USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Duxbury > Town annual report for the town of Duxbury for the year ending 1936-1940 > Part 18
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First Prize to the Town of Pembroke. For the float, Founding a Home in Pembroke.
Second Prize. To the Town of Plymouth. For their replica of the Mayflower.
Third Prize. To the Kingston Civic Association. For the float, They Keep the Faith.
Honorable Mention. Hingham, the Townsend Club and Duxbury Town Float.
Judges for the marching units were Mr. Paul C. Peter- son, Miss Eleanor M. Gould, Col. Thomas E. Barroll, Mr. Lawrence W. Glass and Mr. Martin Baker. Their awards were:
First Prize. To the Accomack Tribe, No. 155, I. O. R. M. of Plymouth.
Second Prize. Boston Boys' Club.
Honorable Mention. Duxbury Boy Scouts.
After the parade a box luncheon was served the Na- tional Guard Units at Train Field. The Naval contin- gent were given a clambake by the Duxbury Yacht Club.
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FIRST AID STATIONS
1. Central Fire House on Chestnut St.
2. Train Field.
Dr. C. H. King and Miss Annie Williams in charge.
COMFORT STATIONS
1. Cushing Bros. Garage.
2. Freeman's Garage.
3. Central Fire House.
4. Train Field.
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EXERCISES AT THE WRIGHT ESTATE
Owing to the pressure of several engagements, His Excellency, Governor Hurley, was obliged to leave as soon as the parade was over. On such a National Holi- day the Governor's program was naturally a full one, and Duxbury was gratified that he could find time to honor the celebration with his presence. He expressed himself as much pleased by the picturesque illustra- tions of historical incidents and periods.
On the departure of the Governor the guests ad- · journed to the house that had been made gay and charming by the artistic taste of Mrs. Patten and Mrs. Loring, Jr. Lining the rooms and along the verandah, box, arbor vitæ and slender cedars were set in the fash- ion of a frame, the more or less formal treatment ex- tending to the luncheon tables on the side lawn. Against this background red, white and blue flowers formed combinations in vivid color relief. On either side of the rostrum facing the lawn were bouquets of fuchsias, blue larkspur and regal lilies. The long table reserved for the Governor and special guests was decorated with red Iceland poppies, white rambler roses and blue corn-
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flowers. The place-cards bore Duxbury scenes in water color.
Some 325 guests had been invited to the luncheon. H. J. Seiler Co., the well-known Boston caterers, served the following menu :
Clam Chowder
Salmon Salad Sliced Ham Chicken Salad
Buttered Rolls
Assorted Sandwiches
Melon Moulds of vanilla and coffee ice-cream
Fresh Strawberry Ice-cream
Coffee Fruit Punch Small cakes
Seats for an audience of 1,000, open to the public, had been arranged on the lawn facing the verandah and the rostrum. After the luncheon was over the formal exer- cises of the afternoon were opened by Selectman Harry F. Swift, Chairman of the Tercentenary Committee, with the following address of welcome:
"Your Excellency, Governor Hurley, distinguished guests, visitors and citizens of Duxbury. As Chairman of the Duxbury Tercentenary Committee and in behalf of that committee and the Town of Duxbury, it gives me great pleasure to extend to you a cordial and hearty welcome. We are honored that you are present to as- sist in the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the incorporation of this, the second oldest Pilgrim Town in the colony. We have prepared a program that we feel will meet with your approval and add to your en- joyment, and when you are forced to leave and return to your homes you will carry with you many pleasant memories of this quiet old Pilgrim Town by the sea.
I am assigned another pleasant duty : to introduce the presiding officer of these exercises. It gives me great pleasure to present Dr. Harry A. Garfield, the son of a
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martyred president of the United States and President Emeritus of Williams College. Dr. Garfield.
Dr. Garfield greeted the assembled guests in a brief speech and then introduced Rev. Alfred R. Hussey of the First Church of Plymouth, who delivered the Invo- cation.
Dr. Reuben Peterson then read the letter of regret from the President of the United States.
