USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Bedford > History of Bedford, New-Hampshire, being statistics, compiled on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town; May 19th, 1850 > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
51
ADDRESS.
venerated father, or bending, in unabated grief, over the ashes of a sainted mother, should we not find consolation in the belief, that their spirits, though released from the body, still lingered around, to hold communion with our own, --- that they may still be the unseen guardian angels, to shield and protect us, in all our trials and temptations, while we live, and to beckon us on to a happy immortality.
But I am unwilling to ask your further forbearance; and I will only beg leave, in conclusion, using the language of an eminent English poet, to repeat a sentiment, to which I am certain all hearts will respond, with the most cheerful alacrity.
" There is a land, of every land the pride, Beloved by Heaven, o'er all the world beside ; There is a spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. Here woman reigns : the mother, daughter, wife,
Strews with fresh flowers, the narrow way of life : Around her knees domestic duties meet, And fire-side pleasures gambol at her feet. Where shall that land, that spot of earth, be found ? Art thou a man ? a patriot ? look around ! Oh, thou shalt find, howe 'er thy footsteps roam, That land thy country, and that spot, thy home."
52
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
FESTIVITIES OF THE OCCASION.
THE Exercises having been performed, according to the order, a short recess took place, after which, the large assem- bly partook of the Collation prepared, - a blessing having been first implored, by Rev. Isaac Willey, of Goffstown. The duties of the table being concluded, the President of the day, introduced the free and social services of the afternoon, with some suitable remarks. In this short preliminary address, he gave some brief sketches of the prin- cipal pioneers of Bedford, such as Walker, Patten, Goffe and others ; and the foremost of her sons, who entered the Revolu- tionary army immediately upon hearing of the battle of Concord, as did John Orr, and others. As there will be brief biographical notices of individuals, embodied in the following history, it will be unnecessary here to anticipate this part of the volume : only one or two interesting allusions by the President, will be given.
Having spoken of one of the first settlers, Mr. Robert Walker, he said : "I introduce to you his only surviving son, Robert Walker, now in the 89th year of his age. He says he has nothing to present to you but his gray hairs. I will endeavor to speak a word for him. In the Revolutionary War, the tories of New Boston were contemplating burning Washington and his contemporaries in effigy, calling it burn- ing the Pope. The Whigs of the same place were determined to oppose them, and they sent down to good old Bedford for some smart active men to come and help them - and this is one of the lads that went." *
Alluding to the late Miss Ann Orr, he said : " At our first meet- ing to make appointments for the Centennial, she was with us, and had the second appointment made, that to get the histo- ry of the Orr family. This she accomplished in good style. She had a desire to see this occasion. She was the mother of teachers in this vicinity. It is rare to find the person who was born and educated in Bedford for the last half century, but that has been under her instruction more or less."
* Names of the individuals who went to New-Boston, - Capt. Thomas Mclaughlin, Zaccheus Chandler, John Patten, James Walker, Robert Walker, Griggs Goffe, Joseph Goffe, James Grier, William Moor, Nathaniel Martin and Josiah Gordon.
53
FESTIVITIES OF THE OCCASION.
The President also spoke of the Hon. John Orr, one of the worthies of Bedford. "He was, for many years, an elder of the Church; Justice of the Peace, and of the Quorum ; Senator of the third District; Councillor of Hillsborough county, and many years a Representative from Bedford. His parents died when he was very young. I will give you his character, by relating an anecdote he related to the Sabbath school at its first formation in May, 1818. He says, 'I was bound out to Dea. Robert Walker, a farmer, until I should become twenty-one years of age. I thought my master and my mistress were too severe. After working hard all day I had to go after the cows. The cows went where they pleased. One had a bell on, which was of great service to me. On one occasion I was treed by a bear, up in the woods back of the school- house we are in, and I should have had to stay all night, very likely, had not a girl (Rebecca Henderson) run home and informed Mr. Walker, who came and relieved me. But the worst thing, and for what I disliked them the most, was, they made me get verses in the Bible and repeat them to them. This I did not like, and I thought I would not stay, but would run off. One afternoon I started and ran some time until I was tired. I then sat down on a log and began to think what I should say when I should get where I was going. They would not believe me. They knew Dea. Walker was a good man. I began to think about the Bible I had studied, and this is the text of Scripture that came into my mind, " servants be obedient to your masters," not only to the good and gentle, but to the froward. I knew the Bible said right. I was ashamed of my conduct. I got up from off the log, turned my steps home, and worked out my time. I think Dea. Walker was just the man I ought to have had. I think if anything ever did me any good it was studying the word of God. I believed it then, and I believe it now.'"
