USA > New York > Wyoming County > Warsaw > History of the centennial celebration : Warsaw, Wyoming County, New York, June 28-July 2, 1903 : 1803-1903 > Part 6
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Under all the adverse conditions then existing, separated from the earlier occupied portions of our country by vast tracts of forests, the settlement of Warsaw was com- menced.
It is not for me to give an account of the privations, the hardships, the sufferings of these noble settlers on one hand, nor, on the other, the eminent success that erowned their arduous labors. That will be better done by others at the proper time.
I can say, however, that it was the happy fortune of these pioneers to witness the beginning of a glorious change, and some of them lived not only to see this valley, with its green fields, as beautiful as we, looking from the hillsides, behold it today, to realize the fact of the com- pletion of a waterway connecting the Hudson with the chain of great Western lakes, but in their advanced years they heard the sounds of the moving trains, the screech- ing of the locomotive whistle, and received in the morn- ing papers news sent by the electric wire from all parts of the civilized world. What marvelous changes in a single generation ! The Gods of Homer were outdone! They sent their messages by swift-winged carriers. They were unable to chain the lightnings and subjugate them to their service.
Deacon Gates, the venerable grandfather of one of our speakers today, in the year 1806, spent twenty-six days on a journey through the forest from Litehfield, N. Y., only a few miles east of Utica, to Sheldon in this county. What would he then have thought, of taking his noon meal in Buffalo and lodging in New York the night of the same day, of talking directly with a friend in Boston, and then by a change in the connection of the wires, with another at the head of the then mysterious and almost unknown lakes !
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The early settlers of Warsaw did well their part in producing these wonderful changes, and they and their descendants and successors, may justly be classed among the most advanced, intellectually, morally, and as Chris- tians. Few towns, if any, have surpassed ours in these respects. Many of its sons have gone forth well armored for the battle of life, and have made records of which we may all be justly proud.
We have with us today many worthy descendants of the settlers of 1803 and 1804, and the years soon following, representative men and women, either here or in other communities where they reside. There are still larger numbers who are absent in distant states and countries. I might call the roll of a long list of honored names, both the living and the dead. Should I do so, I should undoubtedly omit many equally worthy of our admiration. Large numbers have been engaged in those pursuits that are the foundation of all material progress. I refer to agriculture and the mechanical industries. Others have been employed in the noble work of educating the young, laying the foundation for intellectual and moral commu- nities. Still others are in the professions, ministers, lawyers, doctors. Some are writers, speakers, men and women of thought, moulders of public sentiment, leaders in the Commonwealth. Many have distinguished them- selves in the service of their country, on the battlefield or in naval conflicts, defending the old flag on land and sea.
In honoring the dead and the living today, we go be- yond the present territorial limits of Warsaw. - Middle- bury was a part of Warsaw until 1812, and Gainesville until 1814. We therefore count, with pride, the early settlers of these towns and their sons and daughters as a part of our own.
As soon as the way was opened the forests swarmed with settlers. The east was moving west. Within five years from the time that Elizur Webster built the first cabin, with its roof of elm bark, a little west of the site of the present Baptist church, the woodman's axe was heard in every part of the town. Log cabins arose with magical rapidity. The land was cleared of forest trees, and many fields were soon green with growing
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wheat and corn, the latter constituting the principal pro- duet of the first settlers. It, however, required the life of a whole generation to fully clear away the immense growth of timber, the tall hemlocks, the stately mnaple, the nut-bearing beech, and in the valley and other low lands, the graceful elm. Many fell in the fierce battle with nature without reaping their well earned, just re- wards; others saw and enjoyed the full fruition of their labors. The bears and wolves, the original occupants of the dense forest, that had been troublesome to the set- tlers, and the agile deer, that, though useful for food, destroyed in the night time the growing grain disappeared, and the ox, the horse, and the sheep took their place.
