USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Chester > History of Chester, New Hampshire, including Auburn : a supplement to the History of old Chester, published in 1869 > Part 6
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Auburn > History of Chester, New Hampshire, including Auburn : a supplement to the History of old Chester, published in 1869 > Part 6
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"Let us all remember, tho' far we roam, A man's best country is ever his home."
MR. MORSE.
We are pleased to have with us a quartette who have kindly con- sented to favor us with a selection during the exercises and this seems to be a fitting time for it.
The quartette, consisting of Mrs. Laura (Kimball) Wason, Mrs. Annie (Kimball) Little, Nathan W. Goldsmith and Charles A. Goldsmith then sang to the great enjoyment of the gathering the following selection written by Miss Emma Pearl Goldsmith, entitled,
"FAITH OF OUR FATHERS," (Tune, St. Catherine.) Chester, our thoughts turn back to you, Where in our mem'ries you are enshrined; Your hills and valleys, each happy view Our eyes search,- yes, and joyously find ! Chester, our old New Hampshire home, Again, old Chester, we come home !
O little town of an honored past, --- Good works adorn your future, too! And may your name through the ages last, --- A faithful folk, though they be few! Town that has never failed to heed, Or answer to the nation's need !
Spirit of Chester, on this blessed sod, Give to our minds the larger view ; Speak of our duties to man and to God, Help us to pledge ourselves anew. Spirit of Chester, high and sweet, Bide in our hearts, until we meet ! (Applause).
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CELEBRATION OF 200TH ANNIVERSARY
MR. MORSE.
We have with us another of our schoolmates, a son of our most noted family who has himself achieved great distinction in scientific circles, Dr. Louis Bell of Newton, Mass.
DR. BELL.
Old Friends and Old Chester: I see some of the old familiar faces again. As a student of Chester Academy my career was brief and I am quite sure not particularly distinguished for anything. After I left District No. 2 I was in the academy I think for two years in '73 and '74; long enough so that like my good friends who have spoken my memory of my school days chiefly goes to the girls. I remember well the schoolmarms, sisters, who married two good friends of mine; and I remember a few of the boys whose faces I see before me, including our president.
At the end of my second year my good maternal grandfather, with some unjustifiable distrust of the influence of the teacher, or for some other reason, saw fit to place me with the Rev. Mr. Coggswell of the vintage of 1836 I believe, and I regret to say that Chester Academy I saw no more. I am very glad to be here and greet you.
MR. MORSE.
We have with us another boy of the olden time who has been honored with a prominent part in the celebration now going on, Mr. John Carroll Chase of Derry.
MR. CHASE.
I highly appreciate the honor of being called upon but the time at our disposal is so short I do not feel that I ought to use much of it when there are so many here who do not have any speaking part in the general celebration.
I have a very vivid recollection of my first appearance at the academy, when at the tender age of eleven and one-half years, in the winter of '61, I daily trudged through the snow from my home over two miles away. It was a hard experience but I have never regretted it.
It is a pleasure to see so many here although there are but few of my former associates. The boys of the period are missing but seven of the girls still reside here or in the near vicinity. I do not know the reason but the female of the species seems the more readily to survive.
It is a matter for congratulation that so many can be present as representatives of an institution that was in successful operation seventy years ago and actually founded fifty years previously. Let us hope that this is not the final chapter in its history.
With your permission I will read some letters that have been handed me, and also mention the pleasure I have had in meeting frequently of late years in San Diego, Cal., Mrs. Elizabeth (Underhill) Flanders who lived up the turnpike some two miles from here and was a student at the academy in '63 and '64.
Cambridge, Mass., June 27, 1922.
Mr. A. H. Wilcomb,
Dear Mr. Wilcomb :-
I have just received your invitation to speak at the Two Hundredth Anniversary of Chester, N. H.
It would give me great pleasure to be at Chester and to speak
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HISTORY OF CHESTER
at the exercises, but I am sailing for England next week and shall not be in this country at the time of the celebration. I must therefore express my regret that I cannot accept your invitation.
