USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > Warren > Warren centennial : an account of the celebration at Warren, Pennsylvania July 2d, 3d, and 4th in commeration of the first century after the laying out of the town of Warren > Part 4
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Promptly at half-past ten Tuesday morning the regular program was taken up, and the procession formed at the headquarters of the Director-General, headed by the Warren Cornet Band. Then came the Director-General, followed by the President and other members and committees of the Centennial Association, and the Burgess and Town Council of the Borough of Warren.
Arriving at the platform, the grand stand and intervening benches were found well filled with people, and after the band had given a medley of patriotic airs, the Rev. John A. Kummer, D.D., of the First M. E. Church of Warren, was introduced by President Stone and offered prayer.
The Hon. Charles W. Stone, President of the Centennial Association, then delivered the address of welcome as follows :
Ladies and Gentlemen : Warren has existed for a century. No one of her citizens remains who can tell us of its birth, and there are few even of the second generation to recite the incidents and events
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of its early existence. A hundred years is a long period -- longer than the life of most individuals, longer than the life of many nations. Not one in- dependent nation on the western continent except our own has existed a hundred years. The round- ing out of a century is no common event, the retro- spect of a hundred years no ordinary spectacle, and the close of a century in the life of any nation or community has come to be regarded as an event worthy of notice and commemoration.
When, a few years ago, the United States cele- brated her centennial, that wonderful exhibition, ex- tending through several months, was to the world a marvellous revelation of the growth and greatness and richness of the American republic. No one questioned the propriety of the celebration of the centenary of the nation's birth, and nothing in her history, save only the demonstration of her ability to suppress the most gigantic rebellion the world ever saw, has so exalted the standing of this people among the nations of the world or so extended our trade and stimulated the development of our mar- vellous resources as that celebration. As an expres- sion of sentiment, of patriotic pride, it was com- mendable ; as a simple business enterprise, it was wisely planned and rich in practical results. What is true of the nation on a large scale is true of the town on a smaller one; and the celebration to-day of the close of the first century of Warren's exist- ence, while primarily the outgrowth of sentiment, of a sentimentality if you choose, not over-luxuriant of growth in American character and American life,
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an expression of pride and love we bear the place of our homes, may yet, in ultimate results, demon- strate that, in its conception, sentiment and practical worldly wisdom have been interwoven like the warp and woof of the web.
But I stop not to discuss this. The one thought uppermost in all our minds to-day undoubtedly is of the contrast existing between the conditions that surround us now and those that existed a century ago. Standing, a hundred years back, where we stand to-day, we should have found ourselves sur- rounded by pathless and almost boundless primeval forests. Through them the last savage war-whoop had hardly ceased to reverberate. The gallant Wayne had just won that memorable victory which really opened this region to white settlement. Where we now stand, or near here, had been an Indian village, and here the people of Cornplanter lived in pristine simplicity. Across the river a band of surveyors, protected by a company of soldiers with their flint-lock muskets, were laying out the town of Warren, yet uninhabited. No railway-train or steamboat had relieved the tiresomeness of their journey over the mountains and up the river. No telegraph existed, no postal communication con- nected them with even the outposts of civilization, no steam-engine was known, no electric motor nor light except as it illumined the stormy heavens. Petroleum was valued only as a useful liniment. The very necessities of modern life were then un- known and unattainable luxuries. The conditions that surrounded our fathers were rough and rugged.
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Those conditions developed sturdy frames and strong if not broad characters.
" To them was life a simple art Of duties to be done, A game where each man took his part,
A race where all must run,
A battle whose great scheme and scope They little cared to know, Content, as men-at-arms, to cope Each with his fronting foe."
