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DEDICATION

TOWN HALL IN BROOKLINE.

PROCEEDINGS

DEDICATION

TOWN HALL, BROOKLINE.

Febeuaet 22, 1873.

BKOOKLINE:
PREPARED AND PRINTED
BT AUTHORITY OP THE TOWN.
MDCCCLXXIII.

Ok ^1 « ^^^^o

CONTENTS.

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
Building Committee  7
Appointment of Committee of Arrangements  7
Proceedings of Committee of Arrangements  8
Music by Brookline Choral Club  9
Order of Exercises  ,  9
Appointment of President  10
Appointment of Marshals  10

CEREMONIES.
Formation of Procession  11
Entrance into Hall  11
Invited Guests  11
President's Invitation to Prayer  12
Rev. Dr. Williara Lamson's Prayer  12
Mr. Aspinwall's Address of Welcome  13
Mr. Winthrop's Inaugural Address  17
Ode by Miss Harriet Woods  67
Presentation of Keys  57
Mr. Wellman's Address  58
Mr. Head's Address  60
Hymn  62
Benediction by Rev. Mr. Newton  63
SUBSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS.
Vote of Thanks to Mr. Winthrop  64
Appointment of Publishing Committee  64

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.

Qn the twenty-second day of February, a. d. 1873, the
building intended for the Town H^ll of Brookline was
dedicated under the auspices of the Committee who had
been charged with its erection, in presence of as many
persons as could be crowded into its Upper Hall. The day
was remarkably fine, though very cold. The arrangements
were carefully made, and were carried out with such a
degree of precision and punctuality as to satisfy both par
ticipants and spectators.
The history and description of the structure, from the
appointment of the Building Committee to the day of its
completion and dedication, are given in the lucid address
of William A. Wellman, Esq., the Chairman of the Com
mittee, which forms a part of this volume.
The members of the Building Committee were —
William A. Wellman.
John C. Abbott. Augdstinb Shurtleff.
Charles U. Cotting-'. William Lincoln.
Chaeles W. Scuddek. William K. Melcheb. .
William Aspinwall. Martin P. Kennard.
The Building Committee invited the Board of Select
men, consisting of Messrs. Charles D. Head, Horace James,
William Aspinwall, James W. Edgerly, and Charles K.

Kirby, to unite with them in making the arrangements for
the dedication of the Town Hall to the purposes for which
it had been erected ; and from these two bodies a Committee
of Arrangements was formed, consisting of Messrs. William
Aspinwall, Charles D. Head, William A. Wellman, Charles
K. Kirby, and Martin P. Kennard.
As the capacity of the Hall was only sufficient for a
limited number, this Committee decided to issue tickets of
admission to the dedicatory ceremonies, and to distribute
them among the citizens of the town as impartially as pos
sible, and to issue invitations to such distinguished persons
as it was desirable to have present upon the occasion.
Nearly two thousand tickets were issued, and thus distrib
uted. About eighty invitations were issued : to the Gov
ernor and other high executive and legislative officers of
the Coramonwealth ; to the Judges of the Supreme Judi
cial Court and of the Superior Court ; to the Judges and
other civil, military, and naval officers holding commissions
from the United States Government within the Common
wealth ; to the Mayors of the neighboring cities ; to many
of the Clergy of the vicinity ; to Ex- Senators of this Sena
torial District ; to Ex-Representatives of the town ; and
to the various town-officers, both present and past.
The tickets issued were as follows : —

BROOKLINE TOWN HALL.
Saturday, February 22d, 1873, at 3 o'clock.

ADMIT THE BEARER.

9
The invitation issued was in the following form : —
THE INHABITANTS OF THE
TOWN OF BROOKLINE
Respectfully request the honor of your company at the
DEDICATION OF THE TOWN HALL
On Saturday, February 22d, 1873, at three o'clock p.m., on which
occasion the principal address will be delivered by the Honorable
Robert C. Winthrop. William Aspinwall, ^
Charles D. Head,'
William A. Wellman, )>
Charles K. Kirby,
Martin P. Kennard,

Committee of
Arrangements.

To  An ansvirer will oblige.
A ticket marked " Platform," in red ink, was enclosed
with the above invitation.
The music and singing on the occasion was given by the
Brookline Choral Club, a voluntary association of ladies and
gentlemen, who meet frequently to cultivate this delightful
art. The Order of Exercises was as follows : —
I. PRAYER.
Rev. William Lamsoh, D.D.

II. CHORUS, frora " Athalie."
Brookline Choral Club.

III. ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
Hon. William Aspinwall.
2

10
IV. IXAUGirEAL ADDZ.Z.-
3.115. Erannnr i.7. Wr5TH3ija.

T. ODE.

Tl. E'^ilfr-irT of cae K*j5. Isw" WTrr»"w A. "WeolmjJ!^. Esq., C&aSrmEL tc ^nt
B— -~-~.^ C ,i:ui\TT:r.^^^ to f ~>~'^- L*. Hku>, Za:;- C&ssasBB

VHL BKSiLDlCTlO'S.
Sett. WnjUAjt Whlkess'': Ein i"j:»-!r':y-

The Conunittee of Anriraei:ie-t? apiH}iiLted therr Cbiir-
mAn. HoiL WnxiAai A-?^-^w^--. Prerliez.: -;: ie E^iT; Eui
he invited the folio wiz^- yttti^' gentlemeii to i.:t 15 !^lir^iils.
to a.5si?t ra ?eetii.a' persons presentina tickets -oi -. " — .^^ — .
and ther ac-cepted hi? invitation : —
'E'z.irzs'z W. BeT5n:>rT'7H.
WisTHEOP ¦^. S-;r-DDEE. Geo2'^t K. Baoezs.
AiiEiST W. Cobb. Fai^r::^ L. Weltjcas.
Ts-Oju.- Aspiyw-A!.!.. Jb. .'.%^t- H. Hkusl
-i:f7Ei. F. Tbjjs. fnrro V«ay Asxot.
CffAKJLE.* E. Co-TYTSG-. AOilXI BL CeaJI^LSS.

CEREMONIES.

