USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Milford > Celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Milford, New Hampshire, June 26, 1894 : including the proceedings of the committee, addresses, poem, and other exercises of the occasion > Part 4
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A part, and perhaps all of the territory of Milford was once claim- ed by Massachusetts, and received early consecration by the grace of
THE OLD SOUHEGAN MILL.
DESTROYED BY FIRE IN 1872.
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that noble commonwealth. Massachusetts has been said to have led the world in common schools. In 1659, it granted for the benefit of schools, one thousand acres of land lying along the banks of the Souhegan; a good ly gift to a righteous cause. It made other grants for the same purpose The spirit of these grants has presided over the territory ever since A distinguishing characteristic of its people has been a deep and abiding interest in educational matters; but not until it received its charter from the state of New Hampshire a century ago, was much accomplished eith- er in the way of schools or churches. Its sturdy inhabitants, down to that time, and even later, had all they could do, to defend their cabins and get bread for themselves and their families. Since then their work in behalf of education has been one that reflects lasting honor upon the citizens of Milford. They have followed the injunction of Solomon : "Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life."
The common school, the sheet anchor of a nation, the old district school, which for the practical and ordinary training of boys and girls, for good citizenship, has never been excelled by any institution on earth, except the home, has always been here sustained with marked success. A large majority of its citizens have never received any education except that received in the old district school. It was there that they learned to think, to reason and to act. It was there that they came directly in contact with the sturdy school-master, who was generally a practical, sa- gacious and right-minded man. It was there that they received funda- mental impressions, if they deserved them, that were calculated to con- vince them that "the way of the transgressor is hard." A history of the teachers of Milford discloses a list of brainy, practical, and excellent men and women, who have done a great work, in that most useful of all human industries, the making of character. They were the "chosen few, the wise, the courtly, and the true." Who would not rejoice to have their children taught in the district school by such men as Daniel Russell and John Ramsdell, or by Gilbert and Lydia Wadleigh in the academy, which gave a sort of finishing touch to the graduates of the common schools, and has also been of conspicuous service in the training of the boys and girls of Milford.
These, with the lyceum, which, for more than a quarter of a century was a substantial and recognized institution of the town, and for which, as a public training place for debate and deliberation, no eqivalent has ever been found, have furnished this people with every facility for acquiring sufficient information and mental discipline to enable them to reap the precious benefits of a useful and intelligent life.
A community thus disciplined naturally demanded books and period- icals, and all the equipment for the acquisition of a wider range of instruction and information. The public circulating library came, with its manifold blessings; and with it the lecture platform and its attend- ant moral and intellectual pleasures. The leaders of American thought, the greatest of American orators and philanthropists have been heard
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from Milford's platform-Henry Ward Beecher, Lucy Stone, Wendall Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Star King, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Theo- dore Parker, Oliver Wendall Holmes and scores of others, whose renown is world-wide, have thrilled by their eloquence, and instructed by their learning, logic and philanthropy the people of this goodly town.
True to the spirit of the Pilgrims, the early settlers, recognizing their first and supreme allegiance to Almighty God, built places of public worship alongside their homes. Throughout all their town history the church has been a special object of their care. The town records dis- close with what liberality they contributed to its upbuilding and support. They worked and sacrificed that the words of the Saviour, the harbinger and hope of the highest civilization, might be taught in their midst, and possess the hearts of their children. They wrought in a great cause. Amply has the church compensated its cost. Its influence for the good of men is visible everywhere. At times, in the presence of great dan- ger, it may have been weak, but it has contributed more than a just share in making a thoughtful, enterprising, conscientious, home-loving and successful people.
