f^a^«^.
Digitized by the Internet Arcliive
in 2011 witli funding from
Tine Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant
http://www.archive.org/details/celebrationoftwoOOinhing
THE CELEBRATION
OF THE
OF THE SETTLEMENT
OF
THE TOWN OF H INGHAM,
MASSACHUSETTS, September 15, 1885.
3L£t us rtofo praiSE famous men, anti our fatfjers tj^at hzQat us.
^11 tf)cs£ Incre j^onorcti tn tl^cir s^nn-ations, antj toere tfje glorg of tfjeir times.
Wl)zxz hz of tljem, tl^at ijabe left a name fcel^intj tl^em, t^at tf)etr praises migljt be reportetj.
ECCLESIASTICUS xliv. I, 7, 8.
THE
CELEBRATION
OF THE
OF THE SETTLEMENT
OF THE
TOWN OF HINGHAM,
MASSACHUSETTS,
' September 15, 1885.
HINGHAM:
PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 1885.
^Prcparelj for ^3u6Iicatton By FRANCIS H. LINCOLN.
CONTENTS.
Preliminary prccefebingjJ.
PAGE
Meeting of Citizens lo
Committee of Arrangements ii
Invitation to the Orator 12
Programme 14
Committees « 16
Invitations 18
'^\)t CUclcbratioit.
Marshals 27
The Procession 28
AT THE MEETING-HOUSE.
Ushers 32
Order of Exercises 33
Prayer of Rev. Joseph Osgood 36
Oration of Mr. Solomon Lincoln 40
Benediction of Rev. Henry M. Dean 72
THE DINNER.
Invocation of Rev. Henry A. Miles, D.D 75
Address of Hon, John D. Long, President 76
Address of Governor Robinson 83
VI CONTENTS.
PAGE
Telegrams to and from Concord, Mass 92
Lines by Mr. George B. Bartlett ^ . 92
Letter from Mr. Isaac Hinckley 93
Letter from Senator Hoar. . 93
Letter from Richard Henry Stoddard 94
Letter from Sidney Howard Gay 95
Address of Hon. Thomas Russell 97
Address of Mr. Solomon Lincoln 104
Address of Rev. H, Price Collier 108
Address of Dr. William Everett 113
Address of Mr. Luther Stephenson 121
Votes of the Committee of Arrangements 129
Names of Voters 131
PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
I
N the Records of the Colony of the Massachu- setts Bay in New England is the following : —
"Att the Gei/all Court, holden att Newe Towne, Sept^ 2, 1635,
"The name of Barecove is changed, & hereafter to be called Hingham."
On the eighteenth of September, 1635, Rev. Peter Hobart, the first Pastor, and twenty-nine others drew their house-lots.
There were expectations, in the minds of many of the people of Hingham, that some action would be taken at the annual town-meeting, in March, 1885, in relation to celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the town in September following; but the statutes of the Commonwealth did not enumerate the celebrat- ing of half-century anniversaries among the purposes for which towns might appropriate money, to be raised by taxation. The hope was frequently ex- pressed, during the spring and early summer, that the occasion would not be allowed to pass unnoticed;
lO THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
and in the latter part of July it became evident that the celebration was to be a reality, when the follow- ino^ notice was issued : —
ALL CITIZENS OF HINGHAM
WHO DESIRE TO HAVE
THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
OF
THE SETTLEMENT OF THEIR TOWN
Celebrated by suitable ceremonies, are requested to meet at
LOHING- HALL,
ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, AT 8 o'clock, p.m.
Charles Siders. J. O. Burdeit.
Charles W. S. Seymour. M. F. Whiton.
Charles B. Barnes. William J. Nelson.
E. Waters Burr. E. L. Howard
Henry C. Harding. George Lincoln.
Starkes Whiton. Jos. Jacobs, Jr.
E. L. Ripley. E. Hersey, 2d. Fearing Burr.
Accordingly, on July 29, a meeting was held at Loring Hall. Henry C. Harding called the meet- ing to order and was chosen Chairman, and George Lincoln was chosen Secretary. It was
Voted, To celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the town by appro- priate observances, and that a committee of thirty be chosen to prepare a suitable programme and make all necessary arrangements.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY.
II
The number of the committee was subsequently increased to thirty-nine.
The Committee of Arrangements, as finally or- ganized, consisted of the following persons, and upon them devolved the duty of making all the preparations for a suitable observance of the anni- versary : —
Cammittee of ^rrangemmts.
Starkes Whiton Chairman.
George Lincoln Secretary.
Francis H. Lincoln .... Treasurer.
Henry C, Harding. John D. Long. Joseph B. Thaxter. Alonzo Gushing. Gharles E. Stevens. Morris F. Whiton. Edward T. Bouv^. Francis W. Brewer. Ebed L. Ripley. Edmund Hersey, 2d. Henry E. Spalding. Charles W. S. Seymour. James L. Gardner. John G. Gardner. Frederic M. Hersey. Henry W. Gushing. William Gushing. Osgood Eaton.
Edward F. Wilder. Thomas Howe. Thomas L. Grehan. Hawkes Fearing. Henry Stephens dn. John Todd. Fearing Burr. TiLSON A. Mead. Gharles H. Marble. John H. Stoddar. Edwin Wilder. E. Waters Burr. Josiah M. Lane. George Gushing. Joseph O. Burdett. Gharles Siders. Gharles G. Melcher. Bela F. Lincoln.
Charles N. Marsh, the efficient Town Clerk for the preceding thirty years, was originally chosen
12 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
a member of the Committee, but resigned because other duties prevented his serving.
The members of the Committee were thoroughly interested. They worked systematically and per- sistently. Frequent meetings were held, and a his- tory of the preparations made for the celebration can best be narrated by extracts from the records.
August I. Voted, That the sum of one thousand dollars be procured by subscription, to meet the probable expenses of the celebration.
[A much larger sum was ultimately procured.]
Voted, That a committee of five, in addition to the chairman, be chosen to suggest a suitable pro- gramme for the celebration.
Starkes Whiton, Henry C. Harding, John D. Long, E. Waters Burr, Edward F. Wilder, and Ed- mund Hersey, 2d, were chosen that Committee.
Upon motion of Mr. Long it was
Voted, That Mr. Solomon Lincoln, of Boston, a native of Hingham, and the eldest son of the late Hon. Solomon Lincoln, who was the orator at the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary, in 1835, be invited to deliver the oration. John D. Long, Joseph O. Burdett, and Joseph B. Thaxter were appointed a committee to communicate this invitation to Mr. Lincoln, which they did as
follows : —
Hingham, Mass., Aug. i, 1885.
Dear Sir, — A Committee appointed by the citizens of this town to make arrangements for celebrating, next
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. I 3
September, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation, have unanimously chosen you to make the oration, and authorized us to invite you to do so. We hasten to extend to you the invitation, and also, with cor- dial personal regard, to express the hope that, as a native of Hingham, esteemed by all its citizens, you will take pleasure in rendering it a service similar to that which your father rendered it fifty years ago.
Very truly yours,
John D. Long.
Jos. O. BURDETT.
Jos. B. Thaxter. Mr. Solomon Lincoln, Boston, Mass.
Ausfust 6. The followinQ: letter from Mr. Lincoln was read : —
Rye Beach, N. H., Aug. 4, 1885.
Messrs. John D. Long, J. O. Burdett, Jos. B. Thaxter,
Co7nmittee :
Dear Sirs, — I have received here this evening your note of August 1, communicating the invitation with which a Committee representing the citizens of Hingham have honored me, to deliver an address before them on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the town.
It gives me much pleasure to accept the invitation of the Committee.
Thanking you for the kind expression of personal regard with which you have accompanied the invitation, I am, with much respect.
Very truly yours,
Solomon Lincoln.
Voted, That the celebration be observed on Sat- urday, Sept. 12, that being the week-day correspond-
14 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
ing nearest to September 2, old style, — the day on which the name of Hingham was given to the town.
The Committee appointed to suggest a pro- gramme for the celebration made a Report, which is here given as amended at this and subsequent meetings.
REPORT.
The Committee appointed to suggest a pro- gramme for the day of the celebration of the two hundred- and fiftieth anniversary of the incorpora- tion of the town of Hingham report the following recommendations : —
I. That the church bells be rung an hour at sunrise, sunset, and at the close of the forenoon exercises in the church.
II. That a salute be fired at noon.
III. That there be morning band-concerts at nine o'clock A.M., for one hour at South Hingham and at Fountain Square, and one of two hours on Agricultural Fair grounds, at seven o'clock P.M.
IV. That a procession be formed at Fountain Square, which, at eleven o'clock A.M., sharp, shall start and march up North Street, thence by Goold's Bridge, South, and Main Streets, to the Old Meeting-house.
V. That the school-children of the town shall assemble at ten o'clock a.m., at Fountain Square, provided with badges, and under the lead of their music-teacher, they sing all together a few of their songs in the open air. That at eleven o'clock A.M., under their officers, in such
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. I 5
companies as the Superintendent of Schools and their teachers shall have aided them in forming, they shall fall into the procession with a band.
VL That the procession shall also contain invited guests, the State officials, with the Cadets and their band, citizens, and such organizations as shall previously notify the Chief Marshal of their desire to join the march, — all to be under the escort of Edwin Humphrey Post 104, G. A, R., of Hingham.
VII. That on arrival at the Old Meeting-house, the school-children go to Loring Hall and there have a colla- tion. One band will return to Fountain Square, and there give a concert during the first hour of the literary exercises in the church.
VIII. That the exercises in the church be as fol- lows : —
1. Organ Prelude.
2. Prayer.
3. Hymn, sung by the congregation. (It is recommended that Richard Henry Stoddard, a native of Hingham, be asked to write it.)
4. Oration.
5. Hymn, "America," sung by the congregation.
6. Benediction.
IX. That thereupon the procession march by Main and Leavitt Streets directly to Agricultural Hall, where a din- ner be served, and short speeches made, interspersed with music. Dinner tickets to be provided for invited guests and sold to others.
X. That at eight o'clock P.M., a string band play in upper Agricultural Hall for dancing; the lower hall to be open for a social gathering and promenade.
XL That day and evening an exhibition of interesting relics be open in said lower hall. [It was subsequently voted that this feature of the celebration be omitted.]
1 6 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
XII. That at 7.30 p.m., bonfires be lighted upon Liberty Pole, Baker's, Otis, Planter's, Turkey, and Prospect Hills.
XIII. That there be a President of the Day.
XIV. That there be a Chief Marshal.
A list of committees, necessary to carry out the programme, concluded the Report.
In accordance with a very general desire, Hon. John D. Long was unanimously invited to be the President of the day.
Colonel Hawkes Fearing was chosen Chief Marshal.
August 12. The Chairman stated that the town of Concord, incorporated Sept. 2, 1835, ^'^^^ ^^~ ranged for a celebration on September 12, the day selected for Hingham, and that the Governor of the Commonwealth had accepted the invitation to visit Concord before receiving the invitation from Hingham. In order that no inconvenience might arise from holding our celebration on the same day, it was
Voted, That the celebration be on Tuesday, Sept. 15.
The following Committees were appointed : —
Executive Committee. — Starkes Whiten, Chaimian, George Lin- coln, Francis H. Lincoln, Henry C. Harding, John D. Long, E. Waters Burr, Edward F. Wilder, Edmund Hersey, 2d.
Finance. — Ebed L. Ripley, Chairman, E. Waters Burr, Frederic M. Hersey, George Gushing, Henry W. Gushing.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. I 7
Bell- Ringing. — John D. Long, Chairman, for bell on New North Church ; Bela F. Lincoln, for Universalist Church ; E. Waters Burr, for Old Church ; Tilson A. Mead, for Baptist Church ; Starkes Whiton, for Orthodox Church ; John H. Stoddar, for Church at South Hingham.
Salutes. — Edward T. Bouv6, Chairman, Thomas L. Crehan, John H. Stoddar.
Bands, Band-Concerts, Music for Dinner and Dancing. — Morris F. Whiton, Chairmafi, Henry W. Cushing, Francis H. Lincoln.
Evening Entertainment at Agricultural Hall. — Edward F. Wilder, Chairman, Henry Stephenson, Tilson A. Mead.
School-Children and their Badges. — Joseph O. Burdett, Chair- man, Frederic M. Hersey, Josiah M. Lane.
Exercises in Church. — Edmund Hersey, 2d, Chairman, Fear- ing Burr, Charles Siders.
Church Ushering, &c. — E. Waters Burr, Chairman, Ebed L. Ripley, Charles H. Marble.
Escort and Military. — Charles E. Stevens, Chainnan, Charles C. Melcher, Edward T. Bouv6.
Collation at Loring Hall. — Frederic M. Hersey, Chainnan, William Cushing, Henry Stephenson.
Dinner and Dinner-Tickets. — Ebed L. Ripley, Chairman, Ed- mund Hersey, 2d, Alonzo Cushing.
Dinner Speeches. — John D. Long, Chairman, Joseph O. Burdett, Joseph B. Thaxter.
Printing. — George Lincoln, Chairman, John C. Gardner, Henry C. Harding.
Exhibition of Ancient Relics. — Fearing Burr, C/z^zm^/z, Edwin Wilder, Henry E. Spalding.
Bonfires. — George Cushing, Chairman, for Otis Hill; Thomas Howe, for Baker's Hill ; Francis W. Brewer, for Planter's Hill ; Charles H. Marble, for Turkey Hill ; James L. Gardner, for Prospect Hill ; Josiah M. Lane, for Liberty Pole Hill.
Invitations and Reception. — Starkes Whiton, Chairman, Joseph B. Thaxter, Chades Siders, Henry C. Harding, Francis H. Lincoln.
Decoration of Streets. — Edwin Wilder, Chairman, Chades W. S. Seymour, Osgood Eaton.
16 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
Decoration of Church. — John Todd, Chairfnan, Francis W.
Brewer, Henry E. Spalding. Decoration of Halls. — Charles C. Melcher, Chairman, Henry
W. Cushing, Charles W. S. Seymour. Police Arrangements. — Thomas Howe, Chairman, George
Cushing, Edward F. Wilder.
Voted, That the Committee on Invitations be authorized to invite all the survivors of those who performed military duty or acted as marshals at the Centennial Celebration in this town in 1835.
The programme for the celebration was now adopted and the organization complete. The sub- sequent meetings of the Committee of Arrange- ments were principally occupied with the arrange- ment of details, and the various sub-committees labored zealously in their respective departments. Liberal subscriptions of money were reported. All things promised well for a successful and memorable day in the annals of the town.
Invitations were sent to distinguished persons to attend the celebration. The list of invited guests included the State officials, natives of the town who had acquired eminence in other places, the principal town-officers of Hingham and Cohasset (originally a part of Hingham), ministers of the religious societies of Hingham and Cohasset, and others.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 19
INVITATION.
1635. 1885.
To.
You are respectfully invited to be present at the celebration of the 250TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE
TOWN OF HINGHAM,
On Tuesday, September 15, 1885.
HiNGHAM, August 22, 1885.
Starkes Whiton, Joseph B. Thaxter, Charles Siders, Henry C. Harding, Francis H. Lincoln,
Committee on hiviiations.
Please send a reply before September 5, and on your accept- ance a ticket will be sent.
At the Centennial Celebration, in 1835, the mili- tary escort consisted of two local organizations, the Hingham Rifle Company and the Washington
20 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
Guards. To the survivors of these companies and to the survivors of those who acted as marshals on that occasion, the following invitation was sent : —
To
One of the survivors of those who
At the Centennial Celebration in 1835.
Dear Sir,
You are respectfully invited to join the procession on the occasion of the
250TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE
TOWN OF HINGHAM,
On Tuesday, September 15, 1885.
You will assist the committee in making their arrangements if you will inform one of the undersigned, before September 10, whether you can be present or not.
Very respectfully yours,
STARKES WHITON, Chairman, FRANCIS H. LINCOLN, Secretary,
Of the Co!?imiitee on Invitations. HiNGHAM, September 3, 1885.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 21
Invitations were also sent to the survivors of the ladies, who served on the committee for the colla- tion, at the Celebration of 1835, or who contributed hymns or poems on that occasion, to attend the exercises in the Meeting-house.
Interest in the celebration increased as the day approached. With thoughtful attention to every detail on the part of the several sub-committees, a treasury liberally supplied with ample funds, many offers of gratuitous services, and a hearty co-operation of the citizens, nothing seemed want- ing but favorable weather to make the celebration a most interesting and successful event.
THE CELEBRATION.
THE CELEBRATION.
' I ^HE weather reports on the day preceding the celebration were not assuring. There was anx- iety in the minds of those who had looked forward with a deep interest to an occasion the success of which depended so much upon atmospheric condi- tions favorable to out-of-door exercises. All through the day and evening of Monday, the 14th of Sep- tember, there were many indications in the town of a orreat comino: event. The afternoon trains and boats brought to their former homes the returning sons of Hingham. The buildings, with their gayly decorated fronts, seemed to be clothed in a new dress for the occasion. Flags and streamers, red autumn leaves and yellow golden-rod, sentimental and his- toric mottoes, gave many a sedate old residence a fluttering, picturesque, holiday appearance to wel- come the returninsf wanderers.
o
On the morning of the 15th all doubts about the weather were dispelled. As the sun rose on the fairest of autumn days, the church bells rang merrily out the announcement that " the great, the impor- tant day " had at last arrived. The frosts had kindly
26 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
spared the flowers, while occasional hints of autumn srave here and there a touch of color to tree and shrub. Nature seemed to rival art in the decora- tions. The old town never was more beautiful. From all her hills and valleys she seemed to say to young and old, —
"The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction."
