^o .^ A^ C> .^ V^ 0'*°' c\ ^^y >^" -'^ .^^m:. y> ^ ^' ^:yy\' "i^^ ^^. cy s • • , -^^ ^ v , . 'P -> ^■^^r ' :/^ly. \ J" ^ • 0"' c ''''y\-yy--'y ^*^ o <^^ ■> /% WC*I-' /\ . , <. kM- ^--/ •^"' %.*' •^" ^^/ -Ife- "^-^^^^^ o V 4 o • / -\ -.,. ,' *^ ^^ V CELEBRATION OF THE / Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary OF THE INCORPORATION OF CONCORD Septeoaber 12, 1885 s. u CONCORD MASS.: PUBLISHED BY THE TOWN. ^ CELEBRATION OF THE Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary OF THE INCORPORATION / °' CONCORD September 12, 1885. l635-l^§g CONCORD, MASS.; PUBLISHED BY THE TOWN X- PRINTED AT "THE CONCORD TRANSCRIPT' OFFICE. H PREFACE. For the report of the proceedings, made stenographically, the Committee are indebted to Mr, Frank A. Nichols, the edi- tor of the Concord Transcript, who devoted an entire number of that paper to an account of the celebration. The oration was printed in a Supplement, and with the speeches and description, occupied thirty columns of the Transcript of Sept. 19th, 1885. This work of Mr. Nichols, was, through his kind permission, largely used in the preparation of this volume, and without it there would have been great difficulty in obtaining a full report of the speeches. PRINTED AT "THE CONCORD TRANSCRIPT" OFFICE. PREFACR. For the report of the proceedings, made stenographically, the Committee are indebted to Mr. Frank A. Nichols, the edi- tor of the Concord Transcript, who devoted an entire number of that paper to an account of the celebration. The oration was printed in a Supplement, and with the speeches and description, occupied thirty columns of the Transcript of Sept. 19th, 1885. This work of Mr. Nichols, was, through his kind permission, largely used in the preparation of this volume, and without it there would have been great difficulty in obtaining a full report of the speeches. Att the Genall Court holden att Newe Tovm, Sejit. 2, 1635. It is ordered that there shalhe a plantacon att Maskeleqald ^ & that there shalhe 6 mi/les of land square to belong to it, & that the in- habitants thereof shall have three yeares imunities from all publ charges except traineings ; Further that when any that plant there shall have occacon of carry eing of goods thither, they shall repair e to two of the nexte mgistrates where the teames are, ivhoe shall have potrer for a yeare to presse draughts att reasonable rates, to he jfciyde by the owners of the goods, to transjvjrt their goods thither att seasonable tymrs ; & the name of the place is changed, & hereafter to be called CONCORD. '^- CONCORD, At the annual town meeting in 1885, under a proper article m the warrant, voted -that fifteen hundred dollars be raised and appropriated for the purpose of celebrating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town, and erectiuali. Reynolds. john L. Gilmork, Richard F. Barrktt, George P. How, WT^wrx, c n , » HDwiN b. Barrett, William Wheeler, Alfred B. C. Dakin, Charles E. Brown, Edward C. Damon, John H. Moore, . William H. Hunt, George H. Wright, John F. Hosmer, George E. Walcott, George Heywood, Jr. James B. Wood, George M. Brooks, George Heywood, Edward W. Emerson, Charles H. Walcott, Arthur G. Fuller. This committee organized by the choice of Henry J. Hos MER Chairman, Richard F. Barrett Secretary, and Charles E. Brown Treasurer. It filled the vacancies occasioned by the death of George P. How and the resignations of George Hey- wood and John H. MooRE/by the choice of Nathan B. Stow Humphrey H. Buttrick and Edward J. Bartlett. 6 CONCORD CELEBRATiOHf. The work was divided among sub-committees as follows : Tablets : Charles H. Walcott, Edwakd W. Emerson, Arthur G. Fuller, John F. Hosmer, William H. Hunt. Proyramme : George E. Walcott, George M. Brooks, Edwin S. Barrett, John L. Gilmore, Samuel Hoar. Dinner : Stephen G. Brooks, George E. Walcott, Nathan B. Stow, George H. Wright, George Heywooo, Jr. Reception : George M. Brooks, Grindall Reynolds. Charles H. Walcott, Edward W. Emerson, Arthur G. Fuller, Oration : Grindall Reynolds, Henry J. Hosmer, William Wheeler, George M. Brooks, William H. Hunt, Music : John L. Gilmore, Humphrey H. Buttrick, Edward J. Bartlett Alfred B. C. Dakin, James B. Wood. Executive : Samuel Hoar, Richard F. Barrett, Charles E. Brown, Edwin S. Baimiett, Edward C. Damon, Henry J. Hosmer, John L. Gilmore. The details of tlie arrangements were at many meetings duly made, and carefully carried out, Hon, George F. Hoar, of Worcester, was selected as the Orator. Hon. John S. Keyes, as President of the Day. Capt. Richard F. Barrett, as Chief Marshal. Rev, Benjamin R. Bulkeley, as Chaplain. Hon, Georoe D, Rop.inson, Hon. James Russell Lowell, Prof, William W, Goodwin, Hon. William M. Evarts, Dr. Samuel A. Green, Hon. Romkut C, Winthrop, Mr. Hapgood Wright, Hon. Geoiuje William Curtis, Mr. Elijah B. Phillips, Pres. Charles W. Eliot, Hon. George Bancroft, wore invited as the guests of the Town, each having some es- pecial conneelion by birth, residence or relationshi]) with the Town. The Selectmen of the Towns of Acton, Bedford, Lincoln and Carlisle were also invited as the rei)resentatives of their towns that once formed a part of Concord. THE EXEBCISES. 7 The public were notified of the avrangeiiients hy this order that was published and circulated throughout the Town. CELEBRATION OF THE 250th anniversary of the Incorporation OF CONCORD ! September 12, 188^. A Salute will Be Fired, and Bells will be Rung AT tSuNRISE. THE CONCORD ARTILLERY, THE OLD CONCORD POST, G. A. R., THE CONCORD BATTERY, and THE CONCORD FIRE DEPARTMENT, will form In Monument Square at 9.30 o'clock, a.m., and wiil march at 10 o'clock over Lexington, Heywootl, Waklen, Huhbanl, Devcns, Sudbury and Thoreau Streets to the head of Main Street, where the invited guests will be received at 10.30 o'clock, and escorted down Main Street to the Town House. The Literary Exercises in the Town Ha.ll will begin at 11 o'clock; doors will be open at 10.30 o'clock. j\:fter the Exercises at the Hall, the line will be reformed and march ovei- Main, Thoreau and Texas Streets tojthe DINNER at Agricultural Hall, which will be served at 1.30, o'clock, p. m. at which time the parade will be dismissed. A Salute will be fired, and the Bells rung at sunset. Citizens are invited to Decorate their Houses along the line of march. RECEPTION AND PROMENADE CONCERT. There will be a Reception and Promenade Concert in the Town Hall on FRIDAY EVENING, Sept. 11th, from 7.30 to 11 o'clock, to which the citi- zens of Concord and their guests are invited. RICHARD F. BARRETT, Chief Marshal. 8 CONCORD CELEBRATION. The Reception was fixed for Friday evening Sept^ lltli as more desirable than the last night of the week. The Town Hall was finely deco- rated for the occasion, a large tablet inscribed with the exact words of tlie original act of incorporation (as printed on the first page of this volume), was placed over the rear of the plat- form, and could be read from all parts of the room. The hall was well filled with ladies and gentlemen at an early hour, and the Salem Cadet Band furnished the music for the concert. The reception committee and their wives received those who came, including the especial guests of the town most of whom were present. These were cordially greeted, made welcolne and presented to the citizens of the town, among whom were many old friends, relatives, and former neighbois. Many na- tive born and former residents attended, and renewed their old ties of friendship or kinship with those present. After an hour or two of greetings and conversation, dancing began, and was kept up with nnuh enjoyment till the close of what proved an informal but agreeable and delightful opening of the Cele bration. Saturday the twelfth day of September was favored with the finest weather of the year. It was ushered in by a salute fired by the Independent Mounted Battery under the command of Capt. a. G. Fullkr, from the Concord cannon inscribed as follows : *' The Legislature of Massachusetts consecrate the names of Major John Buttiuck and Captain Isaac Davis, wliose valor and example excited th-^ir fellow citizens to a successful resistance of a superior number of Hritish troops at Concord Bridge, the lOtli of Ai)ril, I77"), whicli was the beginning of a contest in arms that ended in American Independence." The seven historic tablets were finished and set in their proper places, and the inscriptions on them were printetl on the programme of the Exercises at the Town Hall. The morning hours were devoted to taking the guests of the town in car- riages to see these tablets, each party in charge of a meml)er of the Reception Committee. After the drive the guests and the committee met at the house of the Clu.irman, Mr. Henry J. IIosMER, and were entertained by him with a sumptuous lunch. THE PBOCESSION. 9 The Procession was formed on the public square at tlie hour named under the direction of Capt. Richard F. Barrett Chief Marshal and his aids Capt. A. B. C. Dakin, Charles E. Brown, William Barrett, George E. Walcott and Frank Gilmore. It con- sisted of The Salem Cadet Band, 24 pieces, The Concord Artillery, Company I, 6th Regt.M. V. M., Capt. J. L. Gilmore, 50 men. Old Concord Post, Grand Army of the Republic, E. J. Bartlett, Commander, 60 men. Concord Independent Mounted Battery, Capt. A. G. Fuller, 2 guns, 20 men. The Chelmsford Band, 24 pieces. The Concord Fire Department, Densmore B. Hosmer, Chief Engineer, West vale Engine Company, No. 2, Walter Wright, Foreman, 30 men. Independence Engine Co. No. 3, Mark Loftus, Foreman, 25 men, Hose Company No. 1, Frank R. Garfield, Foreman, 16 men. Each company of the Fire Department was in uniform and had its machine in the line. The procession marched promptly over the route indicated to the house of the Chairman at the head of Main street where it was reviewed by the Committee and their guests, who then in their carriages took their place in the line directly in rear of the Concord Artillery Company, their especial escort. From there the parade moved over Main street to the Town Hall through crowds of observers lining the sidewalks and win- dows the whole route. Nearly every house and store on the line was handsomely decorated with flags, streamers and bunt- ing, and in the bright sunshine and clear September air made under the brilliant foliage of the maples a pageant that gave to the old town a fine holiday appearance. 10 CONCOBJ) CELEBBATIOJSr. At the Town Hall the oHieers, committee and guests occupied the }ilatfonn, the Grand Army Post and municipal officers the reserved seats in front, and the hall, gallery and ante rooms were crowded with citizens, a majority of them ladies. Tiie following programme neatly printed on stiff paper was distributed. i6c3g mm CELE(B'RA TIOJ^ Two Huiidred and Fiftietli Anniversary Incorporation of Concord, September 12, 1885. Pboguammk It PBAYER. Rev. Benjamin Eeynolds Bulkeley. GBEETIJ^G, John Shepard Keyes. SINGING. (By a Double Quartet from the church choirs.) Invitation, Kimhall. REPORT on the HISTORICAL TABLETS. Charles Hosmer Walcott. SINGING. Psalm 107, from the Bay Psalm Book, 1()40. Tu7ie, St. Martin'' s. ADDRESS. George Frisbie Hoar. SINGING. America, ... By the whole audience. CONCORD CELEBRATION. On a panel cut in Egg Rock at the junction of the Rivers ON THE HILL NASHAVVTUCK AT THE MEETING OF THE RIVERS AND ALONG THE BANKS LIVED THE INDIAN OWNERS OF MUSKETAQUID BEFORE THE WHITE MEN CAME On a slate in the wall of the Hill Burying Ground : ON THIS HILL THE SETTLERS OF CONCORD BUILT THEIR MEETING HOUSE NEAR WHICH THEY WERE BURIED ON THE SOUTHERN SLOPE OF THE RIDGE WERE THEIR DWELLINGS DURING THE FIRST WINTER BELOW IT THEY LAID OUT . THEIR FIRST ROAD AND ON THE SUMMIT STOOD THE LIBERTY POLE OF THE REVOLUTION On a bronze plate set in granite on Lowell St., near the Square HERE IN THE HOUSE OF THE REVEREND PETER BULKELEY FIRST MINISTER AND ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THIS TOWN A BARGAIN WAS MADE WITH THE SQUAW SACHEM THE SAGAMORE TAHATTAWAN AND OTHER INDIANS WHO THEN SOLD THEIR RIGHT IN THE SIX MILES SQUARE CALLED CONCORD TO THE ENGLISH PLANTERS AND GAVE THEM PEACEFUL POSSESSION OF THE LAND A. D. 1636. PROGRAMME. iS On a panel in a stone west of the Three-Arch Bridge : ON THIS FARM DWELT SIMON WILLARD ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF CONCORD WHO DID GOOD SERVICE FOR TOWN AND COLONY FOR MORE THAN FORTY YEARS On a bronze plate set in granite on the west side of the Square : NEAR THIS SPOT STOOD THE FIRST TOWN EHOUS USED FOR TOWN MEETINGS AND THE COUNTY COURTS 1721-1794 On a stone by the road, northwest of the Minute-Man ON THIS FIELD THE MINUTE MEN AND MILITIA FORMED BEFORE MARCHING DOWN TO THE FIGHT AT THE BRIDGE On a stone at the junction of the old Bedford and Boston roads meriam's corner the british troops retreating from the old north bridge were here attacked in flank by the men of concord and neighboring towns and driven under a hot fire to charlestown U CON COBB CELEBBATION. Promptl}' at eleven o'clock Chief Marshal Barrett called the attention of tlie audience to the Prayer by the Rev. Benja- min R. BuLKELEY, Chaplain of the day and minister of the oldest church in Concord formed by his ancestor the first settled min- ister Rev. Peter Bulkeley. At the close of this exercise the President of the day, Hon. John S. Keyes, (son of the Hon. John Ketes who presided at the Bi-Centennial celebration in 1835), greeted the assembly. Fellow Citizens: — For to-day, at least, you are all, by birth or adoption, citizens of Concord, the oldest inland town in the country, tlie earliest settlement above tide-water, tlie first battle-ground of the Revolution, the birth-place of American liberty; for if in Boston was the conception, and in Lexington the agonizing throes of deadly pain, here the blessed child was born. To this memorable and venerable town, your old or your present home, you have come up to renew your affection, and to this sweet Concord its committee bids you a cordial, earnest welcome. Welcome to its pleasant homes, its shaded streets, its (juiet rivers. Welcome to its scenes, where Emerson thought, and Hawthorne wrote, and Thoreau walked, and Alcott talked. Welcome to its fine library, its beautiful statue, its pure and flowing water, and if you stay long enough — procul este — to its peaceful cemetery. Read and ponder over its historic taldets set up on this anniversary to remind the coming generations of the struggles of their forefathers. These two hundred and fifty years cover nearly all of the history of America; take us back in thought to the unbroken forest and the Indian occupants of these meadows and hills. From Tahattawan, the Sagamore of Musketaquid, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the seer and sage of Concord, is a long step in the world's progress. And yet two centuries which three lives might have spanned have seen these great changes. Dr. Bartlett, the old physician we all remember, had talked with the Centenarian, Dr. Holyoke, who had talked with Pere- grine White, the fii'st white child born in Plymouth. For its first century Concord was a struggle for existence, — for its second century a business and political centre, — for the last lialf cen- tury literature and philosophy have been its leading traits. Fifty years ago to-day was heai-d here the first of those matchless addresses that have made Emerson's words and thoughts known wherever our mother tongue is read or spoken. It has proved the key-note of the Concord of this generation. At that time this town had no claim to any man of more than local distinction, ('ould present no name known beyond the county limits. AVithin these fitty years how many have found here a "birthplace, a home or a grave" whose names are house- hold words." The roll of the illustrious dead can be left to you to recall, and of the living some are in your presence. On this anniversary naturally a comparison is made between the HISTORIC TABLETS. 15 Concord of to-day and of former days. Contrast its appearance then, you elders who have come back, and say in what respect there has been a failure of duty by her citizens in the past. Impress it now on your mind, you youths that so soon will have it in your keep- ius, and see to it that Concord gains in your hands new and added renown. Let us all then give for the past thanks, for the present a welcome, and for the future a cheer. '' Invitatiou" hy Kimbaix was then rendered by the fol- lowing double quartette from the church choh-s: Mrs. William H. Brown and Miss Hattie E. Clark, sopranos ; Mrs. Geo. A. King and Miss Eugenie Houghton, altos ; Mr. William Barrett and Mr. Augustus Davis, tenors ; Mr. Thomas Todd and Mr. Charles E. Brown, bassos ; Mrs. Chas. E. Brown, accompanist. The presiding officer then said : This town, having no pressing need of any great undertaking to be completed on this anniversary, voted to permanently mark the important events of its earlier history. The more recent are modestly left to our successors to decide what proves worthy of commemora- tion. The writer of the volume "Concord in the Colonial Period," has increased our debt to him, by his labors in preparing and es- tablishing these historic tablets. And of the places which he, as chairman of the Sub-Committee, and his associates have "With graven stone And the enduring Ijronze," fittingly inscribed, we are now to hear Charles Hosmeu Walcott. Report on The Historic Tablets. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : On this interesting anniversary, the Town of Concord aims to perpetuate upon its soil the names of the two men who were leaders in the enterprise of founding and building up the first inland town in Massachusetts, and to mark with lasting me- morials of stone and bronze some of the places most closely associated with our early history. Among the men whom the people of Concord delight to honor, Peter Bulkeley and Simon Wil- 16 CONCOIiD CELEBRATION. lard are this day peculiarly entitled to grateful homage. The committee in order to avoid, so far as possible, comparisons of one benefactor with another, have not ventured, strictly speaking, to build monuments even to these deserving men, but this distinction, at least, is awarded them, that, with the exception of the Indian chiefs, no names except theirs are inscribed upon our tablets. Few towns or cities on this continent have within their limits so much that is worthy of notice. Rich as we are in places hallowed by associations with eminent men and gifted women — places redo- lent of heroic action — to designate what shall be accounted, for all time, most worthy of gratefid re- collection, and to frame apt inscriptions that shall set forth in language snnple, clear and accurate, the important facts, is to assume no light responsi- bility. This work the committee have endeavored faithfully to perform, and without betraying, it is hoped, any undue anxiety, they earnestly desire that the results may meet with the approval of the townspeople and their distinguished guests. The tablets displayed to-day for your inspec- tion are seven in number. The inscriptions are before you, and it is not necessary to repeat them. The historical thread that runs through them and joins them together is easil}^ traced. Taken to- gether, and in connection with the monuments that we already i.ossessed. they form an epitome of the town's history for a century and a half — from the beginning of the plantation to tlie wai* of the revo- hition. The old Indian, Jehoiakin, in his testimony HISTORIC TABLETS. 