So they met the requirements of daily life; so they surmounted the obstacles that everywhere con- fronted them ; so they levelled forests, reared homes, planted fields and garnered up the fruits of their toil ; so they laid the foundations of the town in which we live-crudely, roughly, awkwardly per- haps, but honestly and substantially. With them life was indeed " a race where all must run." They had no place for the drone or the coward. What they had and what they were to have came to them only as the result of their own effort and their own frugality. While they reared a town and builded fortunes they builded character, and the town came to partake of the character of its founders. It was not showy, it was not pretentious, it was not sensa- tional ; it had no feverish periods of abnormal growth. no chilly days of sickly decay. Slowly, steadily, firmly it moved forward, keeping fair pace with the progress of modern life, until to-day it stands " beautiful for situation," solid in foundation, substantial of growth, the "gem of the Alleghenies" -our own loved home. What it is, what it may be,
6
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I shall not attempt to delineate further than to say it is and will be what, and only what, its sons and daughters make it. It will not rise above and can- not fall below the average level of the character and attainments of its citizens. Each individual helps to give character to the town. As he raises himself and broadens his own character, and learns to look out beyond himself and realize his relations and his duties to his fellow-men, he will do his part to broaden and strengthen the growth of the town in which he lives ; and as the standard of the life of the town as a whole is raised, as civilizing and en- lightening influences in its midst are strengthened and multiplied, so the tendency will be to raise the standard of the life of each individual. When the town as a whole moves up and forward, it carries with it all its citizens, even the listless and idle ; but how much nobler to aid than to retard such progress ; to lift according to your strength than to rest, a dead load, on those who are lifting ; to march in the van- guard of the column of progress than to straggle in its rear.
Fellow-citizens of Warren, standing, as we do, on the threshold of a new century, with all its opportu- nities and all its responsibilities confronting us, with the vast possibilities of individual life and individual growth almost unlimited, I press home to each one of you the thought-and the solemn thought-of the weight of responsibility and duty we owe to each other, and jointly and severally to the town in which we dwell. No man lives to himself alone, and no man comprehends the spirit and scope of this match-
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less age of ours who does not realize that the duty of the individual to the public in effort and service is no less than of the public to the individual in pro- tection and guidance. To perform this duty he must be awake and alive and act now. He cannot list- lessly wait till next week or next year. This is an age of action, of motion, not of rest; of the steam- engine and the electric car, not of the stage-coach ; of the telegraph and telephone, not of the postman and his saddle-bags. Never before and nowhere else in the world's history has human intellect and human ingenuity reached such a state of intense activity and broad development as in this day and nation, and never before and nowhere else have the rewards of energy and enterprise been so great or the scope of man's accomplishment been so broad.
" In an age on ages telling To be living is sublime,"
but the sublimity comes only with an intelligent comprehension of the opportunities presented and the responsibilities involved. I cannot elaborate. I undertake now to point out no path of individual duty. That can be easily found. When found, it will not be smooth ; it is rugged, but it leads up, not down-to glory, not dishonor; to life, not death. I do, however, say, in brief, that the best interests of this town ought to lie near the heart of every citi- zen, and whatever makes for civilization, for refine- ment, for progress, for growth, for enlargement- not of territory only, not of population simply, not of business merely, but of the great aggregate of
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mind and heart and soul-whatever brings broader vision and higher aspiration, and more generous and unselfish action, should command the cordial co- operation of every citizen.
Ladies and Gentlemen : I will not detain you longer. In behalf of the citizens of Warren, I bid you a hearty welcome to our celebration and invoke your cordial co-operation in its progress. We shall endeavor to give you some idea of what Warren was and is. We may exaggerate its beauties and charms, its achievements and possibilities ; but if so, it is but the outgrowth of the love we bear our home, for, " Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home." To that home we bid you cordial welcome. Last week it was and next week it will be ours; this week it is yours.
Then came the glee club of one hundred voices, led by Dr. W. W. Freeman, with which the audience joined in singing several songs of "ye olden time."