I should greatly enjoy being present at the exercises and meeting some, who were once my pupils, among them yourself, I think, and also Miss Goldsmith. Whether there are others of my pupils con- cealed under the prefix of "Mrs." on the invitation committee I do not know, but if any should recall their former teacher in the winters of 1865-66 and 1866-67 in the old "Academy" I would send to them my warmest greetings.
Sincerely yours, JOHN K. LORD.
Dear Mr. Wilcomb :- I am so very sorry that I can't be in Chester on her great day-or days. But I send my heartiest good wishes and very warm thanks for your friendliness in including me among the guests. I remember the old days so pleasantly. How good you all were to me !
Most gratefully and sincerely yours, ALICE BROWN.
July 24th.
MR. MORSE.
We are always glad to meet those who were boys with us and I often think of one with whom I was closely associated. I have watched his progress in the years gone by, as he went from here to Lowell and then to New York City where he holds a unique position among the hotels of the city and is doing a work no other man ever did before, Rev. Harry M. Warren, D. D.
REV. MR. WARREN.
Mr. Chairman and Friends: My memory goes back of course to about the years of 1879-80. I think I was in Chester Academy possibly two years. I remember my school life on Walnut Hill. The district school there was very much impressed upon me, and I have seen four of my old teachers from Walnut Hill. Then the thing that impressed me perhaps as much as anything else was my driving up from Walnut Hill those cold winter days with a horse and sleigh, and putting them in the barn of my cousin, Lucien Kent,- my mother's cousin; bringing a bag of hay under the seat and my luncheon, which I ate in the middle of the day and started back about four in the afternoon. I remember those days as rather hard days and I don't remember that part of it very pleasantly, because it was very cold going up over the hills. In New York I haven't got exactly thawed out yet and I like the hottest days ever known I was so frozen up here.
I remember Miss Greenough very well and then Mr. Choate came and we all learned to care a great deal for him. We owe very much to him, for his patience with us and faithfulness. I have at my home the Normal Question Book with a list of the names of the pupils of those days. I sold recently several hundred books, old books, some- what useless, but I looked at that book and I could not sell it. It is very ancient in appearance and somewhat torn, but it contains the names of the girls and boys we knew, who are not here with us.
We were all fitting to be teachers: there were a number of questions on arithmetic, geography, philosophy and a number of other branches. We thought we could pass any kind of an examination and
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qualify to become a teacher if we could answer those questions. After those days I taught in Lowell, Mass., then went on to New York City to college and I still love school. It is a splendid thing for boys and girls to keep on studying. I have taken on theology since and my work has been religious, and God has given his blessing to it.
We owe a great deal to the old academy because in it we first learned the desirability of having an education. We learned how much there was to learn and how little we knew, and we go on knowing how little we know even now. I am pleased to come back here and see this beautiful building that I was never in before. I owe a great deal to Chester Academy and I loved it. I love to study and I got the habit here with Mr. Choate whom we all loved, and it is a pleasure to say these things to him while he is with us .* He was a great man and inspired the boys and girls with a thirst and hunger for knowledge and set us a marvelous example, and I rise up today to call him blessed. My memories of the various teachers here are very tender, very sad and very beautiful. I thank God for Chester, for my dear beloved teachers and for the boys and girls that worked together with me. May God bless us for days to come and make us useful and fruitful so that when our work is done and our race is run God may say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
MR. CHOATE.
I rise to pay a tribute to one who is not with us today, and that is Miss Lucy Learnard. I cannot help thinking how pleased she would be to be here, because I think it was her idea first to get up the reunion of 1900 and later those of 1902 and 1913. The last time I ever saw her was at my house four years ago and she wanted me to promise to come to Chester the next year and she would get up a reunion of the academy. Now she and others, who have passed from our sight, have gone into a higher school. Is it wicked for me to believe that the Master there, when they come to him and say: "I want to go home or take a message or give a piece of useful advice, if you will allow me to go home at recess I will come back when the bell rings," will not refuse them? We know that while our ears are tuned, if we have but the radiophone we can catch music from afar, and who can say that Lucy Learnard, who first originated the idea of the reunion, and all the others are not here, just as real and infinitely more real than we who are still in the primary school of existence.