For an hour after sunrise the bells of all the churches were rung, while at several points dis- charges of cannon disclosed the enthusiasm of those who voluntarily contributed this feature to the programme arranged for the day. The people were abroad early, and soon the streets were alive with happy groups. Here an old man welcomes his former schoolmates with a warm grasp of the hand, and recalls some youthful frolic ; there some school- children of to-day, with bright faces and white dresses, hurry to the school-house to be ready for their part in the exercises. From far and near, by train and boat, in carriages and on foot, the con- stantly increasing number swells, until the whole neighborhood of Broad Bridge presents an unwonted scene. The day is warm, the sky is clear, and every- body is happy.
The first train from Boston brought Reeves's American Band, of Providence, R. I. It was im- mediately sent to South Hingham, where from nine to ten o'clock, in front of the meeting-house, an open-air concert was given.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 27
At the same time the Hingham Brass Band gave a concert in Fountain Square to an appreciative audience.
At ten o'clock all the school-children of the town with their teachers, under the general charge of Allen P. Soule, Superintendent of Schools, assem- bled in Fountain Square. Led by Alfred H. Bis- SELL, teacher of music in the public schools, the children sang several songs.
At 10.30 o'clock the formation of the procession began; and at 10.40 a special train arrived, bringing the Governor, who was accompanied by members of his staff and other State officials, and escorted by the First Corps of Cadets.
Promptly at eleven o'clock the procession moved from Broad Bridge under the direction of Col. Hawkes Fearing, Chief Marshal, assisted by the following : —
MARSHALL H. GUSHING.
Francis M. Ripley. Charles A. Lane.
George E. Whitney. Charles Sumner Cushing.
William O. Fletcher. Samuel T. Hersey.
Allen P. Soule. Stetson Foster.
Jacob O. Sanborn. Ellery C. Crocker.
WiLLARD E. Jones. John Stephenson
Louis P. Nash. Hiram T. Howard.
Hugh J. Molloy. William H. Leavitt.
William H. Furber. Thomas L. Crehan.
Henry M. Wright. Herbert O. Hardy.
Charles L. Davis. William B. Cross.
33ugler.
William B. Fearing.
28 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
The route of the procession was through North Street, by Goold's Bridge, South, and Main streets, to the Old Meeting-house.
THE PROCESSION.
Detachment of Police under command of Chief of Police Erastus Whiton.
ESCORT.
REEVES'S AMERICAN BAND.
Edwin Humphrey Post 104, G. A. R., Comrade Charles H. Wake- field commanding ; accompanied by Simpson's Drum Corps and the Post Drum Corps, and detachments from Posts 31 and 58, — 90 men.
FIRST DIVISION.
Aid. Chief Marshal. Aid.
Committee of Arrangements. Marshal. Marshal.
Hon. John D. Long, President of the day, Mr. Solomon Lincoln, Orator, and Rev. Joseph Osgood, Chaplain of the day.
Town Officers of Hinghai?t.
DeWitt C. Bates, Seth Sprague, Walter W. Hersey,
Selectmen.
William Fearing, 2d, Town Treasurer.
Town Officers of Cohasset.
J. O. A. LoTHROP, Caleb F. Nichols, Philander Bates,
Selectmen.
Newcomb B. Tower, Town Clerk
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 29
BALDWIN'S CADET BAND.
First Corps of Cadets, M. V. M., Lieut.-Col. Thomas F. Edmands
commanding, escorting His Excellency,
George D. Robinson, Governor of the Commonwealth,
His Honor, Oliver Ames, Lieutenant-Governor, Hon. Henry B. Peirce, Secretary of the Commonwealth;
Members of the Governor's Staff: Brig. -Gen. Samuel Dalton, Col. Ephraim Stearns, Col. Edward H. Gilbert ; accompanied by Hon. Starkes Whiton, Chairman of the Commit- tee of Arrangements, and Joseph B. Thaxter, of the Reception Committee.
INVITED GUESTS,
Accompanied by Charles Siders and Henry C. Harding, of the Reception Committee.
Hon. Jonathan Bourne, Councillor, District No. i. Mr. Joseph O. Burdett, Representative, First Plymouth District, Hon. Thomas Russell. Hon. John F. Andrew.
Hon. Thomas Talbot. Hon. Moses Humphrey.
Mr. Alfred C. Hersey. Capt. John K. Corbett.
Mr. Luther Stephenson. Dr. William Everett.
Mr. Hosea H. Lincoln.
Clergymen of Hingham. Rev. Henry A. Miles, D.D. Rev. H. Price Collier. Rev. Henry M. Dean. Rev. Edward A. Robinson.
Rev. Alfred Cross. Rev. Arthur Thompson.
Clergymen of Cohasset. Rev. Harlan Page. Rev. John H. Allen.
Surviving Marshals of the Procession of fifty years ago.
John Waters, David A. Hersey, Leavitt Lane, Roswell Trowbridge, David Cushine:.
30 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM. ,
Surviving Mejnbers of the Washington Griards who were
on duty in 1835.
Moses Humphrey, Joseph Sprague, Rufus Lane, Martin Wilder,
EHhu Thayer, John Todd, Nahum Robinson, Charles
Humphrey, John D. Remington, Lewis Eddy, John
Binney, David Cobb, Henry Siders, Daniel
Cain, Benjamin S. Lincoln.
Survivors of the Hinghani Rifle Company who were on duty in 1835.
Capt. John K. Corbett, Capt. John Stephenson, Joseph Ripley, Justin Ripley, Isaac N. Damon, Isaac Sprague, John W. Peirce, Jo- seph C. Sprague, Sidney Sprague, Zenas Loring, Jairus Sprague, Kinsman Chamberlain, Moses L. Whiton, John E. Corthell, Moses Sprague.
Survivors of Mr. Dimcan McBean Thaxier''s School, — 1813-1817.
Duncan McBean Thaxter, teacher. Robert W. Lincoln, E. Jones Andrews, Alexander Anderson, John P. Dawes, Lincoln Goold, Samuel W. Marsh, Benjamin S. Lin- coln, Seth L. Hobart, Samuel Andrews, Mrs. Gridley Stodder, Mrs. Martin Battles, Moses Humphrey, Daniel Cain.
Marshal. Marshal.
President, Trustees, and Treasurer of the Hingham Institution for
Savings.
President, Directors, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Hingham
Mutual Fire Insurance Company.
President, Directors, and Cashier of the Hingham National Bank.
Officers and Members of the Hingham Agricultural and Horticultural
Society.
Company of Minute Men. Captain, Henry L. Merritt ; Lieutenant, Charles W. Hutchins ; Ser- geant, Harry F. Cross; Privates, J. Frank Crehan, Charles Damon, Fred L. Sprague, John W. Pyne, Webster Loring, Porter Souther, William W. Gushing, H. Everett Loring, E. Ellsworth Manning, Robert Downey, George Downey, Parker Souther, Edmund H. Gushing, Frederick Souther, Edward W. Thayer, Henry F. Gush- ing, George Griffin, Peter J. Clement.
Trustees of Derby Academy.
Trustees of the Hingham Public Library.
Marshal. Marshal.
Citizens and former residents of Hingham,
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 3 1
SECOND DIVISION.
Marshal, Allen P. Soule, Chief.
HINGHAM BRASS BAND.
Marshal. Marshal.
Pupils of the Public Schools and of Derby Academy, in charge of
their respective Teachers.
High School, Jacob O. Sanborn, teacher, 104 pupils.
Thaxter Street Grammar, Willard E. Jones, teacher, 31 pupils.
Elm Street Grammar, Hugh J. Molloy, teacher, 32 pupils.
South Grammar, William H. Furber, teacher, 26 pupils.
Canterbury Street, Miss Martha B. Beale, teacher, 20 pupils.
South Mixed, Miss Elizabeth L. Stodder, teacher, 25 pupils.
Derby Academy, Henry M. Wright, teacher, 35 pupils.
Elm Street Intermediate, Miss Emma I. Brown, teacher, 38 pupils.
Centre Intermediate, Miss Mary W. Bates, teacher, 38 pupils.
West Intermediate, Miss Adair F. Bonney, teacher, 52 pupils.
Derby Primary, Miss Carohne R. Leverett, teacher, 26 pupils.
Fort Hill Primary, Miss Emma L. Thayer, teacher, 29 pupils.
Elm Street Primary, Miss Mary A. Crowe, teacher, 32 pupils.
Centre Primary, Miss Irene I. Lincoln, teacher, 51 pupils.
Private School, Miss Priscilla Whiton, teacher, 5 pupils.
South Intermediate, Mrs. Mary F. Andrews, teacher, 34 pupils.
South Primary, Miss Fannie O. Gushing, teacher, 29 pupils.
Thaxter Street Primary, Miss Mary E. Riddle, teacher, 48 pupils.
Centre Grammar, Mr. Louis P. Nash, teacher, 42 pupils.
THIRD DIVISION.
Marshal, Hiram T. Howard, Chief.
Fire Department of Hingham.
Chief Engineer and Assistant Engineers.
Isaac Little Hose Company No. r, Hiram T. Howard, Foreman,
13 men. Torrent Engine Company No. 2, Thomas Margetts, Acting Foreman,
17 men. Niagara Hose Company No. 3, J. Edwards Ripley, Foreman, 12 men.
Constitution Engine Company No. 4, Andrew Gunn, Acting Foreman,
20 men. Hook and Ladder Company No. i, Roswell L. Litchfield, Foreman,
16 men.
AT THE MEETING-HOUSE.
nPHE scene in the Meeting-house was very im- pressive. The decorations were confined to flowers and green, tastefully arranged but not elab- orate. The house was completely filled, the large audience being seated under the direction of a committee consisting of
E. WATERS BURR, Chairman. Ebed L. Ripley. Charles H. Marble.
Assisted by the following —
USHERS.
Arthur Lincoln. William O. Lincoln.
Ellery C. Crocker. Frederick Humphrey.
Stetson Foster. Alonzo F. Cushing.
John C. Hollis. Charles F. Whiton.
Joseph B. Thaxter, Jr. Arthur R. Whitcomb.
George S. Marsh. William R. Burr. Ernest W. Lincoln.
Upon the platform, in front of the pulpit, sat Hon. John D. Long, President of the Day. At his right sat Mr. Solomon Lincoln, the Orator, and at his left, Rev. Joseph Osgood, the Chaplain. There were also seated upon the platform His Excellency,
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 33
George D. Robinson, Governor of Massacliusetts, His Honor, Oliver Ames, Lieutenant-Governor, and many others of the invited guests.
In one of the front pews were two of the invited lady survivors of the celebration of 1835, — Mrs. Increase S. Smith and Mrs. Eunice W. Campbell.
In the pews in the centre of the house were many who were present in the same meeting-house fifty years ago, to listen to similar exercises, and who recalled the scenes of that day. There were veterans of our late war, as on that day there were veterans of the Revolution, All, by their close attention, showed their deep interest in the occasion.
1635. 1885.
ORDER OF EXERCISES
IN
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE,
Tuesday, September 15, 1885,
on occasion of the celebration of the two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement
of the town of hingham.
dLammittte on GTfjurcfj lEicrctses.
EDMUND HERSEY, 2D. CHARLES SIDERS.
FEARING BURR.
34 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
ORDER OF EXERCISES,
Hon: JOHN D. LONG, Presiding.
ORGAN VOLUNTARY.
ALFRED H. BISSELL.
PRAYER.
REV. JOSEPH OSGOOD, OF COHASSET.
HYMN.
WRITTEN BY REV. HENRY WARE, JR., D. D.
For the Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Settlement of Hingham, and sung on that occasion, September 28, 1835.
Tune, " Dundee." — To be smig by the congregation.
We praise the Lord, who o'er the sea
Our exiled fathers led, And on them in the wilderness
His light and glory shed. In want and fear for many a year
They spread their scanty board ; Yet loud and strong their grateful song
The Giver's hand adored.
Two hundred years have passed away ;
The desert frowns no more ; And glory, such as Judah knew,
Crowns hillside, vale, and shore. Then louder still, o'er plain and hill,
Send forth the shout of praise, And bid it run from sire to son.
Through all succeeding days.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 35
ORATION.-
MR. SOLOMON LINCOLN.
HYMN. "America." — To he sung by the congregation.
My country, 't is of thee, — Sweet land of liberty, —
Of thee I sing : Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrim's pride. From every mountain side
Let freedom ring.
My native country, thee, — Land of the noble free, —
Thy name I love : I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills ; My heart with rapture thrills
Like that above.
Let music swell the breeze. And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song ! Let mortal tongues awake ; Let all that breathe partake ; Let rocks their silence break ; —
The song prolong.
Our fathers' God, to thee. Author of liberty, —
To thee we sing : Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light ; Protect us by thy might.
Great God, our Kins.
BENEDICTION.
REV. HENRY M. DEAN.
36 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
The exercises began at 11.45 o'clock, with an Organ Voluntary by Alfred H. Bissell.
Prayer was then offered by Rev. Joseph Osgood, minister of the First Parish in Cohasset.
PRAYER OF REV. JOSEPH OSGOOD.
Almighty God, — God of our fathers and our God, on whom we ever depend, — we ask thy blessing on this day. We pray thee to sanctify our hearts by the memories associated with this anniversary; and, as we think of the past, — of the way in which thou hast led us and in which thou didst lead our fathers, — may we recognize our con- stant dependence on thee, and may our hearts be filled with gratitude and praise.
We thank thee that in the terrible conflict be- tween freedom and absolutism which divided the men of the Old World, thou didst put it into the hearts of some of thy children to forsake the land of their birth, and to seek new homes and to estab- lish new forms of government on these shores. We thank thee for their loyalty to conscience and for their appreciation of the rights of man. We thank thee that thou didst protect them from savage foes, preserve them from famine and death, and give them patience to perform faithfully the duties of their position ; and that by their self-sacrifice, their industry, and their loyalty to all that was great,
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 37
good, and noble, they were enabled to found this ancient town, to plant here institutions of religion and learning, and to train up a people conscious of their rights, loyal to thee, loyal to the church, and loyal to the highest interests of humanity. We thank thee that from generation to generation thou hast watched over and guided them, — in their day of small things, amid hardship, privation, and trial, and in their days of prosperity, comfort, and happiness.
We thank thee for those who have been born in this town who have honored the place of their birth ; who have carried forward the institutions of religion, of learning, and of civil order and freedom ; who have filled worthily the professions which they chose, — those who have been ministers of thy word and have preached the gospel of truth, of freedom, of holiness, and of love ; those who have sought to interpret the laws, and to teach men their legal and social duties and rights ; and those who have been beloved physicians, combating disease and giving relief in pain and suffering.
We thank thee for the sons of this town who have occupied high places in the nation and in the State ; for him w4io was the bosom friend, the wise adviser, and the able assistant of the Father of our country in the perilous days of the war of the Revolution.
We thank thee for the adopted children of this town who have so worthily held the office of Chief
38 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
Magistrate ; and we would especially remember at this time him who was so devoted and loyal to his country, the War Governor of the nation, who, by his sympathy, counsel, and hearty co-operation, sustained and helped the President of the United States in all that fearful conflict through which our nation passed. And we thank thee for all the young men who, in the spirit of patriotism, perilled or laid down their lives at their country's call ; and we thank thee for all the men and women who, by their industry, honesty, enterprise, and virtue, have helped to make the town what it is and our country what it is.
Wilt thou. Heavenly Father, continue the bless- ings which thou hast bestowed on the fathers to their children ; and grant that the seeds which were sown in labor, hardship, trial, and patience may spring up and bear fruit an hundred-fold to thy glory, and that the prayers, labors, and endeavors of the past may result in securing for this town, and for all who have gone forth from this town, a more beautiful and prosperous future.
Bless, we pray thee, all the institutions of this town, — its churches, its schools, all its forms of honest industry and enterprise, all the endeavors made for the upbuilding of thy kingdom amongst its children, and for the training up of a noble, honorable, and loyal people, having in their hearts the spirit of patriotism that lived in the breasts of their fathers, so that, like them, they may be ready
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 39
to respond to every call of duty, and to face peril and hardship in the service of their country.
Wilt thou, Heavenly Father, bless all the exer- cises of this day. May they, while they remind us of the past, lead us to serious meditation. Bless the Chief Magistrate of this Commonwealth. Bless all who sympathize in the spirit of this anniversary; and grant that while we are reminded of the labors, of the sacrifices, and the perils of the sons of this town in the past, their memory may be precious to us, and may ever be kept green in our hearts.
Wilt thou hear us, accept us, send down upon us thy blessing, for thine is the kingdom, power, and glory forever. Amen.
Then followed the singing of the Hymn by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr., D. D., to the tune of " Dundee " by the congregation.
The Oration was then delivered by Mr. Solomon Lincoln.
ORATION OF MR. SOLOMON LINCOLN.