Following these vocal selections, Burgess James W. Wiggins was introduced. The gentleman made no attempt at delivering a set speech. He said in substance that he had a remembrance of a piece he used to read in his old Fifth Reader, entitled " Rienzi's Address to the Romans," in which the gentleman remarked that he "came not here to talk," and then went on and spoke for four or five hours. The gentleman said that he was not there to indulge in a long talk, but rather to listen to others. After touching briefly on various minor subjects pertaining to the Centennial, he said he
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was pleased to see the red men present in such large numbers, the ancestors of whom had inhabited these hills and valleys so many years ago. He hoped the friendship between the white man and the Indian that had been formed during the life of that grand and good old chief, Cornplanter, the friend of Washington, would always flourish and grow, if possible, stronger. He was glad to know that the President and Council of the Six Nations, a confederacy that was born and had its existence long before the confederacy of the American Colo- nies was dreamed of, were to be here during the Centennial, and said he thought it was the first occa- sion of a like character since its formation.
The past, present and future of Warren was briefly touched on, and incidentally a little said regarding correct municipal government, which, as he looked at it, should allow the town or city to own its own water-works, electric-light plants, etc. He believed that the present occasion would prove of great benefit to the coming generation, and thought that the com- ing one hundred years would each feel the effects of it in more ways than one.
In closing, he extended the freedom of the city to all visitors, adding, by way of appendix, that he hoped, on leaving, they would return it, as there might be use for it in the future. He further said, in jocose allusion to the presence of the Indians, that he hoped the visitors would carry as much of their hair home with them as they brought. Mr. Wiggins's remarks were well received and loudly applauded.
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Hon. Charles H. Noyes, President Judge of the Thirty-seventh District, composed of the counties of Warren and Forest, and Chairman of the Executive Committee, was the next speaker, who spoke sub- stantially as follows :
Mr. President: It has passed into a proverb that he who dips his feet in the crystal waters of the Allegheny is bound to its banks for life. To these green hills and fertile valleys the hearts of the pil- grims and exiles turn with longing affection, and hither they sooner or later return from the flat plains of the West or the burning fields of the too sunny South, to which the Yankee instinct for change has removed them. If there are to-day among us strangers from a distance, may I not ask them to look upon these gracefully swelling hills, clad in the green of forest and field, upon yonder crescent river lying like a silver sickle between its willow- fringed banks, upon the town whose spires and roofs loom above the waving tree-tops, and upon this assemblage of its men, its women, its children-its strength, its beauty and its hope-and tell me whether we have not cause to be proud of our country and our town, and reason for celebrating with joy and festivity its one hundredth year.
One hundred years is not a long period in human history. Men are within the sound of my voice whose years go back almost to the time when Irvine and Ellicott, with that sublime faith which marks the Yankee race, laid out lots and parks, and streets and lanes, and sites for public buildings, in the midst
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of the untrodden wilderness. Nor is it anything remarkable, in this age of wonders, that a town of Sooo or 9000 inhabitants, with such buildings and with such industries, should have grown up in a century. After Chicago and Kansas City, it does not become us to be boastful on that score. But the evolution of the society of the twentieth century is a wonder which will be forever wonderful, and of this the growth of Warren is a part. We may study it here as well as at Chicago. Here, as there, the progress has been from the wigwam to the palace ; from the ox-cart to the Pullman and the bicycle ; from buckskin and feathers to big sleeves and-shall I say it ?- bloomers. It was the aim of the projectors of this Exhibition to illustrate the changes in life and manners during the one hundred years in a variety of ways. This has been done more perfectly and expansively by the committee in charge than any one dared at the outset to even suggest. The Indian wigwam, which was designed to represent aboriginal life, has expanded into a whole village. and a daily, almost hourly, exhibition of Indian life and manners. The block-house-the primitive set- tlers' fort-has been executed as an actuality, and not merely as a scenic representation. "Jackson's Tavern" has risen from its ashes-with the help of Kiantone; and if you do not get venison for dinner there it will be because Chief O'Bail doesn't go out with his young men after the deer. The old times will be further recalled by the interesting exhibits in the Hall of Antiquities and the old-time spelling, and singing-schools, the old folks' reunions and the
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quiltin', which is so life-like that one would expect to meet his grandmother there. Elsewhere you will find most interesting exhibits recalling Warren in war times-her women's work at home as well as the sufferings of her sons in the field-and, still further, some suggestion of the condition of Warren in our own times. To all this and to the wonders described on the program I join with the President in giving you a cordial welcome.
