USA > Maine > Oxford County > Norway > Centennial history of Norway, Oxford County, Maine, 1786-1886, including an account of the early grants and purchases, sketches of the grantees, early settlers, and prominent residents, etc., with genealogical registers, and an appendix > Part 39
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Youth, having no past, turns its eyes to the future for its highest enjoyment, feeding alto- gether upon anticipation which so frequently "makes a much better breakfast than supper." Manhood, looking backward as well as forward, learns from that most persuasive of all teachers, experience, that the eternal Now is its only sure possession ; and age, so far as temporal affairs are concerned, lives only in the past, not infrequently feeling that another " life is about to add another stone in that informal pathway proverbially paved with good intentions."
This vast concourse, so appropriately assembled here today, contributes one more to the " world of illustrations," that associations cluster around particular seasons of communities as of those of individuals; that the former, even when they attain to the magnitude of munic- ipalities, have, in some respects, the characteristics of the latter, and stop at certain, though comparatively not frequent stages of their existence, pass in review their past acts, embalm the good deeds of their ancestors, and glean therefrom lessons of wisdom; realizing that there is "but scant hope of progress and reform for peoples no less than individuals who will never go out of themselves " and take a back sight, recognizing what their predecessors and founders so thoroughly learned from experience and the universal, unmistakable teach- ings of profane as well as sacred history,- that individuals, towns, states, and nations, are alike amenable to that inevitable law communicated by the man of God to Eli : "Them that honor me, I will honor ; and they that despise me, shall be lightly esteemed."
And now, while the vibrations of the great tongue of time which has just struck the first century of your settlement, are lingering on your ears, you, the sons and daughters of this magnificent, thrifty town, in the midst of your well cultivated and fruitful farms and comfort- able and tasteful farm houses, with your churches and school-houses, your mechanic shops and factories, may well halt in the midst of your high career of activity and thrift, lay aside your business, occupations and vocations for a day, and with filial and patriotic pride devote a short season to wiping from the tombs of your fathers and mothers and of their fathers and mothers, the dust and the mold which a hundred years have gathered there ; recall to your own minds and impress upon those of your children, a renewed appreciation of the character and virtues of those noble and hardy spirits whose severe discipline harrowed in the seed which has sprung up and made you a busy, prosperous, free and happy people.
Inasmuch as your own careful, intelligent and painstaking former townsman, the late David Noyes, published in 1852 a history of the town and of its first settlement; and the search - ing, diligent, accurate and experienced historiographer, Dr. Lapham, with his uncommon powers and facilities, has extended his researches even beyond the ken of his predecessor,
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and with his facile pen, has recounted and recorded a wealth of striking events and incidents multitudinous as the stars in the milky way, bringing the record down to the present time, I cannot be expected to glean behind them over the same field, for should I attempt it, all would be but uninteresting repetition save the mention of one solitary fact which I do not find stated in plain Anglo-Saxon, in either history.
Your historians have chronicled in interesting detail of name and date every important event-the first tree felled, first boy and girl born, first male and female teacher, the first blacksmith and other mechanic, first house and barn raised, and the first trader, but I find no mention, in totidem verbis, of the name, and date of immigration of the first rumseller, and I simply remark in passing, for the information of the present generation, what it would never Suspect from the present manners and customs in the town, that the name and date of immi- gration to town of the first rumseller was identical with that of the first trader, - the trader in those days, being ex officio a rumseller ; and that then, of the several barrels and hogsheads so orderly arranged even in the front store, one only contained undistilled molasses while the contents of the others were dispensed over the connter in bland gills-a gill, less the-size of the dispenser's traditional thumb. An attempt to indulge the fancy of what Norway and its 3000 citizens would now be had no rumseller ever entered the town, would be as idle as to speculate upon what would have been the result to the Romans and the Gauls, had Julius Cæsar been born a girl. I turn therefore to a more practical, general topic and one particu- larly appropriate to this occasion, and seek for the real character of the first settlers of Norway away back among those heroic people from whose blood and loins your immediate ancestors sprang.
If it be true, as asserted, that the world was originally made from nothing, then I perceive no reason why the five gores which now comprise Norway do not come within the same cate- gory. But we are concerned today with those hardy, resolute men and women who settled these gores and with undaunted courage and pluck made that "wilderness blossom as the rose." And if it be true, as our historians declare, that a few men, in 1786, on a hunting excursion, sought the unbroken forest then skirting the margin of the Pennesseewassee, whose waters now so marvelously do your bidding; that the character of the trees and soil was so suggestive of good settling-land that the blows of the woodman's axe were soon heard and a farm begun; and if we look upon these simple incidents as did the squirrel, perched on the limb of a neighboring oak lunching off an acorn just gathered while he listened to the new sounds, as nothing but isolated facts - then the settlement of these gores was caused by "next to nothing."
