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THE 
 
 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 
 
 AT 
 
 CHERRY VALLEY, OTSEGO CO. N. Y. 
 JUliY 4tli5 1 840. 
 
 THE ADDRESSES 
 
 WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL, Esq. 
 
 AND 
 
 GOV. W. H. SEWARD, 
 
 WITH 
 
 LETTERS, TOASTS, &C. <fcc. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY TAYLOR & CLEMENT. 
 
 1840. 
 
I r^-^^f 
 
 st^ 
 
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 
 
 AT 
 
 CHERRY VALLEY, OTSEGO COUNTY, N. Y 
 July 4th, 1840. 
 
 T^From the Cherry Valley Gazette oj July 8th, 1840.] 
 
 The Centennial Celebration of the settlement of this town, 
 and the anniversary of the Independence of the United States, 
 was celebrated in this village last Saturday, in a manner high- 
 ly gratifying to the feelings of our citizens, and as we hope 
 and believe, satisfactory to the visitors from abroad. 
 
 The day was ushered in by the usual discharge of cannon 
 and ringing of bells. At about half past 10 o'clock, A. M., 
 a procession was formed in front of the hotel of Mr. Wil- 
 kins, consisting of Capt. Hall's company of Cherry- Valley 
 Volunteers ; the orator of the day, and reader of Declara- 
 tion of Independence ; Clergy ; President and Vice Pres. 
 idents of the day ; Committee of Arrangements ; Revolu- 
 tionary Soldiers, strangers, and citizens. In this order the 
 procession proceeded to the house of Doctor WiDiam Camp- 
 bell, where they received his Excellency Gov. Seward, and 
 Doctor Nott, President of Union College. 
 
 Notice had been given that the exercises of the day 
 would be performed in the Presbyterian Church, but long 
 
before the hour of commencing arrived, it was most evident 
 that but a small part of the audience could be accommoda- 
 ted in that spacious building. The procession, therefore, 
 moved to the green in front of the Academy, where a stag- 
 ing had on Saturday morning been erected, to be occupied 
 by those who should address the assembled muhitude. 
 
 Besides the inhabitants of this place, the audience was 
 composed of great numbers of highly respectable gentle- 
 men and ladies from abroad. New- York, Albany, and 
 Troy, and the counties of Montgomery and Schoharie were 
 represented by some of their most respectable citizens. 
 Companies respectable for their numbers and character from 
 our sister villages, honored us with their attendance. Taken 
 in the aggregate, perhaps a more intellectual assemblage 
 was seldom if ever collected on the account of any public 
 celebration, except in our large cities. And we are happy 
 to be able to state with great confidence that the speakers 
 presented to this audience a feast truly rich and intellectual. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence was read in a manner 
 very impressive by David H. Little, Esq. who was fol- 
 lowed in an historical address by William W. Campbell, 
 Esq. a native of this town, now a resident of the city of 
 New-York. As this address will soon appear in print, we 
 shall not attempt a sketch of it, further than to say, that it 
 contained many interesting and valuable historical facts 
 connected with the early settlement of this town, a subject 
 with which Mr. Campbell is more familiar than any other 
 man, and abounded in passages of great eloquence and 
 beauty. Though delivered in the open air, to an audience 
 of about three thousand people, the speaker was distinctly 
 heard by every one present, and commanded throughout 
 that attention which can only be paid by an interested and 
 delighted audience. The address was in every respect a 
 finished and valuable production, and will greatly add to the 
 
high reputation which its author enjoys as a literary man 
 and a public speaker. 
 
 At the close of the historical address, the venerable Presi- 
 dent of Union College addressed the assembly. In this 
 town Doctor Nott commenced his career of usefulness 
 and distinction ; he spoke on this occasion, from the front 
 of the Academy, a building which more than forty years 
 ago was erected through his influence, and we can say with 
 confidence, that rarely, if ever since that early day, has his 
 extraordinary eloquence produced the impression it did 
 here, in his address at this time, and in his discourse in the 
 church on the following day. The music which accompa- 
 nied these exercises as designated in the order of arrange- 
 ments, v.as conducted by Mr. Lindsley in a manner highly 
 creditable to himself and to the choir. 
 
 At the close of the addresses the procession was again 
 formed by the Marshalls, and proceeded to the place where 
 the public dinner was provided, which was got up in Mr. 
 Wilkins' usual good style. The proceedings at the dinner ; 
 the toasts drank, and several interesting letters from gentle- 
 men from abroad, together with a sketch of the very elo- 
 quent remarks of Gov. Seward, we hope to be able to pub- 
 lish in our next paper. 
 
CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT CHERRY VALLEY, OTSEGO CO, N. Y. 
 July 4th, 1840. 
 BY WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL. 
 
 The announcement that the great poet, novelist, and his- 
 torian of Scotland was no more, produced a thrilling emo- 
 ion throughout the civilized world. Gifted pens in both 
 hemispheres paid noble tributes to his memory, and the 
 beautiful idea was conceived of grouping together and pre- 
 senting at a single glance the most prominent characters, 
 both fictitious and historical, which had been illustrated and 
 adorned by the genius of the immortal Scott. While 
 he lay in state in the proud halls of Abbotsford, there passed 
 in long procession the monarch with his retinue display- 
 ing the pomp and pageantry of the middle ages — the belted 
 knight clad in steel marching with a warrior's step, and ac- 
 companied by his lady love — old men and maidens — noble 
 and ignoble, the Jew, the Christian, and the Pagan — each 
 in their turn, as they moved past, casting a last look upon 
 the mortal remains of him whose name as long as letters 
 endure can never perish from the earth. But as they come 
 up in review before our own minds, do we not intuitively 
 select some of the most humble and lowly as objects of im- 
 
itation and of love. Forgetting the proud array of titles 
 and of names, we call up with earnest and admiring feelings 
 the artless simplicity and heroic fortitude of that noble speci- 
 men of female character, the Jeannie Deans in the Heart of 
 Mid- Lothian. 
 
 My fellow citizens, we are assembled this day at the 
 close of the first century since the settlement of Cherry Val- 
 ley. We are here on the anniversary of our nation's birth- 
 day to mark down the closing hours of that century, and ere 
 they are all numbered, to sketch out and place on record, the 
 scenes, and actions, and events, and characters to which it 
 has given birth in our little valley. It has become my duty, 
 as it is my pleasure, to make up that record which may aid 
 in fixing this day as a landmark for the guidance and di- 
 rection of those who may come after us. If in the brief re- 
 view of the century which is just passing away I shall pre- 
 sent no gorgeous spectacle — no long train of titled lords and 
 warrior knights, I may be able to sketch characters which 
 shall commend themselves by their intelligence, their morals, 
 their courage, and their undying patriotism. Plain and 
 humble though they may have been, and confined within a 
 narrow sphere of action, they were eminent in their respec- 
 tive stations — they discharged with ability the duties which 
 devolved upon them, and have passed away and left their 
 impress upon this the place of their and your habitation. 
 
 Most of the first settlers of this Valley, though originally 
 from Scotland, emigrated to North America from Ireland. 
 Some of them came in what was called the Londonderry 
 emigration. A portion of this body of emigrants landed 
 in the spring of 1719, at Casco Bay, near the present city 
 of Portland, in Maine. Like most of the New-England 
 colonists they sought a home and a place to worship God. 
 Immediately upon lauding from their vessel, under the open 
 heaven, and upon the sea-shore, they commenced the wor- 
 
ship of their Creator. The sands of a new Continent were 
 beneath their feet. The waves of the Atlantic were dash- 
 ing around them. The sky of the new world was over 
 them. 
 
 The perfect world by Adam trod, 
 
 Was the first temple built by God ; 
 
 His fiat laid the corner stone, 
 
 And heaved its pillars one by one. 
 
 In this temple our fathers first worshipped God in this 
 western land. Standing on the shore of the ocean with 
 their little bark riding near them, they raised their voices 
 and sung the 137th Psalm of the Sweet Singer of Israel. 
 As they looked back upon the homes of their youth— upon 
 the friends and kindred left behind — upon the blessings and 
 comforts of civilization, well might they sing, 
 
 " B-y the waters of Babylon^ there we sat down, yea, we 
 wept, ivhen we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps 
 upon the willows in the midst thereof." 
 
 But they looked forward with hope and constancy, and as 
 they remembered their covenant vows, and their determina- 
 tion to observe and maintain their religious duties, they also 
 united and sung in the sublime language of the Psalmist, 
 
 " If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her 
 cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to 
 the roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my 
 chief joy," (See note A.) 
 
 On application made by this Colony to the Supreme Ju- 
 dicial Court of Massachusetts, a tract of land was granted 
 them, to which they removed in the summer of the same 
 year. The settlement was named after the place from whence 
 they sailed, and still retains the name of Londonderry, now 
 in the southern part of New. Hampshire. The colonists 
 immediately organized a society, settled a minister, and 
 
commenced laying broad and deep the foundations of reli- 
 gion and of civil order. Many of the early settlers of 
 Cherry Valley removed from this Londonderry Colony in 
 1741-2 — the first actual settlement having been made by 
 Mr. Lindesay, one of the patentees, in 1740. 
 
 The patent of Cherry Valley was granted in 1738, by 
 George Clark, then Lieutenant Governor of the province 
 of New-York, with consent of the council, to John Linde- 
 say, Jacob Roseboom, and others. The patentees proba- 
 bly re-leased a portion of the land to Governor Clark, as 
 we find tiers of lots still owned by his lineal descendants 
 in this county. 
 
 It has been cause of speculation and inquiry why the pa- 
 tentees sought a patent of land so remote as this place then 
 was, and lying'^as it did, beyond unoccupied lands more eligi- 
 bly situated and of greater value. It has been said that Mr. 
 Lindesay, the principal patentee, was pleased with the wild 
 and romantic features of the country, which were not unlike 
 his native Scotland. We can easily imagine that at that 
 early day, ere the woodman's axe had broken into the for- 
 est, the scene which our little Valley presented was one of 
 quiet and picturesque beauty. Here was^ the purling brook 
 — the cascade — the rock and dell — the beautiful forest tree 
 — the blossoming cherry and the wild mountain flower. 
 The tall and graceful elm rose conspicuous in the valley, 
 while the dark foliage of the rock maple and the evergreen 
 marked the elevation of the surrounding hills. From the 
 summit of those hills, the eye took in at a glance a large part 
 of the valley of the Mohawk, and stretching on beyond were 
 seen the Sacondaga mountains on the north, and far away 
 in the north-east the green mountains of Vermont. A few 
 German families were scattered along the banks of the Mo- 
 hawk, but on leaving that river the emigrant or settler found 
 himself at once in the midst of the virgin forest. The 
 
10 
 
 whole country called by us the great west, the vast valley 
 of the Mississippi, was almost a terra incognita^ an un- 
 known land. An occasional adventurer had made his way 
 into the interior, and had engaged in traffic with the abo- 
 riginal inhabitants, who claimed as owners, and roamed over 
 the wide vallies and praries.^ A few others, less hardy and 
 enterprising, had passed along the shores of the great lakes, 
 and like Moses upon mount Pisgah, caught a distant view 
 of the promised land. A few French from Canada had in- 
 termarried with the native population, and introduced some 
 slight features of civilization among the red men of the for- 
 est. With these exceptions, the whole country west of 
 Cherry Valley, reaching on to the Pacific Ocean, was one 
 unbroken wilderness. 
 
 Attracted more perhaps by the beauty of the scenery than 
 by the fertility of the soil, here Mr. Lindesay took up his 
 abode in the summer of 1740. An Indian foot path afforded 
 him communication with the Mohawk river. The winter 
 which followed was one of great severity. Long ere spring 
 revisited the valley his provisions were exhausted. The 
 snow had fallen to a great depth, and had entirely interrupt- 
 ed his intercourse with the settlements of the Mohawk. 
 The fierce winds howled around his frail dwelling. The gi- 
 gantic forest trees glistened with the frosts of winter. The 
 beauty of the summer scene had faded away. He realized 
 in their greatest extent the dangers and trials of a borderer. 
 A lingering death for himself and family by starvation was 
 before him. At this critical period an Indian arrived from 
 the Mohawk river on snow-shoes. This Indian returned 
 and procured provisions, which he carried to Mr. Lindesay 
 upon his back, and thus saved the lives of the first family 
 which settled in this valley. 
 
