USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > The book of the three hundredth anniversary observance of the foundation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Cape Ann in 1623 and the fiftieth year of the incorporation of Gloucester as a city > Part 27
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I believe that a larger number of members of the House at- tended your ceremonies than any similar celebration held at any city or town. Legislators from almost every one of the fourteen counties have carried back to the people of the state a new knowledge of Gloucester, of her romantic history, her prosperous industries and her loyal and united people. We will look back upon our visit with the most happy memories, and we unite in wishing for Gloucester a successful and prosperous future.
Very sincerely yours,
Benjamin Loring Young.
From Major McLean, 5th U. S. Inf.
Mayor William J. MacInnis, Gloucester, Mass.
Dear Mayor MacInnis :- The Battalion returned to Camp Devens last evening after a most enjoyable stay in Gloucester. I am hasten- ing to convey to you the assurance of our gratitude for the kind and generous way in which we were received while in the historic city of Gloucester. All ranks have a feeling of pride in having taken part in the city's tercentenary. It will aways remain a pleasant memory.
To you personally, we all owe a debt for the constant courtesy and the gracious manner which was manifested towards the army during the celebration.
Believe me, sincerely and with esteem,
Henry C. McLean, Major, 5th U. S. Inf.
Fall River, Mass., August 29, 1923. Hon. William J. MacInnis, mayor, Gloucester, Mass .:
Honorable and Dear Sir :- I wish to express to you and the people of your city my heartful thanks for a wonderful day in your
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OF GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
city on the 28th inst. All of the exercises went off very smoothly and the lunch served at City hall could not be surpassed by any one in this country. The parade was one which will long last in my memory and I wish to thank you for the privilege of being present on such an auspicious occasion.
With kindest personal regards I am,
Yours truly, William F. Thomas, Jr., Rep. 11th Bristol District.
From Capt. Littlefield :
Destroyer Squadron Nine. U. S. Atlantic Fleet. U. S. S. Sharkey, 281, Flagship. Newport, R. I.
September 10, 1923.
His Honor, the Mayor of Gloucester, William J. MacInnis, Gloucester, Mass.
Dear Sir :- Receipt of your letter of September 6th, 1923, thank- ing me in person for the successful cooperation of the forces under my command at that port during the 300th anniversary of the found- ing of the city of Gloucester, is acknowledged.
I desire to express my pleasure at the receipt of your very kind letter and trust that the Navy may have many opportunities of visiting your city where the welcome was so sincere and universal and where the opportunity of the Navy to associate with so many of the men in the sea-faring profession was especially valued. It was particularly a pleasure to me and I can assure you that the officers and men under my command, as well as myself personally, have the most pleasant recollections of our visit and trust we were able to perform all the duties which the department and your city wished for during the ceremonies.
Very truly yours, W. L. Littlefield, Captain, U. S. Navy.
From a Former Gloucester Boy :
Brooklyn, New York, 98 Remson Street. September 13, 1923.
My dear Mr. Mayor :- I did not see the entire program of the Tercentenary celebration, but what I did see along with the comments
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THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
I heard on what I had not seen convinced me that Gloucester with you at the helm achieved something of which we may all be proud. There were great things done that week, and much of it all, I feel, was made possible because at the top, things are all right.
I congratulate you and those associated with you; you have every reason to be very, very happy and satisfied.
With my heartiest good wishes, I am,
Very sincerely yours,
Wilmot V. Trevoy.
Hon. W. J. MacInnis, Mayor of Gloucester, Mass.
My dear Mayor MacInnis :- I am writing to express my gratifi- cation at the superb way in which all of the features of the 300th anniversary of Gloucester were carried out and to assure you that I appreciated also your courtesy and hospitality to myself, my brother and my son, on the occasion of the exercises of the memorial monument, and throughout the day. Please extend my thanks and congratulations to all your committees.
Yours very truly,
Edward H. Haskell.