NATHAN W. GOLDSMITH.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am glad to be here and meet so many of my old friends. I met quite a good many yesterday. There is one thing I want to speak of. Mr. Morse and I used to ring the old Baptist bell here. He was one of the janitors and I was the other and we had permission to ring the bell at nine in the morning, twelve and one o'clock, and I think we did that part of the work faithfully because that bell rang five days in the week three times a day. I don't think it has rung so many times since at once.
MRS. LAURA (KIMBALL) WASON OF RAYMOND.
I want to thank Mr. Choate for speaking of Miss Lucy Learnard. I have thought several times that if anyone would enjoy the day she
*Mr. Choate died in Amesbury, Mass., July 17, 1924.
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HISTORY OF CHESTER
would. I was greatly pleased to have him speak of her. This is one of the pleasantest occasions of my life and I am very happy to see you all. Thank you.
MRS. ANNIE (KIMBALL) LITTLE OF HAMPSTEAD.
It is very hard for these staid old ladies to speak in public. We have looked forward to this occasion with so much anticipation, all of us, that I am sure you are all as happy as I am to be here.
MISS HELEN E. MELVIN.
I think everyone must be anxious for the opportunity of visiting together but I do remember this, that every fall when the term opened I felt very happy going to school again. It was so strongly impressed upon me that those sunny autumn days never come back without the longing to go to school again. The things that others have said I should just repeat. The lasting impression that our teachers made upon me in so many ways formed the foundation of what became my life in after years.
MR. JOHN T. LOVETT OF MERRIMAC, MASS.
I thank you, Brother Morse, for this compliment. I went to school in the old academy and the recollections of the past are very dear to me. I remember going when Mr. Moore taught upstairs and his sister downstairs, and when we came upstairs the next teacher was William R. Patten, and then there was a Lane, and yet I understand there is no record of his teaching. All the scholars who went to William R. Patten and the soldiers who went with him to war remember that singular smile and laugh and how he squinted up his eyes. I see the faces of my old schoolmates and I remember how many times I was called up to the master's desk and lots of times punished, but those punishments did me good. William R. Patten was a great disciplin- arian, but we had a good time. We were socially united and especially near to each other.
How many of our old schoolmates lie silent in the City of Death. Ashes to ashes, earth to earth and the spirits of our schoolmates have gone to Him who gave them life and may their names be written on the sacred tablets of memory, never to be forgotten.
The Chairman called upon several others who spoke briefly, expressing their pleasure at meeting so many of their former associates and paying tributes of love and respect to the memory of their former instructors. Among those who responded were Mrs. Elizabeth (Fitz) Hill, Miss Mary H. Coolidge and Arthur Greenough of Derry, Mrs. Emma (Tenney) Lane, Miss Emma Moore, and Miss Jennie P. Hazelton of Chester, Dudley Marston of Amesbury, Mass., Frederick A. Emery of Boston, Mass., and Mrs. Mary (Whittemore) Caldwell of Epping.
It is a matter of regret that so limited an amount of time could be given to this reunion, the rain of the day before having seriously interfered with the program that had been arranged; also that no record of those in attendance was kept.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Walter W. Lane Martin Mills Clarence O. Morse
Eleanor J. Locke Augustus P. Morse Mary B. Noyes
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CELEBRATION OF 200TH ANNIVERSARY THE ANNIVERSARY DINNER.
TUESDAY P. M.
At one-thirty o'clock dinner was served in the Anniversary tent, about six hundred persons being in attendance. The President of the Day, John Carroll Chase, presided, and called upon Rev. Harry M. Warren, D. D., of New York City to offer prayer.
REV. DR. WARREN.
Let us pray. Our Blessed God and Heavenly Father. We praise Thee and bless Thee for all Thy mercies, new to us every morning and fresh every night. We thank Thee for Thy faithfulness to us as a town and community during all those two hundred years, and now we look to Thee for days to come, and we say: Father, take us by the hand and lead us 'on and make us to be useful in our day and gener- ation, and then bring us to Thyself when the race is run and our work is done and our ground is won. In Jesus Christ's name, Amen.
During the dinner and the exercises that followed, entertain- ing music was furnished by Nevers' Orchestra of Concord.