The land brought forth its fruits abundantly. Roads, farm and school-houses and churches were built, and today the descendants and successors of those hardy, in- dustrious pioneers are in the full enjoyment of their rich heritage. Factories are springing up, and it now de- pends on the present and future residents of Warsaw by the same honest, faithful and laborious efforts that char- acterized the heroes who made the wilderness a land of flowers, of grains, and of fruits, a land of abundance and of happiness, not only to continue the present mater- ial prosperity, to accelerate our growth as a community, a town, but to foster our institutions of learning, to promote morality and all the Christian virtues, and thus better the condition and add to the well-being and hap- piness of our citizens.
In the presence of the eminent speakers of this occasion I shall not longer trespass on your time. I will only again assure you of our hearty welcome, and express the wish that those who, coming from other places, have honored us with their presence, will be so received by their old acquaintances and friends that they may return to their homes glad that they have made the visit, and ever afterwards cherish the kindest mem- ories of the old town in the valley.
ADDRESS BY WILLIAM HENRY MERRILL
Mr. President and Friends :-
Twenty-eight years I lived among you; twenty-eight years I have been away. Yet the return is to me, com- ing home. So strong and dear are the old associations ! So true it is that "there are no friends like the old friends!"
I remember well entering the village for the first time, in 1847, through the newly opened "gulf road "- that winding and narrow defile which seemed deeper and more wonderful to my boyish eyes than a canyon of the Rocky Mountains would seem today. We moved into the Horace Thayer house, on lower Buffalo street, since owned by Mr. Purdy. I remember as the first play- ground a little triangle of grass at the intersection of Buffalo and Water streets, on the latter of which lived our cousins, the Seth M. Gateses, and Alansen Bartlett, whose then unborn sons, once my "printer's devils," and since then the winners of honorable success in their chosen professions, are here today.
My first school was in the district school-house on Genesee street. If I call for a show of hands by those who sat under the instructions of those faithful teachers, Julia Putnam and Urania Stevens, I am sure I shall get some responses? I thought so! Fifty-six years are not so very long if we keep the heart young. The Academy, on South Main street, was then in process of building, and the older boys utilized some of their vaca- tion days, and earned the price of a "caravan" ticket, picking up cobble-stones on the fruitful East Hill to help forward the work of construction. Among the first teachers was Simeon D. Lewis, that true man and model citizen, whose recent sudden death I regretted the more because it deprived him of the enjoyment he would have
WILLIAM HENRY MERRILL
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felt in this celebration, and forbade for the absent friends who loved him one more sight of that face "where kind- liness had made her home."
How many of the boys or girls of fifty years ago, I wonder, remember the new principal who sought to " rule the school by kindness?" In disregard of the wisdom of Solomon, he would "spare the rod." Indeed, he let it be known that he had no rod and did not believe in whipping. He bought slippers for the boys to wear in the school-room in place of their muddy boots. He spoke in a gentle voice of the beauty of goodness. Some of the older boys, in whom lurked still a little of the "untutored savage," received these soft overtures at first with incredulity, and then with what Grover Cleve- land would call "ghoulish glee." On about the third morning-a raw day in the autumn-the new teacher found the slippers stuffed into the stove-pipe, the school- room filled with smoke, his table turned upside down, and pandemonium let loose. His stay, it hardly need be said, was short.
A very different man was his successor, Norman K. Wright-a tall, rawboned Vermonter, with the eye of a hawk and a hand of iron. I can hear again the sharp bang on the master's table with which he called the school to order, and see the glitter and twinkle of his eye as he slowly but keenly surveyed the assembled pupils. His words were few, but ominous. "I am em- ployed" he said, "to teach this school. To teach it I must be the master. 1 am accustomed to being the master where I teach. I have heard that my predecessor tried to rule you by kindness and failed. You did not ap- preciate kindness, and he did not believe in corporal punishment. It pained him to whip a pupil. I am dif- ferent !"-with a terrible emphasis. "Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than to thrash a young rebel who breaks the rules." And the new teacher rubbed his strong hands together and grinned sardonically, as if in pleasant anticipation of his job.