Warren has not produced many men and women who have attained to very wide notoriety, but many who were worthy to fill the highest places. I was not here early enough to know the ancients, as we may call them, but I have known them well and intimately at second-hand, through the eloquent and living pictures drawn by such masters as Johnson, Struthers and Brown, and especially Scofield, who, along with his capacity for statesmanship, could paint character and depict a scene to the life with the talent of another Dickens, had he chosen to so apply it.
I may not, in the time allotted, venture to speak of all the men who have made their mark upon the pages of Warren's history, but none among them will be remembered longer or more worthily than the old war chief, whose young men hunted over this ground when the first white men came to survey it. In his veins flowed a mingled stream drawn on the one hand from generations of savage chiefs, on the other from generations of indomitable Dutch- men, from whom we derived much of the good in our institutions and learned the value of liberty;
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men whose country may well be called the mother of our own-for it was from Holland that the Pilgrim Fathers first set sail on their way to found New England. His life was noble according to its lights, and his wisdom far above the people among whom he lived. He was wise, brave, truthful, faithful to duty at all times and at any sacrifice. Of what white man can more than this be said ?-- Of course, I refer to Cornplanter. To him and William Penn it is due that at this day the red nation flourishes in the heart of our civilization, changed but not annihilated, and still in a measure independent, and we welcome them and their representatives among us.
What will the coming years bring forth? More houses and finer, more factories and larger, more population and the satisfaction of dwelling in a larger town? I am not unmindful of these things, but reflec- tion has taught me not to overvalue them. If we have not multiplied as fast as our neighbors, if our chimneys are not so high, our population not so dense, nor our streets so busy, I am glad that our people are better housed, better fed and better paid, and, as I am glad to believe, on the whole, happier and more contented. It is better that we should be happy than great; so may the century that is coming bring our children those things which work for right- eousness and happiness rather than greatness.
THE RESERVATION BAND .-- Then came a fine selec- tion by Prof. Leigh's band, of Gowanda, N. Y., an organization made up entirely of Indians. Their effort was loudly applauded.
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Director-General H. J. Muse was then introduced by President Stone. In the course of his introduc- tory remarks he paid that gentleman a very high compliment for the efficiency he had displayed in bringing the huge task in his hands to so successful an outcome, and, continuing, said :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : We to-day celebrate the occurrence of events that took place upon this ground a century ago, the participants in which have long since passed from the earth ; and this latter fact makes more apparent the truth of that which at all times is impressed upon the minds of thoughtful persons, that man lives in the present, but his deeds are perpetuated after his physical ex- istence has terminated. It is natural and proper that at times men should call a halt in the speedy march of life's absorbing and engrossing events, and casting their thoughts backward through the vista of years separating the present from the dis- tant past, review reflectively the results achieved, and thereby acquire a safe and an instructive guide for the future.
The present is an auspicious occasion for the people of Warren to mentally marshal their historical and experimental knowledge of the occurrences of the past, and dwell with honest gratification upon the achievements of the first century of the exist- ence of their beautiful town.
We may be pardoned if, in our reflections, mem- ory stops not at the time when, by the authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a survey was
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made of certain territory within our view, and streets, squares and lots plotted thereon for a fu- ture town, named in honor of a gallant hero of Revolutionary fame, whose patriotism, valor and heroic deeds in that hard-fought struggle for inde- pendence, the success of which has crowned the world with priceless and enduring blessings, we ought to commemorate by a fitting monument erected within the limits of the borough of Warren. The name of Joseph Warren, who yielded up his life in the cause of Colonial freedom at the historic battle of Bunker Hill, fires the American heart with love of liberty, and kindles anew within the soul an un- selfish devotion to our native land.
