1^ 3:-^> ^ >^^ 5> -^ ^>^ kiBRAM OF CONGRESS. # <^/u,/i. Bl A ^>' -^ ^:»' :3> ^^ ::s> :35 ^>. , 3> v>.-- > ^S> ~-»^ ^S» ^ ~> :x> ^ ^3B> ::» I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^ S A> > ^0^ = ^ > 3 33> - y>\>j> • ~::i 1>^,>~> 23 > "> '?>>_5e> ^ ^::a -n 2:, 3> J> ^ > '-^B^? !>. >i» »■>:> j>-> D) . ^> > > > :> ->< :> > 3> Z> ^ > ?^§^ z> ^:> ^ ^ ^ ^ \^^^ ^ > » > o > 'y > >. i> >.o, ^> :> > :> :> > > > j> D » 3 • >:> 3>2>::> :> r>~> :> ^2> • >5:> :> -5: COMMEMORATIVE DISCOURSE^, PRONODNCED AT QUINCY, MASS., 25 MAY, 1840, SECOND CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY ANCIENT INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN. AN APPENDIX. By GEORGE WHITNEY BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. MDCCCXL. COMMEMORATIVE DISCOURSE. COMMEMORATIVE DISCOURSE PRONOUNCED AT QUINCY, MASS., 25 MAY, 1840, ^ SECOND CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY ANCIENT INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN. AN APPENDIX. -/- By GEORGE WHITNEY BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. M DCCC XL. (AMBKllXiK. I'KKSS : MKT(;AliI', TOllliV, ANII UALl.Ol). i THE YOUNG MEN OP QUINCY, AT WHOSE REQUEST THIS DISCOURSE WAS DELIVEKED, AND TO ALL WHO CONTRIBUTED TO OUR INTERESTING CELEURATION, THESE r A G E s ^re 2XespectCulln 33el>(catet) DISCOURSE. FRIENDS, FELLOW-NATIVES, AXD DESCENDANTS OF THIS ANCIENT INCORPORATION. We meet this day, in obedience to the dictates of the highest sentiments in man. We have gathered togeth- er, scattered as we are in our various pursuits, in the spirit of a fihal and dutiful reverence, to commemorate the times that have passed, and our Fathers, who made them what they were. We come to testify our admiration of all that was elevating and ennobling in those who first stepped upon these shores, and who in later peri- ods contributed their part towards the good institutions and manifold privileges with which we are surrounded. We come, amidst comforts and ever newly opening blessings, — such as tlieir fondest hopes never dared to dream of, — to be grateful for their patience and sacri- fices, and trust in God in times of peril and darkness and deprivations, such as we may try to describe, but can never adequately conceive. We come, after two centuries and six generations of men have passed away, to stand around their graves, yet among the works, where they most emphatically live, that we may attempt to do some feeble justice to their principles and example, and to our own feelings also, in the trib- ute we thus pay to their memories. With this day, two hundred years have elapsed, and 1 a new century commences, since an act was passed by the General Court incorporating a town in this place. Previously to this period, as is almost too well known to be repeated, a settlement here of civihzed men had already been begun, following rapidly in the w ake of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. In 1625, fifteen years before the time alluded to, Captain Wollaston, with about thirty in his company, as is supposed, — the number being nowhere, so far as I am acquainted, definitely designated, — landed somewhere on the shore near the mount, which afterwards received his name, and in the language of the old historians " sat down," either upon the mount, or in the region round about. In other words, they came and fixed their abode and planted a colony here. From subsequent events we are left to infer that there were no very exalted aims, hke those which actuated many of the early pilgrims, either in the heart of Wollaston or his comrades. And yet with regard both to himself and some who accompanied him, it may possibly have been otherwise. We are sure, there was little to commend in Thomas Morton, or in those who were ready to sympathize with him. At any rate, we learn that after " spending much labor, cost, and time in planting the place," * things did not answer Wollaston's expectation, and he departed to Virginia. This can be considered, to be sure, no posi- tive proof that Wollaston's aims were not so elevated as the noblest of that long line of self-exiled men, who came out to these distant shores, but the great mass of them Avere not in the habit of calculating profit and loss in any such way, nor did they think * Hubbard's History of New England, p. 103. their hardships and disappointments, where once they had planted themselves, of sufficient moment to urge them to try new locations. Wollaston's enterprise bore strong marks, to say the least, of being merely a pecuniary speculation. The fifteen years, which elapsed from the landing of Wollaston to the incorporation of the town, were somewhat eventful ones, and appear to have been of considerable moment in the annals of those times. Thomas Morton, already alluded to, and one who accompanied Wollaston, proved a disorganizer, and a ringleader of such as were disposed to sympathize with him. It would be difficult, with an eye the most indulgent, and making liberal allowances, in the ex- treme, for the sanctimonious views and rigid discipline of the Puritans, to apologize for his own private irreg- ularities, his conduct to the Indians, whether friendly or inimical, and specially for the contempt with which he treated all order and authority. He became indeed the source of great trouble to the early settlers here and elsewhere, a constant annoyance to those in authority, and withal, in his disposition and conduct, about as incorrigible a subject as they could well desire for their management. Among his notorious acts of dissipation and riot, he set up a May Pole to be danced and sung round, than which, it would not have been easy to have devised anything more odious to the scrupulous Puritans, short of the actual introduction among them of the Evil One himself. Subsequently, also, in various ways, his conduct was exceedingly reprehensible. Af- ter repeated measures had been enforced against him, some of them military and violent, all equally indica- tive of the displeasure of the Government and their de- 4 cided purposes in regard to him ; after he had once been sent to England in 1628, and had returned to Mount Wollaston, or, as Governor Bradford somewhere says, to " his old nest at Merry Mount," the name he had himself given it, we find a record left in these words, " September 7, 1630, Second Court of Assistants held at Charlestown. Present, Governor Winthrop, Deputy Governor Dudley, Sir Richard Saltonstall and others. Ordered, ' That Thomas Morton of Mount Wollaston shall presently be set in the bilbowes, [long bars or bolts of iron used to confine the feet of prisoners and offenders on board ships,] and after sent to England by the ship called the Gift, now returning thither : that all his goods shall be seized to defray the charge of his transportation, payment of his debts, and to give satis- faction to the Indians for a canoe he took unjustly from them, and that his house be burnt down to the ground in sight of the Indians, for their satisfaction for many wrongs he has done them.' " * This was enforced, and in pursuance of the order he was again sent to England. But his annoyances did not end here. He urged complaints to the king, which were likewise sources of difficulty : he returned again to Mount Wollaston, and afterwards in repeated forms disturbed and harassed the colony, so that at last, as Hutchinson says, " Nothing but his age saved him from the whipping-post." f He died at Agamen- ticus — the town of York, in the state of Maine, about 1643 — if not in obscurity, as he resolved not to die, at least in disgrace, and to the promotion of the public tranquillity. * Prince's Chronology, Vol. I. p. 248. t Hutchinson's History, Vol. I. p. 32, London Edition, Note. A source of still more ardent and general excitement, if possible, to the people of those early times, was the supposed heretical preaching of Mr. John Wheelwright, a connexion in kindred, and a zealous friend in opinion of the memorable and gifted Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. To some, this latter circumstance was of far deeper interest than the preceding one, as, in their view, no radicalism in politics, no disorderly conduct could com- pare with heresy on that absorbing topic, to which their eyes and hearts were so steadily directed. This gentleman came out and ministered to the people of the Mount, by the permission, if not at the instigation of the First Church in Boston, as early as 1636 — the residents here, on account of their distance from Bos- ton, having previously petitioned to have the benefit of a preacher. The chief excitement, which with all innocence, and sincerity of purpose, too, he seems to have been the cause of brewing u[), was that apparently simple thing, the preaching of a Fast sermon. Already the clergy, as a body, and some of the laity had begun to look upon him with fearful and suspicious eyes. But the larger portion of the laity, we have reason to think, went not a little beyond an ordinary sympathy with him. It was in consonance with what, in my opinion, was the prevalent spirit of the times, as, with your patience, in the sequel we may hope to see illus- trated. He was apparently an innovator and reformer : he took one step aside from the trodden way ; and the conservatives sounded the trumpet of alarm. His seemingly humble instrument, the Fast sermon, set the whole community into a blaze. From such small be- ginnings do great things grow. Thus does God choose the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. He was pursued and arraigned, dis- franchised and banished. Fortunate in his time, that he came off even thus hghtly, and escaped the block. A little earlier period would have counted him less venial. A slighter matter, persisted in with the firmness he manifested, might but shortly before his day have crowned him with the honors of martyrdom. It comes within my present plan only to take this passing notice of Mr. Wheelwright, and the excitement which followed him, as one of the remarkable events, which had taken place previously to the incorporation of the town. This event alone would afford an almost interminable field for remark and discussion, were it to be pursued, and more than absorb all the time I ought to claim on the present occasion. Inviting as it is, I leave it with the less regret, as it has recently been so ably and satisfactorily presented to the public in the discourses * consequent upon the return of the second century since the gathering of the first church, to which its further consideration might in every view appear more pertinent. Other incidents likewise are to be noticed of inferior but still not very slight consequence, considering the circumstances of the times. Intimately connected with much that has already been stated, and in part the cause of it, were first the highly probable fact, that after the departure of Wollaston, some of his company had become stationary at the Mount, thus affording us, at least, the venerable distinction of being the oldest permanent t settlement in Massachusetts; and secondly, the indisputable fact, that men both of eminence and * See Lunt's Second Century Discourses, t See Winthrop's Journal, Vol. I. p. 43. industry came out here from the metropolis and had allotments of land made to them, already cleared and in- viting their labors, and thus giving us the less question- able distinction of having had some of the earliest, if not the very earliest, cultivated farms in the colony, possibly in New England. These all rendered the Mount conspicuous — lifting it up before the eyes of the sparse community far above its humble physical elevation. It had early a name, notoriety, and charac- ter. It was a cherished spot both to the Bostonians, to whom in fact it belonged, being by order of court early annexed to it, and to the magistrates and the early settlers generally. Accordingly, the way was naturally and easily and early prepared for an application, on the part of the residents here, and for a ready acquiescence on the part of the magistrates, that the inhabitants at Mount Wollaston should be incorporated into a town. The benefits of such a measure must be too obvious to be enlarged upon. It it natural that we should turn with some curiosity and interest to the early document — to wit, the petition which was presented to this effect. No very musty antiquarian fondness would seem to be essential in order to reap gratification from its perusal. But that privilege is denied us. It has shared the fate of many more valuable things. It is not extant. In the first volume of the Massachusetts Colony Rec- ords, under date of 13 May, 1640, is the following account of the action that was had in reply to the ap- plication from the Mount. " The Petition * of the Inhabitants of Mount Wool- * Massachusetts Colony Records, Vol. 1. p. 277. 