"Col. John Goffe was a man of some consequence in his day. He was the only son of John Goffe, Esq., who was the son of John Goffe, of Boston ; and probably a grandson of Major General Wm. Goffe, who left England in 1660 - one of the Judges who condemned King Charles I. Col. John, settled at the mouth of Cohas Brook, the outlet of Massabissic pond, at the Merrimack river, about three miles below Manchester city. His occupation in early life, was hunting, which was the most delightful and profitable. He is named Hunter John in some of the old deeds. He was
54
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
frequently in the French war, in 1756. He directed a letter to Gov. B. Wentworth, showing the necessity of send- ing more troops about the frontier, where he then was, doing military duty on the Contocook and Penacook. He was the Representative of the town of Bedford and Amherst, and while in that capacity at Portsmouth, in 1777, he directed a most thrilling letter to his son John, the Major."
[The letter was then read.]
The President then announced the first regular toast :
19th of May, 1750. - Ever to be remembered by the descendants of Bedford - the Petitioners on that day received a charter of Incorporation, whereby they could support their religion, which was that, and that only, they petitioned for.
Responded to by Hon. HORACE GREELY, of New York City .*
" Although, Mr. President, I had no intimation till an hour ago that I should be expected to speak on this occasion, and certainly could not have expected to speak to the sentiment we have just listened to, yet I gladly avail myself of your invitation. And although I feel that the entire subject which engages our thoughts this day, has been fully discussed and well nigh exhausted by our Orator, while the topic suggested by this sentiment has received the amplest justice at his hands, I shall not fear that my words, though they seem but a feeble repetition of his, will fall on impatient or unwilling ears. You need not be told that the century which has elapsed since this town was first settled has been crowded with astonishing and memorable events ; that the event which we are here met to commemorate, carries us back to the days of Franklin's mechanical thrift and Washington's boyhood - that in 1750 this fair land of ours was, all but a thin belt on its Atlantic border, a vast, unbroken wilderness, the haunt of savage beasts and savage men ; that men now live, in whose childhood the woodman plied his axe and the ploughman turned his furrow on the soil of this town in iminent peril of the Indian's deadly rifle-shot ; and that the mother and
* Horace Greely was born just over the line of Bedford, in Amherst, the school he attended, and the better portion of his father's farm being in Bed- ford, where he resided during a portion of his early years.
55
FESTIVITIES OF THE OCCASION.
her babes in the primitive homes of Bedford, trembled with no unfounded terror, when the night-fall brought not back to them, the husband and father, who had left them in the morning to pursue his daily avocation. Nor need I speak to you of the birth, the growth, the maturity, during the century whose close we celebrate, of those great principles of Civil and Religious Freedom, for lack of which, the world had suffered and sorrowed through so many years. The Ameri- can and the French Revolutions, so unlike in their features and results, are the two great political events of the past century; each shedding a bright though a peculiar radiance on the great truths respecting the rights of Opinion - of a voice in the election of Rulers and the enactment of laws ; of the sanctions and limitations of Power, and of the absolute Freedom of Worship, which constitute the fundamental, inalienable Rights of Man. "The Rights of Man !" a phrase now familiar as household words, but sounding strangely in the ears of the People, the toiling masses, of a single century ago. But now those words have a power unbounded by the actual enjoyment of Free Institutions. At their sound, the thrones of despotism totter at Vienna, and reel in Paris ; even the dreary ice-palaces of Russia, begin to confess its power. No one can reasonably doubt that the last century has accomplished more than all its prede- cessors for the establishment of the great vivifying principle that Civil and Religious Freedom is the inalienable Right of all Mankind.