The White House Washington
May 29, 1937
Dear Dr. Peterson:
I send my very best wishes to the citizens of Duxbury and trust that the forthcoming celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of incorporation may be an event in keeping with so noteworthy a milestone in the annals of this fine old town. An observance such as Duxbury is planing to hold should quicken interest in early local history and at the same time should inspire the citizens of today to hold fast to all that is best in their ancient heritage.
You know of my deep personal interest in Duxbury. Here lived the first of my maternal ancestors within a very short time after the coming of the first settlers to Plymouth colony. I had hoped to be with you in per- son and to see the original Delano farm and the other landmarks associated with so many of my ancestors. But the Congress will still be in session and I cannot journey far afield.
To all of you, whether you be descended from the Duxbury pioneers or whether you have come in later years, I send my greetings.
Very sincerely yours,
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
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Dr. Reuben Peterson The Duxbury Tercentenary Committee Duxbury, Massachusetts
In the absence of His Excellency, the Governor, Ma- jor Patrick MacQueeney of the Governor's staff stepped to the rostrum and extended to Duxbury and the as- sembled audience the greetings of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Dr. Garfield next introduced Congressman Charles L. Gifford who responded in the following manner:
"It is a pleasure, indeed, to be assigned a part in the celebration of Duxbury's 300th milestone of growth and progress. This is a proper moment for a long glance backwards into the very beginnings of its civilization. Its later inhabitants, and especially the younger genera- tion in their formative stages, should be glad to listen to the history and the traditions that have now culmin- ated in the town's present happy situation, especially as measured by the average community in the nation.
Far-famed because of its extraordinary early history, the town has furnished our fast-growing country with that type of hardy, earnest, capable pioneer who has helped build the newer sections of the country. Proud we are of the achievements of our forebears and grate- ful, indeed, are we for their inheritance. All that they would probably desire of this generation. would be a proper appreciation and perhaps that their memory should be properly preserved that it might prove an in- spiration for even a better chronicle of its citizens in the future history of this community. Who were Duxbury's first settlers? History should have made this answer easy, as they were so few in number. But has history recorded properly, during the last two and a half cen- turies, the dates and names of a long line of men and women who have made their contributions to its up-
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building and welfare? Does education, as furnished in your beautiful school building, ever impart to our sons and daughters this genealogy of which they should be properly informed and justly proud? Shall we allow us to be a little ashamed of the crude methods and simple expressions of language that existed in those former days ? Let us remember that intellectual capacity is not measured by the so-called education of these days, but will always be measured by the ability to do for our- selves the most possible with the opportunities, the tools and the weapons at our command. However, we will not go far, even with this equipment, unless we are pos- sessed with those old-fashioned but still absolutely nec- essary traits of thrift, honesty, faith and a charity that seeks to assist our neighbors. As life is made easier, it is natural for the demand to increase that it be made still easier and as the time approaches when the need of strenuous activity passes, then, indeed, the decay of the citizen will follow. When this time arrives, and it does sometimes seem to be approaching, that a tem- porary majority or large minorities seek to live off the savings and the thrift of others, a conspicuous and pa- triotic determination to adopt the old verities will fur- nish the real and outstanding heroes.
At this hour when we meet to glory over the accom- plishments and the sacrifices of our forefathers, it is exceedingly proper to consider any grave dangers that may beset our nation.
Beautiful Duxbury! Congratulations for a glorious past! Sincere wishes that your present may not only be safe-guarded, but that your coming citizens may possess that firmness of resolution that your future years may be still more prosperous and happy."
Dr. Garfield then introduced Dr. Charles E. Park, of the First Church in Boston, the orator of the day.
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SPEECH OF DR. CHARLES E. PARK
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
Americans have always labored under a certain han- dicap, the consciousness of our youth. We have been repeatedly told that as a nation we are too young to be taken seriously, a mere parvenue among the nations, our political and social theories still in the experimental stage, our stamina still untried, and our continuance far from assured. Many an ardent patriot among us has felt himself silenced and somewhat abashed by having this fact of our comparative youth as a nation thrust into our faces.
