USA > New York > Onondaga County > Pompey > Re-union of the sons and daughters of the old town of Pompey > Part 7
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President Wood, then stated that he was about to call upon one who had come from beyond the Mississippi to engage in the festivities of this occasion. One who received his early education in Pompey Academy, and who has since become eminent in the medical profession, and for the last twenty-four years has filled the Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology in the St. Louis University. He then called upon Dr. Charles W. Stevens, of St. Louis, Mo.
Dr: Stevens then took the stand and said :
Friends and Associates of my early life :-
I take pleasure in responding to the call made upon me by our President. We have heard eloquent and appropriate speeches, full of wit, humor, and sentiment, from the gen- tlemen who have preceded me.
They are all lawyers, and eminent in their profession ; they have praised each other magnificently, and have done so in hearlfelt sincerity, and we are well assured that the re- 6
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cipients have well earned, and well merited such eulogy. I am indeed proud of the fact, that so many who were, in years long gone by, my schoolmates and playmates, have attained such high position and excellent reputations. But I would ask you to call to mind the many worthy men who have in other callings, or in other professions done service, entitling them to worthy mention.
He that does the most to benefit his fellow man, should stand highest on the roll of honor, and could honors be be- stowed or made commensurate with the good accomplished, many who are now unknown, or in comparative obscurity, would stand highest in good repute. In making this re- mark I have an object in view, and that is to call to your minds the name. and services of a man who was a Pompey boy, and who has accomplished more of substantial good, and is more of a benefactor than any lawyer or any doctor who ever went from Pompey, or Pompey Academy. The man about whom I have thus awakened your curiosity, is the inventor of the melodian-Jeremiah Carhart. Heworked at his trade as a cabinet maker in this village for some years, and while following his occupation in the city of Buffalo, he invented this soul-stirring instrument. I venture to as- sert that no instrument ever invented has been so fully adap- ted to the purpose of rousing those ennobling sentiments or feelings which music is capable of doing, as the melodian, and were it now at once swept from existence, an hiatus would be created that could not easily be filled. It has been manufactured by thousands upon thousands, and is found everywhere from the Atlantic to the Pacific. You find it in the houses of the rich, but oftener among middle classes, and very often in the cottages and log cabins of the poor ; you find it in thousands of churches, even way off on the verge of civilization, in the frontier settlements, in the humble churches of the prairies have I seen it and have been charmed by its vibrations. . Perhaps you will not find it in St. Paul's or in Trinity, but look into all those churches like the " lit- tle one round the corner," where there is true piety and
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hearty devotion, and there you will find it. The man then, who has made music for the million, who has made so many hearts and homes more cheerful, bright and glowing with inspiration and happiness, who has added life or heightened the enjoyment of the religious worshipper deserves to be ranked as a benefactor, and truly may it be said of him, " that the world is better for his having lived in it," Jere- miah Carhart sleeps in Greenwood, but the good he has done lives after him. Well, my friends, I am glad I am here to-day, I have come from beyond the Mississippi, and would have traveled twice twelve hundred miles to join you on this festive occasion. My life in the great west, I am proud to say, has not been mis-spent, I have practiced my profession nearly thirty years, and during twenty-four of these years I have been engaged in Medical institutions as a teacher of Anatomy, and am now ministering, as best I can, to the " mind diseased" of three hundred unfortunate fellow beings. I saw St. Louis in its infancy, when it had but sixteen thousand inhabitants. She now numbers over three hundred thousand, and is the fourth city in the Union. There she sits as a Queen, on the bluffs of that mighty river; she is sweeping into her lap the products, the wealth of that great valley; she is the center of over twenty thousand miles of inland navigation, and is now the terminus of fourteen railroads. She is now demanding to be made the capital city of the nation, and mark my prediction, that in ten years, the marbles, the beautiful columns, and cornices of yonder splendid edifice will travel across the continent in the direction where it is said the " star of Empire wends its way;" and I am not certain but if we had a half dozen of the energetic sons of old Pompey there, we might accomplish the matter in half the time.