8 laston was voted and granted them to be a Town ac- cording to the agreement with Boston ; provided, that if they fulfil not the covenant made with Boston and hearto affixed, it shall be in the power of Boston to recover their due by action against the said inhabitants or any of them, — and the town is to be called Brain- tree." Pretty rigid principle this, on which to base their conditions, whatever the amount or extent of those conditions might have been ! It was, in fact, the very principle, involving the question, which, in our own time, has been mooted, with so much earnestness and cogent reasoning on both sides, whether individuals shall be holden for the liabilities of the corporation, of which they are a component part. It is not necessary to quote these conditions, extend- ing to considerable length, and being rather minute. They are principally the payment of certain yearly assessments on special parcels of land. One item it is curious at this distant day to observe. Boston resigns* to Braintree, probably as hardly worth the keeping, the rocky hill extending west from where we are assembled, far into the granite quarries, " together with another parcel of rocky ground near to the Knight's Neck." * The language of the record runs thus, — " All that rocky ground lying between the Fresh brook and Mr. Coddington's brook, adjoining to Mr. Hough's farm, and from the west corner of that farm to the southmost cor- ner of Mr. Hutchinson's farm, to be reserved and used in common forever." Mr. Coddington's farm, we know, was the present Mount Wollaston farm. Where Mr. Hutchinson's farm was we have no means of determining. But guided by the two brooks mentioned, in all probability the two principal ones which pass through the town at the present day, I have supposed the parcel alluded to would be likely to lie in the direction stated. If I am right in this conjecture it included Mount Ararat, (so called,) with the hilly portion stretching south of it as far as the brook. 9 It was reserved for a period, long after their very names had passed from among men, amidst the growing improvements of advancing time, to affix to the worth- less rocks a value surpassing all that could have entered their imagination. The origin of the name of our ancient town, as thus incorporated, is traced in this way. In 1632, accord- ing to Winthrop,* a company from Braintrcy in Eng- land, near Chelmsford, where Mr. Hooker was the preacher, begun to settle at Mount Wollaston. They removed afterwards to Newton, but, as has been con- jectured, it appears to me with good reason.f a part of the company must have returned again, perhaps about 1634, and settled permanently. Unquestionably at their request or suggestion, the name of their former residence was given to the new place of their adop- tion. It is far from common, I suppose, that in the division of towns, the movement for separation occurs with the old settlement. Such, however, was the fact here ; and in the issue, whether from necessity or not, the ancient name was resigned and the present one was taken, in honor of Colonel John Quincy, who had occupied the Mount Wollaston farm. As we have come up, howev- er, to commemorate the original incorporation, there seems a special propriety in doing it where the first settlement and incorporation were actually made, rather than follow the name to a spot where only a feeble settlement, if any, had been begun, and no church gathered till more than half a century afterwards. * See Winthrop's New England, p. 87, note by Savage, t See Lunt's Second Century Discourses, Appendix, p. 66. 2 10 I now take leave of the history, which, commencing with the period to which I have arrived, has been stead- ily accumulating for two hundred years, and pass to other considerations, of a more practical bearing, and in which we shall be far more likely to find some end. It would be as preposterous as it would be fearfully tedious, to pursue the history through all the details of two centuries, down to the present hour. This is more properly the work of the annalist. Let us turn, there- fore, to matters of a more comprehensive character. And here we may well remark how little history in gen- eral has done to elevate our conceptions of man. Some- thing it could hardly fail to accomplish of good, as from age to age it affords us records of what advancement has been made upon the past. But it tells us little of hu- man capacity. It is, for the most part, the dismal cat- alogue of man's animal conflicts, and the exhibition of his worst passions. War, conquest, ambitious tri- umphs, purchased at the cost of wholesale suftering ; selfish accumulation at the expense of monstrous and revolting miseries, awful and unjust impositions ; these, and the things like them, are what stand out glaringly on its pages. It does no justice to the better part of man. It is no index in itself alone of what he is des- tined to accomplish. He who looks to history in the light of so many facts only, as so many items alone in the amount of mortal action, and takes them for his guide, will be about certain to err. He must of neces- sity be narrow in his expectations of human advance- ment. The true philosopher will go behind history and analyze the picture it presents, find its real ele- ments, and place them in their rightful order. He will sift out the chaff, and set down to the lower propensi- ties what belongs exclusively to them. After wading through a century of disheartening events, he will not, therefore, grow hopeless of man ; for he can perceive that scarcely one of the higher powers of his nature has been called into action. Man has not himself been before him, but the deformity of man, which we may justly complain history has been so lavish in por- traying. Hence the difference among men in their visions of the future. One takes history for his exclusive guide, its bare, dark chapters. Another takes his stand upon principles — the elements and capacities of human na- ture, what man was evidently designed by his Creator to be. Can we doubt how meagre, unsatisfactory, and delu- sive in comparison history thus becomes ? An Egyptian colony, we are told, planted Athens ; a band of robbers and outcasts laid the foundations of Rome, — her sons in time left Carthage a heap of ashes, and transferred her glory to the beautiful Italian shores. William the Conqueror invaded and overran Britain ; the Turks, during more than double the centuries we have had a name on the earth, planted their feet with a gigantic power on the neck of Grecian valor, refinement, and unsurpassed literary fame ; meanwhile the mighty sway, and the feeble are ground in the dust. Where do we get the intimation that the feeble band of the Puritans, at very sight of whom the imposing court of Charles curl their lips in scorn, shall one day push off to these ends of the earth, and here kindle up on new principles the dawn of a better hope for man ? The convents of the middle ages, the castle-crowned cliffs of Lords and Barons ministered, in part, to the physical wants of the human race. It was their pride and glory that the 12 beggar knocked never at their gates in vain. But nothing was done, nothing even attempted to lift the unfortunate or the indigent above the necessity of beg- gary. Let him, who counts history thus all-sufficient, lay his finger upon those hopeful premises, whence we may safely make the glad deduction that, far in the distant future, a better almsgiving shall call forth the sympathies of humanity, — that all their bounties and charity shall look poor and shallow, the merest surface work by the side of a truer benevolence, which, strik- ing deeper than physical want, aims at individual self- respect and social elevation. Nevertheless, history in its place is not to be dis- paraged. It has its lessons, and it is fruitful of instruc- tion. Only let not man grow faithless under it. They who left the smiling scenes of England, and built up in this wilderness, first the humble towns, and, through their growing strength, our present wide domain, till " the little one has become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation," came forth here and conquered and took the victory, as had been done times without number before. History records for us their doings, fortunately also some of the elevated objects at which they were aiming. What was there in their coming forth here, and in the prosperity that has followed them, differing from those of all other conquests or coloniza- tions ? Let us briefly look into this, and trace, as I think we may, to the same cause the success of their enterprise at the beginning, and the surpassing pros- perity that has risen up to honor their memories since. If we step for a moment behind history and look at it as it passes before us, we shall perceive that there have been two preeminently distinct and prominent classes of 13 principles, which have prevailed among men, and by which communities and the world in general have been swayed. These are the binding and the dissevering principles, founded the one upon the moral sentiments, the other upon the animal propensities in man. Neither of these has as yet ever existed, without any alliance with the other. The latter has pre- vailed in by far the largest measure. The binding principles, founded as they are upon the moral sen- timents, have reference to the everlasting laws of rectitude, and to a conformity with the will and de- signs of the Creator. The dissevering principles,, on the contrary, founded upon what is low, are shallow, superficial, extraneous, — they are attendant upon ar- bitrary will or artificial circumstances or temporary necessity, or what is worse, error, folly, ignorance, or crime. Thus, for example, all the principles which go to the support of a despotism are dissocial, dissevering, and shattering in their very nature. They tend natur- ally and inevitably to nurture passions and promote objects, which must as certainly divide men, as a decree of fate. They set one against another, and bring on opposing interests and factions, weakness and downfall. On one side, the side of the despot, there are pride, arrogance, indolence, oppression, inordinate selfishness, the idea of inherited or inahenable right over the prop- erty, persons, freedom, and happiness of others ; and on the other, the side of the overpowered, envy and hatred, the desire of hberty, the chafing feeling of rights trampled on and human nature abused. In these there is no permanent germ, no bond of union. They can no more coexist eternally, they can no more draw naturally and willingly in any harmonious fellowship, 14 than the hungry tiger can gambol with the lamb. Those principles, on the contrary, which are at the foundation of a true republic, are naturally binding ; never as yet, indeed, have we seen them anything like generally prevailing, or freely and fully acted out. Whenever we do see them, we shall find them exercis- ing this influence ; as far as we witness them at all, we perceive this to be their character ; — and reason- ably, for their object is to call out individual action in its legitimate and noblest sphere, and to respect, de- velop, defend all human rights. The disconnection of religion from the state, the union of taxation and representation, the right of private judgment, the prin- ciple of toleration, and in morals the principle of doing unto others what we would wish they should do to us, — these all are binding principles. The more they get into operation, the more will they cement men and prosper their union, — fixing their eyes