USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Windham > Supplement to The history of Windham in New Hampshire : a Scotch settlement > Part 10
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PRAYER OF COLUMBUS.
"Almighty and Eternal God, who, by the energy of Thy creative word, hast made the firmament, the earth, and the sea, blessed and glorified be Thy name in all places ! May Thy majesty and dominion be exalted forever and ever, as Thou hast. permitted Thy holy name to be made known and spread by the most humble of Thy servants, in this hitherto unknown portion of Thy empire."
THE PRESIDENT .- We will now listen to singing by the choir of the song, " Oh ! Columbia, We Love Thee."
This was very appropriate, was well rendered, and appre- ciatively received by the audience.
THE PRESIDENT .- I will now call upon our townsman, Hon. L. A. Morrison.
ADDRESS OF HON. LEONARD A. MORRISON.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN :- In the sunny land of Italy, as one journeys northward from Rome, " the eternal city," following the shore of the Mediterranean sea, there are many glimpses of its blue expanse, with the
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Address of Hon. Leonard A. Morrison.
attractive summer and winter resorts, and nearing the tun- nelled mountains there are sights of their olive-clad surfaces, with villas and homes. At length there bursts upon the vision a broad and semi-circular bay of wondrous beauty, while from its shores to the steep and rugged heights above rises a city grand and imposing. The light-colored houses rise tier above tier from the sea to the overlooking heights.
This is the beautiful, far-famed city of Genoa, made forever famous as the home of the distinguished navigator, whose ex- ploits we this day celebrate. He often passed over that bay of beauty, climbed those steep, ascending streets, and was in- timately familiar with that historic city.
There Christopher Columbus commenced his life work, and from thence he went forth on his marvellous mission in the world. He pursued his studies, he propounded his theories, he formed his plans, and was bent upon their accomplish- ment.
At the commencement of his public career, he was by his acquaintances considered the greatest crank of his age. He was most sharply criticised, ridiculed, laughed at, and his pro- jected voyage of discovery was greeted with sneers, derision, and scorn. But the trouble between Columbus and his con- temporaries was that he was a broader, longer-headed, wiser man than they, and they were not bright enough to know it. The most of his captious critics have passed into well-merited oblivion, while he is canonized the wide world over. The crank of 1491 in 1492 was the great discoverer, whose name would be honored in all after time. "Fortune smiles upon the brave." Columbus was a brave man. He passed from court to court, and at length achieved success, and obtained the desired assistance. His vessels were ready for the voyage of discovery. He was to sail unknown seas, whose boisterous billows beat and broke upon unknown shores. At length the land of a new world burst upon his enraptured gaze, and a continent ·vast in extent was opened up for the abode of mighty nations of civilized people. "Nothing succeeds like success," and Columbus became the hero.
His was not one of the
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Address of Hon. Leonard A. Morrison.
" Little souls that stand expectant, Listening at the gates of life, Hearing far away the murmur Of the tumult and the strife,"
but his was a grand and mighty soul, which dared to act, which dared to struggle in the heaving commotion of the world.
His mighty fame springs from his own deeds, and that alone is lasting. The place which he has attained in the world's estimation would never have been won had he not been true to the leadings of his own inner nature. He con- sidered that he had a work in life to do, a mission to fulfil, and he went bravely forth to do that work, and nobly did he fulfil that mission. And what is the great lesson to be drawn from the life and career of the great navigator ?
It is this : That each and every one in the choice and exe- cution of his life-work should, like Columbus, follow closely, persistently, and with great tenacity, the promptings and leadings of his own mind and nature-they seldom lead one astray. In conscientiously following them, mistakes are rarely made in the selection and carrying out of the work of life. When followed, each person is happiest, truest to himself and thereby truest to his fellow-men, and of benefit to humanity.
A large amount of good judgment and good common sense can be worked up in the choice and execution of one's life- work.