Well, I have said enough about St. Louis, and I trust you will excuse me for my enthusiasm ; but I am glad I was born in Pompey. I look back to my boyhood, and my early manhood, as the happiest period of my life, and as I stroll over these hills and valleys, the rocks, the trees, and streams
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call up most pleasing reminiscences, and I wish I were a boy again. I see about me here, the familiar faces of sev- eral who were my teachers; there is Miss Charlotte, who taught many of us our A. B. C., and I see yonder Manoah Pratt, who afterwards in a room of the old Academy, taught me other rudiments, and here on my left stands Asa Wells, who taught me geography and grammar, and I see all around me the boys and girls of those days, now most of them happy husbands and wives, or fathers or mothers : but how are we all changed; time has made his mark, most of us have come to that period when we look at the short future and contrast it with the long past.
We have had here a grand and joyful re-union, soon we must shake the parting hand, and by the lightning train speed to our distant homes. May the sunset of our lives be bright ; and
" In life's closing hour when the trembling soul flies, And death stills the heart's last emotion, Oh! then may the seraph of mercy arise Like a star on Eternity's ocean."
Dr. Stevens having concluded his remarks, the melody of " music" from Dresher's full band again filled the grove. After which the President said : " We have heard much from Pompey's sons and it may be pleasant and interesting now to hear from some person who was not born in Pompey, not that there is any want of material here, for Pompey has yet remaining some thousands more of statesmen and orators. I therefore, propose the following toast :
" The unfortunates of the human race born outside of the town of Pompey. They have our hearty sympathy and con- dolence, and we can only say that we hope they will do bet- ter the next time."
I call upon Col. Andrew J. Smith, of Syracuse. Col. Smith responded in a humorous and amusing speech, and closed by reciting in an effective manner, "Miles O'Reiley, after the fall of Richmond."
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The next toast proposed by President Wood, was as fol- lows :-
"The towns of Onondaga County-The town of Pom- pey extends fraternal greeting to her sisters, and invokes for them a future as bright, honorable and prosperous as her past has been." And called for a voluntary response, when F. W. Fenner, Esq., of Lysander, took the stand and spoke as follows :-
MR. FENNER'S SPEECH.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :-
I have been listening with feelings of pleasure to the re- marks that have been made by the distinguished ex-residents of Pompey-those who have " gone out" from the old town, and made themselves distinguished as Governors, States- men, Judges, Lawyers, Doctors and Poets. But I think it is fair that those from old Pompey, who have not gained a handle to their names should have a representation upon this platform.
I claim to hail from the old town, although it was my misfortune not to be born on the hill, but down in the val- ley. In 1818 I was carried with my father and his family, by the force of circumstances, to the forlorn and forsaken town of Lysander, and from there to Camillus, where but few then lived. Well, my father lived until 1851, an in- dustrious farmer, a good citizen, and a credit to the old town of Pompey. He was a tiller of the soil, a hewer of the timber; but he came out victorious, with nine children, but no lawyers or professional men among them ! However, the old fathers and mothers of Pompey taught their chil- dren good morals, industry and economy, and may God be praised that we have been blessed with such fathers and mothers. Pompey may well be proud of them ; for without them none of our distinguished and honorable friends who have addressed us to-day, could have said that they were born in Pompey! (Laughter).
I am not a public speaker, I plow the soil, but I did think
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that we of the hardy hand ourselves, needed a representa- tive here, and I determined to be that one, as no other re- sponded. We cannot all be statesmen, judges and lawyers, and we don't want to be, and we would not be if we could. (Laughter). Some of us must look to the soil, and to the genuine, hard honest workers the country owes its prosperi- ty, and I think the dear old town has abundant reason to be proud of her farmers, as well as of her other great men, for without them the professions would come to naught. (Applause).
The Chairman then announced that an original poem, entitled "A FRAGMENT," would be read by H. D. L. Sweet, of Syracuse. Mr. Sweet then read the following poem :
We who boast that our grand-parents formed that noble little band ยท Who subdued the mighty forests that encumbered this fair land ; They who made the howling wilderness to blossom like the rose ; In their dusky neighbors finding friends, and not insatiate foes, Should remember that the relies which we find in all our fields Point to people who once dwelt here that no history reveals.
I have sought the tomes historie, I have roamed tradition's shade, For some hidden written record that this people must have made ; I have watched for the revealing by some dusky Indian Chief, Such a legend as would strengthen every link of my belief; But alas, in vain I've sought them, still they all elnde pursuit ; All conjecture ends in chaos, every witness still is mute.