 About the time of his first settlement, Mr, Lindesay con. 
 ferred with the Rev. Samuel Dunlop, a native of Ireland, 
 
11 
 
 and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, up on the sub- 
 ject of adding to the settlement through his influence with 
 his countrymen at home and in this country. Mr. Dunlop 
 went to Ireland and returned in 1742. He was married in 
 Ireland, and his young wife came with him to pitch their 
 tents in the wilderness. At the same time Mr. Dick- 
 son and Mr. Gait, and families, arrived in company 
 with Mr. Dunlop from Ireland, and Mr. Ramsey and James 
 Campbell with their families in the same year, arrived frorr, 
 Londonderry in New-Hampshire. Mr. Dickson and Mr. 
 Gait purchased farms in the south part of the patent — Mr. 
 Ramsey in the western part, and James Campbell purchas- 
 ed a farm north of the village, now owned by his grandson 
 James S. Campbell, Esq. — Mr. Dunlop purchased the farm 
 formerly owned and occupied by Dr. Joseph White, and 
 now owned and occupied by his son-in-law Jacob Liv- 
 ingston, Esq. 
 
 It may here be observed that one of the first movements 
 of this little colony, was the organization of a church under 
 the pastoral charge of Mr. Dunlop, and the erection of a 
 rude edifice of logs in which they assembled to worship the 
 God of their fathers. In his own house Mr. Dunlop open- 
 ed a classical school, and there educated some young men 
 from the German families on the Mohawk, who afterward, and 
 especially during the revolution, acted conspicuous parts. 
 Among the number were Col. Henry and Major John Frey. 
 It is worthy of especial remembrance that in this Valley the 
 first regular society was organized for religious worship in 
 the English language, and the first classical school establish- 
 ed in central or western New York. I have not been able 
 to find an account of any other church or school at that 
 early day, between this place and the immediate vicinity of 
 the Hudson river, though there may have been classical 
 schools at Schenectaday. The church organized under the 
 
12 
 
 •patronage of Sir William Johnson, at Johnstown, was not 
 founded until iibout 1765. 
 
 The conduct of our fathers in the establishment of 
 churches and schools, is the best evidence of the spirit with 
 which the foundations of this settlement w^re laid. Virtue 
 and knowledge, the two great pillars of republican institu- 
 tions, were in the very commencement the object of their 
 pursuit. They sought to plant here in the centre of the 
 wilderness the seeds of Christianity and civilization. Their 
 aim was noble — their enterprize was worthy and deserved 
 success. Their numbers were small. Their means were 
 limited. But their hearts were undaunted. Their courage 
 did not forsake them. Their minds had been made up for 
 the undertaking. They resolved to be and they were suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Settlements were not then, as now, thrown forward almost 
 with the rapidity of the earth's own motion, so that a fron- 
 tier hamlet of to-day becomes a city with a densely peopled 
 country around it to-morrow. On the contrary, the en- 
 croachments upon the wilderness, and upon the home of the 
 red man, previous to the revolution, were made slowly and 
 with great caution. The white population advanced along 
 the banks of the rivers, and the margins of the tributary 
 streams. Occasionally, as was the case with this settlement, 
 a few families more adventurous, might plunge further into 
 what was then termed the desert, and relying for protection 
 on the God of Hosts and their own right arm, plant there 
 the foundations of the white man's home. But the increase 
 of these frontier settlements was very slow. In 1752, twelve 
 years after the first settlement of Cherry Valley, there were 
 but ei^lit families in the place. In 1765, they had increased 
 to forty families. The number in 1775, and at the com- 
 Kiencement of the war, I do not know, but probably it did 
 act exceed sixty families. 
 
13 
 
 In 1744, Mr. John Wells removed to Cherry Valley. 
 He purchased of Mr. Lindesay the farm occupied by him, 
 and called Lindesay's bush, being the same farm now 
 owned and occupied by Mr. Joseph Phelon. Mr. Wells 
 was a man of fine character, and was highly respected in 
 the settlement. He was appointed the first Justice of the 
 Peace. His son Robert intermarried with a daughter of 
 the Rev. Mr. Dunlop, and of this marriage, among other 
 children, was John Wells, one of the most distinguished 
 and able lawyers whom the State of New York has pro 
 duced. His history, I trust, is familiar to all who hear me. 
 You have heard of the destruction of his whole family, of 
 his subsequent labors, his comparative obscurity in his pro- 
 fession, until an opportunity was afforded for a display of 
 his talents and genius, in his defence of the celebrated 
 James Cheatham, editor of the American Citizen; when, as 
 it were, with a single bound, he rose from that comparative 
 obscurity to professional eminence. That distinguished 
 lawyer always cherished a warm affection for this the place 
 of his birth, and it was his intention had his life been 
 spared for a few years longer, to have purchased the pro- 
 perty of his ancestors, and to have retired from his profes- 
 sion, and spent here the closing years of his life amid the 
 scenes of his boyhood. 
 
 Fr9m 1740 down to 1775, (as has already been stated,) the 
 population of Cherry Valley increased slowly. That period 
 had been one of considerable excitement, alarm and trial. 
 
 The long and bloody wars between England and France 
 had been carried forward. The battle field was transferred 
 from Europe to America, and the contest for national su- 
 premacy was maintained with renewed vigor amid the 
 forest homes of our fathers, and upon their inland seas. 
 Most of the Indian tribes at the north, allured away by the 
 French Jesuits, and by the liberal presents of the so styled 
 
 2 
 
14 
 
 grand monarch of France, took up the hatchet against llie? 
 English and Americans. The frontier inhabitants were 
 kept under almost constant apprehension, and though the 
 settlement of Cherry "Valley escaped destruction, yet the 
 inhabitants were called into service, and exchanged the 
 peaceable pursuits of agriculture for the excitements and 
 dangers of the camp, and were engaged in distant and 
 hazardous expeditions. When the war of the revolution 
 commenced, Cherry Yalley was still a frontier settlement. 
 A few inhabitants were settled in the present town of 
 Springfield, a few in Middlefield, then called New town 
 Martin. Along the banks of the Susquehannah, and in 
 the valley of Unadilla and Otego creeks a lew settlers 
 were found, and the brave and hardy family of Harpers had 
 gone out from Cherry Yalley and planted a little colony at 
 Harpersfield ; but Cherry Valley was considered the centre 
 and gathering place of all these settlers. 
 
 When the period arrived that the united colonies of North 
 America were compelled to take up arms to maintain their 
 rights, the announcement produced necessaiily a deep 
 emotion through the frontier settlements. 
 
 War at all times is to be deprecated and, if possible, avoid- 
 ed. In the case of our revolution, war became justifiable 
 on our part. 'The great principles of civil and religious 
 liberty for which our ancestors contended in the old world, 
 and which they sought to plant here in the new were invad- 
 ed. The crisis had arrived when their rights must be sur- 
 rendered, or the question must be tried by a long and bloody 
 civil war. The minds of men vvere early marie up for the 
 contest. In this section of country, the perils and trials 
 of the inhabitants were probably greater than in any other 
 section of the union. The six nations of Indians who 
 early joined the English, were the most powerful and war- 
 like of the aboriginal inhabitants. Yet in defiance of danger^ 
 
15 
 
 mfii undismayed by threats of vengeance, the inhabitants of 
 Tryon County rallied together when the indications of the 
 gathering storm were seen only in the distance. 
 
 U you will consider what was then the situation of that 
 county, sparsely populated, and separated from the Hudson 
 river and the Eastern States by a powerful tribe of Indians, 
 and a large body of men attached to the English cause, or- 
 ganized and commanded by influential and experienced men, 
 and will then look at the early proceedings of their Committee 
 of safety, you will find exhibited a fearlessness and determi- 
 nation of spirit almost unparalleled even in that day of self- 
 sacrificing and heroic devotion to country. Read the pro- 
 ceedings of the Palatine Committee, as early as 27th August, 
 1774, two years before the Declaration of Independence, 
 when they asserted fearlessly their rights, and bound them- 
 selves together to abide by all the regulations of the first 
 Continental Congress. Read the resolutions of the same 
 Committee passed May 21st, 1775, when in answer to the 
 threats of Guy Johnson, then Indian superintendent, tliey 
 resolved, "that as we abhor a state of slavery, we do join 
 and unite together under all the ties of religion, honor, 
 justice, and a love of freedom, never to become slaves, and 
 to defend our freedom with our lives and fortunes." 
 
 When the time, the place, and the circumstances are con- 
 sidered under which that Committee met and passed the 
 resolutions referred too, I think you will conclude with me 
 that they are unparalleled. In their tone and sentiment 
 they would have done credit to any Provincial Assembly, or 
 even to the Continental Congress itself. The original 
 draft of these resolutions [ found many years since in a 
 neglected spot in the garret of the house of Major John Frey, 
 and I have deposited the manuscript among the archives of the 
 New York Historical Society, that it may remain as a memo* 
 rial of the noble spirit of Tryon County. It is in thQ 
 
16 
 
 handwriting of Christopher P. Yates, who was an eminent 
 and able patriot. But if he had done nothing besides being 
 the author and advocate of these resolutions, his name and 
 his memory shoulo be warmly cherished in this section of 
 country where you dwell. 
 
 Here in Cherry Valley the leading citizens early embrac- 
 ed the Colonial cause. la May, 1775, the common article 
 of association was circulated, in which the signers pledged 
 themselves to support the Continental Congress. It is 
 unnecessary here, and indeed I have not time to detail the 
 progress of the war, during the first years of its continu- 
 ance. A fort was erected which occupied a portion of the 
 present burial ground, and which was garrisoned by a regi- 
 ment of L ontinental troops under the command of Col. Alden. 
 Alarms and rumors were the order of the day. This re- 
 . gion of country seems early to have been marked out 
 for destruction, and the settlement of Cherry Valley after 
 repeated alarms, was destined to share the common fate of 
 the frontier hamlets of New York. 
 
 The 11th of November, 177S, has been rendered memo- 
 rable by the sacrifices and sufferings and death of many of 
 the early settlers of this Valley. On the morning of that 
 day no bright sun gilded the mountain tops with his beams, 
 nor was the eye gladdened with the view of the rich tints of 
 autumn. Clouds and mists were round about the homes of 
 our fathers, as if veiling the horrid scenes which on that 
 day were to be enacted. The gun from the fort early in 
 the morning announced that the enemy was near. 'Ihe 
 scouts had been surprized and taken, and the yell of the 
 Indian, and the report of his rifle, heralded his approach to 
 the garrison. The scattered inhabitants, most of them un- 
 armed, strove to gain places of actual, or fancied security, 
 but generally in vain. Some reached the fort and were 
 saved, others were pursued and slain by the way side, and 
 
17 
 
 the tomahawk and scalping knife drank the blood of others 
 at their own fireside, and even while kneeling in prayer 
 before their Maker, Others were retained as hostages or 
 prisoners, to be borne away through the wilderness to take 
 up their abode with savages, and to sufier a tedious and 
 dreadful captivity. I have endeavoured in the history which 
 I have heretofore presented to my fellow citizens, of the 
 border wars of this State, to give a pi( ture of this Valley 
 on the night succeedino; the day of the massacre. The 
 place chosen for encampment of the enemy was about two 
 miles south of the village, and near the site of the dwelling 
 house of James Dickson. The prisoners were gathered 
 around the watch fir< s drenched with the rain and sleet, and 
 shivering with cold, with no protection from th'^rv storm. 
 Thick darkness covered the Val'ey, except when some gust of 
 wind kindled a flame for a moment amid the dying embers, 
 and thus marked the spots where once had been their homes. 
 The mangled corpses of relatives and neighbors lay un- 
 buried around the ashes of their dwellings. Their own 
 fate was hid from them. They knew not whether a long 
 captivity awaited them, or whether on the morrow they 
 should be offered up as sacrifices to appease the wrath or 
 gratify the passions of their enemies. I can imagine no 
 state of suspense more awful. Mercy, however, in a mea- 
 sure triumphed, and a portion of the prisoners were releas- 
 ed, and the rest were carried into captivity, and enabled 
 to return after the lapse of many years. Between thirty 
 and forty of the inhabitants were killed on the 11th of No- 
 vember. It is unnecessary at this time to give their names. 
 On the following day their corpses were gathered toge- 
 ther, and under the protection of the garrison were deposit- 
 ed in a common grave. It would have been very gratify^ 
 ing if on this occasion we could have laid the corner 
 stone of a monument to mark the place of their burial^ and 
 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 which, while it commemorated the death of those who 
 perished on the 11th of November, 1778, might have 
 endured also as a memorial of this anniversary which we 
 this day celebrate. 
 