But to us rational beings there are no such things as naked, isolated facts, disconnected with all others. On the contrary, every fact that ever took place, is a link in the great chain of cause and effect that binds the universe and all within it, each indissolubly connected with its preceding and succeeding link as the immediate effect of the one and the direct cause of the other, but whose remote cause and effect are as wide as eternity. So tracing the proximate influence which sent those men to these now beautiful fields, to their poverty and hunger, and their poverty and hunger, to their legitimate successive causes found in the revolutionary age which had just closed, and they in turn to the spirit and bravery and endurance which char- acterized the great heroic colonial age of New England, " the charmed, eventful infancy and youth of our national life," and so on in regular succession, and we arrive at the inevitable conclusion which follows as naturally as night follows day, that the settlement of what is now this thriving town, like that of many another in blessed New England, is one of the ripples
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of that great tidal wave of oppression and religious intolerance which began to swell and dash against the brave, bold and tireless resistance of determined men seeking to uphold and defend civil and religious freedom away back in the earlier centuries of the Christian era. That wave burst upon the shores of our mother England and continued with unabated fury for many years prior to the passing of the Petition of Right, against those bold, persistent men who were alone the preservers of English liberty.
Although I now strike into well beaten paths of history, we cannot too often refresh our memories with brief allusions to the spirit, zeal and character of that Puritan stock from which we are descended, so strong and deep are its associations with all our dearest privileges and brightest hopes.
We hastily pass over the aid and comfort which the unscrupulous Henry VIII, his prime minister Cromwell and his archbishop Cranmer rendered the Puritans who recognized no head of the church save Christ; their thrift under the "learned boy," King Edward VI; the kindling of the fires of persecution, the establishing of scaffolds and burnings everywhere and the expulsions to the continent by " Bloody Mary"; the return of many of the exiles under the worldly Queen Elizabeth and their distribution broadcast of the Scriptures accom. panied with the declaration which Luther had rung throughout Christendom, that "every man was entitled to the right of private judgment "; the increased intensity of their religious opinions while sitting at the feet of the great Gamaliels on the continent ; the investigation of their civil rights, logically suggested by their free thought, which so illy comported with the views of their Queen; their providential choice to leave their country, the only alternative being resistance to their government; the sailing in August, 1620, of the Speedwell to join the Mayflower twice starting, and on account of the unseaworthiness of the former, twice putting back, first to Dartmouth and then to Plymouth; and finally the chosen band of forty- one emigrants with their families, comprising one hundred and two rustics, farmers, and workmen, in the Mayflower of " nine score tons," "painting their banner upon the clouds " and "launching boldly out into the Atlantic," the immortal covenant and constitution which they signed before landing, the death of fifty in three months thereafter, and soon only seven left with health sufficient to minister to the sick.
So, although more immediately interested therein, must we hurry over the facts that in 162S, soon after the king signed the charter entitled " the Governor and Council of London planta- tion of Massachusetts Bay in New England," giving full scope to found a free government here, and within a week dismissed the very parliament which passed it, because they sought to secure some guarantees of a like government at home, which determined the cause of the Puritans in America. How in the quaint language of the historian of the day, "Roger Conant and three sober men " rolled up their pantaloons, waded into the water and bore on their shoulders from the vessel that had just swung to her moorings, the first governor of the colony and the colonists commenced their career, founded as one of them said "on the cove- nants between God and man in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions of the men themselves." How as soon as their rude, humble dwellings were built, log meeting- houses followed, warmed only by opening the outside door, where the settlers together with their minister, all armed against the lurking red man, gathered at the beat of the drum or sound of the horn, with a reasonable apprehension, that the "din of the war-whoop might rise above the voice of prayer." How between 1629 and 1639, twenty thousand Puritans - pure Englishmen - arrived upon those shores. How from these together with a gradual and constant immigration of the same kind of people during the 17th century down to the
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Revolutionary War when they numbered seven hundred thousand, through trials and suffer- ings and persistent strivings, such as no pen can describe, came the people and among them those who came hither after the war of Independence, commenced their habitations and built up this town.
Who were the men who comprised these colonists of Massachusetts Bay in Essex ? Three fourths of the Protestants in England were Puritans, " in whose ranks," says the historian Green, "in great part were men of the professional and middle classes, some of them of large landed estate, some zealous clergymen, like Cotton, Hooker and Roger Williams, some shrewd London lawyers, or young scholars from Oxford university; the bulk were God-fearing farmers." "The purity of the race," says Lodge, " free from any admixture, was unknown in the middle provinces, and was by no means equalled even in Virginia. It formed a con- spicuous element characteristic of New England people, and was fully recognized in the other provinces, where it was one cause of the dislike not uncommonly felt towards the inhabitants of the eastern colonies." In the more fervent language of stern old Governor Stoughton, " God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain out into this wilderness." .
