USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Yarmouth > The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of old Yarmouth, Mass., including the present towns of Yarmouth and Dennis. September 1 and 3, 1889 > Part 8
USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Dennis > The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of old Yarmouth, Mass., including the present towns of Yarmouth and Dennis. September 1 and 3, 1889 > Part 8
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DR. TAYLOR'S ADDRESS.
Mr. Bradford says, "the character and education of the leading men, both of Plymouth and Massachusetts, were
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such as to fit them for the enterprise which they undertook, to form a religious and political society founded in the equal rights of men, and obedience to God, as their supreme law- giver and governor." Such were the men, who, in 1639, only nineteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, began those institutions and labors, which here have been such rich sources of blessing all the way and are crowned with such happy results, and which afford such pleasure and stimulus on this occasion of review. In the few moments alloted to me, permit me to direct attention to some of those peculiarities and agencies, which they magnified in their plans and work, and which became such important factors in all they accomplished.
First, individualism and deep-felt personal responsibili- ty must have been a marked feature of the earlier times. They were too near Plymouth, both in time and place, to have lost that outstanding trait which so characterized all pioneers in human reform and progress. Men are like trees. In the dense forest, they are much alike; growth, appearance, and shading, are controlled largely by the pressure of en- vironment, in the open field, the trunk and the limbs grow after their own fashion. One of the very painful features of life in the city is the loss of individualism. Fashion, acts as a cramp. The familiar proverb is exemplified if not written on the family creed, " Better be out of the world than out of the fashion." So in great churches, the overshadowing in- fluence of the many renders small and obscure great numbers, who, in the end, have no need of a napkin in which to hide their talent, for they have no opportunity to exhibit it. Of how many of the great, fashionable congregations it may be said as Gray wrote in the Country Church-yard.
" Perhaps in this neglected spot is Iaid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed Or Wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre."
But there, where the fields were new and everything in social, state and religious life, was to be formed on an original basis, was just the place to make men and women of unique character and here they were found, as their works tes- tify, for a tree is known by its fruits, and none but those who were alive to the intense personal call, to do with their might whatsoever their hand might find to do, could have accom- plished what was done by our fathers and mothers.
Next the religious thought and life was eminent in all
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they planned and did. This is apparent in the fact that this anniversary commemorates alike the organization of church and town, for they were coincident or nearly so, one and the same. Like the commonwealth of Israel in the time of the Judges-a divine model was followed. It has awakened a good deal of comment and even bitter criticism, that those who came to this land and laid the foundation of empire, and church, and all free institutions, should have failed in the beginning to make broad and dis- tinct the line of demarkation between church and state. Having fled, as they did, from a country where the state tyrannized over the church, for the sake of civil and religious freedom, how natural such a distinction should have been carefully drawn ! But this is easily explained, if we under- stand aright the great thought and impulse of their being ; the Kingdom of God, in the heart and outward form, was every thing to them, and civilized society thus constituted was the state. There was no aim, no desire to make the state, as such, subservient to the church, or the church to be aided by the state in other than in this all-absorbing interest. A theocra- cy, in their view, was the most natural and reasonable of all conditions in civilized society, and out of this thought later grew the custom requiring all citizens to contribute to the support of the ordinances and institutions of the gospel, first, to the onestanding order and subsequently, to any other denom- ination, which they might favorably join through preference. It was abhorrent to their thought of right and duty that anyone should live in the enjoyment of citizenship without being a sup- porter of the institutions of religion. It was no crime, no matter for reproach that the fathers took this high spiritual view of things. There conception of duty in this matter, as in many others, was in advance of the times. We have not reached it yet, but we surely shall come up to it when the " whole earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the king- doms of this world have become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ;" when the people and nation are all re- claimed it will not matter much whether it be named church or state, or both united. O, what a glorious land there would be to-day, if this high ideal of the fathers had con- tinued, and made this rich spiritual life the only life of our vast country. They planned better than we have builded - the honor is theirs, the dishonor, ours. Great value was placed upon education by those who founded the church and town here. This is shown by the fact that they chose
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an educated ministry for their teachers and leaders. The re- cord shows that well-nigh every pastor located here has been a graduate of some college. Some have wondered that the Pilgrims came from such a small and comparatively unimpor- tant region as Scrooby, in England, if they were as wise in matters pertaining to church, state and educational needs, as has been claimed for them. We say, yes! what they knew not when they left Scrooby, they did know when they left Holland, after those years of training and observation there. So wherever their feet trod and their hands planted, there was the school hard by the sanctuary. So in the beginning of things here. Your church homes, your private and pub- lic libraries, as well as the schools and churches of to-day are prompt witness that the spirit of education has been liv- ing and breathing through all the ages. It was from here, that the pastor who held the pastorate the longest sent three of his sons through Harvard College, the eldest of which planted a college in what was then the far west, and his liter- ary labors remain which reflect great credit upon his exten- sive scholarship. The youngest daughter of that same cler- gyman sent her four sons through college and into the gospel ministry. The eldest of whom was born here, and who at- tained to such eminence in scholarship as to attract the at- tention of the ripest scholars at home and abroad. He died at fifty.