 This destruction of the settlement closed the revolution- 
 ary drama at Cherry Valley. The small fort was abandon- 
 ed in the following summer, and the troops joined Gene- 
 ral James Clinton's detachment, when on his way to join 
 Gen. Sullivan, in the famous expedition against the sis 
 nations in 1779. This v\hole region of country was 
 swept over by an ever active and vindictive enemy. At the 
 close of the revolution, and \\hen peace was once more re- 
 stored, the remnant of the inhabitants returned to their for- 
 mer homes, but war, and disease, and poverty had done 
 them fearful work ; and many a once familiar face was never 
 again seen round the domestic hearth. In 1784 a fe?v log 
 houses were built by the inhabitants who had returned, and 
 in the same year the immortal Washington honored our 
 little Valley with a visit. He came up from the Mohawk 
 river for the purpose of visiting this place, and also examin- 
 ing the outlet of Lake Otsego, where, in 1779, Gen. James 
 Clinton threw a dam across the Susquehannah, preparatory 
 to his descent of that river. 
 
 It has already been stated that the first inhabitants of 
 Cherry Valley were mostly religious people. Like the Pu- 
 ritans of New-England they were watchful and jealous of 
 any infraction of Christian duties. Many of my hearers 
 will have read the letter addressed by the Committee of 
 Safety of Cherry Valley to the general Committee of Tryon 
 county. It was as follows : 
 
 Cherry Valley, June 9ik, 1775. 
 Sirs : 
 
 We received yours of yesterday relative to the meet- 
 ing of the Committee on Sunday, which surprised u& not » 
 
19 
 
 little, inasmuch as it seems not to be on any alarming cif- 
 cumstaiice, which if it was, we should readily attend. But 
 as that does not appear to us to be the case, we think it very 
 improper; for unless the necessity of the Committee sit- 
 ting superexceed the duties to be performed in attending 
 the worship of God, we think it ought to be put off till 
 another day; and therefore we conclude not to give our at- 
 tendance at this time unless you adjourn the sitting of the 
 Committee till Monday morning, and in that case we will 
 give our attendance as early as you please. But otherwise 
 we cannot allow ourselves to be cut short of attending on 
 the public worship, except the case be so necessitous as to 
 exceed sacrifice. We conclude with wishing success to the 
 common cause, and subscribe ourselves the free born sons 
 of liberty, John Moore, -••^ 
 
 Samuel Clyde, 
 Samuel Campbell. 
 
 I have introduced this letter for the purpose of calling at- 
 tention more particularly to a meeting of the inhabitants in 
 1785, after the storm of war had passed over, and when 
 quiet and peace once more rested upon the borders. Nei- 
 ther war, nor exile, nor poverty had caused them to forget 
 their Christian duties or the importance of religious so- 
 cieties. 
 
 On the 5th of April, 1785, a public meeting of the citi- 
 zens was held, the objects of which will be best explained 
 by the record made at the time. It is as follows : 
 
 " We, the miae?iHahabitants of Cherry Valley, in the coun- 
 ty of Montgomery and state of New. York, having returned 
 from exik, find ourselves destitute of our church ofiicersy 
 viz. Deacons and Elders. In consequence of our difScul- 
 ties, and other congregations in similar circumstances, our 
 legislature thought proper to pass a law for the relief of 
 
20 
 
 these, viz. An act to incorporate all religious societies, pass- 
 ed April the 6th, 1784. In compliance of said act we pro- 
 ceeded as follows : 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 At a meeting of a respectable number of the old inhabi- 
 tants of Cherry Valley, it was agreed upon, that an advertise- 
 ment should be set up to give notice to all the former in- 
 habitants, that are returned to their respective habitations, to 
 meet at the meeting-house yard, on Tuesday, the fifth day of 
 April next, at ten o'clock, before noon, then and there to 
 choose trustees, who shall be a body corporate for the pur- 
 pose of taking care of the temporalities of their respective 
 Presbyterian congregation, agreeable to an act of the Le- 
 gislature of the State of New York, passed April sixth, one 
 thousand seven hundred and eighty four. 
 
 Samuel Clyde, 
 Justice of the Peace. 
 
 Cherry Valley, March 19th, 1785. 
 
 Cherry Valley, Jipril bth, 1785. 
 1st. The Congregation being met agreeable to the above 
 advertisement, proceeded as follows : viz. the Congregation 
 having no Minister, nor Elders, or Deacons, at present, by 
 reason of death and removal of such in the late war. We, 
 the people at large, did nominate and elect the following two 
 members of the Congregation to be the returning officers and 
 judges of the qualification of the electors of said meeting. 
 
 Col. Samuel Campbell, 
 William Dickson. 
 
 2d. Proceeded as follows at the said meeting and have 
 nominated Col. Samuel Clyde, John Campbell, Jr., and 
 James Wilson, to be the truste-s for said congregation. 
 
21 
 
 The trustees appointed James Cannon as clerk for said 
 board. 
 
 Cherry Valley, April 5th, 1785. 
 At a meeting of the inhabitants of Cherry Valley this day, 
 the undermentioned were elected trustees for the Presbyte- 
 rian Congregation, Samuel Clyde, Esq. 
 
 John Campbell, Jr. 
 James Wilson. 
 
 Electors^ JYames — Robert Shankland, William Thompson, 
 Samuel Ferguson, James Moore, Jr., John Campbell, Jr.? 
 Hugh Mitchell, William Gault, James Cannon, Samuel 
 Campbell, Jr., Samuel Clyde, Esq., Samuel Campbell, 
 William Dickson, James Dickson, Daniel McColIum, 
 John McKillip, Israel Wilson, Luther Rich, James Wil- 
 son, Thomas Whitaker, Benjamin Dickson, John Dunlop* 
 
 Cherry Valley, April, 6th 17S5. 
 To all to whom it doth or may concern, Greeting: We, 
 Samuel Campbell and William Dickson, returning Officers, 
 by virtue of the law of this State, entitled an act to enable all 
 the Religious denominations in this State, to appoint trustees, 
 who shall be a body corporate for the purpose of taking care 
 of the temporalities of their respective congregations, and for 
 other purposes therein mentioned, passed the sixth day of 
 April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty four, of the 
 Presbyterian Congregation of Cherry Valley, in the county 
 of Montgomery, do hereby certify that Samuel Clyde, John 
 Campbell, Jr. and James Wilson, were duly and legally 
 elected trustees of said congregation, and that the said truS' 
 tees and their successors shall for ever hereafter be a body 
 corporate, and he called, distinguished, and known by the 
 name and title of Trustees of the Presbyterian Church in 
 Cherry Valley, in the County of Montgomery, 
 
22 
 
 Given under our bauds and seals this fifth day of 
 April, One thousand seven hundred and eighty five. 
 
 Samuel Campbell. [L.S.] 
 William Dickson. [L.S.] 
 
 Measures were soon after taken for building a church edi- 
 fice, but it was not completed until some years after. The 
 plan adopted seems to have been to sell pew ground, and 
 with the proceeds to erect the building, each purchaser of 
 pew ground stipulating to construct his own pew thereon, 
 according to a uniform plan, after the building should be 
 enclosed. The purchaser of pew ground was to pay partly 
 in money, and partly in produce at the market price. 
 Many of my hearers will recollect the old church with its 
 square high back pews which occupied a part of the bury- 
 ing ground, or meeting house yard as it is styled in the fore- 
 going proceedings, and which was taken down about twelve 
 or thirteen years ago, when the present Presbyterian church 
 edifice was erected. 
 
 The meeting of the inhabitants of Cherry Valley on the 
 5th of April, 1785, is deserving of particular attention. 
 The remnant of the ancient inhabitants, as they styled them- 
 selves, had returned to their farmar homes. They had re- 
 turned, they say, from exile. The long and bloody wai 
 through which they had passed, had thinned their ranks and 
 whitened the heads, and furrowed the cheeks, of the survi- 
 vors. They had once more a home, but it was again a forest 
 home. 
 
 The wild beast hal mad:^ its lair amid the ruins of their 
 former dwellings. The briar, the thistle, and the sapling 
 grew rank upon their garden spots. In the autumn of 1784, 
 a few log huts had been built, but in the spring of 1785, 
 when this meeting was called, there was no building in the 
 settlement where the inhabitants could assemble together. 
 They met; therefore, like their fathers under the open heavens. 
 
23 
 
 The place where they gathered together was hallowed 
 ground. It had been set apart for the burial of their dead. 
 The graves of their kindred and friends were round about 
 them. It was the place which had been consecrated by their 
 patriotism, for there stood their little fort. 
 
 On that same spot the inhabitants assembled together and 
 organized anew on the 5th day of April, 1785, that Presby. 
 terian Society which has continued to this day. 
 
 The first regular pastor was settled in 1796, and he was 
 our reverend and distinguished guest* who has this day 
 honored our li tie valley with his presence, and who nearly 
 half a century ago commenced here his sacred ministra- 
 tions, and preached here the gospel to our fathers. Long 
 may his valuable life be spared to the church and to the lit- 
 erary institution over which he has long presided with so 
 much ability and success. 
 
 From 1785 down to the present time, our valley has not 
 been signalized by any remarkable changes. The increase 
 of population has been gradual though constant. It has not 
 increased in this town and county as in that vast country 
 west, which has since that period sprung into being, and is 
 now teeming with millions of people. Our own little val- 
 ley has contributed to swell that western tide, and she num- 
 bers there many engaged in the various pursuits of life, and 
 among the learned professions many who received here their 
 academical or professional education. 
 
 Of the first settlers, the late Col. Samuel Campbell was the 
 last survivor. Of his character I shall not speak at length, 
 but I may be permitted to say that he was a true patriot and 
 an excellent citizen. He served in the French war and 
 was with Sir William Johnson at Fort Kdward in 1757, at 
 the time of the Massacre at Fort William Henry. During 
 
 ♦ Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College. 
 
24 
 
 the stormy period of the revolution he was an active and 
 efficient friend of his country, and at its close, found him- 
 self stripped of most of his property. Again he commen- 
 ced his laborious life, and lived to see a large and prosper- 
 ous family around him. He was but three years old when 
 he came with his father to this town in 1741. He closed his 
 eventful life in fe'eptember, 1824, at the age of 86. 
 (NoteB.) 
 
 While he was the last of the first settlers, his aged consort, 
 who died a few years since at the age of 92, may be said to 
 have been the last survivor of the female actors in the revo- 
 lutionary drama of our valley. 
 
 She was born near the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and 
 when about ten years of age, she removed with her father, 
 Matthew Cannon, to this country. Her settlement, her 
 marria?e, her heroic fortitude, and attachment to her country^ 
 her long and severe Indian captivity, are circumstances 
 upon which I need not dwell ; her friends and her descend- 
 ants cherish her memory with ardent affection. (Note C.) 
 t Col. Samuel Clyde was an able and efficient co-worker 
 in the revolutionary struggle. He was a stern and inflexi- 
 ble patriot, and exerted a large influence in this district of 
 country. He was appointed the first Justice of the Peace 
 after the war. He, too, in his revolutionary toils, was 
 aided and supported by his courageous and patriotic wife. 
 ' John Moore was another sterling man. While nature 
 had been sparing in her physical gifts, she had endowed him 
 with a strong and vigorous intellect which had been well cul- 
 tivated'coasidering the circumstances in]which he was placed. 
 Of the Rev. Samuel Dunlop I have already spoken. He 
 was an educated man, and for nearly forty years minister- 
 ed to the early settlers. 
 