At three o'clock in the afternoon on Saturday the twenty-
second day of February, a.d. 1873, the Building Commit
tee and the Selectmen and other oificers of the town, with
their invited guests, assembled in the north-west ante-room
adjoining the Upper Hall ; and having formed a procession,
headed by the President of the Day, Hon. William Aspin
wall, with his Excellency William B. Washburn, Governor
of the Commonwealth, entered the Hall, and took their
seats upon the platform.
The audience, who had been admitted by ticket, had
already taken their places upon the floor.
Among the guests upon the platform were his Excel
lency William B. Washburn, Governor of the Common
wealth ; Hon. Milo Hildreth, Hon. Seth Turner, Hon. Kufus
S. Frost, and Hon. Edwin Chase, of the Council ; Hon.
Charles Adams, Jr., Treasurer and Re eei ver- General ; Hon.
John H. Clifford and Hon. Emory Washburn, Ex-Governors
of the Commonwealth ; Hon. John Lowell, Judge of the
United States District Court ; Hon. G. Washington Warren,
President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association ; Hon.
George S. Hillard, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, Eevs. Wil
liam Lamson, D.D., John S. Stone, D.D., formerly Rector
of St. Paul's, Brookline, Samuel K. Lothrop, D.D., Chandler
Robbins, D.D., George E. Ellis, D.D., Edwin B. Webb, D.D.,
Rollins H. Neale, D.D., PhiUips Brooks, D.D., Rev. William

• ^2
Wilberforce N'ewton, Richard Frothingham, Esq., &c. The
town-officers, present and past, former Senators from the
'District and former Representatives of the town, were also
seated on the platform.
When all the invited guests had taken their seats, the
President rose and addressed the audience as follows : —
It was always the custom of our fathers, and it has always
been ours in Brookiine, to enter upon no great work without first
seeking the aid and blessing of that Great Being without whose
countenance and support the builder builds in vain. In humble
observance ofthis pious custom, let us heartily join in the prayer
which the Reverend Dr. Lamson is about to offer in our behalf
to the Great Architect of the Universe.
The Rev. William Lamson, D.D., pastor of the Brook
line Baptist Church, then rose, and offered the following
prayer : — PRAYER BT REV. WILLIAM LAMSON, D.D.
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we come into thy
presence to invoke thy blessing upon these services, upon those
of us who are here assembled; for we ever recognize thee not
only as our Creator, but as the God of Providence, and as the
Father of Light, from whom cometh down every good and every
perfect gift, and with whom there is no variableness nor shadow
of turning. Help us to trace all our blessings, all our daily mer
cies, all our sources of culture and of enjoyment, up to thee, the
Infinite Giver. Gratefully would we acknowledge that the lines
have fallen unto us in pleasant places, and that we have a goodly
heritage. We would at this hour render to thee our thanks that
the growth and prosperity of our town have enabled us to build
this substantial, convenient, and beautiful edifice ; and that on
this anniversary, so fraught with precious meraories, and so dear
to the heart of every patriot, we are permitted to gather here, to
set this building apart to the service for which it was designed.
Smile upon us at this hour with thy favoring providence. Bless
those who in the future, in coming generations it may be, shall
gather within these walls. Grant that this building may long

13
stand an ornament to the town, and bless all the cheerful gather
ings of our citjzens. Grant that its erection and its uses may
contribute to our moral and intellectual culture, to our social en
joyment, to our good fellowship.
Our Father, we ask thy blessing upon the Commonwealth of
which we are a part ; upon its Chief Magistrate ; upon its exec
utive officers ; upon its legislators ; upon all who are in places
of authority and of influence ; and upon the entire people. Let
thy blessing rest upon our country, of which this Commonwealth
is a part, and grant that it may continue for generations to come
to be the home of civil, political, and religious liberty, to be the
home of a Christian civilization.
Our Father, accept these our thanks, and listen to these our
petitions, which we present unto thee in the name of Jesus Chri.st
our Redeemer. Amen.
After this Prayer, the Brookline Choral Club sang the
"Chorus" from Mendelssohn's "Athalie." This piece of
music was very beautifully executed, and was received with
rapturous applause by the audience. At its conclusion,
Hon. William Aspinwall rose, and welcomed the invited
guests and the assembled citizens, substantially in the fol
lowing words : —
mr. aspinwall's address of welcome.
Fellow-Citizens op Brookline, Ladies and Gentlemen, —
My colleagues upon the Committee of Arrangements have ap
pointed me to act as President upon this interesting occasion,
and in that capacity to welcome the guests who have been invited
to witness the ceremonies of transferring this beautiful Hall, by the
Committee who were charged with its erection, to the authorities
of the town, who will have hereafter the duty of preserving it.
No one can be more sensible than myself how unequal I am to
this occasion ; and stifl I shafl perform the duty, however inade
quately, with greater satisfaction than any I have ever discharged
in this municipality, because it will associate my name more
closely than ever with the history of the place I love better than
all the world beside, — the ancient town of Brookline, — a town

14
which, though small in territory, and until recently containing but
few inhabitants, can challenge comparison with any other town
or city in this renowned Coramonwealth, for early and constant
devotion to liberty, and for unselfish and unwavering patriotism.
It is the cordial and respectful welcome of such a town, your
Excellency, that I have the honor now to present to you. The
overwhelming majority which, upon two occasions, its inhabi
tants have given you, when presented to their suffrage for the
high office you occupy and adorn, has sufficiently proved the
esteem in which they hold your political character. But allow
me to say, your Excellency, that it is not so much for your
exalted station that they rejoice to see you here to-day, as because
they know, as does the whole Commonwealth, that you reached
that station by none of the arts too common among ambitious
and self-seeking men, but by the simple force of a private life of
unsullied integrity, and a public career unclouded by the shadow
of suspicion.
And to you, also. Gentlemen of the Council, the people of
Brookline offer their warmest welcome, — to you, who, under our
Constitution, share so largely in the anxieties and responsibilities
of the supreme executive magistrate. Happy the Governor who
has such good and wise advisers !
We had hoped to welcome upon this platforra sorae of the
learned members of the Supreme Judicial Court and the Superior
Court of this Commonwealth, who hold in their balances the life
and liberty and property of every man in the State, from the
highest to the lowest, from the Governor in his chair of office to
the poorest laborer in the fields. But they have been unable to
accept our urgent invitation, and we must content ourselves with
sending them a message of greeting to assure them that they
would have been most welcome here to-day amongst a people
who regard them with the respect and admiration which their
learning, their ability, their wisdom, and their perfect impartiality
deserve and receive from afl who love virtue and revere justice.
Our interest in their presence to-day amongst us would not have
been lessened by the fact that we count among our most valued
citizens two of the members of the most august tribuinal of the
State.i 1 Honorable John WeUs and Honorable Seth Ames, associate justices of the
Supreme .ludicial Court.