11 given and recorded in the year 1684, informs us "that about 50 years since he lived within the bounds of that place which is now called Concord at the foot of an hill named IS^ashawtick," and that he was present at the house of Mr. Peter Bulkeley, when the bargain was made between the Indians and the English planters. The simple words inscribed on the rugged face of the rock, where the rivers meet, will serve to remind us and succeeding generations of a people who have vanished from the face of the earth, leaving scarcely a trace of themselves, ex- cept a few arrow-heads and stone pestles, and, here and there, a mound or a heap of clam shells. The land that was more especially the dwell- ing-place of these unfortunate people passed into the ownership of Simon Willard,^ and we have thought it fitting to acknowledge the town's debt to him by inscribing his name in letters of stone upon the farm that he owned and occupied in Concord, before he took up his abode in Lancaster, in response to more urgent demands for his services. Perhaps the most interesting of our memorials is the bronze plate set in red granite, on Lowell { 1 ) The following appears in the town records': "Grantted to Simond Willard the South hill betwene the Eievers bounded one the north by the oxe pastuer, the lyue to go one rod beyond the tope of the hill at the uper end of his meadow one the weast syd of the south hill & so the lyne to rune in a straight lyne to the neerest pt of the North Riever & to the new fielld fence to widow Barrits fence." The context shows that this grant was made about the time that the bridge over the South River was built in accordance with the di- rections of the commissioners of Concord and Lancaster, — that is, be- tween 1G54 and 1656. It is a curious fact that, in Willard's deed to Marshall dated 1659, and in Marshall's dated 1G60\ the high laud de- signated as "South Hill" in the town's grant was called "North Hill," IS CONCORD CELEBRATION. Street, to mark the site of Mr. Peter Bulkeley's house, where the memorable interview took place between the white men and the Indians, and where, in the words of the witness mentioned above the "Indians declared themselves sattisfyed and told the Englishmen they were welcome." The monu- ment stands on land described in IGGl by Grace Bulkeley, widow of the minister, as her "house loot and mill loot which is thirtie on acars." Re- cent excavations on the spot have disclosed frag- ments of old bricks and what appeared to be portions of a st(me foundation. A few feet from the monument, within the memory of persons now living, there w^as an excavation or depression in ground that was commonly known as "the Bulkeley cellar-hole ;" and in the History of Concord, pub- lished in 1835, Mr. Lemuel Shattuck indicates the spot as the site of Mr. Bulkeley's house. After a full consideration of all accessible evidence, the committee have been led to the belief that the statement of the town's historian is correct. Scene worthy of an artist's canvas, that meet- ino: of the two races at the minister's house. The Indians few .in number, wasted by disease and poverty, and beginning to realize the bitter truth that the new day dawning in America could have no brightness for them; the Englishmen strong and keen, vigilant and hopeful, but just and con- siderate in all their actions, — the advanced guard of a splendid civilization. The wonder is, that this interesting event has so long escaped formal public recognition. A slab of dark-blue slate imbedded in the wall HISTORIC TABLETS. 19 of the old burying-ground — "the hill neare the brooke" of the old record — points to the ridge that gave friendl}^ shelter to the homeless settlers and determined the course of their first road. Once the site of the Pm'itan meeting honse,^ it received into its dumb bosom and still retains the secrets of un- recorded tragedies of forty years. In later times was borne upon its summitthatprophecy of Ameri- can independence — ^the liberty-pole of the Revolu- tion. On the Common or Training-field a stone has been placed to mark the site of the first town house, built in 1721, partly of materials furnished by the second meeting house.'^ Here, in provincial times, courts were held and the inhabitants came together in town meeting, until by reason of the heated dis- cussions that immediately preceded the Kevolution, the building proved unequal to the service required 1 It appears from the town records that, under date of Febi'uary 5, 16S5-6, it was "Ordered that the meeting house stand on the hill neare the brooke on the east side of goodman Judsons lott;"' and "Oi-dered that the highway under the hill therough the Towne is to be leftfoure Rodes broad." 2 On December 30, 1795 (Middlesex Deeds L, IIU f. 518) the Town of Concord conveyed to David Page "a certain piece of Common land lying in the middle of the town of Concord on which the old Court house now stands containing about twenty square rods of Ground and is bounded as follows viz, begining at the IS'orth westerly corner of the premisses at a stake iu the ground seventeen feet from the easterly corner of the school-house and runing south seventy four degs. west forty seven feet to Doctor Timothy Minot's land to a stake, thence runing South seventeen degs. East, by land of said Minot, and land belonging to the County of Middlesex one hundred and twenty nine feet to a stake drove in the Ground, thence runing north seventy four degs. East forty five feet to a stake in the ground fm-ty four feet from the northerly coi-uer of Lt. John Richardson's house thence rnning north fifteen degs. west one hundred it twenty nine feet to stake first mentioned — reserving the old Court house now on the premises." so CONCOBB CELEBRATION. of it; and subsequent gatherings in the venerable meeting house that stands facing the Green to-day gave evidence, at once of the people's intensity of of purpose and of their feeling that in the ap- proaching struggle human efforts Avould grow weary and slacken, unless inspired from above. Our monu- ment recognizes the historical value of the ISTew England town meeting. It is appropriately erected in a town where that form of government by the peo- ple survives in all its original purity and excellence. The logical interval is not great between the old toAvn house on the common and the hill beyond the river, where a granite block is set to commemo- rate the forming of the minute men and militia, in preparation for the first aggressive, forward movement against the King's troops. That move- ment was the natural and necessary result of their votes and resolutions passed in town meeting. It was fitting that the smoke rising from the town house roof and painly visible to the men on the hill, should give the signal for attacking the enemy. After the colHsion at the old iSTorth Bridge, the opposing forces withdrew a little, to renew their strength and adjust themselves to the new state of affairs, — the British, to call in their detachments and withdraw from the town as quickly as possi- ble, — the Americans to arouse the country and harass the invaders on their return. John Buttrick had taken upon himselt to declare war against the British empire, and his countrymen were not slow to make known their intention to sustain his action. Their determination was manifested with effect by the attack on the retreating foe at Meriam's HISTORIC TABLETS. SI Corner, where our seventh tablet is a boulder firmly set in the wall. I nowinvite your attention to an ancient docu- ment recently found by me in the Stale Archives/ a paper that has never been printed, or alluded to by writers who have treated of the events of the 19th of April. Its great value, as it seems to me, consists in the fact that it supplies what has always been lacking in the accounts of the day, — a graphic sketch by an eye-Avitness of what was going on in the centre of Concord during its brief occupation by the enemy. I read from a copy of a petition dated Febru- ary 4, 177G, bearing the name of Martha Moulton, the old house-keeper of Master Timothy Miilot and addressed To The Honorable Court of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England In their present session at "Water- town The Petition of Martha Moulton of Concord in s*^ Province Widow Woman. Humbly sheweth That on the 19th day of April 1775, In the forenoon The Town of Concord, wherein I dwell, was beset with an army of Regulars who, in a Hostile manner enter'd the Town and Draw'd up in Form before the Door of the house where I Live, and there they continu'd oii the Green feeding their horses within five feet of the Door — and about 50 or 60 of them was in and out the house, calling for water & what the}' wanted, for about three hours at the same time all our near Neighbours In the greatest Consternation were Drawn off to places far from the thickest part of the Town, where I Live and had taken witli them their Families & what of their best Effects they cou'd carry,— some to a neighbouring Wood, and others to remote 1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 180, Page 306. n CONCOBD CELEBRATION. houses for security. Your Petitioner being Left to the mercy of six or seven hundred armed men and no person near but an old man of S.'t years & myself J 1 years old & both very Infirm — It may easily be Imagin'd wliat a sad condition y"" Petit"^ must be in. Under these circumstanc^es y' Petif Coraitted heiself, more Especially to the Divine protection and was very remarkably helpt with so much Fortitude of mind, as to wait on tliem as they call'd — with water & what we had — Chairs for Maj. Pit- earn & 4 or /) more officers who sat at the Door Viewing their men at length y'' Petif had, by degrees cultivated so much favor as to talk a little with them — when all on a sudden TheJ had set fire to the Great-Gun Carriages Just by the house and while they were in flames y"' Petif" saw smoke arise out of the Town house higher than the Ridge of the house — Then y"" Petif did put her Life, as it were in her hand, and ventur'd to beg of the officers to send some of their men to put out the fire, but they took no notice, only sneered. Your Petif seing the Town house on fire & must in a few minutes be past recovery Did yet venture to Expostulate with the officers Just by her as she stood with a pail of Water in her hand Begging of them to send It — when they only said — O mother we wont do you an}- harm Dont be concern'd mother — & such like talk. The house still burning and knowing that all the Row of 4 or 5 houses as well as the Schoolhouse was in Certain danger y"" Petif^ (not know- ing but she might provoke them by her Incessant pleading — yet ventur'd to put as much strength to her arguments as an Importunate widow cou'd think of — And so y"" Petif can safely say that under Divine Providence she was an Instrument of saving the Court House and how many moie is not certain from being consum'd — with a great deal of valuable furniture — and at the great Risque of her Life, at Last by one pail of water after another they sent and Did Extinguish the fire and now ,ma3' it please this Hon'd Court, as several People of note in the Town have advis'd y' Petif Thus to Infoiin the public of what she had done — and as no notice has been taken of her for the same — she begs Leave to Lay this her case before your honors and to Let this hon'd Court also know that y' Petif is not only so Old as to be not able to earn wharewith to support herself — is very Poor and shall think lier highly honor'd in HISTORIC TABETS. 2S the Favorable notice of this Hon'd Court, as what y' Petif has Done was of a Public as a\ ell as a private Good and as your honors are in a Public Capacity y"" Petif begs that it may not be taken ill In this way to ask in the most humble manner something — as a Fatherly Bounty — such as to your great wis- dom & Compassion shall seem meet and your Petitioner, as in Duty bound For the peace & prosperity of this our American Israel, shall ever pray Maktha Moulton Concord Feb. 4 1776 The Committee upon the forgoing Petition have attended that Service & beg leave to Report the following Resolve In the House of Representatives May 8th 1776 Resolved than there be paid out of the Publick Treasury to James Barrat Esqr. the sum of three pounds for the use of Mar- tha Moulton the Petitioner for her good Services in so boldly & successivly preventing the enemy from Burning the Town House in Concord as set forth in her Petition. [Indorsed in the same handwriting as the petition.] ''For M^ Samuel Freeman att Falmouth., Present Clerk of the Hon^ House of Representatives In Watertoion.'"' [In another handwriting.] "J/'" Kinshury 3P' Woodbridge M^ Bent:' ''Martha Moidton's • Petition:' ' 'Bead May 8 & not accepted:'' 24 CONCOBB CELEBRATION. The choir then sang the old 107th Psalm to the tune of St. Martin, each of the lines being deaconed in the old fashion before singing. The President : On hardly more than an acre of land on the main street of Con- cord, stood three houses from which have gone forth, in the last fifty years, live representatives to the Congress of the United States. Of these, one has been a member of the Cabinet, and one a Senator at Washington. That one, the youngest of them, connected by blood and lineage with the Declaration of Independence and the March through Georgia to the Sea, I have the honor of presenting to you now as the Orator of the Day. In his native town, on this jjlatform built of the oak of the Old North Bridge where his grandfather and the ancestors of many of you once '"Fired the shot heard round the world," his eloquence cannot fail to inspire and delight you. The Senator of Massachusetts, GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR. Address by Hon. George F. Hoar. The story of Concord, the most noble, touch- ing, and famous story that any community which now governs itself after the ancient fashion of a N^ew England town has the right to tell, has been narrated by orators and historians with whom no successor will, for a moment, enter into competi- tion. Some of you remember when the aged clergy- man of the town, who, with his gray hairs and his mild authority, seemed the very genius of ]:)uritan and revolutionary Concord, at the end of a half- century's service, recounted to his congregation the wonderful dealing of God with his people who "here first planted the standard of the cross and of liberty." Three years before, Edward Everett, then in his prime and splendor, traced the causes and the resnlts of the events of the 19th of April, 1775. By his magic art, he caused his audience ADDRESS. 25 to hear once more, after fifty years silence, the sound of the old ^^Tew England drums beating on all the roads, and to see again, as in visible pre- sence, the march to the bridge, and the flashing of the unintermitted fire that lined every patch of trees, every rock, every stream of water, every building, every stonewall, from Meriam's corner to Charlestown. Her own most illustrious son, the foremost teacher in his generation of both hemis- pheres, on the day of her second centennial, summed up for Concord the rich lessons of her history. In 1850, Mr. Kantoul delivered the masterly discourse which was his last great public service before his untimely death. Bancroft has compressed the re- sult of investigations begun more than sixty years ago into that twenty-eighth chapter, which, if American liberty survive, shall outlast Thucydides. In 1875, the successor of Dr. Ripley, in a sermon inspired by the loftiest faith of the Fathers, showed that the Revolution was "the reverence for God's sovereignty and His righteous will enacted into law, and brought into martial array." After all this, what would have been impossible to almost any other living orator, in the presence of Presi- dent Grant and his cabinet, the executives of many states, and a vast concourse of citizens, Mr. Curtis told again, with new and increased interest, the familiar tale which he had learned in Concord in his boyhood. There is little left for us, to-day, but common- places; — and to thank the Power who hath so ordered our lot and our lineage that our common- places are such things as these. 26 CONCORD CELEBRATION. It is difficult to tell the plain story of any New England town without seeming to be boastful. We will strive, in all we have to say on this occasion, to keep within the bounds of that moderation, which has always been so prominent a trait in the character of Concord. But still we must describe her as she appears to her children. We have a right to tell our mother on her birthday that we love her, and that her venerable face is fairer in our eyes than all the roses of girlhood. The chief marvel which impresses us when we look at the Concord of two hundred and fifty years ago is the permanence of what our ancestors founded. Children of an adventurous race, born to build states, and to furnish the material of which states are builded, with the ancestral Norseman's hunger for sea and horizon and forest, dwellers on this sandy plain, in this bleak and savage climate, with no wall to keep them in, tempted in later generations by luxurious city and fertile west, how much of the original Concord, with its institutions, its character, its faith, its blood and breed, is here. Like the rest of the old thirty New England towns, from whom one third of the people of the United States are descended, it has given of itself to a thousand communities, all over the country. But, perhaps more than any othei', it has assimilated and digested into its own likeness what has come to it from without. We are celebrating the origin of a life which has been contemjiorary with a large part of what is remembered or is worth remembering in history. Fifteen years after the landing at Plymouth, five ADDBESS. t^ ye^rs after John Winthrop came to Salem and foimded Boston, civilization turned westward from the sea coast and planted its first footstep here. The men who came to Concord with Peter Bulkeley and Simon Willard had seen in England persons who, in their time had looked into the faces of men who were alive when Sebastian Cabot sailed into Bristol harbor with the news that he had planted the English flag on an unknown continent "larger than Christendom." They had seen men who re- membered when the first Bible was printed, and the first Protestant sermon preached. Before their day, how little had happened that comes down to us among the living realities of his- tory. We have a knowledge, which we call his- torical, of one great empire, and that somewhat less in extent than our own. The roots of the English constitution and common law had been growing for some centuries in the soil of the little territoiy called England. The great reigns of Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth had dispelled the darkness of the nliddle ages. All else of human history which has survived, which we teach our children, to which an educated man cares to look for instruction or example, is that of a single Asia- tic peoplj less in number than Massachusetts, a Gi'ecian commonwealth smaller than Boston, two brilliant reigns in Spain, Holland behind her dikes, Switzerland on her chainless mountains, the brief glories of poetry and art of a few Italian cities, the brief struggles for liberty of a few towns by the northern sea. Pretty much every thing else of the earlier story of our planet has perished fi'omamcmg ^8 CONCORD CELEBRATION. living realities, and belongs to the domain of the antiquary or the archseologist, to be conjectured fromruins, or fromfossilfe^bones, or broken pottery- Concord was settled before any American town that does not touch tide-water. Her life has been longer than that of thirty-three of our thirty- eight states, and is about coeval with the other five. She is nearly twice and one half as old as the na- tion, and the constitution of Massachusetts. All modern literature since the death of Shakespeare, in whose lifetime our early settlers were born, all modern science, all modern invention, is since their day. The world had not heard of the law of gravi- tation, and had just heard, but not yet believed, that the earth moves and the blood circulates. As I pointed out, — in speaking of the history of a portion of our original town last year, — since our fathers came here, the great empire of Russia and all the South American states have taken their place among civilized nations. The mighty Germany, She of the Danube and the Northern Sea, has been built up from sixty petty states. Six dynasties have held dominion in Spain. Four have sat in succession on the throne of England, while she has united with lierself Ireland and Scotland, lost America, conquered Canada, and subjected two hundi-ed and fifty million Asiatics. France has been twice a republic, twice a monarchy again, and now is a republic for the third time. Italy has shaken the armed heel of Austria from ofi!