 At the time of the massacre his family were slain. He 
 alone with one daughter escaped. Lnder the protection of 
 
25 
 
 an Indian Chief, he stood and beheld the destruction 
 of his earthly hopes, his home, and the homes of his friends, 
 melt away with the flames. 
 
 " Calm opposite the Christian father rose, 
 Pale on his venerable brow its rays 
 Of martyr light the conflagration throws ; 
 One hand upon his lovely child he lays, 
 
 **** + *♦* 
 
 He for his bleeding country prays to Heaven, 
 
 Prays that the men of blood themselves may be forgiven." 
 
 He survived the massacre but a short time. The misfor- 
 tunes of that day carried down his grey hairs with sorrow to 
 the grave. 
 
 Of the brave and determined Captain Robert McKean, 
 what shall we say — of him who knew no danger and feared 
 no man, who challenged to the combat the great chieftain 
 and captain of the Si^ N^ations, Joseph Brant Thayendana- 
 gea. What shall we say of the eccentric though fearless 
 Robert Shankland, who defended his house single handed, 
 with the exception of his sou,* a lad of 14, against a consid- 
 erable body of Indians, and who abandoned it only when it 
 was about to be consumed over him by the flames. Where 
 are they all, with the Gaults and the Dicksons, and the 
 Ramseys and the Wilsons, who first planted here the seeds 
 of civilization ? These are questions of a solemn nature, 
 which crowd themselves upon our minds upon occasions 
 like the present. The century has rolled away and left its 
 impress for good or for evil. Of the early settlers not one 
 survives. Their children and their children's children occu- 
 py the places of some, and the voices of strangers are heard 
 in the dwellings of others. They have all been gathered to 
 their resting places, and the ashes of most of them sleep 
 
 * The late Thomas Shankland of Cooperstown. 
 3 
 
26 
 
 quietly in yonder grave-yard. The clods of the valley are 
 upon them, to be removed only at the general resiirrectioa. 
 
 "The breezy call of incense breathing morn, 
 The swallow twittering fron his straw built shed, 
 The cock's shrill clarion and the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed," 
 
 In the last ten years what ravages has death made in our 
 little valley, I miss amid the scenes of my childhood many 
 of the familiar faces of those who once greeted my return to 
 the home of my fathers. They are also numbered with the 
 great host of the departed, and their places are fast filling 
 with those who knew them not. Among the leading men 
 we might mention the elder and younger Drs. White, both 
 eminent physicians, Col. James Cannon, Isaac Seelye, 
 Esq., and James 0. Morse, Esq., both able lawyers, Jesse 
 Johnson, Erastus Johnson, William C. Dickson, William 
 Story, Alfred Crafts, with many others, who but a day since 
 were living, and whose faces it seems as if I ought now to 
 see before me. 
 
 James O. Morse, Esq , always took a deep interest in the 
 history of this place and in thecharacter of its early inhabitants. 
 He was born in Marlboro, in the county of Middlesex. Mas- 
 sachusetts, in 17S8, and removed with his parents when 5 
 years of age to the county of Oneida,in this .'^tate, and when 
 that county was almost a wilderness. Familiar as he was 
 with the biographies of most of the frontier inhabitants who 
 had in any way distinguished themselves, his conversation 
 in relation to such subjects was peculiarly interesting and 
 instructive. Many years ai>o he spoke to me of this anni- 
 versary, and had his life been spared he would have taken 
 a deep interest in the proceedings of this day. 
 
 Allow me to mention ano her name conDected di- 
 rectly with the first settlement of Cherry Val.ey, I 
 
27 
 
 mean Deacon John Gault. Humble was his sphere of 
 life. Poverty, and many of the ills which flesh is heir 
 to, sickness and decrepitude, were his portion on the 
 earth. But with a christian spirit which rose above them 
 all, he drank with cheerfulness the cup given him to drink 
 in life, and looked forward with peace and joy to that bet- 
 ter world, where sorrow and sighing are no more, where the 
 ■wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 
 Who has not observed his cheerful and contented counte- 
 nance, as he entered the sanctuary on a sabbath morn, lean- 
 ing on his staff, his only aid while plodding along over the 
 tedious miles which intervened between his residence and 
 that sanctuary. Who has not listened to his truly eloquent 
 and appropriate prayers. If he was a christian, he was 
 also a patriot. This day he would have delighted to honor. 
 But he, too, our old and familiar friend, has been gathered to 
 his fathers in peace. His virtues should be imitated, for 
 they were great, and it is but fitting that on this occasion 
 this passing tribute should be paid to his memory. 
 
 We miss also many others who commenced with us the 
 race of life. A part of them still live, and are pursuing 
 their various occupations either in our own wide spread 
 country, or in distant lands. IVlany of them also have gone 
 the way of all the living. Some died at home in the pre- 
 sence of their friends, and sleep now quietly beside those 
 who gave them being. Others have been cut ofl" in the 
 prime of life, and have fallen faraway from their kindred; 
 and one,* endeared to many of us by her talents, her piety, 
 and her moral courage, has recently departed, and her re- 
 mains repose in the cemetery of the Nestorian christians, 
 within the sacred precincts of the first christian church 
 planted by the Magi of Persia, and within the confines of 
 
 * Mrs. Grant, adopted daughter of Dr. William Campbell of 
 Cherry Valley, and late missionary at Oroomiah, Persia. 
 
28 
 
 that city in Central Asia, where the far famed Zoroaster in 
 ages gone by, first lit up the fires of philosophy. 
 
 We might add many other names to the list. As we run 
 over the catalogue of departed relatives and friends, we are 
 forcibly reminded how frail and brittle is the chord which 
 binds us to life. In the morning we see our friends around 
 us, and in health, and ere the sun goes down the golden 
 bowl is broken at the cistern, the dust returns to the dust from 
 whence it was taken, and the spirit unto God who gave it. 
 
 Of this large assembly now before me, in all human pro- 
 bability not one will open his eyes upon the morning of the 
 4th of July, 1940. Long ere that even the inscriptions upon 
 our tombstones may be obliterated, and our descendants may 
 look in vain for the green hillocks which mark our resting 
 places. 
 
 But as those who gave us being, labored and toiled for 
 our best interests, so our duty is to transmit to those 
 who shall come after us, the inheritance which we have 
 received, of a free government, religious liberty, and all 
 the blessings of civilization. To discharge that duty 
 successfully, we should as far as is in our power, labor to 
 advance the cause of virtue and education, and in this re- 
 spect to follow in the footsteps of our fathers. 
 
 The age in which we live, is an age of bustle, toil and 
 enterprize. But it is by no means a merely useful or a 
 superficial age. The great principles of civil liberty, of 
 the rights of conscience, and of freedom of opinion, were 
 never better understood, or more practically enforced. 
 
 It is an age, too, when much is required of us all. Yes, of 
 us, a part and parcel of that great Anglo-Saxon race, which 
 now bids fair to carry our own native language and its lit- 
 erature over a great part of the world. Over all the North 
 American continent — along the shores of the Pacific, in the 
 West Indies, in Great Britain, over the eastern coast of 
 
29 
 
 Africa, at the Cape of Good Hope, throughout many of the 
 islands of the Pacific, and along the southern part of Asia, 
 the language which we speak is fast spreading itself, and 
 bids fair to become in these regions the only language. 
 Like Aaron's rod it is swallowing up the rest. 
 
 What changes have been produced during the last hun- 
 dred years ! Society has been revolutionized throughout the 
 greater part of the civilized world. The political elements 
 of all Europe have been violently agitated, and though the 
 forms of government have not ,been materially altered, the 
 freedom of the citizen has been in many instances greatly 
 enlarged. In our own country, the changes as we run over 
 them with a rapid glance, appear to have been magical. 
 Our own empire State, which in 174U was an English 
 Colony, and numbering little more than one hundred thou- 
 sand souls, now tells her children by millions.* The scat- 
 tered English Colonies of North America, then feeble, and 
 with some million and a half of people stretching for thou- 
 sands of miles along the sea-board, and looking up to England 
 for support and protection, as infant children to a mother, 
 now present the proud spectacle of a united nation, standing 
 in the front rank, with her canvass whitening every sea, with 
 vast resources, with gigantic internal improvements in the 
 separate States, and with nearly twenty millions of freemen 
 reposing in security beneath the folds of her star spangled 
 banner. 
 
 Could we be permitted to draw aside the curtain which 
 veils futurity and look into coming years — could we cause 
 to pass before us as a moving panorama, our country as it 
 will present itself a hundred years hence, what an interesting 
 view should we behold. For myself, I can but believe that 
 we shall continue a united people, that the strong ties of 
 
 * Note D. 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 interest which have hitherto bound us together, will continue 
 unbroken, and be strengthened by the continually increas- 
 ing facilities of communication between the distant parts 
 of our widely extended country. In that event this nation, 
 judging from the past, will in all probability occupy the 
 greater part of all North America, will number at least fifty 
 millions of inhabitants, and stand in the van of the civi- 
 lized nations of the earth. 
 
 We are here a small community, and our influence and 
 our efforts may not be widely felt ; but while we live, we 
 can labor in our various circles to promote peace and har- 
 mony among the different States of our Union, and dying, 
 we can leave the injunction to our children. We can urge 
 upon them to look back upon their common descent, to 
 consider their common inheritance, and to look forward to 
 a common destiny. 
 
 And standing here, and looking back upon the century 
 which has just ended, and upon its history which is certain, 
 and looking forward to the century before us, whose history 
 Is uncertain, may I not in the name of this assembly in- 
 voke and enjoin the rising generation, our children, and 
 our children's children, to preserve unimpaired the institu- 
 tions which we commit to them, and to maintain unbroken 
 our glorious union. 
 
 To them 1 would say, as you enter into possession of this 
 goodly land, as you walk forth and look upon the hill and 
 upon the valley, upon the river rolling in power, and upon 
 the brook that sparkles at your feet, as you listen to the 
 sighing of the breeze as it moves gently through the forest, 
 and to the music of the feathered songsters, as they warble 
 forth their notes of praise — when the breath of the morn- 
 ing fans you, and you inhale the scented air as it comes to 
 you over the green meadow and the opening flower — re- 
 member that these blessings, though in some degree com- 
 
31 
 
 mon to all mankind, are no less the special gift to you from 
 your Creator, and that for the same blessings your fathers 
 returned thanks to the great Giver of them all. 
 
 As you enter upon the glorious inheritance of civil and 
 religious liberty, upon the blessings and enjoyments of Chris- 
 tianity and civilization, and behold the proud monuments 
 of your country's greatness, may you remember that in by- 
 gone times your ancestors toiled and sacrificed their pro- 
 perty and their lives in the purchase of that inheritance, 
 and that they thus consecrated it by their tears, their prayers, 
 and their blood. 
 
 We commit then that inheritance to your keeping. It is 
 your as well as our birthright. And may he who at the 
 close of another hundred years shall be permitted to stand 
 up and deliver over to his fellow citizens the record of that 
 century, be enabled to say as we can this day — blessed be 
 the land of our birth — and blessed be the memory, and 
 honored be the names of those who have entrusted that 
 inheritance to us. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 GOVERNOR W. H. SEWARD, 
 
 LETTERS, TOASTS, «fcc. 
 
 At the dinner table, Robert Campbell, Esq., of 
 Cooperstown, presiding, after the removal of the cloth the 
 following prefatory remarks and toasts were offered by 
 Judge Hammond. 
 
 *' One hundred years ago the rich lawn which overspreads 
 this beautiful Valley, was first pressed by the foot of civilized 
 man. Sixty-four years ago the sun rose on a population 
 sparsely scattered over the fairest portion of a great Conti- 
 nent, dependent upon and governed by a Monarch, separa- 
 ted from them by an ocean three thousand miles in width. 
 That same sun set upon that same people free and indepen- 
 dent. 
 
