USA > Maine > Washington County > Machias > Memorial of the centennial anniversary of the settlement of Machias > Part 9
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Col. Allan lived for a while on Dudley, afterwards known as Allan's Island, now called Treat's Island, after its present occupant; but at the time of his death, which occurred in the year 1805, he resided in Lubec. There he died at the age of fifty-nine years ; but his body rests with those of his wife and some of his children, on Dudley Island. There, after half a century had passed away, were gathered, on a pleas- ant day, August 1, 1860, the greater portion of his descend- ants, (nearly two hundred persons,) who then erected a be- fitting monument to the memory of their worthy ancestor, and those who sleep with him.
Of his faults, for of course he had them, I will not speak ; but I am not aware that he was inferior in moral character, to most of those worthy men with whom he lived and labored, and whose friendship he enjoyed. As to his standing while a resident of Nova Scotia, it is stated in a testimonial signed
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in 1798, by twelve gentlemen of his acquaintance, all mili- tary and judicial officers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, that "he was held in high esteem among the people of Nova Scotia, and might have held and enjoyed all the most lucra- tive offices in the County of Cumberland," had he remained there. Gen. Washington had confidence in him. Congress entrusted to him important interests, which he cared for, to its satisfaction. The Indian tribes respected him, because he was their friend. More like Wm. Penn was his treat- ment of them, than has been that of many others the Gov- ernment has appointed over them. The love of liberty seems to have been a ruling passion with him and his sacrifices in its behalf are proofs of this. On the curtains of his bed he inscribed in large letters, the motto "Where liberty dwells, there is my country." God grant that the freedom which he and his Indian allies labored to secure for us, may not be lost through our refusal to heed the warning of that maxim which declares that, "Eternal vigilance is the price of Lib- erty."
His descendants are numerous, and respectable. The Scotch-Irish element, which has produced so many valuable Yankee citizens,-distinguished for industry, frugality and endurance, has left its mark on many of them. Preferring the peaceful pursuits of industry, they have not sought for military fame; but when the nation appealed to its liberty- loving citizens to rise and quell the great rebellion which thratens to overturn the government and bury our free insti- tutions under its ruins, several of Col. Allan's great-grand sons early obeyed the call and went forth to fight the ene- mies of their country. They have fought, and one at least, has given up his life in its service.
And now, Mr. President, I am sorry, for the sake of him of him of whom I have spoken,-for your your sake, and my own, that I have so little acquaintance with my subject, and
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so pooly qualified to "order well" the few facts which I have gathered concerning the life and acts of Col. Allan.
Col. Allan said of the Indians, "It is acknowledged by all acquainted with that country (eastward of Penobscot) that their assistance was a principal support in its defence."- Then let us, while we cherish a grateful remembrance of the deeds of our Anglo-Saxon heroes, not be altogether unmind- ful of the services of their humbler brethren of the red- skinned race.
The President :- " Among the benefactors of our commu- nity, we must not overlook the teachers of our schools. If the cultivation of the mind had not more than kept pace with the cultivation of the soil the experiment of our fathers in settling this Eastern wilderness would have been a disas- trous one. Will some one respond in behalf of
OUR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS "
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SPEECH OF GEORGE F. TALBOT.
MR. PRESIDENT :- In a hundred years the humble toil of the Schoolmaster vindicates its worth. If the lawyer, the physician, the editor, more conspicuously affect society dur- ing their own generation, their merely professional influence dies with them, while the work of the teacher (and the minis- ter is the moral and religious teacher,) stands an ever-grow- ing monument of his faithfulness through successive gener- ations. The humble village pedagogue, shut up in the thankless drudgery of an unattractive employment, gains slight notice and few thanks from the elders, and suspicion and aversion from the young, but bides his time, assured
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that the very boys, who look on him as their tyrant, will, in the generosity and thoughtfulness of future manhood, honor him as the architect of their good fortune.
. In our cosy boastings to-day, for ourselves and not for the world or for history, of what has been done here in a hun- dred years, we ought to recognize our great debt to our Schools and teachers ; and while we name our pioneer foresters, our soldiers, the founders of our civil society, the master spirits in state and church, every graduate of the Machias schools will demand that an honorable place shall be kept, for the old Masters, who placed in his hands the keys of knowledge and gave impulse and scope to his am- bition.