Mr. President, Your Excellency, Men and Wonten of Hingham : —
nnHE spirit of our institutions discourages pride of birth. The Declaration of Independence — and he who first attached his bold signature to that immortal proclamation was partly of Hingham de- scent— declares that all men are created equal. And yet this is but a narrow truth. Men are created heirs to a most unequal inheritance. The qualities and opportunities which they inherit are the chief in- fluences which determine their character and their success. Fortunate, then, is he who springs from an honest, a wise, and a prosperous ancestry. And as of the individual, so of a people. Fortunate is that community which inherits a just pride in the achievements of its ancestors ; which wisely sees that a large measure of present prosperity rests on foundations laid in the past, and which, by a fre- quent and reverent study of the virtues of those ancestors, learns to maintain and to transmit them. More fortunate still are the sons, if their lot has fallen in the homes of the fathers ; if their paths
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 4 1
lie among scenes stored with traditions, and which memory repeoples with familiar forms ; whose chil- dren, reared among cherished memorials of the past, imbibe a reverence for it ; and who themselves look forward to a rest beside their fathers in soil long consecrated by pious care, and made precious by their dust. The lives of such a people are enriched by a wealth of tender and refining influences, and are strengthened by noble examples ; and the loss of these no success among strangers, however bril- liant, can replace.
We may justly claim that our town and people are thus fortunate. On the spot where the fathers first gathered the sons have remained, proud in the full enjoyment of the inheritance of their good names. The families most numerous among the citizens to-day bear names which the first settlers bore. We claim for the town no peculiar promi- nence among many settlements like it, early planted on these rough coasts of Massachusetts. Their cen- tennials, now frequently recurring, recall histories equally noble. But the results of those simple be- ginnings never cease to arouse wonder. They at once began their steady expansion. Puritan and Pilgrim soon joined hands, and their united children form a community in which wealth, education, the comforts, and even luxuries of life have reached a higher average and more general distribution than in any of similar extent which has ever existed. The Puritans — those men of narrow means, but
42 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
little given to the pleasures of the world, cultivating but few of the graces which brighten life, chiefly conspicuous by a severe devotion to what they es- teemed man's highest duty, least of all men given to the indulgence of the imagination — have proved the unconscious founders of a nation of which the wealth and power would have seemed to them the idlest vision of a dream. Nor is their influence spent. Their sons, pouring across a continent to them unknown, even to the Pacific shore, bear it undiminished into new communities ; and it early lifted New England to a leadership which it still maintains.
These are familiar thoughts, but I recall them to remind ourselves that it never ceases to be our filial obligation to cherish the memory of such fathers. It is to the credit of this town that it has always been mindful of this duty. Not many memorials of the past have been bequeathed to our care. We look for no stately monuments, no marvels of the painter's pencil or the sculptor's chisel. These de- mand more centuries than those we celebrate to-day. Even had the Puritan not regarded the hours given to such creations as hours stolen from the service of God, yet the simplest needs of existence left him no season for such toil. This venerable Meeting- house stands almost our sole visible inheritance from the past ; but in it the character and faith of the builders find perfect expression. They believed the worship of God to be their supreme duty. Their
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 43
first care, therefore, was to build His house, and a portion of that earliest building is incorporated in this venerable structure, which soon replaced it. But the Being whom they had forsaken home and crossed the sea to worship, looked with no favor upon costly churches, so adorned by art as to dis- tract the mind from true worship, or elaborate cere- monials in which empty forms were substituted for devotion. Such services in such temples were to them idolatry. Human art was trivial in the pres- ence of the Divine Majesty. Poor in the riches of this world, yet for the house they built for His ser- vice they gave with a liberal hand. Simple and homely in its design, they dishonored it by no un- faithful work. They chose the soundest oaks ; they fitted its strong frame with elaborate care. Perhaps some lingering memory of the gothic arches of the cathedrals in the homes they had left, or fresher memories of the shades of the forest, unconsciously guided the axes which hewed the curved beams of its roof, now hidden by the ceiling above; and here and there slight traces of ornament show that the hand even of the Puritan artificer would wander, when tempted astray by some graceful fancy ; but otherwise all is as strong and severe as the faith it typifies. And now its simple and homely lines are softened by the tender associations of more than two centuries ; by the joy and the sadness of all the solemn ceremonies of life and death. The builder's art has not failed ; the elements have spared it ; it
44 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
will stand till the oak decays, a monument of tVie fathers' piety and the sons' veneration.
And not merely have the town and its people pre- served with faithful care these visible memorials of their ancestors ; they have not failed on suitable anniversaries publicly to honor their memory. Fifty years ago to-day they celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement with a zealous energy we cannot hope to surpass. All the resources of the town were appropriately employed, and all citi- zens united to give interest and dignity to the occasion. The bells of the various meeting-houses were rung. Young and old, escorted by two mili- tary companies of the town, — the Hingham Rifle Company and the Washington Guards, — marched in procession to this Meeting-house and joined in impressive services. Then, as to-day, the Chief Magistrate of the Commonwealth honored the town by his presence. Distinguished strangers joined returning sons to pay their tribute of respect. Of these guests John Quincy Adams was the most conspicuous. Mr. Winthrop alone remains to enjoy in the evening of life his well-earned honors. The centennial oration, delivered upon this very spot, reviewed the history of the town, recalled the ser- vices of its prominent citizens, and gave fit expres- sion to the reflections and hopes which such an anniversary inspires. In the hearts of many of us emotions of sadness arise as we read the names of those who lent that day its spirit. Most are gone,
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 45
even of those then young. But it adds to the pleasure of this occasion that we can welcome here a few who remain to teach us the enthusiasm which was then aroused.
The various anniversaries of important events in the history of this parish and of its Meeting-house, have, in like manner, been publicly commemorated ; and the eloquent discourses then delivered, especially the admirable address of Professor Norton upon the two hundredth anniversary of the building of this house, have kept fresh the history of the town ; for, in the early days, town and parish were one. One history of the town has long been published, — the early fruit of the industrious research of one whose other contributions to its published history were unceasing, and whose interest in the town ended only with his life. An ample volume, prepared at public expense and with most painstaking care, pre- serves the story of the part taken by Hingham in the Civil War ; and, by like authority, there is now preparing another history, which shall be a complete account of Hingham. I am thus warned that its history is familiar to you; and that the lessons which it teaches have been taught you by lips far more competent than mine. Nothing but a deep interest and a strong sense of filial duty prompt me to be even a gleaner in such well-harvested fields. And yet, upon such an anniversary, our first thoughts must turn backward. However familiar the path, our steps, for a while at least, must follow the an-
46 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
cient ways. It is the day for old memories ; and I should do it no justice should I refuse to revive them. We recall them with the same unfailing pleasure with which we revisit the homes of our youth. They have a mysterious charm, the deeper because it is peculiarly our own. The associations of such a day acquire not merely their tender in- terest, but indeed, if I may use a paradox, their freshness and strength from their very age and familiarity.
Two hundred and fifty years! Hardly to be counted in the unrecorded ages since the earth took form. Scarcely a moment, even upon the dial of recorded time. Short, indeed, in such comparisons, and yet, if measured by the scale of human progress, centuries longer than all preceding time. For in them has arisen the new modern world, with its new states, and its new principles of government, its new science, literature, and art. The lapse of a period so rounded lifts us in imagination to a height from which we have a clearer vision of the early days. Years are brief ; and the beginning very near. We cannot, indeed, now learn all our history from living lips ; but words from lips of those who told it to their sons, and they again to theirs, might, thus transmitted, almost reach our ears. One hundred and fifty years ago one of the original settlers was still alive. Three such generations would span the interval from the first settlement. With long lives have Hingham men been honored. To this the
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 47
remarkable record of yonder tablet bears witness. One of the ministers whose names are there en- rolled, the Rev. Dr. Gay, preached here within a few months of seventy years ; another, Mr. Richardson, was pastor of this parish more than sixty-five ; and both, in discourses preached from this pulpit, bor- rowing their text from the words of the prophet and repeating his experience, were able with him to declare, " And now, lo, I am this day four score and five years old."
The lives and character of the Puritans have been the frequent theme of the orator, the historian, and the essayist. Their achievements and the con- sequences which followed have been so grand, and their character so strong, as to justify high eulogy. But praise has been indiscriminate, and a dispropor- tioned estimate has resulted. The prevailing im- pressions concerning them are in a considerable degree inaccurate and unjust. Their peculiarities have been exaggerated and their asceticism over- stated; and on the other hand, they have been credited with a broader conception of religious lib- erty than they really possessed. We insist on the nobility of their sacrifices and of their supreme devotion to the dictates of their consciences ; but, on the other hand, we cannot claim that their con- sciences were fully illuminated.
" Not unto them was lent All light for all the coming days."
48 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
Their conception of religious liberty was not com- plete. They did not contend for entire liberty of conscience, nor for full religious toleration. They had themselves been oppressed ; odious and, as they thought, unscriptural ceremonies had been imposed on them against their will, and they were ready to sacrifice everything to found a state in which they, not all men, could so order their lives and their worship as they were sure the Scriptures prescribed. They had not disputed the right of the temporal power to regulate religious belief. They recognized this power, so long as it was exercised in support of truth. But they bore it no allegiance when it op- pressed truth and upheld error. They did not, therefore, profess to be tolerant. Where, indeed, were they to learn toleration ? Under what influ- ences had their faith been formed ? In every State in Europe, except perhaps in Holland, martyrs were burning at the stake. Hingham in England was not so far from Oxford but that the fathers of the founders of Hingham in New England may have seen the fires blazing around Latimer and Ridley. Toleration was nowhere recognized. They did not then complain of the exercise of an unjust power, but of an unjust exercise of power; and their resist- ance to it was leading them, as they believed, to a purer faith, but not to liberty of conscience. The arguments by which they maintained their position were often, indeed, broad enough to support the much more liberal one of complete toleration.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 49
But they claimed for them no such force. To secure this was not their purpose. So far were they from conceding it that many protested directly against it. Mr. Ward, in his " Simple Cobler of Agawam," writes : " He that is willing to tolerate any religion besides his own, either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it ; " and again he says : " It is said that men ought to have Liberty of their Conscience, and that it is Persecution to debarre them of it. I can rather stand amazed than reply to this. It is an astonishment to think that the brains of men should be parboyld in such impious ignorance. Let all the wits under the Heavens lay their heads together and find an assertion worse than this (one excepted), I will petition to be chosen the universal Ideot of the world."
Such were the principles which the Puritans im- bibed in England and brought with them here. But men so intelligent and imbued with the spirit of civil equality, could not long maintain religious doc- trines so narrow. The light soon broke. The great principle of complete religious freedom in its broad- est latitude was soon proclaimed among them, and advocated by minds which had outstripped their contemporaries and been gifted with a keener vision. Roger Williams was the greatest of those upon whom this truth had dawned, though his warnings were not the first that had been given. On the deck of the Speedwell, as the Pilgrims parted from their friends at Delft Haven, John Robinson admon-
50 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
ished them of human imperfection, and besought them to receive the truth from whomsoever it should come. The seed thus sown did not bear immediate fruit. By great sacrifices the Puritans had at last secured the peaceful exercise of their own religious convictions ; and it was natural that they should be impatient of any interruption of that peace. They were not disposed to consider how far their own claims, made when they were the weaker party, im- posed a corresponding toleration for others when they themselves held control. They had not sought a new home to raise or discuss a question like this. They did not claim to be consistent or tolerant. They made no claims, — they knew they were right ; and if they were right, others were wrong. To tol- erate evil was to participate in it. Hence they be- lieved themselves justified in excluding from church and state those whose opinions did not conform to their own. Such men were sowing tares in the garden of the Lord.
This view of the Puritan character does not fairly detract from their moral grandeur. Never Vv^ere men more nobly faithful to the light that was in them. We, with an experience which they did not possess, may hesitate to assign them so high a posi- tion, as founders of states, as that to which they would have been entitled, had they been given the wise foresio^ht to see that from a wider toleration would have earlier resulted a larger measure of the truth which makes all free ; but yet, even with our
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 5 I
light, we may not merely excuse but justify their position as a political necessity. There may be too much of toleration. Unanimity and peace are essential to the existence of small communities ; much more to their prosperous growth. Such can- not, like large states, absorb men of all conditions and all beliefs without appreciable danger. When such danger appears, the right to exclude arises ; and of the exercise of this right the communities themselves must judge. I do not forget that in some parts of New England the Puritans descended to persecution, for which I have no defence. But this I need not here discuss. I find no stain like this upon the lives of our Hingham fathers.
And, on the other hand, in another particular, those who have described the Puritan character have given it too dark a coloring, and have done them an injustice which we are entitled to correct.
From the gloomy severity of their religious doc- trines have been inferred a corresponding severity and gloom of life. But no creed ever found full expression in practice ; and no severity of creed or practice can change our humanity. It cannot de- stroy affection for kindred. It cannot extinguish the love of home and of country. These finer emotions, even if hidden, the Puritan never lost. Doubtless, under the repression of a severe exterior, they burned with fiercer warmth. These men were our fathers, not very far removed from us. Their children know that those so near to them were men
52 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
of like affections with themselves. They who set- tled these shores were no mere discontented adven- turers seeking to repair their broken fortunes in new fields ; nor were they driven forth by superior power. They were voluntary exiles in obedience to the highest sense of duty, and in devotion to their highest ideals. They held no mean place in Eng- land. Though their lives even there were austere, yet they were spent in a land naturally beautiful ; where ample harvests rewarded moderate toil ; where were the homes of their race and the monuments of its fame ; where, if anywhere, it was open to them to enjoy so much of worldly pleasure as they thought the just privilege of the servants of the Lord. Can we believe that all this was not dear to them, — that they did not reluctantly part from it.? The Pil- grims lingered in Holland before they finally turned their faces to the west. Can we suppose that Pil- grim and Puritan never looked backward to their early home with an affectionate longing ? And yet no thought of these things could turn them from their high purpose. They were men of the noblest type ; but we belittle their sacrifice if we picture them insensible to those ties which bind all men most strongly.
No dramatic incident marks the coming of the first settlers of Hingham, nor their early history. They made no picturesque landing upon a desert rock under a stormy sky. Peter Hobart, the first pastor, as he stepped ashore at Bare Cove, a few
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 53
rods from where we now stand, behind the ceme- tery hill, found that a few scattered settlers had preceded him, and there soon gathered his little flock, — if so pastoral a comparison fitly describes the gathering of men who with arms in their hands, from rough homes, by forest paths, sought the sanc- tuary, then at once a fortress and a house of God. Life was no doubt laborious in that first summer at Hingham. Without, the mere struggle for existence left but little space for the simplest amusements, even had such found favor; within doors, the pleasures of literature were practically unknown. But there are some bright colors in the picture. The colonists had found freedom and peace, at least as against all those enemies with whom they had hitherto con- tended; and the lands in which their lines had fallen, although not pleasant places, were not altogether unlovely. The waters of the bay were as blue then as now; the wild beauty, even of the unsubdued forest, in the luxuriance of its summer foliage, must have charmed even eyes accustomed to the mel- low loveliness of an English landscape ; and the brilliant tints of autumn lit the air with a novel splendor.
It was in July, 1635, that a plantation was erected here, — that is to say, a municipal government was then established; and on September 2, 1635, this plantation, hitherto known by the name of Bare Cove, was incorporated as the town of Hingham, — borrowinsf this name from Hino;ham in Enorland,
54 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
from which its settlers chiefly came. It is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of that incorpora- tion which we celebrate to-day. The little settle- ment grew with moderate growth, expanding along the town brook, and also toward Broad Cove, and upon Bachelor Street, now Main Street, by the first meeting-house, which stood opposite where the Derby Academy now stands. It extended by the hill around the meeting-house, on the slopes of which the first settlers were buried, whose remains now sleep peacefully in yonder burial-ground within the walls of the fort which they guarded in life. Hither came to join the settlement many men of some property, of good standing, and of more than ordinary education. At this time Peter Hobart, the first minister, is the conspicuous figure, and so con- tinues during his life. Church and State were now one. Church-membership alone gave the right to vote. The meeting-house was the town-house. The minister of religion, by virtue of his high position and of the education which fitted him for it, then shared by few, was naturally a leader also in secular affairs. For such a part Peter Hobart was well fitted, not merely by his position but by tempera- ment. The quaint language used by the magistrates of the Massachusetts Colony, when they sent to him to forbear delivering a discourse in Boston, on the occasion of the marriage of one of his church, well described him. They gave their reason for the prohibition in words very familiar to Hingham ears.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 55
" He was a bold man," they said, " and would speak his mind."
No events, which at this distance of time seem important, mark the early years of the settlement ; and yet there is not wanting evidence that the first settlers and the new comers retained the same jealous determination to maintain their rights, as revealed by the light within, which had led them across the sea, and the same boldness in asserting them before the constituted authorities. Indeed, the pertinacity of our fathers seems early to have vexed the General Court. So early as 1643, with a pru- dent thrift which looked well forward to the values of the present, they laid claim to a portion of Nan- tasket, and supported this claim before the courts of law with the best evidence they could command. The General Court, however, entertained a different opinion of its merits from that held by the town, and adjudged it frivolous. The records of the court set forth the following judgment, with which, having an appreciative view of the Hingham spirit, it was thought prudent to incorporate a warning. The language is : " The former grant to Nantascot was againe voted & confirmed, & Hingham men willed to forbear troubleing the Co't any more about Nan- taskot." Lans^uas^e thus distinct our fathers had the wisdom to understand, and with this claim they troubled the court no more. But a controversy shortly arose which, although of insignificant origin, grew to large proportions, stirred the town to its
56 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
centre, and soon engaged the attention of the high- est authorities of the colony. This was the " sad unbrotherly contention," as it is termed by Johnson in the " Wonder Working Providence," relating to the choice of the captain of the military company. The details of the controversy are easily accessible, and I will not pause to recount them. The original subject of difference was unimportant, and the re- spective merits of the parties to it are not so easily determined. These considerations were early over- shadowed by the discussions of more serious ques- tions which arose in the General Court and before the legal tribunals, and which involved the right of petition, respect for and resistance to civil authority, and, in fine, some of the highest problems of gov- ernment. The " bold man," Peter Hobart, and his followers did not hesitate to charge Deputy Gov- ernor Winthrop with an abuse of power. What is chiefly interesting to us is to observe the brave and intelligent independence of our townsmen, as represented by Hobart and the majority, and their impatience of authority which, as they thought, infringed their rights, — even though that authority was in part of their own creation. The final judg- ment of the magistrates upon the merits of the original controversy was against Peter Hobart and his party ; but upon the more serious questions at issue, it is not clear that they were held to be in the wrong.