 "Since that day the tide of our national prosperity, 
 (thanks to a beneficent Providence,) has flowed quietly and 
 steadily onward, and we are now a great, free, and happy 
 nation. No wonder then, that on this double celebration, 
 every countenance I behold is lighted with joy and exulta- 
 tion. Party jealousies and political differences, those small- 
 er evils which always accompany that best gift of Heaven, 
 liberty, can have no place here. All of us admire the for- 
 titude, and lament the sufferings, and venerate the virtues, 
 
33 
 
 and exult in the success of the patriotic Pioneers — all re- 
 joice in the Independence of this country — and all cordial- 
 ly approve of the principles which excited our fathers to de- 
 clare that Independence. To add still higher to the enjoy- 
 ment of the festivities of the day, we have heen honored 
 with the presence of the venerable and venerated head of 
 the Literary Institutions of the Empire State, (whose shin- 
 ing talents and high personal merit would render him an 
 ornament to any Literary Institution on the Globe,) and of 
 his Excellency the Governor of the State. He, too, who is 
 emphatically the Representative of the whole people of 
 New-York, on this our national jubilee, has chosen to re- 
 pose himself upon this quiet spot in the troubled ocean of 
 political life. 
 
 "Although at other times the spirit of party may howl 
 around ; here, on this hallowed day, without one discordant 
 note, all hearts unite in the shout for Independence, Liber- 
 ty, Union, and the Constitution. 
 
 *< Mr. President : In behalf af the Committee of Ar- 
 rangements, I take great pleasure, and I am sure it will be 
 highly gratifying to this company while I propose to you the 
 health of 
 
 "Our Felloiv-Citizen,Wii.j.i\m H. Seward, Governor 
 of this State — of the Empire State. We hail his appear- 
 ance on an occasion so interesting, and we appreciate the 
 honor he does us by becoming our guest. 
 
 " No higher evidence can be furnished of exalted talents 
 and distinguished personal merit, than an election to the 
 first office in the State by the voluntary suffrages of a greats 
 free, intelligent, and virtuous people." 
 
 The Governor replied as follows : 
 
 Ours is a country in which all that is oM is yet new. 
 We may deceive ourselves with the belief that we have an* 
 
34 
 
 tiquity, but we no where find its ruins. I have been im- 
 pressed with this in looking upon the celebration of the 
 foundation of this beautiful town, while all around me are 
 the evidences of youthful ness and prosperity. I have al- 
 ways desired to visit this place so long an outpost of civili- 
 zation in the western forests. Your annals have been made 
 interesting by the fortitude, energy, and enterprise of your 
 forefathers, and memorable by the perils, privations, and 
 desolations of savage warfare. I have desired to see for 
 myself the vallies of Otsego, through which the Susquehan- 
 nah extends his arms and entwines his fingers with the tri- 
 butaries of the Mohawk, as if to divert that gentle river 
 from its allegiance to the Hudson. If I could have chosen 
 the time for a visit here it would have been on this occa- 
 sion, when the political excitement, unavoidable in a coun- 
 try where the conduct of rulers is watched with the jealousy 
 of freemen, is temporarily allayed, and the discordant ele- 
 ments of party strife are hushed under the influence of re- 
 collections of a common ancestry, and common sufferings 
 in the cause of liberty. 
 
 Our gifted orator has given us your entire local and do- 
 mestic history. Does it not seem strange that so many ex- 
 traordinary changes, so many important events, and so many 
 thrilling incidents have occured in the lapse of a hundred 
 years. A hundred years I how short a period! That life 
 is considered short which does not reach fifty years, and 
 that one is only very long which comprises a hundred. A 
 hundred years ! A hundred times this period of twelve 
 months which the Earth requires for the irrigation of its 
 soil and the production of fruits ; a hundred times this 
 circle of three hundred and sixty-five days : days that so 
 often pass like a dream and are unnoted 'but by their loss.' 
 Who that places a tomb stone in the village church-yard to 
 the memory of a departed friend, would not sigh to think 
 
35 
 
 that that monument of his affection will fall to the earth 
 and his friend occupy an undistinguished grave within a 
 hundred years? Who, that establishes a Constitution, in- 
 vents an engine, teaches a new science, or founds a new 
 sect, would be content that his community, his invention, 
 his science, or his creed shall give place to new discoveries 
 wi hin a hundred years? Yet a hundred years is no un- 
 important portion of time. It includes the periods of four 
 generations. In a single century four thousand millions of 
 human beings appear on the earth, act their busy parts and 
 sink into its peaceful bosom. A little more than half that 
 period carries us back to the time when this great and free 
 empire, now respected in every land, had no place among the 
 nations of the earth. Only a hundred times has the scythe 
 passed over this valley since your ancestors pursued their 
 weary way up the Mohawk and over these hills, and planted 
 here the first settlement of the Anglo-Saxon race west of 
 the H udson. They found the Six Nations here as confident 
 of perpetual enjoyment of this fair land as we now are. 
 And yet so soon the tide of emigration has flowed over this 
 valley and filled the vallies of the Ohio, and the Wabash, 
 and the Mississippi, and the Missouri, and now scarcely 
 the name of the Six Nations remains. Only twice a 
 hundred years have elapsed since the first navigator enter- 
 ed the Bay of New York, and not four centuries have pass- 
 ed since Columbus astonished the world with the discovery 
 of this great continent. It is only ten centuries since all 
 Europe moved by wild fanaticism poured her embattled 
 hosts upon the fields of Palestine, and less than sixty 
 times a hundred years, according to an accustomed chro- 
 nology, carry us back to the epoch when there was no time, 
 nor light, nor life, nor earth, nor heavens, and God said 
 let all these be, and they were. 
 
 W^e have reviewed the record of the last hundred years 
 
36 
 
 concerning the inhabitants of this beautiful valley. What 
 is its more general history, and what is its promise of the 
 future? Alas! that it must be said, although the spirit of 
 Christianity has diffused a wider and warmer influence 
 than ever before, yet the last century like the fifty seven 
 that preceded it has been filled with the calamities of man- 
 kind. It dawned upon one blood scene of war, extending 
 throughout England, Russia, Prussia, Poland, Spain, Bava- 
 ria, Sardinia and France. Through a period of eighty 
 years, with the occasional intervals of partial peace, the fires 
 of war burned over the continent of Europe after extend- 
 ing desolation into Asia, Africa, and even this new and re- 
 mote continent, until within our own recollection the 
 world's great disturber was contined on the rock of St. He- 
 lena and the exhausted nations found repose and peace. 
 No nation has escaped the evils of war, and tew have been 
 exempt from revolution. Hostile armies have overrun 
 France, Holland, Saxony, Belgium, Bavaria, Sardinia, 
 Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Prussia, and other 
 German States, Poland, Russia and Switzerland, Egypt 
 and Persia and all the States of North and South America. 
 Some maintained their sovereignty, some received their in- 
 dependence, but others have gone down forever. No won- 
 der that the pious and benevolent poet exclaimed, 
 
 " My ear is pain'd, 
 My soul is sick, with every day's report 
 Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd." 
 
 The occupation of man has been war, his ambition con- 
 quest, his enjoyment rapine and bloodshed. 
 
 Yet dark as the picture of the last century seems, it is 
 relieved by lights more cheering than any that has shone 
 upon our race in the previous course of time. The human 
 mind has advanced with unparalleled rapidity in discoveries 
 
37 
 
 in science and the arts. Civilization has been carried into 
 new regions, and has distributed more equally than ever here- 
 tofore the enjoyments and comforts of life. — The education 
 which a hundred years ago was a privilege of the few, is now 
 acknowledged to be the right of all. What were luxuries a hun- 
 dred years ago, are common enjoyments now. A renovating 
 spirit is abroad in the world. The slave trade, a hundred 
 years ago regarded as lawful commerce by all Christian na- 
 tions is now denounced as piracy by most civilized States, 
 and the rights of man are secured by benign and whole- 
 some laws. All expense and delay in passing and trans- 
 portation from place to place are an incumbrance upon hu- 
 man labor. Yet it seems as if it were but yesterday since 
 we learned that burthens may be more cheaply carried on 
 parallel iron rails than on the rough and unequal surface of 
 the ground, and now rail-roads are common thorough-fares, 
 and animal force is too feeble an agent for locomotion. A 
 gentleman upon whom age seemed to have lightly laid his 
 hand, has told me that less than forty years since he dined 
 with Chancellor Livingston at Paris. The party was com- 
 posed of statesmen and men of science. The patience of 
 the guests was exhausted by a visionary youth named Ful- 
 ton, who engrossed the conversation by an argument to 
 prove that if he could obtain a small fund he could con- 
 struct a boat to be propelled by the power of steam and navi- 
 gate the Hudson river with the velocity of four miles an 
 hour! Those who reflect upon the rapidity with which 
 intelligence, social, commercial and political, is diffused 
 throughout our country and the civilized world, will hardly 
 believe that a hundred years ago scarcely a dozen vessels 
 arrived in all our ports from Europe, and that seventy-six 
 years ago a mail coach was unknown. The object of all 
 government is the welfare of the governed, yet it is only 
 sixty.fi ve years since this model of practical, permapent and 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
 free republican government was set up for the maintenance 
 of American liberty, and to animate the hopes and efforts of 
 mankind. The religion of the cross is carried farther and 
 more eftectiveij now, than under the banner of Constan- 
 tine or even the preaching of the Apostles, The philoso- 
 phy of Bacon, and the Newtonian and Copernican systems 
 were taught a hundred years ago, and alchymy after long 
 abuses of the credulity of mankind had introduced the ele- 
 ments of Chemistry, but the practical advantages resulting 
 from all these sciences have been realized chiefly within a 
 hundred years. 
 
 I lately met the secretary of an Eastern Prince. He 
 was a man of education and refinement, and had been se- 
 lected by his master to make a gorgeous present of Eeastern 
 luxuries acceptable to the President of the United States. 
 We were standing near an almost speaking bust of Wash- 
 ington. I asked him if he knew the likeness. He an- 
 swered in the negative. I told him it was Washington, the 
 deliverer, the father of our country, but he had never read, 
 had never heard of Washington. I confess I was aston- 
 ished to find a man who had never read or heard of Wash- 
 ington, but I was no longer surprised that the Sultan of Mus- 
 cat was a despot and his subjects slaves. If the prin- 
 ciples of civil liberty are so imperfectly understood now^ 
 what could have been the condition of human rights before 
 the day of Sicard, La Fayette, Wilberforce, Paine, Jeffer- 
 son, Hamilton and Washington. How obscure must have 
 been the science of laws before Montesquieu, Puffendorf, 
 Blackstone, Benthem and Livingston reduced it to form 
 and symmetry. How limited would be our knowledge of 
 history if we were deprived of the writings of Rollin, Rob- 
 ertson, Leland, Hume, Gillies, Littleton, Priestly, Marshall, 
 Russel, Roscoe, Gibbon, Hallam and Raynal. How has 
 the human mind been enlightened in that most mysterious 
 
39 
 
 of all mysteries, itself, by the philosophy of Stuart, Reid and 
 Brown. How has theology and moral science been en- 
 riched by Edwards, Jenyns, Paley, Zimmerman, Johnson 
 and Ferguson. In natural philosophy what a blank 'would 
 be produced by striking out the discoveries of Herschell, 
 Halle, Franklin, Davy, Rumford and Delonti. — How profit- 
 less would be our researches in natural history, without Lin- 
 liseus and BufFon for our guides. What would we have 
 known of political economy but for the writings of Malthus, 
 Smith and Say. We can scarcely conceive of literature 
 destitute of the works of Cowper, Pope, Thompson, Beat- 
 tie, Gray, Gay, Goldsmith, Johnson, McPherson, Roscoe, 
 Scott, Burns, Goethe, Byron and Moore. In even such a 
 superficial review as this of the contributions of the last 
 century to the knowledge, virtue and happiness of our race, 
 we forget that the human mind has been two thirds of the 
 whole period stretched in extreme tension in the excite- 
 ment of war, and that what it has accomplished in the way 
 <of science and art, has been done in its occasional seasons 
 of repose from the study and occupation of arms, that what 
 has been expended in establishing schools, colleges and 
 seminaries, and in making roads and canals, has been only 
 what has been saved from the prodigality of war. Happy, 
 thrice happy, will it be for us and for mankind if we extract 
 from the history of the last century its true philosophy. 
 Among its instructions are of a certainty these truths. 
 That peace is indispensable to the improvement and happi- 
 ness of man, that improvement is his highest duty, and 
 arts, not arms, his right occupation. That Republican 
 Government resting upon equal and universal suffrage can 
 only secure an exemption from the ambition of conquest 
 and the popular discontents which involve nations in foreign 
 wars and civil commotions. That a Republican Govern- 
 ment resting upon universal and equal suffrage can only b,Q 
 
40 
 
 maintained in a community where education is universally 
 enjoyed, and where internal improvements bind together 
 the various portions of a country in a community of interest 
 and affection. Let us then extend our system of schools 
 and our churches, and take care that every child in the state, 
 whatever be his faith, his language, his condition or his cir- 
 cumstances, or those of his parents, is brought to the instruc- 
 tion of these schools and churches. Let us do this, and let us 
 put on steam upon the land, and steam upon the river and the 
 sea, and the glorious career upon which our country has just 
 entered will continue to be more successful and more glori- 
 ous still. Those who shall celebrate the next centennial 
 aniversary will bless our memories, and the great prediction 
 of our religion will no longer seem apocryphal, that a time 
 is coming when the nations shall live in peace and the 
 knowledge of the Lord shall extend over the whole earth. 
 
