USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Hampstead > A memorial of the town of Hampstead, New Hampshire : historic and genealogic sketches. Proceedings of the centennial celebration, July 4th, 1849. Proceedings of the 150th anniversary of the town's incorporation, July 4th, 1899, Volume I > Part 14
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The singing of " America " followed the recitation, and as the echoes stilled over the waters of the pond, the president announced that an hour's intermission would be taken, dur- ing which lunch, would be served to the company. A boun- teous collation had been provided by the committee and house- wives of the town, consisting of sandwiches, pies, cakes and hot coffee.
The refreshment committee were assisted in the entertain- ment of the guests by Mesdames Abbie (Dow) Emerson, Louise (Roundy) Bailey, Jane (Taylor) Davis, Ida (Thomas) Noyes, Esther Emerson, Mary (Clark) Corson, Grace Allen, Alice (Hamlin) Emerson, Minnie (Stevens) Emerson, Abbie (Corson) Tabor, Annie (Knight) Mills, Abbie (Gale) Little, Lizzie (Gilmore) Hoyt, Jennie Woods, Marcia A. Woods, Myra (Fellows) Pressey, Bessie (Grover) Mills, Sarah (Col- lins) Allen, Nellie (Hadley) Moulton, Ada (Emerson) Gar- land, Misses Ada M. and Lillian D. Rundlett, Lulu Cor- son, Addie B. Gardner, Mary F. Heath, Lena Pressey, also the pupils of the high and common schools, in passing the lunch to the company.
(HUTCHEN'S HOME.) RESIDENCE OF EDWARD F. NOYES.
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John E. Mills and assistants served lemonade and ice cream.
A most enjoyable hour was spent and many old acquain- tances were renewed after a lapse of years, in some instances.
About 1.30 P. M. the president again called the company to quiet and introduced the Rev. Dr. W. W. Silvester, rector of " The George W. South Memorial Church of the Advocate" of Philadelphia, who spoke as follows :
Mr. President, Members of the Committee, and Citizens of Hampstead :
I am sensible of the honor you have done me in asking me to address you on this 150th Anniversary of Hampstead and on this American day, the Fourth of July. By a single an- cestor my life connects itself with this town. This is a day to talk of deeds.
My old ancestor of Hampstead was no ordinary hero. I am glad to speak of his soldiership and long service for his country. I shall not attempt to conceal the pride I feel, that through him I am standing here, a part and parcel of you today.
In 1748, a year before this town was organized, my ancestor at twenty-one was at the first capture of Louisburg, and again, ten years later, at the second capture. He was ready for the Revolution when it came. He had seen much service. He wrote a blunt, soldierly letter offering himself for duty. It ran thus : "Hezekiah Hutchens hereby requests the honor- able Committee of Safety and Gentlemen of the Congress, that he is willing to serve his country in this province service in the common cause ; and that he has been in all the wars in this country since the taking of Louisburg the first time ; and in the last war was captain of a hundred men; part of the time did the duty of chief engineer at Fort Frederick, near two years."
Promptness was in order in the emergency of 1776. The Captain did not receive permission to enlist a company until the first of June. Hot patriotic blood hereabouts was plenti- ful one hundred and twenty-three years ago. By the 15th,
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he was in Charlestown with a full company of men, mostly from this town; on the 16th he received his commission as captain, and had his men on the 17th in the fray at Bunker Hill.
Let us respect this man. The soldier is a man with a lik- ing for the sniff of honor as well as a sniff of battle. Henry the 5th, in Shakespeare, gives an example of this.
"I am not " says he, " covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost.
* * But if it be a sin to covet honor I am the most offending soul alive."
Then he graphically pictures the renown which shall follow a battle impending.
" This day is called the feast of Crispian,
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand a tiptoe when this day is named, And ronse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day a live old age, Will yearly on the vigil, feast his neighbors, And say, 'Tomorrow is Saint Crispian,'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars;
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwiet and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, - Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd."