William J. MacInnis, Mayor, City Hall, Gloucester, Mass.
Dear Mr. Mayor :- I wish to thank you and the members of your committee on the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the city of Gloucester for the courtesies extended to me while I was a guest of your city. You have every reason to be proud not only of your city itself but of the way the celebration was carried through. Kindly extend my thanks to the committee also.
Very truly yours,
R. H. Mitchell, County Commissioner.
8 September, 1923.
Harold H. Parsons, Esq., Secretary 300th Anniversary Committee, Gloucester, Mass.
Dear Mr. Parsons :- Permit me to extend to you and the com- mittee my most cordial congratulations on the success of the Anni-
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OF GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
versary celebration. Every detail of the immense work seems to have been carried out in a most admirable manner and I have heard nothing but favorable comment on the week's program.
Yours very truly,
John L. Bates.
PRAISE FOR THE PAGEANT
The pageant, too, came in for its share of acclaim. Both by written and spoken word came praise of the manner in which Gloucester's colorful history had been exemplified by all having to do with its presentation. A few of these letters are represen- tative. They follow :
Gloucester, August 31, 1923.
Mrs. James R. Pringle:
Dear Madam :- I want to extend to you personally my sincere appreciation and congratulations for the successful presentation of the pageant and I sincerely hope its success financially was com- mensurate with the good reports that we have heard about it.
The following notation from Miss Marr, who was in charge of the information booth on Western avenue, was very pleasing to me, and I know will be likewise to yourself. On the reports which she turned into me yesterday afternoon several were to the effect "that visitors in calling at the booth had expressed the opinion that the pageant had put Gloucester in the lead and that Gloucester will benefit from this celebration particularly from the publicity which will come from the pageant itself."
If this report has come to our attention, I am sure that the same opinion must be prevalent and I hope that it will in some measure repay you for the good, hard work that you have put into its preparation.
Very truly yours, Gloucester Chamber of Commerce. By L. J. Hart, manager.
The next two are from Gloucester boys now resident in other cities and the third from the Congressman from the Sixth Essex district.
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Gloucester, August 29, 1923.
My dear Mr. Pringle :- Allow me to congratulate you on the splendid success of the pageant last evening. You are deserving of a great deal of credit for the undertaking. Yours very truly,
Guy Pattillo.
Gloucester, August 29, 1923. Dear Mr. Pringle :- The pageant was wonderful. Gloucester owes you much. It was a great privilege to see it. Good luck to you. Sincerely,
Roger W. Babson.
Gloucester, August 29, 1923.
Dear Mr. Pringle :- I have just returned from the pageant and was greatly impressed with its beauty and patriotic appeal. It will never be forgotten by anyone who had the privilege of witnessing it. I feel that Gloucester owes you an immense gratitude for this inspir- ing feature of the Tercentenary celebration.
Sincerely yours,
A. Piatt Andrew.
PRESS COMMENT
Boston Morning Globe, August 29, 1923 :
GLOUCESTER UNSUBDUED
A 300th birthday would ordinarily turn into a celebration of the past. With Gloucester it is a celebration of a present. This oak-timbered, granite-girt fishing port is an heirloom which, like an old violin, improves with age and use.
It is not all of a piece. There are several Gloucesters. There is the Gloucester of the merchants and Main street; the Gloucester of the commuters to the New England metropolis; the Gloucester of the summer people and the tourists; the Gloucester of the artists; and, finally, that mythical no-man's land, the Gloucester of sea fic- tion-most of which has not made much of a hit with those who inspired it. But all these can, to some extent, be duplicated else- where. The Gloucester that is unique is the Gloucester of the fish- ing fleet and the men who sail in it. Of course this is, in a sense, no monopoly. The New England fisheries launch their schooners
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and dories all the way from Nantucket to Eastport; but it is Glouces- ter that stands for the type.