The Deputy Governor was acquitted. The town
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 57
suffered from the dispute, but the colony profited. It gave to Governor Winthrop the opportunity to render a great pubHc service, in the address which he deHvered before the magistrates and deputies. This was a most admirable exposition of the posi- tion of magistrates in a democracy, and of true liberty under law. It is to-day a lucid definition of the true principles of government, and illustrates how early they were correctly apprehended by our ancestors. Whatever criticism we may make upon their conception of religious liberty, we have none for their civil government. Grant that they were strict in excluding from a share in that government those whose opinions did not conform to their own, yet perfect equality of political rights obtained among themselves. They established, at the first, a pure democracy. The experience of two centuries and a half has resulted in no improvement of the principles on which it rests. Our national growth does not illustrate the growth of liberal principles, but rather the development of material advantages under liberal principles. The state which these men founded was mature at its creation. The world is still indebted to it for the most perfect type of free government.
Matters of so grave moment occupy, of course, but a small space in the history of the town. The early years could not be largely occupied in the dis- cussion of principles of government. The Indians were at first a source of constant anxiety, although
58 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
the town never suffered severely from their depre- dations. It contributed men and money for the defence of the colony against them. It gave full assistance in resisting the great and unsuccessful effort of King Philip to exterminate the white men, and with his failure danger from the Indians disap- peared. The vigorous Hobart, venerable in years and honors, passed away, living just long enough to give his benediction to his gentler successor, the scholarly Norton. The early ministry of the latter was signalized by the building of this meeting-house, long known as the " New Meeting-house." The lapse of years has reversed its designation, and now it has become doubtless the oldest building in the land still occupied for Protestant worship. Before the first century of the town closed Norton had been suc- ceeded by the Rev. Dr. Gay, and little else occurred during that period which need be noted.
So ended the first hundred years. The town had grown slowly, but with a stable growth. Here, as elsewhere, the complexion of civil society was changing. The first settlers left the mother coun- try, chiefly, although not wholly, to secure religious freedom. The interests of religion, therefore, were at first predominant. The clergy were leaders of the community. But the lapse of one hundred years wrought a change. Religious freedom was assured, and now civil rights began to demand pro- tection against the aggressions of the mother-coun- try. For this reason, and because of the wider
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 59
diffusion of education, which was no longer so largely confined to the ministers of religion, their influence began to fade. Then, too, the growth of material prosperity and the general advance of knowledge had affected the severe theology of the early settlers. The stringent doctrines which Peter Hobart proclaimed were held in less rigid grasp by the milder nature of his successor, and were ulti- mately broadened to the liberalism of Dr. Gay. But nothing essential had been lost, we may well believe, of the sturdy virtues which had been tempered and strengthened by the trials of a hundred years, and all their strength was soon to be tested by the long strain of the War of the Revolution. Although our fathers sought seclusion here, they had not yet re- nounced their allegiance to England, and as her sub- jects, they could not escape the duties and burdens which resulted from that relation. They became necessarily involved in the long struggle between England and France for the possession of North America, and contributed their share of men and money to the various expeditions sent from New England. Soldiers from Hingham sailed for Que- bec under Sir William Phips ; joined the expedition to Nova Scotia in the French war of 1744; and were present at the massacre of Fort William Henry.
The sacrifices of our fathers to secure relisfious freedom in the first century of our history are paralleled by the anxieties and sufferings of their sons to secure civil rights in the War of the Revo-
6o THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
lution. In the council and in the field, on sea and land, the sons of Hingham bore their full part. Benjamin Lincoln, the Hingham farmer, rose to be General Lincoln of the Continental Army and the trusted friend of Washington. To him was assigned the hicrh honor of receivinsj the sword of Cornwallis at Yorktown, and this closing act of the war not merely fitly crowns his own conspicuous services, but honorably associates the name of his native town with the imperishable records of the great struggle. I touch lightly upon the history of these immortal years, lest praise, by frequent repetition, should lose its significance. The fruits of those years of trial we enjoy ; the sufferings we can hardly make our own. And yet we of this generation, by the experiences of the great Civil War, have learned in some degree the depth of such anxieties and sufferings. We have learned that the same courage which supported our fathers through the weary years of the Revolution remains undiminished in their sons. What Massachusetts man who lived in April, 1 86 1, will ever forget those thrilling days? The flame lit by the attack upon Sumter flashed through the North, firing the slumbering patriotism of every heart. The weary months of anxious debate and of suggestions of humiliating compromise were over. Minutes now were crowded with emotions as novel as they were intense. Men lived new lives. Love of country grew from a sentiment to a glowing pas- sion, purifying character and lifting men to high
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 6 1
resolves. The State, the nation, everything that we held dear and of which we were proud, all that we had inherited from our ancestors, all that we had ourselves secured, was assailed and endangered ; and the whole community, moved by an inflexible will, and inspired by a mighty zeal which never flagged in years of trial, determined that the great inheri- tance should not be lost. No one who witnessed that magnificent uprising and that patient and in- vincible devotion of an entire people need ever fear for popular government, or doubt that it is the strono-est and noblest that man can devise.
And of what Hingham did in those days it may well be proud. The call to arms came with the sudden speed of the lightning's flash, and to this town among the very first. There was neither hesi- tation nor delay. In less than a day the Lincoln Light Infantry, true to an honored name, men ac- customed to the peaceful occupations of a quiet town, had left their homes and families and were on their way to confront the perils of actual war. While some sons of Massachusetts, in their rapid advance to defend the national capital and govern- ment, were marching through the streets of Balti- more, Hingham men, with equal promptness, were moving to secure Fortress Monroe. The regiment to which they were attached was the very first to start from Boston for the South. From the time of that early summons brave sons of Hingham served in the army and navy till success was assured. The
62 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
town holds them in grateful memory, which shall endure longer than yonder granite shaft on which the names of the fallen are inscribed. Fifty years ago it was the privilege of the centennial orator to greet surviving soldiers of the Revolution, and to renew to them expressions of a well-earned gratitude. The last of those veterans has passed away; but we to-day are equally honored by the presence of those who with equal courage protected what they bequeathed.
Chief among those sons of Hingham whose lives were given to their country must always be named her son by adoption. Governor Andrew. This sim- ple citizen, of genial and affectionate nature, untried in public life, the people by an unerring instinct selected and upheld as their leader through years which demanded unyielding firmness and the highest skill of statesmanship. In these he did not fail. How well he served the State I need not here repeat, nor recall those days of laborious toil which sapped his life. His energy, his courage, his persevering devotion to every duty, his generous sympathy for all men of every condition, his high elevation above the low machinations of the politician, his generous forgiveness of the conquered, combine to form a character which is an example for the present and one in which we miss no virtue of the past. And shall I not claim as a descendant from a Hingham ancestry the greatest American of our time. Presi- dent Lincoln ? Though the line of his descent has
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 6^
not been fully traced, yet the names of his immediate ancestors and the traditions of his family confirm a conclusion already well supported upon other evi- dence, that when the missing records are discovered he will be found to have originated here. Meanwhile it gratifies a pardonable pride to believe that from the stock that settled Hingham sprang that honest, sagacious, kindly leader, under whose guidance his trustful country safely passed through the gravest dangers and secured a firmer union, universal free- dom, and lasting peace.
This rapid survey of a few events in the town's history omits much which is essential to a complete account. This venerable meeting-house and its min- isters naturally first attract attention; but the parish has been the parent of others, whose houses of wor- ship are themselves venerable in years, and whose pastors have won even more than -a local fame. So early as 1721 the Second Church was organized, at what was then called Conohasset. When the mother church became aware that the people of Cohasset desired a church of their own, her anxiety was at once aroused for their welfare. She hesitated to trust them so far from her safe protection. They might go, she said, if they would provide themselves with an Orthodox minister and would accept him cheerfully. She was not willing that they should enter the path toward a more liberal faith on which she had herself already far advanced until it was clear whither it led. But the people of Cohasset
64 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
would accept no such conditions. This goes with- out saying, for they were Hingham men. They had their way ; they founded their parish and built their meeting-house ; and not long after took enough of Hingham to make a town of their own. The prosperous daughter is already old enough to have celebrated her own centennial fifteen years ago. Another parish was organized at South Hingham, in 1742; a fourth — the present Third Congrega- tional Society — in 1807. These were all the so- cieties existing in Hingham for nearly two hundred years ; and it is remarkable that during this period there appears to have been complete harmony of religious belief. Other societies of different faiths have since been established.
And though I have paused to name but few promi- nent citizens, I do not forget the long list of men — some resident here, and others of Hingham origin — who have risen to conspicuous positions and secured success in all walks of life. It includes the names of men selected to hold high offices in the state and nation, of men distinguished in all professions, and in science, in literature, and in art. The town shares in their honors, and they have cherished toward it an affectionate loyalty.
The account would still be incomplete. Much that is spread upon public records gives results, but acquaints us little with causes. It would interest us to examine the domestic life of our fathers, to study their homely thrift, to note the serious ear-
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 65
nestness with which they so managed the affairs of daily Hfe in the fear of the Lord that all acts seemed to become a part of his service. We might trace in the debates of the town-meeting the strengthening of those principles of freedom and of those political rights which later found expression in words in the Declaration of Independence, and in deeds in the battles of the Revolution and the Civil War. We should observe that in the teachings of the pulpit, under the softening influence of the centuries, threats of the terrors of a divine wrath had yielded to the gentler yet more potent persuasions of an infinite love. And our study would not end even here. Indeed, two centuries and a half of human prog- ress have so wrought modern communities into an interdependent whole that no one can be isolated; and it would be necessary to pass beyond the town's limits adequately to exhibit the causes which have developed the Hingham of to-day.
However close its relations with its neighbors or with the State, Hingham has always preserved an individuality of its own. It has maintained a char- acter for stability, for a well-distributed prosperity, for education above the average, for sound princi- ples, for harmony, and for a wise and liberal pub- lic spirit. The history upon which I have briefly touched suggests the causes of these results. The first settlers were men of similar rank in life. They were not possessed of considerable property or great education ; nor, on the other hand, were they of mean
66 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
origin or position. Many of them were farmers and mechanics, fair t3q3es of the EngHsh yeomanry. These men clung to their new home, and their chil- dren to their birthplace. The people of Hingham, therefore, springing to a great extent directly from the first settlers, have preserved the Puritan blood, and with it the Puritan characteristics. And these characteristics have descended to the present, modi- fied in all alike by the same general influences. The Puritan frugality, thrift, and sobriety have not been mere traditions, but son has learned them of father and taught them to his children.
On the other hand, the body of Puritan religious doctrine has by no means been preserved, but has given place to a more liberal faith. This result is of course largely due to causes of broader origin and effect than are contained within the limits of the town, and too extensive for present consideration. Their local influence was no doubt guided and ac- celerated by Dr. Gay, who through the length of his pastorate and by his great ability wielded a power sufficient to lead his people. While, therefore, relig- ious doctrines underwent much modification, the change was embraced by all alike, so that for nearly two hundred years there was substantial harmony of religious faith. Nor can this be justly charged to mental inactivity or to intolerance. The men of Hinsfham learned from Peter Hobart to be bold men, and they have spoken their minds. But they have not been too obstinate in the pride of their
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 67
convictions, nor lost that respectful deference for the opinions of others which is essential to the smooth workins^ of free institutions.
Something of the general average of prosperity which has attended the growth of the town is to be attributed to natural causes. Neither its situation nor its resources have been such as to develop a single industry to the exclusion of others. No broad river turns the wheels of great factories ; its soil favors no special crop, nor can it compete with the rich prairies of the West; but all its modest advantages have been turned to good ac- count. Its citizens have been to a large extent landholders, and the town has enjoyed the stability which attends such an ownership. Farms of liberal extent have returned a competence to the farmer. Agriculture and horticulture have especially pros- pered, and both, under the vigorous impulse given by the Hingham Society, have of late secured for the town more than a local name. A wide variety of manufactures has from time to time occupied its citizens. The sea, as well as the land, has yielded its large returns. Thus has resulted a compara- tively equal distribution of property, and permanent security from commercial disaster. Such influences confirm likewise the homogeneous character of its people. No wide differences of social position have impaired its harmony or its unanimity. By reason of its geographical position, it has suffered little of the loss which remote towns experience, from
68 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
which their numbers and best life are drained by the superior attractions of cities. No doubt this town has not altogether escaped this influence nor its certain effect ; but whatever it has thus lost has been compensated by ready access to the larger markets and broader opportunities of a large city, and its citizens who have been drawn thither have not escaped the influence of early attachments, nor have proved unwilling to share with their native town some portion of the fruits of their success.
Although the first settlers were not especially well educated, yet there were among them men of more than ordinary acquirements. The value of education was at once recognized, and a standard above the average has always been upheld. To this both public and private liberality and effort early contributed, and have continued their sup- port. Not merely were common schools at once established, but Greek and Latin have been taught in Hingham from a date earlier than that of King Philip's war. Whatever may be the modern question of the utility of these studies, at least they appear to have done the town no harm. And it is now more than one hundred years since Madam Derby estab- lished Derby School, now Derby Academy, as practi- cally a free academy, where the higher branches of learning could be taught. The result of all these provisions was early to develop and maintain a society not merely recognized as well educated, but one of considerable refinement.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 69
The school-houses of the present day, with the means of education which they supply, mark an incalculable advance upon the opportunities of our fathers. It is not certain that sound education has made equal strides. New England knows well the value of common schools, and there is no danger that they will lack support. The danger lies in placing too high a value upon imposing buildings and multiplied studies. The highest object of these schools is education, — that is to say, mental train- ing,— not the acquisition of information alone. Of mere information, no doubt our schools supply more than our fathers could command. They were our inferiors in accurate learning. That they were such in mental vigor — the test of a sound education — I should not dare affirm.
One other secret of permanent influence and strength, and of a sound public spirit, has always been recognized. The town has listened to the counsels of its best citizens, has employed them in its service, and has conferred its honors upon them. They, on the other hand, have devoted their best efforts to her interests. This was conspicuously true of its early history. In those days no doubt educa- tion was the possession of fewer men, and made them inevitably leaders. Nevertheless, it was no more true in the days of Peter Hobart than it is to- day, that those names which the memory most readily preserves as leaders in the town were those fittest to lead, and those who have made its name familiar
JO THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
abroad have first become conspicuous at home. We hear much in these days about the failure of the best citizens to take part in pubHc affairs. Com- plaint is made that they are critics of, not actors in public life. The greater fault is with the people themselves who refuse to call such to their service. Men of worth are men of self-respect. The people must itself select its leaders. Those are not fit to lead who select themselves. The public service is the highest service. The government of men is the most difficult work set for men to do. No ability is too great for it ; no experience too wide. This ability and experience are not acquired in the suc- cessful machinations of a caucus. Public office is not best filled by men who resort to it for a livelihood which they cannot earn in competition with their fellows.
Besides these characteristics, there attaches to the old town an indescribable quaintness, result- ing in part directly from its antiquity, but coming also from the peculiar individuality of its people. It is not, after all, in fresh and new communities that human nature finds its freest scope and results in its greatest diversity. It is in the old towns that you find most individuality, — perhaps most strength of character. Native soil supplies most vigor.
This is indeed a day to celebrate the past, to magnify the deeds and sacrifices of the fathers by exhibiting the fruits they have borne. But no day
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 7 I
is a day for self-complacency. We justify our satis- faction with the present only by reason of the credit it reflects on them. Such an inheritance brings proportionate responsibilities. Nothing valuable was ever won without effort or retained without vigilance. The past has been great, but the present does not sink below it. The standard of private morality has not been lowered. If religious duties appeared then to absorb more of life, yet what we are taught is true religion finds better expression in the widespread charity of to-day. No more learned divines nor those of saintlier life walked before the people in those earlier years than have led this gen- eration by their high example. This town has furnished no more influential magistrates, no more faithful public servants, no more public-spirited citizens than in the recent years. Fresh from the memories of the Civil War, shall we say patriotism fails } Do not the countless thousands who followed the great general of that struggle to his grave testify that popular gratitude is still warm ? It is a day of great deeds and great opportunities. The political progress of the w^orld is developing states, of which the extent and power surpass their predecessors, and are only paralleled by the empire acquired by men over the natural forces of the world, — these again to be left far behind in the growth of the century to come. We pass our hour in looking backward, in celebrating the virtues of our fathers and proposing them for our examples. Let us not miss the highest
72 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
lesson they teach. Their glance was always for- ward. They were not occupied with the glories of their past, but with the duties of the present, and the hopes of the future. They cast aside their por- tion of material prosperity upon which we congratu- late ourselves to-day, and trusted the promise of the centuries to come. Richer than they by the wealth of their example, let us remember that the only con- ditions of life are change and progress. Let this old town, then, not content with what the fathers have done, but instructed by them, not merely pre- serve what is valuable in its inheritance, but welcome and encourage whatever promises to improve it. So shall it maintain its honorable fame, and future cen- tennials present to its children a continued record of prosperity.