Thus I thought and thus I'd written, it was only yester night, That once more I roamed the forest in a sad disheartened plight, And I saw as it was near a mighty monarch of the wood, Quite unthinking I approached it, and beneath its branches stood. All unconscions I addressed it, as I viewed its form with pride ; Few, and simple were the questions, and in whispers it replied :- "Mountain pine tree, standing in the glory vet, Half forgotten of the nation which this hill Once supported with its plenty ?" " I forget ? Sooner cease the murmur of yon little rill ; Brothers fell by fire and ax in sight of me ; Fields were cleared of forests and the waving corn Grew in place of beeches, maples, that you see, Years, and years before the eldest ones were born. Rudely, bleakly whistled winds around my form ; Lonely, bravely stood I in a century's storm."
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Carry baek your mental vision through the far receding years,
When these trees you now term monarchs could have formed the shaft of spears ;
'Ere the Plymoth roek was trodden by those puritanic feet, Or the classic James was rippled by a Newport's modest fleet ; Ere the Spaniards built Augustine, or the Frenchmen reared Quebec; Or the Dutchmen on the Hudson found that little island speck ; llere a colony resided, these the fields that once were tilled By a purely peaceful people, in the arts of war unskilled.
Here the sound of rural labor in the sweetest gentlest strains, Filled the breezes with their music, where no jar of discord reigns ; Where no sound of selfish traffic could be heard within the mart ; And disasters born of commerce brought no anguish to the heart. Here were no conflicting dogmas; here no quarrels of the press, Here the wealthy were not worried by pale poverty's distress. Here the poor were free from envy of a neighbor's greater wealth, For the man was counted richest who enjoyed the finest health. Politics were uninvented, office-seekers all unknown,
Non-producers lean and stinted lived on what they earned alone.
Women knew no height of fashion, wore no ribbons, pearls or lace ; Decked their forms in simple vesture, with a modest native grace ; Won their men with love, not passion, that divine but subtle force ; Raised their babes to honest manhood, (never seeking a divorce) ; Novels then did not attract them, no, nor Saratoga Springs,
Or a thousand dollar Cashmere, or a pair of diamond rings ; Ignorant of all around them, save their duty-is it queer They enjoyed the rights God gave them, each in her respective sphere ?
Years and years this people flourished, in the plentitude of peace, Giving praise with hearts unsullied, as each harvest brought increase. HEuts were built of trees and branches, covered o'er with curling bark, Round which trailing vines were clustered, bearing blossoms rich and rare
In the spring-time; but in autumn stripped of all their foliage stark, Giving fruitage to the people as a recompense for care,
Fields were cleared, and plowed and planted, smaller seeds were deftly SOWII,
Corn we hoed and flocks were tended, blooming grass was duly mown, Smiling plenty crowned their labors, gentle peace encircled all,
Till the jealousy of Indians reached its climax, wrought their fall.
It was in the early autumn, when the evening breeze was mild ; That arose a midnight tempest, louder rose the war-whoop wild ; Flashed the lightning sharp and vivid, but as quick the forest child Whirled the gleaming bloody hatchet, buried in some settler's brain, Freeing souls from earthly bondage, trials, troubles, cares and pain ;
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Flowed the red tide like a torrent, fuller, freer, flowed the rain, Washing from the reeking greensward every spot of bloody stain ! Wailing went the tearing tempest, as its moans grew low and soft, Rose the flaming lights more fearful, leeping terribly aloft,
From the cabin, barn and cottage-in the valley, on the hill,
When the morning blessed the landscape, all was gone and all was still."
At the conclusion of Mr. Sweet's poem, George H. Jer- ome, of Niles, Michigan, was loudly called for, who stepped upon the platform and said :
Mr. President :-
At the call of my friends about me here, I have consent- ed to come forward to show you what grand old Pompey has done and can do in the way of her physical productions. While the brains of Pompey have been well represented here to-day, and her moral average has been shown to be a good deal above par, none have had the courage to stand up for physical men. I stand before you as a pretty fair rep- resentative of a well-preserved physical Pompey boy-do I not ? Look at me and see if you detect any egotism in that. Well, muscle has its advantages as well as any thing else, as an incident or two this day occurring, and on these grounds will show. As we this morning came down from the Globe Hotel in Syracuse, we saw standing on the side walk, two or three boys-one of them a good chunk of a fellow, as we passed, spoke out, " there's some good looking men"-" I'll bet they are going up to that Pompey re-union." " By George, I wish I had been born on Pompey Hill." Now, Mr. President I ask you if ever a neater cleaner compliment was paid to physical development than that? Another incident. A little while ago, a lean Cassius-like friend of mine, one whom Euclid must have had in his eye when he detined a straight line-" the shortest distance between two given points," stepped up to me and said, Henry, you seem to be doing more of hand-shaking and kissing than is your share; why, my friend, said I, don't you know that the Committee of Arrangements decided to have the hand-shak- ing and bussing principally done by Pompey's fat, well-to-do
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physical sons- men whom that kind of business don't tire ? My longitudinal friend almost instantaneously collapsed, and has been seen but once since, and that was at a refresh- ment booth, making a most vigorous effort to recruit.