and hearts on one common good, the highest happiness, the greatest and universal elevation of the human race. Taking this key with us, the history of the past as- sumes a new face. We read it with an alphabet that makes it intelligible. It is not only not discouraging, but crowded with lessons of w^arning, with incitements to new eftbrt, and hopeful promises of good. What cause for wonder, so often expressed, when we look back to nations or cities of antiquity, and perceive that under seemingly prosperous circumstances, fortune smiling, they could not be held together beyond a cer- tain point, — that after a time they have shattered to pieces like some vast edifice, outwardly adorned, but within which the perilous elements of explosion have been all the while concealed, ready fuel for the fatal 15 spark ! Tlie truth was, their overthrow and downfall were inevitable; — in most instances, because the prominent principles by which they were governed were dissocial, not only not binding, but altogether dis- severing. And in the same connexion, though in a different sphere, we see why it was that such a man US Howard could go on his self-devoted mission and fullil it so well, why it was that success and triumph seemed so marvellously to run before him, that, in the striking language of the Scriptures, he appeared " to have power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, nothing by any means hurting him." It was because his whole heart and soul were allied with, and all he did was done upon these binding principles, — principles, which draw men to one common object, the sublimest services that can engage the human soul, and cement all their sympa- thies, hopes, and affections with it. If now, we inquire again what there was in the coming out of the first settlers of New England so dis- tinctive and lio})oful in its very nature, — if we ask, again, what was the peculiar character of the seed here sown, whence sprung up these flourishing towns, whence came ihe unparalleled prosperity, which in less than two centuries, nay in far less than one, converted a wilderness into more than a blooming garden, here we find the reply. It was their alliance with these elevating principles, blessed by the overruling Provi- dence of God, which did it all. Coiled up here, lay hidden, as I conceive, the great moving spring, which first drove our fathers from their pleasant abodes, and founded here these new manifestations of freedom and hope. It was the same, which, as it gradually uncoiled. 16 gave a new impulse to human action, scattered far and wide hitherto unimagined blessings, and handed down to distant ages an inheritance surpassing — with the exception of Christianity, of which it might be called in part a new development — surpassing in value the most precious legacy of the past. It might be useful, only that it would lead me into too wide a field, to consider somewhat in detail, by what operation of their opposites these better princi- ples gradually found root in the hearts of the Puritans, and by what oppressions and excesses our fathers grew more and more enamored of them, till they found an asylum and a new sphere for them here. In their day and previously to their day, the selfish and dissevering principles had gained almost entire sway in their own and other lands. The civil, moral and religious, and intel- lectual aspect of the times were each and all singularly odious and hateful. All refinement had a low aim. Correct modes of philosophizing were buried up under metaphysical obscurities. Expansive -and elevated prin- ciples were wanting. Few, if any, among the higher elements of man, were recognised as having any foun- dation in himself. Rehgion was practically regarded as an outward mechanism, to be used only for worldly purposes. To complete the dark picture, the civil power came down in the form of infringements upon property and personal liberty. Those unpleasant min- isters, those unconciliating peace-makers, confiscation and imprisonment, torture and the stake, were every- where busy. Wisdom above man's overruled them all for good. Strange to tell, their very contraries grew up on the uncongenial soil. Out of adversity gems of virtues glistened brightly. The old curse was again 17 a blessing ; find in these elevated principles they took retiige with high and animating hope. It has been common to ascribe the first movement of the founders of New England, and their subsequent action and success to religion ; and in its very broadest acceptation, undoubtedly, this term would embrace the wide circle of incitements by which they were moved. But let us beware lest, in our application of it, we fail to do justice to all their springs of action. Religion has been narrowed, and made a technical thing. Little else does it express to the minds of many but the un- folding and right direction of the sentiment of rever- ence alone. It speaks to them only of pious sentiments, and ati'ectionate and confiding trust in God. They had all these, but they had more. The Jews present to us a remarkable specimen of this sort of development. The devotional and pious element, — religion in this restricted sense was signally displayed in their char- acter. But what did they comparatively accomplish, even with all this, in the way of civil and social in- stitutions, in the sense of laying the foundation of a comprehensive and enduring national prosperity? AVhat have the various tribes and nations accomplished, — the long catalogue of whom we need not stop to re- capitulate, — in whom the same element has predomi- nated ? We may readily reply, without injustice, little or nothing. Contrast the founders of New England with such as these, and how obvious is it that by such an estimate we reach to no adequate appreciation of their wide spirit, their far reaching principles. A much nearer approach do we make to it, by saying that they were looking to the foundation of a Christian common- 1 f^ lo wealth. Tliat end was most assuredly in their hearts, and for its accomphshment all that 1 have set forth, as their guiding principles, was indispensably necessary. It ivas religion, under the direction of which they moved, but religion in its most comprehensive sense ; reverence presiding over the right development of all the higher faculties. Hence the principles, with which they were accompanied, all the subsidiary action be- came of the character we have been considering. They were those binding principles, which elevate at the same time that they honor humanity. They were those which, in proportion as they prevail in their perfection, give success and permanency to any undertaking. Mighty principles these ! And yet say now, ye who calculate the chances of success of human enterprises, say, what chances have these exiles as the dim outhne of their loved land fades from their view ! By all worldly calculation, they would be set down as destined to certain and irretrievable failure. So might we say of almost every great undertaking, in which man has ever engaged. Judged by the maxims of worldly pru- dence, scarcely one great achievement of all the myri- ads that man has brought to pass, would have been marked antecedently with any likelihood of success. But tested by the principles on which we perceive the Pilgrims started, we see good reason why beginnings so inauspicious as theirs have grown so illustrious ; and, on the other hand, why schemes, that arrayed on their side wealth and power and numbers and public opinion, have dwindled into insignificance, and left no other trace that they ever were, but the story of their early promise and almost as early and signal defeat. 19 We * are not to look back to the Pilgrims, even in all our admiration of what they were and what they did, with the expectation of finding a full and perfect exemplification of the principles, the general character of which have rendered them and their cause so illus- trious. They manifested them, perhaps, about as fully as could be expected from humanity, under their cir- cumstances. Their perfect manifestation would have realized the Utopian commonwealth. They gave their hearts to the higher order of principles, the highest that can actuate the souls of men, — and that was enough. That they were not perfect only reminds us that they were mortal. They took hold of principles in sympa- thy with man's better elements, principles that had been despised and rejected of men, and with their ad- herence to them the institutions of society could not but be remodelled and safely founded. They poured a fresh spirit into religion by claiming the rights of con- science ; and even cramped, as it undeniably was, it stood forth among them as if raised from the dead. They defended the principle of self government, and vested the right of electing their own magistrates in the hands of the people. This also breathed into the civil condition the breath of life. They recognised all the right of individual action they felt to be consist- ent with safety ; and that set all the wheels of industry in motion, on which public prosperity relies so much. They drew out the religious sentiment, and kept it uppermost like a presiding Deity. They founded the free schools, and thus rocked an infant Hercules as * This and the next paragrnph, on account of the unavoidable length of the Discourse, were omitted in the delivery. 20 among the first-born children ol' the youthful coiunion- wealth. We may pardon some few imperfections to men who in a dark age could accomplish such things as these. Is it asked, why they could not have carried out some of their professed principles a little more fully, — toleration, for example ? " Tolerate ! tolerate whom ? " let me reply in the words of a descendant of one of the first settlers of the Mount and some of the earliest natives of this ancient town, whose name has been given to our soil, " Tolerate whom ? the legate of the Roman Pontiff, or the emissary of Charles the First and Archbishop Laud ? How consummate would have been their folly and madness, to have fled into the wilderness to escape the horrible persecutions of those hierarchies, and at once to have admitted into the bosom of their society men brandishing and ready to apply the very flames and fetters from which they had fled ! Those, who are disposed to condemn them on this account, neither realize the necessities of their condition, nor the prevailing character of the times. Under the stern discipline of Ehzabeth and James, the stupid bigotry of the first Charles, and the spiritual pride of Archbishop Laud, the spirit of the English hierarchy was very diflerent from that which it assumed, when, after having been tamed and humanized under the wholesome discipline of Cromwell and his common- wealth, it yielded itself to the mild influence of the prin- ciples of 1688, and to the liberal spirit of Tillotson."" VVe would honor the memories of those, who first trod these shores, and founded our towns in all their " Quincy's Ccntcniiinl Address, Boston, }>. 26. 