For the sweets of fame, such is the appetite of the hero who is living. But the appetite does not end there. He ex- pects posthumous fame ; besides, he looks forward to the time when men shall remember him and say pleasant things of him after he is dead. The soldier not only says " tomorrow com- memorates the battle of Bennington or Buena Vista, but he believes when he shall be gone from the world, that his coun- try or state or townsmen, will say that " Mr. so and so, or Captain this or that, fought at Germantown, in Mexico, or Cuba.
Great it is to do something in this world worthy of re-
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ward, and that excites the admiration and gratitude of men and one's country. Undoubtedly this expectation of winning a fame which is to last forever, is that quality which has thrown a splendor around the military lives denied to other professions.
We remember Captain Hutchens today, and his fellow townsmen, soldiers who fought as valiantly as he. We re- member them kindly and affectionately-those old-time, hon orable soldiers ! Honorable Soldiers !
Men like Captain Hutchens were the fashioners of this town and this country. The making of a country is a curious thing. No fixed law declares that one nation shall be like another. You do not get good potatoes by planting poor potatoes year after year. What a nation will be, and a town too (let it be appropriately said), depends upon the quality of men it starts with. America began with the first rate, a little over Puritan perhaps, but still first rate. Heroes peo- pled this region any time these 150 years. We are tempted to believe sometimes, that this country came into existence at the signal of the Declaration of Independence. Not so; the stuff which goes to the founding of a republic like ours, is not so hastily created.
The Declaration of Independence was a peg put in at the right moment in the right place. It makes the beginning of the intended government which has since not retarded. But the material of which the nation was to be made came from England, in our ancestors. The sparks of the Declaration of Independence flew from the swords of our soldiers at Louis- burg and Ticonderoga, as well as at Trenton and Bunker Hill. I mean, that in our people was the same spirit in both instances, the character and grit that came with them from England-the peculiar thing that is known today as the Anglo- Saxon race-composed of a quality of men which in the his- tory of the civilization seems now to be dominating the world, and saying, " we want the earth."
We know liberty as a nation, root and branch. We are-
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quite right, I hope, in our mission in Cuba. We shall en- counter no moral difficulty, I trust, in justifying our position in the Islands of the Pacific, for which, with a swift gener- osity we paid twenty millions of dollars without guarantee of the delivery of the goods-human goods whom we are now whipping in spite of the persistent rebellion, into " good form " of the American pattern.
We can make it obvious, let us hope, to our consciences, that we are not again, like very Britishers, fighting against the Declaration of Independence, against the Fourth of July, of those dusky Philippinos in the isles of the East.
Here never had you tyranny. No autocrat, a hundred and fifty years ago, told you how you should live. You people decided that for yourselves. This town is today what you have willed it to be, and had the power to make it. The his- tory of its 150 years is the record of the lives of your towns- people. The chiefest minds among you have, I doubt not, invariably been the standards and rulers of the town.
Be it so always. The law that the superiors are to guide, is the perpetual lesson of a self governing people.
In the days past the best minds thought out the democracy, and studied the way by which their ideal should be realized ; the best minds planned and directed the battles which achieved a people's government. And so the best minds now set the pace for what the American Government thenceforth is to be.
Deep observation is not required to see that our national affairs grow more complicated every year; demanding higher statesmanship. A more imperative duty never rested upon a great people to see to it that the false and corrupt, the com- monplace and the second rate, do not dominate and spoil us.
Hon. Lyman Dewey Stevens, of Concord, N. H., was called upon and addressed the company with the following remarks : Ladies and Gentlemen :
Permit me in the first place to express my grateful appre- ciation of the kindness of your committee in inviting myself
Joshnon Flint Nayes
Rufus K. Noyes, M,OS
ISAAC WILLIAM NOYES.
ALBERT PEABODY NOYES.
n
.
NOYES BIRTHPLACE.
EDWARD RAND NOYES.
WALLACE PEABODY NOYES.
HENRY NOYES HOMESTEAD.
.
HENRY NOYES.
CHARLES HENRY GROVER.
CHARLES HENRY GROVER JR.
CHARLES H. RANDLETT.
"NOYHURST." RESIDENCE OF THE LATE ELBRIDGE HI. NOYES.
2 3 A0M ARH
RESIDENCE OF JOSHUA F. NOYES.