This town was fortunate above most in the State in that it became the chief recipient of the enlightened bounty of Massachusetts, that established and endowed Washington Academy for the education of the people of this its remotest province. The opening of this institution under the able preceptorship of Solomon Adams in 1823, was for this thinly peopled region an event kindred in importance to the revi- val of letters in the earlier centuries among the nations of Europe. I recall Mr. Adams among the long line of his ac- complished successors because his work is just fairly coming up to the light in the mature manhood of the generation he taught, who here at home as well in more conspicuous spheres abroad, have taken upon them the labors and responsibilities of public and civic life ; and because his admirable methods of instruction, the powerful stimulus he gave to studiousness, the high aims he held up to effort, and the shining example he was of all that was courteous, decorous and truthful and pure, most powerfully attracted the scholars subjected to his influence, and diffused throughout the entire community an element of refinement.
But all the discussions from this platform have been of
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earlier times. This day belongs justly to the elders, to those who have long laid off the burdens of life, and not to us who are bearing them. I recall the antiquarian spirit of the gentlemen who have proceeded me and go back with you to more primitive manners and more primitive men. A more diffused, if less complete education has been derived by the whole people, they who make up the public to whose sentiment we so much defer, from the less pretentious town school, and we ought to be thankful that the character of this popular institution has not degenerated among us. I have immediately before me a striking illustration of the contrast between the primitive and the present town schools. The beautiful building whose fine facade forms one of the walls of the heaven-arched amphitheatre, within which this multitude is assembled, is an exhibition of the generous en- dowment, which the citizens now cheerfully tax themselves to bestow upon the education of the children of the people. The low frame building with large uncovered timbers inside, where the little children used to be perched upon the naked girts to read for the amusement of passers by summoned in to listen, was a fair representative of the early town school. I believe a venerable gentleman who has preceeded me en- joyed the distinction of having his youthful precosity thus shown off. For several years during and after the Revolu- tion the feeble settlement voted to omit the raising of school money. In 1862 within the compass of the old town $4,490 were raised for Public schools, besides large sums expend- ed in the erection of school houses.
But the boast in this respect is not wholly at the expense of the ancients. Machias, like New England, had for first settlers men of vigorous intellect, and during its early period as large a proportion of educated men as during any that has succeeded. Parson Lyon was a man of scholarly accomplish- ments, and achieved success as an author. Dr. Chaloner
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had received a very exact mathematical and scientific edu- cation. Judge Jones' papers in the town records show him to be a master of the political style, in which Jefferson was adept. The eccentric Mr. Parker, was a copious writer of polished letters, a graceful versifier, and left behind him a manuscript of original miscellany, which he had prepared for publication. There were women in the families of Gideon O'Brien, Gen. Stillman, and John Foster, versed in the Brit- ish classics, who could draw and paint from nature, who wrote verses of much poetic merit, and whose conversation made them attractive to all men of culture.
Less instruction out of fewer and poorer books (so reputed) than we have in modern schools seemed to take stronger root in the quicker apprehensions of a vigorous race of chil- dren, and to send forth more hardy and powerful shoots .-- Two winters' schooling by master Gilmore, the almost sole teacher of our fathers and mothers, who taught out of his head, with scarcely a text book of any kind, and who was not always in a condition to give his best wits to his work, seemed to go further towards making educated men and women than ten years drill summer and winter in our mod- ern schools in a little library of text books of science made easy.