Since the turn of the century, however, there has been a distinct change, not only in our own self-esteem, but in the attitude of other nations toward us. For with the beginning of this 20th century we entered a period richly laden with patriotic sentiment and antiquarian interest, a period of tercentenary observances, which has absorbed the enthusiastic attention of dozens and scores of towns and churches all up and down the New England sea coast. We have celebrated, for example, the three hundredth anniversaries of such significant events as the gathering of the Scrooby Church, the settlement of Jamestown and New Amsterdam, the voyages of Bartholomew Gosnold and Captain John Smith, the arrival of the Mayflower and the beginning of Plymouth, the establishment of the Dorchester Com- pany's fishing colony at Cape Ann, the transfer to Naumkeag under Roger Conant, the re-enforcement that came with John Endecott and that changed Naum- keag to Salem, the arrival of John Winthrop's fleet, the beginnings of Saugus, Charlestown, Boston, Water- town, Roxbury, Dorchester, Hingham, Piscataqua Falls, Newtown, Harvard College, to mention only a very few.
This period of tercentenary observances has swept over New England like a sentimental epidemic. And
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while many people have witnessed these celebrations with idle or uninformed curiosity, they have left in most of our hearts a few distinct impressions. First, there is the realization that we are no longer a young people. We may not be old, but at least we have come of age. When we think that Shakspere had been dead only sixteen years and Milton was still a young man when the first stout-hearted settler built his house, cleared his land, and planted his Indian corn in Dux- bury, when we remember that we can point to houses right here in Duxbury, houses built of our native oak and pine, with hand-hewn timbers and hand-wrought nails, that are dozens of years older than St. Paul's Cathedral or the Houses of Parliament, we begin to re- alize that our three hundred years of existence repre- sent a length of time which even the Englishman must contemplate with respect.
In the third place, and most important of all, we are deeply impressed by a fact which emerges when we make a comparison between our Puritanical beginnings and the beginnings of other colonial enterprises all up and down the Atlantic sea-board. Sir Walter Raleigh's attempt to plant a colony ended in tragic and mysteri- ous disaster. The Popham Colony of fishermen en- dured for a few years and ended in failure and finan- cial loss. The settlement at Jamestown was enabled to survive a protracted period of sickness, starvation, jealous wrangling, and Indian treachery by means of repeated supplies of men and equipment sent over from the old Country. The Dorchester Colony of fishermen and traders located on Cape Ann went into complete bankruptcy three years after its inception, and lay dor- mant until fresh blood and another kind of blood was poured into it. The Plymouth Colony of 1620 was from the first weaker in men and money than any of these, was confronted by dangers equally great, suffered more
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from sickness and starvation, endured a higher rate of mortality, and was cheated and exploited more out- rageously by their so-called partners in England; and yet there was not a moment from the very first land- ing at Plymouth Rock when the survival and the success of this Plymouth Plantation was in any real doubt.
What was it that enabled these poor, weak, brow- beaten men and women and little children of Plymouth to succeed, where strong, hardy, well-equipped men had repeatedly failed? The answer is not merely a pious conjecture; it is the answer that was recognized and suggested by people at the time. The thing that enabled the Pilgrims, and after them the Puritans, to succeed was their motive. They were actuated by one of the strongest motives the human heart can know: their conscience, their religious scruples, their sense of duty to the Sovereign God who held their lives in the hollow of his hand, and employed them as willing instruments to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Mrs. Hemans has spoken the literal truth in that famous poem of hers which may be indifferent poetry, but which is forever dear to every descendant of the Pilgrims :
What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine? The wealth of seas? the spoils of war? They sought a faith's pure shrine.