Some pretty tall bragging, as I take it, has been done here to-day, about the glory of birth. Why you can't find in all this vast crowd, a man, woman or child, who will admit that they have been born anywhere else than in old Pompey. Now, if there is any bragging to be done on the score of birth I can beat at that game every mother's one of you, for I was not only born in old Pompey, but I was born twice. I had here a dual birth. And if you don't believe me, I can produce a two hundred avoirdupois witness, a twin brother, nearly as big as myself, to swear to it. Beat that who ean, for although Pompey has given birth to Gov- ernors, M. C.'s, Judges, and lots of big men, as we have to- day often been told, yet she has sent out but mighty few men of double birth. Why, I have a brother, whenever he looks at me, I mean at my dual-duplicated self, involun- tarily exclaim, " what a birth !"
Now, Mr. President, not a word has been said about the Lyceums of old Pompey. A moment about that and I am done. We all remember the Lyceum fever and furor dur- ing the reign of Stebbins. Not a place, not a time, not an occasion was too sacred for spouting and debate. You, Mr. Chairman, must recollect the time when you under the hill, just below where you used to live, waxed eloquent, with no- body but stones, trees, fences, and G. H. Jerome well con- cealed under the fence, for your auditors. Don't you ? Your honest blush gives the answer. I was one of a number of the Academy boys who organized a Lyceum, appointed a chairman and held grand discussions in the belfry of the old Baptist church. Nor was our discussions in that heavenly locality always spiritual. Aye more, I was a member, in good and regular standing of a debating club, organized and its meetings held in a seven-by-nine ice house. And it was at one of those debates on a political question, that a brother
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of mine, Wm. Watson, was converted from Whiggery to De- mocracy, and the very next day after his conversion, he borrowed the money of a Whig brother, and enclosed it to Edwin Croswell, for the Albany Argus, the first Democratic paper ever seen in my father's house. After that he held office as a Democrat, and lived a Democrat up to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. So it is, I hail with quickened and glad remembrance those Lyceums, for it is to them that we are so largely indebted here to-day, for those Ciceros and Demosthenese, who have fulminated so acceptably at. this memorable re-union.
But, Mr. President, I came not here to talk, I simply con- sented to stand up here for a moment in defense, and if you please, in illustration of Pompey's physical renown-to tell you, that not alone is Pompey's fame intellectual, nor yet alone is her grandeur moral-that wherever bold adventure and physical heroism have thrown their gauntlet and piled their monuments-that wherever sinew and pluck have re- corded their victories-that on those cannon-riven battle- fields, where liberty was the guerdon and muscle the im- plement of its achievement, there-there too-Pompey's boys are seen at the front, in no spirit of self-glory; shout- ing to their comrades born of the lowlands, Come on ! Come on ! !
At the close of Mr. Jerome's address, Dr. R. F. Stevens, of Syracuse, made a few remarks, as follows .
DR. R. F. STEVENS' STATEMENT.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :-
For some strange reason or other, the committee of ar- rangements from the town of Pompey seemed to think it necessary to have a corresponding secretary in the city of Syracuse, and it fell to my lot to be named for that office.
I will not detain you now further than to mention that for the last three weeks, I have not had any opportunity to attend to a single item of my own business; I have a great many letters with me, thirty or forty of which would be
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very interesting to you, and I will mention some of the names of those that you will readily recognize.
Charles Mason, who says it was impossible for him to be here. I would be glad to read it, but it is too lengthy. Rev. Jared Ostrander and his wife, Lucien Birdseye, several let- ters from the Marshes, Murrays, Fargoes, Jeromes, Bost- wicks, Wrights, and others, are in my possession. I will state as corresponding secretary, that I have sent out over fifteen hundred letters of invitation, and I will state also that I have distributed to-day, among the multitude here assembled, over six thousand circulars or programmes of the exercises of the day.