Arthur H. Gilmore was brought to this country from Ire- land in 1787, having been sentenced to transportation to Bot- any Bay for being engaged in rebellion against the British Government. The ship in which he was an involuntary passenger brought about three hundred convicts, and its dishonest Captain, deviating from his destined voyage, undertook to carry them to Virginia and sell them as appren- tices, or as they used to be called, Redemptioners. For some unknown cause, however, he landed them on the coast of what is now Cutler, in the dead of winter, and they scat- tered among the settlements in this region, in almost com-
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plete destitution. Gilmore had received in the old country a University education, having been destined for a priest, and the settlers were not long in discovering his abilities and availing themselves of them. He became the authority in all questions of science and learning, and the Colony Schoolmaster under whom the O'Briens, the Longfellows, the Talbots, the Fosters and others completed their educa- tion. If it is inquired why a man of such fine education, and with the talents and ardor which have made so many of his race famous, was content with such an obscure task in a re- mote and wild settlement, the explanation must be found in habits not very different from those of his gifted country- man, Oliver Goldsmith which hampered his genius and lowered his self respect. More than one of the first teachers of Machias were Irishmen; and the children of Irishmen, sit- ting this summer in our free schools, ought to know that it was Irish culture that here first furnished forth the rude in- tellects of our fathers with the graces and treasures of learn- ing.
Master Gilmore's early life must have been a tempestuous one. Though a handsome man, his head was knotted with scars and bruises received either in the political wars for engaging in which he was banished from home, or in those more private amateur skrimmages, such as occur at a Tip- perary Fair, where one friend gave another who wished to know how to conduct to get the best of the sport, the com- prehensive direction: " Wherever you see a head hit it !" It might be said of Gilmore as Captain Cuttle said of Jack Bunsby: "He is the most beat about the head of any man that ever I met." Capt. Cuttle meant it as a compliment to his revered friend, who had cudgelled his brains to make them give out their wisdom as a cow gives down her milk. If in Gilmore the same battery had not yielded wisdom, in which the conduct of his life was somewhat lacking, it had yielded
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wit, for he was a merciless satirist of all the follies and stu- pidities of the elders, and such a scourge of youthful dunces that their scattered and distracted faculties could never col- lect themselves under the terror of his fierce laugh and the stinging ridicule of his apt rather than elegant nicknames. "The tender mind" got no particular aid or aim in learning "how to shoot" from his irascible and headlong temper, but was trampled upon by the ridicule of the master and the ridicule of the school. Perhaps the ridicule would not have been so stinging had it not been often followed by the sting- ing cut of the birch, or the big round rule sent hurtling across the school room, wood in contact with wood. The late Jeremiah O'Brien, who was a bright boy and could on- ly have suffered from a random blow, said with kindred wit, he liked all the rules of the school but the big round rule .- The dull boys shirked, for, if they read, they got mimicked and flogged, and like horses, lashed for stumbling, stumbled the more in terror of the lash. But the bright scholars were a delight, he was always ready to hear their tasks, and be- sides their due share of attention, they were often called up several times a-day to show off their accomplishments before visitors. I have heard an excellent lady, now deceased, tell how, on such an occasion, she was called out to read with a boy just above her age, with hands clasped upon the same book, this touching passage from the Dialogue of Brutus and Cassius :
"Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand. And my heart too !"
and of a hapless urchin-well known to most of you in his after career, who started off in his lesson at a double quick thus :
"How now Tubal, what news from Gin neo ?"'
and got fearfully cut up with the accompanying threat, "I'll Ginneo you, sir !"
He had a large collection in manuscript of his own composi-
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tions, partly in verse, but for the most part upon critical and theological subjects, which he used to read to such as could appreciate them. I have not been able to learn that any of his writings or letters have been preserved, though a venerable lady in this town repeated to me the other day, an acrostic which he wrote upon the name of one of the Fellowes girls whose still celebrated beauty deserved such poctic tribute. At one time a dispute arose, as to what. recompense he should make for some trespass upon the rights of a citizen, which, doubtless on the suggestion of Judge Jones, was referred to Doctor Clarke, Captain Tal- bot, and Squire Avery. He seemed ill pleased with the award, and gave a satirical account of the trial, in which the arbitrators figured as "Doctor Mundungus, Peter Smell- fungus and James the Scribbler."
He narrated once what difficulties he had in making the people of a remote district where he had taught, compre- hend the rotatory motion of the earth, and as I am speaking out doors, and not bound by the decorum that dwells under roofs and within walls, I will tell the story as he told it. The boys had told the parents that the master said the world turned over every day. "That can't be," said one of the skepti cal parents, "for then the water would fall out of our wells every night." "But " explained Gilmore, " how is it then that when you lay your head at night on your pillows the lice do not fall off ?" This, he said, brought the subject home to them, and they were willing to believe that the world could turn round and the water not fall out of the wells.