* her neck, has bniiisluMl the Bourbons, and overthrown the ADDRESS. ^^ temporal power of the Pope. Belgium and Hol- land have been joined and sevei-ed. The star of Poland has disappeared from the sky. Japan has risen in the East, has thrown otf her barbarism of ages, and come to sit docile at the feet of America, to learn civiUzation, laws, manners. Yet how much, in the great essentials of self-government, of character, of religious faith, of the love of liberty, is pi'eserved of the (Joncord of 1635 in the Concord of to-day! The town our fathers planted is here, as little changed, in its two and a half centuries, as any other civilized community that has a history. The town and the parish abide as our fathers framed them. The simple and cheap mechanism, of which no man knows the contriver, has, with- out substantial change, here perlormed per- fectly all the chief functions of government "in simple democratic majesty.''' The first church covenant, drawn up by Peter Bulkeley, would re- quire little change, if any, to be accepted to-day, by a large majority of the people, as a rule of faith and practice. I have now before me an original memorial, ad- dressed to the Genei'al Court in 1664, twenty-nine years after the settlement. It bears the names of ninety-three of the inhabitants. It is the sure prophecy of the 19th of April, and of the Declai-a- tion of Independence. As soon as Charles II. was firmly seated on the throne, and the miti'e and the crown had become omnipotent again. Lord Claren- don turned his attention to the subjugation of the little Commonwealth, where all the strength left to Puritanism seemed to dwell. " It may be pre- ^0 bONCORD CELESkAttON, sumed," he declared, ''"that they Avill harden in their constitution, and grow on nearer to a com- nionweaUh, toward which they are ah-ead}' well- nigh ripened.'' He nrged npon the King that " scarce any future accideut or state of aftairs can, in auy probabihty, rendei" the reduction of that doubtful people more feasible than at this point of time they may be found to be/' At his sugges- tion, four shijjs of wai-, the first that ever dropped anchor in Massachusetts waters, and four hundred troops were despatched to Boston, conveying the royal commissioners, who were empowered to as- sume and exercise the fullest jurisdiction, civil, criminal, and military. The General Court, o\\ their side, prepared themselves for the defence of their charter, put in ordei" the trainbands, and placed an able officer in command of the Castle. I cannot here give the history of that me^Aorable struggle, which the skill of the Puritan statesmen prolonged foi- twenty years. My purpose is to show the teuiper of Concoi-d and the stable chnr- acter of her population. To the honoured genenill Couil of the Massachusets Collonie, hohl at Boston October -^- 11) : lOliJ : (he humble representation (jf the Inhal)itants of the Towne of Conctoril, l)oth freemen ami others. Forasmucli as we uncU'rsland, that there have been complaints maxU' nnto his Majestic, concerning divisions amongst us, and dissatisfaction about tlu' pi-esent Government of this Colonic ; we wliose names ari' ini(h'r\vritteu doe hereby testilie our unan- imous satisfaction in. :iner, from which comes a race fitted for the most sti'cnuous contests of war and statesmanship, capable of the great moral self- restraints, as needful to length of life and health in ADDRESS. 35 a nation as temperance to that of the body, were the constant discipline of this people. These three things were, — war, straining to the utmost every resource of courage, endurance, and skill; — the century-long discussion of the natural rights of the people, their rights under the charter and British constitution, which lay at the foundation of the State; — and the constant consideration of the rela- tion of man to his Creator and to the controlling law of duty. On the one hand were the French and Indians, a constant menace to the state whose frontier was never a day's march from Concord. On the other was the mighty power of Eng- land, wheie Stuart, Cromwell, Orange, Hanover alike looked with jealousy on the little self-govern- ing commonwealth. There was scarcely a Con- cord family that had not some member killed, wounded, or a prisoner, or had not its own story of perilous adventure and escape. The town furnished many brave and able officers of high rank. AVhat West Point education was ever like this military school ! Eveiy boy was a sharp- shooter. The father told the childi-en at the fire- side the tale of Philip's war, of the burning of Lancaster and Groton, of the fight at Sudbury, of the escape of Mary Shepard, of the rescue of Mrs. Rowlandson, of Wheeler's desperate struggle, of Willard's coming to the deliverance of Brookfield at sundown, of the great French wars of William and Mary and Queen Anne, of Lovell's Fight, of Fort Edward, of William Henry, of Crown Point, of Martinique, of the Havana, of Louisburg, which our fathers captured with its own cannon, of Que- 36 COKCORD CELEBRATION: bee, where at last the lilies went down before the lion, never again, bnt for a brief period in Louisi- ana, to float as an emblem of dominion over any j^art of IS^orth America. In all this the town did its full share. To every one of these things belongs a Concord story. These were the experiences not of wild and adventurous spirits, but of sober citi- zens, of church-members, and deacons. The old Indian fighter discoursed with his neighbor of the true boundary which sepai'ates liberty and author- ity in the state, of the principles of constitutional freedom, and the defence of his natural rights against king and parliament and royal gov- ernor. Fi'om the pul])it a succession of able and pious clergymen, such as for two hundred and fifty years have been the pride and crown of Concord, discoursed to an obedient congi'egation of their rc- lationli to their Creator, of duty, and of the things that lay hold on eternal life. The first century and a half was but one long drill for the Revolution. 80 it is that the Power which planted the coal, and whose subtle chemis- try gets ready the iron for the use of the new race, gets his children ready, that they shall not fail in that supremest hour when America is to be born. Thei'e were three se])arate acts in that im- mortal drama of the 19th of April, — each unlike the other, each unlike any other. First was the death of l*arker and Muzzey, and Munroe and Harrington, and their comrades, the first-born of American liberty, who fell on the green at Lexington, in the gray dawn of that April moi'u- ing. Then comes the march to the bridge at Cdu- ADDRESS. 37 cord, — John Bnttrick's word of command, from which dates the separation from England and the hberty of a hemisphere ; the shot heard round the world; the countenance of Isaac Davis, pleasant and unchanged in death; the irresolute march and countermarch of the British on the green/ '^he cT retreat begun here, never ended till Yorktown. These things are living and real to us, as if we had seen them yesterday, and shall be living and real to our children and our children's children until time shall be no more. Perhaps we do not rate as highly as it deserves the skill and courage shown in the third act of the drama, the long pursuit from Concord to Chai'les- town. One of the famous generals of oar late war, a distinguished man of a distinguished family, told me a few months ago, that he had recently made a thorough military study of the events of the 19th of April, and that he has been very gi'eatly impressed with the military ability shown by the Americans in the pursuit of the British on that occasion. It is a most dangerous and difficult thing successfully to pursue and attack a disciplined force, well armed, and protected by flanking guards. The events of that day are a test and a demon- stration of the highest military quality in the peo- ple of a whole comnuinity, more than is found in many great battles. I think there can be no reasonable doubt that the events of the 19th of April had been, as ftii- as possible, expected and arranged beforehand. The notion that the breaking out of hostilities was an unpremeditated, unexpected, unprei3ared, sponta- 38 CONCORD CELEBRATION. neons outbreak of the people, that a prairie fire caught and spread over the land, has prevailed largely in the popular mind, and has found coun- tenance from some high authorities. I^othing is farther from the truth. The American Revolution was a war as clearly foreseen and as thoroughly prepared for to the extent of their power, by the party which prevailed, as any war in history. Mil- itary stores, such as their means permitted, were gathered, military forces organized and officered, and articles of war enacted, and the machinery, legislative and executive, of civil government created and put in order. When, on the 1st of September, 1774, Gen. Gage seized the powder belonging to the pi'ovinces on Mystic river, and two field-pieces at Cambridge, the militia of AYorces- ter and Hampden counties began their march to Boston. Putnam heard of it in Connecticut, and summoned the militia there to take up arms. At least twenty thousand men were on the way. They were stojiped by couriers from the Com- mittee of Safety, who determined that the time for force had not yet come. Putnam wrote to them: "But for counter-intelligence, we should have had forty thousand men well equipped and ready to nnirch this morning. Send a written ex- press to the foreman of this connnittee when you have occasion lor our martial assistance; we shall attend your summons, and shall glory in having a share in the honor oC ridding our country of the yoke of tyranny, which our forefathers have not borne, neither will we; and, we much desire you to keep a strict guard ovei' the remninder of ADDRESS. 39 your powder, for that must be the great means, under God, for the salvation of our eountry." " How soon we may need your most effectual aid." answered the committee, " we cannot de- termine; but, agreeably to your wise proposal, we shall give you authentic intelligence on such con- tingency. The hour of vengeance comes lowering on: repress your ardor, but let us adjure you not to smother it." When the September court met in Worcester in 1774 the main street was occupied by five thousand men, arranged under leaders, in companies, six deep. Unquestionably the instant march to Concord of the minute-men and militia in companies, and the care not to begin the war by fii'ing before they were fired upon was the result of a previous order from the authority which could send back to their homes, without an instant's hesitation, twenty thou- sand men, armed, and eager for the conflict. Col. Barrett's order not to fire unless fired upon was in strict accordance with the declaration of Eleazer Brooks, a member of the Pi-ovincial Congress, early in the morning, — "It will not do for us to begin the war." Orators may be ready to adopt a theory as to the course of our history which attributes a magic influence to the weapon they wield, or gives an un- due proportion to the elements and passions in human nature to which they appeal. Patrick Henry utters a passionate outcry, or Wendell Philliixs a burning in^^*^ive, or some stirring event C/ *— -*^^- — - sends an electric shock through the land, and lo! 40 CONCORD CELEBRATION. the people overthrow a dynasty, or strike ofi' the fetters from a race of slaves, and Liberty is born. This may be, for aught 1 know, human nature among- Mussulman tribes or Parisian mobs. But it is not American nature; it is not Massachusetts nature; it is not Concord nature. The sturdy oak of American freedom has no such mushroom growth. The men who in their generation achieved American Independence, like their chil- dren, who in their generation preserved the Union and fi-eed the slave, governed their action and measured their duty with the deliberation and calmness that became men who were to establish constitutions and men who were to preserve them. The habit of setting forth the law of religious and moral obHgation in a written creed, and of look- ing for the limits and restraints of civil authority to a charter or written constitution and bill of rights, begets caution, exactness in reasoning, and dislike of exaggeration. Every step they took was premeditated, measured, firmly planted, and without a retreat. Their leaders were grave and tem- perate thinkers, aged and sober clergymen, states- men prepared for making constitutions, and the gi-eat permanent systems of law that lie at the foundation of all society. Thc}^ valued the old- fashioned virtue of consistency, and they practised the old-fashioned virtue of constancy. They detested and rebuked exaggeration. "The liberty they pursued,"" as Burke well said, " was a liberty from order, from virtue, from morals, from ivligion, and was neither hypocj'itically ii<>i" fanatically followed.-' ADDRESS. 41 It has been often said that at the moment of John Bnttrick's word of command American na- tional life began; and that is true. The order was given to British subjects. The order was obeyed by American citizens. But it was also the germinant moment of a principle destined not merely to control a single state or nation, but sooner or later to j^ervade all civilized nations in both hemispheres. It is the principle not that men are to be governed, but that they are to govern themselves, nnder the restraints imposed by jus- tice and reason. I'he great and crowning glory and distinction of humanity, the imposing, by itself upon itself, of a rule furnished by reason, tested and approved by conscience, controlhng the incli- nation and the will,Avas thereafter to be the method of mankind in the conduct of states. When we consider the grandeur and the vast consequences of the events of that day the local controvei'sies to which they have given rise become inexpressibly trivial. Thei-e is glory and honor enough to go round. From within a I'adius of six or eight miles from this spot came all the men who encountered the invaders any where until they were well on their retreat. To Joseph Robinson, of Westford, is due the lionor, rare in military history, of declining rank, but accepting in its fullest ex- tent both danger and responsibility. The ball from the first hostile shot passed under his arm as he walked by the side of Buttrick. With that excep- tion, the men from before whom the Bi'itish re- treated were from the towns embraced in the original Concord. The number of the slain is no 42 CONCORD CELEBRATION. necessary test of the imjDortaiice of a battle. The Eno-hshmen lost at As>-iiicoiii't but four oentle- men : None else of name; and of all other men But five and twenty. Plassey, which gained India to England, cost the victoi's seven European and sixteen native soldiers killed, thirteen European and thirty-six natives wounded. The Americans lost but twenty-seven at ^ew Orleans. There were more Englishmen slain on the retreat from Concord than fell of Wolfe's army who captured Quebec; more than were slain oi' the Greek side at Marathon. IMore men fell on both sides that day than at the fii'st battle of Bull Run. But all this is but a season of planting. The Puritan secured for his descendants the right to wor- ship God, and the men of the Revolution the right to self-government. Whether these things were worth doing, or, at least, whether their children are not the last people who should relate their story, must be determined by a survey of later and more peaceful times. Mankind cannot always be submitted to tests like war and the founding of states. The glory of the founder is ihe finished building. The glory of the patriot is the country he has saved. Children's children are the crown of old men. The hundred years beginning in 17S3, and just ended, must tell us whether it Avere not better that i>ulkeley had staged in the pleasant vales of Bedfordshire, and Simon Willard and James Hosmer in rich and fertile Kent. ADDRESS. 43 We are as far from the Concord to which Emer- son spoke in 18:>5 as that was from the Concord of the Kevolution. The man or woman is now de- parted fi'om among the Hving, or is p;ist the Psahii- ist's allotted term of human life, Avho, a youth of tAventy-one, listened in the veneral)le church to the sweet, rich tones of our beloved sage, as he spake to the congregation, adorned by those crowns of glor}'^, the hoary heads of the survivors of the Rev- olution. We can look, as with the ej^es of posterity, upon more than half a century of the peaceful and quiet life of this community. The labor of the founders, the struggle with England, the crowning sacrifice and conflict of the Revolution, were but to win the right to be and to remain what Concord was in 1835, and has been since. It was as absolute a democracy, in the best sense of that word, as ever existed on the foce of this earth. Mr. Emerson thought that " the town records should be printed and presented to the governments of Europe, — to the English nation as a thank-offering, and as a certificate of the progress of the Saxon race; to the continental nations as a lesson of humanity and love." " Tell them," he said, " the Union has twenty-four States, and Massachusetts is one. Tell them Massachusetts has three hundred towns, and Concord is one; that in Concord are five hundred I'atable polls, and every one has an equal vote." But it was something far more than a political de- mocracy. The most extreme and oppressive social distinctions often prevail under constitutions secur- ing the most absolute political equality. The 44: CONCORD CELEBRATION. relation of the neighbor, at its very best, existed here in that sense which Dr. Johnson gives as its signification in divinity: "One partaking of the same nature, and therefore entitled to good offices. " There was little wealth and little poverty. There were no palaces and no hovels. I do not think it occurred to the richest man in town that he was thereby entitled to any superiority, or to the poor- est that he must for that reason doff his hat to any man. When the people formed their procession for their centennial, if the little black girl were left alone, the beautiful favorite of the school-room took her place by her side. The towns-people Avho were well-to-do took an interest as in friends in the inmates of the pooi'-house, who, under the old settlement laws, must have had, by themselves or through their ancestors, some close relation to the town. This sense of social and personal equality was by no means inconsistent with a just regard for authority or personal character. Intellect and excellence were held at their proper rate, and re- ceived their due respect. The town was as early as any to insist on a high standard of public-school education for both sexes. It is often said that the town meeting educated the people to self-government; that town meetings are to liberty what ])i'iniaiy schools are to science: they bring it Avithin the ])eople's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it; and this is true. But the value of the Xew England town, the value of this town, in a most eminent degree, consists in something more than that. This value is in its personality. It is a being calculated to ADDRESS. 