The Oration was followed by the singing of " America " by the congregation, with inspiring effect. The exercises closed with a Benediction by Rev. Henry M. Dean, minister of the First Baptist Society.
BENEDICTION OF REV. HENRY M. DEAN.
Thou God of the spirits of all flesh, thou Crea- tor and Preserver of all generations of men, as on the fathers, so upon the sons, and in yet richer measure, may mercy, grace, and peace from thee abide, through Christ. Amen.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 73
On the arrival of the procession at the meeting- house and during the time of the exercises there, the school-children, about seven hundred in number, were provided with a collation at Loring Hall, after which they were dismissed.
The presence of the children was one of the most interesting and beautiful features of the celebration. From the beginning it had been repeatedly urged upon the Committee of Arrangements that the day should be made memorable to the young, and every effort was made to accomplish this result. Convey- ances were provided for the more distant schools. The children turned out with full ranks. Each scholar was provided with a badge of red ribbon with a gilt heading and pin, upon which was in- scribed, " 250th Anniversary of the Settlement of Hingham: School." The teachers and scholars had provided themselves with tasteful banners indicating their respective schools. No person who observed the bright eyes and smiling faces of the children, portraying their lively interest in the occasion, will ever forget the picture.
While the exercises in the meeting-house and the children's collation were in progress, Reeves's Amer- ican Band gave a concert in Fountain Square, which was listened to by a large concourse of people.
Upon the close of the exercises in the meeting- house, the bells on all the churches were rung for an hour, and a national salute of thirty-eight guns was fired from " Powder-house " hill.
74 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
The procession was reformed and moved through Main and Leavitt Streets to Agricultural Hall, the place appointed for the dinner. Here the pro- cession was dismissed.
After the guests and those holding dinner-tickets had entered the hall, the Cadets marched to their headquarters, which had been established for the day at the corner of Main and Water Streets, in the rear of the house occupied b}^ Charles C. Melcher, quartermaster of the corps. They dined in a tent pitched for the purpose. Later in the day they returned to Agricultural Hall, and escorted the Governor to the special train which conveyed them to Boston.
The presence of the Cadets added very much to the brilliancy of the occasion, and enabled the Com- mittee of Arrangements to furnish suitable escort to their chief guest, the Governor of the Common- wealth. It gave general satisfaction that the military organization which has become ours by adoption, because of their annual encampment in Hingham, took part in this celebration.
The Grand Army Post which escorted the proces- sion dined in a tent near the residence of Col. Hawkes Fearing, at Hingham Centre ; and the Fire Department dined at Niagara Hall.
THE DINNER.
^OUR hundred and eighty-seven persons were seated at dinner. At the table upon the plat- form sat Hon. John D. Long, the President of the Day. On his right were Governor Robinson, Brig. Gen. Samuel Dalton, Col. Ephraim Stearns, Col. Edward H. Gilbert, Hon. Henry B. Peirce, Hon. Jonathan Bourne, Mr. Luther Stephenson, and Mr. DeWitt C. Bates, Chairman of the Selectmen of Hingham. On his left were Lieut. Governor Ames, Mr. Solomon Lincoln, Hon. Thomas Russell, Hon. John F. Andrew, Dr. William Everett, Rev. Edward A. Horton, Rev. H. Price Collier, Rev. Henry A. Miles, D. D., and Mr. J. Q. A. Lothrop, Chairman of the Selectmen of Cohasset.
Divine blessing was invoked by Rev. Dr. Miles, as follows : —
GoD of our fathers and God of their children from one generation to another, humbly and rever- ently we invoke thy blessing on the feast before us. May it be a feast of gratitude for the past, of inspir- ing hope for the future, and of a thoughtful and firm purpose to make the future better than the past, to the glory of thy holy name. Amen.
76 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
After dinner Reeves's Band played the overture to " Zampa." Addresses by the President and others followed. The speakers roused the audience to a high pitch of enthusiasm ; the President es- pecially, by his many humorous allusions, excited frequent laughter and applause, his hearers being quick to appreciate his points.
ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN D. LONG, PRESIDENT.
The only word which a presiding officer should utter on an occasion like this is the word of welcome. Having made which profound and original sugges- tion, the presiding ofHcer on this occasion will proceed .to occupy the rest of the afternoon.
The old town of Hingham, rich in historic interest as well as with distinguished names, — of which fact you are pretty well aware by this time, — now cele- brates her two hundred and fiftieth birthday, and extends a hearty greeting to all her children. She has summoned those who dwell at home and those who dwell abroad. She has invited her nearest and her remotest kin. She has entreated the stranger within her gates. Side by side with her veterans she has arrayed her school-children, whose songs rang on the morning air, and whose faces certainly were the fairer sunshine of the morning scene. She has recalled also the spirits of all those who have gone before ; and Hobart the preacher, and Thaxter the soldier have led their invisible but
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 77
sympathetic followers in the procession which has this day animated your streets. You marched past the house where Major-General Ben. Lincoln of Revolutionary fame was born and in which he lived and died, and the old warrior, clad in Continental costume, waved you an inaudible cheer with the sword of Cornwallis. You passed the site of the tavern where Lafayette tarried, and the gallant Frenchman politely saluted you. You passed the humble stoop on which Andrew stood on the night of his first nomination for Governor, and responded to the congratulations of his townsmen who never forget him. You passed the old Derby Academy, founded in the preceding century, and typical of the New England consecration to education. You passed the ancient Meeting-house, still as loyal to the Puritan essentials as its frame, for more than two centuries, to the Puritan architecture. You passed the old burying-ground where the forefathers — not "the rude forefathers" — of the hamlet sleep, and where for two hundred and fifty years the gen- erations of the town have lain down to honored rest. I regret to say that with sacrilegious, step invading their quiet slumber, somebody has recently and con- temptuously suggested in the columns of our village paper that the early settlers of Hingham either were in the exercises of this day, or had arranged and inspired them. It was a wicked and perverse citizen, angry because not he but a modest and meritorious townsman was made President of the Day. But the
78 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
sneer was an unconscious praise; and blessed be the old town of Hingham that so much of what was sterling in her past is preserved in the character and make-up of to-day, and that, if there was ever anything narrow or stinted, in the place of it have come the broad citizenship, the equal rights, the ex- panded personal freedom, the better living, and the larger circumstance of the present time.
The things, of course, which conspicuously mark the history of a town are the characteristics and acts of certain individuals. Round these cluster the romance and the interest. They are the blazed monarchs of the forest by which the traveller finds his way. And yet I think, and I think the histo- rian of the morning will agree with me, that the true history of a town for two hundred and fifty years is in its unindividualized growth, as steady and irre- sistible as the movement of a glacier, — the whole abundant forest, not a few trees in it, but the whole abundant forest with its mighty growing shelter and its common glory, — in other words, the entity of civilization, with its bettering of human conditions for all alike. If you would trace the real history of Hingham, you will not, proud as you may be of them, limit your view to the names of Lincoln and An- drew, which quickest catch the eye and elicit the praise of the outsider who, in kindly courtesy, pays us the graceful compliment of an after-dinner speech. You will find it, as you citizens of Hingham know, in the benefactions of Sarah Langley, who founded
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 79
the Academy ; of Martin Wilder and Ben. Loring, who dedicated halls to the people's use ; of Albert Fearing, whose picture is above me, and to whom we owe this Agricultural Hall, these Agricultural Grounds, and the Public Library, itself a very foun- tain of beneficence ; of Dr. Fiske, who, robbing the grim king of his terrors, woke the dreary desert of the dead into a garden of beauty and of grateful rest; of George P. Hay ward, to whom we are in- debted for the start of the best material gift this town ever had, — an abundant and universal supply of pure water; of men of the type of David Whiton, to whom, now in his broken health, we send the message of our sympathy, and who, out of his large heart, gave from his store while he had it to the enterprise and to the welfare of his native town ; of the young man who plants your waysides with the foliage that shall lift its grateful shade over the heads of 3rour children's children ; of that other who for half a generation has impressed the coming man and woman with the instruction of your highest public education ; of those, many and many among us, who by their industrious toil and faithful citizen- ship have kept sweet the heart of New England civilization, and who, though no Emerson dwelt among them, have lived his philosophy in the se- renity of their hearthsides, and written it in the aesthetic adornment of their homes ; of the devoted clergymen and teachers, the good women, the hum- ble apostles of social reform and charity, the pro-
8o THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
gressive citizens of foreign birth, the men of wealth, who, with a public spirit worthy of all praise, have year after year contributed to enlarge and to freshen every stream of good influence. Such be the bene- factors of your town, the fibre of your history, whom no orator engraves, whom no poet sings.
So it is, ladies and gentlemen, that we point you — to-day better than the past, to-morrow better than to-day — to better schools, to certainly a more en- franchised church, to a larger enjoyment of life, to a more widely diffused sharing of the good things of the world, than our fathers had ; yet we do not for- get that they are ours in this larger degree because of their evolution out of the fathers' prayers and tears and faith and toil and sacrifice. So it is that if this is a day of gratitude, as it is, it is still more a day of hope ; if it is a day of reverence, as it is, it is still more a day of pride ; if it is a day of laurels, as it is, it is still more a day of the spur ; and, above all, it is a glad, joyous day of welcome. It is a day merry with the ringing of bells and loud with the roar of cannon, although we are a little disappointed in that respect, the pieces not making the thunder we hoped for when we secured them. It is a day melodious^ with strains of music, and with the sweeter strain of the orator's voice ; a day happy with the songs and merriment of children and the memories of age, through whose very tears the rainbow arches. Over all its sweep, over the hills and the woods and on the bay, along every street
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 8 1
and over every home, Hingham writes her bounteous welcome.
Let us therefore, in the spirit of such a day, speak the things that come crowding to our hps. In the old Scripture phrase, let us open our hearts and sing praises. For this purpose — for I do not forget, now that I have had the opportunity to lift my own voice, that I am only a chorister whose duty it is not to sing but to keep time — I have engaged a very select choir. Each member of it is a soloist, and you are expected to furnish the accompaniment in your responsive faces and hands. Their songs are of a remarkable range, and yet not one of them will strike a base note, or a flat, or, on this occasion I trust, a sharp one. They will afflict your ears with no Italian airs, but give you plain New Eng- land psalmody. Yet, as you . listen, it will wake in your hearts the tenderest melodies that ever touched them to tears, — answering chords of home and patriotism, of the field and the farm, of the blue sea and the school-days, of the village church and the dear old Hingham life, inwrought into which is the pride of our citizenship, indeed, but a thousand times deeper and tenderer, the unspeakable riches of the love, the longing, the sorrows, and the memories of our hearts and homes.
A lady from foreign parts visiting us now, or some century ago, expressed her surprise that a New England dinner could be had, and toasts given and responded to, without wine. We will
82 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
show her to-day how the thing is done. A gentle- man, distinguished in this community for his interest in antiquities, has sent me this Httle mite of a bottle. It contains an acorn ; and the interesting thing about it is that that acorn was on the table fifty years ago this day, at the bi-centennial celebration at that time. It illustrates two things : first, how great oaks do not always from little acorns grow ; and second, how the great bottles of fifty years ago have diminished, until they are now hardly visible to the naked eye.
The first toast is. The Commonwealth of Mas- sachusetts,— a litde larger edition of the town of Hingham.
As a general thing, we do not care much about having Governors on our festival days. I suppose there are towns in the Commonwealth where they are a novelty; but with us in our home market they have got to be somewhat a drug. Of late years I doubt if you could have induced any of our very best citizens to accept the honor of the office. But just now we have such a good Governor, one who so thoroughly commands the respect and the con- fidence of the whole Commonwealth, that [applause] — you cannot wait until I finish my sentence before you overwhelm him with applause — that we wel- come him here with all our hearts. Governor Robinson, won't you strike the keynote for us ?
Governor Robinson was received with cheers and music by the band, after which he spoke as follows : —
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. $7)
ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR ROBINSON.
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — The keynote has been so well set by your honored fellow- citizen that I mistrust you really want him to con- tinue through the whole performance. Indeed, this volume that is to be presented this afternoon, so far as I may have any part in it, will be chiefly index and preface. You have it all now before you. It has been well done, ladies and gentlemen. And the gauge of Massachusetts has been set, in the judgment of the President, at least, — a smaller edi- tion of the town of Hingham. He said larger, but he really did n't mean it. Why, it has really become the sure impression of the people all over the Com- monwealth, if I may be allowed to state it, that somehow or other, if we should make the search, we should find Massachusetts tucked away in some little corner of this town. Why should n't we ? Looking down over the roll of the many years, and finding here and there a name of a man that has stood out before the nation and the world in great power and loyalty and courage and strength, we stop and take breath and say, " Is not that of Massachusetts ? '* Is it of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln of Revolutionary fame, of wisdom enough to sit in the councils of the great Washington, successful and popular enough to be collector of the port of Bos- ton, able to cut any knot that may have existed then
84 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
in the executive mind, and relieve a great many- other people of uncertainty whether they would not be called to that place ? The other Lincolns, away down to the present hour? All the Hobarts and the Cushings and all the other families ? It would take me all the afternoon to mention them here.
In the time that some of us younger people can recollect, the great man who sat in the Executive Chair, commanded the attention of the country, the confidence of the people, put the State into the front, carried the soldier forward with his enthusiasm and welcomed him home with his sweetest blessing ; he whose bones slumber now in your soil, — remem- bering him, should we not stop to think that Mas- sachusetts is in Hinsfham ? And if the President were not here now, it would be proper to say that even later than 1865 the confidence and the heart of Massachusetts have resided here in her Execu- tive. It is true indeed that the Commonwealth is but another edition of her towns.
This town is older than the Commonwealth. You sit here in your age of two hundred and fiftyyears. The Commonwealth came a long time afterward ; and only out of Hingham and Cohasset and Charles- town and Dorchester and Roxbury and Boston and Concord and Lexington and hundreds of others do we have any Commonwealth at all. There can be no power of the State except that found in the municipalities, and none in them but that which comes into the homes of the people, — aye, into
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 85
the hearts of the men and women themselves. Therefore it is true, as the President said, that Massachusetts is but the larger edition of Hing- ham ; and God will bless her surely in the future if she shall continue to be loyal to the under- lying principles of good order and decency and manhood that have made this town so strong and distinguished as she is. You celebrate the anni- versary, as I understood the orator this morning to say, of the incorporation of the town. The Secre- tary of the Commonwealth is here, and he will tell you that he has searched day and night to find the original charter of the town of Hingham, and so far as his eye could discover, — I make this statement here now so that it may be subject to correction by some after speaker, — all that he could trace was this: that on the second day of September, 1635, it was resolved, " The settlement at Bear Cove shall have hereafter the name of Hingham." You had your name changed, that is all ; took it from the old town across the water. And on that day Con- cord was really set out, her six miles square ; but Weymouth, your near neighbor, likewise was given a new name. The settlement had commenced, as the orator truly told you this morning, a year or two before, and continued along down for several years thereafter.
Now we stand at the end of the two hundred and fifty years, — a long time compared with man's three- score and ten, many generations rolled up in that
86 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM,
time, and yet nothing, a mere span, placed alongside the ages of the world, the records of great cities and countries in other lands. Why, you are older than Harvard College. You are older even than the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. You are more than a hundred years in antiquity beyond the Cadets, that so handsomely, nobly, and efficiently performed escort and protection for the Governor this morning. And you go back into a time when there were but eleven other towns recognized in the State. Only eleven ! And singularly enough, it is the fact that the Colonists then began to complain that there was not room in Massachusetts for all the people, and they crowded them over into Connecticut, and the settlement of that ancient State followed. What think you if in all these years, by some power divine or human, the sun in the heavens could have painted upon delicate plate the transactions of each year, and before you to-day could have been placed the succession of marvel- lous representations } In your own minds, so far as you have watched the current of events, you picture it, and what a thrilling presentation of life you have ! Right in this cove here, upon these rocky hills, along this edge, you find the few settlers coming, then more and more, until you have, by rapid processes, the town developed and a settle- ment established for all time.
Nor is the influence of such a town found alone within its own borders. It is undoubtedly true that
250Tn ANNIVERSARY. ^y
a great many persons here present have come home to-day. They dwell elsewhere. Sons and daughters of Hingham are found all over the country, aye, in various parts of the world, and carry her influence everywhere. More than that, too, it is always to the credit of a town that she keeps good cordiality at her doors. It testifies of her good quality when others like to visit her, and, better still, when they come here to spend their lives. Adopted citizenship is sometimes the best proof of the quality of origi- nal citizenship. Men go to countries where they can better their condition. Wanderers come from Maine to settle in Hingham, because they can do better; and they indeed not only bless themselves but richly benefit the communities of which they afterwards form a part.