But I can not dwell upon these anecdotes of the old mast- ers, and must abruptly turn from these traditions. Mr. Gil- more married an excellent woman, a Knight from English- man's river, removed to St. Stephen, N. B., where he lived long and reputably, and where very respectable and intel- ligent descendants still cherish, as we do, his memory.
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The President :- "We have heard of our first minister, and our old teacher. The lawyers must not find fault if we reckon their later advent among the necessities, rather than among the glories of our history. But the first physician, an accomplished scholar and an adventurous man, many of whose descendants are still with us,
DOCTOR WILLIAM CHALONER,
justly deserves some honorable mention."
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There being no other reply, George F. Talbot again came forward and said :-
MR. PRESIDENT :- At the expense of intruding upon the claims of others to be heard from this platform, I cannot for- bear in behalf of the Committee of Arrangements to thank the two venerable gentlemen, who stand before me, the oldest and the youngest sons of Dr. William Chaloner, for the distinguished honor they do us by their presence here to-day. One of these gentlemen has come from his home in Winchester, Massachusetts, purposely to attend this celebra- tion, the other from his nearer home in our own county, bearing upon his still vigorous shoulders the weight of eighty-eight years.
Dr. Chaloner came to Machias from Newport, Rhode Is- land, about the year 1773. He seems to have been careful- ly educated. I have within the last few days seen a bound Folio Volume of eight hundred pages, in which his whole mathematical course, from the simple processes of arithmetic, through Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Sur- veying, Navigation, to the laws of projectiles, Gunnery and the construction of Forts, is recorded in a round and elegant handwriting, with captions printed, and diagrams and draw- ings made with the pen in all the precision and fineness of the engravers tool.
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After the taking of the "Margaretta" had excited among our people a love of naval adventure, a private armed vessel was fitted out here, put in commission under Capt. Jeremiah O'Brien, and Dr. Chaloner went on board as Surgeon. This vessel was soon captured and sent with her brave command- er as prisoner to Ireland. Dr. Chaloner in some way got released and went on board another privateer, that sailed from Newburyport, but again suffered capture and was car- ried to England. He was soon released, by exchange prob- ably, and travelled through France and Spain, taking pas- sage from a port of the latter country for the United States. While waiting for a wind a French Fencing Master came on board with a view of coming to America to teach the sol- diers of a people just entered upon a great war, the science of personal attack and defence. Dr. Chaloner was introduc- ed to him as an American physician, and in the course of a long conversation about the country to which he was pro- posing to emigrate, the Frenchman asked the Docter if he understood sword practice ; and on the modest assurance that he had tried it a little, the vivacious foreigner produced his foils, and persuaded Dr. Chaloner to try a bout with him. After a vigorous play of a few minutes in which the Doctor repelled every attempt of the teacher to hit him, he assumed the offensive and with his foil twisted a button from the Frenchman's coat. This ended the trial. The Frenchman went ashore and never showed himself on board again, doubtless concluding that if the physicians in America could fence so well, it was no place for him to teach the soldiers.
Dr. Chaloner remained at home during the rest of the war, his family having resided at Andover, Mass., during his absence from the country. When the North Eastern bound- ary was run by the Commissioners under the treaty of 1783. he was appointed one of the Surveyors, and my father had, till his death, and always used in surveying, the compass
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which had been used in the attempt to mark that unsettled boundary.
He was in his manners a gentleman of the old school, and had a fund of entertaining anecdotes picked up during his adventurous life, the telling of which, enlivened often by the singing of a song, and the hilarity, which the customs of that age demanded, made him in every circle, a desirable com- panion.
It is said that he had little taste for the drudgery of his profession and though his skill and judgment were in the highest respect, declined to attend upon all calls for his med- ical aid but those of the most urgent character. He lived in a house on the same site with that now occupied by Mr. Gilbert Longfellow in this village, and died in 1802.