15
And to you also, gentlemen, servants of our National Govern
ment, judicial, civil, military, and naval, the people of Brookflne
offer their most kindly welcome. Having at afl times, and espe
cially during the recent Rebeflion, stood by their country in afl
its perfls, and having furnished their full proportion of men
and treasure to keep the unity of the Nation unimpaired, they
hail your presence here on this birthday of the great Father
of their Country, as the visible evidence that that country has
been preserved, and that the peace they strove for has been
secured. And, finally, to you all, our invited guests, — whether you come
from the counting-house or from the work-shop, from the bench or
from the bar, from the pulpit or from the lecture-room, frora the
shop or from the farm, — whether you serve more immediately
the Nation or the Commonwealth, the County or the Citv or
the Town, — to you all we proffer a true and hearty welcome,
trusting that the honor you have done us by your presence
will be amply repaid by the words of eloquence you are soon
to hear.
And now, my fellow;citizens of Brookline, who shafl grudge
us a few moments of congratulation, even if it should savor of
self-glorification ? Here is our beautiful Hall, so long hoped for,
at length begun, and now corapleted ! By what steps this con
summation so devoutly wished has been attained, it is for the
worthy Chairman of our Committee to relate. But as his lips
will never speak what I can tell you from ray own personal
knowledge, I feel it is ray right, nay, my duty, to say, — with
out arrogating to myself a tittle of the praise to which I think
they are entitled, — never was a town better served by a Com
raittee than you have been by those to whom you intrusted the
building of this new Town Hall. That there should be lets and
hinderances in the work was to be expected, for it was to be the
work of many hands. But, with the exception of those human
accidents, probably never was an enterprise from its beginning
more fortunate, and in its end more successful. If it shall take
from your treasury a little more money than you first appropri
ated, you can console yourselves with the reflection, that, in the
interval between your first appropriating vote and your last, you
gained wealth enough to warrant the increased expenditure ;

16
since, in that space of time, the valuation of the property of this
town from nineteen mfllions swelled to nearly thirty miflions of
dollars. Welcome, then, feflow-citizens, to your own beautiful Hall,
now soon to be used for afl its various purposes, — of business, of
instruction, and of pleasure, for town meetings and caucuses, for
lectures and concerts, and even for theatricals and balls ! Wel
come within its walls, old and young, rich and poor, — all equal
here ! Welcome, you who are native here and to the manner
born, and you whom we sometimes invidiously call " new
coraers," when you don't agree with us old settlers, though we
are forced to confess that you now form the larger, if not the
better, part of our inhabitants ! Welcome, all, — welcome !
But, feflow-citizens, I have almost forgotten that I am here
little more than the master of ceremonies, whose part it is , to
welcorae the guests and to present them to each other, and theh
to retire ; and that there yet remains a raost iraportant part of
this my duty unperformed. I have to introduce to our invited
guests and to you, the principal speaker, the only orator, on this
occasion, — a gentleman who, though not yet old, was presid
ing over our House of Representatives thirty-five years ago, —
who was first a member of Congress from Boston more than
a generation since, — who was chosen Speaker of the National
House of Representatives in the first half of the present century,
— and who, during this long period of time, up to the present
hour, has stood in the foreraost rank of American scholars, ora
tors, statesmen, and practical philanthropists.
Why need I narae him, since there is but one man in Mas
sachusetts to whom this description can apply? Only, fellow-
citizens, because he won his earlier farae as a citizen of Boston ;
but we of this town, for some years past, have rejoiced in him as
one of our own inhabitants, and we can boast to-day that we
have the right to name him as
RoBEKT C. Winthrop of Brookline.
Upon this introduction, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop rose,
and spoke as follows : —

MR. WINTHROP'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

Ladies and Gentlemen op Brookline ;
Friends and Pellow-Citizens :
I am deeply conscious how small a claim I have to the distin
guished position which has been assigned rae on this occasion.
I am, as you all know, but an eleventh-hour Brookline raan ;
while around me are those who have borne the burden and heat
of the day, not only in planning and preparing this beautiful
Hall, but in building up the Town itself — of which henceforth,
so long as it remains a Town, this stately edifice is to be the
symbol and the seat of government — to its existing prosperity and
importance. In yielding, however, to the kind and complimen
tary request of your Selectmen and Building Comraittee, I had
the satisfaction of reflecting, that, whatever I might find to say
here to-day, in this Inaugural Address, I should at least be free
from the temptation or imputation of commending any thing to
whieh I had myself contributed, and should be enabled to pass
an impartial and dispassionate judgment on the efforts and accom
plishments of others. A residence in Brookline for six or seven
years, which is afl I can claim to have enjoyed, has given me an
opportunity for observation and inquiry in regard to the history
and growth of the Town, and for acquainting myself somewhat
with those who have lived here longer, and who have labored so
diligently and devotedly for its iraprovement and welfare. To
them, the honors of the occasion belong ; and if I shall succeed
in doing justice to them and their predecessors, and in illustrating
their services and successes, you will feel, I ara sure, that all the
reasonable expectations of the hour have been fulfilled.
We are here, on this auspicious Anniveirsary, — which, more
than any other day, or all other days, in the calendar of merely
3