So, too, in Physical Science. The Steam-Engine; the Steamboat, the Steamship, the Locomotive, the Railway, the Electric-Telegraph, are a few among the achievements of the century beginning with 1750. And how completely have they transformed, or are destined to transform, the whole Industrial and Social condition of Man ! A century ago, the journey hence to New York would have required a fortnight, and have subjected the adventurous traveller to great discom- fort and peril. But I did a day's work yesterday in New York, and must do another in that city before closing my eyes to-morrow ; such are the wondrous facilities of modern travel. That the Telegraph has annihilated space is no metaphor, when a message sent from Halifax at noon of to-day, may have reached St. Louis two hours before noon of this same day. The time is rapidly approaching when a vote taken in Congress at dark will be announced in that day's evening
56
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
papers at San Francisco, some hours earlier (by the sun or the clock,) than it will appear to have occurred. Measured by events rather than almanacs, it is long enough since those few pioneers from Londonderry bravely ventured across the Merrimack and began to let day-light into the woods of what is now Bedford.
" The founding of New-England, the history of New-Eng- and, the people of New-England, and especially the Puritan and Presbyterian ancestry of New-England, have properly been the theme of your Orator. I will not trespass on a field so well trodden before me, even though plainly invited by the sentiment you have asked me to respond to. Yet I may with just pride, as a son of New-England, bear testimony to the character she has imprinted on her children who have migra- ted to other regions - who, impelled by her rugged soil and crowded homes, have wandered away in pursuit of fame, or fortune, or larger scope for usefulness, or opportunity to sow and reap in thankfulness the harvest of humble but contented toil. I have found them on the shores of Lake Superior and on the great rivers of the West. I have met them as repre- sentatives of the furtherest West and South in the Grand Council of the Nation. Go where you will on this Conti- nent, and if you find Activity and Thrift, be sure there are sons of New-England not far from you, and that they are not idle or inefficient. Visit the whaler in the Pacific, the packet- ship at Canton, the mining " gulch" in California, or the lead "diggings" of the Upper Mississippi, and you will find sons of New-England in all, and wherever they constitute half the population, you may safely assume that it is not in posi- tion the lower half. If they dig few Canals or grade few Rail-Roads, they yet cause many to be dug and graded, and show how the desired result may be surely attained with the smallest expenditure of labor. And although all communities have their unworthy members, of whom a part will find a change of residence advisable, and although jealousy and conscious inferiority in intelligence, industry or morality, have excited in many quarters a hostility to the " Yankees," which tries to hide its envious impulses beneath a mantle of contempt, yet I venture to say, that there is no part of the Western world, where the Puritan race is known, in which the assurance, " I am descended from the first Colonists of New-England," is not a passport to confidence and considera- tion. So may it be to the end of Time !
57
FESTIVITIES OF THE OCCASION.
. " What nobler testimony than this could I bear to the faith of New-England - so distinguished by reverence for God and independence of the power of Man? What could I say for that Faith which her innumerable churches and school- houses ; her teachers, missionaries and martyrs, will not have said before me? The Common Schools of our vast country, so rapidly increasing, are grafts from hardy Puritan stock. The graduates of these thickly clustered school-houses, are teaching throughout the continent. The Rock of Plymouth is not merely the corner-stone of our gigantic edifice of Civil and Religious Freedom ; from it, as from the rock smitten by the Divine Lawgiver of old, gush the streams which still gladden and vivify the Liberties of the world. The marriage of Order to Liberty - of Loyalty to Freedom - had its ear- liest exemplifications on the soil of New-England, and her Town-Meetings are to this day the most orderly and striking examples of practical Democracy in the World. Who does not see that the independent congregation, choosing its own Pastor and settling its own Creed, is the block whereon the Township has been molded - that it is to the existence of " a Church without a Bishop" that we are indebted for " a State without a King ?" Whatever the faults of the primi- tive Faith of New-England, I have never heard it accused of quenching the innate aspiration for Liberty nor of paralyzing the arm raised in resistance to despotism and tyranny. And in an age so pervaded and electrified by the spirit of Change - an age of Movement, Progress, Revolution - of change from which creeds and theologies are not exempted - let us rejoice in the assurance that the God of our Fathers still rules over the Universe, and that Faith in His being, His goodness, His wisdom, His omnipotence, is not and cannot be supplant- ed nor superseded by any device of man - that Error is transient and Truth immutable - that the more signally Man triumphs over brute Nature, the nearer he is brought face to face with the Uncreated Cause ; and that when Continents shall have been girdled and Rivers enslaved by the genius of Man, he must still bow in humble reverence at the footstool of his Creator, and recognize that no elevation above the lower beings, can lessen the infinite distance which separates him from the Great Father of All, nor limit his absolute depend- ence on God. And so, as Knowledge shall increase, and Science extend her dominion, and Intellect multiply her triumphs, our race shall more and more recognize its help- 8
ยท
58
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
lessness in the hands of Omnipotence, and turn to the Faith of our Fathers for guidance and solace through life, and assurance in death of a radiant and blissful immortality."