It is not an evidence of wisdom to put the successful trot- ting horse into a heavy stone team, and expect it to do its work without chafing ; neither would it be an exhibition of good common sense and good judgment to put the strong- limbed, patient, heavy draught horse on to the race-track, and expect it to win the race. Yet, in either case, as much wis- dom, good judgment, and good common sense would be shown as is often exhibited by people themselves, or oftener by others for them, in the selection and choice of their life- work.
All cannot walk the same road or do the same work, nor is it best that they should.
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Reading by William D. Cochran, Esq.
"'Tis the old, old story, one man will read His lesson of life in the sky,
And the other, blind to the present need, Will see with the spirit's eye.
" You may grind their souls in the self-same mill, You may bind them heart and brow, But the poet will follow the rainbow still, And his brother will follow the plow."
In view of the career, the earnest struggles, and the great- ness of the accomplished work of Columbus, knowing the se- cret of his eminently successful life, I would say to every one within the sound of my voice,-and especially to the young people and children now before me, for to them I seldom have an opportunity to speak,-I would say to you all, in the words of Whittier, the dearly-beloved Quaker poet of New England,-
" By thine own soul's law learn to live ; And, if men thwart thee, take no heed,
And, if men hate thee, have no care- Sing thou thy song, and do thy deed ; Hope thou thy hope, and pray thy prayer, And claim no crown they will not give."
THE PRESIDENT .- I will call upon William D. Cochran, Esq.
Mr. Cochran declined to make any lengthy address, but, after speaking a few words appropriate to the place and the most interesting occasion, read the following patriotic hymn, written by Timothy Dwight, while he was an army chaplain, in 1777-'78 :
" COLUMBIA.
" Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the world, and the child of the skies ! Thy genius commands thee ; with rapture behold, While ages on ages thy splendors unfold.
Thy reign is the last and the noblest of time, Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime. Let the crimes of the East ne'er encrimson thy name, Be freedom and science and virtue thy fame.
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Reading by William D. Cochran, Esq.
" To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire, 'Whelm nations in blood, and wrap cities in fire ; Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend, And triumph pursue them and glory attend. A world is thy realm ; for a world be thy laws, Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy cause. On freedom's broad basis that empire shall rise, Extend with the main and dissolve with the skies.
" Fair science her gates to thy sons shall unbar, And the East see thy morn hide the beams of her star ; New bards and new sages unrivaled shall soar To fame unextinguished when time is no more. To thee, the last refuge of virtue designed, Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind ; Here, grateful to heaven, with transport shall bring Their incense more fragrant than odors of spring.
" Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend, And genius and beauty in harmony blend. The graces of form shall awake pure desire, And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire ; Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined, And virtue's bright image enstamped on the mind, With peace and soft rapture shall teach life to glow, And light up a smile in the aspect of woe.
" Thy fleets to all nations thy power shall display, The nations admire and the oceans obey ; Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold, And the East and the South yield their spices and gold. As the day-spring unbounded thy splendor shall flow, And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow ; While the ensigns of Union in triumph unfurled, Hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world.
" Thus, as down a lone valley with cedars o'erspread, From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed, The gloom from the face of fair heaven retired, The winds ceased to murmur, the thunders expired ; Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along, And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung,
' Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the world and the child of the skies.'"
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Address of Hon. William H. Anderson.
It is a singular fact in connection with this patriotic poem that it was recited at a school exhibition in East Windham, about 1799, when that gifted and lamented woman, Margaret Hamilton, was teacher. The memory of the incidents in re- lation to that event, which was a noted one in its day and locality, have not yet wholly died away.
THE PRESIDENT .- The Glee Club will now favor us with the song, " Rock of Liberty." This was finely rendered.
THE PRESIDENT .- Ladies and gentlemen, Hon. William H. Anderson, of Lowell, Mass., will now deliver the histori- cal address. [Applause.]
ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM H. ANDERSON.
MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS OF THE SCHOOLS OF WINDHAM : If, on the 3d of Au- gust last, any of us here present had minded to sail for a Euro- pean port, we should have embarked on an Atlantic steamer from four to six hundred or more feet in length, with from three to five decks, with state-rooms fitted with elegant furni- ture, electric lights and bells, a dining saloon glittering with silver and glass, a library, a smoking, card, and lounging room ; with a space in her hull twice as large as this building filled from top to bottom and side to side with pistons, valves, rods, cylinders, steam chests, and all the complex and won- derful machinery of compound condensing engines ; with compasses, sextants, quadrants, life-boats and rafts, life pre- servers, rockets for signals, and all the complete and wonder- ful appliances which go to make up the fitting of an ocean steamer. She would be commanded by an officer who had crossed the ocean from one hundred to a thousand times, with under officers and crew who looked upon the passage from New York or Boston to a European port as any of us would look upon a drive to Lawrence and return the same day.
Notwithstanding all these safeguards, promising a safe and pleasant journey, I opine that we should, the first time, sail with much fear of the dangers of the deep, and be inclined to make our wills (if we had anything to will) before embarking.
This is one picture. Let us look at another.
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Four hundred years ago the third of last August, early in the morning, there sailed from Palos, in Spain, bound, not for a well known American port but on a voyage of discov- ery into unknown waters beyond the broad Atlantic, far from certain of, but only hoping, and expecting, to find land, a man with three small vessels, hardly larger than a coasting schooner, decked over only at the bow and stern and open at the centre. He had the compass and an instrument for determining latitude and longitude in a rough way. He had no chart of where he was going, or the route to it. He had no occasion to lumber up his small vessels with pistons and cylinders for steam, for the boy, Watt, had not yet watched the steam issuing from his mother's teakettle. He had, at first, not even a square sail. He had no life-saving boats or rafts. As for officers and crew, they were largely men im- pressed into the service, and full of belief in hobgoblins and monsters of the unknown waters, and ready, on very slight provocation or on none at all, to throw their commander overboard and return to sunny Spain.
Must not that commander, Christopher Columbus, have been a man of dauntless courage, and is he not entitled at our hands, to-day, to a tribute to those qualities which made that voyage a success ?
Like many another great man, much of his history is indis- tinct, and it is difficult to follow his movements during his earlier years, before he sailed on his first voyage of discovery. At that time, like many of you boys and girls, he resolved to keep a diary, but unlike many of you, I fear, he not only re- solved to keep one, but kept it, not for a few days only, but for many years. He says, on the first page of this diary : " For this purpose I intend to write, during this voyage, very punctually, from day to day, all that I may do and see and experience, as will hereafter be seen." Also, "My sovereign princes, beside describing each night all that has occurred in the day, and in the day the navigation of the night, I pro- pose to make a chart, in which I will set down the waters and lands of the ocean sea in their proper situations under their bearings ; and, further, to compose a book and illustrate
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the whole in picture, by latitude from the equinoctial, and longitude from the west, and, upon the whole, it will be es- sential that I should forget sleep and attend closely to the navigation to accomplish these things, which will be a great labor."
Columbus was probably born in Genoa, Italy, about 1435. I say " probably," because the evidence points to that city as being his birthplace, although there is no proof positive that that was the place. In fact, six different cities and towns have, since he became famous, claimed the honor of being his birthplace, which is not to be wondered at, when we remem- ber that
" Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread."
The exact date of his birth is also unknown, as Christopher Columbus, or "Christofo Columbo," as it is in Italian, was almost as common a name in Genoa then as "John Smith " is with us now, and this increases the difficulty of locating the exact date and place where he was born.
His father was a wool weaver, and he probably worked at that trade for a while, but he soon evinced a strong passion for geographical knowledge and a nautical propensity. This latter is not uncommon in enterprising boys, but Colum- bus himself, who was certainly not given to overmuch mod- esty, in his later years ascribed it to an impulse from the Deity, preparing him for the great mission he was to accom- plish.
As the 19th century will hereafter be distinguished for its inventions and progress in the arts and sciences, so the 15th was distinguished for its advance in geographical knowledge, and a spirit of discovery was abroad.
Mathematicians and astronomers were puzzling over and figuring out degrees, and latitude, and longitude, as Steven- son, Morse, and Edison have recently been figuring out the powers of steam and electricity.
