The history of Washington county, in the Vermont historical gazetteer:, Part 87

Author: Hemenway, Abby Maria, 1828-1890, [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Montpelier, Vt., Vermont watchman and state journal press
Number of Pages: 1066

USA > Vermont > Washington County > The history of Washington county, in the Vermont historical gazetteer: > Part 87

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now dedicate, as the resting place of your beloved dead. And it is easy to predict what its aspect will be in a few years, when its remaining roughness shall have been assuaged ; when every returning sum- mer shall bring with it a richer shadow, and an added bloom :- when affection shall have beautified it in every nook, and watered its flowers with tears.

On this occasion, so fraught with sol- emn, yet not unpleasing suggestion, your thoughts will naturally recur to one whose hand was always open with a generous largess, and who devised a portion of his wealth for so benevolent an end. The heart is cold in death which lately throbbed with sympathy for the living, but if no chiselled shaft should rise in gratitude upon the height to bear the record of his vir- tues, this spot shall be his noblest monu- ment. Peace to his ashes.

You, too, have done well, and have re- sponded to a true sentiment in consecra- ting these acres to a purpose so hallowed. Here, indeed, the husbandman shall not put in the grain, nor shall the plough-boy carol, nor shall the waving corn be seen upon these hills. They shall receive the germs of a richer harvest in their bosom. This land shall not change hands. It is the inalienable heritage of the dead forever. It is their riches, their right, their possession ;- theirs, with all its abundant variety of hill and dale, and rocks, and flowing water ;- a little dust, but it is enough to satisfy the wants of many. It will be protected with a jealous care, and none will be so rude in instinct as to pluck a flower. The winds alone shail rifle the buds which grow in this gar- den, and the frosts of heaven shall nip their heads. The laws which truly guard it, are not the statutes inscribed on pillars ; they are those which are graven deep in human nature: and the sentinels which keep watch over the tomb, are the most delicate sensibilities of the heart. Thus shall it descend as a burial place from gen- eration to generation, till it shall become so rich and holy with beloved dust, that all the treasures upon earth would not wrest it from your possession. It is now offered, with all its boundaries which lie beneath these skies. The deeds will be presented by your commissioners.

" This fairest spot of hill and glade,

Where blooms the flower and waves the tree, And silver streams delight the shade,

We consecrate, O Death, to Thee."

An innate sentiment teaches us to have respect to the ashes of the departed. Thus when the spark of life is fled, the mourner stands long to gaze upon the casket which contained the jewel. Tenderly does he close the eyes which shall know no more

"their wonted fires," and imprints a last kiss on the lips which Death has sealed. He scatters flowers upon the silent bosom. He enrobes the form of the sleeper in fair and white habiliments, and at last in silence and in sorrow commits it to the purifying monld ;- earth to earth,-ashes to ashes, -dust to dust. Nor does he rest con- tented when he has put it from his sight with the latest ceremonials which decency requires. He guards the sacred spot from each profane intrusion, and there he lin- gers long, if he has loved well.

We find a care for sepulture existing by the proof of earliest records.

" ABRAHAM stood up, and bowed him- self to the people of the land, even to the children of .Heth. And he communed with them, saying, ' If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and intreat for me to Ephon the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field ; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me, for a possession of a burial place among you.'"-Gen. 23, 7-9.

All people have exhibited the like trait of humanity, The dreamy Turk will leave the living crowd which is by the Bosphorus, and sit all day beside the graves of his kindred. The red man of the forest cher- ishes within him the same germ and attri- bute of a higher civilization : for as a hard fate drives the tribes still onward to the " Father of Waters," the last thoughts of their hearts is directed towards the spots where rest the bones of their fathers.

He who does violence to such a senti- ment, lacks even the refinement of the savage. It is the tendency of the age to disregard in some things that which the past held sacred, and to bear them down in a vast development of physical means and physical energy. That utility is short-sight- ed which shall ever trample on the dictates of a genuine decency. The pyramids still rise sublime, with no better base than the sands of the desert; but we must only look for ruins where Mammon builds his altars on a dead man's bones.

