she would be so recreant to the traditions of the county, so false to the teachings of her history, that she will abridge the limitless sweep of her hungry hand? Fled like the golden sum- mer cloud would be the repose of this city when Berkshire's highlanders and Chic- opee's chieftains meet in battle array contending for the patronage of your custom-house, and I behold poor Springfield, two hundred and fifty years old, bowing her hoary head, and praying for her ancient peace, and serenity, and silence.
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.