 By the Governor. Cherry Valley, fortunate in the fer- 
 tility of its soil, and in the intelligence and virtues of its 
 inhabitants, its early annals constitute a chapter of most 
 thrilling interest in the history of the State. 
 
 James Brackett, Esq. then rose and expressed the senti- 
 ments of the company towards the Rev. Dr. Nott, in the 
 following words : 
 
 Vulgar errors have hitherto prevailed among men, and 
 still prevail, notwithstanding the s flood of light which has 
 recently been shed on society. One of the most prevalent, 
 at the present time, is the opinion, that wit and wisdom, 
 profound thinking and popular eloquence cannot dwell to- 
 gether ; that if one be a wit, he cannot be grave and scien- 
 tific ; if he be a deep thinker, he must be perpetually enga- 
 ged with abstractions, and cannot be imbued with divine 
 philosophy, and the best, holiest and lofliest feelings of 
 our nature. The biography of the ancients, to which it is 
 
41 
 
 unnecessary to recur for examples, would give the lie to the 
 theory. Britain, our mother country, at a comparatively re- 
 cent period, has effectually contradicted it in the persoias of 
 ^acon, Milton and Burke. The ilUi^trious dead of our 
 own young country have also done enough to correct the 
 error in Henry, Franklin, Hamilton and Ames. If fur- 
 ther proof were wanting, we have a living and striking ex- 
 ample before us in the person of our distinguished orator 
 and guest. Dr. Nott : eloquent, imaginative, learned, philo- 
 sophical and profound at the same time. Honor to his name. 
 
 These toasts at the suggestion of Dr. Nott were drank 
 without wine or other alcoholic liquor. Exhaustion from 
 the fatigues of the day prevented President Nott from res- 
 ponding to the sentiment offered by Mr. Brackett. 
 
 The following regular toasts were then drank accompa- 
 nied by the firing of cannon. 
 
 REGULAR TOASTS. 
 
 1st. The natal day of our Independence, one of the days 
 we celebrate. It will be memorable for the good of the 
 human family from 1776 to the end of man's history. 
 
 2nd. Old Otsego : Cherry Valley :— Her pioneer settle- 
 ment commenced a hundred years ago by civilized man : — 
 never before so honoured as on this day ; though her young, 
 er sisters in the mighty west, have eclipsed her in wealth 
 and population, yet the patriotism of her sons never sleeps 
 nor tires. 
 
 3rd. Constitutional Union — The ark of safety : the hope 
 of the civilized world. May no paricidial arm be stretched 
 forth to dismember it : if so, let that arm perish. 
 
 4th. Washington — The name of names : the hero of 
 heroes : the statesman of statesmen: he could and did con- 
 quer self: moreover he conquered for his country : the 
 
 4' 
 
42 
 
 whole of the new and most of the old world are vocal with 
 his praises. 
 
 5th. Our Army and Navy — The first composed of citi- 
 zen soldiers : the lastof tars ever ready to defend the striped 
 bunting. 
 
 6th. The President of the United States. 
 7th. Our Judiciary — Hitherto among the proudest monu- 
 ments of the wisdom of our ancestors. May those who 
 occupy its high seats, ever hereafter as heretofore, be intel- 
 ligent and honest ; then will " life, liberty, and the pursuits 
 of happiness," be safe> free, and equal to all. 
 
 8th. The Signers of the Declaration of Independence — 
 All gone : but the memorial of their devotion to liberty, to 
 Country, are perennial, and can never fade or die. 
 
 9th. New York — Prominent, if not pre-eminent, among 
 ner sister States for wealth, population and enterprise : her 
 march in improvement is still onward. 
 
 10th. The Governor and Liewt. Governor of our noble 
 State. 
 
 11th. Our Common Schools. — Under proper discipline, 
 the nurseries of integrity, industry and intelligence : when 
 the foundation is surely laid, the superstructure will stand : 
 when the basement is well lighted, those aloft can see : and 
 the spoilers of equal rights will be discomfited. 
 
 12th. Colleges — Well endowed ; wisely conducted : the 
 brightest jewels in the diadem of national glory. 
 
 13th. The surviving Soldiers of the Revolution — Alas ! 
 how few, and pressed by the hand of time, together with the 
 glorious band of their departed brethern : the measure of 
 their honor and renown is full : having been instruments, 
 under God, of bringing about the largest liberty, consistent 
 with public order and security, and individual safety and 
 happiness. 
 
43 
 
 The following letters which had been received by the 
 Committee of Arrangements were then read. 
 
 From the Hon. William C. Bouch, 
 
 Fulton, June 26, 1840. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 I have the honour to acknowlede the receipt of your polite 
 invitation, under the date of 10th instant, to join the 
 Citizens of Cherry Valley, on the 4th day oflJuly next, in 
 a Centennial celebration of the first settlement of that 
 place. 
 
 It would give me great pleasure to meet my fellow citi- 
 zens of Cherry Valley, on the 4th of July, but I regret [to 
 say, it will not be convenient for me to do so. 
 
 The painful revolutionary incidents connected with Cher- 
 ry Valley are scarcely equalled in their atrocity. 
 
 The inhabitants of my native county (Schoharie) were at 
 the period alluded to, and are now your neighbours ; and 
 like those of Cherry Valley, at the settlement of the Country, 
 and in the war of the Revolution, drank deep the cup of suf. 
 fering and affliction ! 
 
 Please to accept the following sentiment. 
 
 The Citizens of the town of Cherry Valley ; may they 
 cherish in grateful recollection the privations and suffer- 
 ings of the first settlers ; may they properly estimate the 
 price paid for liberty, and may they appreciate the value of 
 institutions which secure to the Citizen equal rights and 
 
 privileges. 
 
 Your Obedient Servant, 
 
 Wm. C. Bouck. 
 
 By Wm. Campbell, Esq. 
 
 William C. Bouck — A descendant of the German Pio- 
 neers of the Valley of the Schoharie River. His talents 
 
44 
 
 anti integi-lty and purity of character are an honour tohiV pa- 
 triotic ancestors. 
 
 From the Hon. Levi Beardsley. 
 
 Oswego, June 29, 1840. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 Your respective favours have been received inviting me 
 to attend a Centennial anniversary of the settlement o^f 
 Cherry Yalley, on the 4th of July next, and advising me of 
 my appointment as one of the Committee of Arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 To meet my old associates, the Citizens of Cherrey Val- 
 ley, and to unite with them in the usual exercises of our 
 National Anniversary, would of itself afford a strong in- 
 ducement; but the present occasion, uniting the National 
 celebration, (dear to all Americans) with that of commemo- 
 rating the settlement of your beautiful and romantic valley 
 after 100 years have gone since that interesting event, ren- 
 ders an attendance and participation in your festivities far 
 more desirable, and enhances its value in a tenfold degree. 
 
 To contemplate with you, and with your friends in 
 attendance, the stupendous results that have followed the 
 train of events since the Pioneers first scaled the barriers 
 that surround you, and gave life, and vigour, and civili- 
 zation, where all was stillness and the solitude of nature, 
 save only as interrupted by the wild man of the forest, must 
 afford a mental gratification that cannot but be appreciated 
 by all, unless dead to the vivifying influences of philosophy, 
 morals, literature, arts, and religion. 
 
 I can assure you with the utmost sincerity that your town 
 and your citizens rank high in my estimation. It is the 
 birth-place of my children, and has been my residence for 
 30 years, and that too during the best portion of my life. 
 
 To suppose that I would so long remain among you, and 
 
45 
 
 yet imagine that strong attachments had not been formed, 
 would imply an absence of the sympathies and refined sen- 
 sibilities of life, and a palpable libel upon human nature. 
 
 My business and engagements are such that I cannot 
 be with you : but I beg you to accept my thanks for your 
 kind remembrance of me, and desire you to "assure your 
 (and my) friends that my absence must not be imputed to 
 the want of proper appreciation of the interesting ceremo- 
 nies and festivities contemplated, or a just estimate of your 
 (and their) personal worth, and respectful attention. 
 
 You will allow me to propose the following sentiment;, 
 while I again assure you of my continued kind respects and 
 regards, and subscribe myself, 
 
 Your obdient Servant, 
 
 Levi Beardsley. 
 
 Cherry Valley and its Citizens. — " If I forget thee, let 
 my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave 
 to the roof of my mouth." 
 
 To W. S. Hammond, Secretary, and William Campbell, 
 Chairman of the Com. of Arrangements. 
 
 By Mason Fitch, Esq. 
 
 Levi Beardsley — The kind neighbour, the useful citi- 
 zen, the clear sighted and able Legislator, and the faithful 
 friend. — While we regret his removal from us, he carries 
 with him our cordial wishes for his prosperity and happi- 
 ness. 
 
 From the Hon. Sherman Page. 
 
 Unadilla, June 22, 1840. 
 Gentlemen: 
 
 Your polite and kind letter inviting me to a participation 
 with you in the festivities of a Centennial celebration resolv- 
 ed on by the Citizens of your Town, to take place on the 
 
46 
 
 4th of July now approaching, reached me through the mail 
 this morning. 
 
 I beg you to accept for yourselves and for the indepen- 
 dent and patriotic yeomanry of your Town, for whom you 
 act, as a Committee of Arrangements, assurances of my 
 gratitude and respect, and although I am unable from en- 
 gagements heretofore made, to be with you in person on 
 that day, yet you have my best wishes, and the following 
 santiment. 
 
 Cherry Valley, beloved, and elder sister of the 22 in the 
 family of the good old Otsego, from her frontier and expos- 
 ed situation during a great portion of the last Century has 
 often put on the habiliments of woe. May her future happi- 
 ness and prosperity be uninterrupted. 
 
 Very Respectfully yours, 
 
 Sherman Page. 
 
 By James Hetherington, Esq., Supervisor of the town of 
 Cherry Valley. 
 
 Sherman Page, late Representative in Congress from 
 the County of Otsego ; we regret his absence from our fes- 
 tive board. 
 
 From Gen. Jacob Morris, of ButlermUis. 
 
 Butternutts, June 19, 1840. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 I was yesterday favoured with your invitation to pass the 
 ensuing 4th of July in commemoration of the Centennial 
 celebration of the Citizens of Cherry Valley, on the first 
 founding of your beautiful village. 
 
 It would afford me great pleasure to be with you on that 
 interesting occasion, but the defect of sight, one of the in- 
 -fjrrraties of age, which has come upon me, must deprive me 
 
47 
 
 of that honour. Wishing you however a happy day, I re* 
 main, Gentlemen, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Jacob Morris. 
 