When we gaze upon this crowd, in con- nection with the object which has brought them here, and consider how large a part of it shall, at some time or other, be dis- solved and mingle with this surrounding dust, it awakens a throb of feeling to which words cannot do justice. There is a poetry, it is true, connected with the cul- tivation of rural cemeteries ; but I trust that it is something better than the senti- mentalism which is without depth and vapid. For it is not the charm, which we may throw around these melancholy places,

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that can deprive death of its sting, or soften one shadow on the brow of the King of Terrors. It is not that the dark- ness of the grave can be mitigated, because the outside of it is beautified like a garden, nor that the sleeper will rest more softly on a bed which is perfumed with violets. It will be as cold and hard and dark beneath the clod, as if no garlands were above it. But the teachings of a holy faith can give a meaning to such adornments, and surround them with a tender solace, as the emblems of an immortal bloom.

It is because of the effect which they will have upon ourselves, and not for any good which they will do the silent sleepers. To be occupied in such pious rites, is to disengage us a little from the world's in- crustations ; to break asunder from the bonds of a prevailing selfishness ; to pay that which is due to memory, and raise our eyes to the halo which invests the future. It is to gain strength for ourselves to look down fearlessly into the portals of the sol- enn tomb ; to pay in thought, and study, and reflection, something of what we owe to the characters of the good and noble. We know that man but poorly, whom we have only known when he was living. The best may be said only to begin to live when the grave has closed upon them. I speak not this of their own destiny, but their major influence is given forth, only when they have ceased to be. It is the memory of their lives, more than their very lives, which can sink at last into our hearts, or fully exhibit their own. They are like those things which we might not have noticed, if they had not passed by. So, the river rolls on over an arid landscape, but when its chiefest volume has left the banks, then the vegetation springs up. It is from the past, the past, that we gather all our wisdom, and live a thousand years in a day. Thus we see that it springs from a refined motive, and that its tendency is salutary, when we seek to adorn a spot like this. It is to cherish the memory of those who have gone before us, and to show that love is not an empty name.

" How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold. Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod."

In surveying this spot, and the uses for which it is designed, some might be dis- posed to inquire-what need of these ex- tensive domains ? At a little distance from where we are now standing, among these wild Green Mountains, there is a humble village in the valley. It is full of thrift and industry, yet when centuries shall have

passed away,-from its location by nature, it will be only a village still.

This place shall be a city ; the youngest here present may live to see how it shall outstrip the other, in the number of its inhabitants. There will be no such compact masses and ranks of men in yonder streets as shall be assembled here. Thus death gains upon life in all places, until life shall gain the final victory over death.

On the border of that village there is already a cemetery of the dead, but it would soon be overcrowded. It clamors al- ready for a larger domain. Thus necessity itself has coincided with feeling in selecting a more ample and eligible place. There are many tender and touching associations, no doubt, connected with that spot, for its consecration is coeval with the settlement of this village. How many tears have fallen on its hitherto untroubled and quiet graves. There the child slumbers, and the young man, cut down in the nobility of his strength ; there the blossoms of the almond tree have fallen ; there the lovely daughter has been borne away, when bursting into the grace of womanhood, and when

Consumption, like a worm in the bud, Preyed on her damask cheek."

There, truly, are deposited the richest treasures which you had on earth.

But if in love and tenderness you shall disturb those ashes, to bring them here, it will be only as when one shall rearrange a couch, that they may rest more sweetly and securely and quietly forever. Here you will come afterward to smooth their narrow bed, to recall their virtues, to re- new your vows of constancy, and to say,- " My Father ! my Mother ! my Brother ! my Sister! my Child ! forget thee !- NEVER."

Hither will you come with every chang- ing season of the year to renew your pil- grimage. Hither, when the winter is past, when the rain is over and gone, when the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land ; hither, when the autumn dyes the foliage with mellow tints and hectic colors ; and you will reflect upon it without a pang, and you yourselves will covet no better lot than at last to lie down with these sleepers.

Who ever thought these rocks and jagged hills, which Nature fashioned in her wild- est moods, should so suggest the idea of quiet ? No love of sordid weal could have accomplished that which you have this day achieved by your affection. Well may yon Mount,* which towers sublime, remove the blue veil from before his eyes,

* Camel's Hump.

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to gaze on this assembled multidude. Here shall the rough rocks be transformed to snowy marble ; but if no sculpture mem- orized the dead, these glorious hills would be a monument. Yon silver stream shall chant a constant requiem. What spot more silent and select than this among the gorgeous scenery of the mountains, where Summer paints her richest contrasts, and Winter strews her costliest jewelry around the realms of Death! There is an Echo here which mocks the ear, but wakes up sympathies within the heart. The chaunt- ing voices and the rich harmonic chords, which just went up into the open sky, re- turned in undulations, fainter still to mor- tal sense, but never obsolete. Even now comes stealing back the soul of wild flowers on the soft, Septembral breeze. It is Death alone which dies. This is the Christian's solace. This shall cheer the mourning crowds which wind through yon- der gateway, when they come to lay be- neath the turf the loved and lost. All who are in the grave shall come forth, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on IMMORTALITY.