18
human nativities, is associated with whatever is brightest and
best in the history of our country and of the world,— to take
formal possession of a new and costly Town House, and espe
cially to inaugurate and dedicate this spacious and magnificent
Hall. But we do not forget that this is not the first time in
our annals that such an occasion has been witnessed here. We
do not forget that a similar ceremony has taken place even with
in the memory of not a few of those who are assembled here
to-day. Little more than a quarter of a century has elapsed,
since the beloved and venerated Pastor of your first Parish was
the chosen and appropriate organ of your Selectmen of that day,
in welcoming the people of Brookline to what he then called,
and what was then doubtless considered, " a coraraodious and
beautiful," as well as a new. Town Hall. I need not say that
it is still standing. You are but just relinquishing its occupa
tion. It has been the scene of not a few interesting' delibera
tions and memorable acts. Wise and weighty counsels have been
heard within its walls. Stirring resolutions have been adopted,
important measures have been concerted and consummated, by
those assembled there. Above all, the sacred right of Freemen,
the Elective Franchise, has, year after year, been exercised there.
Precious memories of the living, and still more precious memo
ries of the dead, cluster thickly within and around it ; and they
will continue to be cherished by many of you, as long as it shall
survive the changes and chances to which all earthly structures
are subject. We shall do well, my friends, if we shall render
this far more coraraodious and costly edifice as worthy of be
ing held in honor by those who shall come after us. The past
is secure. The future has always its contingencies and uncer
tainties. Meantime, there are but few of the occasions which have
been witnessed within those old wafls, which we should less
wiflingly permit to fall into oblivion, or which some of you, I
am sure, still hold in fonder or more vivid remembrance, than
that Dedication Service on the 14th of October, 1845, when
the exceUent Dr. Pierce recounted with so much fulness and
fervor, and in so much of minute detail, the earfler and the
later history of the Town. He was my father's friend and
rny own friend. He was the friend of all, young or old, who
had the privilege of his acquaintance, or who were in any way

19
brought within the magnetic power of his presence. A man of
larger heart, of more genial temper, of kindlier impulses, was
hardly to be found here or anywhere. His cheery tone still rings
in the ears of all who ever heard it. His erect and stalwart
frame was a fit setting for so active, eager, inquisitive a spirit.
He made nothing, even to a late day of his life, of walking into
Boston from the parsonage on Meeting House Hill, attending
Thursday Lecture, or perhaps preaching it himself, at the old
Chauncy Place Church, thence proceeding at once to the Monthly
Meeting of the Historical Society, then dining with a former Presi
dent of that Society,^ where I have so often met him, or with sorae
other friend, and at last corapleting the circuit of no Sabbath
day's journey by walking back to his Brookline home before sun
set. And he could always tell you the precise number of rainutes,
or even of seconds, which the walk either way or both ways had
taken. This marvellous appetite for trivial details, however, went
along with the keenest relish for historical and local research, or
certainly for the results of such research. The history of the
town in which he so long resided, and the history of the families
and changing fortunes of his parishioners and neighbors and
friends, were alraost as familiar to him as the Bible from which
he took his weekly text, or as that grand old psalra which for so
many years he lined and led, to the tune of St. Martin's, at our
Annual Commencement dinner. He had passed the full terra of
threescore years and ten when he delivered that Inaugural Dis
course in 1845. Indeed, I have seen it carefully recorded in his
own diary, that on that 14th of October he was " exactly 72
years and three months old." But he was stifl in coraplete pos
session of afl his faculties. His raemory, and his power of era
ploying its ample stores, were alike unimpaired ; and he gave
free play to them on that occasion. How theu can I hope to
glean anything for your entertainment or instruction from a field
which he so vigorously and thoroughly reaped ? What can I
say of the earlier or later history of your beloved town, down
certainly to 1845, which he did not abundantly tell you, in an
Address which is still extant, still remembered by some of you,
and still within the ready reach of you all ? 'There is at least
one, however, of his recorded experiences on that occasion, as ]
have read it in his own account, from which I may take courage.
i The late Hon. Thomas L. Winthrop.

20
After stating that he occupied an hour and a half in its dehvery,
he adds : « I contrived to season my facts by many appropriate
anecdotes ; so that I succeeded in keeping the audience awake
throughout the Address." May I not venture to express the
hope that, in this respect, if in iio other, I may be equally suc
cessful ?
In that Address, your late venerable Pastor did not fail, of
course, to remind his hearers of the fact, which I may be par
doned for recalling with more than common interest to-day, that
the very earliest allusion to the place now known as Brookline is
found, under date of August 30, 1632, in the Journal or History
of Governor John Winthrop ; and that the very first authentic
record of the place is that " Notice being given of ten Saga
mores and many Indians, assembled at Muddy River, the Gov
ernor sent Capt. Underhill with twenty musketeers to discover,
&c. ; but at Roxbury they heard they were broke up." Let us
pause for a few moments, and ponder this brief record, so as to
unfold something of its real import and significance.
A little more than two years had now elapsed since the Gover
nor and Company of Massachusetts Bay had taken their birth
rights on their backs, and their Bibles and their Charter in their
hands, and had come over to found and establish an independent
Colony on New England soil ; not yet, indeed, independent of
the Crown or of the Parliament of Old England, — the tirae for
that consummation was still in the distant future, — but a Colony
wholly independent of control by London Committees or Com
panies or Adventurers ; and which, in the bold transfer of its
Charter, as was so well intimated by John Adams, foreshad
owed, if it did not actually contemplate, the grander Indepen
dence, of which he himself was " the Colossus on the floor of
Congress," in 1776.
Salem, where the Massachusetts Company landed in June,
1630, had already been planted by the worthy pioneer Governor,
John Endicott, whom they had deputed to preside over what was
called " London's Plantation," subject to their own regulations
and instructions from time to time. But there was now no longer
to be any " London's Plantation," or any even nominal subordi
nation to any power, on the other side of the ocean, less exalted
than that of Parliament and the Crown. They came in the
spirit, and for the purpose of Self-government, to be exercised by