21 allegiance to these elevating and binding principles. We would honor their patience and perseverance, their magnanimous endurance and trust in God, in all the days of darkness and discouragement they saw, of which there were many. And we would devoutly bless God, that to causes so honorable to themselves, so elevating and enduring in their very nature, we may trace the success that crowned their day of small things, their feeble but magnanimous enterprise. If now we have been able to find an interpretation to the prosperity that attended the original enterprise of our Fathers, in the very principles on which they started, equally also to the same cause are we to ascribe the rapid growth of the towns, which soon sprung up upon their footsteps, and the almost startling and con- stantly accelerating progress they have made since in all that improves and honors man. 1. In the first place, as to their government. It was the same order of principles, carried out into practice here, that bound them together and gave them stability. Actually it might seem it could be no otherwise at the first ; for the very men, who in the beginning brought to this wilderness the principles we have been consid- ering, were those who peopled the ancient towns. They must be expected to breathe the spirit of the principles they cherished. But in this we overlook the important distinction between being merely resident in the towns, — the general government being, mean- while, administered over all, — and the transmission of all the vital principles they held so sacred, so far as they could be transmitted, down to the towns them- selves. In a word, it would have been one thino-, as it 22 might have been, to have made the towns actual de- pendencies, — subject in every particular to the dis- cretion and management of the general government, having their officers all appointed by authority, amount of taxes fixed and assessed abroad, enactments passed as to the regulation of all matters connected with public roads, instruction, and so forth, descending to the very lowest details, — and another thing, as it was, to com- mit all this to their entire management and control, with an undoubting confidence as to the wisdom and success of entrusting it to their care. In doing this, the very principles were put in action in all the towns for which the Pilgrims had crossed the ocean. The roots of the liberty they sought to realize went down to the smallest communities among them. It was the right they claimed of governing themselves, and having a voice in every law they were called to obey, which was the one thing essential, the beginning, middle, and end of their civil prosperity. We see its good effects in its cementing and elevating character, turn where we will, in their early history ; — nowhere are these good effects more apparent than in the grow- ing prosperity of the towns. The prevalence of this principle, in particular, — and of a similar character, more or less, were all upon which they acted, — tended to make at once a common interest for all. It served as a stimulant upon individual exertion. Where each one does something to determine measures, and who shall enforce them, it is natural that each one should feel some incitement and call to that service. It is natural that, in devising the best means of bringing about desirable objects, the higher intellectual qualities should be called forth and exercised, such as invention, 23 prudence, and forethought. A generous spirit and hberal views spring up hkewise in the same connexion and from the same cause, — and in every byway where we trace its operation, the principle becomes a bless- ing. Hence it is, that accumulating funds and legacies, whether for schools or religious institutions, become so often dead weights upon a community; not so much by any direct influence of evil, as because they go, — pre- cisely in proportion to the ground they cover, — to palsy all those qualities in man, which ought to be roused to do for the community just that amount they are trying to do for them. The real good in the world is accomplished by individual exertion and sacrifice ; and these the free principles, planted in all our towns, have been singularly well calculated to draw out. Now all these qualities, thus stirred into action, are the sure elements of prosperity. The rocky and sterile soil of New England, — girdled almost uninterruptedly by breakers on the sea and mountains on the main, — whose natural productions, as has been strikingly saidy are nothing but rocks and ice, yet dotted all over with these flourishing communities, most satisfactorily cor- roborates the assertion. It is vain to place man under the most genial sky, and amid all the favorable circum- stances of outward condition, warm suns and balmy breezes and a fruitful soil, without those manly quali- ties, which enable him to make them tributary to great ends; and on the contrary, with these, what are the most forbidding and dreary wildernesses but the fields of his prosperity and glory ? Let some of the sunny Italian lands with their lazy, stupid, decaying popula- tion attest the first. Our own time-honored municipal- ity, imbedded in her granite quarries, with her long and 24 flourishing sisterhood, tiie smihiig towns of New Eng- land, shall be the diagram for the last. " Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripened in our northern sky." 2. So much for the principles, which have entered into the government of the towns. Then next in rela- tion to their social interests. Some provision must be made to foster these, or any community will dwindle away. Instead of taking a prosperous course, it will in time die out. Our progenitors took the most decid- edly eftectual measures towards this object, that human ingenuity could devise, and by doing nothing, actually did everything. They might, indeed, be said to have taken oft' all the old impediments and restrictions, which had been previously wound round the social condition, as if artfully contrived to put an end to all healthy circulation, inasmuch as they never, for a mo- ment, renewed, on this side of the water, what had been amply tested to their satisfaction on the other. But it was only in such a sense that they could be said to have done anything. They virtually left the social condition to itself Ihcy gave it all it asked, — the field of a fair opportunity. It was a wide stride in the advancement of human affairs, and in the elevation of the social condition, thus to do nothing. With the laws already based upon jus- tice, and looking to the support of equal rights, all the fruits of industry were at once made secure and per- manent ; — all property, in short, however acquired, became sacred and sale. Beyond this, to drop all the old [)rops of society, the crazy framework on which they had relied so much, wasting their energies in sus- taining what, instead of strengthening, only made soci- 25 ety the weaker, was, we must confess, in their day, an experiment, as bold as to the philosophic eye it was profound, as in the event it has proved successful. What mad scheme would you be venturing upon? might have inquired the crafty politician of those times, — and the inquiry would not have sounded either shallow or unmeaning, — what mad scheme would you be venturing upon, thus to cut loose from the protect- ing laws, the safe mooring places of primogeniture and entail ? What will become of all the family distinctions of wealth and power, we have found so essential to pre- serve the jTOvernment and the social state what it is? Hold on, — rather the more firmly amidst the gathering commotions that are brewing up, — to what time has proved such efficient instruments to check and regulate human affairs. — Unfortunately, they have checked and regulated us a little too much, — might have been the sagacious reply, — and that too at the cost of the real interest and happiness of those who have been only dreaming that they were served. In reality, all of us have fared alike. All of us have sufiered. The social circulations have been dead. We want free action. Let us lay the social foundations anew. Let us put them on the free exercise of the native sentiments of the soul. — There they were laid. There they have prospered. In this result, in this new experiment of the Pilgrims, we come back again to the prevalence of the same elevated and binding principles which governed them from the first, and all along. The towns flourished un- der these new social privileges. The sympathies of men were called out, we might almost say, as they had never before been in the history of Christian civiliza- 4 26 tion. There was nothing to impede or counteract them. They were free. They worked spontaneously. If to any one thing more than another we are to as- cribe the healthy and unexampled growth of the towns, I know not to what we could turn more readily than to this. Lay back, at this hour, upon the most prosperous of these communities, the old burden of social embar- rassments, and who can doubt, for one moment, their certain and rapid decay ? 3. Then, too, in still another department, — never to be overlooked or forgotten, — may we trace, in the growth and prosperity of our towns, the prevalence and operation of the same exalted and elevating principles. The system that was early adopted for the diffusion of good learning ; and the means that were taken to develop and direct the religious sentiment, were alike honorable to our Fathers, and fruitful of unspeakable blessings to their posterity. We sometimes lose sight of the actual dimensions of great privileges enjoyed; — on the one hand, by our familiarity with their constant contributions to our comfort or prosperity ; and on the other, by never ceasing panegyric or fulsome eulo- gy. Let us take care that neither of these makes us insensible to the institutions in question. Let me not be thought especially to be falling in with any formal commendation. If nmch has been said, in times past, on these topics, it has been because they could right- fully claim so much. In connexion with all their other wise provisions, these prospective measures, — for be- yond dispute they were eminently that, — stood out foremost, and engaged their most devoted attention. They sprung beyond the narrow calculations of utility. They were neither bread, nor houses, nor weapons of 27 defence against their ever watchful and insidious foes. The first settlers could hardly be said to have required these institutions for themselves, — certainly not those for the promotion of learning. Their great distinction was that they came charged with the treasures of learn- ing, — an overflowing stock for the youthful common- wealth. But they looked forward to the generations that were to follow on after them. Or rather, let us say, actuated by higher considerations still, feeling the strong claims and necessity of disciplining and storing the mind, impressed with the infinite importance of re- ligion to human well-being, they gave expression to these convictions. Their anticipations were far-reach- ing and hopeful, we know ; but there were deeper fountains in their own souls than they. They did their duty to themselves, and confided in God that their fruits would appear in their children. So it came to pass that in poverty and straits they built their churches and supported their ministers, established the free schools and founded the university. The fruits, for which they trusted in God, have ap- peared in their children. In those fruits the towns have been strong and prosperous. Of what avail were all other blessings without the fruits of these institu- tions ? What were all our glorious rivers, our granite hills, our mines of coal, our protecting harbors, open- ing into the wide bosom of the ocean, and ready to lay the treasures of distant climes into the lap of the stretching main, — what were industry, toiling from early morn till latest eve, without mind directing all these, and intelhgent enterprise turning them into a richer value, a truer worth, than Peruvian gold ? The free schools, aided by the higher institutions and col- 28 leges, have done this, and far more than I may even hint at, throughout New England. And of what avail were all the acuteness of intellect, all the unfolded powers and stored wisdom of the mind, unsanctitied by higher considerations, — unless guarded, made safe and strong by moral and religious influences ? Possibly might they prove only the greater curse. The sons of the Pilgrims, in these our towns, have fully exemplified the worth of these institutions. Nothing can be truer than the assertion often made and in many forms, that these institutions have cost us nothing. They have borrowed nothing, they have not more than twice over paid back. But rising above all such considerations as these is the more grateful and ennobling reflection, that from the churches of New England has shone forth a steady light, guiding her sons in all their homes and walks, and opening to their aspiring vision a higher world [beyond the sorrows and allurements of this. I have spoken of the character of the principles, by which the first settlers of New England were actuated, in their original enterprise, on their fidelity to which, under the smdes of a beneficent Providence, their suc- cess was founded ; and to the prevalence of the same order of principles have traced the prosperity of our