He had not long to wait. The mischievous spirits put their heads together after school was out, and the next day during a recitation spat went a big paper wad on to
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the blackboard. "Anson Doolittle will step to the plat- form," said the teacher. Young Anson-who afterward was a stalwart and brave soldier in the war for the Union and died fighting for his country-sullenly shook his curly head, braced his stout legs under the desk and grasped his seat as Prof. Wright moved toward him. Then the long fingers of the teacher's hand fastened themselves in the coat collar of the young rebel, and with a sudden twist and jerk the desk was torn from its fastenings and Anson landed on his back on the floor in front of the rostrum.
"Studying will be suspended," said the schoolmaster, and he proceeded to admonish the recalcitrant with a ruler in a manner that left no doubt either as to his purpose or his ability to rule the school.
Another most successful teacher of those early days was Horace Briggs, still living, honored, venerated and loved by all his surviving pupils-though one of them still wonders if he really had, as was said, "eyes in the back of his head" when mischief was going on, and how he managed to walk "as still as a cat" to that part of the school-room where he was least expected.
When the old Academy was outgrown and it became necessary to erect a larger and more central building, it chanced that I was a member of the Board of Trustees; and I have not forgotten the trouble we had in getting the taxpayers to vote the necessary money. At the final meeting there was a large turnout of the class which, I judge by appearances, is long since extinct among you- the tax-dodgers. As I entered the room with my faithful ally and friend, Hon. William Bristol-whose skill in elec- tioneering contributed so much to our success-he viewed the long rows of stubborn dissenters: white-haired, dim- eyed, decrepit, but very "sot"-and made the character- istic observation; "Great Scott! I shall never again doubt the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead!" But we carried the meeting and built the school-house in spite of the reappearance of the old fellows who, as the Irish- man said were "dead but not sinsible of it."
This perhaps too personal retrospect of the schools of Warsaw leads me to the main thought of the brief ad- dress I have prepared-a consideration of the forces and
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influences, moral, religious, social and political, which made this a finely representative town of Western New York and of the New Englandized portion of the Union.
The early settlers of Warsaw and the mer who made its character and its history for the first half century were typical Americans of the original stock. They were intelligent, industrious, thrifty, moral and religious. They feared God and loved their fellow-men. Imbued with the spirit of freedom and independence, they loved Liberty, established Equality and practiced Fraternity. Descendants of the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers, they planted the school and the church wherever they went, and supplemented the work of both with a free press and an open library. It was fitting and natural that a village thus started should furnish to the country two college Presidents-Merrill Edwards Gates, formerly at the head of Rutgers and Amherst, and George Williamson Smith, of Trinity-and a large number of men eminent in all the learned professions. The Warsaw that I knew as boy and man was a fine example of pure democracy. Its only caste was that of character. It recognized and valued men not for what they had, but for what they were. They did not ask who your grandfather was, but how you " behaved yourself." The artificial aristocracy of the dollar and the Chinese worship of ancestors had not then made their appearance, though many of the fam- ilies, like my own on both sides, could trace their lineage through eight generations of Americans to the French Huguenots and the English Pilgrims.
Through a common misfortune my father, Eli Merrill, was, on removing here, a poor man; but his children were never made to feel the fact. We and others in the same case were welcome and intimate in the families of the wealthiest citizens. There were no lines of division drawn by the assessment roll. The schools were common schools -open to and attended and supported by all. The churches were organized and conducted upon the principle that be- fore God, "the maker of us all," as in just human gov - ernment, all men are equal.
I lay stress upon these distinctive and fundamental con- ditions of American life and character in the formative
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period, because they explain the Warsaw whose centen- nial we are celebrating with justifiable pride and affection- the Warsaw of the Websters, Mc Whorters, Franks, Darlings, Gateses, Judds, MeElwains, Buxtons, Millers, Walkers, Fargoes, Fishers and a score of other early settlers whose names are interwoven with the history of the town.