The President :- "Many of the Children of our town and its old Residents are present with us to-day, but not so many as we wished. The Natives of Machias are scattered over the whole land. We remember them as bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh and claim a portion of the honors they have won by their enterprise and talents. Will Mr. Lowell of East Machias speak in behalf of
THE NATIVES OF MACHIAS RESIDENT ABROAD."
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SPEECH OF HON. J. A. LOWELL.
MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW CITIZENS :- I have not the honor of being a native of the town, whose one hundredth anniversary you now celebrate; but I have long known something of its history, and felt a deep interest in the pros-
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perity and happiness of its inhabitants. It affords me great pleasure, to unite with so many of them, in expressions of respect for the early settlers and their descendants.
More than fifty years ago, an elder brother of mine, now deceased, visited Machias ; and was a School teacher for sever- al years, in part of the town, now called Jacksonville. I recol- lect, that in his letters to my father, he gave an interesting description of the town and its people. Among other things, he describedyour unrivalled Water-power, your Mill Sites and Saw Mills, and your noble Forests of pine, spruce, juni- per and hard wood; and expressed the opinion, that all the trees suitable for sawed lumber, would soon be cut off; and the people would then be obliged to turn their attention to farming, to the fisheries, and to ship-building.
One entire generation has since passed away. The Lum- bermen have continued to pursue their vocation. The Mills have been kept constantly in operation. New Mills have been erected. Gangs have succed Single Saws. The quantity of manufactured Lumber has annually increased .- But all the trees of the forest have not yet been cut off ; nor have the people given much attention to farming or to the fisheries. They have, however, engaged extensively in Shipbuilding ; and that has become an important branch of their industrial pursuits.
Forty three years have elapsed, since I first came into the eastern part of the State, soon after the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. You then had only a weekly mail, carried on horse-back. Your roads were bad, and you had but few wheel carriages. Your people were comparatively poor. Your houses were generally unpainted. You had no piano-fortes, but many spinning-wheels and hand-looms. Pine boards were your principal currency. You owned but few vessels ; and depended mainly on shipping from other parts of the States, to convey your lumber to market. I
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must permit you, to draw the contrast, between the condi- tions of your people then and now.
My next visit to Machias, was as a witness in the Supreme Judicial Court in 1823, being then only a Law Student. I attended the Court again in the same capacity in 1824- was a student in the office of Judge Dickinson from July, 1824 until 1825-returned from New York in May, 1826- was admitted to practice in September following-and since that time, have resided permanently among you. During my residence here, I have formed interesting relations with your people, who have treated me with great kindness ; and given me many proofs of their respect and confidence, which I shall ever hold in grateful remembrance.
The early settlers of Machias were a virtuous, brave, hos- pitable and Christian people-not always faithful to the king; but always true to their State and Federal Governments- true to the just claims of humanity-true to the rights and liberties of the people-and ever ready to peril their lives in the defence of their country. They were in all respects equal, and in some respects, superior, to the first settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth.
Time would fail me, to speak of the Joneses, Stillmans, Averys and Bowleses-of the O'Briens, Smiths, Chaloners, Hills and Longfellows-of Morse, Porter, Inglee, the Hol- ways and the Crockers-of the Fosters, Talbots, Pope, Simp- son and the Hanscoms-of Trescott, Turner, Harris, Coop- er, Bowker and Emerson-of the Libbys, Burnhams, Mun- sons and Seveys-of the Gardners, Riches, Scotts and Gooches-with many others, who deserved to be remem- bered.
MR. PRESIDENT :- The men, whose names I have men- tioned, were well known to you; but most of them have long since joined the. ever-increasing numbers of the dead ; and the places, which once knew them, will know them no
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more forever. You, Sir, have been spared to us. Like the majestic oak, which has withstood the storms and tempests of ages, while the surrounding forest has been blown down and destroyed, you still stand erect-an object of our venera- tion and regard-the connecting link between the past and the present ! As you view this vast audience-this "sea of upturned faces"-composed chiefly of two generations of your juniors ; and find so few of the companions of your early manhood, I can imagine some of the emotions, which swell your aged breast. I can almost hear you exclaim :
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