The President then announced the second regular toast -
19th May, 1850. - Thanks to God, our religious institutions are still with us, and we most earnestly pray they may be the first, and above all other things, supported by us and our posterity.
Responded to by REV. MR. DAVIS, of Amherst.
" I respond with pleasure, " he said, " to a sentiment, which so expresses the real desire of my heart, and the more so, because I may be regarded, as representing another denomi- nation. I have always rejoiced in the delightful harmony subsisting between the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches of New Hampshire. We have heard much to-day of the trials and privations of the early Scotch settlers in this country. In the history of their conflicts, we had a repeti- tion of the same adherence to religious convictions, - the same faith in God, and in God's word, - which so marked the planting of the Puritan Churches. I have listened with delight to the eloquent remarks of the gentleman who has preceded me, but I wish to hold up more distinctly, the great thought, that the movement which resulted in the set- tlement of these Presbyterian townships, was a religious movement. The persons engaged in it possessed a living faith in God's word, and their desire and prayer was, that their children might enjoy the same blessing. For this reason they prized the Catechism, the Sabbath and an educa- ted ministry ; and they placed little reliance on any other means of religious training. Herein is the secret of the virtues of their descendants.
" The generations that grew up under their tuition were well instructed in the doctrines of the Bible. I cannot properly illustrate the value of their example in each of the particulars now suggested, without encroaching on the time which may be better occupied by others. As much has been said of Scotland and the Kirk, I may be permitted to add, that we are not only indebted for the use, but somewhat, also, for the excellence of the Catechism, to Presbyterians. The Cate- chism, as you know, was made in England, yet the Scotch had a hand in it, as one anecdote will show. It appears
59
-
FESTIVITIES OF THE OCCASION.
that in the composition of the Catechism, the Westminster Divines, first agreed upon a list of questions, to which answers were to be furnished afterward. Having agreed upon the questions, the framing of the answers went on quite smooth- ly, until they came to the fourth, " What is God ? " numbers proposed replies, or amendments to the replies, but every attempt to describe or define the author and the object of worship, failed to satisfy the assembly; they were evidently brought to a stand in their labors, when one of the Scotch Commissioners, Alexander Henderson, "Clarum et venerabile nomen," modestly rose, and read that incomparable defini- tion, beginning, " God is a Spirit, " &c, which was unani- mously adopted, as the answer of the question. Henderson and his associates made other contributions to this work, which had done so much to impart precision and spirituality to our conceptions of God and the doctrines of religion.
" In regard to the estimation in which these Presbyterian Churches have held the ministry. I am constrained to say, that their example has furnished a constant reproof to the innovations and changes which so extensively prevail in other congregations.
"Permenence in the ministry is an element of strength. In its influence on the community, it is closely allied to rever- ence and those order-loving virtues - contentment, persever- ance, and the thrift of Godliness - which make a happy and united population. Most of our Churches are taking sorrowful lessons in another direction. A few days since the speaker entered on the seventh year of his ministry. With the recurrence of the anniversary of my settlement, my thoughts naturally turned back to the fathers and breth- ren, who inducted me into the sacred office. Of the ten settled pastors of this immediate vicinity, then present, one only continues in the same field of labor, that one is this brother before me, so esteemed and beloved as your pastor. In commendation of the better usage of the Presbyterian Churches, I conclude with an invocation of continued spiritual blessings on the Pastors who keep their flocks, and the flocks that keep their pastors."