The influence of thesc early associations in a truly democratic community was of great and lasting benefit to the young people of a half or a third of a century ago. It has been my good fortune to meet many distinguished men from my earliest manhood to the present time. Yet the self-respect and the respect for others inculcated here has kept me from either looking up or looking down at my fellow-men. The level glance, the hand that goes half way only, and the unbent knee arc the prerogative and the mark of republican equality. They express only par- donable pride: the pride of freedom, of intelligence, of character and culture. Democracy is not a leveller as to ability, but it is, or ought to be as to rights, priv- ileges and opportunity.
The first settler came to Warsaw in 1803. The first school was opened in 1807. The first church was organized in 1808. The first library was provided in 1823. The first newspaper was established in 1828. Thus the forces that "make for righteousness," that increase knowledge, that bulwark liberty and strengthen free institutions followed hard upon the pioneer. The organizing spirit, giving life and direction to moral purpose, was further illustrated in the formation of a temperance society in 1826 and an anti-slavery society in 1833, among the first of such asso- ciations in this country.
Yet deeply religious and morally earnest as were these sons of the Puritans and the Huguenots, they were not bigoted nor ascetic. They were always seeking the light, and to receive it they kept an open mind. I have often said in description of my father, who was an early "come outer" in all directions, that he was an independent in religion, an abolitionist in politics, a teetotaller as to strong drink, an anti-tobacconist and a homoeopathischen this was a new school. Yet there are those present, I am sure, who will remember his tolerant spirit, his dry humor, his fund of apt stories and that cheerful philoso-
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phy of life which enabled pioneers to endure their hard- ships with smiling fortitude.
Another characteristic of Warsaw, which I have been glad to see is still in force, was the united public spirit of its citizens. It was this which gave to us the water and gas works, the new railroad, the fine churches and school- house, the splendid soldiers' monument, and the many other evidences of enterprise, energy, taste and liberality. Fort- unate, too, has the village been in its leading citizens- first of whom, in my day, I am sure we should all place the Hon. Augustus Frank, followed by the Senators Humphrey, uncle and nephew, none of whom ever wearied in thought or labor for the welfare of Warsaw. On every first of January for many years it was the custom of Mr. Frank to come to my desk in the New Yorker office and say : "Now let us make a list of the things the village needs, and then agitate and work till we get them." The list was always kept in sight, and as one by one "foun- dations were put under the air castles," as Thoreau said, the village improvement went on.
This public service was not always without its penalties, however. When a member of, the Village Board of Trustees I labored to secure an extension of Buffalo and Mill streets across the valley-giving the town what it had before lacked, "four corners " for business purposes. The project was carried through against considerable opposition; but in doing so it was necessary to take a strip off the side of the garden of our old neighbor and friend, Capt. William Walker, a soldier of the war of 1812. He la- mented the loss as I should have done. Upon my first visit after our removal to Boston in 1875 I was invited to supper by his son Lewis and his wife. The old gentleman was quite deaf, and I could not help hearing Mrs. Walker say to him as he sat in another room: "Father, Henry Merrill has come to have tea with us." " Who ?" he asked, with his hand to his ear. "IIen-ry Mer-rill," she answered in a louder tone. "Well," he said, "I hope he won't steal any more of my garden !" My success as a reformer and innovator in the board was so great-including a sidewalk through the Gulf to the Erie station-that no party dared renominate me for another term. Like some other re-
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formers, they said I was too expensive. But nobody could wipe out the improvements!
This backward flight of memory, dear friends, almost makes it seem that I am growing old, though I trust you can see for yourself that this is not so! Despite the scant gray locks and a crow's foot here and there, in capacity for work or play, in the zest of life-even in my enthusiasms-I feel about as young as when I left you, nearly thirty years ago. And yet, though I am far from being like Dr. Holmes's "Last Leaf," I realize that in the silent village of the dead just south of the living town,
The mossy marbles rest On the lips that I have pressed In their bloom; And the names I loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb.