There is a significant discovery we make when we re- view their history : it was because of the quality of their motive, it was because they were driven by the holiest motive that human hearts can know-the hope of establishing a faith's pure shrine, that they succeeded where stronger and better equipped men, actuated by earthly motives, repeatedly failed. That phenomenon repeated itself ten years later when the great Puritan
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company under the leadership of John Winthrop came to Salem and Boston. The most valuable equipment those Puritans brought with them was their holy ideal: the determination to establish in New England a puri- fied church. That motive brought new vigor to the en- tire enterprise of New England colonization. It gave irresistible power to an undertaking which up to that time had known nothing but discouragement and fail- ure. And it revealed a truth which some historians even today seem unable to grasp-that New England owes its existence to Puritanism, and that a Puritan will suffer, endure, attempt, persist, for his conscience, a great deal more than a merchant will for his pocket- book, or than a traveler will for his love of adventure.
Nowhere have these forces of conscience, and duty and idealism operated so clearly, so nobly, and so vic- toriously as they have right here upon the shores of Plymouth Bay. Our Pilgrim Fathers were Puritans. More than that, they were Puritans of the extreme type, consistent and thorough-going. They allowed nothing to stand in the way of their conscience. If their ideal demanded the surrender of earthly possessions and the breaking of earthly ties, and a separation from all they held dearest and most comforting, they did not hesitate. They expatriated themselves, they took upon themselves the stigma of Separatism, they endured the extremes of privation, both physical and sentimental in order to keep themselves true to the voice of their God as it spoke in their conscience. It is vain for the cynic to point out that they were people of lowly estate; that in this world they had not much to lose; that they were
"Untied unto the world by care Of public fame, or private breath,"
for we may safely assume that the little they had was as precious to them, as the much that the rich man has
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is precious to him. Their English homes may have been humble, and their children lowly-born, but home was as dear to them, and children were as beloved by them as his palace is dear to the king, or his cradled prince- ling to the royal heart. It avails nothing to belittle their sacrifice. Even after three full centuries we look at them with an undimmed sense of the pathos of their history : humble, faithful, steadfast, loyal, true-hearted men and women, utterly devoted to conscience and duty, and ready without hesitation to follow that call of duty through thick and thin, through want and plenty, through health and sickness, through life and death. That is the strongest and the most lasting im- pression we get when we review their story: the purity of their motive, the fortitude and the fidelity with which they followed their ideal, and succeeded, where others repeatedly failed.
"Aye, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod. They have left unsustained what here they found- Freedom to worship God."
When the carpenter proposes to build a house, he has two questions to ask himself : first, what is it I want to do? Second: how am I to do it? The objective, and the method. The objective is clear-a house. The method is obvious-I must lay the foundation, select the lumber, cut and fit the timbers, and drive the nails. The carpenter is fortunate, because his objective is the direct result of his method. Everything that he does in his method, helps to fulfill his objective; every cut of the saw, every blow of the mallet on the chisel, every nail that he drives, is another step towards his objective, and helps directly to build the house. His objective is the direct result of his method.
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When the Pilgrims came to this Bay, they were con- fronted by the same two questions : What is it we want to do? How are we to do it? The objective and the method. The first question was a simple one: what is it we want to do? We want to establish our purified church, separated from the corruptions of worldly pol- itics; we want to realize our freedom to worship God. The second question was not so simple: how are we to do this? In order to do this, we shall have to do a great many things that have no immediate connection with our principle objective. We shall have to live. We shall have to secure our physical necessities, food, and shel- ter, and warmth, and comfort; build the huts, cut down the forest, clear the land, plant the corn and pease, catch the fish, shoot the turkeys and the deer. We shall have to organize the body politic, sign the compact, write the laws, elect the governor. We shall have to provide for our safety against unknown enemies; build the stockade, choose the captain, train the soldiers, make the treaties. We shall have to secure our eco- nomic solvency; cut the lumber, make the salt, cure the fish, gather the beaver skins, pay the interest on our investment. None of these things has any direct con- nection with our main objective, our freedom to wor- ship God; but all these intermediate, incidental objec- tives must be fulfilled if we are to realize that main objective.