Your local historians record the names of many others of the sons of Yarmouth, who have passed through the higher departments of the schools, to honored positions in church and state, a goodly company, of which any town may be proud. The domestic, family life of the people has been a great harmonizing and elevating factor. This impression has been derived, not from any extensive contact with the people here, for I am virtually a stranger in this early home of my parents, and where was the long pastorate of my grandparent. But what my mother, who was a widow from my infancy, taught me of her childhood home has led me to think that Yarmouth was a paradise of homes. Parental government was there, the family altar was there, the cove- nant of God was remembered there, as recorded in sacred Scriptures, " I will be a God to thee and thy seed." Warm affection between all the members of the household was there ; and the holy Sabbath was there, the most precious day of all the week in its home life and sanctuary service. This is the way the matter stands, as derived from the source mentioned,
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and strengthened in subsequent years, as I have mingled with families, who moved from this vicinity. In one of the towns in Franklin County there is a neighborhood known as Cape street, because so many went up there and settled. A more intelligent, virtuous, religious neighborhood among the yeomanry, you will not often find. A broad sympathy with the woes and suffering of others, has been a very strong formative influence here. This state of things would grow up naturally and almost unconsciously in a community situated as this town is, with the sea on both sides, upon which so many of the fathers, sons and brothers, in years gone, more espec- ially, obtained their livelihood. The sea is the highway of commerce among the nations, wonderful in vastness and power always, but how grand and awful to behold when ris- ing into wrath under the lash of the storm king. The dead are there, in great numbers, "unknelled, uncoffined and un- known." Who can live by the sea, visit the desolate homes, see the widows and orphans which constitute so large a por- tion of the community as in Marblehead and Gloucester and along this Cape, and not be thoughtful, pitiful, and full of compassion ? Oh, how often in my early home, so far from the sea, when the storm was raging in its fury, as we enjoyed our own peaceful dwelling, where the blaze rose high from the hearth and dispelled the gloom, the parent's voice would break the silence, by the exclamation, " a hard time for poor sailors to night," and then the prayer would follow at the close of evening, that God would be with them on the deep. Where did she learn that lesson of pity and prayer, which filled her whole life ? Right here by the sea, and from the lips and experience of one who here became the husband of her youth. However humble was our cottage, however scanty the daily supply in the larder, no benighted traveller, no homeless vagrant was ever turned rudely from the door. I recite not these things to laud kith and kin, but to show how the flower of kindly affection, transplanted to the wilder- ness one hundred years ago from this congenial clime, lived and flourished there. One word more.