And what a type it is. Here are men who earn their livings by genuinely productive labor, in frequent hazard of their lives, in constant gamble against the elements, at the price of a degree of skill and judgment in outguessing wind, water and fish which, if the truth were known, probably equals that of many a so-called learned profession and certainly surpasses that of many seemingly more technical trades. The man who can handle a dory Winter fishing on the Grand Banks is something more than a skilled artisan. He is, first of all, a man.
Again, here is a town full of sea-faring citizens who speak as familiarly of the Bay of Islands, the Gut o' Canso and the Cape Shore as ordinary folks do of their back yards and coal bins. Gone is the small townishness of your small town. These husbandmen of the deep are men of the world.
This consciousness of being able to handle yourself in a posi- tion of difficulty and danger, moreover, breeds a type quite different from the average of our land and time. Money? Well, it may be a feast today and a famine tomorrow. We take our chance. But mean- while there is no factory whistle and no white collar, no flabby muscles and no bookkeeper's hump.
Now all this is a rugged survival of a New England which, ex- cept for the fringe of fisheries along our coast, has vanished. The New England that lived with one foot on a farm and the other on a deck has become the New England of commuters and factory chim- neys. The majestic clipper ships of the 1850's have been cut down into the coal barges of the 1920's. But the Gloucester schooner still sails the wrinkled seas. Navigators the world over testify that for speed and sea worthiness and sightliness she is the superior of any sailing craft now on our planet, and of that planet she weathers the wickedest of all waters, the North Atlantic.
Why is it that Gloucester, its schooners and its men, are a pic- ture-such a picture that the artists have stampeded thither? The reason is a history of our modern civilization in miniature. Every- where else the machine is lord. The factory cogwheels dispossess the hand loom, the locomotive the stage coach, the steamship the clipper ship. But this stubborn strip of coast, of craft, and of food- producing industry has never yet been quite subdued to that me- chanical dominion, which has killed out individuality on every hand. Ten years ago some of us thought the schooner was doomed by the steam trawler. But it has not proved so. And the machine invasion has got no further into the schooner than a "kicker," a winch and maybe electric lights. The 19th century brought the age of ma-
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THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
chinery. But Gloucester has never surrendered to the Machine Age. That is why it is a picture, why it is unique, why it keeps its in- dividuality, why the artists painted, why the romancers spin yarns about it, why tourists traipse over its wharves, why New England prizes it like a family portrait, and why we all love it.
In this din and monotony of machine industry it has kept alive the pride of the skilled artisan in his profession, protected him to some extent (not as much as it should) in his independence of liveli- hood, and fostered that hardy spirit bred of old on New England's farms and New England's ships.
And so in this drab swirl of factory slope and clang of street car gongs Gloucester, weather-rusted with the suns and storms of three hundred years, still keeps blowing through our eastward case- ments its wind of romance, keen and fresh with the briny tang of the sea-and slightly tinged with the aroma of salt fish .- Uncle Dudley.
Salem (Mass.) News, August 31, 1923 :
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE
The fine old city of Gloucester has had a very worthy celebra- tion of its 300th anniversary. By parade and pageant and popular sports and entertainments it has expressed the popular rejoicing at the completion of 300 years of development. There is great feeling of civic achievement in the occurence of such an anniversary and our own folks in Salem will realize it shortly.
Gloucester has not gone on to great population growth. It has had other ends more in view. It has fewer people than it had 30 years ago. But it has rather been content to maintain the ideals of the community for honest service and faithful industry. This may not be strictly in accordance with modern hustling sentiment. But the old towns that have cherished these ideals have done more for the community than a lot of booming places that have scrambled for any kind of growth disregarding the kind of life they were living. Gloucester has every reason for pride in what it has accomplished and the worthy sons it has sent forth to the world.