ELBRIDGE HENRY NOYES.
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WALTER F. AND CARL P NOYES.
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and family to participate in the celebration of the one hun- dred and fiftieth birthday of this fair town. I come in the evening of my life to see for the first time the home of my ancestor, my great-grandfather, William Stevens, one of the early settlers of this town, whose remains rest in your soil. My grandfather and my father were born here, and as I look today upon the scenes which were so familiar and so dear to them, I cannot feel that I am a stranger in Hampstead. The beautiful waters of Wash Pond rippling at our feet greet me as a friend, for its name has been familiar to me from my childhood.
I feel as though I had come to celebrate Old Home Week, which our Governor so warmly advocates, and I have, in common with you, a just pride in the history of Hampstead. I am proud that no page of its history is stained by the record of any heinous crime committed within its borders ; proud that the character of its people has been conspicuous for a sturdy adherence to the principles of good government, for the advancement of general intelligence and popular educa- tion, and for the maintenance of a high standard of moral and religious life.
It is natural that we should look back today to the time when our forefathers dwelt here; and if we contrast the narrow limitations of their lives, the poverty which confront- ed them, the hardships which they had to bear, with our pres- ent condition, we may justly congratulate ourselves on the wonderful progress which characterizes the century and a half whose completion we have met here to celebrate. Our ances- tors loved and defended and made free a country consisting of a few colonies scattered along the shores of the Atlantic ; but to-day we behold them expanded into forty-five great states, stretching grandly westward until they reach the shores of the Pacific ocean ; nay, more, until they rule the islands of the sea.
Our fathers were confronted with grave problems, the so- lution of which compelled them to lay upon the altar of their
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country the offering of " their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." Today we, their descendants, are no less called upon to meet problems vitally effecting the welfare of our republic ; problems, my fellow-citizens, which we have a share in solving, and we shall be guilty of neglect if we fail to give to their consideration and adjustment any less devo- tion, if need be, than was shown by our forefathers in the infancy of our nation.
I regret that my ancestors are not more ably represented on this occasion, but as I am the only available descendant, they will have to be content with what I can do. I may not pos- sess all the estimable qualities which they presumably had, for the records show all the people of Hampstead to have been good, but I will not yield to them or to any one in my love and veneration for the high qualities which constitute the character of a true man.
My friends, when another one hundred and fifty years shall have rolled away, I think we may fondly hope that your de- scendants and mine may gather on this lovely spot to cele- brate the three hundredth anniversary of your corporate birth. We may believe that on that auspicious day they will behold this sun shining upon a free government, purged of its present weaknesses and imperfections, securing effectually to all the people of the land their just rights and privileges. Such a government will challenge the respect and admiration of the world, as the noblest monument of human wisdom and the best birthright of mankind.
Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to thank you heartily for the attention and patience with which you have listened to me. I give you the assurance that I shall carry with me so long as memory lasts most pleasant recollections of this beau- tiful and happy day which I have spent in Hampstead.
Hon. William C. Todd of Atkinson, was introduced as the only living person that addressed the people at the centennial celebration. He was received heartily, and spoke of the pleasure it afforded him, after a lapse of fifty years, to again
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visit this same grove on a similar occasion. He alluded very feelingly to his friends in Hampstead at that time, especially to the late Judge Isaac William Smith, with whom he had closely associated since his boyhood, a college classmate and friend of later years.
He had pleasant remembrances of " Parson Kelly," Rev. Mr. Bartley, Major Isaac Smith, and John Ordway, the pros- perous merchants of the town ; of Dr. Josiah C. Eastman and others whose memory he loved as men worthy of the respect of the town.
" God grant that all of us while we live may do some good in the world. Hampstead has reason to be proud of its men and its record in the past. May it continue to prosper, to be active in every good work, and when, half a century hence, its sons and daughters again assemble in this grove for the two hundredth anniversary, they can rejoice that the honorable history of the fathers has not been impaired."
Rev. Albert Watson of Windham, N. H., spoke in part as follows :-
Ladies and Gentlemen :-
I feel as if I ought to make some response to the very hearty greeting that we received when we came together.