45 excite the warmest human affection. In those nations of Europe Avhere the national feeling is the strongest the wisest philosophers have observed and deplored the absence of a local public spirit. But here the town has always been the object of love and pride. The people of Concord cared for its honor and dignity as for that of their own household. In the days which some of us can remember the advent of a stranger put the town on its hospitality. If Kossuth or Lafayette were coming here, or our famous anniversary were to bring throngs of strangers, every individual felt a personal responsibility. In the great pubhc charities for Greece, or for Ireland, or Hungary, or Kansas, Concord must not be suffered to be behind any other town, in proportion to her abilit}^ The morals and manners of the people were pure and clean. I do not remember that there has ever been a miu'der oi- a social scandal, and scarcely one of the greater crimes. There was little of austerity in the life of the people. The farmers led happy and honest lives. The ever-old, ever-new romance of life went on. Lovers wooed and maidens were won. Children were born, and old age passed to. the tomb. Our clergymen taught a rational and cheerful faith. Our fathers and mothers took into their own nature the peace of this beautiful land- scape of river and meadow, and put of their own nature into the landscape. Above all, while, like their fellow-men the round world over, they belonged to this world into which they were born, were no ascetics, took as they came the duties and the enjoyments and the trials of life. 46 CONCORD CELEBRATION. they held to a very shicere rehgious faith in a supreme laAV of duty, and in a personal immortality^ They believed in a future life, which just men were to enjoy w^itli those they had loved here. The ehildi'en laid their parents to sleep as those who were to awaken again. The wife parted from her husband, expecting to see his foce after a time. The mother who lost her child believed that its tiny fingers should curl once more about her own. It was this hope's perpetual breath from which alone came to them, as to all healthy human society, Qxery gift of noblest origin. It is often said tkat these democracies, with their political and social dead level, may do very well for mankind in a condition of coarse and comfortable mediocrity. Men may eat and drink and die in them, with a certain gross phj^sical contentment. But for letters and art, for the greater and nobler quality of chivalry and genius, for the respect due to authority, especially for the beauty and orna- ment of noble and gracious manners, we must look elsewhere. You need a throne, the fountain of honoi', hereditary wealth, feeder of the arts which ennoble and beautify life, great old houses and family names, and old household gai'dens, for the rare plants of courtesy and high breeding to mature and blossom. Let us see. I think we need not altogether blush for our old Concord Avhcn these things are spoken of We shall perha})s find that the men who have come out from our farm-houses have been as ready for the great self-sacrifices of life; that country, hnnoi', duty, have had a meaning foi- them also. ADDRESS. 47 as for any Plaiitagenet or Howard. But how is it in respect of courtesy and good manners, not now using the words in their largest and best sense of manifestation of true kindness, but as denotino- that beauty and grace of conduct and behavior that mark the gentleman and gentlewoman? I suppose perfect specimens of these manners are rare evei-ywhei-e. Everj^ generation speaks of them as gentlemen of the old school, each thereby confessing that it has not many of them to show of its own. How Avill the proportion of them here compare with that in other forms of society? I have been in my time a pretty diligent and hungry reader of the memoirs of Englislimen of rank and fame, illustrious in church or state, in law or let- ters. I confess I do not find many traces of such characters there. If English fiction, from Fielding and Smollett, down to Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope, di'aw a true portraiture, I should be sorry to have sent om- young farmers to leani the graces of life from the gentlemen they describe. There are many pei'sons in this audience who remember the simple and grave courtesy of Nathan Brooks. Your elders have not forgotten another Concord man, — him of whom Emerson said that, "if one had met him in a cabin or forest, he must still seem a public man, answering as sovereign state to sovereign state; and might easily suggest Milton's picture of John liradshaw, — that " he was a consul from whom the fasces did not depart with the year, but in private seemed ever sitting in judgment on kings;" and "that he retui'ued from courts or con- gresses to sit down, with unaltered humility, in the 4S CONCORD CELEBRATION. church or in the town-house, on the plain wooden bench, where Honor came and sat down beside him." To meet Emerson himself was as if you had encountered one fresh I'rom the council of the Greek Olympus. These men were not accidents. They were representatives — the best representa- tives perhaps, but still representatives — of a people from which they and their ancestors sprang-, from which they derived their education, and in which they found example, guidance, and companionship. If it had been necessar}^ for our little democracy to establish its own relations with any throne or court, it would not have lacked ambassadors; and it would have had no occasion to be ashamed of them. For how many centuries has the world been moved to admiration and tears by the story of Sir Philip Sidney, the bright, consummate flower of English chivalry, who gave the cup of water, offered to his own dying lips to his dying comrade! It is the one story which bi'ings the age of chivalry home to the apprehension of mankind. Yet, cer- tainly, we should all of us have thought the action perfectly natural to George Prescott. Concord was among the very earliest towns to provide a liberal education in classics and mathe- matics both in public and private schools. Both sexes pursued these studies together, and certaiidy I'or all the time for which I can speak, the girls were at the head of the classes. When the United States Centennial Committee, in 187G, desired that the biograpiiy of a woman from each of the old thir- teen States should be written, to exhibit tiie highest A DDRESS. 49 attainment of American womanhood for the first century of our national life, Sarah Ripley, a Con- cord woman by marriage and adoption, was selected as the representative of Massachusetts. She was one of the best scholars in the country in classics, in mathematics, in modern literature, English and Continental, and in natural history. She con- ducted some of her pupils through the entire col- lege curriculum. Mr. Everett said of her that she was qualified to fill any professor's chair at Harvard. Karely was a brighter or profounder intellect; never a sweeter or more gracious presence. Tell me, tell me, liave ye known Household charm more sweetly rare, Grace of woman ampler blown. Modest}' more debonair, Younger heart with wit iull grown? Native to famous wits, Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, Concord is known by her contribution to litera- ture wherever the English language is spoken. The battle-ground itself has added glor}^ in the eyes of the pilgrim, that it is hard by the home of Hawthorne. Our cemetery is not more hallowed by the sacred dust it preserves than by Mr. Chan- ning's ode for its dedication, fit to be ranked with Sir John Davies' Poem of the Soul. Rather to those ascents of being turn Where a ne'er setting sun ilhimes tiie year Eternal, and the incessant watch-fires burn Of unspent holiness and goodness clear. Thoreau found in our woods the ma-terial for his reports of the habits of all animate and inanimate \ 50 CONCORD CELFAiRATION. nature, which are to those which science had given us before as the human character of a poet to the same man as described by an anatomist. Emerson, who held the loftiest place in literature of all men of his time, to whom Concord owes so mnch, would have been first to acknowledge his own debt to her. The biographer who would desci-ibe the "educa- tional and social influences which helped to mould his character," or the qualities of race he inherited, has first to understaud the character of Concord, and study the lives of generations of Concord men. Eminence in the fine arts, for obvious reasons, is not to be expected of a people situated as we were for our first two hundred years. But it is pleasant to hear that a young man, descended from that race of Puritan clergymen who have so honored the town in every generation, is taking high rank as a painter in Paris. When we see, standing by the North Bridge, one of the very few American statues that are alive, we are glad to remember that we had not to go abroad for the sculptor, and to think that Concord has given proof that the genius of American Democracy is not incapable of adding this ornament and beauty also to the State. In speaking of the town as a separate munici[)al and social life we do not forget that it is but a part of a larger life, in which it lives, and moves, and has its being. The Commonwealth and the country surround us like the air. What would be left of Concord, if, inhabited by the same men, and with all physical conditions unchanged, she had been other than a Massa(;husetts town, is haixler to answer than Sir Thomas Browne's famous ques- ADDRESS. 51 tion, — "What song- the sirens sang." But she has given as well as received. Certainly she has not failed in her contribution to the glory of Mas- sachusetts in every generation. When it was the glor}^ of JMassachusetts to redeem the continent from the savage, and to found an empire, the men of Concord led the way into the forest. AVhen it was the glory of Massachusetts to lead in winning- American libert}'^ from the power of England, it was a Concord voice that gave the word. W^hen it was the glory of Massachusetts to give to man- kind the example of a model self-governing com- monwealth in peace, Concord was a model town. When it was the glory of Massachusetts to adorn herself with her garland of men of genius, poets, philosophers, orators, Concord furnished the brightest flowers in that wreath. But the test was still to come which should de- termine whether eighty years of peace, whether church and common school, and town meeting could train the youth of Concord in the comfort and luxury of modei'n homes to a heroism like that which grew up of old in the forest and in the Indian war. On the 19th of April, 1861, on the old historic day, the first Concord soldiers left home for the defence of Washington. The town had already taken an influential part in inaugu- rating the great political revolution which achieved the freedom of the slave. When the party was formed iu 1848 to prevent the extension of slavery into the territories, the call issued from Concord ; a Concord man presided at its first State convention, and, bv a singular coincidence, natives of Concord 52 CONCORD CELEBRATION. presided at its first great meetings in Lowell and in Worcester, and took a leading part in that in Boston. The soldiers of Concord went to the war fully understanding its issnes. They knew what they were fighting for. The spirit of Capt. Charles Miles of the Revolution, who was wounded in the pursuit of the British, who told Dr. Ripley "that he Avent to the services of that day with the same seriousness and acknowledgment of God that he cairied to church," was still the spirit of the later o-eneration. What one of them said of their brave o Col. Pi-escott was true, as a general description, of all: "A more moral man, or oue more likely to enter the kingdom of heaven, cannot be found in the army of the Potomac. He did not fight for glory, honor, or money, but because he thought it his duty." I have not the time to enter upon the detail of that honorable and pathetic history. It is not necessary. As a son of Concord, there is nothing I could desire to have added to the complete and noble eloquence which expressed her gratitude to her soldiers in the recent war when the soldiers' monuuient Avas dedicated. The citizens Avho then uttered the voice of the toAvn Avere careful to disclaim any peculiarity or monopoly of merit. The toAvn furnished more than her quota of men, her full })roportion of all other contribu- tions, and her spirit never flinched or quailed till the Avar Avas over. There is no record of dis- honor. If the people CA^eryAvhere did as Avell, her comfort and contentment, her pride and glory, her ADDRESS. 53 joy and reward, must be found in the foct that she was one of the earUest examples of that democracy which at last raised a whole people to that " demo- cratic dead level," aye! rather to that living level, that lofty table-land of patriotism and virtue. The secret of the history of Concord has been the connection of her genei'ations with each other. Each has held by the hand of that which went before it, needing no better examples, seeking no better teachers. The spirit of the fathers has descended to the children. The youth of 1861 felt the electric thrill from the men of 1635 and the men of the Revolution. Our own generation Avill soon join those whose deeds we affectionately celebrate, and this as- sembly sleej) by the side of the congregations who listened to the Bulkeleys, to Bliss, to Emerson, or to Ripley. The hospitable soil which has re- ceived the dust of our fathei's is ready to open for us also. We shall account it one of the chief blessings and privileges of existence — better than wealth, better than noble or royal blood — to have had such men for our ancestors, our kindred, our neighbors and townsmen; — to have been part of this pure and beautiful life, sprung from the mar- riage, in these forest glades, of the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty. It is in no temper of vainglory that we would remember our fathers. It is rather as feeling, and as handing down to our children, a great bur- den, demanding, when occasions come, great and strenuous exertions of sacrifice and duty. Farthest possible from vanity and false pride is 54 CONCORD CELEBRATION. that temper which the Greek ascribed to his people "^ who thought themselves worthy of great things, being in truth worthy/' If our children are to sustain the great burdens of freedom and self- government in their turn without dishonor, they will be helped and strengthened as they remember that they are of the blood of the invincible men of old. It may be that the separate municipal and social life which has given this town her character and historv is about to come to an end : that this little river is about to lose itself in the sea; that the neighboring city will overflow her borders, or that railroad and telegraph and telephone will mingle her elements inexti"icably with the great mass of American life. I do not believe it. I think the town will preserve for a long and indefinite future her ancient and distinct quality. But however this shall be, the lives of our fathers will not be lost. The tOAvn will have made her impression upon America herself Among the memorable fig- ures in history shall be that of dear, wise, brave, tendei', gentle old Concord, — she who broke the path into the forest, — she who delivered hei* l)i'ave blow between the eyes of England, — she by whose fireside the rich and the poor sat together as equals^ — she whose children made her famous by elo- quence, by sculpture, and by song. THE DINNER. 55 The f]xei-ci8es ended by the audience singing "America," in full clionis. The procession then re-formed — the several organizations having partaken of a collation in the Court House while the ad- dresses were made in the hail — and marched to the Agricultural Building on the Fair Grounds. The Dinner, provided by T. D. Cook of Boston, was served in the upper hall that accommodated over six hundred persons at the tables. These were arranged across the hall with the platform in the centre facing the length of the tables, eighteen in number. At the head of each table a member of the Committee sat acting as a Vice President. On the platform at the right of the Presiclent were seated Governor Robinson, Senator Hoar, Cliaplain Bulkeley, George William Curtis, Edward W. Emerson, Hapgood Wright and Rev. H. M. Grout. On the left Hens. James Russell Lowell, E. R. Hoar, William M. Evarts, George M. Brooks, Rev. George H. Hosmer, Samuel Hoar and Henry J. Hosmlr. The time taken in seating the large number of ticket hold- ers, many of them ladies, was well occupied in viewing the elab- orate decorations of the dining hall. These were arranged un- der the diiection of Daniel C. French, the artist of the Minute Man, and were rare and beautiful. The west window, through which the afternoon sun biought out vividly a striking figure of the first settler Simon Willard in his quaint puritan costume, was so well executed that it was hard to believe it was not stained glass. Shields bearing names held in high honor in the town, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Hoar, Buttrick, Prescott, Ripley, Bulkeley were interspersed among the flags and ban- ners along the walls. Over the speakers was an artistic design appropriate to the occasion, and allegorical of the siages of developement of the town's histor3^ Through the open windows spread out the hills and meadows along the river, glowing with autumnal color, making within and without "a fair prospect." At hall-past two P. M., the Chief JMarshal rapped for silence, when the Chaplain asked a blessing. Then a half hour was devoted to an appetizing dinner, and after the coffee was served and the waiteis bad left the hall, the President of the Day said : 56 CONCORD CELEBBATION. Concordians, neighbors, friejidx : It is my pleasant duty to invite your attention to this rare feast of rich eloquence you see spread before you, and like Shakespeaie's receipt for rare cooking "If 'twere done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly," not to detain you by any words of mine. Excejit to say (privately in your ear) that if in the excite- ment of such an occasion, there should slip out inadvertently a word not quite consistent with the well-known modesty and humility so characteristic of Concord, you will pardon it and receive it in a Pick- wickian sense, and not as sober earnest. Of course this morning at that public gathering we were on par- ade, and that was something 'entirely different' from this family din- ner. The Orator of the Day told us such a flattering tale that if we were not plain, common-sense folk, we might be set up with our im- portance, and imagine that Concord was the "hub," that New that and believe "England liarbored uot her peer." "The spacious North Exists to draw her virtues forth." "Thy summer voice Musbetaquid Repeats the music of the raiu. They lose their grief who hear his song, And where be winds is the day of days." But this is poetry. The prose fact is that we are, "Content with these poor fields, Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams. And found a home in haunts whicli others scorned. Beneath low hills, in the broad interval Here iu pine houses built . • . the farmers dwell. Traveller to thee, perchance, a tedious road, Or, it may be, a picture." and we are "Xot vain, sour, or frivolous, Not mad, athirst, or garrulous. Grave, chaste, contented though retired." Introducing the Governor, the presiding officer said: To-day Concord proposes to be worthy of her name. All is to be 'peace and good will.' Forgetting her old rivalry with Lexington, she greets the Governor of,the State, although he was born there, uot here. Yet, as his mother was a Concord Lady, and he is not respon- sible for the place of his birth, we claim our share of him. As the descendant of Dolor Davis, oue of our first settlers, and the ancestor of three Governors of Massachusetts, John Davis, John Davis Long, and our guest, the present chief magistrate of the commouwealth, whom I now present to you as most worthy of his line of ancestors and piedecessors. His Excellency, GEORGE DEXTER ROBINSON. Governor Robinson's Speech. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Descendants of Old Concord : There was no strife or rivalry between the people of Concord and Lexington when danger was in the front. And never was the question raised as to priority of honor until the people were born who shouldered no musket in 1775. There is glory enough for all and each. When we come into the presence of advanced 3^ears, we bow our heads in great respect, taking up the lesson that comes out of a long and marked life. So we stand here to-day in the presence of two hundred and fifty years drawn up to the present hour in the results that are impressed upon our appreciation now. How happ^* a thing it is, and how much of a relief to one who is charged with saying a few words, that he can come here now and recognize real age. The Governor has oftimes to meet with towns that are onl}' one hundred years old. It is pleasant, too, when we reflect that our fathers must have foreseen into the future much farther than we had ever given them credit for. What but the great wisdom that planted the township here in 1635, what but that rare wis- dom that penetrated what seemed to be beyond human ken, could have been so considerate as to have caused Governor Hayues and the general court in 1635 to incorporate this town right in the month of September, when over nature's fields, the tints are painted on the autumnal leaf and the rich crops are ready to drop into the hands of the husband-man ? How beauti- ful it was that they have foreseen (surely we will all believe it to-day) this beautif ul-beyond-description weather that entrances us and delights us all ! And they knew that two hundred and fifty years hence we should sit down under this glorious sun and clear sky, and think of their bright and glorious deeds. And it is, too, pleasant that they foresaw it in this year, 1635, it may be (at any rate we will hope so) this time, when, for some reason that shall be here and now unexplainable, the commonwealth should have a chief magistrate who should stand upon this platform to speak for her, in whose veins should flow a joint current of blood from Lexington and Concord, uniting in one grand force the power of patriotic devotion to America. It is always a pleasure to respond, Mr. President, to the courtesies of such an occasion as this ; to accept the greeting 58 CONCOED CELEBRATION. which is extended to our good old State that we love so well. Wherever the people congregate to consider THE ANCIENT SETTLEMENT of our ancient municipalities, wherever from far and near they gather to talk over the associations of home, to look down into each otliers eyes and souls and see all the past, the riches that are in human nature, wherever they come together and deal with those things that lie up nearest and dearest to all, there, surely is the vital spirit of our commonwealth ever present, finding the best expression of her freedom and her life. It is like our good old New England festival, celebrated annually in every home circle, bringing the child and the parent, kith and kin together, as they live over what is so much a treasure. No one, except he were of Concord origin, could measure the satisfiiction and the feeling that have filled me yesterday and to-da3\ The old streets, the old cemetery, the inscriptions upon the tombstones, the faces here and now, the lineaments that stand out before me, telling of ancestors that I knew a few years ago, all these come up to intensify my delight and to strengthen my impressions. Indeed, my recollection takes me back (I dare to say it) upvvai'ds of forty years, when as a boy, I knew the ways, and the hills and the vales, and the streams of this town. I was associated with many that have remained here and otl)ers tliat are gone, and I knew all the choice, and sweet, and sacred spots. The old river was not unfamiliar. I wandered up and down its banks many a time, and, judging by results, I can assure you that the same fisli swim there to-day that were there on those occasions, for I never had any success at all in tempting them to yield to my offerings. The earliest settlers, we must believe could not have fully anticipated what has resulted. They worked with the highest ideal in view, but we can hardly fanc}' that the men who founded this town in 1635 saw with unerring certainty that would fall here the signal distinction that came in 1775. Patri- otism was not confined to this town. It spread everywhere. There were other hills, and other rivers, and other bridges, and other ways; and none but divine knowledge could have known that it would come hei-e by this stream, in this town of Concord. It is not the old North l)ridge that makes this town of Concord justly famous. Down through the Locriau moun- TBE G O VERNOIt' S SPEECB. 59 tains ran the defile of ThermopyLie. It would have remained unknown in history, without even a mention of recognition had not three hundred brave souls gone down there for Lacedsemon's cause. Bridges everywhere, streams numerous, the North bridge not signiticant, but the manhood that stood on the bridge and stemmed the tide of British aggression and turned back the onset in victor}' was peculiar to that time. The old bridge has disappeared to us; tlie traveller sees it no more. Tie loves to know that its planks have passed into the foundation work of the platform in. the town hall. He knows that the shot was heard round the world. But more ; the impulse went every- where, and wherever the oppressed recognized it, there came confidence and courage and encouragement. Our independence was surely not the work of a year or of a decade. The work, the process, commenced with the first settlement. More than a century passed while this movement was proceeding to its" un- erring result. The church, the schoolhouse, the town meeting were educating the people to know, not only that it was their right to be free, but were inspiring them with the heroism that would dare, in the future, to declare that independence. So surely, under God's providence, was the power implanted in the people that sliould strike down oppression. Said the great inventor Stephenson, to the dean of Westminster, "What impels that locomotive engine?" "Why, sir, steam of course." "No," said Stephenson, "It is the sunbeam (Tod sent into the flowers." The great drama was prepared and rehearsed in Concord from 163.5 to 1775, and then the first act was opened here in the presence and with tlie knowledge of the civilized world, and the curtain was not rung down at the close until Yorktowu came and America was free forever. Standing here to-day, we may look with trembling and anxiety in our imaginings of what the futuie shall be. We can safely trust the past. We know that in the early days Congress sat here, choosing John Hancock to the presidency. We do not fail to remember that Harvard College for a time found itsJiome in this town. And though it may be that in the later years Harvard has gone to her permanent establish- ment in the city where she was first located, > yet, wherever literature, and science, and st-itemanship, and poetry, and ro- mance, and philosophy are considered, there shall be told 60 CONCOltB CELEBRATION. THE NAME OF CONCORD. And though Congress comes no longer here, Concord's sons are in the great Congress of the nation, expressing her intelligence and her power. If it be so in the future, we need have no anxiety or apprehension for what shall come. "We can bear to the future, No greater than to us the past liath brought; Faith to the lowliest duty, Truth to the loftiest thought." And as we look back only a few years — as we look back to the work that was done from 18G1 to 1885, when we see that Concord blood and Concord courage and Concord patriotism failed not then in the nation's emergency, we know that, what- ever may betide, so long as the schoolhouse, the church, and religion and integrity shall stand, there shall yet be a Grand Arm}^ of the Republic that will take care that the nation shall live. Now, the strength of this community, in my judgment, has resided in the strength of the people individually. There is the secret of power. And this town is strong, because it maintains with jealous care its original methods and wa3'S. Honesty in public affairs, decency in public and private life, good, open hearted manhood and womanhood are not out of fashion in Concord. And so long as you keep those powers in the majority, so long the influence that shall go out from here will be immeasurable. Concord will retain the greater strength the longer she remains a town. It may be fashionable to court the ways and methods of a city, but, bear with me, the true, underlying principle that holds our government firmly is self- control, and there is no better dt^mocrac}' under God's sun than that found in the New England town meeting, where each man meets his fellow, exchanges liis thoughts, and puts his voice and his vote on the side with his judgment. Knowing that j^ou are all far advanced in years to-day, and that you tire more easily than you would have two hundred and fifty years ago, I must for- bear to vex your ears and weary your patience longer. There are gentlemen that have not only entranced America, but the whole world. We welcome them here — you, Mr. President, onl}- for Concord — I, for Massachusetts, and I speak out of the impulse JUi>GE HOAB'S EEMAttKS. 61 of the generosit}?^, not only of two towns that I always carry with me but the whole commonwealth that for the time being is intrusted to my care. Though we will not be at the next quarter-millenium we may, ])erhaps, keep our influence strong, so tlmt the town shall be here, and so that the state may then come up here with as just pride as she comes now to give the happiest greetirjg and to express satisfaction at the accomplish- ments of the past. The President : There is one presence here, without which no Concord celebra- tion could be complete. He has carried this town on his shoulders for more than a generation. He has honored it, and every station to which he has been called, — at the bar, ou the bench, in Congress, in the Cabinet and in the diplomatic commission. At home his influ- ence has been such that it has been irreverently said, that when he snuffed all Concord sneezed. Be tliat as it may, when he speaks all Concord^ delights to listen. Perhaps he will tell us something he re- members of our second Centennial, fifty years ago, our Judge, EBENEZER KOCKWOOD HOAR. Judge Hoar's Remarks, Mr. President, such an introduction is unkind of you, but I will not allow any feeling of unkindness to enter my mind upon this occasion. I think it is undoubtedly true that most of the Concord people present would have a little doubt of the identity of the town, on any public occasion, if they did not have a little dreary talk from me. To-day I have neither of the (jualities which make a public speaker. The first qualit}' of a public speaker is legs, and mine are sadly deficient. The other is that he shall have something to say, and in that I am totally deficient, except that the President has expressed a wish that I should say something to you about our second Cen- tennial, and with that wish I will endeavor to comply. I was present at the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town. I had recently graduated from college and was remaining in Concord, a week, to attend that celebra- tion, before I should enter upon my life's work by commencing it as a school-master in western Pennsylvania. I remember very distinctl}^ all that occurred then, and the Concord that was then 6S CONCORD CELEBRATION. here. I belong, I think, in some degree, to the Concord of the minister and the meeting house, the Concord all of whose citi- zens were of the same race and generally of the same way of thinking, except as their judgments miglit differ at times on public questions ; and there has been a very great change since that time. I am inclined to think, however, with the Orator of the Day, that the digestion of Concord is equal to the meal which has been laid before it. There have been two great influences at work upon oiir town during the last fifty years. One is the railroad. This influence has been not only that which the enterprise itself has exerted upon the town, but it has also been felt in the persons of the poor men who came here to aid in the construction of the railroad, who were obliged to work at starvation wages, and who were received with sucli an unbounded hospitality and compassion by our people, that great numbers of them were induced to settle here. It is probable that our population now includes 1000 or 1500 of that race, who by reason of the edu- cation received in our common schools and through the asso- ciations existing between them and tlie old inhabitants, are fast becoming valuable members of our community. That railroad had another effect. It made Concord nearer to Boston. Well, that to some extent, might be considered an advantage, because it afforded people a rather more rapid means of reaching here than they had before enjoyed. But it had the tendency to attract to our town persons who merely came here as to a pleasant place in which to live, — whose con- cerns were elsewhere, and whose amusements, associations, and friends, were very largely in the city. I do not think that was an advantage to Concord and it is one of the tilings we need to consider. The Concord that I knew in my boyhood was an extremely self-respectin;/ community, We thought that it would do just as much good to the people oC the city, or of anywhere else, to know what we thought, as for us to know what they thought- And, as I rem<'mber the collection of our substantial citizens, at the post ofllce in the morning, and their comment and con- versation on }iul)lic affairs, I liiid that trait very conspicuously present, as it had been all through the town's histor}'. I re- member an excellent Democratic selectman of this town, who JUDGE HOAR'S REMARKS. 6S went to Washington for the first time, and who had great re- spect for the country and its government and the members of Congress. He also had some respect for himself, and was ac- customed to be treated with respect by others. When he returned from Washington, he said he was shocked with the actions of the members of Congress. "Vv^hy," said he "they came into the hotel where I put up, the}^ went up to the bar, they drank and they sioore right before >//e." Now that is a thorough spe- cimen of a Concord quality which I value, and which I should like to preserve and perpetuate. I hope that we are not going to become a suburb of the city. We should remember that our part in the state is as im- portant as any other. In the presence of others, our opinions should l)e expressed with modesty, and caution, and reflection but still we are entitled to be heard. The other great influence which has been exerted upon this town during the last fifty years, is, in my judgment, the presence of Mr. Emerson as a resident in it. Yet, while we know that his presence has been the education of the town, while we know that he has been the inspirer of the town on all occasions no less than his grandfather, who saw the fight from the North Bridge, while we know that in every struggle for freedom, for education, or for any other good cause he has always been found in the front of the battle as our leader, — still, that has not been without its disadvantages ; for I think the presence of Mr. Emerson has not l)een wholly serviceable, as perhaps no good gift of God ever is. He brought, and his fame has tended somewhat to bring to our town what has l)een called his "menagerie ;" andt o a (|uiet Concord person of the plain old-fashioned t3'pe, the presence, frecjuently grotesque, is not always absolutely admirable. Undoubtedly Mr. Emerson, who was one of our most hospitable citizens and one of the most attractive of men, has brought here many worthy and ex- cellent persons who shared his spirit and his purpose. But also we have had all manner of imitators ; and occasionally a Concord person, when he is away from home hears scoffing remarks made by people who do not consider that we are re- sponsible for neither the Reformatory at one en.d of the town, nor for all the attendants at the School of Philosophy at the other. 64 CONCORD CELEBBATION. I am going to mention two things which I think are credit- able to the town and the benefit of which 1 like to extend to our neighbors whenever possible ; and I think of tliem, l)ecause we are entitled to do so with-complacency. One thing, is the example which Concord has set to other towns, — and to the cities, — as regards the non-partisan admin- istration of town affairs. I think we are partly indebted to tiie anti-slavery movement for this. There was in this town, in 1848, while the old Whig and Democratic part^' existed, the Free-Soil movement, which was composed of a part of each of the!?e other parties ; and the three parties were frequently about e(iually balanced in the town. The lesult was, that we set about having no political division in regard to our town affairs ; and from 1848 up to the present time, — whde before that date, we used to have just as hard a contest in the election of a selectman as we would were we electing a president of the United States, and about as bitter a one sometimes, — we have not had any division, and have elected our town officers quietly takin"" the best of our citizens for them that we could get to serve, and always taking care to hti\ e the minority represented as far as they had any political duties. I think that this is something which tlie cities and any other towns that have not done the same thing should do. I hope a great many Massa- chusetts towns have done so. Then there is one other debt w hich the couutiy owes to Concord, which is entitled to recognition, and which is of a practical character. There are two bunches of Concord grapes. (Exhil)iting the bunches.) That is what it can do when it tries (exhibiting a very handsome bunch) and very abundantly it does when it goes into other parts of the country. That grape was originated by the experiments of a citizen of Concord, Mr. Bull, and it lias extended from Nortii Caroliua to the Pacific, all over the noithern section of tlu^. country, and a friend of mine found it on the table of a hotel in uorthern Italy where the phyllnxera had spoiled tlie native grape. Tlie Concord grape, is perhaps the greatest liorticultural benefit that has been conferred on the country during these fifty years. Having shown you the grape as it ought to l)e seen, and as it appears when it tries what it can do, I will say that there are a couple of bunches (exhibiting a smaller specimen than the last) which 3f7? LOWELL'S SPEECH. 65 grew on the original vine, which still stands in bearing condi- tion, though in bad shape, owing to the fact that so many cut- tings have been made from it for propagation. I think that our people have kept quietly about their busi- ness, liave endeavored to make the world better, and are to be commended for that: and it shocks our modesty to be com- mended for anything else than good intentions and a faithful performance of what we can find to do. The President : Poeta nancUur nonjit. But if ever there was a fit, it was when our genuine Yankee poet went ambassador to England. More than a century ago, there was an unpleasantness here with some English- men, some traditions and memorials of which still exist in our vil- lage. The memory of this was so strong in my boyhood, that when a military company in scarlet uniform came to this town on a tour of duty, the leading citizens held a conference to secure them from in- sult, so great was the feeling of hatred at the sight of a red coat. We have got over all that now, especially since we got so much the better of the English through our minister to London, who could teach them their own literature, who could eulogize their own poets and more eloquently use their own language, and who accomplished what we all hope and what I think we shall find to be the case; namely that the Puritan came out ahead to-day and always. We congratulate that gentleman, our guest, on his successful mission, and we fondly hope that in his great renown he will spare us a little leaf of his laurels, in memory of his youthful residence and of Concord Bridge and John Bull's run. Indeed, we almost dare to think his victory over England was in part owing to his early reading and fine rendering of the old fight — that he knew "Whut earthqTiake rifts would shoot and run AVorld-wide from that short A[iril fray." JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Mr. Lowell's Speech. Mr. President, your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen: — Although Governor Robinson supposed so much of fore- sight in the men of 1635 as to have credited them with foresee- ing us sitting here at these tables, yet had they done so, they would never have foreseen me making a speech hei'e on this occasion ; for I came over here under a misapprehension. 