The keynote thought of the hour was struck by Senator Lodge in one of his superbly eloquent addresses, rich in its imagery and allusion, yet simple and direct in its mastery of English speech. The senior senator has a great gift of historical knowledge, and he could have given his hearers a wonderful picture of old-time Gloucester and of the development of the community. Yet with deliberate fore- thought, no doubt, he dwelt but little on the past, and turned to those national problems that are in all our thoughts. *
* * He gave his hearers much to think about, and if our people today are
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OF GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
only true to the ideals cherished by the settlers of these old cities, subject to the inevitable changes that a new age brings, America will be safe.
Boston Herald, August 28, 1923 :
GLOUCESTER CELEBRATES
Gloucester has a right to celebrate. All Massachusetts and all New England sympathize with the people of the historic fishing city in holding the tercentenary worthy of commemoration, and the entire United States thinks with pleasure of its honorable record.
In the days of settlement, when all Europe thought of America as an El Dorado that should yield vast wealth with small investment of labor, the banks and shoals that stretch northwards from Cape Cod offered rich compensation to many disappointed of their ex- pectations from the mines that were not found, the beaver that re- treated ever farther into the wilderness and the rock-bound soil that required heavy toil for all it returned. But off the coast of New England were the feeding grounds for enormous quantities of fish, and fish and lumber became staples of the New England trade. As Mr. Adams says in his "Founding of New England": "In the colonial history of that section commerce smells as strongly of fish as theology does of brimstone." That industry produced a splendid race of bold and hardy men. Seamen out of Gloucester help greatly to man the fleets, both of Old and New England. To understand the spirit of the people of the famous fishing city it is necessary to know its history, to witness the beautiful ceremonies of its memorial observances, and to read, not only Kipling's "Captains Courageous," but Elizabeth Stuart Phelp's "A Singular Life."
Today the city is almost unique even among the historic towns of New England. Its three hundred years of history are studded with interesting tales, some amusing, others splendid for their heroism and devotion. It is picturesque in appearance, curiously blending the ancient and the modern; it "looks the part." Its people, sturdy in spirit, and properly conscious of the value of their past, deserve the messages of good will and good hope for the future that these days they are receiving.
Boston Herald, August 29, 1923 :
NEW ENGLAND PAGEANTS
What a large number of pageants we have had in New England this summer! How well our citizens have conducted them! How greatly both residents and visitors have appreciated them! Sturdy
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little West Tisbury, where the descendants of Sir Thomas Mayhew have celebrated him; well-ordered and unchanging Deerfield; old-and- new Gloucester; Dover the bustling; Portsmouth the genial; and many other places have had their festivities, proclaiming their half- forgotten virtues and redeeming their aspirations for tomorrow. We had our own pageant, such as it was, some years ago, and gladly allow other communities to show us how we should have done the thing.
Possibly some student of such exhibitions may tell us why there have been so many this summer. * * * It may be that we are all feeling a new pride in our New England tradition, and that the coming of so many foreign-born has had an influence on us without our knowing it.
A famous American has said that the next thing most like liv- ing one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life by putting it down in writing. Our towns and cities do somewhat bet- ter than that by going through the old forms themselves, in the cos- tumes of the olden days. The visitor to New England is going to understand this historic bit of the United States all the better by having history reproduced. The natives themselves will have greater interest in their past, more pride in their present and a deeper sense of their obligations as citizens. In both conception and actual ad- ministration the pageants are highly to be commended, and it is to be hoped that, irrespective of anniversary years, we shall have even more of these picturesque representations another year.
Boston Transcript, August 27, 1923 :
THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF GLOUCESTER
A nation of more than one hundred million extends to Gloucester its best wishes and congratulations on the occasion of the celebration of the tercentenary of its foundation. Few American cities in their origin are older than this famous city on Cape Ann; the names of few are invested with a greater halo of tradition or have a greater intrinsic historic interest. Powerful and mighty as the American people have grown to be in the twentieth century, rich as they are in material achievement, we still feel our debt to our Colonial forbears. Our pulses still beat with pride when we read or hear of their efforts to found a nation in the New World, and with an admiration un- diminished we still admire the essential heroism of the Colonial spirit. This pride and admiration, which are with us always, mani- fest themselves with an especial force on the occasions of such an event as this week's Gloucester tercentenary.