In other words, the case of our Pilgrim Fathers was far more complicated than the case of the carpenter, in that their main objective was not the direct result of their method. Their main objective was a by-product of their method. Their main objective required them to adopt a method which led first to a number of lesser intermediate objectives. They could not enjoy freedom to worship God unless they first secured freedom from want and starvation, freedom from danger, freedom
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from political confusion, and freedom from economic obligation. All this may seem rather blind, but it is important for us just now, because it is precisely out of these intermediate objectives, to which they had to turn their attention, that the town of Duxbury was born.
Governor Bradford tells us in his Journal that after twelve years of hope and suffering and persistent labor, the affairs of Plymouth Plantation were finally in a prosperous condition. The year 1632 marked the def- inite end of their period of uncertainty, and found them well established, prosperous, and able to buy out their London partners, and make themselves financially in- dependent; which they proceeded to do in the next few years. This prosperity was due to a number of causes; first, their own steadiness and industry; second, their increasing experience: they learned how to live here, how to get ahead, how to handle their resources, treat their land, plant and cultivate their crops, care for their cattle; third, the coming of the Puritans into Mas- sachusetts Bay-Salem, Saugus, Charlestown, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Dorchester. During the first two years of that so-called Puritan migration, between three and four thousand people added themselves to the New England population. This was, for those times, a great and sudden influx of people to be housed and fed, more than could have been cared for without the aid of this well established plantation here in Plymouth. That is to say, the rapid growth of Massachusetts Bay created an eager market for the supplies of corn and cattle which Plymouth was in a position to produce in abundance. Prices rose, and more land was put in till- age. Plymouth was enriched. Here was a reciprocal trade relation that served at the time to cement the growing friendship between the two colonies, and that is a source of pride and gratitude to the descendants of both colonies. Boston's need was Plymouth's oppor-
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tunity, and Plymouth's ability was Boston's salvation. Had it not been for Boston, Plymouth's prosperity would have been deferred. Had it not been for Plym- outh, Boston's distress would have been serious.
But this year of worldly prosperity had an immedi- ate effect upon Plymouth: it scattered the settlers all around the Bay. We have to remember that our fore- fathers were English people; and that they had brought over here their English ways of living. One of the first things we notice as we drive over the country-side of England or France, is how the people live in compact villages, and work in distant out-lying fields. They do not live on their farms; they live in their snug little villages, and go out to their farms for the day's work. Doubtless this custom is a relic of Feudal days, when the tenants of each baronial estate lived huddled to- gether under the protection of their Lord's castle, and went forth each morning for their day's labor in dis- tant fields. When our first settlements were made in New England, this Old World custom naturally gov- erned the process. Each family was allotted land for house and garden in the village, perhaps on Leyden Street, near the common house, near the church, near the fort on Burial Hill. The unknown dangers of the wilderness recommended that custom. Then in addi- tion, each family was allotted woodland, meadow, pas- ture, and tillage in outlying regions. And as the popu- lation increased these outlying allottments completely encircled the Bay.
Now it does not require much imagination to under- stand how impossible it must have been, in this coun- try of generous distances, for a farmer to live in Plym- outh village, and work a farm on the opposite side of the Bay. And moreover we can readily understand that a few years' experience pretty thoroughly overcame their dread of the wilderness. From the Indians they
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had at first nothing to fear. Their policy of justice and fair dealing had established a friendship with the local Indians which lasted unbroken for fifty years. There were wolves and bears and bob-cats, but these were more of a menace to cattle than to man, and hence were an added reason for living on their farms. They soon acquired sufficient confidence to give up their timid Old World custom of living in a compact village and going out to work on distant farms. They found it both necessary and possible to live on their farms. This chance to supply a vigorous Boston market spurred them on to increase the size of their farms. More land for cultivation, more land for pasturage and meadow hay, became the cry; and more land meant more dis- tant land. One further fact we have to remember : they were land-hungry. They had come from England and Holland where land was limited, where land was the obvious basis for economic well-being, and where land could be held in fee simple only by the gentry-the land-owning class. To possess their own land-all they wanted-in their own name, that was a sentimental day-dream; and to have that dream realized was too good to be true.
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