It has seemed that pride of place, a feeling of quality, has entered pretty largely into the composition of Old Yar- mouth, and has transmitted itself from generation to genera- tion, not as a blemish, but as a virtue. It has served to keep things up; you have thought well of yourselves, and there- by have been enabled to make others think well of you. Whoever saw a person who had the good fortune to be
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born in this region, who has not been most happy in his birth right. Find two men anywhere, utter strangers before, and let them discover this common origin, and they immediately embrace as brothers. I have witnessed such instances re- peatedly. A man said to me the other day, "whenever I find a man who came from the Cape, I expect to see one who is true and noble." That is the way they talk about you over here in Boston. There has been a good deal of feeling here and there of late among outsiders that you have somehow got into a place that hinders others from getting in as they would like. The eminent are often the object of envy to the aspiring. Commercial enterprise would like to have this Cape sunken so as to make water connection more direct from city to city. As this cannot be done, as the next best thing, it is proposed to cut you off from the mainland, isolate you a little more by the surrounding of the sea; the monster dredg- ing machine is up there, near Sandwich, to this end. Now, good friends if it should happen sometime during the next two hundred and fifty years, that the ship canal, which has so long been in the air, should become a substantial reality in earth and sea, do not be troubled as though some strange thing had happened unto you, but pass right along as of yore. Keep sacredly, the virtues you have honored, shut closely the gate against the intrusion of anything that would mar the strength and beauty of your princely inheri- tance. By a patient continuance in well-doing, compel those who see you, from near or afar, to exclaim, as they do this hour, "behold how good and how pleasant it is for breth- ren to dwell together in unity." " As the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion ; for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forever- more."
The president, in introducing the next speaker, said : At an old time festival held in New Bedford, a son of the Cape gave the following sentiment, "Our friends of New Bedford, by their pacific pursuits pouring light upon the world."
Some two hundred years ago in a stormy night a French vessel came ashore on the outside of the Cape, of the passen- gers, officers and crew of that ill-fated vessel, but one was saved, one young French boy, too young, even to know his name. He was tenderly cared for by his rescuers, who named him Jean Crapaud. I have now the pleasure of in-
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troducing the Hon. W. W. Crapo, of New Bedford, and I ask Mr. Crapo to pour some light on the subject.
MR. CRAPO'S ADDRESS.
Mr. President : I cannot claim a birthplace in the old Town of Yarmouth, nor can I boast, as most of you can, a descent from one of its early settlers. But I feel quite at home on Cape Cod. I have so often enjoyed the hospitality of your public occasions, and have so often taken a part in your public festivities, and have so frequently been brought into contact with your social life that I count myself a per- sonal friend, with an intimacy close enough to secure for me a seat at the family table.
I am mindful, too, of that little boy, to whom you have alluded in introducing me, who, seven generations ago, in a wild, terrific north-east gale, washed from a dismasted and wrecked ship, was thrown by the breakers on the shores of Cape Cod. The people of Cape Cod were kind to him - that little, floating waif of humanity - and they sheltered him and gave him a home and a chance for life. If my an- cestor was not born on the soil of Cape Cod, a distinction which you prize so highly, he found in the foaming breakers and the sandy beach of the Cape a refuge from an ocean grave.
In listening to the story of the early settlers of Yar- mouth, of the men who left Plymouth to plant here the seeds of civil and religious liberty and to found a local government resting purely on the will of the governed, the facts which impress us are their fortitude, self-denial and suffering. This bright, gorgeous summer day on which we commemorate their virtues and heroism, typical of the glorious achieve- ments and brilliant results which crown the span of two hun- dred and fifty years, is in sharp contrast with the hunger and cold, the disaster and privation of the early days. It is the bleak winter, with its leaden sky and chilling, frost-biting winds, and not the pleasures and recreations of the summer time, that we associate with the hardy, sturdy, robust, God- fearing, tyrant-defying pioneers of old Yarmouth. Those men were disciplined and toughened by the rigors of harsh surroundings. Their mental and moral muscles were trained by personal sacrifices. They became strong-minded and stout- hearted through toil and privation. They breasted the ecclesiastical storms, which waged so fiercely in their day, with an unflinching fidelity to truth, and as a result we breathe a purer moral and religious atmosphere. They were cheered
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by a constant sense of duty and controlled by an unconquer- able purpose. And the New Englander of to-day, inheriting the Pilgrim spirit, with self-confidence and aspiration, con- fronts every emergency and is ready for every undertaking. He is ardent, self-reliant and persistent. His public spirit is marked with earnestness, progress and independence.