Presentation of the title deeds by H. H. Reed, Esq., in behalf of the commissioners. Dedication .- By Rev. Dr. Lord.

SIR: We receive these Title Deeds as representing and describing these beautiful and extensive grounds, which have been se- lected with so much taste, and enclosed and arranged with so great propriety and beauty, for the purpose of a burial place for our dead. The munificent provision of one of our citizens, together with the un- usual and noble liberality of the town, in furnishing the large means to procure and embellish such a spot as this, have been equalled only by the energy, the economy and discretion with which you have ap- plied them. In reaching the close of your labors, you have far exceeded our anticipa- tions ; and now present to us a lot, in it- self, and in all its arrangements, perfectly adapted to the use for which it was de- signed, and most fit to be consecrated for- ever to the purpose of christian sepulture.

It has ever been the practice, both of humanity and of religion, to commemorate the dead by material monuments, and to regard the spot, which furnished a resting place for their bodies, as peculiarly sacred. The enclosures wherein the spirit of love and mourning has perpetuated, by the planted flower, by the rude cross, by the simple stone, by the marble shaft, or by the magnificent massive monument, some traces of the affection of children, of par- ents and of friends, and which recall the images of youth and beauty, of wisdom and

goodness, and relate their worth and varied excellence ; are ever hallowed in the minds of men. We do, then, give utterance to the common sentiments of human nature, when we comply with your request, and formally consecrate and set apart, to its de- signed and appropriate uses, this Ceme- tery.

We do now, therefore, dedicate all this ground, herein described, stretching from its rocky battlements on the east to its flinty ramparts on the west; from its lofty northern boundary, along down its sloping sides ; with its central mounds, its alluvial heart, and its interval reaching near to the banks of the beautiful river that flows at its base ; with all its trees and rocks, its val- leys and hills, its springs and ravines ; with all its arranged and still unfinished lots ; to be a perpetual possession unto us and to our children, as a place where we may piously bury our dead, and rear over their ashes the symbols of our affection, and the mementoes of their worth. We dedi- cate it, as a place of reverent and mourn- ful, yet sweet recollections, of the departed ; of high and solemn contemplation upon the uncertainty of human life and its cer- tain destiny ; of serious purposes of holy living and preparation for death ; of cheer- ful and glorious anticipations of that time when the graves shall be opened, and the dead, both small and great, shall come forth 'to the promised resurrection, and re- new, amid scenes far brighter than these, the holy affections and the pious friend- ships of their primeval abode. And while we consecrate it to the dead, we commit it also to the generous care of the living ; with the hope, that it may be preserved in its present loveliness ; with the prayer, that whenever its turf may be broken, it shall be but to receive to its keeping the body of one who believes in our Lord and Sa- viour Jesus Christ, as the Resurrection and the Life.

Hymn-By Charles G. Eastman.

This fairest spot of hill and glade, Where blooms the flower and waves the tree, And silver streams delight the shade, We consecrate, O Death, to thee.

Here all the months the year may know Shall watch this " Eden of the Dead," To wreathe with flowers or crown with snow The dreamless sleeper's narrow bed.

And when above Its graves we kneel, Resigning to the mouldering urn The friends whose silent hearts shall feel No bahny summer's glad return ;

Each marble shaft our hands may rear, To mark where dust to dust is given, Shall lift its chiselled column, here, To point our tearful eyes to Heaven.

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Benediction-By Rev. F. D. Hemmenway.

Thus was this most beautiful inclosure dedicated to Montpelier's dead, just 27 years ago this fall. The number of inter- ments to date, Dec. 24, 1881, is 999, Sim- eon Lyman, a merchant, buried Oct. 3, 1855, aged 45 years, being the first.