When we visit a friend's house to celebrate his birthday, and he says he is glad to see us, the least we can say is, " Thank you; we are glad to see you and wish you many happy returns of the day."
I am sure it is a great day for Hampstead, and it is a great day for a great many people, not only those who belong to Hampstead, but those who belong to the adjoining towns.
I certainly do feel that I am at a disadvantage to-day in not having the good fortune to be born in Hampstead.
I am reminded, by the way, in view of what has been said, of a son, or would-be son, of the Emerald Isle, who, speak- ing at a great public meeting, thus expressed himself : "I'se glad to be with you, my boys, you know I was born in the
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east end of London, and it has always been my lifelong re- gret that I was not born in my native land." So I may say today, in a certain sense like the Irishman, it has been my lifelong regret that I was not born in my native land. I am glad to say, however, that I could do the next best thing, get around to the land as soon as I possibly could.
I have taken pains to visit Old Hampstead, London, and could tell you some interesting things ; however, I will only take time to mention a fact in history and apply the same.
In the year 1882, Gen. N. P. Banks appeared here in one of our Popular Lecture courses, and gave us a talk on "What a man owes to his country," and the subject comes up afresh on this anniversary day. I should like to speak at length upon it, but time will not allow. One word must suffice. Every man owes himself, his best, to his town. Let the debt be paid, let the obligation be met by every one, especially the young and rising generation, and not many decades will pass away before the town will receive a decided uplift and a greater glory than ever before.
The president then introduced Rev. Myron P. Diekey, of Milton, N. H., who spoke as follows :
There was introduced to you a few moments ago a man who was present and took part in the exereises fifty years ago. That fact made him seem a very ancient man. And I will say that this is my second one hundred and fiftieth anniversary that I have been privileged to attend. The other was not, how- ever, in the town of Hampstead, but in my native town of Derry.
That was thirty years ago this summer, I believe. I remem- ber very distinetly two things with reference to myself con- nected with that anniversary thirty years ago. One of the things was that I took my first shave that day. The other was I heard Horace Greely speak. And as I came to the depot this morning and did not find, or did find a team there, but did not get aboard, and had to walk down through the heat, I am sure
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I will have something to remember this one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. I want to say that it did not appear to be any fault of the managers of this occasion that I did not get a ride down; they had arranged to send a young man to meet the minister and his wife up to the depot ; nobody ever knew me in Hampstead as a minister, and it has been very difficult for me to make people believe I am a minister. Next time I come to West Hampstead for any occasion I am going to put on a white tie and black coat, and then the lad will not run off and think I am not the one he is looking for. I do want to come to Hampstead on an anniversary yet to come. I want to live to be able to be present at the semi-centennial of the Hampstead High school, for as intimated in the remarks of your president, my interest and abiding memories cluster around the High school, and I hope that I may live, and that when the time comes, twenty-six years from now, for the fiftieth anniversary of the High school, I may be able to be present. It does not do to talk very much of good or bad men while they are above ground. It would not do for me to speak about the trustees of the Hampstead High school, worthy men as they are today, because there are some of them not yet passed over, but in twenty-six years from now I think I should be able to speak of them with some of the appreciation that I came to have for them.
I suppose the first thing in the thoughts of us who come from a distance is of hearing the voices, looking into the faces, and taking by the hand those that we formerly knew. I do not suppose my wife will be called upon to say a word in her behalf on this occasion. For here she spent her honeymoon, and I have begun to see how the honeymoon came to rank so high. It is that little period of time when the anxious lines are allowed to pass away, the anxious lines that come some- times sooner and sometimes later in life, as the girls and per- haps the boys get to be concerned whether they can find any- one to marry them. When they get married that anxiety passes away until the new cares come with the cares of the
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family, and as I am sure that Mrs. Dickey would say that the years that she passed in Hampstead were her honeymoon years, and she and I and all of us have ever been glad to come back and take you by the hand, and I want to say to some of you, who may not know, that our first born son, born in Hampstead, last week took his degree of Bachelor of Arts at Dartmouth College in the largest class that ever graduated.