The town was more than fortunate in the selection of its first perma- nent pastor, the Rev. Humphrey Moore. He was a splendid man. Frugal, industrious, a farmer and minister, a patriot, a gentleman and a devout christian. His master spirit was a vital force in this community for more than fifty years. The early New England pastors were, for the most part, strong and grand characters. They were leaders among men. Their sturdy advice and rugged examples were safe; guides. They did a great work. Mr. Moore was at the head of other strong religious teachers in Milford. Abner Warner, a very noble and eloquent man, left a lasting mark on this community. He valiantly espoused the cause of freedom, while he held aloft the banner of the cross. Many other good ministers have wrought here manfully, doing a work which has had large influence in moulding the character of the people.
The history of the churches of Milford is quite like those in other parts of New England. They have figured prominently in shaping the course of events, but some of them were early tainted with a disinclina- tion to grapple with great national wrongs.
The Pilgrims and Puritans who laid the ground-work of the New England churches, although a wonderful people, were not perfect or entire- ly consistent. The Pilgrims came to these shores, not to found a nation, nor to sever their political ties with the mother country, but that they might establish a church after their own hearts, and worship God accord- ing to the dictates of conscience. This one idea dominated their lives. The Puritans came "to found homes and build a state." The Pilgrims were poor but well informed. The Puritans were rich and educated. Both believed in work, energy and enterprise; in the sacredness and the enforcement of law, in schools, the home and the church. They pro- fessed a belief in man, and above all, in the living God. In this sublime
SOLOMON K. LIVERMORE.
. ....
REV. HUMPHREY MOORE.
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faith, and with matchless thrift and moral integrity, they made New England. They and their descendants constituted as noble a com- munity, and maintained as pure a government as has ever existed on earth.
About the time the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, in Massachusetts, there was another company of men who landed at Jamestown, in Vir- ginia. They were speculators and traders. They called themselves cav- aliers. They came to this land for no good purpose. They were trying to get something for nothing. They believed in getting a living in the sweat of the faces of others, not their own. Their ideas were antago- nistic to those of the Pilgrims. They sowed a seed in this country which has borne slavery, discontent and civil war. The great harvest is still going on. This disastrous spirit has attracted from the old world kindred elements. Socialism, communism, idleness, and thriftless dis- content, are its deadly products.
But neither the Pilgrims nor the Puritans who helped make New England and the Republic, with all their love of justice and freedom, as history shows, had a just appreciation of the equality of human rights, or the education or evolution of mankind. They became, in framing the constitution of the Federal Union, the allies of slave traders and slave owners. They helped place in that great compact a fatal provision. It was a recognition of human slavery.
Within fifty years after its adoption, there appeared in New Eng- land a young man with a great spirit. His name was William Lloyd Garrison. He boldly challenged the integrity and justice of that work. He opened his battle for freedom by saying: "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." He made the startling declaration that this constitu- tion was "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell." He published a newspaper, called the Liberator. Its sublime motto was " Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind," and it demanded "the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slave." Garrison was its sole owner, its sole editor, its sole type-setter, and its sole manager. Its printing office was a dark and dusty attic, but its light was as brilliant as that of the diamond as it comes from the hand and genius of the lapidary. It was " a most humble, unpretentious little sheet of four pages, about 14x9 inches in size, but charged with the des- tiny of a race of human beings whose redemption from chattel, brutal bondage, was one day to shake to its foundations the mightiest republic ever yet existing on the face of the globe.
This paper found sympathetic readers in Milford. It aronsed the conscience and stirred the souls of some of its most intelligent citizens. They at once formed an abolition society. Some of them, feeling that the churches to which they belonged, were remiss in their duty to those in bonds, severed their connection with them. They were thenceforward come-outers and abolitionists. They held regular meetings in the old Ames hall, the Faneuil Hall of the Souhegan valley, afterwards con-
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verted into a school-house, which was but a continuation of its ancient work. Here they met on Sabbath days and discussed and deliberated upon the wrongs perpetuated by law against their fellowmen. Among their number were the Hutchinsons, natives of the town, the most noted, and the sweetest singers of their generation. Their songs for emanci- pation and temperance, exerted a mighty influence in waking the sleep- ing conscience of the nation. The discussions, the glorious songs, and the meetings of this noble band of men and women were forcible, in- spiring and eloquent. The work they did far-reaching and successful. Some of them, like their great leader, lived to see the chains torn from the slave, and the constitution of the United States, purged of its foul stain, enabling Mr. Gladstone, the noblest living statesman recently to say, that it is the greatest political instrument that ever came from the hands of men. If Milford is distinguished for anything, it is for the unselfish and sublime work of these splendid men and women, in the grandest movement of the country, for human rights.