At two-thirty President Chase announced that the time had arrived to give attention to the literary exercises of the occasion and read letters from U. S. Senators Henry W. Keyes and George H. Moses, Congressman Edward H. Wason, Former Governor John H. Bartlett, Governor Channing H. Cox of Massachusetts, Daniel Chester French, Litt. D., Glendale, Mass., and Amos Tuck French, Tuxedo Park, N. Y., all expressing regrets for their enforced absence with their best wishes for an enjoyable celebration.
Introducing the first speaker President Chase said :
We are honored today with the presence of the Representative in Congress from this district. The knowledge that he proposes to retire at the end of his present term brings a feeling of great regret to those whom he has served intelligently and faithfully while an incumbent of the office he now holds. It is a trite saying "that blessings brighten as they take their flight," but in this case it was not possible for the blessing to increase in brightness as the end of his term of office draws near.
It is an honor and pleasure to present to you the Honorable Sherman E. Burroughs of Manchester.
MR. BURROUGHS.
Mr. Toastmaster and Friends: There are probably half a dozen different reasons, at least that many, why I am not going to make a speech, or try to make one today. In the first place I couldn't do it anyway if I tried; in the second place it is too hot and I know that you don't want to sit here and listen to any long drawn out speech, especially from Congressmen, because they talk too much. But even if I could make a speech to you this afternoon, my friends, you have made it impossible for me to do it by giving me so much to eat. I am reminded of a little anecdote I heard just before I came home from
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HISTORY OF CHESTER
Washington. A distinguished gentleman-I forget his name now, we will call him Jones-was out at an evening entertainment of some sort in Washington last winter, and while he was there he met a very beautiful young lady. Now, most of the beautiful young ladies are still in New Hampshire I would have you know, but there are a few in Washington and he met one of them. After he had been introduced to the young lady he noticed that she was sort of looking up out of the corner of her eye at him as much as to say: "Where have I seen you before?" After a while she said to him: "Mr. Jones, aren't you the same gentleman who ate so many of my graham muffins at the Baptist sociable the other evening?" And he looked down at her with a sad, faraway look in his eyes and said: "No, my dear lady, I am not the same man at all, and what is more my doctor says I never will be." I didn't quite understand either why they should ask me to come here to talk this afternoon with such a long and distinguished array of eminent speakers who can claim a birthplace here in the Town of Chester; why they should call upon me, who was not so fortunate as to be born in the Town of Chester. And I tried to think of some reason why 344 they had done that. I couldn't think of any reason except this : remembered reading a few days ago that Mr. Taft, the present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was to be the principal speaker at a banquet somewhere-I forget now just where it was-and there was quite a long list of speakers, about as long as the list on this program. As soon as Mr. Taft had concluded they were to call upon a young ex-service man who was to be the concluding speaker. When Mr. Taft got through a lot of the people got up and started to go out, and the toastmaster got up and called out very loudly : "Please don't go now, one of the best things on the program is still to come. The next speaker is one of the ex-service men, he went through hell for you and you ought to be willing to do as much for him." Well, in view of some of the experiences that I have been through in Washington dur- ing the last few years it occurred to me that that might account for my being called upon to come here.