 From Jlrchihald Campbell, Esq. 
 
 Albany, June 30, 1840. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 I have received the letter of the Committee of Arrange- 
 ments of Cherry Valley of which you are chairman, stating 
 that this summer completes one hundred years since that 
 town was first inhabited by civilized man — that the citi- 
 zens thereof have resolved on a Centennial celebration of 
 that event on the 4th of July next, and inviting me to parti- 
 cipate with them in the festivities of that day. 
 
 Permit me through you to tender to the Committee my 
 sincere thanks for their kind invitation, and assure them 
 that it would give me great pleasure to participate with 
 them on so interesting an occasion, but on account of busi- 
 ness that cannot be dispensed with, I shall be obliged to 
 remain here. 
 
 Although the inhabitants are generally to join in this Cen- 
 tennial celebration, yet I presume from what I have heard 
 you say heretofore, that many of our clan will be present, 
 particularly the descendants of your enterprising progenitor, 
 who was one of the first settlers of that romantic and cele- 
 brated region. I would it were in my power to add even 
 one more to the number of Sliochd Dhiarmid, who shall be 
 there assembled. But as that cannot be, my sincere wish 
 is that all of whatever name, who may assemble with you 
 to honor the memory of the pioneers, and to celebrate the 
 anniversary of our national Independence with sincere and 
 honest hearts, may have their anticipations fully realized ; 
 and, moreover, that prosperity and happiness may be multi- 
 
48 
 
 plied to the residents of Cherry Valley during the coming 
 Century. 
 
 Yours, with great respect, 
 
 Archibald Campbell. 
 William Campbell, Esq. 
 
 From Jllvan Stuart, Esq. 
 
 Utica, June 18, 1840. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Your polite and kind invitation to be present at the com- 
 ing festivities consequent upon the Centennial Celebration 
 of the settlement of Cherry Valley, on the 4th of July next, 
 as one of the Committee of Arrangements, gave me consid- 
 erable pain, in reflecting how much pleasure I must forego 
 in not being present on that solemn and interesting epoch 
 in the life of your town. 
 
 The last quarter of the century you are about to celebrate 
 was nearly passed by me in Cherry Valley. It comprises 
 the noontide of my existence, and that which will influence 
 in some degree, for Weal or woe, my coming years ; as 
 well as that of my posterity, more or less for years to come. 
 But when 1 remember that town has been the theatre of so 
 much sorrow ; yes, of some of the most tragic scenes of 
 which man can be a victim, in the different stages of socie- 
 ty through which one hundred years may bring our race — 
 the sad remembrances of so many of my compeers in life 
 who have lain down under the weight of existence, before 
 reaching its ordinary limit, I could wish to be with you, but 
 rather to weep than rejoice ; yet I should rejoice that I could 
 weep for my poor brother man. But I cannot come, as on the 
 4th, I am to pronounce the Oration at Syracuse. 
 
 But I hope it may be a day long to be remembered by all 
 present, as they can never celebrate it again. That plea- 
 sure belongs to the generation of 1940, the oldest of whom 
 has not yet raised his head, or made a single bubble on the 
 
49 
 
 ocean of time. Who will they be ? I hope many of them 
 may be the descendants of the men and women who are 
 playing their parts there now ; but whoever they may be, we 
 ■are well assured thuy can never be exposed to the class of 
 dangers and sorrows which have been so eventful in the 
 Hves of those of the by-gone century. 
 
 With affectionate esteem, I am your friend, 
 
 A Stewart. 
 To Wells S. Hammond, Esq. Secretary, &c. &c. 
 
 From the Hon. Peter J. Wagner, member of Congress 
 from the county oj Montgomery 
 
 City of Washington, June 19, 1840. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 I return you my grateful acknowledgements for the hon- 
 our of being invited, in behalf of the Committee, to attend 
 your contemplated Centennial celebration at Cherry Valley, 
 on the 4th proximo. Were it compatible with my public 
 relations, it would indeed afford me the highest gratification 
 to unite with you and your patriotic fellow-citizens in com- 
 memoration, both of our National jubilee, and of the '^ perils 
 and fortitude of the Pioneers" of the western frontier of New 
 York, one hundred years since — the period in the annals of, 
 our Colonial history when the first "Anglo-Saxon settlement 
 west of Albany," was made in your village ; nor, need you 
 be assured, sir, that the presence among you on that day, of 
 the distinguished and highly respected President of Union 
 College, would, in no small degree, impart to me an ad- 
 ditional inducement. But as the session will be protracted 
 beyond our ever memorable "Foitr//i," it will be the irk- 
 some lot of myself and others, to celebrate that day in the 
 House of Representatives, by being intent upon the " Sub. 
 Treasury," or some other bill, of interest to the nation. I 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 very sincerely regret, therefore, that I shall be unable to par- 
 ticipate in your festivities, and beg that you will, for your- 
 self and the committee, accept this assurance. 
 I remain, dear sir, your 
 
 friend and humble servant, 
 
 P. J. Wagner, 
 Hon. J. D. Hambiond. 
 
 From the Hon. James Thompson, of Saratoga County. 
 Milton, (Saratoga co.), June 27, 1S40. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 Be pleased to accept my acknowledgements for the hon- 
 our of your invitation to attend the Centennial celebration of 
 the settlement of your town, and a " commemoration of the 
 sufferings, perils, and fortitude of the pioneers of that then 
 extreme western frontier," on the 4th of July next. 
 
 I am deeply sensible of the loss of enjoyment I shall sus- 
 tain, by a previous disposal of my time forbidding my meet- 
 ing a t^ew higlfly valued old acquaintances and other distin- 
 guished gentlemen, on an occasion so interesting and im- 
 pressive. 
 
 Let us all hope that the blood of the revolutionary mar- 
 tyrs of Cherry Valley, and throughout the country, may long 
 furnish the " seed" and aliment of that independence and 
 rational liberty which has been so dearly purchased. 
 
 I have the honour to be, gentlemen, with high consideration 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Jadies Thompson. 
 
 By Abraham Koseboom, Esq. 
 
 Franklin — The philosopher, statesman, and diplomatist, 
 he stood before kings for his country's cause undaunted, he 
 drew the lightning from" the clouds harmless, the light of his 
 mind has illuminated both hemispheres. 
 
51 
 
 Mr. H. Roseboom being called upon for a sentiment pre- 
 faced it with the following remarks — 
 
 Mr. President; 
 
 Although this is a day of reminiscenes to the aged gen- 
 tlemen who surround you, and one of deep interest to the 
 younger portion of this assembly, who have met here to listen 
 to the eloquent record of a hundred years ; yet, I trust, I shall 
 be pardoned for seizing upon the occasion to pay a passing 
 tribute to the memory of a merchant of the " olden time," 
 and a friend to the early settlers of Cherry Valley. The mer- 
 chant to whom I allude was born in the city of Albany in the 
 year 1707, and died in that city at the age of 96 years. He 
 imported his goods from England as early as 1732, and 
 was the owner of a sloop on the Hudson river in 1740, 
 which sailed between the cities of New- York and Albany, 
 Many of the early settlers of Cherry Valley took passage on 
 board his sloop at New-York and arrived in Albany. — 
 Their passage is represented " as one of great length, at- 
 tended with considerable peril ; and their provisions nearly 
 exhausted." The arrival of a sloop at Albany, a hundred 
 years since, was an event of no less importance, I think, 
 than that of a steam-ship of our day. Mr. President, I will 
 detain you but a moment longer in giving the particulars 
 of the arrival and reception of the early settlers. Fancy 
 yourself, sir, a hundred years ago in the city of Albany. 
 That " brisk-looking figure" with the cocked hat, queue, 
 and large square silver shoe-buckles, who is hurrying to- 
 wards the dock, has just heard that this sloop is coming up 
 the river, his eye now rests upon the well-known hull of 
 the vessel, how rapidly he passes his hands over each other, 
 he is evidently well pleased, anticipating the profits of the 
 voyage. Now he hails the captain. "Welcome, Captain 
 Prime, a good voyage and a large number of passengers, 
 
52 
 
 this will pay well." Captain Prime replies, "that his cousin, 
 (the merchant) is welcome to all the profits, the passengers 
 are for the settlement of Cherry Valley, many of them will 
 require aid, and you are expected to furnish provisions and 
 implements to enable them to make a beginning." The 
 expectations of the settlers were not disappointed, nor Was 
 the merchant unrewarded, his store enjoyed nearly the whole 
 trade of this section of country. He also purchased a large 
 tract of land in this town which continues in the same fam- 
 ily name till this day. And now, sir, permit me to offer a 
 sentiment for this occasion. 
 
 The memory ofHendrick Myndert Roseboom. He was 
 a friend to the early settlers of Cherry Valley, and they re- 
 warded him. 
 
 By William Trull, Esq. 
 
 General Winfield Scott — The Pride of the American 
 Army, his name will be forgotten only when the history of 
 his country shall be known no more. 
 
 By G. H. Rogers, Esq., of Albany. 
 
 Citizens of Cherry Valley — who have this day assembled 
 to celebrate two important events in their history ; the one. 
 the first Settlement of this beautiful Valley ; the other, of 
 American Independence. The one will cause you to re- 
 flect back with mingled recollections of pleasure and pain, 
 the other inspires you with feelings of patriotism and at- 
 tachment for American Institutions. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add, that the company separated 
 with the kindest and best feeling, and highly gratified with 
 the performances of the day. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 {From the New York Observer of July llih, 1840.] 
 
 HIGHLAND PSALMODY. 
 
 Extract of a letter from the Rev. Dr. McLeod of Capsie, Scotland, to an Irish 
 Clergyman. 
 
 " It is a singular fact, that although the New Testament was transla- 
 ted into the Irish so far back as the year 1612, and the Old Testament 
 in 1682, a metrical version of the Psalms has never yet been prepared 
 for the people ; while on the other hand, the Highlanders of Scotland, 
 speaking the Gaelic, have had a metrical version for 1 18 years before 
 the New Testament was prepared tor them in their own dialect, and 
 143 before they were in possession of the Gaelic Bible entire. The 
 contrast is here very singular, the friends of the Scotch Gael showed 
 themselves possessed of much wisdom in availing themselves of the ad- 
 vantage arising from the enthusiastic atiachment of that'romantic people 
 for poetry and tender melody. — Soon after the psalms were prepared 
 for them, teachers of sacred music were sent over all the country to in- 
 strj^ict the people in singing the Psalms. The effect was most rapid 
 and extraordinary. The Highlanders became enthusiastic in their love 
 of Gaelic psalmody — The hymns of the Druids, venerated forages, and 
 the wild legends of fairies and mountain spirits, yielded to the sonc^s 
 of Zion — the holy effusions of the contrite and chastened David sup- 
 planted the ctro/iacA for the dead and wail for the dying. The hi^h 
 enthusiasm of the people was not destroyed, but it received a new and 
 holy direction. Indeed, it forms a new era in the history of our coun- 
 try ; when those songs < which were first sung on Salem's towers' were 
 heard from our glens and aisles ; when the plaintive lay of martyrs so 
 justly dear to every Scottish heart, the 'Warbling Measure' of Sweet 
 Dundee and of noble Elgin became mountam melodies. These were 
 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 days of marked revival, I have heard aged men declare that from the 
 fleet of fishing boats along the coast of Cantyre and Arran, amounting 
 at times to several hundreds, might be heard in the breeze of the even- 
 ing, not the warlike music of the bagpipe, which referring to the feuds 
 of the clans and scenes of strife, often engendered bitter and angry feel- 
 ing, but one rapturous burst of sacred melody, and of a solemn pause, 
 coming afresh again in full harmonious swell. Mighty was the effect 
 of this in producing social order, honesty, and Christian kindness. I 
 cannot withhold from you one anecdote which I lately heard with 
 much delight, A mournful band of ^poor emigrants were expatriated 
 their native valley a few years ago in the north of Scotland ; forced to 
 leave the glen where their clan of people had resided for many genera- 
 tions, and to seek a home in the dark and distant woods of America. 
 In the melancholy progress towards the sea-shore, they came to the 
 parish church, where they were wont to worship God, and near to which 
 the remains of their fathers were deposited ; they entered the sacred en- 
 closure — stood on the tombs of their relatives — 'returned and wept, and 
 still returned to weep.' A good old patriarch addressed a few words 
 of comfort to them ; he took out the Gaelic Psalm book from his 
 pocket, 'Let us sing,' said he, 'the 46th Psalm,' a prayer was of- 
 fered up to the God of their fathers, and their souls were refreshed — 
 they proceeded without a murmer or complaint, without an expression of 
 resentment or vengeance against the unfeeling chieftain. There is a 
 magic spell in the true simplicity of sacred melody and sacred poetry 
 which cannot fail to enchant and command the heart." 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 The following tribute to the memory of Col. Samuel Campbell, the Ihsl 
 of the early settlers of Cherry Valley, is from the pen of the late 
 James O. Morse^ Esq. 
 