It was at the close of that war waged by Warren and his compatriots for national independence and freedom from British dominion and misrule, and after its heroes-who had survived the sufferings and privations incident to insufficient food, clothing and shelter, the marches, sieges and the shock of battle, and seen the glorious termination of the un- equal contest between Great Britain and her colonies -had returned from the fields of carnage and glory to their firesides, that a spirit of migration was kindled along the Atlantic coast. Westward over the Alleghenies the march of civilization began.
Through dense and interminable forests, along the course of friendly and convenient streams, en- countering and vanquishing savage men and beasts, courting and enduring hardships and privations, your ancestors came to the junction of the Cone- wango creek and the Allegheny river, where they
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founded a town that for a century has steadily grown and expanded into a community of Sooo souls, with churches, schools, banks, public buildings and edi- fices, private homes, railroads and a vast variety of industrial establishments which entitle Warren to her far-famed reputation as a prosperous, contented and substantial community.
With your productions of oil and gas you con- tribute to the light of the world ; with your produc- tions of lumber you help to build cities and towns ; through the skill, industry and enterprise of your citizens your manufactured products find ready sale throughout the Union, and your articles of export, natural and manufactured, contribute very materially to supply the demands of foreign commerce.
Your educational institutions and the natural intelligence, spirit and patriotism of the people have furnished the nations and the world with not a few notable examples of wise statesmanship, heroism and devotion to the cause of human liberty.
In the forward march of the world's intelligence, in the advancement of thought and art, and in the forces that contribute to the true welfare of human- ity, the women of Warren have ever furnished bright and worthy examples. Her daughters stand in the front rank of reform and progressive move- ments, and in the community constitute the life and forceful power of Christian and benevolent enter- prises ; their influence and energies often blaze the way, and lead in schemes calculated to improve and elevate the moral tone of the public and establish the supreme rule of "peace and good-will." They
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are powerful for good, notwithstanding the exchange of the hoop-skirts of their grandmothers' day for the modern balloon-sleeves.
Warren points with honest pride to her record of the past century and to the future with bright ex- pectations. Because of these, in part, her citizens have conceived and arranged this celebration, com- memorative of the mighty and fruitful past, and to which we have been invited. In the various depart- ments will be found many articles of ancient use and amusement-relics and antiquities-mute but unimpeachable witnesses of the manners and cus- toms of our ancestors, illustrating their life in war and in the happier pursuits of peace.
You will here see illustrated the dangers and hardships which the early settlers of this beautiful valley were subjected to by aboriginal tribes, whose descendants, arrayed in their native costumes and war-dresses of the past century, will participate in mimic warfare with the white man as their forefathers did in reality in the boundless forests of this region more than one hundred years ago. Here will be seen mementos of the past, reminders of the life- and-death struggles of the republic with her foes, foreign and domestic. Here, too, can be viewed the fruits of peaceful and intelligent industry and toil. To all these and much more that will both interest and instruct you your attention will be in- vited after the conclusion of the opening exercises of the day.
At the conclusion of the Director-General's speech
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the procession re-formed, and, headed by the bands -three in number-marched to the Indian village, where a most interesting ceremony took place. Seated on a platform, erected for that purpose in the centre of the semicircle of tepees, were the leading chiefs and women of the Seneca Nation from both the Cattaraugus and Cornplanter reservations.
The chiefs were seated on the front rows of chairs, while the squaws occupied seats in the rear. These latter were bedecked with all manner of bright- colored dresses and ribbons, the leading color being red. The picture presented was, although not ex- actly pretty, certainly fascinating, attractive, and at the same time somewhat formidable, and it was noticed that the crowd was not possessed of any great desire to get too near the stand, but kept back at a respectful distance. The celebrated personage known as Solomon O'Bail, a grandson of Corn- planter, occupied the centre of the first circle. He is now a man eighty years of age and somewhat infirm. When the procession arrived at the stand the officials of the Association, headed by ex-Lieu- tenant-Governor Stone, ascended to the platform, and the crowd formed in line to listen to the vener- able chieftain, O'Bail, who addressed the committee through the aid of an interpreter, Harrison Half- town, as follows :
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