Several songs were prepared, by natives of Bedford, to be sung at the table, but were omitted for want of time. As they are not discreditable to the Bedford muse, they are inserted. The following is one of them. -
60
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
SONG.
Here we meet, a gath'ring number, Hovering round the festive board ; Near to where our fathers slumber, Ever to be long rever'd. Youth's elastic step is bounding, Hoary age is moving slow ; While hills and dales and all surrounding, Speak one hundred years ago.
The wild flow'r blossom'd on the mountain, Snuff'd its fragrance in the breeze ; While below, the gushing fountain Murmured 'neath the forest trees. Nought was seen but flowery wild wood, When the stormy winds did blow ; These our fathers in their childhood, Saw one hundred years ago.
But how changed the situation, Since the lapse of many years ; Forests faltering, lose their station, Sink, and verdant fields appear. Now the white man scales the mountains, Wandering ever to and fro; By the red man's lakes and fountains, His, one hundred years ago.
See the high and cloud cap'd steeple Mutely stand and gaze around - See the enterprising people, Listening to the gospel's sound. All ; - but bids us think who gave it -- Who such seed did early sow ; Calling upon us to save it, Sown, one hundred years ago.
To our fathers, who did sever This, our home, from forests wild ; Be our grateful thanks forever, On their monumental pile. Let us ne'er forget their trials, As they stemm'd the tide of woe ; Glorying, in the hand that brought them Here, one hundred years ago.
The President then announced the third regular toast -
Our Parents. - Long, long left us, gone to reap their reward of glory - with gratitude we remember them ; may we ever practise their virtues, and teach them to our children by precept and example.
Responded to by REV. MR. CLARK, of Manchester.
61
FESTIVITIES OF THE OCCASION.
" Mr. President. - Were an apology admissible on an occa- sion like the present, I should certainly offer one and instantly retire. I sincerely regret that the sentiment to which I am called upon to respond, was not put into the hand of a son of New Hampshire ; I am her son only by adoption. And yet, I flatter myself, I am by no means a stranger to such feelings as are yours to day. It is my proudest boast, that I am descended from a New England ancestry ; yes, Sir : - that the blood of the man who stood by the side of Miles Standish, on board the Pilgrim Ship, (I refer to the mate of the ship,) flows through my veins : I trust I shall be pardoned for so boasting while moved by such associations as these.
" The sentiment just proposed, Mr. President, reminds me of the debt of gratitude we owe our ancestors; and the obligation we are under to emulate their virtues, we and those who may come after us ; and who, Sir, of all this assem- bly, does not respond to that? Who has not felt his heart beating with pride as he has listened to the eloquent portrai- tures of our ancestors, by the gentlemen on my right ? And who is not impressed with a deeper and more abiding sense of obligation, in the regard suggested, by the sentiment I have the honor to propose ? If any, let him think of the privileges -civil, religious, literary-he enjoys as the result of the labors of those ancestors. Let him remember their steady perseverence amid difficulties, which would have disheartened common men, - let him remember their calm endurance, patient resignation, and triumphant faith ; virtues which were never before more beautifully illustrated. Let him call to mind, that such a band of adventurers, so heroic and high-minded, were landed upon no other shore. But, Mr. President, I must not anticipate what remains to be said by other gentlemen near me. I can only express the con- viction from what I have seen and heard to-day, that if the forms of those noble fathers and mothers are not here, much of their spirit remains. Believe me, Sir, - that although their dust mingles with the clod of the valley, - their influence lives -
' The Pilgrim Spirit has not fled, It walks in noon's bright light - And it watches the bed of the glorious dead With the holy stars by night - And it watches the bed of the brave who have bled, And shall guard this ice-bound shore,
Till the waves of the Bay, where the May-Flower lay, Shall foam and freeze no more.'
62
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
Be it ours to cherish them in grateful remembrance, to copy their virtues, and emulate their example, that we may at last reap a like reward of Glory with them."
The President then announced the fourth regular toast -
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.