towns. In their growing and flourishing condition, New England herself has been honored. With the matron of old, presenting them as her offspring, she has been ready to exclaim, " these, these are my jewels." On a day like this, when the children of this our household have gathered home, — when, with a filial reverence and glowing affections we have come to sit once more by the family hearth-stone, and to enjoy the 29 social pleasures of the paternal birth-day, — when we have come to mingle our gladness and our grief to- gether in many of the proud and happy, no less than the tender and atibcting remembrances of the past, we shall be indulged, I trust, without the accusation of an attempt to glorify the family name, in recurring, as a dutiful service, to some of the venerable portraits that honor our walls, whose lives were eminent in their day, and many of whose names have become illustrious in the history of the world. In doing this, we may well rejoice that we still keep Avithin the circle of the elevated principles that have guided us thus far. It has been by their adherence to whatever is ennobling in man, to whatever meliorates and exalts the human condition, devotion to freedom and truth and God, that the native and adopted sons of this ancient town have earned the laurels of their fame and become eminent, some of them, in all the earth. To us have they bequeathed an imperishable renown, — our least return will be to call up their names, that we may pay some feeble tribute to their memories. Let us begin with the days of the Mount, with John Wheel- wright^ the bold and acute thinker. No time-serving conformist, no timid one to grow pale before councils or decrees. Fit companion for Sir Henry Vane, a re- serve in the noble army of martyrs. Honor now to thy name, who for thy character and long ministry wouldst have been honored at the death, had not thy persecu- tors been in power.* — William Coddiiigton, a fellow pilgrim with Winthrop, munificent and upright, " with the chiefest in all public charges," the friend of Wheel- * See Hutchinson. 30 Wright, peace-maker, judge, and governor. He should be remembered here where he did something for learn- ing, and everything for a good example. — Henry Adams. Of him little is left to us but his epitaph. That tells us that " he took his flight from the Dragon persecution in Devonshire in England, and alighted at Mount Wollas- ton," (we may add, perhaps as early as 1630.) Would that we knew more of the intrepid Pilgrim. But we know this, and for this let him be remembered, that a century and a half afterwards, he turned round upon that Dragon, in his mighty descendant, and bearded him in his den. — Edmund Qumcy, dying early, but worthy in his youth to be one of the first representa- tives of Boston, in the first General Court in the Prov- ince. He left those who came after him to complete his work, a long line of descendants, the magistrate, the judge, officers civil and military, among whom the glory of the children were their Fathers. They had freedom and the good of the country at heart. It was seen in their own doings and in the confidence of the people. — Henry Flynt breaks in upon the line, yet allied with them in kindred, a descendant of the Godly first teacher here. He has the memorable distinction of having labored longest on the roll of Harvard, — fellow and tutor among her servants and sons. Mirthful yet grave, he could mingle the " suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re." Preacher and scholar ! thou didst well in thy day. — Lemuel Briant, — let us pause here. He is not to be passed by as a common name. He stood out before his age where there were few to be at his side. High authority * pronounced him " the learned, * President Adams, sen. ii\ ingenuous, and eloquent pastor. " He was all that. His distant successor assigns him his place to walk with Wheelwright in the grand procession of bold and think- ing men. Posterity gives him fame in measures his own age had no censer they could burn it in. — Next comes Richard Cranch, born at the beginning of the last century, living into this. His tall person, like his upright mind, is still familiar to many of us. He was the son of a Puritan, and, in all that made such an one great, a Puritan himself. He loved science and adorn- ed it. He was a profound theologian in everything but the name ; and his life and his practice were better than that. Representative, senator, judge among the people, his integrity was a rock that could not be mov- ed. He was honored by Harvard College, though he sat not in her seats or mused in her groves. The pil- lar he was, was missed when he fell where few like him have been left or risen up. — John Adams follows in the order of time, — the bold champion of freedom, the asserter of human right, the vindicator of the oppress- ed, by the power of his eloquence starting from their seats as august an assembly as the world ever saw. He was the son of one who served at this communion table. He was an ornament to religion and his race, faithful to his age and his God, great among the great- est. I will add no further feeble words of mine to a name that is written where it cannot die. Behold the man I approach and read ! " This house will bear witness to his piety : This town, his birth-place, to his munificence : History to his patriotism : Posterity to the depth and compass of his mind." * — The next year * By the side of the pulpit, in the First Church, where the present Dis- course was delivered, is a mural monument, surmounted by a bust of John 32 after him, but not four months younger, is born John Hancock, the minister's son : the hterary and pohshed gentleman, favorite of the people, liberal merchant, eloquent orator, courteous and dignified, representa- tive and governor, member of the first congress, presi- dent of the second, first to write his name on the mem- orable scroll, the Declaration of Independence, where it stands bold and finished like his character and man- ners. He gave an immortality of littleness to General Gage, who sentenced him to condign punishment, and denied hiui pardon on any terms as a rebel, by showing in his triumphant cause how contemptible was his threat. — Eight years more, and there comes the youth- ful patriot, Josiah Qiiincy, jr., another in the bright line we have already passed, eminent in the law, bold for freedom, both as a writer and actor. He stood up for justice, with his co-patriot John Adams, amidst the furious excitement of the Boston massacre ; a stand as fearless as it was righteous. Like Regulus of old, his life was given to his country, but in a better way. Already enfeebled in health, he died returning from England, whither he had privately sailed for her good. No cheering tidings fell upon his dying ear, announcing her dawninor glories. The battle of Lexington had been fought only seven days before. He sleeps in our burial yard. Peaceful be his rest ! How befitting him, as we dwell upon the memory of his early promise, is that exquisite monumental inscription ! " Hen ! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse." Time would fail me to speak of all that might be Adams, beneath wliich is an inscription from which the few words quoted in the text are taken. 33 added to the brilliant constellation, — the eminent dead, the more illustrious hving. They will brighten the glittering galaxy at last. May they be mentioned with more becoming eulogy a hundred years from this day. Such are some of the honorable and inspiring remi- niscences of the past. There are other emotions that cannot but be awakened in us, — tender and more aflecting. Two hundred years have passed away since the foundation of the town ; and what joyful scenes and sorrowful ones have come and gone in all her habitations ! Generation after generation have followed each other, like wave rolling upon wave, alike swal- lowed up together, — but time and its changes have neither of them stopped for them, nor have the divine appointments been altered or set aside. The cradle with its infant smiles, watched over by parental fond- ness ; the bridal with its garlands and its hopes, each of them rosy and bright ; the grave with its breaking hearts and tearful eyes ; sickness with its own pains, and the watchful solicitude of those who have bent over it ; merry gladness and withering gloom knocking side by side at countless doors ; prayers of thanksgiv- ing, and prayers imploring comfort, ascending from the same and different scenes ; sunny prosperity and times that tried the soul ; battle and peace, with all their terrors and rejoicings, who shall recount all these ? In what thronging numbers do these affecting remem- brances thicken round us, as we turn to the scenes of home, to the burial yard, to these worshiping courts, where in all their varied character they have been acted out, — how do they rise to our imaginations, as through the dim aisles of the past fancy pictures to us the re- treating footsteps of the passing generations ! 5 34 Meanwhile, on a wider tield, what changes have been witnessed through the eartli ! For every one that landed with Wollaston more than two hundred may be ralhed within the limits of the ancient incorporation, where three flourishing towns are opening day by day new avenues of enterprise and improvement. The feeble band of the Pilgrims — feeble only in numbers — have swollen to fifteen millions, and twenty-six inde- pendent republics have sprung up on the soil where they confided their hopes. The despised principles, for which they dared and bore everything, have been unfolding every hour, in new and more perfect mani- festations, winning men to their embrace and practice. Intolerance has dropped her unseemly garments, and flung away, at least professedly, all her weapons of abuse and persecution. Their spirit has gone back and reacted upon the old world with its conciliating and elevating influences, — awing despotism and lifting the burdens of the social condition from despairing humanity. The university, on which they doated, rears her venerable head, amidst half a hundred, which her own sons almost alone have established. Learning has found channels for diffusing itself through society, of which they never dreamed, and is fast undermining social evils and demoralizing recreations, which open hostility had only fortified the more. Laws have been humanized and simplified, and barbarous and revolting practices have been banished from society as degrading to Christian men. Art, science, philosophy, into what hitherto unexplored regions have they penetrated, since the mornino- of New Eui^land first dawned ! what treas- ures have they brought back to the waiting generations, increasing comfort, lessening toil, contracting the wide 35 separations of the human family, scattering inteihgence, awakening the higher faculties of man, banishing low pursuits and pleasures, and thus directing all their trib- utaries to swell the great tide of human improvement and progress! What remains to us, descendants of the early emi- grants, in helping forward this progress, on these shores so auspiciously begun, but more and more to copy their sympathy with, their allegiance to those higher princi- ples, on which their enterprise was built? On our fidelity to these depends everything that is ennobling in the hopeful anticipations of the future. Nothing great or glorious lives, the roots of which have been planted in the lower propensities of man. Everything tri- umphs at last, which is based upon right, and religion, and truth. The applause of the passing hour, the shouts of the multitude may give a temporary pros- perity to the wrong ; black night may shut down for a while round the righteous cause ; — but by the fidelity of human endeavor the final consummation is sure, and the steady progress towards it is as certain. Fathers of New England, may your sons learn this of you ! Let the inheritance of your children be your trust in God, your never faltering faith in the capacities of man. " Thou carriest Caesar," said the world's conqueror to the trembling boatman, as he ferried him in fear through the perilous tempest ; " never despair with such a burden." Thou art bearing forward the pur- poses of God, is a nobler reflection, yet appealing to the same sentiment, to swell and sustain our souls. He, who despairs with such a burden, deserves not to know what he carries. Let patience, perseverance, and diligence be in all time to come as in all time past 36 the cardinal virtues in the land of the Pilgrims. Smitten with the memory of the great and good, who have lived and labored for our benefit, measuring justly what man is and what he has done, watching the steady growth of the ages, worshiping the divine power of truth, and still more adoringly Him who gives truth its power, — thus may we, and those who come after us, aim to catch some ennobling sense of the true destiny of our race. Springing beyond the fences of our own time, living faithfully and hopefully, let us commit the cause of man, without a fear, to the advancing genera- tions, to the irresistible laws and the presiding care of God. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. Measures taken in regard to the Centennial Celebration at Quincy, Mass., 25 May, 1840, and the proceedings on that occasion. In October and November, 1S39, two or three meetings were held by the Town, as may be seen by reference to the Town Rec- ords, to take into consideration the propriety and the means of celebrating the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the ancient Town in this place, which, dating from 1640, 13th May, (old style,) in the course of events was to come round on the 25lh May, 1840. In the progress of this design, various perplexi- ties and inauspicious circumstances occurred, which as they were not foreseen could neither in the event be avoided nor surmounted. The well intended attempt lingered along, v/ith no final action, and there seemed little prospect of getting so far extricated from the embarrassment as to arrive at any successful termination. At length, as the recurrence of the Anniversary was rapidly hastening on, the young men of Quincy were moved to engage in the matter, and pursuant to a notice to that effect a meeting was held by them, at the Centre District School room, on Monday eve- ning, 27th April, 1840, to consider the whole subject. Mr. Caleb Gill, jr., was called to preside, and Captain Samuel Wiiite was appointed secretary. After remarks from several gentlemen, it was resolved to com- memorate the return of this interesting event. The following Com- mittee of Arrangements was accordingly chosen, namely, John A. Green, James F. Brown, Nathan White, Rufus Foster, Alvin Rodgers, William Whitney, Edward A. Spear, James Penniman, Charles N. Souther, Edwin N. Willet, Waldo Nash, Philip Carver, 40 who were instructed to report, at an adjourned meeting, such measures as they might deem proper for a suitable observance of the day. Wednesday evening, 29th April. At the adjourned meeting it was recommended by the Committee of Arrangements that the Rev. George Whitney of Roxbury, a native of Quincy, be invited to deliver a Commemorative Discourse on the approaching interesting occasion; which recommendation was unanimously adopted. It was also voted to invite the Rev. John Gregory, minister of the First Universalist Church in Q,uincy, to deliver an Address to the Young Men. And upon the suggestion of the Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, it was likewise voted, tluit Mr. Christopher Pearse Cranch, a descendant from Quincy, be invited to deliver a Poem on the same occasion. Other suggestions of the Committee of Arrangements, in refer- ence to the observance of the day, were duly considered and adopt- ed. Whereupon the meeting was dissolved. Caleb Gill, Jr., Moderator. Samuel White, Secretary. The Committee of Arrangements engaged with alacrity in making those preparations which the occasion required, receiving likewise such suggestions, as were from time to time offered, with readiness and a desire to meet the reasonable wishes of all interested in the celebration. The inhabitants of the town, with great unanimity, and the natives and descendants, scattered far and wide, more especially those in the neighboring metropolis, came forward cordially to the good work. A large pavilion was erected on the Hancock Lot, capable of accommodating from six to eight hundred people; and at the earnest desire very generally expressed of having the Ladies at the dinner, such measures were speedily taken as should secure their cheering presence and elevating influence on the occasion. This circumstance, rather novel in these days, yet marking, we think, an era in the progress of Christian civilization, we may well hope will be more a matter of course in all public festivities, among those who shall assemble to celebrate the third centennial anniver- sary. 41 Soon alitor the celebration had been decided upon, the following notice was published in some of the Boston papers. QUINCY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. Preparations are now making suitably to commemorate the two hundredth Anniversary since the incorporation of tlie Town of Braintree, (Quincy then being a part of said town, and the place of original settlement,) on MONDAY, the 2nth instant. The day will be ushered in by a National salute. The procession will be formed in the morning, and, after marching through several streets, will repair to the Adams Temple, where appropriate Religious services will take place, and a Commemorative Discourse be pronounced by the Rev. George Whitney, of Roxbury. The Rev. John Gregory, of Quincy, will deliver an Address to the Young Men. A Poem will also be given on the occasion, by IMr. C. P. Cranch. After these exercises, a procession will be formed of the subscribers to the Dinner and invited guests, who will then proceed to tlie pavilion erected for the occasion. The Quincy Light Infantry will perform escort duty, accompanied by an excellent Band of Music. Tickets for the Dinner may be procured, in Boston, of Jeffrey R. Brackett, Gl) Washington Street, and of Farnsworth &- Baxter, Kilby street. Those gentlemen, who intend to take tickets for the Dinner, are particularly de- sired to purchase them on or before the 22d instant The Committee of Arrangements, in compliance with their instructions, hereby extend an invitation to the nalives of Quincy and their descendants, residing in other places, to unite in the festivities of the occasion. It is to be hoped that all the widely scattered sons of Quincy, with their children, will again return once more to meet each other at home. By order of the Committee of Arrangements, JOHN A. GREEN, Chairman. James F. Brow.v, Secretary. Quincy, May 13, 1*40. In consequence of this invitation, a meeting was called by an advertisement in the Daily Evening Transcript of May I3th, as follows. Centknmal, Celebratio.v at Qui.xcy. The citizens of Quincy have determined to celebrate the completion of the second Century of the In- corporation of that Town, on Monda\', the 25th day of the present month, and invite the cooperation of the descendants of that Town, who are now located in other places. A meeting of the natives of Quincy and their descendants, residing in this city, will be held in the Old Supreme Court 6 42 room, in the Court House in School Street, at 8 o'clock this evening, to adopt such measures as may be necessary to aid in this celebration, and evince their attachment to this time-honored spot of their origin. The result of this meeting comes next in course, and is given as it appeared in several of the Boston papers. QUINCY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. Agreeably to a call in the papers of the 13th instant, the natives of Quincy and tlieir descendants in Boston assembled at the Old Court House in School street. The meeting was called to order by Lewis G. Pray, Esq., and organized by the choice of Hon. Josiah Quincy, Jr., for Chairman, and Jeffrey R. Brackett, Secretary. Mr. Quincy, on taking the Chair, made u short address, and was followed by Charles F. Adams, Esq., who offered the accompanying Resolutions, which were unanimously adopted. Resolved, That the perpetuation of the principles of freedom in New England depends, under God, most upon the extent to which the knowledge of the origin and history of tlieir supporters during the period of two centuries now elasped since the first settlements, can be generally spread among us. Resolved, That no occasions present themselves which can be more fitly used for this purpose than commemorations of the anniversaries of the origi- nal foundations of tlie various towns of our Commonwealth. Resolved, That the citizens of Boston, natives of or otherwise connected with Quincy, iiave seen with great pleasure the manifestation on the part of tlieir fellow citizens in the latter town of an intention to celebrate in a proper manner the 25th day of May, as the day upon which two hundred years ago their town Avas originally incorporated ; and that they will cheer- fully cooperate with them in all suitable arrangements to promote the same. Resolved, That a commhtee be appointed from this meeting Avho shall have power to communicate with any committee that shall be raised in Quincy, and to aid them in making all the necessary preparations Avhich are contemplated for the due solemnization of this anniversary. In accordance with the last resolution, the following named gentlemen were chosen, to constitute a committee : Josiah Quincy, Jr., Zabdiel B. Adams, Lewis G. Pray, James B. Richardson, William Hayden, Benjamin Guild, Edward Miller, Charles F. Adams, Nathaniel Faxon, Charles Arnold, R. C. Greenleaf, Francis Adams, William Phipps, Jeffrey R. Brackett. Edm was then read by the President. John A. Green, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements. Washington, 18 May, 1840. Sir, — I have received your letter of the 7th inst., containing the obliging invitation to me to attend the celebration of the cen- tennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Braintree, on the 25th of this month. The necessity of my attendance upon my public duties at this place, deprives me of the power of com- plying with this invitation, for which I am duly grateful. I pray the company to accept instead of my presence my best wishes for the health and happiness of them all. I am, very respectfully. Sir, Your obedient serv't, J. a. ADAMS. 59 After which he proposed — John Quincy Adams — This is not an occasion to praise the liv- ing; and distant be the day when any inscription shall bear his name, or any tongue pronounce his eulogy. And following this The name of John Hancock, a native of Quincy, — With Ameri- can Liberty it arose — with American Liberty alone it can perish. The following letter was received from Professor John G. Pal- frey. Boston, 2M May, 1830. Dear Sir, — I am unexpectedly deprived, by an unavoidable engagement, of the pleasure which I promised myself, when I ac- cepted the invitation, with which I was honored by the citizens of Q,uincy, to attend the very interesting occasion of Monday next. If a convenient opportunity occurs, will you do me the favor to submit, in my behalf, the following sentiment to the attention of the company ? The Town of Quincy — The home of Wheelwright and Coddiag- ton ; the birth place of Hancock, the Adamses, and the Quincys; a spot to be held in everlasting remembrance in the history of re- ligious and civil liberty. The following sentiment was received from Hon. Robert C Winthrop, who was prevented by other engagements from comply- ino- with the invitation to attend : — Braintrce and Quincy — Their men and their hills — their scions and their sienitc ; the first have furnished some of the ablest hands by which our Revolution was achieved; the last has supplied the materials of the proudest monument by which it will be commemor- ated. The President then proposed John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr. — The defenders of Pres- ton. Together they stood as the advocates of Liberty and Law, — together they sleep amid the graves of their Fathers; "Thus joined in fame, in friendship tried, — No chance could sever, nor the grave divide." 