We have recently heard much discussion concerning the relative standard of official and political life in the days of Washington and our own time. Whatever may be said of the public morals of one hundred years ago in contrast with the present, we can point to the record of the early days of Yarmouth without any misgivings, and can challenge a com- parison with any age or race. This community, which in its early beginnings guarded the spiritual welfare of its mem- bers, by making compulsory their attendance upon church worship, and which strengthened the common defense by com- pulsory military drill and service, in the same spirit protect- ed the integrity of official life and secured the highest effi- ciency in administration, by compelling, under penalties of the law, the attendance of every voter at the town meeting. The Pilgrims believed in a democracy which not only per- mitted citizenship but made obligatory upon the citizen the duties of citizenship. They believed in the practice, as well as the theory, of a free and equal commonwealth. Un- der such a system, where every man participated in public affairs, and where indifference, cowardice and personal ease were not tolerated as excuses for neglect of the duties of citi- zenship, the political morals of the community were secure. In those days there were no party rings or machines ; the pro- fessional workers in politics were unknown; and the lobby was free from temptation and scandal, since there was no lobby. The purity of political life and the safety of the state can al- ways be assured by the faithfulness and constancy of the people in the discharge of the primary duties of citi- zenship. We have only to be true to this principle in our day and generation as were our fathers. To this end we must educate, as they did, the public conscience to the con- viction that political fidelity is simply integrity in the dis- charge of public trusts, and that the only kind of honesty known to man applies to political as to ordinary duties. The Plymouth Colonists held to this doctrine and they acted upon it, and they were enabled thereby to organize the freest and at the same time the most stable and conservative political institutions the world has ever known.
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We, their children, are put upon our honor to conduct the present so that it shall equal the past.
The President then said, A Poem written by Mrs. Mary M. Bray, will be read by her son, Chandler M. Bray.
POEM.
Far back in shadowy regions of the Past, So far, that truths and myths seem strangely blent, A shallop frail from Scandinavian shores, Sailing south-west on venturous errands bent, Storm-tossed, wave-beaten, neared at last a coast, Low-lying, stretched along the waters blue, To weary eyes, long vexed with restless seas, A sight forever welcome, ever new.
Upon the deck, amid his hardy crew Of Norsemen bold, stood Thor-finn, born to lead, Intent and watchful, and beside him there As everywhere, his gentle wife Gundride. Nearer they came, and sailing slowly by, They saw long lines of white and gleaming sands, By trailing clouds of fleecy mist o'erhung, And called them, "Furdustrandas," "Wonder Strands."
So runs the legend in Icelandic lore, But Thor-finn passed them by ; and the sun rose and set, And other mornings dawned and evenings waned, And seasons ran their wonted round and met And parted, till at length a year had fled. A year ! What is it? In our lives so brief, A priceless boon ; but in the larger plan Of Nations, it is like a wind-strewn leaf.
Thus the swift years sped by unheralded, Adown the silent arches of the Past. A long and dim procession, and behold ! A century its course had run at last, And in the sunlight or the moonlight pale Still as before glimmered the silvery sands, Yet unexplored, to map or chart unknown, Still were they " Furdustrandas," Wonder-strands.
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Three centuries more, and then Columbus rose, Like a new sun, and proudly led the way, From east to west, and men grew vigorous In the strong light of that inspiring day. They turned their faces to the western world, They sought with ardor, countries yet unseen, And faltered not, although the stormy waves Of a tumultuous ocean rolled between.
And than came Gosnold with his English crew, And they were weary of the salt sea fare ; So they cast anchor in the spacious bay, And dropped their lines and guarded them with care, And on the royal bounty of the sea Feasted like kings, - and called the shore - " Cape Cod," And the new name displaced the olden ones, And still to all the world, -it is - Cape Cod.
In early winter, when the days were short, And cold and darkness, dreary spells had wrought O'er sea and shore, -hither by destiny led - A wind-blown barque, - the Mayflower shelter sought. Then in the harbor was the compact framed ; Then the white strands by pilgrim feet were trod ; " It might have been "! Yes, the historic site, Might well have been some spot on dear Cape Cod.