This generation, which is living in the glad sunshine of human free- dom, can have but an imperfect idea of what it required in those days to be abolitionists. It took intelligence and ability, courage and tremendous persistency. They met social ostracism, slight, scorn and sneers; but they triumphed. They constituted an intelligent, all-powerful, vital force which won in this community and this nation. The abolitionists of the North led in a charge which changed the tone of American his- tory, and they have left an imperishable impress upon the character of their country.
In consequence of the anti-slavery agitation, and the almost unani- inous attitude of the free states, in opposition to the extension of slave territory, the greatest civil war the world has ever known was inaugu- rated by the same destructive hand, that had been chiefly instrumen- tal in defiling the fundamental law of the land. It was a bold and infamous assault by the slave power, at the point of the bayonet, upon the life of the nation and the rights of humanity. Never was an attack of traitors more courageously met by a nation's defenders. The call to arms by Abraham Lincoln aroused and united the patriots of the land. It stirred to immediate action everywhere the lovers of liberty and law.
In Milford, a recruiting office was at once opened in the town hall, and forty-eight men enrolled for their country's defence. There was no hesitation and no delay. A committee of some of its leading citizens was chosen, who were authorized to equip a company, pay all expenses. and aid and support their families. Its selectmen were empowered to borrow the sum of three thousand dollars for immediate use. This was but the beginning of a series of generous and patriotic acts on the part of the town reaching to the end of the rebellion. One hundred and ninety-six of its noble citizens engaged in the conflict. They were the flower of its population. Sixty of these lost their lives by the war, forty of whom were never brought home to be buried. Thirteen were slain in
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battle. Their names are in Milford's Valhalla, and are embalmed in immortal fame with the heroes of the Republic.
But courage and patriotism are not peculiar to man. Courage is graceful and dignified, and as woman excels in grace and dignity, she is full of courage and self-sacrifice. "Woman is the blood royal of life " It has been said that wherever a human being is suffering, his sighs all a woman to his side. The women of Milford began patriotic work at home before even the sounds from the rebel cannon on Sumter's wails had died away. With the instinct, and the intelligence, native to their sex, they early saw that the terrible ordeal through which the nation must pass, if saved, required their active sympathy and co-operation. And the record of what they did for the families of the soldiers at home ; and what they did for the sick and dying on the battle-fields of the war, are among the most precious facts connected with the history of the town. All honor to the memory of the splendid work of these noble women.
This is but a glimpse of what Milford did in the mighty conflict. Her work in this behalf was not excelled by any community of its size in New England.
In social reforms, in temperance, and in all good and great moral movements, the town has long been a shining light. In fraternal organ- izations it has done splendid work. Benevolent Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, is the oldest and most notable of these institutions. Its history stretches along the entire century, and its members have been and are among its foremost citizens. Its banners are still waving and its good work still going on.
It is not in schools and churches, in moral agitation, and the strug- gle for freedom that Milford's record is alone resplendent with noble action. It may be said of these achievements that "time and chance happeneth to them all." But in those modest and essential pursuits, in the every day and practical affairs of life, in the home, in agriculture, manufactures and mining, trade and transportation, in men and women, who faithfully perform the duties of important and unpretentious citi- zenship, in which a vast majority of its people have been, and are en- gaged, and which form the groundwork of the Republic, comprising its active forces and power, our retrospect is equally delightful and satis- factory.