In addition to this, in the 15th century commercial neces- sities began to require further distinct information of un-
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known parts of the world. Europe, for centuries, had traded with the eastern parts of Asia through the Mediterranean and Constantinople, but the aggressions of the Turks made it necessary to find a new way to get to India, China, and Japan, if there was such a way ; and that was the real reason why America was discovered in the 15th century, and not in the 11th, 12th, or 13th.
The real object of the first voyage of Columbus was not to discover America, but to find a new route by water to that part of Asia which we call China, India, and Japan. He had no idea of discovering a new continent, and never knew that he had done so. His theory was that he could reach India . and China by sailing about 2,500 miles west of Spain, because he believed that Asia instead of being 10,000 to 12,000 miles west of Spain, as it is in fact, was projected easterly over the Pacific ocean and the width of this continent, which brought its eastern shores in about the position of Florida.
At the time Columbus began to go to sea he was probably about fourteen years of age. The world was then pretty small. It comprised, in general terms, the British Isles, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Arabia, India, and some other portions of Asia, and the northern part of Africa. The western shores of Africa and eastern of Asia were not much known, and the Azores and Canary islands were at its extreme westerly boundary. But what the world lacked in size it made up in importance, for the system of Ptolemy, which made the earth, instead of the sun, the centre of the solar system, was then under full belief.
About 1470, when he was about thirty-five years old, Columbus went to Portugal, which was then the first mari- time nation of the world, and from which expeditions were constantly being fitted out to explore some part of Africa, or India, or other unknown regions, and these expeditions and their discoveries were attracting the attention of the learned, the curious, and the adventurous.
One of the first things Columbus did in Portugal was to fall in love with and marry the daughter of a deceased Portu- gese navigator. It was an equal match, in one respect at
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least, for both were poor as church mice, and so Columbus went to live with his mother-in-law, a fashion not fully out- grown even in our own times.
At this time he was a maker of charts and maps, and this brought him into correspondence with prominent men of the nation engaged in various expeditions of discovery.
Columbus probably remained in Portugal till about 1484, or fourteen years in all. During this time, while admitted to be a man of ideas, he was considered generally as a "crank," and while interested in the discovery of a world became so reduced in means that he had to leave Portugal secretly in order to avoid his creditors.
Probably the king of Portugal might have fitted him out, but he had been at considerable expense in fitting out expe- ditions to reach eastern Asia, by sailing around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, and as this was as yet unaccomplished, he thought he could not afford any other ventures.
Columbus next appears in Spain, where he remained from about 1484 to 1492, or about eight years. When he went to Spain from Portugal he was about fifty years of age, and when he sailed on his first voyage he must have been nearly sixty years old.
His time in Spain was spent in geographical studies, ser- vice in the army, audiences with the king and queen, and the various commissions and conclaves to which they referred him and his scheme for reports as to its advisability.
The reasonings and arguments of some of these learned men sound very funny to us in these later days; but we must remember that Sir Isaac Newton had not then seen the apple fall from the tree and thus established the law of the attraction of gravitation.
"Is there any one so foolish," they asked, "as to believe there are antipodes with their feet opposite to ours-people who walk with their heels upward and their heads hanging down ?- that there is a part of the world in which all things are topsy-turvey; where the trees grow with their branches downward, and where it rains, hails, and snows upward ?"
Objections of a graver nature were also advanced. The
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doctrine of the antipodes was claimed to be incompatible with the historical foundations of religion, since, to assert that there were inhabited lands on the opposite side of the globe, would be to maintain that there were nations not descended from Adam, since it was impossible for them to have passed from Asia, the home of our first parents, across the intervening ocean.
History does not tell us how Columbus answered this conundrum, which, since the discovery of the new world, has continued to be an argument in the mouths of disbelievers in the Bible, which it has been hard to answer.
Others, while admitting the globular form of the earth, and the possibility of an opposite inhabited hemisphere, claimed that it would be impossible to arrive there because of the insupportable heat of the torrid zone. Even could this be passed, the earth was so large it would take three years, at least, to get there, and provisions could not be carried for so long a time.