21
a Governor and Assistants, and soon by a Legislature, of their
own choice and upon their own soil. And so they at once sought
out a place for the seat of that government ; and after lingering
a few months at Charlestown, where about a hundred of the
planters who came over successively with Endicott and Higgin
son had already settled themselves, they decided to cross the
river and establish themselves at what the Indians called Shaw
mut, and what some of the planters designated as Trimontaine,
— from the three hills then prorainent upon its surface, — but
which from the 17th day of September, 1630, was to bear the
honored name of Boston.
Less than two years had thus passed, since the birth, or cer
tainly the baptism, of Boston, when the first- recognition or
mention of the locality in which we are interested to-day was
entered in his Journal by. Governor Winthrop. That record, I
think, is fufl of iraplication and suggestion as to the condition of
the site on which we are now assembled, as well as in regard to
the immediate circumstances and surroundings of the Massachu
setts Colony. Swarms of savages were still hovering around
thera. " Ten Sagamores and many Indians," we are told, were
assembled in this very neighborhood.^ A Sagamore is second
only to a Sachem, or King of the tribe ; and the titles are some
times employed indiscriminately. Ten Sagamores would thus im
ply a large number of warriors under them. They were evidently
understood to be lying in ambush ; the Governor's phrase being
that our musketeers were despatched " to discover, &c." John
Underhill was the most trusted Captain of that day, bearing
very much the same relation to the Massachusetts Colony which
Miles Standish bore to the earlier but wholly distinct and inde
pendent Pilgrim Colony at Plyraouth. Twenty musketeers were
sent with Capt. Underhill, — more than twice the number which
Miles Standish took with him, when he was despatched on a
similar expedition ten years before, and when he achieved his
grandest victory, or what is called his " capital exploit." Every
thing indicated danger, or certainly the strongest apprehension of
danger; and before another week had elapsed, although this par
ticular party of Indians had been " broke up " or dispersed, we
find Governor Winthrop recording the gravest reasons for sus-
1 The site of one of their old forts is now occupied by the house of my friend
William Amory, Esq., at Longwood.

22
pecting that a conspiracy existed among the Narragansett men
and the Neipnett men, under pretence of quarrefling with each
other, " to cut us off to get our victuals and other substance."
And then the record proceeds : " Upon this there was a Camp
pitched at Boston in the night, to exercise the Soldiers against
need might be ; and Capt. Underhifl (to try how they would
behave themselves) caused an alarm to be given upon the quar
ters, which discovered the weakness of our people, who, like men
amazed, knew not how to behave theraselves, so as the officers
could not draw them into any order. All the rest of the planta
tions took the alarm and answered ; but it caused rauch fear and
distraction araong the coraraon sort, so as some which knew of
it before [that is, which knew that it was a false alarm], yet
through fear had forgotten, and believed the Indians had been upon
us. We doubled our guards, and kegt watch day and night." ^
Such is the picture which Massachusetts and its principal
town present to us, as we unfold the page which contains the
earliest record of what is now called Brookline. There was plainly
no settlement here at that day, or the Governor would have sent
that little army of musketeers to assist and rescue the inhabitants,
and not merely to discover and break up an ambush of the natives.
And may we not well rejoice that it was so ? May we not well
rejoice that there was no handful of scattered planters here to
encounter the wild savagery of those " ten Sagamores and many
Indians " ; and that Underhill and his twenty musketeers heard
at Roxbury that they were already dispersed ? Yes, my friends,
let us thank God to-day, that the narrative of our beautiful vil
lage — I might rather say, of its pre-historic period — does not
.open with a scene of raassacre. Let us thank God, that yonder
River, " Muddy " as it was called, was not crimsoned and clotted
with the gore of either white men or red men. Let us thank God,
that our Brook was not destined to be called " Bloody Brook."
T do not undervalue the gallantry and heroism of those upon
whom the dire necessity has been laid, whether in earlier or later
days, to wield the sword, and wage war to the death, against an
Indian foe. Brookline, as we shall presently see, has exhibited
her full share of such heroism. I fully recognize, too, that a'
real and inexorable necessity has often existed, for suppressing,
and punishing by force of arras, the lawless ferocity of the savage
1 Winthrop's History of New England, vol. i. p. 89.

23
tribes. The early Colonists must have abandoned their planta
tions altogether, unless they were ready and resolved to defend
them at afl hazards against the conspiracies and treacheries and
mad assaults of the aboriginal race which surrounded them on
every side. Even at this hour there may be Modocs or Apaches
uncontrollable except by force. But we may afl still syrapathize
with the sentiment, which was so exquisitely expressed by the
pious John Robinson in Holland, when he heard of the first
great victory of Miles Standish, in which six Indians had been
slain, — " It would have been happy, if they had converted some,
before they had killed any." We may all rejoice to remember,
also, that within a few months only of the date of this record
about the Indians at Muddy River, there arrived at Boston,
and was immediately settled at Roxbury, where the first planters
of this village so long went for their Sunday worship, a godly
minister from England who made it his special mission, in the
same spirit which had actuated those brave Jesuit-priests in
Canada, to Christianize and civilize the natives ; and who, during
the next thirty years, had not only preached to many of them,
and taught many of them to pray, but had accomplisbed the
more than Herculean labor of translating the wbole Bible into
their, language. No more marvellous monument of literary
work, in the service of either God or raan, can be found upon
earth, than that Indian Bible of the noble John Eliot. Nor can
any of us fail to admire and applaud the earnest and seeraingly
successful efforts, for the introduction of a more humane and
Christian policy towards the Indian Tribes stifl left in pur land,
by the iUustrious Soldier who bas just been called again to tbe
Executive Chair of the United States. There has been nothing
more creditable to our Country, since, for a sirailar exhibition of
humanity in the removal of the Cherokees beyond the Mississippi,
William Ellery Channing paid that most eloquent and most
enviable tribute to Winfield Scott.^
Pardon me, my friends, for such a digression. I may seem to
have travelled a long way out of our little Brookline record ; but
it has only been, after all, to explain and amplify the gratification
I could not refrain from expressing, and wbich I ara sure you all
feel with me, that those ten Sagamores and their followers were
fairly dispersed before Underhill and his musketeers arrived here ;
1 Channing's Works, vol. v. p. 113.