This will indicate to you very clearly, the magnitude of this re-union, and I merely mention it as secretary of the organization, that I regard it most extraordinary, I have not the slightest doubt, we have here to-day, over eight thou- sand people.
One more toast will be read, to be responded to by Mr. VanBrocklin, and then so far as I know, the exercises of the afternoon will be closed after hearing from the quartette again, a piece selected by themselves.
The day being nearly spent, the President announced that he would propose but one more toast, as follows :-
The present residents of Pompey-Worthy sons of noble sires. In their hands the fair fame of the old town will suf- fer no reproach. Its escutcheon will remain bright and un- tarnished. He called upon Wm. W. VanBrocklin, Esq., to respond.
MR. VAN BROCKLIN'S RESPONSE.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
This is no occasion to render an excuse for this unexpeet- ed call. From what has already been said during the ex- ercises of this day, which will ever remain sacred and fondly cherished in our every heart, and from what we have seen, we have a fair account, and a clear demonstration of what
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l'ompey has produced. What the future shall be, depends upon her present citizens. I noticed that an idea that I ven- tured to suggest this morning, in the address of welcome, " that there is a philosophy closely connecting a people with the land of their birth," was somewhat elaborated in that appropriate essay delivered on this occasion by one of my early schoolmates, Mrs. Miller, who so opportunely occu- pied the vacancy occasioned by the regretted absence of the accomplished Grace Greenwood. You will remember that she demonstrated the proposition, by facts observed by the celebrated Bayard Taylor, among the rugged Pyrenees, and the majestic snow-crowned Alps. Governor Seymour, too, gently, almost poetically touched the same cord, in his beau- tiful allusion to the fishes of the sea and the wild denizens of the forest. Now, while I firmly believe that nativity has much to do with the characteristics of mankind, I just as frankly confess, that all the transcendent excellencies of character, that individualize the great and good of earth, do not depend entirely upon the spot upon which they hap- pened to be born. It has been said that Pompey is a good place in which to be born, and a still better place from which to emigrate. I think I can accommodate both of these propositions, with the stamp of truth. The first has been demonstrated. As to the second, I would say, if you have ambition for wealth, or fame; if you would acquire distinc- tion in forensic debate, or in legislative halls; if you would reach the highest niche among the kings of finance, or the ultimate goal of the statesman's ambition ; leave these glo- rious old hills, and go where wealth, and worldly honors will be showered upon you, for " a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country." But if you would hold a closer communion with God, and be enabled placidly to view the jarring elements of strife and contention, raging in the world around and beneath you, then still linger around these sacred peaks-Nature's self-appointed temples, that the faithless and the false should ne'er pollute. I can assure you from experience, having had a mixed existence of ex- citement from without, and repose among the verdant hills
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of this my native town, that for comfort, and the full enjoy- ment of the amenities of social life, and the cultivation of the more ennobling faculties of our nature, a country life is the true condition of our being, where we can oft when returned from the field, "drink deep drafts from the old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, the moss-covered bucket, which hangs in the well." A country life is conducive to temperance. There remains, moreover, much good cheer in the good old town of Pompey.
You have seen it here to-day, in the sumptuous tables spread, from which so many thousands have been refreshed. Health and happiness, innocence and virtue, too, are the conditions of a life among these pure breezes of our moun- tain homes. This you have seen to-day, in the honest spark- ling eyes of the young sons and daughters of Pompey as as with nimble feet, and gushing hearts of welcome, they have passed through these aisles, administering to the phy- sical wants of this vast multitude ; while the bounding blood of youthful vigor coursing their veins, has given them a vi- vacity and earnestness, which has assured you how welcome you have been made to your early home. And while the keeping of the enviable reputation of old Pompey, rests with such as have to-day met and welcomed home the wandering clans, I can confidently affirm the truth of the proposition, "That in the hands of the present residents of Pompey, the fair fame of the old hill-town will not degenerate." For this we have good reason, as it has been demonstrated, that Pompey cannot naturally produce any but great men and women. Yet, you will find in the future, that there will not be that pre-eminent notoriety among Pompey's children, that there has been in the past. This I am constrained to say, as I am more in the habit of dealing with facts, than to amuse or flatter.
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