60 The Rev. George Whitney of Roxbury, being requested to give a sentiment, rose and said: — It will not be expected of me, Mr. President, after the long and I am afraid sufficiently tedious utter- ance I have already put forth, to make anytliing like a set speech here, but I will ask your patience and that of our friends in recur- ring to a brief incident of former times. As I passed, a day or two since, the place where we are now assembled, and saw the Pavilion going up in preparation for this interesting occasion, an anecdote occurred to me I had heard a long lime ago in reference to the elder Adams, the point of which may be turned with singular force to this spot and the distinguished personages associated with it. It is said that when President Adams, senior, was minister to the Court of St. James, he was called upon, at his lodgings, by Sir Benjamin West, who invited him to a morning walk. They went out together as far as Ken- sington Gardens, conversing on various topics. Upon their arrival at the spot already named, Sir Benjamin West thrust his cane into the ground, and with a strong expression of patriotic feeling, turning at the same time to Mr. Adams, exclaimed, " Here, Sir, was the origin of the American Revolution." "How so?" said Mr. Adams. " It was thus," replied Sir Benjamin. " When George III. was about to take to himself Queen Charlotte, following the wisdom of the old adage — first your cage and then your bird — he summoned one of his ministers into his presence, and informed him that it was his purpose to have a new Palace for the Queen : and that the necessary funds must forthwith be supplied. ' We have noth- ing in the Treasury,' replied the minister, ' not a penny.' ' That will be no impediment,' replied the King; 'the Palace we must have ; we have only to tax the Colonies.' — The Colonies were taxed. The stamp act was imposed. We see what they got by it. Here, Sir, was the origin of the American Revolution." * When we come to speak of the secondary causes of that great * The reader may find a little different version of this anecdote in Tudor's Life of James Otis, p. 206. Tlie main incidents, however, are the same. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens join each other: and it was somewhere thereabouts, — on the spot occupied by Sir Benjamin West, — where the King had proposed to locate the palace. Possibly the pleasing of the Queen might have concerned him less than the pleasing of himself or even of his courtiers. 61 event, Mr. President, — for independent of all that might be gathered up, we cannot but feel that from the development of the original principles on which the Pilgrims started, the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence were both sooner or later certain to come forth, — it seems to me, that it turns out to be our privilege with singular propriety and force, on this very spot, to imitate the action of Sir Benjamin West, and to say with emphasis, in his own words also — Here, here, Sir, was the origin of the American Revolution. This spot, Sir, was the birth-place of John Hancock, whose name is first on the scroll of the Declaration of Independence. The house that gave him birth, and in which his cradle was rocked, stood but a few yards from the head of this Pavilion. The remains of the cellar are visible yet. In after times this place became first the residence of the glowing patriot, Josiah Quincy, Jr., and down further still a part of the landed property of the illustrious John Adams, "par iiobile fratnan." When we consider what were the signal and successful cfTorts of these eminent champions of liber- ty in the great cause alluded to, we can hardly find room for a doubt, that but for their agency the American Revolution might not and the Declaration of Independence certainly would not have occurred as early as they did. Here, then, may wc also be permit- ted to say was the origin of these great events. I have already, in another place, alluded to some of the eminent personages who in earlier and later times have honored our soil. Fabulous history tells us that Cadmus, having slain the Dragon that guarded the fountain sacred to Mars, sowed his teeth, and there sprung up from them armed men. Our fiithers, if they did not slay the Dragon of persecution, would not at least suffer them- selves to be slain by him. Instead of his teeth, they sowed here their own principles, which in time were destined to grind him to powder. In conclusion, I will give you as a sentiment, Our beloved native soil — May there be springing up from it, in all the future as in the two hundred years that are past, armed men, — armed neither with sword, helmet, nor buckler, but with those exalted principles, the hope of the world, which elevate at the same time that thev adorn humanity. 62 Dr. Z. B. Adams next rose, at the request of the President, and gave The Granite Rocks of Quincy, as connected with he?' prosperity and wealth: — In the words of the eloquent orator of the day, I would say, " he who despairs under such a burden deserves not to know what he carries." The President then requested a sentiment from Charles F. Adams, Esq., who began by remarking that, although entirely unused to any public appearance on occasions of this kind, he could not resist the feeling which prompted him to express to all who were here assembled, the deep sense of gratitude he entertained for the very kind notice that had been this day taken of those with whom na- ture had connected him. Yet, in considering whatever share of merit it was the present disposition to award to their public services, the reflection ought at once to suggest itself, that it was the offspring of the soil of this old town and the natural consequence of the principles early incul- cated and long adhered to. And when Mr. Adams looked around him and thought of the names of many of the persons who sat here, and compared them with those which are recorded in the annals of the town, even from the day of its settlement, it was matter of gratification to him to find how often they proved the same. These might indeed be regarded as the good old roots (if he could be allowed the expression) first planted in a healthy soil, which had been going on from generation, shooting forth new and green and healthy branches, conducing at one and the same mo- ment to be the pride, the ornament, and the support of our common country. It had been already remarked, in another place, this day, how fruitful this town was in associations, and this Mr. Adams took to be the great use of celebrations of the sort. They revived the recollections of the past, and presented ideas which could not fail to produce a beneficial action of the mind for the future. Indeed, how could it be otherwise, when there was hardly a spot in Quincy to which a young man could look, without thinking of something in connexion with it to improve his heart or to rectify his head ? Here, on this very site we were now occupying, it was that a worthy pastor lived, who passed his days not merely in teaching his flock 63 the principles of faith, but gave the best evidence of his success in instilling rules of practical conduct, by educating a son, (John Hancock,) who, when he came of age and the day of trial arrived and he was called upon to choose between the probable loss of fortune and adherence to his country, never hesitated, but bravely stuck to his country and let the fortune go. And here, too, on this same spot, succeeded to him another father, who brought up another son, (Josiah Quincy, Jr.) And this son as he advanced in life devoted his strength to the cause of his country. And when it pleased God that this strength should depart from him, and he fell into weakness of body, then came the trial for his patriotism. He was told by his physicians in Eng- land that, if he wished to recover, he must abandon his duties and go to recruit his exhausted powers at certain medicinal springs — yet notwithstanding this, he chose to go on, to stick to his country and to give up his life. After such examples, it was not fit that the dwelling, which knew them both, should stand the risk of desecration by succes- sors of less exalted purposes. And it had been the will of Heaven, as if designing to prevent it, that a fire should soon after break forth and sweep it from the face of men. Yet the land remains and will continue, it is to be hoped, in hands ever anxious to pro- vide that it shall be put only to noble uses. Again, there was still at the foot of a hill yonder, an old house which had been the dwelling of a worthy farmer — and he had given little to his son (John Adams) but right notions. Yet, even these proved to him in after life an ample inheritance, for he fol- lowed them out, and as God was pleased to grant to him a mod- erate competency and long life, he went straight forward in his course, and died as he had lived with independence on his lips. These were instances of a more extended reputation than fell to the lot of most of our other citizens, but it was not for a mo- ment to be supposed that the same feeling, which made itself so visible to the world in them, did not glow with equal ardor in the breasts of their fellows of this town. Why, it was but a few days ago that Mr. Adams was reading a letter — yes, a letter from a Quincy wom.an to her husband, dated in the second year of the revolutionary struggle, in which she writes to him that even then more than half of the male population of the town, between the 64 ages of fifteen and sixty, was acting in the field or on the water against the British, and that if this went on much further the women would have to gather the harvest ; and she adds, that for her own part she thinks she could help to gather the corn and husk it, but she fears she should make a poor figure at digging pota- toes. Mr. Adams concluded by again exhorting the young men of the town to be mindful of these facts, for they could be turned to use- ful account even in the regulation of the daily industry of life. In allusion to the incident quoted from the letter, he would pro- pose for a toast — The harvest of 1776 in the town of IBi-aintree — When the corn and potatoes were left to be gathered by the women, because a more precious crop, matured from the seedtime of 1640, demanded the labor of all the men. Mr. C. P. Cranch, poet of the day, at the solicitation of the chair, presented the following sentiment : — The New England character; — Like our Granite hills, may it long continue to clothe over the everlasting rock of principle with the evergreen of the best and most beautiful affections, I rise — said Mr. Frederic A. Whitney — at your request, Mr. President, by the side of the poet of the day, but failing to catch the inspiration of his fancy and beauty with which he has enter- tained us, turn to the musty rolls of tradition for an incident which may be recalled as we commemorate the Fathers of our Town and those eminent in character and life, who have trodden its soil. Of this latter class, one has been passed over, whom, two centuries since, the court and ministers of the second Charles would hardly have spared. It has been reputed that our forest and rocks be- came the shelter and resting place of one of that large body, who, favoring the sect of the Independents, brought Charles I. to the block, and at the restoration of his son to the throne, fled for their lives from England. Some years since, I gathered from the lips of an aged citizen of this town, whose numerous descendants are yet with us, who was remarkable for his retentive memory and exceeding accuracy in all matters of fact, this tradition. His childhood, he told me, had been with those who had conversed with this lonely exile for 65 liberty. Within his own memory, there had stood on a hillock, not far from the spot on which we are assembled, the humble abode of the old refugee. Here, as said tradition, under the assumed name of Revel, he lived and died; and his funeral was honored by the attendance of his Excellency, the Provincial Governor, and of distinguished men from the neighboring metropolis of Boston. I stand not up to claim for this ancient personage a place among the Regicide Judges. The historian of the United States, whom we hoped to have seen with us this day, has not written his name with those of Whalley, Gofle, and