24
and that the very first page of your records escaped, as it so
narrowly did escape, from the stains of conflict and carnage.
Let me hasten now to resume the more direct story of the
Town, and to pursue it with greater rapidity. The venerable
Pastor of your first Parish, when he occupied the position which
you have done me the honor to assign me on this occasion, did
not omit to inform, or remind, his audience, that under the repul
sive name of Muddy River, or sometimes Muddy River Hamlet,
the territory which Brookline now covers was for nearly three
quarters of a century included within the liraits and jurisdiction
of Boston. Perhaps, therefore, some of our friends who are so
eager to return within the same limits and jurisdiction, may be
found hereafter adopting the pohcy of the friends of Texas many
years ago, who, when they had discovered some pretence for the
idea that Texas had once been a part of the Louisiana Territory,
hastened to prefix the little syllable re to annexation, and thought
to strengthen their case by pereraptorily demanding the re-annex
ation of Texas to the United States. I may be pardoned for.
remembering, that a member of Congress at that day, from the
neighboring City, who shall be nameless on this occasion, ven
tured to suggest that these zealous and irrepressible advocates of
Texas might be wiser, if they would exhibit as much of the
suaviter in modo as of the fortiter in re. But jesting apart,
and I have nothing serious to say in reference to any mooted
question of local policy to-day, we are all well aware, as a
matter of history, that for seventy-three years from the time when
Boston first had a local habitation and a name on this side of the
Atlantic, it embraced the territory now occupied by this Town.
And its embrace, as we shall see, was a tight one, with a grasp
not easily unloosed. It is thus from the old records of Boston,
or of the Colony, that we derive almost all which is known of
the village hamlet in which Brookline had its origin. I know
not exactly at what date the first settler was found here, nor who
he was. But as the General Court of the Colony ordered the
construction of " a sufficient cartbridge " over Muddy River as
early as August 16th, 1633, we may reasonably conjecture that
transportation had commenced, and that the lands had theri
begun to be cultivated and occupied. Yet the order seems to
have been very slow of fulfilment ; since, on the 4th of March of
the following year, we find the General Court passing a more

25
urgent and specific order, " That Mr. Richard Dummer and John
Johnson shall build a sufficient cartbridge over Muddy River
before the next General Court, and that Boston, Roxbury,
Dorchester, Newtown, and ' Watertown shall equally contribute
to it."
This certainly looked like business ; yet it is as late as the 2d
of June, 1640, that we find in the records of the Colonial author
ities, that " The charge of Muddy River Bridge, being 151. 3.s. 6d.,
was ordered to be allowed as followeth : — By Boston, 61. ; by
Roxbury, 51. ; Dorchester, 11. 7s. 8d. ; Watertown, 11. 7s. lid. ;
Cambridge,^ 11. 7s. Ud." The building of a bridge across Muddy
River in those days was probably accounted as great an under
taking as the building of a railroad to the Pacific in these ; and
I doubt not that the accounts of Richard Dummer and John
Johnson, for fifteen pounds, three shillings and sixpence, were
analyzed and audited more scrupulously and rigidly than any
Erie, Pacific, or even Credit Mobilier accounts for millions of
times as much.
At the General Court, at Newtown, held by adjournment, on
the 25th of September, 1634, we find a somewhat singular Order
of two parts, in the following terms : — "It is Ordered, with the
consent of Watertown, that the meadow on this side Watertown
weir, containing about 30 acres, be the same more or less, and
now used by the inhabitants of Newtown, shall belong to the
said inhabitants of Newtown, to enjoy to them and their heirs
forever, &c.' Also, it. is ordered, that the ground about Muddy
River, belonging to Boston, and used by the inhabitants thereof,
shall hereafter belong to Newtown, the wood and tiraber thereof,
growing and to be growing, to be reserved to the inhabitants of
Boston, provided, and it is the raeaning of the Court, that if Mr.
Hooker and the congregation now settled here shall remove hence,
that then the aforesaid meadow ground shall return to Water-
town, and the ground at Muddy River to Boston." Such legis
lation seems to partake too much of the quality which gave the
name to our River to be easily made clear. But as the eminent
Thomas Hooker with his congregation did soon afterwards
(1636) remove to Springfield, and thence to Connecticut, all
orders conditional on his staying in this vicinity may fairly
be dismissed as null and void.
1 Newtown had become Cambridge at this time ; the name having been changed
in 1638. 4

26
Turning now to the Boston Records, we find that in 1685, at a
general meeting of the inhabitants, on the 14th of December, " it
was agreed, that Mr. WiUiam Colbourne, Mr. William Aspin
waU, and three others, shafl lay out at Muddy River a sufficient
allotment for our Teacher, Mr. John Cotton."
This was the celebrated Clergyman who had come over from
old Boston to new Boston, and whose historical fame is enough
for the glory of both cities. Though I befleve he never flved
here himself, this allotment was doubtless the origin of the estates
which some of his family enjoyed here soon afterwards. At the
same meeting of the people of Boston, it was agreed, " that the
poorer sort of inhabitants, such as are members, or likely to be,
[probably meaning members of the Church] and have no cattle,
shall have their proportion of allotments for planting ground
and other, assigned unto them by the aUotters, and laid out at
Muddy River by the aforenamed five persons, — those that fall
between the foot of the hill and the water, to have but four acres
upon a head, and those that are farther off, to have five acres per
head." Four years later stiU, in 1639, it was agreed, " that five hundred
acres be laid out at Muddy River, for perpetual Commonage to
the inhabitants there and the Town of Boston, before any other
allotments are made."
If this perpetual Commonage, ten times larger than what we
now know as Boston Coraraon, had been indeed perpetual,
Boston would not now have been in need of seeking' land for a
public Park. But the small allotment system soon most happily
prevailed over any such extensive arrangement for Commonage,
and the land was quickly dotted over with those little independent
freeholds, which have been, and ever will be, the best foundations
and the strongest bulwarks of freedom and self-government. No
dependent tenantry could have ever made Massachusetts what
she is. Nothing but independent freeholds can keep her what she
is. Public Parks are grand things for the amusement, recreation,
and health of the whole people. Great landed estates are the
natural support of an aristocracy. The division of lands is as
essential to liberty, as the division of labor to prosperous busi
ness and the advanceraent of industry and the arts.
But soraething more than independent freeholds was required,
and ever wiU be required, for the security of freedom and for the