But Mr. Toastmaster and friends, it really is a great privilege and a great pleasure to me to be here today and participate in this simple way in these beautiful exercises. Chester is one of the grand old towns of our state. It is from towns like this that the great men and women, the men and women who have made the history of America, have gone out, and by the force of their character they have made an impress wherever they have gone. I know it is the fashion now-a-days for people to say that the old New England town is passing, that its influence is going. I don't believe it. I have a confidence, I may almost say I have a faith that the same powers and the same influences that made this town and other towns like it great and strong in our history,- that these same forces are going to keep right on with ever increasing enthusiasm, strength and power, and that the Chester of tomorrow, with its men, its women, its children, its homes, its schools, its churches and all of its institutions is going to be a little better town to live in than the one we are living in today. Think for a minute, just contrast for a minute the conditions that exist in the homes of Chester today with the conditions that existed in the homes of Chester one hundred years ago, yes, less even than that. There wasn't one of those homes a hundred years ago that had a bathtub in it or any sanitary plumbing in it at all. There wasn't one of those homes that had a furnace in it, a boiler, steam heat, hot water heat or hot air heat. There wasn't one of those homes that had a coal-stove or a gas-stove in it. There wasn't one of those homes that had a
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CELEBRATION OF 200TH ANNIVERSARY
telephone, that had electric lights or a gaslight, or a kerosene light even. Now just think of that for a minute. I know there are people here who can remember conditions like what I am speaking about, when the old fireplace furnished about all the heat there was in the home and when the cooking was done on the crane largely in the brick fireplace and in the brick oven. If mother or baby was taken sick in the night you couldn't step to the telephone and call the doctor in fifteen minutes. No, somebody had to hitch up the old horse and travel six, eight or ten miles to find a doctor. All the plowing was done with the old plow, there was no sulky plow, no cultivator. All the mowing was done by hand, all the hay was pitched by hand. If you were lucky you had one or two short terms of school in the little red schoolhouse during the year, and the teacher got acquainted with the parents and pupils by boarding around. Those were some of the conditions that obtained in this little town, and when I speak of Chester I refer to all the little towns of New Hampshire, less, not much less than a hundred years ago. Now all that has changed, we have modern conditions, modern machinery which our farmers use. There are none of those conditions that I refer to that existed so long ago. This I maintain is one argument, a strong argument as it seems to me, that conditions in our country towns are improving rather than retrograding and that the country town of tomorrow is going to be even a better town to live in than the town of today. Well, there are other reasons than that for optimism. Think of the wealth in this old Town of Chester, these hills and vales and beautiful fields and brooks and mountains around us; they are wealth just as truly as any prairies, or factories or mines. They may not be quoted on the stock exchanges, but neither are they subject to the fluctuations of the stock exchanges. No, my friends, there is no truer wealth anywhere than this beautiful scenery and all those beautiful surroundings here in your town. And then to think of your magnificent history. There is no history ever written that is more grand or more romantic, I might say, than the history of these little country towns of our state. I wish that the great events in the history of Chester might be taught in every schoolhouse in this town. I believe that if the labors and the sacrifices endured by these early pioneers who established and built up this little town could be taught to the boys and girls in the little schoolhouses, it would have more effect to inspire them to higher achievement and nobler endeavor than anything we teach from the schoolbooks today.
And then too you have wealth in your splendid people. Where will you go to find better people than can be found in these little rural communities. The New Englander is an individual if ever there was one. He has always been an individualist, away back in the days of the conditions I have been describing. He raised his own food and he and his good wife produced, spun and wove the cloth and made the clothing for the children. They did their own /vork and they paid their own bills. And yet the New England country farmer, along with his practical individualism was an idealist too, and he is one today. He may talk to you about his being hard-headed and practical, and so indeed he is, but you travel far to find more of an idealist than the New England farmer. And why should he not be? His whole life has been spent in communion with nature at her best. By day his work has been out in the open fields and by night he has gone to his sleep with the song of the whip-poor-will as he looked out on the rising moon making a shining pathway in the surrounding fields. The farmer is an idealist and his idealism has been wrought into the history of this land. It is the splendid spirit that has inspired this gathering here
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HISTORY OF CHESTER
today, typical of the New England country towns, that has sent the men and the women out into the world that have made this nation. It is the spirit of Chester, the spirit of these New England towns is the spirit of New Hampshire, it is the spirit of New England; the same spirit that has made us a great and a prosperous nation. It is the same spirit that has been immortalized in the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier and our own Edna Dean Proctor, perhaps never better ex- pressed than in these simple words of Sam Walter Foss :
"Let me live in my house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by;
They are good, they are bad, they are rich, they are poor, Wise, foolish, so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban ? Let me live in my house by the side of the road, And be a friend to man."*
THE PRESIDENT .- Poetic effusions by natives of the town were in evidence nearly a hundred years ago but in 1852 an Epic Poem by Samuel Rowe, entitled "The Maiden of the Valley," took the town by storm. It was committed to memory at the time by "Aunt" Hannah (Wilcomb) Williams who will now recite it. The aged lady then recited the poem with scarcely any prompting, a wonderful achieve- ment for a person so advanced in years.t
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