1 was 66 CONCORD CELEBRATION. misled by my dear old friend on my left (turning to Judge Hoar) into the supposition that nothing would be expected of me. He now tells me that what he meant was, that I should not be expected to deliver a poem, as if I kept poetry always on tap. If I had known what was expected of nie, if I had known that there would be so much eloquence in addition to the ad- mirable oration we liave heard this morning, I should have come with a pocket-full of impromptus; but as it is, you wili get rid of me sooner than yon might otherwise have reasonably expected. I am reminded in rising hereof an adventure which connects me with the town of Concord ; for being neither a Lexington nor a Concord man, I am in some doubt under what title I ap- pear here to-day. I am not an adopted son of Concord. I cannot call myself that. But 1 cai: say, perhaps, thai under the old fashion which still existed when I was young, I was "'bound out" to Concord for a period of time ; and I must say that she treated me very kindly. In other words, I was, during a period of my senior year in college, forty-seven years ago, rusticated in Concord. I look back upon it as one of the most fortunate events of my life. I am quite serious in saying so. I then, for the first time, made the acquaintance of Mr. Emer- son, of whom Judge Hoar has so fitly spoken ; and I still recall with a kind of pathos, as Dante did that of his old teacher Brunetto Latini, "La cara e buona imagine paterna," "The dear and good paternal image," which he showed me here ; and I can also finish the (juotation and say "And shows me how man makes himself eternal." I remember he was so kind to me — I, rather a fiight}' and exceedingly youthful boy, — as to take me with him on some of his walks, particularly a walk to the Cliffs which I shall never forget. And perhaps this feeling of gratitude which I have to Concord gives me some sort of claim to appear here to-day. But I can easily find another one. Although the orator dwelt to-day in perfectly fitting terms on the deliberate courage of the men who marched down to the Bridge, and although I was i»articularly struck with what he said of one of them, — that is, that he said that he went into battle as he went h> (•hurch, — I could not help thinking of the motto of our State, which, omitting the minatoiT half of the quotation, shows that MR. LOWELL'S SPEECH. 67 our ancestors ni.ide war onh^ (considering war in itself n bad thing) to attain a specific oliject, and, that that object attained, were willing to sit down under their own grape and fig tree: and finer grapes, 1 may say, have never been grown. You re- member the motto, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate ijuietem." rt is familiar to you all. But it has always struck me that they omitted the "Manus hcec iuimica tyrannis," which consti- tutes the threat. Although the men who went down to that bridge that morning, as Mr. Hoar told us to-day, went there, as he thinks, with a more far reaching purpose in their minds and with more jireparation than some of us would be willing to allow, yet certainly the results that flowed from that day were more momentous than anybody could have expected. What was said by one of the chiefs on that day (I believe it is dis- puted which), "that no man has a right to stop us from march- ing across our own bridge," I think is as good a declaration of independence as I ever heard; but whether the men who marched on to that bridge knew where it was leading them, I think is questionable. It was over that bridge that the town meeting, that democracy, in short, in its purest and most beautiful form, marched on to the field of cosmopolitan polities. Ttwas a most eventful day. But one title I have, perhaps, for saying a few words to you to-day ; and that is, the connection which Concord has with literature no less than it has with political history. I do not believe it ever happened to any other town so small as this to have living in it as contemporaries three such men as Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. It is a most remarkable fact. And if the first shot fired here at Concord was the first one of the struggle for political independence, so the first of those three men, more than any other, more than all others put together, wrought our intellectual independencie. With him we may truly be said to have first ceased to be provincial. This was a wonderful achievement for one man. Then the second, Hawthorne. You would think me extravagant, I fear, if I said how highly I rate the genius of Hawthorne in the histoiy of literature. But at any rate, Hawthorne taught us one great and needful lesson ; and that is, that our own past was an ample storehouse for the highest works of imagination or fancy. That also, was a very great gain. And I think that we are indebted to Mr. Thoreau, 68 CONCORD CELEBRATION. the third of the three, for another lesson, ahnost as important ; and that is, that Nature is as friendly, as inspiring here as in Wordsworth's country, or anywhere else. We owe, therefore, a very great debt, as it' seems to me to these three men. And if we have stars enough, which I think perhaps is doubtful, for so great a constellation as that of Orion, I cannot help fancying to myself these three as those eminent stars in his bt-lt. I was going to tell you when I was led off on another track, that, in rising to-day, I coidd not help being reminded of one of my adventures with my excellent tutor when 1 was here in Concord. I was obliged to read with him ''Locke on the Human Ihider- standing." My tutor was a great admirer of Locke, and thought that he was the greatest Englishman that ever lived, and nothing ()leased him more, consequently, than now and then to cross swords with Locke in argument. I was not slow, you may imagine, to encourage him in this laudable enterprise. When- ever a question arose between my tutor and Locke, I always took Locke's side. I remember on one occasion, although I cannot now recall the exact passage in Locke, — it was some- thing about continuity of ideas, — my excellent tutor told me that in that case Locke was quite mistaken in his views. My tutor said, "For instance Locke sa3'^s that the mind is never without an idea ; now I am conscious frequently that m}' mind is entirely without any idea at all." And I must confess that that anecdote came vivicll}' to my mind when I got up on what Judge Hoar has justly characterized as the most imj)ortant part of an orator's person. I am glad to be here for one other reason, which you will allow me to suggest before I sit down ; and that is, because it is good to come back here and re-temper one's self in this pure spring of American democracy. F find it, — I won't say a very good tonic, for I didn't need its tonic, — but I have found it exceedingly lefreshing and exceedingly encouraging, I must say, for all tlu' world, as well as for us. I am glad to l)e here to-day, also for another reason still ; and that is, that I most heartily approve of every occnsioii which tends to keep united that thread of historic continuity, which is as important among nations as it is among families. I think what Senator Hoar said this morning, about Concord having a character and phy- siognomy of its own, is emineutl) true; and it is of the highest DR. GROUT* S ADDRESS. 69 importance that the traditions of such a character and pliysiog- nomy should be maintained. For, if noblesse oblige., certain it is that a town which has done great things or a family that has done gre.it things will be more likely to- do great things or to produce men that will do them in the future. Therefore, I am very glad to be here to-day on such an occasion as tlds which renews and keeps alive the memory of Concord's historic past. For, if the scientific men are right (and I think that more and more peo])le are inclined to agree with them as the years go on), the past of a man or of a family, or of a nation is of vastly moi'e importance ihan was formerly supposed, — it is of much moi'e importance, perhaps, than the present, and certain!}' is the indicator of tlie controlling force, if not the controlling force itself, which will shape their future. 1 am much obliged to yon, Mr. President, for the kind words which you were good enough to appl}^ to me, and thank you all for having listened to me longer than I expected I should s])eak when I rose. The President ; It was stated before a committee of the last Legislature that in Concord all the best people stayed away from chmch. Tins is a modern invention and would have surprised our Fathers even more than telegraphs or telephones. They kept up the union of the town and parish, church and state, for almost two centuries, until about fifty years ago, a second parish was formed here, and now we have five or six chuiclies; pretty well for a ftoft-church-going town. Perhaps our oldest settled minister will tell us how it is in the chui'ches. The Reverend Doctor HENRY MARTY.M GROUT. Dr. Grout's Address, Mr. President: Your call upon the oldest settled minister in the town must l)e on account of his extreme age. You have probably assumed that the memory of so old a man would run further back toward the beginnings of things than that of his youthful brethren here. But you will be patient with liim, I trust, if, bearing in mind the tendency of time to impair this faculty, he should venture to rely only in part upon personal recollections of the far off first days. 70 CONCOBD CELEBRATION, vSoberly speaking, however, I ara most hai)py, if ray voice is to be hearcl at all on tliis occasion, that I am ])ermitted to speak some words respecting tlio town and the church. It was the church in one of its branches, which brought me to the town. Further, it has a warm place in my henrt. I believe in it — as I suspect the best people all still do. My words concerning it could not be otherwise than sincere. And as these other more distinguished gentlemen furnish ample wit for the hour, you will expect me to fill in the solemn discourse. Permit me then, Mr. President, to begin with claiming for the church a considerable credit for this celebration itself. For you have no doubt meditated upon the fact that, but for it, there would have been no Concord to keep this grateful anni- versary. Was it not the visiou of a church, and of such a church as they came to plant, which brought the founders of our town hither? Was it not this which sustained them in the hardships of the first years? New England history has made this very plain. The reason they themselves gave for coming to these shores was ''the great hope and inward zeal the}' had of laying some good foundation foi- propagating and advancing the kingdom of Christ in these remote parts of the world." This was their motive. This was their purpose. Other parts of this western world were colonized by adventurers, who came for conquest and ])lunder, for empire ond spoil. The fathers, who came hither, were of a different mould. They came from a religious impulse. Is it not clear that Init for the church, this goodly town would never have been? We should not hav'e been here. And so the wit and wisdom and rejoicings of this occasion would have been lost. You see I begin with a very large claim: it is one. however, which yon will no doubt be happy to concede. But this is not the only reason for a grateful remembrance of the church to-day. There is the debt the town owes to it for no small share of its fair fame. Ajid this is so great as to merit particular mention. Concord has always stood well in the state. Almost always she has had something to draw the world's attention this way. And never has the cliurch been quite outside the circle of its attractions. For two hundred years she was their centre. DR. GROUTS ABDRESS. 71 The literaiy work of the town began with its first minister. I have no doubt, Mr. President, you have often read, and owe not a few of your distinguished virtues, including your excellent church-going habits, to Rev. Peter Bulkeley's "Judicious and Savory Treatise on the Gospel Covenant;" one of the very first books written in America, and still a cherished treasure on the shelves of our Public Library. Mr. Bulkeley had also, we are told, "a competently Good Stroke at Latin Poetry:" and only the other day I fell upon two and a half octavo pages of Ya\o. lish verse ascribed to his [>en. It was thus that the literary fame of the town began. And nearly all of Mr. Bulkeley's successors did something to sustain it. You know with what envious eyes Boston looked upon Mr. Estabrook, thinking him "too bright a star lo be mufirted up in the woods amongst the Indians." You are also familiar with Mr. Whitefield's extravagant praise of Mr. Bliss ; "If I had studied my whole life-time I could not have produced such a sermon." The names of Rev. William Emerson, grand- father of the sage and the seer, and Dr. Ripley, connecting- links between the old times and the new, are household words. You know^ what they were and what they did. For two cen- turies the literary work of the town was nearly all done ])y its ministers. No doubt the same was true elsewhere. The min- isters were the educated men, and about the only ones, of those times. And the credit of their learning is due to the spirit of the churches, which required this of their leaders and teachers. Then I may be permitted to hint, and this is all I shall venture to do, at what the men of these last fifty years, of whose genius and fame we are i)roud, may have felt to be their indebtedness to the church. We all know through whai a line of noble Christian ministers the blood which fed the brain of Mr. Emerson had coursed. Mr. Hawthorne was cer- tainly not unfamiliar with the deepest thought of the church. And it was after his genius was well developed and properly shaped that Mr. Thoreau left the old First Church for that of the "Sunday Walkers." As for our schools, the ministers always had a hand in their management. And the lecturers of the Lyceum, we are told, addressed themselves in the early days to Dr. Ripley, as they have since to most of his success- ors. It has been said that the Transcendental uiovemeut re- 72 CONCOBT) CELEBRATION. ceived one of its impulses from the high Calvinism of the church which went before it. So much for the fair fame of the town. If now, we may pass to the good things of the present, to the means of enjo3'ment and impro\ement which are to-day oni-s, I think we shall be able to see that for these too, the town owes something, more peihaps than some have considered, to the church. Take the material wealth which l>oth marks and contributes to our weal. It is a matter of just pride with us that, besides our cultivated fields, we have convenient houses i good roads, some stone bridges, with sclxiol houses and a town hall, and public library, and studio of ai't, and School of Phil- osophy, — not to claim the State Reformatory as our own. Good things, one and all. And it would not be just to forget, on this high occasion, the close link there is between these and the work of the church. The fathers, we have said, came hither with a single aim. And that was neither money, nor possessions of any material kind. It was quite other and nobler than that. Said Epicte- lus ; ''You will confer the greatest benefit on your community, not by raising the roofs, but b}' exalting the souls of your fel- low-citizens." The fathers came to do just that. And so, when they had diig a temporary shelter in the side of the hill, they straightway built the place for worship. Then, they planned for the schcol, and joined hands with others in the be- ginnings of a college. It was religion, manhood, intelligence, character, personal wordi, on which their eyes were fixed. They cared little for wealth ; lu.xuries they had willingly left behind. Hut for duty, an approving conscience, and ''the gloiious ordi- nance of (lod," they cared much. And of this spiiit and aim and life the church was the recognized centre. Now, given such a spirit and such i)rinciples, there could not fail to come succeeding generations possessed of qualities that should make growth and piosperity, as well as exalted nianli()()d sure. Lingei' at this point just a moment Ours is a fairly wealthy comuuniity: that is. there is not only wealth among us, but it is well distributed. In it all have a good share. How has this come to pass? Through industry, hon- esty, freedom from extravagance and wasteful vices, present self-denial, regard for the rights of one another, and interest DR. GROUT'S DISCOURSE. 73 for those who are to come after us. How did the people come by these qualities ? They learned them largely from their re- ligious teachers ; in whose thought the Spelling-book went before mainly to prepare the way for the Bible and the Catechism; — to be ignorant of either of which was to be an outside barba- rian. Their virtues came of their religion ; a religion that had defects, no doubt. It was not gentle. It was not without nar- roAvness. It was stern, as indeed most heroic things are. But it had that main thing, in devotion to duty and to God, which is as sure to make a prosperous as it is to make a virtuous and powerful people. Is there time for another point ? For there is another, by no means to be overlooked on this occasion of grateful retro- spection. It was with great self-denial and sacrifice that all this church planting and building was done b}" the fathers. But if not to recall this would be injustice to their memories, still more unjust would it be to suppose that they bore their hardships either with complaint, or the sour and elongated faces some have ascribed to them. They did no such thing. On the other hand, we have good reason to believe that, after the first dark days were over, they were quite as joyous as we ; quite as light hearted in joke and story and laughter : possibly wth consciences less burdened than some of ours. Nor were their Sundays the gloomy days some imagine. They Avere serious days, no doubt, with Bible study, and sober kneeling about the domestic altar ; with quietness in the house» and stillness without. But they were not for that reason joy- less. It is tlie shallow brook that always babbles. Their church-going, moreover, was no trifling business. For there was a time when Lincoln and Bedford and Acton and Carlisle all came to the one Concord Church. Think of their winter toiling through unbroken snows, some afoot, some on sleds, some bare-back. Neither were their hardships quite over when safely witliin the Sanctuar}' and becomingly seated ac- cording to dignity or state, — the deacons close up under the pulpit that they might be "fed on the perpendicular droppings of the Word." With nothing of our modern heating appara- tus, on colder days the minister preached in great coat and mittens; 74 CONCORD CELEBRATION. "While the women, maid and mother, Passed their stoves to one another, Those convenient tin arrangements Made to liold the slumbering coals; And the male sex, held from napping, Spent their weary time in rapping, Rapping their stiff boots together. Those were times that tried men's soles." And it may be doubted whether even all these would always have kept them from freezing, but for supplemental heat which came of vigorous exercise in hard wrestlings with great doctrines, as of fate and free-will ; and covenants of grace and covenants of works ; questions of religion hardly less tough than those philosophic categories which our friends so easily handle and elucidate through August heat :it our Summer School. Their's were self-denials and sacrifices of which we know little. And yet we have no reason to suj^pose that these heroic spirits ever thought themselves hardly used. Who knows that, were they now able to look in upon our manner of life, they would not still choose their own ; at least ]n'eferring their own robustness to languor which now reclines on velvet couches, and even the after thoughts of the ancient Sunday to the memorieg of a modern midnight masquerade. But I keep you from better things. We all agree, I am sure, that the town and church are closely related ; can never, in the life we live, be wholly separated. And if we now have to say churches, instead of church, our needs are all the better served for that. Our four or five, or — in what was once our township — our dozen or fifteen, are none too many for the good peo})le who are likely still to love to (!ome. Moreover, this multiplication of modes and creeds is only the logical out- come of that great principle the fathers jmt foremost ; namely, the right and duty of every man to read the Word and listen to the Spirit of God for himself, and then worship as his own conscience bids. It is now enough to hope, and expect that, as in the past and the present, we may always dwell together, and do our part in the world's great work, in neighborly friend- ship, in happy concord. Mr. President, it was Coleridge, I think, who said that the SENA TOM EVARTS SFEECB. 