A thousand times the turf has already been broken in Green Mount to receive the household props of this people, the treas- ures of its happy homes. We see on this spot how death takes toll. How many sleep around the monument of the benefi- cent Keith, upon every side, who assisted in the beautiful consecration just portray- ed : Constant W. Storrs, among the first, and all the commissioners, but one, who selected and prepared the grounds are here. The Pastor who offered the first prayer on this spot-by the side of his little Bessie. The Poet who wrote its hymn of beauty, the Poet of this cemetery still. Shelton of the lovely address, every paragraph like a cluster of precious stones, sleeps, also- in the bosom of the neighboring State upon the West.

Here are the graves of Thompson, East- man, Lord, Samuel Goss, Daniel Baldwin, Charles Reed, Samuel Wells and a few others whose names are identified with our early acquaintance at Montpelier. Most of those whose biographies are written in this book rest here; even some buried in old Elm Street Cemetery with their old sexton, have been brought up and re- interred here; whose histories have been so studied, though otherwise unknown, the names on the headstones look like old friends. It is but our second visit, and yet we cannot feel quite like a stranger here. What Vermonter could by Thomp- son's grave ? by his grave as yet without monument or stone! the author of the Green Mountain Boys has built himself his own monument more enduring than of marble-" Pete Jones " is his monument more resonant than brass ;" May Martin," a fairer headstone than another could raise. It is not doubted this grave will yet have the due commemorative stone. Only, we miss it here now-" D. P. Thompson " was so well known and endeared to the |

people of the State ; in Montpelier so long- time and honorable a resident-her pleas- ant historian. An early friend to our Gazetteer ; he was first engaged to write for it the chapters of Montpelier History ; a few months before his death finding he would not be able, wrote " take therefore, anything I have ever written for Montpe- ler, or for Washington County, or for the State, whether printed or in manuscript, the whole or in part, as you would if it were your own, for I shall not be able to do as I had intended ; and I would name to you the Hon. E. P. Walton, as the man the best qualified to aid you and to write the history of Montpelier." Having been so successful in the history of Montpelier, nearing its close, pleasant to-day is the re- membrance of his intention-the thought- ful kindness of his last letter ; and we shall be very happy if we may see, as we may if contributed by his friends, his portrait stand with his biography in this County volume, for which he would, no doubt, have written so much and so well, had he lived to this day ; and where it may stand in the one town which has a prior claim, his own beloved Berlin, adjoining Montpelier on the pleasant south, where was his father's old farm, where he was born, just over the river.

A handsome monumental pile !- worthy the Sleeper below. A name in the mar- ble, by author, man or woman, never for- gotten-the first literary benefactor-the handsome and the gracious patron, who pruned till they gleamed almost like fresh poems, and sent his beautiful contribu- tions with words of confidence to your first book in press, and when it came gave it notice through his newspaper at the capital, and sold many copies in his old book-store on State Street, and ad- vised and contributed to its successor. The sight of this beautiful tomb swells our heart full ;-- glad for as proud of his fame, -talented, bland, witty, generous East- man ; the vigor, point, beauty and mazy grace of his poetry all seem concentrated and perpetuated here.

.A granite stone; the tenant here that bluff, iorn-framed, but golden-hearted old

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landlord at the Pavilion, the first time that we were at Montpelier, who declared promptly that he had no bill for a young woman who had given Vermont the hand- somest book ever printed in the State. Poor book-makers might hope to live out their days were all landlords Col. Bout- wells. Peace to the ashes, severely silent, of the every-inch-alive, stirring old host. His monument is just what it should be --- granite-large. We would like his stout figure in bronze in the grounds of the Pa- vilion. We are very glad of his portrait in our book. Joint vote of praise from the State House, Levi Boutwell did better ; bread is better than fame.

Here ;- SAMUEL GOSS! FARLEY, WAL- TON, his confreres. Father Goss had one of tbose countenances it stirs the heart agreeably to look into, pleasant as intelli- gent, sensible as gracious. Gen. E. P. Walton we almost seem to know in his son, Hon. E. P.

The grave of the first lady with whom we became acquainted at Montpelier-the first wife of Dr. G. N. Brigham, who re- sided some 30 years in Montpelier vil- lage. Mrs. Brigham was a cheerful, active little woman, storing her home with the honey of comfort ; but when we saw her last the rose of consumption was painted on her cheek. Never was her cordiality so touching. I could not pass her resting-place without pausing. I would plant one historical flower on her grave. It shall be the poetic hyacinth, that sweetest poem, to our thought, from the pen of her talented husband, and which was inspired by a scene connected with her death-bed.

SONG OF THE HYACINTH.