I can see before me the faces of my boyhood's mates in the replica faces of their children-yes, and of their grandchildren. But the towering hills and the lovely valley are unchanged. The Oatka still winds its silvery course through the green fields. Along your embowered streets the familiar homes nestle with their old-time charm. And by the warmth of your welcome, and in the happiness I feel at being again among you, I know that Warsaw in its hundredth year is still the blest and beautiful village that its wandering children have remem- bered so long and loved so well.
MERRILL EDWARDS GATES
CENTENNIAL ORATION
BY MERRILL EDWARDS GATES, LL. D .. L. H. D.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends and Citizens of Warsaw :
The finest flavors of life and its most satisfying en- joyments, we often miss entirely, simply because we do not understand that they may be had for the taking. The beautiful landscape which you long to see as you read of the traveler who found it in a foreign land, you may have for a walk or a drive to the hills that overlook this lovely valley of peace. The hero whose courage fires your heart when you read of his exploits, has his equal among the men you have known who once wore the blue ;- perhaps in your next door neighbor and friend, if you open your eyes to see what he has borne and overcome. That perfect, self-devoting love which charms us in poem and romance, may pour out its whole life upon you, quietly blessing you without your discerning it unless your eyes are touched and you learn to know what it is that has thus blessed you, before you recognize it as white wings bear it from you to heaven. The beauty and the poetry of our every-day life may be as rich and full as we have heart to make it and eyes to see it. For, "the actual well seen is the ideal;" and the wise and the happy are those who see most and enjoy most in their daily sur- roundings.
To see clearly the essential end and the true value of our immediate surroundings, to know the possibilities for good in our every-day friends and our every-day life, is to possess the secret of noble and happy living.
Anniversaries help to reveal to us the truth in these matters. They show us beauty and power and the finest possibilities for good in the persous and the surroundings whose real significance we have lost sight of by reason of their very familiarity.
What father has not seen a new radiance of spiritual
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beanty in the maidenly face of his daughter, when the anniversary of her birthday reminded him that she was HOW
"Standing with remetant feet Where the brook and rivers meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet?"
However faithfully a husband cherishes the wife whose presence at his side sweetens life and continually strengthens his heart for life's labors, there is a new, an added sense of her worth and preciousness when the anniversary of their wedding-day comes round, and all their love in past years, their united experience of life, like the Indian summer haze which in our boyhood used to glorify these Warsaw hills in late October, lend a calm beauty to her face that transfigures the time-touched features and is more calmly satisfying than the re- membered beauty of her spring-time, as he looks into "A beauteous face, in which there meet Fair records, promises as sweet,"
And so the keener sense of hurrying time and rapid change which a father's or a mother's birthday will sng- gest to living children, often flashes into the consciousness a truer vision of the pure essential nature of parent- hood, a stronger emotion of filial love and a trier ap- preciation of filial duties.
As time hurries us on in the journey of life, on an- niversary days such as this, on these halts and camping- grounds on points of vantage where the view over the stages we have travelled in the past is clear, and mem- ory is vivid, there come to us our truest thoughts of what has been, our clearest visions of what ought to be, and our deepest sense of privilege and blessing in what is, when we see it in its true relations.
But when such anniversaries occur in the life of a person, however pleasant the surroundings, however happy the circumstances, there is always a touch of pain in the heart. We do not speak of this pang, but it is there. After the early spring days of perpetual hope and care- less joy have passed, there is a secret pang for every loving heart at the anniversary of a friend's birth-a pang that comes from the ever present knowledge that each quick-returning anniversary brings one year nearer
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the time when that life shall have ceased among us. This is the reason why in some families where love is deepest such anniversaries bring more of pain than pleasure. The mortal life of any one friend is so short! The strongest man, the dearest and most gracious woman, so soon comes to the allotted period of life, that on such anniversary days, the sweetness of the present love is always shadowed by the apprehension of the coming loss.
But the anniversary of a community like this, has in it no such haunting suggestions of pain. As we go on in life (you older Warsaw boys with your wives and friends, to your experience of life I appeal !) as we go on in life and feel how short is any one man's lease of life and power, do we not have a growing satisfaction in the life we share in common in the communities and institutions which endure from generation to generation ?
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