All the way through the mazy past, for a hundred years, unmistak" able evidences of a substantial, vigorous, and industrious people are seen. Its inhabitants have been largely composed of rugged farmers, besoiled with honest labor, and graced with a rare intelligence ; of skillful, toil- worn craftsmen and manufacturers, equally enlightened; of bright and enterprising tradesmen, successfully prosecuting a necessary business. They have been meu of forethought, sagacity and industry, who have grown strong, standing by hearthstones, consecrated by the virtues of their fathers. These are the men who have made "the wheels go round." They have kept the old township steadily growing. It would be a pleas-
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ure not within the limits of this occasion, to call their roll of honor. They are the heroes of the victories of Peace and Industry.
Moreover those who have wrought here in the so-called learned pro- fessions, have made the town their debtor, and contributed to the char- acter and reputation of this people. Among them have been men of mark and distinction, Livermore, Wadleigh, Lull, Averill. Their names are here recalled with pleasure and pride. It will be time to speak of others of her sons and citizens, who give high promise, when their work is done.
It has been said that the old New England home is now chiefly known, not by what it is, or what it retains, but by what it has sent forth into the world. And when we look abroad and see the sons and daughters who have gone from us, who are in positions of trust and dig- nity, and are leaders among the men and women of the land, our hearts swell with honest pride.
Notwithstanding Milford has always had a good supply of doctors and lawers, her citizens have lived to a good old age, and been fairly prosperous. It is quite evident the people have refrained from taking much of the medicine of either class. Indeed, the town has had a remarkably peaceable career. It has never had any great law suit. It has had the usual agitation about the location of school-houses, and town house, but it has rarely indulged in the services of the profession. When the station of the Wilton Railroad was located, eminent counsel, among whom were Mr. Atherton, at one time a Senator, and Mr. Pierce, at one time President of the United States, were employed. This was an exception. The town has always been at peace with its neighbors and all mankind.
Of old-time customs and new-time foibles; the husking bees, the finding of the red ear, the apple parings, spelling matches, blind man's buff, the military trainings, sham fights and musters, Sabbath school picnics, singing schools, and horse trots, chasing the greased pig, catch- ing suckers from the old Fish Rock, dancing in the old Buxton tavern, sliding down Daddy Hay's hill with pretty girls, boating by moonlight on the Souhegan, making cider, raising hops and hens, roller skating, bicycling, base ball crazes, foot ball cranks, and duplicate and drive whist maniacs, this is no time to speak. They are all respectfully referred to Milford's Historical Surveyor.
There is much in our history that is in common with many other New Hampshire towns. The early struggles were like those endured by all of the old settlements around us. The hardships and difficulties of the first white inhabitants can hardly be appreciated now. Life was a constant battle with the earth and the elements. Fear and uncertainty were stimulated by menace and massacre. Later, when the town was incorporated, it required strong arms and stout hearts, to extract from our common mother enough to sustain life, without social comforts or educational or religious blessings. The genius of invention had not then supplied machinery that will act and think. Steam had not been
COL. O. W. LULL.
WILLIAM RAMSDELL.
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heard in this valley. Electricity had not been employed in the trans- mission of thought and power. Ether, the destroyer of the terror and pain of the surgeon's knife, was an undiscovered friend of humanity.
But without any of these helps, the builders of Milford have pushed on, and kept pace with the march of events. They have trained in the army of human progress, and have always been abreast with the times. The result of this marvelous energy and enterprise is seen in one of the most intelligent and thrifty communities to be found anywhere. Its splendid farms, thriving manufactures, and newly developed quarries of granite, sufficient in quantity to build a dozen Londons, and of such ex- quisite quality as to be fit for the puaposes of art, are its material wealth, while its charming scenery and its beautiful location, give as- surance of continued growth and prosperity.
And can we not felicitate ourselves, not only that our ancestral home is in New Hampshire, the good old Granite State, whose moun- tains almost touch the stars, and whose air and water are as pure as the light of heaven, but in New England, whose sons have fought in every " battle for God and humanity " for two hundred and seventy-five years, whose genius is guided by liberty, learning and law, and whose domain, though rough, and rugged, and bleak, is yet the garden of the world.