75 secret of true civilization is the union of progress and perma- nence. In religious life and work, as in other things, Concord seems to have learned this lesson. May she never forget it. The President : — Speaking of the second centennial of this town, "there were giants on the earth in those days,'' and one of them, whose slight figure and bright, keen look was often seen in our streets, was pointed out to us boys, as having been "the little giant," of Yale college. He has changed but slightly witli time, for both years and honors have sat lightly on him; and if he has grown plethoric of positions, his annual visits to this scene of his youthful fame have kept him young. With all his honors at the bar, in the cabinet, on the forum, fi'Om his loftiest place, the Senator of the giant state of the Union, he brings to our local celebration his proud triumphs so well won with years of toil in every patriotic purpose. We trust that both in the senate aud here, he will kindly bear in mind Shakespeare's "O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant;" and not caj) the quotation with anything about '"man, dres't in a lit- tle brief authority, playing fantastic tricks before high heaven," but will kindly and mercifully tell us some of the many things which he knows, and which we ought to be told about Concord, in sen- tences not too long for us to remember. WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS. Senator Evart's Speech. Mr. President, Ladies mu7 Gentleman : I should have felt it not only a right, but in some sense a duty, to attend upon this celebration, where your distinguished orator was to have so much of interest to me from our friend- ship and our kinship. But it was a great gratification to me, Mr. President, to receive from you an invitation, as the guest of the town, on account of my early associations with your peo- ple and my constant [tleasure in the visits that 1 once in a while make to them. (!oncord, to me, is more familiar in what makes up the delights of boyhood, than to most of you that have been born or that liave lived here, and 1 go furtlier back 76 CONCORD CELEBBATIOm in my memory than a great part of even you mature men and women that 1 see about me. When boys are born in the coun- try and when they have ever before them the delights, the pleasures, the enjoyments from nature and from play, they become somewhat confused in their appreciation, and their warmth and affection, for they remember a great many labors, a good many gloom}'^ skies, a great many bleak storms, and some of the misfortunes, if not even of the calamities, of life. But to me, as a Boston boy, Concord was all the world in con- trast to the cit}-. And as I never was here except in August, and perhaps the twelfth day of September I thought the sun always shone in Concord, though I 'knew that it did not always on the seaboard of Boston. The place then, to me, year after year, before I began to share the acquaintance of distinguished men here and to learn wisdom which I have never forgotten — if I have not been able to practice it — was the delight of my life. And so, in the future, though I have seen pleasant lands abroad and at home, though I cultivate my own acres that are broad and, as I think, beautiful, jQi to me Concord will always be the picture of a boy's paradise. '''•Ille milii angulus terras maxime ridet.'" Concord was settled less than one hundred and fifty years after the discovery of America by Columbus. What the world was waiting for after that great discovery, during the first cen- tury and a half, nobody knew. But when Concord was settled, it was known that that would have been impossible if America had not been discovered and, Concord produced, justified Co- lumbus. An orator after dinner is awkwardly situated in Concord. Where he would please he fails ; for, whatever he may say that might seem to partake even of flattery is quietly swallowed, as though his hearers had often thought of it themselves. I have done nothing of that kind. I have simply stated the historic fact that America was discovered before Concord. The Indians were a brief and sententious people, and in a single word in their language you will (ind a great length, and breadth, and depth of meaning. Musketaquid i^s a pretty long word to begin with ; and I am enabled now to find in what I see before me a justification of my own interpretation, justified by my re- SfJNATOR EVAET'S SPEl^rH. 77 searches, that Musketaquid is the Indian name for a town of hrave men, and fair women, and heroes and statesmen, and orators, and a people that never tires of talking about itself or hearing itself talked about for two hundred and fifty years. The governor — who, on several occasions in which I have had the pleasure of meeting him at dinner, has had the sagacity, if not the politeness, to leave the building whenever he knew I was going to rise — said some sensible things, and among others, that the town and the permanence of the town and persistency in it was really the fortune, and should be the pride and the power of a community like this. I had the fortune to be born in a neighboring town, I mean the town of Boston. These were two great towns, Boston and Concord. It was a long race. It had lasted for two hundred years and Concord was a little ahead. Boston saw that. If in a light breeze, Boston couldn't beat, what could it do when the air was full of blasts? It surrendered, gave up the township and tried to make a fortune in a different direction, as a city. I left Boston myself because it had not continued a town. I was determined that if I were to live in a city, which was a misfortune and a disaster, I would live in one that was big enough — New York — to make some compensation for it. My excellent friend and teacher. Judge Hoar, has Ven- tured upon some misgivings as to what has taken place already in Concord, and what might still carry it away from its proper moorings and swerve it from its true destiny. J see nothing for distrust in these facts (»r circumstances which he has enumerated. Mj- opinion is that every one of you men and women are wiser and better than the people that preceded you, and that those that come after you will be wiser and better than you. This innovation of Boston, — What is that? Con- cord is isolated still ; isolated by its ideas, by its genius, by •its virtue, by its self-esteem which we are told is at the bottom of all manhood, and has been especially so here for two hundred and fifty years. What has Concord needed of this access to the rest of the vvorld ? It Avas not Concord people that built the railroad to Boston ; it was Boston people that built the railroad to Concord. And so the telegraph and telephone are not to bring to Concord what the rest of the world is doing, but to carry to the rest of the world what Concord is thinking 7S CONCORD CELEBRATION. of. I see no occasion for levity, Mr. President. I speak as near to the truth as it is possible for a new Yorker that once lived in or frequented Concord to do. Now, I have divided m}' time with my predecessors, and I am going to give to those wlio follow me all the time that they want. Mr. President, 3'ou cuntioned me, yoTi implored me, when you were surrendering a certain measuie of strength into my hands that I would not use it as a giant. That is the only power that I had. As for this n<^tion of yours about the possi- ble or the probable length of m}- sentences, this is not the first time I have had occasion, before an enlightened assembly, to meet a sneei* of that kind by saying that the only people in this country that were opposed to long sentences, were the criminal classes. 1 should have expected a suggestion of tliat kind, had I spoken within the ample loom of the neighboring state prison. Well, gentlemen and ladies, after all, there is one grand cardinal trait in every community, tiiat has had persistency and history and success. The one word that describes Concord is, that it was public spirited ; public spirited from the beginning, — public spirited whenever that great )>ower was necessaiy and useful. It ever gave witliout asking whether it would receive in return. It knew that the men and women of Concord were but a part of the men and women of the community, the neighbor- hood, the State and the Nation. And everywhere and in every widening sphere of its service, and its duty, public spirit was large enough to be diffused, and strong enough not to be weakened by the diffusion. There was no less in the great struggle that called together this great nation in armies, of whose members I see here, as in similar gatherings, so many that we honor and applaud. In that great struggle, Concord did not extend its patriotism, nor contribute its men or its treasure's for Concord — for it needed neither, — nor for Massa- chusetts, nor for New England, nor for wealth and prosperity that might have been enjoyed witli dishonor, nor for vengeance in the future. But, as it was the centre of energy, of benevo- lence when, two hundred and fifty yeais ago, it had nothing west of it and nothing east of it but the small towns, it was the same when their country bounded on the two oceans and the line of English power and Mexican civilization. There is the JUDGE BROOKS' REMARKS. 79 history of its enterprise. There is the history that transplanted communities that have grown up all over this great land. The step that you took from Boston to go West brought you only to Concord. But the principle that "it is the first step that costs," has not ceased to be trod l>y the men of Concord and their wives out to the Pacific ocean. That is the boundary of their enterprise because it is the limit of our country. Now, ladies and gentlemen, scarcely anticipating the pleasure of joining in another celebration two hundred and fifty years hence I wish to leave this lesson — what has been done has been done as well to this time in Concord as was done at the beginning ; and it is a long history and a great fame and a great duty for the future that will secure to that future that it shall comport with the past. The President : Another of those members of Congress spoken of this morning has yet to be heard from. He has given up politics for the care of the helpless, widows, orphans and insolvents! and throws away on them his wit and talents that used to delight listening courts and legisla- tures. Perhaps he will recall some of his reminiscences of Concord courts for our benefit. There used to be good stories of them, and we shall be glad to hear from GEORGE MERRICK BROOKS. Judge Brooks' Remarks, Mr. President., Ladie.s and Gentlemen : Concord in the latter part of the last century and in the beginning of this, was a leading town in the county, on account of its population, its wealth and its central position, but prin- cipally because it was one of the shire towns of the country. People seem to have forgotten that fact, and I have not heard it alluded to by any one to-day. Formerly shire towns amounted to something : look at an old map of Massachusetts of a hundred years ago. There you will find, Boston, 8alem, Worcester, Springfield, Cambridge, Concord and" other towns designated by a large star, and they derived their importance no CONCORD CELEBBATTOX. from the fact that they were shire towns of their respective counties ; children were taught to give the names of shire towns as a part of their geographical studies. Now ask a school hoy what Cambridge and Lowell are noted for, he would answer* Cambridge for its Harvard College, Dane Law School and Mt. Auburn, — Lowell for its Cotton and Woolen Mills, its Carpet- factory and Machine shops, its telephone stock and perhaps Cherry Pectoral ; the fact that they were tlie shire towns of Middlesex county would never be thought of by them. I may be presuming on their ignorance but I doubt if half of the children know the names of the shire towns of their counties, or the other half know what a shire town is. Formerly shire towns were of great importance. My friend, the Orator of the Day, told us this morning about those sober, steady, God-fearing, church going and fighting men of former days. We have heard that they had few holidays! and no amusements ; but the old September Court in Concord was an oasis for them. We learn from men of the last generation, that at this term of Court people assembled from all parts of the county to talk over the aifairs of the day, to trade, swap horses and test their speed by racing up and down the streets ; booths were plentiful on the common, in front of the church and on the sides of the streets, where eatables and drinkables were provided for the hungry and thirsty, the drinkables of such a kind and charac- ter as would gladden the heart and make the fortune of a state constable of the piesent day if he had a chance to make a raid upon them ; in fact tiie whole week was given up to such hilar- ity and joviality us our ancestors were cajtable of. Hut to come down to the time within my own recollection, when the Courts were held in the old while Court House and still later in the present one, — true, horse racing had been abolished, the general air ot festivity around the town had dis- appeared, and then the delectable beverages that made the booths attractive, prohibition had banished to tlie northwest corner of the basement of the now solitary and deserted Mid- dlesex Hotel. Yet even then there was a good deal of the old time pomp and dignity that was a remnant of the past. Now you will see a justice of the Supreme Court jump off a horse ear, and go solitary and alone to the Court house; then when the bell tolled for the opening of the Court, you would see the JUDGE BROOKS' REMARKS. J^l Judge come out of the front door of the Middlesex, and the high sheriff with blue coat, brass buttons, buff vest, cockade in his hat, dress sword at his side and a long pole in his hands would accompany the Judge to the Court House, followed by the lawyers, jurymen and litigants. Then the Concord peo- ple had a sort of proprietary interest in the Courts, solid farm- ers and substantial citizens would attend the session from day to day not from an idle curiosit}', but to hear the able lawyers of the Middlesex bar measure swords in debate ; in short it was an old-fashioned Summer School. The Court gave a tone and character and was one of the institutions that gave the town Its importance in the count}'. There was another institution in Concord closely connected with the courts that I must call your attention to. Most of you (except the younger portion of m}' hearers) remember the old white-washed jail, with Jimmie everlastingly drumming on the steps, and Johnson keeping watch and ward at the gate. Its plan and management were such as would delight the phil- anthropist or prisoners' friend of the present day. The jail was not like those of the present da}^ where the person unjustly accused of a crime is confined 'in a cell seven by five to await his trial, and has nothing but his own reflections for company. The old jail had large, room}' apartments, with windows on two sides, a bed in each of the four corners, a table in the middle where the quartette could spend their time in the se- ductive games of Whist, Ili Lo Jack, or Old Sledge. The management of the jail was patriarchal and free and easy. The jailer (whom many of 30U know) had a good insight of human nature and knew whom to trust, and he allowed his prisoners certain privileges that would shock a prison disciplinarian of the ])rcsent da}-. As an instance of this, I was once retained to defend a man confined in this jail for some offence. I called to see him to make preparations for his defence, and was told that he had gone huckleberrying with the children. A story is told, for the accuracy of which I cannot vouch. Near the end of one of the June criminal terms the Judge found that there were three persons remaining to be tried, and requested the Sheriff to bring them in. He sent a deputy who soon returned with the message, that it looked like a shower and the jailer had them all in the meadow cocking up hay. fit rONCOFD CELEBEATTON. The Judge then turned to tlie officer and said, '*Mr. Crier, adjourn the court till Sam has finished his haying." But we did not have perfect peace iu our courts. Lowell had grown out of all manner of proportion, the population of the lower part of the county had greatly increased and they were constantly hectoring us to have the courts removed. True it was we showed to every legislature that we did more busi- ness than was done in the other towns, that the lawyers worked all day in the court-house, and spent their evenings in the old Middlesex preparing their cases for the next day. These ai'gu- ments were convincing, but at the June term 1849, a man indicted for some offence and out on bail, came to the illogical conclusion that if there was no court-house he could not be tried, so he touched a match and the old court-house was soon in ashes. This was considered by our opponents to be an interposi- tion of Providence in their favor, and they commenced an as- sault along the whole line. They flooded the General Court with petitions for the removal of the courts from Concord, and used all the arts kno\vn to lobbyists to ensure such removal. But Concord was equal to the emergency. They chose the honored father of the orator of the day to x-epresent them in the General Court, who, although advanced in years^ yet was in full possession of his faculties and managed the matter with groat ability in the House. And then that spring we had the three-quarter centennial of the Concord tight ; — I suppose the technical term would be semi-sesqui. And Mr. President, I may say in passing, that for its size Concord is pretty good on centennials. Since my boyhood (counting fractions) we had four