27
wise exercise of self-government. I need hardly say that I mean
Education ; and not until 1686-7 do we find any specific local
provision here for that all-important object. It was on the 8th
of December, old style, of that year, the 18th of December, new
style, — a little more than one hundred and eighty-five years ago,
— that the government of the Colony, then under the temporary
Presidency of Joseph Dudley, in answer to a Petition from
Muddy River, passed the following raeraorable Order : " Ordered,
that henceforth the said Hamlet of Muddy River be free from
town-rates to the Town of Boston ; they maintaining their own
highways and poor, and other public charges, amongst them
selves ; and that within one year they raise a School House, and
also maintain an able reading and writing Master; and that the
inhabitants annually meet to choose three men to manage their
affairs." The acceptance of that Order, at a full meeting of the inhabi
tants, precisely a week after it had passed the Colonial Council,
with the vote for the maintenance of the School Master, is the
first formal entry in the Town Clerk's records of Brookline ; and
certainly no worthier or more welcome beginning couid have
been desired or devised for your recorded history. That history,
indeed, is stiU the history of a haralet, appurtenant to Boston,
But the freedom from Boston rates, with the liberty " to chpose
three men to raanage their affairs," was a great step towards
independence, and rnade the haralet a town iu alraost every
thing except the name. The little triumvirate which first
administered the powers thus granted to IVfuddy River, must not
fail to be remembered on such an occasion as this : — They were
Ensign Andrew Gardner, John White, Jr., and Thomas Sted^
man. This virtual independence, however, seems to have been of
brief duration. No sooner had the tyrannical And/os and his
government been overthrown, as they so richly deserved to be,
than Boston, in March, 1690, disannuUed this arrangement, and
voted "that Muddy Biver inhabitants are not discharged from
Boston to be a haralet by themselves, but stand related to Boston
as they did before the year 1686." Ten or eleven years raore of
quiet subraission rolled on, when the inhabitants of this place
were eraboldened hy the increase of their numbers and of their
wealth, to request the consent of Boston to their becoming a
separate Town ; and curiously enough, in view of the facility of

28
modern locomotion, one of the reasons assigned was the remote
ness of their situation! But Boston resisted and resented the
petition, and voted that though the inhabitants of Muddy River
" had not for some years been rated in the Town rate ; yet, for the
time to come, the Selectmen should rate thera in the Town tax
as the other inhabitants, and as they used to be."
A question of Taxes was thus evidently at the bottom of the
controversy with Boston for separation and independence. And
questions of taxation seem to have been at the bottom of almost
all political controversies, small and great, in our own land and
in other lands, from the days of Ship money down at least to the
days of the Tea tax. There seems to be in huraan nature every
where an inherent aversion for Tax-layers and Tax-gatherers. I
recall at this moment only one notable instance of any thing
like voluntary submission to taxation. There may be others in
Dutch History or elsewhere. But for this I turn back to the
pages of Holy Writ ; and even this may have meant something
more or less than meets the ear. You all remember the Gospel
account of what happened at the time of the first advent of our
Saviour, in which it is recorded that " all went to be taxed,
every one into his own city." It is a charming narrative, hal
lowed in all our hearts at once by the sacred volume in which
it is contained, and by the exquisite story of which it is the
preamble. But I fear that we must wait for the second coming
of our blessed Lord before such a record, in its literal inter
pretation, will be found again anywhere. The tendency of later
days, certainly, in some parts of the world, not a thousand miles
off, has been to flee from one's own City, or one's own Town,
to escape taxation! It has been partly the result of extrav
agant and wanton expenditures by those in authority, and partly
of capricious and unjust appraisements of individual estates.
But a fair' and equal proportion of our property is a debt due
to the governraent, and to a governmerit of our own choice ; and
debts to the government, whether of the Nation, the State, the
City, or the Town, are nothing less or other than debts, and
ought to be so recognized and so discharged. Every man knows
what he owes, and where he owes it ; and it is not only a wrong
upon the public treasuries, but a wrong upon our neighbors,
throwing upon them the burden of unequal contributions, to run
away and leave our part unpaid. I have sometimes thought
that in the common case of double residence, if I may so call

29
it, a provision of Law might be made that a person should be
rated in both places, and one-half of each Tax bill be paid in each
place. But the only radical cure must be found in correcting
the abuses of our municipal governments, large or smaU, and in
quickening the consciences and the sense of duty of the tax-
paying community.
Boston, it seems, desired and determined to hold our little
hamlet still amenable to her own assessors ; and nothing reraained
for the inhabitants here except an appeal to the Colonial Legisla
ture. Such an appeal was made without success in 1704, Boston
still making strenuous opposition to it. But a new Petition,
signed by thirty-two Freeholders, headed by Samuel SewaU, Jr.,
and which seemed to iraply in its terms that the objections of
Boston had at length in sorae way been overcome, was presented
during the following year ; and on the 13th day of November,
1705, the Act of the 4th year of the reign ofi Queen Anne, as it
carefully sets forth, was passed and signed by Governor Joseph
Dudley, creating the inhabitants of Muddy River a Town by the
name of Brookline.
The Act was a brief one, but therCiWas at least one remark
able provision in it, by which the inhabitants were " enjoined to
build a Meeting House, and obtain an able Orthodox Minister,
according to the direction of the Law, to be settled within the
space of three years next coming." Religious education was a
part of the systera by which Massachusetts was built up ; and
though we have wisely abandoned all attempts at prescribing
what is, and what is not, Orthodox, and have adopted the vol
untary principle in regard to places for public worship, we shall
do well to bear in mind that no raere secular instruction, how
ever complete and thorough, was regarded as sufficient for sus
taining free institutions by those who founded them. This
condition of the Brookline charter, however, was not fulfiUed, it
seems, until nearly three times " three years " had expired. It
was not until the year 1714 that a Meeting House was erected
. here. Before that time, the settlers here, we learn, had united in
worship with the First Church in Roxbury ; and good Dr. Pierce
has given us an amusing anecdote of a lady of this place, of the
olden time, " rising up early on every Lord's Day morning, adjust
ing her head-dress over a pail of water, for want of a looking-
glass, and then walking five miles to Roxbury meeting " ! I know

30
not whether another record of such a mirror can be found since
Narcissus admired himself in a fountain and was metamorphosed
into a flower.
No wonder, that in view of the necessity of a walk, or even
a drive, to Roxbury, in order to find a place for public wor
ship, the people here made such exhausting efforts to provide
a place for themselves, as it would seem from your Records
they did. In those days, it will be borne in mind, every Town
was caUed upon not only to send a Representative to the General
Court, but to pay his expenses and charges forgoing, staying, and
returning. But on the Mth of May, 1714, — the year the first
church here was erected, — we find a vote of the Inhabitants
deliberately declining to send a Representative " upon account of
their building a Meeting House, and the great charges thereof
for such a poor little town," and desiring and praying the Honor
able House of Representatives to excuse them for that year.
It may help us to illustrate the period when Brookline first
became a Town, and to fix it in our memory, if we bear in mind
that the first Newspaper in British North America had been pub
lished the very year before^ and that a very remarkable child was
born in the early part of the very year after. The Newspaper
was a weekly print, on half a sheet of pot paper, in smafl pica,
and it was called the Boston News Letter. The child was a
strong, vigorous boy, christened on the day of his birth in the
Old South Church, and giving the earliest promise of the won
derful career he was to run ; and his name was Benjamin Frank
hn. The great printer foUowed hard after the first Newspaper ;
and the Boston, of which Brookline was just ceasing to be a part,
was the birthplace of thera both.
And thus, my friends, seventy-three years after those " Ten
Sagaraores and many Indians " had been lying in ambush at
Muddy River, BrookUne at last stands before us, with at least
thirty-two freeholders, with aU the privfleges, and in afl the dignity,
of a Town.
The Petition itself, singularly enough, asked only to be " a
separate viUage, or peculiar;" and this designation is twice
repeated by the Petitioners. " A Peculiar " was an old Enghsh
ecclesiastica] terra, which stood for a Parish exempt from the
jurisdiction of the Ordinary of the Diocese, and subject only to
the MetropoUtan. But there was another signification, for which