But these gatherings do have a deeper meaning than the greetings and the revival of past memories. I can recall how, as a young man on the like occasion in my native town thirty years ago, I received an impression from the gathered people and the words spoken that quickened my aspirations for worthy manhood.
The speakers that have preceded me have told what a fine looking audience this is, and looking from this platform you do make a beautiful picture. One would not suppose there could be a homely face among you, but if you were inspected by some critical eye very likely there would not be a perfect beauty in the whole company, so it is in the daily routine of life, as we see men and women singly and in their individual acts. We see what seems to be imperfections, but on occa- sions like this we see the gathered results of the past genera- tions, and we say the results are good. The fathers wrought well. The imperfections are dropped out of sight. It is the morality, the uprightness, the sturdiness of the fathers that hath wrought the good citizenship of today. Humanity is al. ways grand though the individuals that make up humanity are full of infirmity.
I have many times thought of the address at the dedication of your beautiful library building three years ago, made by Judge Smith, who has been spoken of with so worthy rever- ence here today. In his address about the olden times of his boyhood recollections, he evidently wished to be understood that the old customs were very narrow. The religion was austere, the Sundays were long, and the sermons fearfully un- interesting, to the boys, at least. But when he came to speak
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of the fathers and mothers that grew up amid those hard customs, it would seem as if he had never found better folks in all his later years whom he revered as those folks of his boyhood memory. As I listened to him, though he was a lawyer and an honored Judge of our highest court, I almost felt he had made a mistake, either in his facts or his logic, that we ought not to call customs bad that produce such good men and women. And I have wondered if we may not be overdoing this matter of seeking some new device or method in the great concerns of education and religion and govern- ment. Perhaps those old methods after all were good for those times. The method after all is but the working clothes of the age. We don't judge the past generations by the clothes they wore, but by what they did and what they were in ster- ling character.
And so it seems to me, the main thing in this matter of method is that the method shall suit the time and people in the work they have to do. The old truths, the old standards of righteousness and morality, never change. What we need is to preach these eternal truths to the rising generations in the language and the thought that is now living, not in any dead tongue of men that are dead.
The main thing is to produce men and women of staunch integrity, with strong faith in humanity's God. Problems that loom up before us will, like the problems of the past, be solved by the manhood and the womanhood that has to meet the problems.
The president then introduced Prof. Joseph Dana Bartley, whose remarks were substantially as follows :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends :-
I have two regrets in my mind as I stand before you today ; one, that I was not here in the morning to be out with the boys at four o'clock to join in the celebration of the opening of this day, with fire crackers and cannon. The other, that I was too late to ride in the procession, through our beanti-
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ful town, even though I know that "he better sees who stands outside, than they who in procession ride," and that there could be few left to " see," as I suppose you were all in the procession ; however, I am glad to be here at the open- ing of these exercises, trusting that the boys did justice to the occasion, as boys knew how to do fifty years ago, when the centennial celebration was held in this same grove July 4th, 1849.
It would be interesting to know how many of those who took part in that celebration are here today. Of the seven- teen members of the committee of arrangements of which Isaac Smith Esq. was Chairman, there are present only Tris- tram Little, Nelson Ordway, Joseph G. Brown and Stephen S. Shannon. Of the seventeen ladies who composed the dec- orating committee of which my aunt, Miss Esther Bartley, was chairman, only five are with us today ; Mrs. Merrill, then Miss Susan Putnam, Mrs. Frederick A. Pike, then Miss Mary Ann Garland, Mrs. William Sanborn, then Miss Mary J.Heath, Mrs. Henry Clark, then Miss Clara A. Kent, and Miss Phil- ena Hoyt, whose married name has escaped my memory.
Of those on the stage on that occasion, I see, only as a blessed memory, the faces of my loved and honored father, the Rev. J. M. C. Bartley, Isaac Smith Esq., Mr. Frederick Emerson, and the handsome young orator of the day, then only twenty-four years of age, the late Hon. Isaac W. Smith of Manchester, who, till within a few short months, earnestly de- sired and expected to be here today. I am happy to count Mr. Smith as one of the most respected teachers of my boy- hood.
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