centennials, and if I live as long as temperance and a good conscience will allow me, I expect to witness at least two more. We invited the legislature to this semi-sesqui, we gave them a good dinner, oration, poem, speeches, brass band, and all the accompaniments of a lirst-class celebration. They went back much pleased and voted to print the proceedings of the celebra- tion, and gave the petitioners for removing the courts leave to withdraw. We built the present new court-house, but in 1867 it was thought best for us not to contest longer, and for the consideration of one dollar all the county property in Concord was turned over to the town, and good use of it was made, I lbttehs. S3 have no doubt. And now ray friend, the President of the r)a_v, as presiding justice of the District Court, keeps the scales on the court house in due equipoise, the stones of the old jail peacefully slumber in the cellars of some of our new houses, and in place of the jail we have a large pile of bricks in the west part of the town costing over $1,000,000 — called a Re- formatory, containing two or three hundred reformers, without the privilege of going out haying or huckleberrying. And instead of hearing able lawyers discuss the business actualities of life, those who desire cool intellectual food, in a sweltering July day, will find a modest temple in a quiet, sequestered nook in the east part of the town, where they can hear elaborate essays upon the life, times, character, writings and philosophy of Plato, Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Goethe, and especially Goethe, and where they can listen to fine-spun meta. physical disquisitions upon the whichness of the why and the whyness of the what. Letters, The President then read the following letter: — Lowell, Aug. 25, 1886. To the Selectmen of the toicn of Co ^i cord, 3fass : Gentlemen, — Born in the town of Concord and living there seventeen years, from 1811 to 1828, and thanking Almighty God for long life and his great goodness to me, I wish in thi.s form to give unto others of my fellowmen of Concord, for their benefit and improvement in the future, the sum of one thous- and dollars ($1000), if the town of Concord will accept the same upon the following conditions, to wit: The mone}- to be put on interest for fifty years, till the third centennial year of the incorporation of the town of Concord, and the interest added to the principal, either annually or semi-annually until that time, when all but the original sum of one thonsatid dol- lars ($1000) shall be expended for the benefit and improvement of the town or the citizens of Concord, as the voters of the town may determine by a two-thirds vote of its legal voters iq ■84 CON-CORD CELEBRATIOn. town meeting assembled, and if they should not be able to command a two-thirds vote upon the manner of disposing of the same when it becomes due, it may be brought forward and acted upon at future town meetings until disposed of b}' a two-thirds vote of the legal voters of the town. The original one thousand dollars ($1000) shall again be put at interest as before described, and at the end of every fifty years thereafter all but the original principal shall be disposed of in the same manner as before mentioned. Respectfully 3'ours, IIap<50od WniGHT. N. B. I should like to have it called "The Hapgood Wright Semi-Centenuial Fund." The President. As you are tired of hearing my strained voice, with your permis- sion my sou, Mr. Prescott Keyes will read the letters received in reply to invitations from guests we hoped to have with us to-day. .Mr. Winthrop modestly refrains from mentioning an eloquent s])eecli he made here fifty years ago, and he is the only speaker of that occasion now living. How much a speech from him to-day would have added to the interest of this celebration as connecting it so closely with the Bi-Ceutennial. His health does not permit him to be present, and we have alas, only his letter. Mr. Prescott Keyes then read the following letters ad- dressed to the Committee on invitations ; — Brookltne, Mass., 21 August, 1885. Gentlemen: I am honored by your communication of the 1st instant, inviting me to attend the celebration of the two hundredth and fiftieth anniversai-y of the incorporation of Con- . cord, as a guest of the town, on the twelfth of September next. It would afford me peculiar pleasure to be with 30U on that occasion. It was mj' good fortune to be one of the invited guests on the two hundredth anniversary celebration on the twell'th of September, 1835. I was then one of the rejnescnta- tives of Boston in the legislature of Massachusetts, but I came to Concord as an aid-de-camp of Lieutenant Governor Arm- btj-oug, who had become the acting governor of the State by the election of Governor Davis to the senate of the United States. It was a most agreeable and notable occasion, and one which 1 recall at the end of fifty years, and as, perhaps, the only sur- vivor of the guests of that celebration with no little interest. The admirable oration, by one who afterwards obtained such a signal celebrity as the late lamented Ralph Waldo P^mer- son, would alone have made the occasion memorable to every one who was present. The prayer of the aged and venerated Dr. Ezra Ripley — whose liospitality I had enjoyed at his own home some years before, in company with my endeared class- mate and chum, Charles Chauncy Emerson — was not less im- pressive. I would gladly renew my association with the scenes and memories of that day, but I am constrained to resist the temp- tation, and I must reluctantly decline 3'our invitation. Concord has a world wide fame. Her earliest annals abound in charming incidents, of at least one of which, in 1038, my own ancestor was a prominent figure. Her maturer history includes, with that of Lexington, the first blood of the Revolu- tion. Her later years have been illustrated by the Roman in- tegrity of Samuel Hoar and the eminent abilities and services of his sons, as well as by the brilliant genius of Hawthorne and Emerson. No town in our Commonwealth, or on our whole continent, has stronger claims to a distinguished and grateful remomV)rance. Believe me, gentlemen, with sincere thanks for your invita- tion and best wishes for the occasion. Respectfully and truly your obedient servant, Robert C. "WiNxnnor. PLY^iouTn, Aug. 4, 1885. Gentlemen: I have received with pleasure 3-01'r cordial invitation to attend, as a guest of the town, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of Concord on the twelfth of September. I have delayed my reply in tlie hope that I might find it possible to bo in Concord that day, and it is with the greatest regret that I come to the decision that my duties will compel me to remain here at the time of the festival. J need not trouble you with the particulars, but I wish to assure S6. COKCORD CSLICB RATION. yon that nothing but imperative reasons would make me forego the pleasure of attending the anniversary or the honor of being one of its public guests. I have always prided myself on the privilege of being a native of Concord, and cling tenaciously to everything tiiat gives me a new hold upon m}' birthright. I am, therefore, very grateful to you for doing me the honor of including me among tlie sons of Concord on this oci-asion, and much disappointed that I cannot V)e your guest. I remain gentlemen, most truly yours, William W. Goodwin. Newpout, R. I.. Sept. 8, 1885. 3fij Dear Emerson : I could not receive a more tempting invitation than you gave me 'in your letter that reached me yesterday. You move every fibre of my heart by touching on the display of the grandest and most effective creative power of public spirit liy rural patriots in private life, and on the dearest affections of personal friendship. I longed so much to comply with your invitation that it has taken a few hours re- flection to make ine feel that I cannot avail myself of it. I shall within a few days finish the first quaiti'r of my fifth score of years, and, in the uncertainty of m}' ability to bear the fatigue, feel unwilling to give you the trouble of taking cai'e of me. But though I cannot come to you on Saturday, pray assure yourself that I am, and ever shall be, Your faithful friend, Gko. Bancrofx. Halifax, N. S., Sept, 5 1885. My Dear Mr. Walcott: Much to mj' regret, I find that I cannot reach home in time to attend the Concord Celebration on the 12th inst. I have had it it in mind ever since you gave me the kiad invitation ; and I feel sorely disappointi'd over the fact. I have been away now three weeks, and I hope before my return to visit Cape Breton and Prince lidward Island, which will take another fortnight. This precludes the possibility of my keeping the engagement DR. EMERSON'S REMARKS. ^ from which I had anticipated a great deal of pleasure. I feel a deep interest in old Middlesex, and in Concord which stands for so much in its histor}'^ — to si}' nothing of its wider influence throughout the state and nation — and I deeply regret my in- ability to be present on this interesting occasion. Yours very truly, Samuel A. Green. The following telegram from Governor Long president of .the Hingham celebration was read : Hingham congratulates Concoi'd on the celebration of their oom- raon birthday. Hope you will have a good time, sister. This reply was sent by telegraph. The low hills to the seashore send greetings and congratulations. Concord replies to her twin. Many happy returns. The President. In June 1834, a private school was opened in this town by Wil- liam Whitiug who died whUe Member of Congress from Boston. Tliera were twenty two scholars in the school. Fifty years afterwards, sixteen of those twenty -two were living, and ten of them present at a wedding in Concord in June 1884. That school attended in a body the Bi- centennial of the Town in 1835, and listened to the orator of that day. Whether their continuance in Concord and tlieir longevity was owing to the inspiration of that occasion, or the doctors of the town, may be questioned. The son of that orator, and himself a doctor will gratify us by speaking of his predecessors and of the name he bears. EDWAKD WALDO EMERSON* Dr. Emerson's Remarks. Mr. President: Perhaps the perennial vigor of those who were the young people here fifty years ago, which you Sir, for our good fortune, happily demonstrate, was due to the fact that Concord's old fashioned doctors seldom prescribed a change of air. At your bidding, ISir, i have lor the moment put off the SS CONCORD CELEBRATION. uniform of a very independent company, which parades with two old bi'ass guns, — you set me the example years ago — guns which we hope are not thorns in the side of our honored guests the Commander-in-Chief and Adjutant-General, — and come here to answer for the old Doctors of Concord. Having m3-self half turned my back on the healing ai-t, I wish to show that these doctors set in this respect a most pernicious example. The first, Dr. Philip Read, dabbled in free-thought, criti- cized the preaching of the ancestors of our Chaplain, for which Concord madi> it desirable for him to change his residence. But what followed? Dr. James Minott did not stick to his pills and lierli-diinks, yet escaped the fate of his forerunner. This gentleman was as versatile a genius as Anonyniuus in a book of extracts. Here is his epitaph! Here is interred the remains of James Minott Esq., a. m. an Excelling Grammarian enriched with the Gift of Prayer and Preaching, a Commanding Offlcer, a Physician of Great Value, a Great Lover of Peace, as well as of Justice, and which was his Greatest Glory, a (lent'mn of distinguished Virtue and GooJness Happy in a Virtuous Posterity and living Religiously died comfortably, Sept 20, 1725. Act. 83. Could man do more ? Was not this the high-water mark of our race? In the very next generation the physician is styled Major Jonathan Prcscott, vying in accomplishments with his prede- cessor. His son Dr. John, a good ph^^sician, presently appears a commander of an expedition against Cuba, then as a diplomatic agent for the Colonies in Loudon where he died. A generation passes, and then we find Dr. Samuel Prescott riding home from courting Miss MuUiken of Lexington at the strange hour of one in the morning on the lOth of April, join- ing Paul Revere on the road and by his good horsemanship escaping over a wall when Revere was taken, and bringing the stirring news to Concord ; but we hear no more of him as a practitioner. Time fails me to tell of John Cunnning, Harvard graduate, Indian fighter, Indian captive, then Lieutenant Colonel in ser.- vice against them, wide-riding country doctor. Royal Justice of the Peace, Patriot, member of the committees of Coirespon- DR. EMERSOJ^'S REMARKS. 89 dence and Safety, then sitting in the Provincial Congress and County Courts, and last benefactor to the town and to nis Alma Mater : of the varying but hard fortuiies of Dr. Ezekiel Brown : of Abiel Heywood, practicing medicine for years ; then Town Clerk, Chief Selectman and Assessor tor 30 years, latterly abandoning at once celibacy and small clothes, and taking office of high trust in the State : of Edward Jarvis, general practitioner and specialist, writer on genealogy, liistory and statistics, and loyal benefactor of this town! But in late years the town was blessed with doctors who did not scorn to abide in their toilsome calling, and died in har- ness faithful and brave, loved and honored like him whose ven- rable face we all remember. From the honored names of the healers of this town, in the days that are gone by, thus lightly touched on, but whom we all revere, I turn to answer, as you have bid me. Sir, for my name and race, thankful that the double tie which binds it to the Past of this town gives me the right. He who fifty years ago spoke near where t(^-day you have listened to a representative of an honorable family always near to him loved Concord. The room where he wrote we call his study, but his study was the pine wood or the oak-girt ledge of rock looking on blue Walden and bluer river, beautiful to hira in even the harshest aspect and full of voices as the sacred groves of the East. Not less the aspects of the men and women of the village. He watched the farmer pass his window and remembered him. as one who faced the Primal Forces and wielded them to raise his corn. He sat in the Town-Meeting, speaking seldom, hearing every word, and came home praising the sense and courage shown, secure that in the end, after this rough sifting, the brave counsel would prevail. I bring to his townspeople to-day this woid whicli 1 only yesterday found in his note book. " 'How do the wise differ from the unwise,' was the question put to Bias. He replied In a good hope.' It is the true heroism and the true wisdom, 'Hope.'" That shall be his word for the next century. This other note I found, written just after a stormy scene which hap- pened in these streets just before the war. 90 rONrOTiD CELEBRATION. "Somebody said in my hearina: lately that a house in Con- cord was worth half as iiiuch again as a house in any other town since the people had shown a good will to defend each other." The President: It was the irony of fate that in Concord should begin the Revolu- tion. Concord Fight is a. contradiction in terms; and it is perhaps the irony of history that (Concord should furnish the ground where Acton men fought the l)attle of Lexington. [s there not some of tlie irony of hoth fate aud history that the modest, transcendental youth, who came here from Brook Farm, '"to till these lonely fields" should in tiiese days have the largest audience as Orator and Editor in this liroad land"? That he "By woudrous tongue and guided i)en Brings tlie flown miises liack to men." Will he kindly speak on this occasion to this vimU gathering of his former townsmen GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. Mr. Curtis' Speech, Mr. President: That I once lived in Concord, is among my happiest re- collections, and that I should be asked to come back again to- day is one of the most gratifying of honors. Life gives us few purer pleasures than lo know tliat we are kindly remembered where we remember kindly, and u]»on returning to the familiar places to fmd the old friendships and old feelings as unchanged as ttie hills and streams. In tlie lenderest of his poems, Byron recalling the best liours ot" his life, describes the scene that he remembers as a ''most living landscape." But the life of a landscape is not in its verdure and form, in its Avaving woods and flowing waters. The landscape lives in its human associa- tions, in its historic traditions. Its deepest charm is felt when we can say with Wordsworth : "Here in old time the liand of man hath been," — the hand of genius, the hand of heroism, of art, of lettei's,of science ; so that tlie the dead, whose works do follow them, may, after all, make the most living landscape. MR. CURTIS' SPEECH. 91 I suppose that there is no son, native or adopted, of Con- cord who does not clierish for tlie ancient town that peculiar, personal feeling of reverence of which our orator spoke this morning. There is no town winch has a story more worth telling, and that story was never more completely, more adecjuately or more no))ly told than you have heard it to-day. Now mindful of the hour, and of the tried patience of my hearers, I can- not but recall the story of the old clergyman (and this story, I think, is not told of a Concord clergyman, as most good stories are), who paused, after preaching a couple of hours, in the middle of his sermon, and said : "Ah brethren, saving souls is such delightful work that I could go on preaching all night, but I must consider the infirmity of human nature, I must forbeai-, I will restrain myself and preach only four houi-s longer." As every one of the distinguished gentlemen who have preceded me has taken his seat, I have wislicd that ho would forbear and restrain himself to preach only four hours longer. That forbearance my friends, would have had for you this advantage, — that you would have been spared listening to another speech ; while it would have enabled me to permit ex- pressive silence to muse the praise of Concoi'd. "Here is old Concord, Now let expressive silence rause her praise." I came to Concord with my brother, from Brook Farm. I am not quite sure whether we belonged to that "Menagerie" of Mr. Emerson, of which wo liave heard or whether we were not a pair of those "visionary youths" whom Mr. Hawthorne said overran this village about forty years ago. Yet lie was one of us. He preceded us from l>rook Farm : and Concord, surely, was not the only wondei-land to which he introduced the young visionaries of his time. There was as my older friends may remember, some kind of dissociation in the popular mind, between Concord and Brook Fnrin. It was very natural that it should be so. Mr. Emerson lived in Concord and Brook Farm was supposed, in some indescril)al>le way, to have sprung from his teachings. To go from Concord to Brook Farm, therefore was merely to pass from theory to practice. To come from Brook Farm to Concord was to rise from plain living to high tliiuking. Indeed the lines of a young man eonld not •''^ CONCORD CELEBRATTON. have fjiUen in a pleasanter place nor in one more likely to vSti" mulate his oood impul.ses if he had any, and to repress those that were not so ;j,ood, than a vdlaji:e at one end of which lived Emerson and at the other end Hawthorne, while conveniently bnt charactei-istically \\\ a different direction from either lived Henry Taore m. If to this you add the immortal revolutionar}'' tradition that made t!ie long, winding road under the brow of the hill from Emerson's lionse on one end to Hawthorne's at the other, a via sacra, and ihen fill the village with that popu- lation which seemed to have sprung from Cromwell's Ironsides themselves, if you plant it all in that tran Committee. 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