 Another Patriot of the Revolution gone. 
 
 Died— in this town on the 12th instant, Colonel SAMUEL CAMP- 
 BELL, aged eighty-six years and four months. 
 
 The deceased was born in the town of Londondetry, in the state ot 
 New-Hampshire, in the year 1738, and came with his father at the age 
 of four years to reside in this town, on the same farm on which he died. 
 
 This place was then, not only an entire wilderness, but there were no 
 Settlements to the west of it. During the French war, the deceased was 
 
55 
 
 an active and efficient citizen, and was of essential service to the then 
 Government, in assisting in the transportation of supplies to the Wes- 
 tern ports. At the commencement of the war of the Revolution, he es- 
 poused with great ardour the cause of the Colonies : and as an officer 
 of the militia, rendered his country many important services* 
 
 He was at the head of his command, in most of the actions and skir- 
 mishes that were fought on this frontier; and particularly distinguished 
 himself at the battle of Oriskany, under General Herkimer. 
 
 At the massacre and conflagration of this town, by the enemy un- 
 der Butler and Brant, in the year 1778, Col. Campbell was among the 
 principal sufferers. 
 
 His family, with the exception of himself and his oldest son, were all 
 taken and carried into captivity ; his buildings burnt to ashes, and hi» 
 moveable property nearly all destroyed. 
 
 His wife and children,* were for a long time detained as prisoners 
 among the Indians in Canada. 
 
 Owing to the particular exertions of his early friend, the late George 
 Clinton, then Governor of the State, an exchange of prisoners was ef- 
 fected, by which Mrs. C. was liberated from captivity, and was ex- 
 changed for a Mrs. Butler, the wife of a Colonel in the British service ; 
 and the children of Mrs C. having been with some difficulty obtained 
 from the Indians, were permitted to accompany her. 
 
 In the year 1783, when Gen. Washington and George Clinton 
 were on their exploring tour through this state, they were careful to 
 call and spend a night with Col. C ; and both took occasion to express 
 to him their warm thanks, for the zeal he had manifested in the cause 
 of his country. 
 
 Since the close of the Revolution, Col. Campbell has been a member 
 df our State Legislature, and always rigidly adhered to those princi- 
 ples of republicanism, which he embraced at the commencement of 
 our struggle for independence. 
 
 His character through life was irreproachai)le, and for many years 
 he has been a consistent professor of Christianity. 
 
 The night preceding the day on which he died, he retned to rest at 
 his usual hour in perfect health, when he awoke in the mornins; he com- 
 plained of ill health, and soon after was seized with a fit. vvhic;. render- 
 
 * The sufftMirigof the captives taken at tliie place at that tiine, must have been 
 intense. Tiny were taken in the month of NovemlnT, and maicind on foot down 
 the Susqueliannah to its junction with the Tiopn river, tlieiice up that livir Cor some 
 distance, tlicn to Geneva, then tu Niagara, and afterwards ihey were taken down 
 to the neiglibourhood cf Montreal. 
 
66 
 
 ed him wholly insensible, and he continued in this state till he ex- 
 pired. 
 
 No man ever posessed a belter constitution or enjoyed through so 
 long a life better health. And it is a remarkable fact that he performed 
 considerable personal labour, and with his own hands felled a tree the 
 day preceding that on which he died. 
 
 The deceased has left a very numerous circle of descendants, among 
 whom are some of our principal citizens. 
 
 Thus has anotlier of our Patriarchs been gathered to his fathers, and 
 another of those Patriots to whose exertions we are indebted for our 
 liberties, been taken from us. Every diminution of this band of wor- 
 thies ou^ht to render the survivors more dear to us. 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 The' following biographical sketch of Mrs Jane Campbell is from 
 the pen of her friend Judge Mor.sc, and is taken from the Cherry. 
 Valley Gazette of February 23d, 1836. 
 
 OBITUARY. 
 
 Died — At Cherry Valley, on the morning of the 17th instant, Mrs. 
 Jane Campbell,, widow of the late Col. Samuel Campbell, in the nine- 
 ty-third year of her age. 
 
 If those whose lives have bsen eventful, whose characters have been 
 marked with distinguished traits, and whose examples have been be- 
 nign, deserve at their departure from life, something more than a brief 
 notice, this aged lady merits an enduring biographical monument. 
 
 Mrs. Campbell was a native of Antrim County, Ireland ; but her pa- 
 rents emigrated to Newcastle, in the now state of Delaware, when she 
 was quite young. Her residence in Newcastle continued till she at- 
 tained her twenty-first or twenty-second year, when her parents pene- 
 trated the wilderness to Cherry Valley, then the extreme frontier settle- 
 ment, where she, in about a year, intermarried with the late Col. Sam- 
 uel Campbell. 
 
 At the commencement of the war of the Revolution, her husband 
 and herself were very active and zealous in the cause of the country, 
 and a garrison was erected and kept on their own farm, which contin- 
 ued for some time the only one in the settlement . A Fort was, how- 
 ever, subsequently erected in another spot, and a considerable military 
 force siationed in it. 
 
57 
 
 In the month of November, 1778, the sanguinary British partisan lead- 
 er, Butler, Avilh the educated Mohawk Chief, Brant, with a force of re- 
 fugees and Indians, as is well known, made an incursion into Cherry 
 Valley, and Mrs. Campbell, >vith four of her children, and many others, 
 were taken prisoners. 
 
 She was marched on foot in that inclement season of the year, to 
 what is now known as Tioga Point in the State of Pennsylvania; and 
 from thence, by the head of Seneca Lake to the Indian Castle, about 
 two miles from where the village of Geneva now stands. Here she spent 
 ihe winter in an Indian village and was treated with comparative kind- 
 ness by her captors. She suffered severely, however, for the want of 
 clothing ; and towards spring the British Officers in the Garrison 
 of Fort Niagara, hearing that there was a lady who was a prisoner at 
 the Castle, near the outlet of Seneca Lake, sent a messenger on horse- 
 back with female clothing and provisions for her letief. In the Spring 
 she was taken lo Fort Niagara and ransomed from the Indians. She 
 M'as subsequently taken to Montreal, or near there, where she remained 
 till her captivity had been prolonged two years. 
 
 The then Governor of this State, the venerated George Clinton, 
 knowing of her captivity, made, in conjunction with Gen. Schuyler, 
 special efforts for the liberation of Mrs. Campbell and her children. 
 They prevailed on the British authorities to exchange them for a Mrs. 
 Butler and her children, who had fallen into the hands of the Amer- 
 icans. 
 
 Mrs, C. was brought with her children (after the latter had been re- 
 covered from the Indians) to Lake Champlain, and sent in a cartel to 
 near the south end of the lake, where she was received by the Ameri- 
 can authorities and sent to Albany. 
 
 In her return from Montreal she was accompanied by several young 
 ladies from Albany, who were at school at Montreal at the commence- 
 ment of the war, and who had not been able sooner to find a safe op- 
 portunity to return. During the voyage of the cartel-boat on the Lake, 
 its character was mistaken, and they were fired at, which caused its 
 conductors to land the ladies and send them on horse-back several 
 miles into the interior of what is now the state of Vermont. The 
 alarm was afterwards discovered to be a false one by those who fired at 
 the boat, and the cartel with the female prisoners allowed to proceed. 
 
 On the arrival of Mrs. C. at Albany, she was treated with great 
 kindness, and she shared largely in the sympathies of many of the 
 principal families there. She always spoke particularly of the kindneaa 
 of the family of a Mr. Stevenson. 
 
58 
 
 She returned to Cherry Valley, soon after the close of the war, and 
 had the satisfaction to entertain as guests under her own roof, Wash-,, 
 ington, Geo. Clinton, Col. Humphreys, and other distinguished men. 
 
 Mrs. C. was the mother of six children all of whom are yet alive. She 
 has also had thirty-five grandchildren, all of whom except one survive 
 her; and her life has been spared to see among her descendants some 
 of the most respectable citizens of our State. 
 
 Having thus briefly sketched a few of the incidents in the life of 
 this excellent woman, it remains to delineate some of the most promi- 
 nent traits in her character. 
 
 She possessed a fortitude and decision, rarely to be met with in 
 either sex ; but those were not owing to a want of feminine gentleness, 
 or any of the feelings and emotions peculiar to females. 
 
 History informs us that there has been in all ages female patriots : 
 and our departed friend may justly be added to the number. — She 
 loved her country, its form of government, its institutions, and the cha- 
 racter of its most distinguished sons. She always repelled all asper- 
 sions cast upon any of these with an ardour, a clearness, and a force 
 that would have done honour to a patriot of the other sex. 
 
 She also possessed a clearness of perception and a facility of giving 
 utterance lo it, that impressed her auditors most favourably. 
 
 She always exhibited a native dignity that extorted commendation 
 from all v/ho visited and conversed with her. In this, however, there 
 was not the slightest degree of superciliousness ; but that peculiari- 
 ty of mien and bearing ^^ hich so prominently distinguished the gentle- 
 men and ladies of the old School. 
 
 Her duties as a wife, mother, and grandmother, were discharged in 
 a manner worthy of the imit^.tion of those who sustain those re- 
 lations. 
 
 She was a firm believer in Christianity ; and long a professor of it. 
 She so eminently exhibited its virtues that all were convinced of the 
 sincerity of her profession. She was in her last brief sickness depriv- 
 ed of the power of conversation, but there is good reason lo believe 
 that her faith enabled her to grapple with, and fully triumph over, the 
 last great enemy. 
 
 She had long worn her christian armour, and we trust she noio wears 
 it, burnished anew in realms of light. 
 
 The powers of her memory, as all her intellectual powers, were 
 uncommonly vigorous ; and her reminiscenes of the history of our coun- 
 try, and ofher personal acquaintance with many of the revolutionary 
 worthies, continued fresh and vivid till near the close of her life. 
 
69 
 
 She was a living chronicler of the scenes of by-gone days, and last 
 female representative, in the region in which she lived, of that patriot- 
 ic band who achieved our independence. 
 
 NOTE D. 
 
 " From the Avierican Almanac^ 1830." 
 Colonial Satistics. — Population of the American Colonies, in 
 
 1701. 1749. 
 
 Massachusetts, 
 
 70,000, 
 
 220,000. 
 
 Connecticut, 
 
 30,000, 
 
 100,000. 
 
 Rhode Island, 
 
 10,000, 
 
 35,000. 
 
 New Hampshire, 
 
 10,000, 
 
 30,000; 
 
 New York, 
 
 30,000, 
 
 100,000. 
 
 East and West Jersey, 
 
 15,000, 
 
 60,ooo: 
 
 Pennsylvania and Delaware, 
 
 20,000, 
 
 250,000. 
 
 Maryland 
 
 25,000, 
 
 85,000. 
 
 Virginia, 
 
 40,000, 
 
 85,000. 
 
 North Carolina, 
 
 5,000, 
 
 45,000. 
 
 South Carolina, 
 
 7,000, 
 
 30,000, 
 
 Georgia, 
 
 
 6,000. 
 
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