Dixwell, known to have been three of the Judges who found shelter in America, dwelling first in Massachusetts and afterwards fleeing to Connecticut. But the restoration of Charles II. made other victims than the Judges a sacrifice to the memory of his beheaded father ; else Peters, for instance, the friend, ' honored and beloved' of Roger Williams, might have escaped the gallows. And if not one of those who sat in judgment on King Charles 1., doubtless our exile was one who for their principles and in their cause fled to our shores. It was enacted concerning the oracle of Pythos, that though it uttered doubtful responses, they should not be utterly disregarded. So without blindly reverencing, should we ever regard the voice of tradition. On the strength of the tradition now cited, and for the sake of adding another name to those whom this day brings to mind, I will propose, Sir, The Mcmori/ of Thomas Revel, an Exile for civil lihcrtij from his own land to this place — May the principles of freedom, for which with the Stuarts he contended, live ever on the soil that be- came the home of the Puritan and the English Independent. Hon. B. L. Wales of Randolph next proposed William Coddington — familiarly known to the youngest school- boy of Braintrce as the munificent donor of the Coddington School Fund : his memory will be cherished, and his name hallowed by all future generations, so long as common schools continue the pride of New England, — the right-arm of our national defence. John W^hitney, Esq., in proposing a sentiment, remarked — that in reflecting upon the great and good men who had been reared upon our soil, and casting our thoughts forward to the ages that 9 66 should follow, the great question rose before us to be settled, — whether, so far as depended upon our exertions, the long line of eminent individuals should be continued, or a broken link should fall out in the chain connecting the present with the future. This question — he continued — rests for its decision upon the young men of our town. I will, therefore, Mr. President, offer as a sen- timent — T/tc Young 3Ien of Quincy : — When they recollect the states- men and patriots who have claimed this as their birth-place, may they be emulous to follow them in all that is great and good, and thus become the ornaments and the pride of our land. Captain Josiah Brigham, one of the former commanders of the Quincy Light Infantry, addressed the chair as follows: — Mr. President, — Having been called on for a sentiment, I would merely remark, that it was not my privilege to be born in duincy. But, Sir, it has been my fortune to spend the largest portion of my life in this ancient and distinguished town. I have lived here very hap- pily with the inhabitants for about thirty years, and I feel as though I had a right to share, in some degree, in that just pride which the native born inhabitants feel, from the circumstance that this town can justly boast of having given birth to a greater number of Presidents and eminent men than any other town in the State, or in the United States. It gives me great pleasure, on this interesting occasion, to meet with so many of the inhabitants of Q,uincy, and with those who originated here, but whose fortunes have caused them to locate in other places. And it gives me additional pleasure, at this lime, to meet again with the military Company who have this day performed escort duty. It was my fortune, in the early part of my life, to be associated with that Company ; and conse- quently I have ever since felt an interest in its continued existence and prosperity, — a gratification also in meeting with them, as it always brings to my mind fresh recollections of past feelings and associations. That Company is now one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, Light Company in the Commonwealth. It is now fifty years old, and but a k\\ weeks since it celebrated the fiftieth anni- versary of its incorporation. — In the time of the last war between the United States and Great Britain, in the foil of 1814, that Com- pany was called out by the State authorities, and ordered to march 67 to Boston. It was stationed at South Boston, where it remained in the service of its country for about two months. It was my lot to be a member of the Company at that lime. Since then the Com- pany has passed into other hands. At this hour it is one of the best disciplined and most respectable Independent Companies in the State. Sir, I will on this occasion give as a sentiment, The Quincy Light Iiifaniri/ — Now Mty years old. Its mem- bers always ready to answer the call of their country — always ready to perform escort duty. May the Company continue to exist in prosperity from generation to generation, until it shall perform escort duty on the Third Centennial Anniversary of the incorpo- ration of this ancient and honored town. The Rev. John Gregory proposed the following sentiment : — The sons and daughters of Quincy — May they mingle with their patriotism the social and domestic virtues, and may their firesides be the calm retreat of every heartfelt enjoyment of "sweet home." Mr. John A. Green, chairman of the committee of arrangements, offered — The Fair Sex — Our joy in youth, — our companions in man- hood, — our solace in age- Mr. James F. Brown proposed Quincy, Braintrcc, and Randolph — May they become united in sentiment and feeling as when combined under one act ot Incor- poration. The President announced the following sentiment from James Newcomb, Esq. of duincy, which he said the gentleman preferred not to deliver himself, for a reason which would be obvious to the ladies when they heard it. Woman — the friend and guide of man — Her sphere is the do- mestic circle — her influence the " still small voire." The ladies being applied to for a sentiment, presented the follow- ing in reply. The gentleman toho first voted to admit the ladies to a public dinner — May his table never want the comfort and graces, not omitting the still small voice, which it is their vocation to furnish. After this followed a number of volunteer sentiments. 68 VOLUNTEER SENTIMENTS. Fair Harvard — A contemporary of the pilgrim fathers — with the experience of two centuries, she intrusts her literary treasures and her historical inscriptions to the Q,uincy granite. The Blue Hill — The first landmark hailed by the mariner as he approaches the still bay of the Massachusetts. May the princi- ples of those who first settled at its foot be as permanent as its color and as enduring as its base. John Wheelicright and Oliver Cronmcll — They set a ball in motion which the whole civilized world cannot stop. 27te blessings toe derive from our fathers — Like the light of the source of day reflected from every object we forget the fount from which it flowed. The shadows of the past — They leave no trace behind, but they give grace and beauty to the spot over which they hover. Those who take their drop from the bucket ; — they will never be found with the drop in their eye. The day — When we make a pastime out of past time. The first settler of Quincy — Although a man cannot always be merry and wise, at proper times it is wise to be merry. The Farmers of Quincy — May they suffer no root of bitter- ness to spring up among us, nor any to show the cloven foot, except they be neat cattle. Those who live on Rock Common — May they soon be again able to make their bread out of stone. The first Railroad in the United States — It connected the rocky mountain in Cluincy with the Atlantic. The last Railroad in the United States — it shall connect the Rocky Mountains of the West with both the Atlantic and the Pacific tide. The City of Quincy in Adams County, Illinois, and the towns of Quincy in Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee — May their pros- 69 perity be as lasting as our own, although it is not like ours, founded upon a rock. Our Fathers — Fishermen before they were shepherds — they got along by hook as well as by crook. Independence — Its first germ appeared on Mount Wollaston ; and when, one hundred and fifty years after, it was publicly pro- claimed, a son of Eraintree, one of its most distinguished advocates, urged its annual celebration with bonfires and illuminations ; this son is now its fearless supporter even on the floor of Congress; may it be held sacred in our country " till rolling years shall cease to move. " Dr. Z. B. Adams then addressed the chair as follows : — Mr. President, — We have alluded with great propriety to our Fathers and our Mothers, — the early settlers of New England. It appears to me there is still a very interesting class, whom it would be wrong in us to pass by with neglect, — the young ladies. And I will venture to add, therefore, even at this late hour. The Young Ladies, emigrants to this country in 1620; — they must have been possessed of energy and true fire, for they caught their sparks from the " Leydcn Jar." Dr. Lewis Joseph Glover followed Dr. Adams with some very entertaining professional remarks in allusion to Quincy, his native place, — his interest in her welfare, and the healthy state in which, in her advanced age, her symptoms evidently discovered her to be. But the lateness of the hour, and the movement already making towards an adjournment, did not enable him to say all that he in- tended. The sun was already rapidly declining. The President of the day, early in the course of the dinner, had presented to the atten- tion of the company a piece of parchment, headed with a part of the closing paragraph in the Discourse of the Hon. Daniel Webster at Plymouth in 1820, on which it was his wish that the names of those present should be written ; — the parchment then to be de- posited in some safe place and handed down to those who should come up to celebrate a similar occasion, one hundred years hence. 70 This suggestion was readily complied with, and two hundred and eighty-six names were subscribed. The President likewise suggested in closing, that in order to connect the present more particularly with the coming century, and to honor the day, the young men of Q,uincy should form a society, for the purpose of ornamenting the town with trees, es- pecially the burial yard, which, growing for a century, should appear in perfection to tlie company on the 25th of May, 1940. This suggestion likewise met with a cheerful and ready response. The President then further suggested that as the meeting was about to be broken up, they should adjourn, to meet in the same place, to celebrate the Third Centennial Anniversary on the 25th of May, 1940, which was adopted without a dissenting voice. The company then left the pavilion, and might be seen wending their ways towards their various homes, — the bells on the churches ringing out their merry peals, — the cannon on President's Hill pouring its echoing roars over hill and valley, and the sun with his retiring rays gilding the distant hill tops as with glittering gold. The evening was spent in social and family intercourse, recounting the interesting events and associations of the day, and by a party of young ladies and gentlemen in a Ball at the Hancock House. We cannot close this imperfect sketch of the Celebration, some account of which we were anxious to transmit to those who should come after us, better than in the beautiful language of the orator at Plymouth, and so happily inscribed, by the President of the day, at the head of the parchment already alluded to. Including the whole matter it runs thus. HANCOCK LOT — QUINCY — MASSACHUSETTS. We who celebrate the 25th of May, 1840, would welcome you, who a century hence shall fill the places we now fill, " to this pleas- ant land of the Fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance, which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the delights of learn- 71 ing. We welcome jou to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred and parents and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Ciiristianity, and the light of everlasting truth!" m <::'^>-c> ^^'^ <^«_<: ^;%^ cc c« ^ ^ car c^ Cir- C cle.' c Cl.^ ■ <: .: -■(; ^•cr. ^ 2 i. '.'C. i :|-; %' ^ 1 ~1si. ^ ■? J ^- ^ ■" ..; cr - <-< , CC cr . cr . cr ^ Cf . CC . C< ^ ^ tc: <. ^ <:^ .««r^C C Cf