Others claimed that only the northern hemisphere was inhabitable, and there it was only canopied by the heavens. The other half was a chaos, a gulf, a mere waste of waters, the home of the hobgoblin and all the monsters of ancient fable.
Others urged that should a ship even succeed in this way in reaching the easterly confines of India, she could never get back, for the rotundity of the globe would present a mountain up which it would be impossible for any ship to sail, even with the most favorable wind.
We think we can afford to laugh at these arguments and opinions of 400 years ago, about geography and the form of the earth's surface, but what will the inhabitants of New England, in the year 2292, say to our views of electricity, magnetism, ballooning, methods of transportation, and the possibility of reaching the North pole or the moon ?
Even after Columbus had, through his arguments and friends who believed in him, induced Ferdinand and Isabella, especially the latter, to help him fit out an expedition, the whole scheme came within an ace of being upset because of the demands and stipulations of Columbus himself.
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He was so full of the grandeur of the enterprise that noth- ing but princely conditions would suffice, and he was Yankee enough to drive a good bargain for himself. His principal demand was that he should be admiral and viceroy over all the countries he should discover, and have one tenth of all the gains by trade or conquest.
The grandees of Spain, than whom no men were more proud, stood aghast at such presumption. The idea that he, a poor Italian supplicant for aid, should impose such condi- tions when he had everything to gain and nothing to lose ! To this Columbus replied that he would furnish one eighth of the cost if he could have one eighth of the profits ; but this, said the Spanish officials, would not do.
"Very well," said Columbus, "it is this, or nothing," and mounting his mule, set off to Cordova, where he intended to embark for France to see what he could accomplish there.
Some of his friends who believed in his scheme, seeing that he was determined to leave Spain, redoubled their exertions with Queen Isabella, with the result that Columbus and his mule were recalled to the queen, his demands were agreed to, and the compact drawn up.
The whole account of this matter reads very much like that of a horse trade between two shrewd Yankees, one of whom declares he won't take less, and the other that he won't give more, the turning of one to go away with his steed, and the calling him back by the other who sees that if he is to trade on the offered terms it is now or never.
The agreements between the Crown and Columbus were signed on the 17th of April, 1492, and he at once set about the business details of his voyage.
But although he had received these authorities from the king and queen, it was hard to find vessels and crews. Although there were royal orders to press vessels into the service, and criminals were offered pardon if they would enlist, the vessels were not forthcoming, and criminals thought they preferred the squalor of a Spanish prison to trying the unknown regions of the deep, which is a strong evidence of the boldness of the undertaking, composed, as the community
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at Palos was, of some of the most adventurous navigators of that age.
In this emergency appear at Palos certain friends of Columbus, among whom were the brothers Pinzon, naviga- tors of courage, owning vessels and having seamen in their employ. These men seem to have come to the aid of Colum- bus at a critical point in the enterprise, and to have assisted in furnishing vessels and men, after royal mandates, impress- ing vessels and pardoning criminals on condition that they would embark on what was then generally considered a harum- scarum enterprise, had failed to produce either.
Aside from the geographical, religious, political, and vari- ous other difficulties surrounding the fitting out of the voyage, we should not be residents of New Hampshire in the 19th century were we not interested in knowing about the busi- ness end of the scheme, what it cost in dollars and cents to start the fleet westward from Palos. To determine this with any degree of certainty is impossible. A large part of the historical information about the enterprise is derived from the diary of Columbus, which I have before referred to, and the records of certain law-suits begun in Spain, by the descen- dants of Columbus, after his death, to recover what they claimed to be due them from the Crown under its agreement with him. While law-suits, as a rule, are unfortunate, and to be avoided, had it not been for these law-suits, much of the knowledge of the circumstances attending the discovery of America would have been lost. While this diary and the legal records are full of information about latitude and longi- tude, the variation of the needle, the propriety and necessity of making slaves of the bodies of the Indians in order that their souls might be saved, the titles and dignities promised to Columbus, etc., there is very little of what would be of great interest to us, as Yankees, viz., the expense, the business part of the scheme.
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