Following the orator this morning, you noticed that he spoke of one characteristic of the early people of this town, and that was, boldness in speech, fearlessness to express sentiments. That is not peculiar to this town. Any one who has had an opportunity to see the people of this Commonwealth from the Governor's position knows that there are in several communities, and have been from time immemorial, people who express their minds when- ever they want to. But it is certainly characteristic to this extent, that search the records of the old towns in this State and you will find towering up now in history the men who stood out at that time ready to declare their opinions, whether the people
88 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
liked them or not, and you will discover there the names of men who were put to fine and imprison- ment, to general condemnation, because they uttered unwelcome sentiments. They stood up nevertheless, and history now sees those men, but forgets to know or represent that there were others who conformed to everything and everybody at will. You recollect that John Haynes was Governor of Massachusetts in 1635. He was rigid in discipline while exercising the chief office of this Commonwealth. He partici- pated in the banishment of Roger Williams. But after his settlement in Connecticut his ideas became somewhat modified. He had felt that a person should only have the views that were to correspond with those in power and authority ; but afterwards he said to Roger Williams in Connecticut, " I think I must now confess to you that God hath provided and cut out this part of the world for a refuge recep- tacle of all sorts of consciences." That is what New England is made up of, — all sorts of con- sciences in all sorts of people, with tongue and voice and thought to express what one will. That is the true freedom, and that our fathers really lived for and settled here for and builded for ; and the result has far exceeded the anticipations that they dared to indulge in 1635. It is a good deal of comfort for a man now in these modern days to have this all re- hearsed before him, especially if he is one that the press, in its gentle administrations, touches with an unkind hand now and then. So, my friends, if you
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 89
find in the morning journal that somebody is brought under severe censure and criticism, it may be that by and by, when that newspaper is forgotten as the very dust in the street, his name will be enrolled on high for the admiration of the millions. Possibly he, out of his courage, will have made his mark upon his time. Very likely he may be in the right all the while, and know within his conscience and his heart that he is speaking the truth that God even would own, and out of his own convictions cannot keep silent.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, the President told me at the outset, very quietly, that not more than ten minutes was expected of Governors in these days. I know this much, however, that just now he has no more power in the Commonwealth than anybody else. He cannot even command a single man in the Cadets, not one of them, nor issue an order that they would treat with respect ; and so I break over his injunction and go beyond my ten minutes.
This is the day really for the sons and daughters of Hingham, and, considering that, I must give way to them. What right have I, except as I speak for the whole people of the State, for the time being ? What privilege have I here, that I should take your time and your attention ? You want to have those speak from this platform who have been in and of you ; who have sat within your homes, part of your home circles ; who come back here to renew the
go THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
kindly associations of hand and voice and eye ; who are indebted and endeared to you in every form — men perhaps who were here fifty years ago, and took part in the great exercises of that celebration. You want to hear what have been the accomplish- ments of all these people in the times past, and I certainly should not prevent your enjoyment of the opportunity.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, we stand here with the two hundred and fifty years accomplished. We speak of the pride of the past, — we ought to ; but we are not fit to appreciate it unless we have resolu- tion and purpose for the future. The President has well selected the great and distinguished of the town and pointed to them as leading the way, as blazing the path through the forest, and he has gone farther and taken in those who by some act attracting at- tention make themselves strong among the people where they live. But I take you all in. You may select your one, two, or even a score of persons in a town and put them aside, and they constitute but a very small portion of that whole people. Looking up and down the seats that are before me, seeing the faces, knowing the intellect and the power and the culture and the good heart that is in this audience, I know that the future resides with you ; and whether one man or another is Governor, one man or another lives here or lives there, it is of small consequence compared with what you each do in your homes and in your daily life.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 9 1
Now, ladies and gentlemen, the Commonwealth is here to-day, and she will be here fifty years hence, though every one of us has disappeared forever. She stands every day with her towns and her cities. New people come up to call her their own from time to time, and she has her perpetuity in their strength and in their success. She gives you welcome to- day. She asks God's blessing for your future, and trusts it will be as honorable as we know the past has been.
The President. — Ladies and gentlemen, I never for a moment undertook to command the Governor of this Commonwealth that he should limit his speech to ten minutes. I simply, and with as much delicacy as I could, advised him not to exceed ten minutes. He ran great risk in not taking my advice.
The Lieutenant-Governor of the Commonwealth, on whom I am not going to call, informs me that his Constitutional duty is to go about with the Governor and to supply his deficiencies. But the Governor is never guilty of any deficiency, therefore the Lieutenant-Governor always remains silent. I am sure, however, although I respect his wish not to speak on this occasion, we all unite in paying him the tribute of our respect, due not only to his office but to him as a citizen and as the son of the father who so many years represented this District in Congress, and in whom the people of the District
92 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
never lost confidence. I should be happy to call also upon my friend, the Secretary of State, whose fund of humor never runs dry ; but the Common- wealth, of course, must not monopolize all the time on this occasion, and if he once began you would never let him sit down.
I have a telegram here from Prof. James Hall, a native of the town, distinguished for his scientific attainments, who regrets that he cannot be with us.
On Saturday last I telegraphed to the President of the Day at Concord, —
Hingham congratulates Concord on the celebration of their common birthday. Hope you will have a good time, sister.
Concord replies with this telegram : —
Concord, Mass., Sept. 15, 18S5. To the President of the Day, Hingham :
The Low Hills to the Seashore send greeting and con- gratulations. Concord replies to her twin, " many happy
returns."
The Concord Celebration,
fiy the President of the Day.
George B. Bartlett, of Concord, sends these rhymes : —
From Concord Bridge the moss-grown manse this loving greeting
sends, — Hingham and Concord ought to be the very best of friends ; For glorious as we think ourselves, it still is very true One of our best and hoUest men we doubtless owe to you.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 93
Good Dr. Ripley, full of grace, of credit and renown, Was born of reverend ancestry within your ancient town. Three quarters of a century he held us in his care, With exhortation and reproof, with solemn word and prayer, To make us worthy of the men who bravely fought and died, And of the ones who lived and wrote, and thus were glorified. On Tuesday and on Saturday we count our deeds and sing 'em, And join in loving harmony old Concord and old Hingham.
George B. Bartlett.
Isaac Hinckley sends a letter: —
CoDMAN Hill, Dorchester, Mass., Sept. 4, 1885.
Starkes Whiton, Esq., Chairman of Committee on Invitations^ Hingham, Mass. :
Dear Sir, — I was much gratified by the receipt of the invitation to visit the good old town, my birthplace, on the 15th inst. I have delayed my reply, having hopes that I might be able to accept the invitation, but my physicians have nearly decided that I must start for Colorado before the 1 5 th inst. I must, therefore, with more regret than I can express, forego the pleasure of visiting Hingham on the day of the Celebration, Thanking the Committee for recollecting their townsman on this occasion,
I am very truly yours,
Isaac Hinckley.
Senator Hoar sends a letter : —
Worcester, Sept. 8, 1885.
My Dear Governor Long, — It seems now quite certain that I shall not be able to be at your interesting celebration on Tuesday. I have a professional engagement, of the first importance, which will take me all day and far into the evening on that day. I should like of all things
94 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
to hear Mr. Lincoln's address and the other speeches, which I shall eagerly read. The town of Hingham is, I believe, of just the same age as my own native town, Concord. They have many resemblances. If the British did not march your way in 1775, I am sure you would have made it quite as hot for them, if they had. I am sure, too, that the old faith of the Puritan and of the Revolution, the old constancy, the old love of liberty, the old purpose to fight an age-long battle, if need be, for constitutional govern- ment, the old purpose to endure to the end, abides in both, unquenched and unabated. I am
Yours very truly,
George F. Hoar.
Richard Henry Stoddard, a native of Hingham, sends a letter. It is an excellent letter, but the hand- writing shows that he graduated from Hingham before penmanship was made a fine art: —
New York, Sept. 4, 1885.
My Dear Sir, — My absence from the city for some weeks past prevented me from getting your kind invitation to be present at the Hingham anniversary until many days after it was written. I have tried very hard to do my share towards celebrating it, but without success, for I have not been, and shall not be, able to furnish my townsmen with a hymn, or any other verse, for that occasion. I am sen- sible of the honor they have done me ; but if I cannot write what I should like to, why, I cannot, and there it ends. If I had not tried to do this very seriously this note would have been written days ago. Will you kindly tell the gen- tlemen of your Committee how sorry I am to have to write this note? The earliest recollections of my life cluster about Hingham, which I see plainly, as I write this, as it was
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 95
over fifty years ago. I am proud of having been born there, and should be glad to have my dust (when I am done with it) committed to the earth in its old burying-ground on the hill. But it is no longer an old burying-ground, for when I saw it last it was spick-and-span new, laid out in gravel walks, grass plats, and peopled with monuments. Regretting my inability to join my townsmen as I hoped
at one time, I am
Yours truly, Mr. Starkes Whiton. R- H. StODDARD.
Sidney Howard Gay writes : —
West New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y., Aug. 28, 1885.
Messrs. Whiton, Thaxter, and of hers, Committee:
Gentlemen, — I regret very much that I am compelled to deny myself the pleasure of joining with you in the celebration of the 15th proximo. But permit me to add that, though I cannot be with you, I agree most heartily and piously in the duty of commemorating the birthday of that good old mother, who has given to the country, directly and indirectly, more citizens eminent in their day and generation for civic virtue, ability, and usefulness than have come from any other one spot, probably, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — God save her. With many thanks for your kind remembrance of me, I remain your friend and townsman,
Sidney Howard Gay.
If Mr. Reeves will now play " Sweet Home," we shall be very much obliged to him.
" Home, Sweet Home " was played by the band.
96 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
The President. — Our next toast is, — Plymouth County.
It was the courting of Hingham by the two counties of Suffolk and Plymouth that led the poet to say, —
" How happy could I be with either, Were t' other dear charmer away."
After flirting with both, an example that not one of her daughters has ever followed, Hingham kissed her hand to the Puritan but gave it to the Pilgrim. To respond for the fortunate suitor, — and that is the only suitor for a lady's preference that is ever of any consequence, — I shall call upon an humble rail- road hand whose daily business it is to put on the brakes. He may possibly have responded before for the Old Colony. I am sure that his heart is so full of love for her — he told me "an affection of the heart" would compel him to accept our invitation here — that neither his inexperience in public speaking nor the terrors of my awful command will prevent him from paying her a tribute as fresh — and now I speak most sincerely — as though, returning from college, he were laying his first sheaf at her feet instead of the hundredth, each last more beautiful than the rest. I present you Judge Thomas Russell, of the Railroad Commission.
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 97
ADDRESS OF HON. THOMAS RUSSELL.
Mr. President, — Plymouth county rejoices in the good taste which Hingham finally showed in her choice of a legal residence. In return she has made every son of Hingham an heir of the Pilgrims by adoption and a son of the Old Colony by brevet. We think it fortunate that the same county holds the grave of Governor Bradford and of Governor Andrew, — one foremost in founding a free govern- ment, the other among the foremost in maintaining it, — each combining a firm faith in everything that is good, with a liberal capacity for accepting any- thing that is better. We err sometimes in speaking of Plymouth, town and county, as if their history ended in 1620. We owe it to the fathers to show that their sons have not been wholly unworthy of them. It is good to recall the fact that Myles Standish was followed by Colonel Church, a native of the soil, whose exploits rank him with the heroes of romance, and whose humanity is one proof more that the bravest are the most merciful. The great- ness of Bradford and of Winslow did not perish with them. They lived again in generations of soldiers and statesmen. We have neglected our colonial memories. Everybody has heard of Bloody Brook, where " the Flower of Essex " fell among the meadows of Deerfield. The spot is marked by a monument, and better marked by the eloquence of
98 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
Everett. But no monument marks the spot on the banks of the Pavvtucket where fifty young men of Plymouth county, led by the gallant Michael Peirce, were cut off, but not until they had slain thrice their number. So all the world has heard of the Charter Oak. But only local tradition tells of the scene when Andros tried in vain to seize our charter. And again, when he laid his hand upon Clarke's Island, Duxbury and Plymouth sent their minister and ruling elder to resist his tyranny. It may be said that the result was disastrous. But the defiance was given. And our fathers knew the truth, though they had not heard the words, —
" For Freedom's battle once begun, Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft is ever won."
In the grand contest between France and Eng- land for the possession of a continent, Plymouth county bore a full share. There are no brighter names upon the English standards than Quebec and Louisburg. In one our New England fathers stood side by side with the troops of old England. In the other they stood almost alone. In the first crusade against Louisburg the fishermen of Ply- mouth were the earliest to arrive. In its second capture the name of a Plymouth captain is linked forever with that of the heroic Wolfe. As I read at Halifax, a short time since, the military records of early times, it was pleasant to find such orders as
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 99
these : " Parole for the day, ' Pembroke,' ' Marsh- field,' and ' Plympton.' " Passing since through our own little Halifax, I heard a fellow-passenger won- dering that any one could have found his way from that place to a battle-field. The reader of history knows that when loyalty and duty have called, whether in 1745, or '55, or '75, or in 181 2, or in 1 86 1, there is no hamlet in the Old Colony so small or so remote that its sons could not find their way to a battle-field.
In revolutionary days our little towns followed closely the lead of Boston. When strangers have looked at the Rock, and stood upon Cole's Hill, I love to point out the gambrel-roofed house which was the home of James Warren, President of the first Provincial Congress, and to tell of the day which Sam. Adams spent there, the last of the Puri- tans, holding high council with this true son of the Pilgrims. There Warren gave to Adams the plan of committees of correspondence, — that most effec- tual aid to independence. When this message was sent from Plymouth Rock to Faneuil Hall, then Richard Warren, sleeping in his Pilgrim grave, struck a blow for freedom with which the continent was to ring. This device was part of the authentic furniture of the Mayflower.
A host of worthies stood by Warren in his own town. Nor was any town wanting. Kingston tells of Sever, of Drew, — best among all, of Captain Sampson, first naval officer commissioned by Con-
lOO THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
gress. What an unbounded smile must have spread over the bay as his brig of two hundred tons sailed down Jones's River to meet the " Empress of the Seas." Duxbury tells of her Wadsworth, her Brad- ford, her Aldens, — of a town so stripped of men that women gathered the harvest. Marshfield can boast of General Thomas, the trusted friend of Washington, who gained for him the bloodless vic- tory of Dorchester Heights, driving Howe out of Boston by the spades and shovels of Plymouth county farmers. It was not their fault that they had no chance to use their muskets. The men of the northern towns were led to Trenton, and Princeton, and Saratoga by their Baileys, and Cushings, and Turners. I need not speak of Hingham. One of her sons has shown to-day that, pass what laws you please as to distribution of estates, talent and worth will descend from father to son, although not all to the eldest son. Middleboro sent Colonel Sproat to serve on many a battle-field, and then to float down the river in the flat-boat " Mayflower" to aid in founding the State of Ohio, and to baptize it in the name of Freedom. Rochester is proud of her gal- lant Haskell, and Wareham tells of Major Fearing, as distinguished in war as your own Fearing was in all civic virtues. Of Pembroke I have spoken here before, as making the first public threat of independ- ence, but not until she had demanded the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. Now let me pass over a long period and say a word that could not have
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. lOI
been said thirty years ago. Thank Heaven, the time has passed when universal freedom was a forbidden subject at such a festival. In those dark days liberty had in no part of the country more devoted friends than in Plymouth county. Her representative in Congress was John Quincy Adams, living beyond her borders, but receiving her votes, and animated always by the spirit of his Pilgrim ancestors. She furnished one illustrious victim to slavery. Among the noblest of Lowell's poems is a tribute to Charles T. Torrey, once of Scituate, now enrolled among the noble army of martyrs whose fame is confined to no place or time.
In the worst days, when the fugitives from oppres- sion were obliged to fly once more, when they were seized in Boston and were not safe even in Worcester, then they came to Plymouth, as if some instinct told them that no slave-hunter would dare to trample on the graves of the Pilgrims ; and so the dear old town received a second colony of exiles for freedom.
One word of material matters : Our whole county, like our state, barren of soil and fruitful of men, is a noble product of free labor. Two of her children — one born on her soil, the other just missing a Plymouth birthplace — carried out the greatest en- terprise and won the greatest industrial triumph that the world ever saw. The first Pacific railroad " came over," not in the " Mayflower," but in a very early ship, with the ancestors of Oakes and Oliver Ames.
I02 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
A considerable part of the county was once bought by Standish and his associates for a few tools and a few yards of cloth. Considering the character of most of it, the bargain was not very sharp. To-day that tract of land sustains in comfort more than forty thousand inhabitants. Thrift and industry dwell among them. Intelligent labor has done it all, and the fruits of labor are gladly given to promote in- telligence. This shall be my last boast for Plymouth county. She believes in education. When Horace Mann was wearied with opposition or indifference elsewhere, his hands were held up by friends in Hingham, Hanover, and Scituate, in Plymouth, and in the Bridgewaters.
Of the product of our schools, take one profession as a sample, and only a few names there. In law our county claims as her own the brilliant abilities of Trlstam Burgess, and the solid merits of Chief Justice Swift, one of the most learned jurists of his day. Washington and Adams found in Scituate one worthy to be a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; and the Suffolk Bar, looking to its acknowledged head, venerable but ever young, recog- nizes a son of Plymouth who is fit to preside over any legal tribunal in the world.
Yet our boast is not so much the eminence of the few as the intelligence of the many. And whatever else is taught in Plymouth county, her schools and her history teach lessons of loyalty to country, to humanity, and to right. While her people are mind-
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 103
ful of these, the God of the fathers will be with their children.
The President. — Our next toast is, — The Ora- tor of the Day, a chip of the old block.