One lay with bright eyes looking for the Christ, And so near to heaven it seemed that she could hear The song of flowers. A purple hyacinth, Whleh from a vase drank dew and shed it round In fragance, played an interlude that called Her half-flown spirit back. For when her eye Was fixed on it, till all her face did smile, She handed forth her pale white hand and asked That it be given her. We never shall forget That smile, the dainty way her fingers toyed Among the petals; .

. muste cadences

Began, " How sweet !"-'t was even as a child Sweet toys and grows aflame with joy. And as We gazed and saw the dappled halo glow

And ripple over all her face, we said It is the breaking light of heaven. That night She dled, the fragrance of the hyacinth Upon her fingers, sweetest smile that e'er Warmed human face yet lingering; and her Low lullaby a song of that sweet flower.

SONG. There is no death, no death, my dearest. No death but death of pain; The sleeping ones, my child, are nearest To Aiden's rapturing strain.

O, fold thy lids and drop thy sorrow, And sleep thee free of pain : And when thou wakest on the morrow Thou wilt be born again.

O sleep the sleep past earth's sad waking, This death is nature's rest; And In the new morn that is breaking Drift thee unto the blest.

The grave of Dr. Lord again ; whose words were poetry and whose sermons poems, though we knew him first histori- cally. We had not been at Montpelier for several years; standing at the closed doors of the Historical Society, "a private session," as there told, -that is a business meeting, the annual meeting having closed a half day earlier than we had expected, Dr. Lord, hearing the name of the woman at the door, came down as she was turning to leave, and taking both hands-prince of a man as he was in manners and courtesy -would not suffer, saying as he led her within, there was not any closed session to her, or there should not be, and they, within, were only all her brothers in the same work, as she who had done more than them all, and having led her to a seat, so easily and pleasantly introduced her, a woman alone with the assembled historical gentlemen of the State, felt no awkwardness. He inquired if she was a member,and, informed "itwas contrary to a by-law," by his motion, seconded by Hon. Hiland Hall of Bennington, presiding, the bar was immediately removed against a lady's admission to membership in the So- ciety ; pronounced and made obsolete by an unanimous vote of welcome to the first woman admitted to the State Historical Society, in the old State House, and which coming at the capital, and thus naturally, never having been before asked, or expect- ed by the receiver, but which came, when introduced by Rev. Dr. Lord-who was

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made President of the Society the same day-so whole and genially, it wiped away in one moment, gracefully, all the exclu- siveness of the past. For its being an hon- or received in Montpelier, pardon, the per- sonal relation ; as Montpelier is one of the few towns of the State which have given us more roses than thorns, let us toy with one.

The resting-place of one of the patri- archs of the village. On one of the sultriest days of a sultry summer-the op- pressive noon-winding out from the street of the Capital, down by the river-a vein of delicious coolness by the roadside-a gentle south breath from over the river, brushing softly aside the heated atmos- phere that beat down from above-the funeral of the man who had lived the most years in Montpelier came to Green Mount, gradually ascending the hill-side to the shade of trees into which the carriages wound and stood while the venerable old man was laid in the evergreen-lined grave. The coffin resting deep down on the mosses at the bottom, the breath of the mourners and of all the crowd stilled to listen to the service ; all hearts touched to sympathy with the cool, sweet pulse of nature here, we thought, and it seemed the whole crowd thought with us, more beautiful is the gar- den of the dead than the home of the liv- ing ; and a place not to lose its attractions, how many will follow, drawn on, attracted while they know not how. Where the old man and the young man lie down together, beautiful encampment-ground !-- to-day, and what may it be a hundred years from to-day ? The descendants of the people of Montpelier no doubt may in a hun- dred years make this place more beauti- ful than now. He who may then come up to these grounds may find the en- trance, upon the south by the river, the same as now, but an inclosure extended northward and eastward and westward -- a city of the departed instead of a gar- len ; walls in inscriptions, ornamentations, mossings. The ponderous gate lettered on the iron in bronze "WHERE THE WEARY ARE AT REST." Within, near the gate where the mourners go by a colossal cross from the granite of our mountains,

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The history of Washington county, in the Vermont historical gazetteer:, Part 87

Author: Hemenway, Abby Maria, 1828-1890, [from old catalog] ed Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Montpelier, Vt., Vermont watchman and state journal press Number of Pages: 1066

Author: Hemenway, Abby Maria, 1828-1890, [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Montpelier, Vt., Vermont watchman and state journal press
Number of Pages: 1066