But let us turn back and look a little more carefully at some of the details and refresh our recollection as to how those colonists of Massachusetts Bay began to lay the foundation upon which this marvelous superstructure of a "government of the people, by the people and for the people " was reared.
These ardent, determined men forsook their old homes for conscience sake. Their great object was to maintain religious observances and worship such as they could not peaceably enjoy in their native land. And although their views savored of theocracy, they could not be attained unless good civil order prevailed. If they " had the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences," and have a " church without a bishop," they failed to see why they could not have a government among themselves without a king.
The civilization from which they fled was founded upon the idea that the government is everything and man nothing. They, believing with the only acknowledged head of the church, that the " Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath," saw in civil and social equality - which neither disdained the lowest nor flattered the highest, levelling upward instead of downward - the true principles on which the stability and prosperity of the people rested; and they accordingly ordained that governmental institutions should also be made for man. Hence they began at the bottom - the people - making them and not the king sovereign, and authorized each community to " govern itself for itself."
In most of the charters the government remained under the immediate supervision of the crown; wherefore laws were made and institutions framed for a people whose situation and circumstances could be but little understood by the makers. The Plymouth Company labored under this embarrassment; but the educated and well-to-do men who embarked with their fam- ilies to America in 1629, not for the sake of adventure, discovery, or trade, as some of the colo- nists avowedly did, but solely from religious and political motives, freed themselves for a while from interference by the mother country, by making it a condition precedent, that they should take their patent and charter with them. Accordingly, before embarking, they chose a gov- ernor and seven of the council, who were authorized to choose three others; and "to the end that the former planters there may have no just occasion of exception, as being excluded out of the privileges of the company, such of them as were willing to live within the limits of the plantation were authorized to make choice of two, such as they shall think fit."
Until 1634, their business was transacted by the whole number assembled together in the
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open air or in their rude meeting-houses. Then twenty-four of their leading men appeared as the representatives of the whole, without any warrant in their charter to be sure, and solemnly declared among other things : "That none but the general court has power to make and establish laws, to elect and appoint officers, to remove such upon misdemeanor, and to set out the duties and powers of those officers; that none but the general court has power to raise money or taxes; that there shall be four courts yearly, to be summoned by the governor, but not to be dissolved without the consent of the major part of the court; that such persons as shall be hereafter deputed by the freemen at the several plantations to deal in their behalf in the affairs of the Commonwealth, shall have the full power and voice of the said freemen derived to them for the making and establishing laws, and to deal in all other affairs of the Commonwealth wherein freemen have to do, the matter of election of magistrates and other officers alone excepted, wherein any freeman is to give his own choice."
As already stated, Massachusetts Bay Colony came over with their charter, giving them power to elect governor, deputy governor and assistants - denominated general court - and to make laws and ordinances not repugnant to the laws of England, for their own benefit and the government of the inhabitants of the territory. They separated themselves into eight plantations located in as many different places. And while the general court could make general laws and ordinances for the whole people, as the State does now, the people of each plantation, at meetings called, managed their own local affairs as to a majority of them seemed meet and proper.
The general court met four times a year. The plantation of Dorchester, at a meeting in October, 1633, passed an order establishing a stated meeting of its inhabitants on each Mon - day next before that of the general court, in the language of the order, " to settle and sett downe such orders as may tend to the general good as aforesayd, and every man to be bound thereby without gainsaying or resistance." They also elected twelve men " who were to hold monthly meetings, and whose orders were binding when confirmed by the plantation."
The plantations thus formed and organized sent deputies to represent their interests and views in the general court, which form and condition have substantially remained to the present, and constitute what we call the legislature.
Like methods were adopted by other plantations - Boston, in 1634, and Charlestown in 1635,- the latter fixing the number of their plantation agents, which they denominated " selectmen ", at an odd number so that they could not be evenly divided, as seen by the explanatory order passed at the same time, wherein it was declared; "that in consideration of the great trouble and charge of the inhabitants by reason of frequent meeting of the towns- men in general, and that by reason of many men meeting, things were not so easily brought into a joint issue ; it is therefore agreed by the said townsmen jointly, that these eleven men . . . . shall entreat of all such business as shall concern the townsmen, the choice of officers excepted; and what they or the greater part of them shall conclude of, the rest of the town willingly to submit unto as their proper act, and these eleven men to continue in this employ- ment for one year next ensuing the date hereof."
Town government, thus instituted, was recognized the next year by the general court ; whereupon they became public quasi corporations, with their limited powers. That this untried experiment showed marvelous insight on the part of its projectors is fully demon- strated by the fact that the same substantially prevails today in the 1500 towns in New England.