Now that we have done our duty to the State and to the county, I think we owe something to the Orator who has spoken for the town which once embraced both Hingham and Cohasset. It is with special pleasure that I present him to you. You have passed your verdict upon his oration, and found him guilty of making a very good one. In impos- ing sentence upon him, I shall command him to throw off his oratorical armor and the weight of the honors which, to the pride of his townsmen, he has earned in the profession of the law, and to tell us in a free and easy way how he likes coming back to Hingham and meeting his old friends. Among them I reckon myself, who, during his three years at Harvard College, sat next him at the recitations of the class of '57, of which he was easily the first scholar. If I may be allowed a reminiscence, I remember the very concluding words of the oration which he delivered at one of the junior or senior exhibitions, when, speaking of the Puritan, he closed by saying, " The Puritan was intolerant, but he was not inconsistent." And there was an excellent story he used to tell, — but I will not tell it, it may be the only one he has. I present you the Orator of the Day, Mr. Solomon Lincoln.
I04 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
ADDRESS OF MR. SOLOMON LINCOLN.
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen :
I should be unwilling that you should hear much more from me to-day, but I desire to take the oppor- tunity'that is now given me first to thank you for the compliment which you paid me in asking me to take the part that I did in the exercises of this morn- ing. I assure you I felt it a great honor, and it was also a great pleasure to me. The truth is, that those who go away from Hingham gain one advantage over those who remain here, and that is, the pleasure that we have in coming back to you. I have not gone away so far as to lose this pleasure entirely, but I assure you it is always a real one, — always a satisfaction to walk about these well-known streets, not so much to observe the evidences of improve- ment as to revive familiar memories and to see the old rocks and trees, and the fields that I used to run about in when a boy, — which will never be like other fields to me.
There is much entertainment, also, to be derived in visiting these old places. It has occurred to me many times that, if we could only take one of these old gentlemen whom we have been talking about — Peter Hobart, for instance — by the hand, and walk about the streets of Hingham with him to-day, even the marvels of that Revelation about which he no doubt preached with much effect, would have seemed
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. IO5
less wonderful to him than the realities he would find on every side. As I sat here I saw through the window, a moment ago, a train passing by that Bare Cove where he first landed, which carried more peo- ple than there were in Hingham while he lived ; and through another window I saw a flag flying, of proud significance to us, yet quite meaningless to him. After all, he might derive but little satisfac- tion from his visit. I fear we should seem given over to the vanities of this world. He would hardly be able to breathe anywhere in Hingham that brac- ing spiritual atmosphere to which he was accustomed and which we have long since ceased to breathe.
I could not hope, in the short hour that I had this morning, to do full justice to Hingham. It would have taken more than the hour allotted me for that; and I was therefore interested to find by a scrap which fell into my hands a day or two ago, that I had not altogether mistaken the character of Hing- ham, at least in the judgment of its contemporaries in former years. I have in my hand an extract from the Salem Mercury of July 7, 1789, which I will presently read to you. It is written in a somewhat patronizing spirit, and I am not aware that Salem was entitled to assume an air of patronage toward Hingham in those days. Nevertheless, there is much in it which I commend to your attention, and I will read it to you. It is quite brief, and published, let me remind you again, on the 7th of July, 1 789. It says : —
I06 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
" It is a pleasing fact that for six years past there has been but one suit commenced in the town of HiNGHAM, — and that was on a simple note of hand, by one of the inhabitants in a moment of passion. And, what is more extraordinary, there has been but 07ie single jtiry action between parties in that town tried in Boston since the year 1740. The town of Hingham contains upwards of two thousand inhabitants, and it is a place of considerable business in agriculture, fishing, and manufactures. A cer- tain venerable patriot — but much neglected, except in times of danger — had some cause for boasting that he received his birth in this peaceable and industrious little town."
I don't know who that neglected and venerable patriot was, but I entirely justify his boasting; I share in it myself. I have found Hingham — I will not say an excellent place to go away from, but cer- tainly an excellent place to return to, and a very good place to be transplanted into, as I have no doubt my friend upon my right, the President, agrees.
I cannot, indeed, as a lawyer, quite commend the condition of things exhibited in Hingham during the forty-nine years referred to in the newspaper. Matters, however, have improved in that respect since that time. I have had occasion recently to investigate the title to certain lands in Nantasket, and I had occasion to see, in the course of my re- searches in that lawsuit, that quite recently Hingham men had not ceased " troubleing themselves about Nantascot."
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. I07
I thank you for the indulgence with which you listened to me this morning ; and now I wish you all peace and prosperity and that you may all attend the next centennial anniversary fifty years hence.
The President. — The next toast was to be a tribute to the great War Governor, John A. Andrew, and I hoped that his son, who has been at table with us, would remain and speak in response to it. The necessity of returning to his home in Beverly compelled him to go away.
The next toast is, — Ecclesiastical Hingham. As Shakespeare says, " Such harmony is in immortal souls."
The most boastful son of Hingham must admit that the town has fallen off in some respects. Our fisheries are not what they used to be, with the exception of the smelts. Our buckets are no longer our jewels. We never call on our doctors except with great reluctance. Nobody brags of our lawyers unless it be we lawyers ourselves. But our clergy- men have always been our glory, especially inside their own respective parishes. Generally they have been, it must be said, of the order of " fighting par- sons," — Christians possibly, but of the muscular sort. The list, however, was never greater or more eminent than it is to-day, and every one of them a lion. Mr. Collier, will you strike out from the shoulder }
I08 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
ADDRESS OF REV. H. PRICE COLLIER.
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen :
One hears of Hingham in these days as a place which is prominent because it is politically prolific. No doubt you will remember that Hingham is some- thing more than the home of two governors and a swarm of candidates for the legislature. But is it true of that barren country which lies around Hing- ham ? Does the outside world know that Hingham is something more than this ? It may have no eccle- siastical prominence now, unless it be that of an ecclesiastical nursery, but just now we are living in the past. Shakespeare is not long dead, George Herbert has just published his poems, Milton is just twenty-seven years old, and Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford, and Archbishop Laud, and Charles are devoting all their energies to the rehabilitation of a pale caricature of the Catholic church. With his own hands Laud helps to put in place again the stained-glass windows in his chapel. The dull, fierce eyes of the Earl of Strafford are watching for an opportunity to crush out Presbyterianism in Scot- land. And the vacillating Charles, whose royal word was a regal lie, was tottering between these two statesmen-crutches to his grave. We are living, if you please, in these times, — a paradise of perfidy. Sunday-school superintendents in village churches did not always become governors, and Puritan min-
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. IO9
isters met the political magnates of the land in the star-chamber, rather than at the dinner-table. Those were days when religious liberty had no house in England, and was obliged to build itself a hut on the western coast of the Atlantic. As Winthrop said, " I shall call that my country where I may most glorify God."
It would take too long — and were it a short story it needs no repetition in Hingham — to tell how these men, forced by the fierce duplicity of their rulers, came to this country. They were strong men, — men untouched by simpering etiquette and careless of social tyranny. Of course they were, or they would have built the " Mayflower " ten miles long and six miles wide, in recognition of the ances- tral longings of the Boston of two hundred and fifty years later. But they were men who were in- tensely in earnest, God-intoxicated men, and they have left a mark upon this civilization which can never be effaced, and New England can claim the greater share of them. Of the ministers whose work has come down to us, there is scarcely one who was not a native of New England, and not least among them are some of Hingham's ministers. There is one parish in this town whose ministers seem to have inherited the boldness of the man who would speak his mind. It is a commentary very sat- isfying to us Hingham people that our first pastor, Peter Hobart, was not allowed to preach in Boston, "because he was a bold man and would speak his
no THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
mind." Hobart, Norton, Gay, Ware, Shute, Cole- man, Brooks, Brown! — what a pity it seems to me that I gave Mr. Long a solemn promise that I would not speak ten minutes, before he gave me permis- sion to speak at all. Dr. Shute, the statesman min- ister ; Dr. Gay, the witty scholar, brilliant, pungent, and yet kindly; Coleman, who in his agricultural investigations in England became the friend alike of people and nobility, and in whose memory Lady Byron erected a monument; Brooks, whose direct intellectual descendant was Horace Mann, and who is appropriately called the Father of Normal Schools, — why, Hingham, in the past at least, without its ministers is like a coin without its superscription ; like a picture with nothing but the frame. And for- tunate it is for some of you, my friends, that you did not live in those days. One of the earliest acts of legislation was an agreement to fine every man who did not attend town-meeting, or who did not stay through all the proceedings of the meeting, a peck of corn. For not attending church service on Sunday a man was probably fined two pecks. It would need no stringent application of that law to- day to provide the Cadets with provisions for the whole summer. And mark you, it was considered a delectable privilege to sit patiently on the rough deal boards while the preacher turned the hour-glass for the third time. Nor were the ministers of those days merely apostles of religious truth ; they were the newspapers, with the society gossip left out ;
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. Ill
they were very often the affable hosts of travelling strangers ; they were the defenders of liberty, and the spokesmen of the people on all occasions. They stood for Tennyson's line, " 'T is only noble to be good," and well did they exemplify it.
Nor were these days when many different tastes in religious matters were thought of. Curiously enough, it was on the same day, the 14th of Novem- ber, 1784, that the first Protestant Episcopal Bishop for America was ordained at Aberdeen, and the first Methodist Bishop preached his first sermon in this country. The parishes were under the jurisdiction of the people, as they are very much to-day. Congre- gationalism was and is ecclesiastical republicanism, and no one wished nor dreamed of anything else.
Indeed, I am inclined to think that a later philoso- phy of history will claim for Puritanism that it is the ancestor of American Democracy. But let me comfort you before I close by telling you that these men had at least one weak point, which I have been able to discover. Most of the bread of that day was made of rye or Indian meal. The ministers alone had white bread, because they said the other gave them the heart-burn, and they could not preach on it. But that is a small crevice in the armor of their sturdy unselfishness.
Hingham owes much that is strong and good and great in the two hundred and fifty years of its cor- porate existence to its ministers. They comforted in the wilderness, they incited to patriotism when
112 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
patriotism was a crime, and they did much of the scholarly literary work which enables us to look for- ward into the dim future to the time when we shall have, instead of affable reports, a town History. I know of none of these men who need my defending, and I fancy most of them have a fame that cannot profit by my praise. But, my friends, Hingham is not Hingham without their memory; Hingham loses some of its boldness when it forgets Hobart, some of its brilliancy when it forgets Gay, some of its astuteness when it forgets Shute, and much of its recognized ability abroad when it forgets Coleman and Brooks. And were one to wish Hingham ecclesiastical prosperity in the future, he could do no better than to wish a repetition of its bold, brilliant, devout, and scholarly past.
The President. — The next toast, ladies and gentlemen, is so comprehensive that I have not embraced it in any form of words. A well-known neighbor of ours in the adjoining town of Quincy once told me, I am very sure, that of all titles he preferred that of the " School-master." I shall chal- lenge his ability as a teacher in one respect, for I do not believe it possible that he could teach any pupil the eloquence of which he is himself the master. There is one title on which he and I, however, shall agree, and I will introduce him by that: A descendant of Hingham stock, — Dr. Everett.
250TH ANNIVERSARY. I 13
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAM EVERETT.
I THINK, Mr. Chairman, that I am more pleased to be introduced to-day as a descendant of Hingham stock than by any other title, and for the reason that, although I am also a descendant of Concord stock, they did not see fit to invite me to Concord last Sat- urday. Why, when the orator of the day began the list of the original freemen of Concord in 1635, he began with the name of an ancestor of mine, and I was not there to respond. But on this occasion it is not merely your neighbor from Quincy ; it is also the descendant of Nicholas Jacob and" of John Otis that has the pleasure of speaking to you. I have felt here, sir, to-day as if I must be asked as a representative of the past and not of the present at all. I had the pleasure of driving up to this din- ner, not as a governor or an ex-governor, not as a member of any staff or any body, legislative or otherwise, but as a survivor of the celebration of fifty years ago, and, as you remarked, scarcely to be distinguished from those I was with. The next thing was that my friend Dr. Miles remembered me two years before I was born. And that made me feel still older. And when Governor Robinson began to enumerate the things which were younger than Hingham, he spoke of the Commonwealth as younger than Hingham, and he spoke of Harvard College as younger than Hingham ; but I felt that
114 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
I belonged and still belong to a body that is not younger than Hingham, but is of exactly the same age. In the same year in which Concord was founded and the older Hingham took its name, the Boston Latin School was founded, — in 1635, — the oldest educational institution in this State, the institution wherein our fathers showed what were the things which boys ought to be taught then, and what are the things which they ought to be taught now.
I am glad to come here as a descendant of Hing- ham, and to assure you that in looking up this question of genealogy, in finding out that I am descended from the early settlers of Hingham, I have been led into a study of things that I never knew before. And speaking to-day as a school- master, I would say a few words on this question of what we ought to study. The schoolmaster is on his trial now before the people of this country. The schoolmaster is expected to say in any public audience what are the things that our boys and girls ought to study. Well, now, I have been making a study, during this last vacation, of a thing that I never studied before, and that I never knew the interest of, and, of all things in the world, it is Amer- ican history. I thought I knew it. I thought I had studied American history ; but I had studied it as I might study the history of another nation. I had studied American history as I might study English, or Grecian, or Roman history, — as the story of other men and other women who used to live here.
250TH ANNIVERSARY. II5
It is only in this vacation that I have begun to study American history as the history of my own ances- tors. It is only this vacation that I have begun to read of the men and the women that founded Hing- ham, and founded Concord, and founded Plymouth, and from whom I knew I was descended; and let me assure you, if there are any of you here who never studied American history that way, — if there are any who have only studied it in the general treatises which we read in our schools and colleges and libraries, — you know nothing of it. Find out what some of your ancestors were. Find out who were the men and women from whom you came, seven generations or six generations or five genera- tions ago, and then go back to the history as written by their contemporaries. Go back and read the old books that were written by the very men who saw Hingham and Concord and Plymouth founded. Read Bradford's wonderfully recovered History of Plymouth Plantation ; read Winthrop's Journal of the Foundation of Massachusetts ; read Sewall's Diary at the end of that century ; read all those old books themselves, and read them to find the births and marriages and deaths of your own ancestors. Read them with a lot of familiar household names from which you were descended tingling in your ears, and I tell you that old history will come to be a thing that you never dreamed it was before. I tell you there is an interest in the household life of Plymouth and Massachusetts Colonies, of towns like
Il6 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
this and Concord and Ipswich and Dorchester and Quincy that you never dreamed of when you merely read the treatises written by men of later days.
And you will find your respect for those men and women raised. There is a fancy now of running down our ancestors. There is a fancy now of criti- cising the founders of Massachusetts and Plymouth, and making out that because we are perched upon our fathers' and mothers' shoulders, we are much greater people than our fathers and mothers were. You agree to that fashion, perhaps ; you are given to submitting when your ancestors are depreciated. That is because you have read history in the later epitomes and condensations and selections of mod- ern writers that did not understand the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Go back and read the history and the diaries and the town records, as the founders of Massachusetts and Plymouth wrote them with their own hands and sealed them with their own blood ; and you will come back feeling that the founders of this town two hundred and fifty years ago do not need to be apologized for or excused now. They wrote out their own opinions, they stood up before the whole world to defend them ; they concealed and evaded nothing. In those memoirs of their own they will appear to you doubtless as earnest and serious. But they are not morose or gloomy ; their hearts are as warm as their heads are keen or their hands strong ; the men who laid low the forest here and the tyrant in Europe will hold out their very
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. II7
hands to you to clasp, and you will find that the pulses of those hands, eight generations ago, beat the very octaves of your own. You will be prouder than ever of being descended from them, and you will feel that the Puritan was the best man then, just as the " Puritan" is the best boat now.
If you will read that history as they wrote it them- selves, you will find some little facts that you do not meet in the general histories. You know that the general histories speak of a very bold Governor. They tell about Governor Endicott who ripped the cross out of the flag, and how the Governor stood up alone defying the world. Now you read that history as it actually appears on the records of the General Court, and you will find that the General Court told Governor Endicott he had no business to rip that cross out of the flag, that it was a very rash and indiscreet action ; and he had to apologize for it. So you see that there are greater men than governors, and there were men who could control governors in those times, and that the representa- tives of the people can tell governors what they ought to do, when they get too bold.