The place of our birth is the beautiful vision of childhood. The old home, the fields, the lanes, the meadows and the brook, the school- house and the church, the town-house, the store-keeper, the shoe maker and the village blacksmith, the minister, the lawyer, the school-master and the old family physician, how good and true and noble they were.
We have indeed a goodly patrimony. We have inherited a good name; we must not only transmit it, which is infinitely better than to receive it, but, in the language of New England's greatest philosopher : "Let us shame the fathers by superior virtue in the sons."
What is to be the fate of the country town is a much mooted ques- tion. Its destiny in New England has been the cause of anxiety on the part of those who believe that in the old country communities, which were settled and controlled by Puritan and Pilgrim influences, there has been almost perfection in government. The thought, that such grand old towns are to be drained and dwarfed by the enormous drafts made upon them by great cities, is not pleasant. It is not encouraging to see the bright young people, in whose hands lie so much power for good and growth, turn their backs upon the old homesteads and adorn other scenes. Landscapes are never quite perfect, unless touched and fringed with the flowers of civilization. They need humanity, the vigor of man and the grace of woman, to crown them. A house without an inmate, though artistically perfert, a forest untrodden by man, although full of nature's pictures, present few attractions. They must be frequented by man, the noblest work of God, to give them life, and to inspire them with a vital interest. The old town must be populated to be either use- ful or beautiful. It will be. The time will come when the tide will turn from the city to the country.
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While youth is restless, under the limitations of a retired neighbor- hood, and desires more active scenes, there comes a time in the lives of most people, when they long to go back to the old home and rest amidst rural beauties. Tacitus found the early English race a nation of farmers, cultivating the soil, each for himself, "as woodside, plain, or fresh spring attracts him," loving the country and hating the city. The love of land in the Saxon breast is as strong as the love of liberty. It seeks dominion over the soil. Its danger lies in its excessive gratification. It is disposed to grasp vast territories and to be monarch over immense tracts. Such a disposition should be discouraged. It bodes no good to the township. As the size of landed estates increases, population de- creases. This was true seventeen centuries ago in Britain, Italy and Gaul. It is equally true to-day. A thousand acres, with fifty or one hundred owners, is far better for the community, than the same number of acres with one owner. Small farms owned by their occupants, well tilled ; beautiful homes owned by their occupants, well filled ; a variety of industries thriftily pursued ; these, with cozy summer houses, dotting the hill-sides and their attendant churches and school houses, increase the beauty, the wealth, the population, and the intelligence of the coun- try town, and contribute to the strength, the power and safety of the nation. A town, thus constituted, is a desirable place in which to live. It will always be attractive and always grow. Burns, after he had fully tested the "vain pomp and glory of the world," said: "To a man who has a home, however humble and remote, if that home is, like mine, the scene of domestic comfort, the bustle of Edinburgh will soon be a busi- ness of sickening disgust."
Moreover, the country town that is reached by the railroad, the tele- graph and the telephone, and most of them are, is no longer remote. Steam and electricity have annihilated time and distance, and made com- fort and convenience cosmopolitan. The news of the world reaches the farmer's door, almost as soon as it does the commercial centre, and knowledge is disseminated with marvelous equality. The luxuries of every clime are almost as near the cottage of the husbandman, as the palace of the city banker; and the city and the town are moving towards each other with astounding rapidity.
And yet great men flee to great centres as whales to the deep sea. After Plutarch and Raphael discovered their ability they went to Rome as Burns did to Edinburgh. Large cities have always attracted genius and great minds, for in them is appreciation and scope. Herodatus went to Athens in search of educated men and an intelligent audience. Napoleon went to Paris, Webster to Boston. If the motive were praise, or gain or fame, it would be strong and all-powerful.
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