The story of Gloucester is an integral part of New England history. Three hundred years ago a small group of fishermen came
"SAVED"-AN EPISODE ON THE BANKS IN WINTER
From a Painting by George T. Margeson
Two of a Crew Astray From Their Vessel Rescued by a Passing Fishing Schooner
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OF GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
to that port in Cape Ann from Dorchester, England, and for three years sought to gain a living in what was then a rude and virgin wilderness. *
Gloucester soon became known far and wide as a fishing port, a reputation which it continues to hold down to the present day. "The abundance of sea-fish," wrote Francis Higginson in "New Eng- land's Plantation" "are almost beyond believing and sure I would scarce have believed it, except I had seen it with mine own eyes." * * *
It were wrong, however, to think of Gloucester and its inhabi- tants only in terms of the sea. They were great fishermen and sailors, but they were more than this. They were first and above all good citizens, and they had the sturdy virtues that a good citizen in the early days of the Commonwealth must have. * * *
Furthermore, we are told, it was a community of readers and thinkers. Men who worked all day at their chosen trades studied in their libraries at night. Even the fishermen took books on theology, church history and philosophy with them to the Banks. They were men of solid intellectual worth as well as men of practical ability. In "Captains Courageous," Rudyard Kipling has spread the fame of the town and the people to corners of the earth where their fame had only penetrated vaguely. It was Kipling's merit to have entered into the genius of the place as completely perhaps as any outsider could do, and in his pages is mirrored the Yankee spirit of its folk.
Gloucester thus has reason to be proud of the deeds of her sons and daughters in the past, and to feel that she still has a noble work to do. Three hundred years old, city and its people have the youthful energy and enthusiasm that characterize the American peo- ple. The high achievement of the past is but a sign and an earnest of a noble future.
From the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Republished in the Springfield Republican, August 31, 1923.
"FISHERMEN AT GLOUCESTER"
"This has been a great year and a greater week at Gloucester, Mass., the fishing village that quickly grew to townhood and, later to cityship of diversified manufacturing interests, but remains none the less the greatest of our fishing ports. There, too, survives with most vigor the tradition of seamanship and maritime bravery so that the purveyors of American sea tales seek in Gloucester their heroes and nautical wizards. But the other day we wrote in these columns of Longfellow as a popularizer of geographical regions. At the moment we did not think of Gloucester and yet it was the famous rock near that city upon which so many gallant ships have left their bones; by
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name "Norman's Woe," that served the poet so well as a background for the pathos of the "Wreck of the Hesperus."
We say this has been a great year for the Massachusetts fishing city because it was three centuries ago this summer that folks, com- ing largely from the old Gloucester in England, landed on American soil and made haste to establish a village, not New Gloucester, but plain Gloucester. Imbued with the pageant spirit that had been abroad in the land for several years, Gloucester has been holding a tercentenary festival and the past week has been a busy and beautiful one at the little port which, because of its quaint charm, has long been a favorite spot for summer visitors.
But out of the tercentenary there will remain something perma- nent at Gloucester, we trust, worthy of its purpose. An appropria- tion has been made and there is to be designed and erected there, facing the sea, a monument to the lost sailors of Gloucester, for those who went down to the sea in ships and came no more to those who waited with slowly lessening hope, through the long years. Somehow a dead sailor never seems fairly dead for the sea plays strange pranks with its Ardens and Orths.
The Gloucester monument design is to be chosen by competition; by a jury of able artists. The theme is one that should give inspira- tion to many and we should not be surprised that a masterpiece were discovered among the sketches submitted."