Now, a word suggested by that boat. When I first came to Hingham I was warned against one thing. My friend, Mr. Jenks — I am sorry to see he is gone — said : " Whatever you do when you go to Hingham to preach, you must n't say the ' old church,' you must talk to them about the ' old meet- ing-house ; ' they don't want to have it called the
Il8 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
' old church ; ' and, above all," said he, " whatever you do, don't call it the ' Old Ship ; ' they don't like to hear it." Now, fellow-citizens, my dear seventh cousins once removed, I think you make a mistake in not sticking to that name of the " Old Ship." I think if I were you I would use that and keep to it. You know that nicknames are very disgraceful at the beginning, but they get to be very honorable in the end. The liberators of Holland were called " beggars," and that was meant as a disgrace ; but it came to be very honorable. The name " Puritan " began by being a nickname, and the name " Metho- dist" began by being a nickname; they are both perfectly honorable. The word "mugwump" began by being a nickname; it is perfectly honorable now. But if I were you I would cling to that name of the " Old Ship." It seems to me that we can use no more touching name for a place of worship than if we compare it to the ship, — to the ark that floats the waves of this world, and within whose safe walls the chosen people of God may ride the seas when the storms beat upon them. And, too, in calling that venerable building the " Old Ship," you will be reminded through all time of those old ships that brought over the chosen, whom God had se- lected to plant the wilderness. Remember how much liberty, how much conscience, how much de- votion, how much manhood and womanhood was held within those barks that rode the seas from 1620 to 1640. Think of all the sainted names of the
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. II9
ships in which the first settlers came, — the " May- flower " and the " Fortune " and the " Ann " and the little " James " and the " Arbella " and the " Griffin " and the " Mary and John " and the " Defiance " and the " Lion " and all those noble barks. They crossed the sea again and again. Did you know it? Did you know that there was a regular line of emigrant packets at the time Hingham was founded, as regu- lar as Enoch Train's packets when you and I, Mr. President, were boys ? Why, those Plymouth people talk as if the " Mayflower " made but one voyage ! The " Mayflower " was a regular emigrant packet that plied back and forth between England and America for twenty years, bringing cargo after cargo of planters to settle the wilderness. Every one of those ships was just as well known as the Cunarders or the White Stars are now; and they crossed the ocean like shuttles from side to side, each charged on the outward passage with its precious freight, the seed corn that was to plant the wilderness ; each charged as it went back with the gallant messages of the planters, who choked down their pains and their sufferings and their toils, and always sent back the same word of cheer to the brethren they had left behind in dear old England. Think of that ship that came in with the precious cargo at the time when Governor Winthrop had his last loaf in the oven and every other soul in Massachusetts was starving! Think of that first ship built by him, " The Blessing of the Bay," which carried out from
I20 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
Boston Harbor the fruits that he had just raised in this colony to plant Connecticut, and to tell Eng- land that we were a race of ship-builders here ! Think what a host of sailors and navigators and captains and privateersmen we all were then ; and, as the lamented Lawrence said, " Don't give up the 'Ship.'"
And before I sit down, — I have spoken a great deal over the ten minutes, Mr. President, — I must tell you one authentic story of a neighbor of yours, to show what the spirit of old Hingham is. I think there must be some here who knew in their youth the Weymouth boy, Joshua Bates, who afterwards became the great banker in London, the American partner in the house of Baring Brothers and Com- pany. He went over to England, he spoiled the Philistines to the extent of making a great fortune, and he bestowed part of it in a most generous spirit to increase the Boston Public Library. Well, Mr. President, Joshua Bates, in order to hold real estate, became a naturalized subject of Queen Victoria; and although he retained an American heart, he was nominally a Briton, and a very loyal servant of that good lady. I said to him once, " Mr. Bates, suppos- ing a war should break out between England and the United States, what should you do, as you are now a British subject .? " " Do ? " said he, " I should go back to Hingham and fit out a privateer directly." So that shows that you cannot cure one of our coast boys of his Americanism, even if he has joined
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 121
another nation ; and you cannot cure him of pri- vateering, even if he has settled down and made a fortune as a banker.
Dr. Everett renewed his thanks on resuming his seat for the attention and sympathy of the audience.
The President. — Our last toast is, — The Old Boys of Hingham.
You will notice that I do not say the " Old Boy." He never resided in Hingham. I refer, of course, to the old boys of fifty years ago; and I am sure you will be very glad to hear from a venerable townsman, who has lately been tarrying with his son, the Superintendent of the Soldiers' National Home at Togus, — Mr. Luther Stephenson.
ADDRESS OF MR. LUTHER STEPHENSON.
Mr. President, — Located and associated as I have been for a time with the old boys in blue, your sentiment induces the giving of my first brief thought to them. For they are old boys in fact, having left their health, their youth, and active man- hood on the battle-field and on the march, and now linger in their beautiful homes, furnished by a grate- ful people, until, one by one, in rapid succession, they, with solemn escort, are borne to their last resting-place, where, with funeral dirge and volley
122 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
over their graves, they are joined to the grand army of the dead.
But it is not of the boys in blue that we would speak, nor would we direct our thoughts to them on this occasion ; but to those old boys of this town who had crossed the wide sea to avoid oppression, who, with their sons, subdued the forest and, with its almost everlasting timber, built that old meeting- house where we have worshipped to-day, and where we hope the ordinance of religious worship will be everlastingly administered beneath its massive roof ; to their sons also, of every grade, from major-general to private, who fought in the Revolution for the in- dependence of our country ; to those of the War of 1812, waged for a nation's rights and the protection of every man who sailed beneath its flag from foreign seizure ; to the old boys of within seventy years of my remembrance, who worked hard and fared hard, little dreaming of the vast improvements of the coming years, when the hard labor of men's hands would be transferred to the elements and the brute, with its immense increase of product, through the medium of apparently living machinery; yes, and to the old boys of my own time, nearly all of whom have passed away, but have left a pleasant remem- brance, the best legacy that men can leave to those who survive them ; to that whole range of old boys, both citizen and soldier, who helped build up and sustain our institutions we dedicate this day, and every thought of them is sandwiched with humor or
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. I 23
with pathos; for as history and tradition give us knowledge of their Hves and character, we sympa- thize with their trials and hardships, we smile at their eccentricities, we condemn their austerity, but we venerate them for the unselfish, conscientious and devotional spirit with which they performed their esteemed duties.
This day we dedicate to the remembrance of the first settlers of the town and to their sons, who have since lain down on the pathway of time ; and we have assembled in this place, dear to many of us from associations with those that were prominent at the celebration fifty years ago, including him who was the esteemed orator on that occasion, — all of whom loved this place, — to give thought and word in remembrance of the old boys of Hingham.
It was said by an old writer, " Show me a man who has no love of place, and you have shown one whose heart has no tap-root," — a sentiment which I believe to be true ; and the place where the heart of the sound man taps deepest is that of his birth. Carry it forth with him as he may in after life and plant deep in places of adoption, still his tenderest, purest, unspoken thoughts will rebound back to his birthplace ; for there was the first dawning of his intellect, there his first youthful aspirations, there dwelt his mother. Little sympathy have we with the cosmopolite whose heart fleets gossamer-like over the wide world, seemingly having neither be- ginning nor ending ; but to him who plants it deep
124 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
in some locality, it will grow stronger, more expan- sive, more active on earth, and purer in its upward growth.
The President. — Ladies and gentlemen, I have a great many more toasts, and I am sure that every Hingham man and woman at this table can make a good after-dinner speech. But the play is over, and down comes the curtain. We shake hands and part, lighter hearted and better friends, I trust, for this day's festival. We now stand adjourned for fifty years, and I hope you will all be joromptly on hand at the end of that time. Until then, God bless you all. Amen.
The band then played " Auld Lang Syne," and the company dispersed.
From three to four o'clock, while the dinner was in progress, the Hingham Brass Band gave a con- cert on the Common.
For an hour preceding sunset the bells on all the churches were rung.
In the evening, from seven to nine o'clock, Reeves's American Band gave a concert on the Agricultural Grounds.
The night was very mild and free from dampness. No summer's evening could have been selected which would have been better adapted to out-of-
25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 25
door amusement. It seemed as if fortune smiled upon the town. The concert was attended by a large number of persons, who, by generous applause, indicated their enjoyment of the music.
At seven o'clock the entire Agricultural Hall was thrown open to the public for social intercourse ; and from eight o'clock until midnight, there was dancing in the upper hall, the music being furnished by Reeves's orchestra. Admission to the hall and grounds was free to all.
At half past seven o'clock bonfires of tar-barrels were lighted upon Baker's, Otis, Planter's, Turkey, and Prospect Hills.
DECORATIONS.
It would be impossible to give in detail an account of the numerous decorations throughout the town. Upon almost every building upon the line of the procession were displayed evidences of the great public interest in the celebration. Ingenious and beautiful devices were adopted by many. Nor were the decorations confined to the houses upon the line of march. Every house seemed to be open to ex- tend a cordial welcome. In the evening there were many brilliant illuminations, and Chinese lanterns seemed literally to grow upon many of the trees. Colored fires and bonfires in many enclosures lent their brilliancy, while the heavens were "studded with stars unutterably bright."
126 THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
" And so," said the " Hingham Journal," " ended the day that had been so successfully inaugurated at sunrise. Not a break. The procession at every point moved on time and with precision. The faces of the spectators who lined the sidewalks looked as happy and as satisfied as did those of the children who, in light dresses and with sprightly step, marched in the procession."
FINAL PROCEEDINGS.
FINAL PROCEEDINGS.
Sept. 25, 1885. The Committee of Arrange- ments held a final meeting, at which it was
Voted, That Starkes Whiton, George Lincoln, E. Waters Burr, and Francis H. Lincoln be a com- mittee to convey the thanks of the Committee of Arrangements to the Orator, the First Corps of Cadets, Edwin Humphrey Post 104, G. A. R., the Organist, the Superintendent of Schools, school- teachers, and parents for their efforts to secure a large attendance of school-children, and all those who contributed either money, services, or flowers, or in any other way aided in making the late cele- bration a success.
Voted, That the Treasurer prepare for publication, in book form, a history of the celebration.
Voted, That the Secretary place in the Hingham Public Library a copy of the records of the Com- mittee of Arrangements.
After the necessary business had been completed, the Chairman made a closing address, and the Com- mittee was dissolved.
NOTE.
nr^HE Address delivered before the citizens of Hingham, -*• on the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town, Sept. 28, 1835, by the late Hon. SOLOMON Lincoln, was printed, together with valuable historical notes and an account of the celebration. One of the notes refers to the list of voters in Hingham, in 1835, ^^^ says, "In March, 1835, the number of legal voters in Hingham was 673. It may gratify the curiosity of posterity to know what names were most prevalent at that time," and the numbers of voters of each name on the list are given. For the gratification of the same curiosity in the future, a similar list is here given.
In the printed volume of town reports, for the year 1884, may be found the " Names of the Legal Voters of the Town of Hingham, as contained on the Voting List for the Election in November, 1884." This list contains 943 names. There are of the name of
Gushing 35 Hobart 11
Hersey 33 Barnes 10
Sprague 29 Bates 10
Gardner 24 Humphrey 10
Lincoln 23 Ripley 10
Fearing 16 Cobb 8
Beal (inc. Beale) ... 14 Corthell 8
Burr 14 Lane 8
Whiton 13 Litchfield 8
Wilder 13 Souther 8
Casey 11 Cain 7
132
THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
Jacobs (inc. Jacob) . . 7
Loring 7
Clark 6
Daley 6
Fee . , „ 6
Jones 6
Leavitt 6
Lewis ....... 6
Mead (inc. Meade) . . 6
Remington 6
Siders . . . . ■, . . 6
Stoddard C-
Thompson 6
Tower 6
French ....... 5
Howard 5
Marsh 5
Thomas ...... 5
|
Foiir each |
'Of: |
||
|
Bicknell. |
Dunbar. |
Pratt. |
Stodder. |
|
Breene. |
Kelsey. |
Sherman. |
Tuttle. |
|
Crehan. |
Murphy. |
Smith. |
Whiting. |
|
Three each of: |
|||
|
Andrews. |
Hickey. |
Newhall. |
Spring. |
|
Bassett. |
Hudson. |
Noonan. |
Stephenson. |
|
Batchelder. |
Landers. |
O'Keeffe. |
Thayer. |
|
Bouve. |
Mahoney. |
Quinn. |
Wallace. |
|
Brewer. |
McKee. |
Rich. |
Welch. |
|
Burrill. |
McNeil. |
Richardson. |
Whitcomb. |
|
Cook. |
Morse. |
Robinson. |
White. |
|
Davis. |
Morton. |
Sears. |
Wolfe. |
|
Fotler. |
Nelson. |
Shute. |
Young. |
|
Two each |
of: |
||
|
Allen. |
Dawes. |
HoUis. |
O'Hara. |
|
Anderson. |
Dean. |
Hough. |
Perry. |
|
Atwood. |
Dyer. |
Howe. |
Poole. |
|
Baker. |
Fletcher. |
Howes. |
Powers. |
|
Bayley. |
Ford. |
Hunt. |
Pyne. |
|
Barrett. |
Foster. |
King. |
Robbins. |
|
Barry. |
Goold. |
Leary. |
Simpson. |
|
Barton. |
Gould. |
Leigh. |
Staples. |
|
Brett. |
Gunn. |
Linnehan. |
Taylor. |
|
Buker. |
Harden. |
Lord. |
Tilden. |
|
Burdett. |
Hardy. |
Magner. |
Thaxter. |
|
Burns. |
Hart. |
Marble. |
Tirrell. |
|
Callahan. |
Haskell. |
Margetts. |
Todd. |
|
Chamberlain. |
Hatch. |
McCarty. |
Totman. |
|
Chubbuck. |
Hawes. |
McDermott. |
Trowbridge, |
|
Cooper. |
Hawkes. |
Nichols. |
Wade. |
|
Coughlan. |
Hayward. |
Noyes. |
Wall. |
|
Cross. |
Hennessey. |
Nye. |
Waters. |
25OTH ANNIVERSARY.
133
|
One each |
of: |
||
|
Abbott. |
Corbett. |
Hann. |
Miles. |
|
Adams. |
Corcoran. |
Harding. |
Miller. |
|
Ames. |
Cowing. |
Harvey. |
Mitchell. |
|
Annis. |
Cox. |
Henderson. |
Moore. |
|
Bacon. |
Crocker. |
Higgins. |
Morey. |
|
Barstow. |
Crosby. |
Hill. |
Morissey. |
|
Bartlett. |
Crowe. |
Hilliard. |
Mulligan. |
|
Battles. |
Crowell. |
Hodgkins. |
Murch. |
|
Bertsch. |
Cuming. |
Horton. |
Nash. |
|
Bibby. |
Daggett. |
Hutchins. |
Neff. |
|
Binney. |
Damon. |
James. |
Newcomb. |
|
Bissell. |
Danforth. |
Jerald. |
O'Brien. |
|
Black. |
Dayton. |
Jermyn. |
O'Connell. |
|
Blair. |
Defries. |
Jernegan. |
Olson. |
|
Blake. |
Dorr. |
Keating. |
Our. |
|
Blossom. |
Doughty. |
Keane. |
Overton. |
|
Bodge. |
Douglass. |
Keeshan. |
Page. |
|
Botting. |
Downes. |
Keliher. |
Palmer, |
|
Bowditch, |
Dunn. |
Kenerson. |
Parker. |
|
Bowser. |
Eaton. |
Kent. |
Parkman. |
|
Branch. |
Ellis. |
Kilburn. |
Peare. |
|
Brandenburg. |
Emerson. |
Kimball. |
Perkins. |
|
Breemer. |
Fanning. |
Kittredge. |
Phinney. |
|
Bronsdon. |
Farmer. |
Lathrop. |
Picanco. |
|
Brown. |
Flamand. |
Laurie. |
Pierce. |
|
Buckley. |
Foley. |
LeBaron. |
Price. |
|
Bullard. |
Fuller. |
Lemner. |
Puffer. |
|
Bullen. |
Gates. |
Leonard. |
Ray. |
|
Burditt. |
Gault. |
Linscott. |
Reed. |
|
Burke. |
Gibson. |
Littleton. |
Rider. |
|
Burt. |
Gildersleeve. |
Long. |
Roach. |
|
Buttimer. |
Gill. |
Lovell. |
Rogers. |
|
Buttrick. |
Glasur. |
Lovett. |
Sanborn. |
|
Caldwell. |
Good. |
Lowe. |
Sargent. |
|
Carnes. |
Goodwin. |
Lowry. |
Schmidt. |
|
Carver. |
Gorman. |
Lunt. |
Scudder. |
|
Caryl. |
Gough. |
Manning. |
Searles. |
|
Chessman. |
Graham. |
Marrah. |
Seymour. |
|
Chittenden. |
Gray. |
McCuin. |
Shea. |
|
Churchill. |
Greeley. |
McGuire |
Shedd. |
|
Clary. |
Groce. |
McKenna. |
Simmons. |
|
Clement. |
Grosvener. |
Means. |
Sinclair. |
|
Colby. |
Grover. |
Melcher. |
Skinner. |
|
Collier. |
Hall. |
Mellen. |
Sloan. |
|
Cooney. |
Halley. |
Merritt. |
Snell. |
134
THE TOWN OF HINGHAM.
|
Southworth. |
Studley. |
Torrey. |
Weston. |
|
Spalding. |
Sullivan. |
Tully. |
Whelan. |
|
Spooner. |
Swift. |
Turner. |
Whitney. |
|
Steele. |
Sylvester. |
Vining. |
Whittemore. |
|
Stetson. |
Tancred. |
Wakefield. |
Wilber. |
|
Stevens. |
Thing. |
Ware. |
Willard. |
|
Stewart. |
Thorne. |
Wellens. |
Wing. |
|
Stockbridge. |
Tinsley. |
West. |
Wright. |
|
Stowell. |
Topliffe. |
University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge,
No. lad Sect. -T Shelf _A. CONTENTS
Lincoln National Life Foundation Collateral Lincoln Library
0
OREGON
RULE
CO.
1
U.S.A.
2
3
5
|
OREGON RULE CO. |
m 1 |
U.S.A. |
WFWF 2 |
WW 3 |
WFWF 4 |
|
K7- ^v. ^-'Z' J' WB^Kl |
1 |
^H |
6
|
1 I |
r |
/ ^ |
|
|
t"^ |
|||
|
^t- |
9^ |
10
11
m^ |||||||uuuuuuu||uuumu
i^