But fate decreed it not. They crossed the bay, And Plymouth Rock became the chosen shrine, Whereon their children in the years to come, Should rear a votive gift of marbles fine ; A shrine, a new-world Mecca, whereunto Should journey those of every race and age, In voluntary homage to the men, Who left for us this noble heritage.
Pilgrims of Plymouth ! But they cherished still Remembrance of their early camping ground, And back to Nauset and to Mattacheese, Envoys were sent, on various errands bound ; Until in sixteen hundred thirty-nine, " A grant was given," thus the old records run, " To take up lands as freemen," and to build At Mattacheese, Nobscussett, Hockanom.
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The fine old Indian names, how much they mean ; All moods of nature in them mirrored lie, Promptings of winter's cold, of summer's heat, The frowning clouds, the azure of the sky. Hints of bold, wooded shores, of rock-strewn plains. Of fertile valleys and of sterile hills, Of upland meadows, lying green and calm, Of leaping torrents and of rippling rills.
We must not let them slip away from us, To drift and perish in dark Lethe's flow ; Nay, rather let us link their melody With all the pleasant things that life can show, With towns and streets and parks and leafy lanes, And summer homes, like one not far away, Which makes Nobscussett, still a word of cheer, To all the region round about the bay.
It is the last, sad service we can give, To keep alive the memory of a race, Whose pomp and power exhaled like morning mist, Before the coming of the strange " pale face.' This let us do, and send the custom down To " future generations "yet unborn, We who now till their pleasant hunting grounds. Heirs of the men who ate Iyanough's corn.
To us the names bring only pleasant dreams, But to the Pilgrims, something strange and weird Breathed vaguely through the sounding syllables : Some taint of heathendon perhaps they feared. Their hearts were sore with tender memories, And homesick yearnings for things left behind, To their new homes, amid the wilderness, Remembrances of England, they would bind.
The infant settlement at Mattacheese, Ere it became a town, desired a name, An English name, to soothe the half-owned pain. Among the settlers, some from Yarmouth came, From Yarmouth by the sea. " We'll build," they said, "Another Yarmouth on this wave-washed shore ; The soul's demand for freedom and for peace May here be satisfied. What seek we more ?"
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We search the records once again, and read The names of those who pioneered the way, "Hallet and Matthews, Thacher, Howes and Crowe, Simpkins and Ryder, Taylor, Sears and Gray," The old familiar names, - how dear they are, - Two centuries and a half have rolled away, Yet on our streets and in our homes they live, Our childhood knew them, - they are here to-day.
Two centuries and a half! Through all these years, The little town has kept its even pace ; The Nation's giant growth, it has not shared, A "looker on" amid the rush and race. Far from the busy centres of great gains, The dizzying whir of multitudinous looms, Its peaceful atmosphere has never throbbed With the discordant jars of strikes and booms.
No mine with glittering promise lures the crowd, No wondrous beach attracts a transient throng, Chiefly and best, it is a town of homes, With all the elements that make them strong ; Of peaceful, prosperous, safe and happy homes ; Yet here a world-wide highway opens free, And the quick blood stirs with adventurous thrills, Born of close contact with the restless sea.
In the far north, where the low-circling sun, Makes night of hours that else were counted day, And the aurora with its rosy flame, Makes of the night, almost a dawning gay, In tropic isles, where palm trees lift themselves Stately and tall, to meet that burning sun, And dark-skinned natives sit in robes of white, Smoking long pipes until the day is done.
In countries where strange accents meet the ear, And all the usages of life seem new, Where the Mohammedan at sunset kneels, Or where the Hindoo shields his food from view Of passing strangers, from his race as well, Save those belonging to his creed and caste, Where men to idols bow, and blindly cling To the dark superstitions of the past.
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Amid such scenes her sailor-sons are found ; Conversant and at ease with foreign modes, Equal to the demands of every clime, Yet holding still to the New England codes. With minds whose steady poise unswerving keeps In all their varied wanderings afar ; With hearts as true to home and native land, As is the needle to the polar star.
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