From the New York Tribune, August 29, 1923 : "DOWN GLOUCESTER WAY"
"These New England tercentenaries which are being celebrated here and there, a little while ago at Plymouth and now at Portsmouth and at Gloucester, should be a reminder that in this country, which some persist in calling "new," we have attained an age upon which we look, in connection with other lands, as venerable antiquity.
Thus Richelieu and Cromwell and Gustavus Adolphus and the Great Elector seem very far away, yet they all came into power long after the men of Dorchester established themselves along the granite shores of Gloucester harbor. Harvey had yet to demonstrate the circulation of the blood, and Galileo to declare "And yet it moves!" The French Academy was not yet founded and the Fourth Amurath had not yet taken Etivan and thus began that extinction of Armenia which was not completed until our own day. Bacon's "Novum Organum" was more of a novelty that Einstein's "Relativity" is today and the thermometer was newer than the latest wrinkle in radio is to us; while the barometer and the air pump, along with Walton's "Compleat Angler" and Milton's "Paradise Lost," were as yet un- conceived. Truly, a goodly age, not alone on the calendar, but by the side also of the progress of the world, can Gloucester claim today.
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Nor have these been three idle, uneventless centuries. Boston may be the city of the sacred cod, but the men of Gloucester, more than any others, established the fisheries which made New England famous. It was at Gloucester just two centuries and ten years ago that, what has long been known of all types of sailing vessels was given to the world, both craft and name-when a new-built hull shot down the launching ways and an admiring spectator exclaimed "See how she scoons ?" and the proud builder declared "Then a schooner she shall be!" In art and in romance, too, the rock-built town has been immortalized-in so widely varying ways as "The Wreck of the Hesperus" and "An Old Maid's Paradise" and that unmatched Odyssey of fisher-folk, "Captains Courageous."
And though now chug-chugging motor boats vie with the schoon- ing schooners and "fashion" has come to Gloucester, the granite ribs of the globe are still sound, the surf thunders on the Reef of Nor- man's Woe, and "furthest north," the magnolia still scents the air and charms the eye and the tang of the unchanging sea makes the salt air down Gloucester way the life breath of a race of men."
Malden (Mass.) News, August 30, 1923 :
JOHN L. BATES, ORATOR
Gloucester was fortunate in having ex-governor John L. Bates for the orator of her three hundredth anniversary. As usual the eloquent and scholarly ex-governor rose to the occasion and added dig- nity and grace to the event. While this is an age of after dinner speaking and talkfests are everywhere the number of real orators is very few. In the old days we had two classes of public men, the genuine orators and the silent men. There was no halfway. The men who couldn't make a fairly good speech kept quiet. It is always an inspiration to hear a good speaker. The public expect men in high positions such as governor, congressmen and United States senators to be equipped to speak well in public, if they speak at all. * * * John L. Bates inherited from his eloquent father a gift for oratory. But by study and application he has made him- self one of the best speakers of our time. It is always a pleasure and an inspiration to listen to him. He is a very busy man in the practice of law but often he cheerfully sacrifices his time to be in attendance upon some occasion of note. At such times he honors the state which has honored him.
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THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
The financial statement of the observance is as follows : REPORT OF TREASURER OF GLOUCESTER TERCEN- TENARY COMMITTEE, INC. RECEIPTS
Amount received from Isaac Patch, Treasurer of Fi- nance Committee (Pledges)
$38,450.11
Miscellaneous receipts
2,344.62
Interest
144.13
$40,938.86
EXPENDITURES
Postage
$462.09
Bonfire
429.36
Clerical
1,023.94
Publicity
3,100.23
Halls and tents
1,495.00
Printing
1,805.66
Choral
608.23
Music
1,040.78
Historical Tableaux
817.20
Essay
351.28
Illumination
306.75
Bell ringing and salute
22.00
Historical markers
173.50
Scout activities
245.00
Housing
78.85
Transportation
362.71
Souvenirs and badges
901.62
Lighting
898.50
Miscellaneous
1,459.00
Race
3,390.40
Reception
283.87
Parade
3,179.27
Decorated autos-Firemen
734.50
Sports
866.00
Excess and deficiency
1,106.19
Literary exercises
1,145.53
Fisheries
1,687.41
Construction
1,535.20
School children
208.14
Children's fetes
394.33
Permanent memorial
306.19
Decorations
879.00
Trades
651.33
Seating
705.00
Fireworks
3,000.00
Public Safety
959.51
Press
86.59
Yachting
169.50
Publication Committee
2,000.00
Historical marker committee
400.00
Contribution to pageant
1,500.00
Secretary
150.00
$40,919.66
Balance cash on hand August 1, 1924
19.20
$40,938.86
EDWARD DOLLIVER.