" Thus," says Judge Parker, " there grew up a system of government embracing two juris-
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dictions, administered by the same people; the colonial government, having jurisdiction over the whole colony, administered by the great body of freemen through officers elected and appointed by them; and the town governments, having such limited jurisdiction as was con- ceded to them by the colonial government, administered by the inhabitants through officers and agents chosen by them.
By this action, which in the light of the last of the nineteenth century seems so simple, those colonists of the first half of the seventeenth century, not by a sudden revelation of some brilliant theory of civil government, but gradually as their wants and experiences practically suggested, with no full precedent for guide or imitation, " transposed themselves from pure democracies," in which all individually took part, " into a congeries of democratic republics"; and each meeting-house or whatever building was appropriated for such purpose, became the state house of a little republic, wherein were freely discussed and determined, by all the male inhabitants duly warned and assembled, grave matters of local interest affecting the common weal - such as care for the poor, levying taxes, maintaining preaching and schools, construc- tion and maintenance of roads, and all matters pertaining to the health, peace, good order, and safety of all within their bounds; and each of them, "in confederation with the others, has called into being and clothed with all the power it has for those matters of common need which it cannot do of itself, but which may affect all - the state."
Thus were promulgated and practically established those doctrines of civil liberty - "not," said Gov. Winthrop, "a liberty of corrupt nature which is affected both by man and beasts, to do what they list, inconsistent with authority, impatient of restraint, the grand enemy of truth and peace and all the ordinances of God, but a civil, moral and federal liberty which is the proper end and object of authority, a liberty for that only which is just and good, a liberty for which its votaries were to stand with the hazards of their lives," a liberty that is "deathless however many deaths it costs" - that liberty which they so triumphantly defended, though they "walked hand in hand together through the valley of the shadow of death."
Time will not permit me to further emphasize the immeasurable importance of town organ- izations to the people, the state and the nation, than to remark that this New England creation has attracted the attention of not only American statesmen reared in the midst of a different system, but has also received the commendations of eminent, intelligent foreigners.
Thus Thomas Jefferson declared that they " have proved themselves the wisest invention ·ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and for its preser- vation." De Toqueville devotes many pages in his " Democracy in America " in showing his knowledge of our town organizations, and in pronouncing his laudatory judgment thereon. And they, it has been said, attracted the attention of some of the gentlemen in the suite of Lafayette on his visit to this country in 1825.
The Plymouth Colony began with small numbers and only one community. They increased and spread slowly, and no representative form of government was adopted there until 1638. In 1658, twelve towns sent deputies to the general court. Massachusetts Colony, having separated into plantations at the outset, and having greater immigration, their representative system began earlier.
But the labors and disappointments did not end with this initiatory establishment of govern- ments. On the contrary there were not ten years together in which some great right of the colonists was not assaulted or menaced in some manner by the English government. And when James II. wrested from Massachusetts Colony her first charter and sent over his royal
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governor general Sir Edmund Andros, there were peremptorily abolished representative government, every right and political institution reared during half a century of conflict, and others more in accordance with his despotic master substituted; and the colonists "were ruled," as Randolph said, "as though they had been the subjects of the Turks."
During these four eventful years - 1685 to 1689 - the darkest days the colonists ever experienced, their great patience, their intense sense of duty, their force of will, their love of liberty, their trust in God were tried to the utmost, and nothing less would have survived their trials. But these very experiences burnt into their souls, by force of comparison, the value of their former condition under a happy quiet self-government and intensified their zeal to regain it on the earliest opportunity.
The foresight of our ancestors was not exhausted when their representative form of govern- ment had been so well established; for there was more than one colony in New England with its general court and its attending satellites of towns, and their respective leading spirits began to feel that a time might come when the community of good feeling then subsisting, naturally resulting from their common origin and similarity of thoughts, feelings and institutions, might become weakened by a difference of interests. Constant experience taught them that they had one common enemy, at least, and that although the Atlantic separated them, still a con- federation would be advisable to meet any emergencies that might emanate from that source ; and the New England Colonies, excepting Rhode Island and Georges, formed a confederation styled "United Colonies of New England," the articles of which disclosed the same wisdom which had guided them theretofore. "This," says one of the most eminent judges that ever adorned our highest Federal Court, "was the first public measure ever taken to unite New England into a Phalanx which has never been broken." And although its immediate effects were not so particularly marked, its silent influence in uniting and increasing an "habitual and close intercourse among the inhabitants of the separate colonies, gave them similarity of character and feeling; and when the dark hour of the Revolution came, it found them familiar with the idea of acting in concert, and ready to avail themselves of all the advantages which must result from unity of thought and action."
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