CONCLUSION
T O the reflective reader, the thought borne home, is the tenacity which has characterized the Gloucester fishermen. Scourged by the gales of three centuries, their fleets wiped out in a night, their manhood engulfed in battalions, they have never quit. Other New England fishing ports long since gave up the unequal struggle.
Much is said of the Golden Rule as applied to Labor. Glou- cester fishermen solved that problem, as far as it may be humanly solved, in the beginning, when they cast upon the cooperative plan, whereby one-half the proceeds of a voyage is assigned the owner; the remainder to the crew. This has stood the test and is firmly imbedded as a fundamental of the industry. The Naza- rene at Galilee may not have apportioned more equitably.
To this agency, the permanence of Gloucester, as a fishing port, is unquestionably due. The best of the seven seas have been drawn to its shores and courage, initiative and ability, assured their reward.
Were this not so, the toll of war and sea, leaving the weak- lings and the unready, would long since have doomed the place among the ports that were. So long as this principle prevails, so long will the argosies of Gloucester sail into the sun.
Dismissed in a paragraph, the subject merits a volume. I pass it on for the consideration of a future anniversary essayist as worthy of his thought and pen.
Men of New England have been pioneers and upbuilders. They brought the commerce of the world to enrich the nation. They pushed overland to the Western Reserve. Canopied by the Southern Cross they sailed the courses of Magellan and swung wide the portals of the Golden Gate. They bound east to west by transcontinental railroads.
In October 1887, Capt. Solomon Jacobs, hazarding new fortunes, dispatched two fishing vessels around Cape Horn to Alaskan waters, discovering prolific fishing banks. His was the usual fate of the path-blazer. Others, following his lead and vision, have builded a great industry adding to the national wealth.
Thus it came that a Gloucester fishing master wrote "Finis" to the "Winning of the West." Sometime the tale of this historic
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THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
voyage, an Odyssey of the "Clipper Schooner," will fittingly sup- plement that of the "Covered Wagon."
I place this here because of its historic value and as testimony that Gloucester fishermen "are yet in the gristle and not hardened in the bone." The adventuring spirit of 1623 and of 1776 is that of 1923.
And the foregoing observations anticipating the inevitable question-"What of the future years ; the anniversaries to come?" "Will Gloucester, then, as now, be acclaimed the nation's out- standing fishing port?" It is the aspiration and belief of those whose forbears made this record that it will. For courage and enterprise are the heritage of all generations.
Appropriately this thought was voiced by the memorial odist- "Still to the seaward set thy face and will,
Thy strength, thou knowest, lies in ships and men."
Three centuries of endeavor; the sacrifice of 8000 gallant men ! Is the price too great; the toll too exacting ?-- Neverthe- less the Future points to the Past-
"We have fed our seas for a thousand years And she calls us still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead; We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest To the shark and the sheering gull If blood be the price of admiralty Lord God, we ha' paid in full.
*
"We must feed our seas for a thousand years For that is our doom and pride, As it was when they sailed the Golden Hind, Or the wreck that struck last tide- Or the wreck that lies on the spurting reef Where the ghastly blue lights flare- If blood be the price of admiralty Lord God, we ha' bought it fair."
. . ...
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