31
Dr. Worcester has given us the authority of John Milton's glo
rious prose, — " One's own property." This, doubtless, was the
sense in which it was used in the Petition. Brookline was hence
forth to be "its own property," and to do its own rating and
taxing. We may well be satisfied, however, that the Colonial
Council declined to take the Petitioners at their word, and saved
them frora being laughed at, as they would have been if the inhab
itants of Muddy River had been incorporated as " a Peculiar."
But there is aijother peculiarity about the Petition. Its thirty-
two signers had but just half that nuraber of separate surnames
araong them all. There were five of the name of Gardner, and
five of the name of Winchester ; three of the name of White,
three of Stedraan, and three of Ackers; two of the narae of
Aspinwall, and two of Devotion ; and one each of Sewall, Boyl
ston, Sharp, Ellis, Woodward, Holland, Shepard, Chamberlain,
and Seaver. These were the old family naraes of the place.
There raay have been others, and doubtless were. There may
have been differences of opinion about making Brookline a Town
or a Peculiar in that day, as there certainly are about unmaking
it at this day ; or other considerations or circumstances may have
prevented some of the inhabitants from signing the Petition. But
those sixteen names of those thirty -two Freeholders raust ever be
associated with your first existence as a Town. Sorae of them
are already inscribed upon your highways, as the names of streets
or avenues. Many more of them might well be inscribed there.
I know not why we should go out of our own local history to
find names for our thoroughfares. I even doubt whether it is
worth while to go into the woods and forests for such a purpose,
when we have at hand the names of men who cut down the
woods and cleared the forests for us. Walnut and Chestnut and
Cypress are sonorous and significant titles, more especially if
stately rows of shade trees are set out along the roadside in cor
respondence with the names. But Aspinwall, and Boylston, and
SewaU, and Winchester, which you have, and Gardner, and
Sharp, and Stedman, which I befleve you have not, would sound
as weU and signify more. It is not enough to write our local
history on perishable records. It should be written where he
who runs raay read it. I have often lamented, with others, that
so few of the names of the Founders of my native City were
inscribed on its principal streets. The new parts of the City

32
seemed to afford the very opportunity for repairing such an omis
sion. The musical titles of the English Peerage, however, —
Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, and the rest, — have been al
lowed to prevail over the honest patronymics of our own settlers
and citizens. But henceforth, as long as we are a Peculiar or a
Town, I trust that the naraes of our Brookline streets, and school-
houses, too, raay be taken frora her own earlier or later history.
Not a few of the names signed to that Petition were eminently
worthy of such a commemoration, if of no other. Samuel
Sewall, Jr., was not only himself the first signer of the Petition
and the Town Clerk who attested the act of incorporation, but
his father was one of the largest early landholders of the plaee ;
a member of the Colonial Council at the time; one of the Colo
nial Judges from 1692 to 1728, and Chief Justice for the last ten
.of those six and thirty years. It is true, and " pity 'tis 'tis true,"
that sharing in the delusion which so widely prevailed through
out the Massachusetts Colony during the first year of his long
judicial career, he concurred in the condemnation of those con
victed of Witchcraft. But so had Sir Matthew Hale, one of
the purest and wisest of Old England's Judges, — little more
than a quarter of a century before. Sewall, too, five years after
wards, made a frank and raanly confession of his grievous mis
take, imploring publicly " the pardon of man and God for his
guilt." Who will not say Araen ! to the noble lines of our Charm
ing Quaker Poet —
" Green forever the memory be
Of the Judge of the old Theocracy,
Whom even his errors glorified.
Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain side
By the cloudy shadows, which o'er it glide " !
Whittier did not forget, and none of us would be wiUing to
forget, that SewaU's Tract, entitled " The SeUing of Joseph," —
a copy of which, found among my own family papers, was
recently reprinted in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts His
torical Society, — was among the earliest public protests against
Doraestic Slavery, then tolerated at the North as wefl as at the
South. He was a man of eminent benevolence and beneficence,
of large, hospitality and comprehensive charity. His wife was a
daughter of John Hull, another of the earliest landholders here,
the original Mint-master of the Massachusetts Colony, to whom

33
has been ascribed the device of an Indian with his bow and arrow
on our State Shield,^ and who was the unquestioned coiner of
those faraous Pine Tree Shiflings, bearing the date of 1652,
which gave such urabrage to King Charles the Second, ¦¦ — who was
only appeased, it is said, by the suggestion of Sir Thomas Tem
ple, or somebody else, that the Tree intended to be designated
was the Royal Oak which saved His Royal Majesty. The wife
of John Hull was Judith Quincy, daughter of Edmund Quincy,^
the founder of that distinguished family in New England, whose
blood, of course, our first signer inherited. Can any thing more
be needed to make the name of Sewall a household raeraory
in Brookline ? It has been said that the Judge stood godfather
to the Town, and gave it its narae from the little brook which
ran through his own meadows. If he did, the engrossing clerks
of the Colony and the Town failed to adopt his speUing of the
narae. On turning to his own raanuscript Diary, not raany days
ago, I found the following emphatic entry, under date of Novem
ber 12, 1705: — =' Brooklyn is pass'd to be a Township p the
Council"; while more than a year earlier, under date of 1 April,
1704, he writes, " visited ray valetudinarious son at Brooklin." ^
The final e is needed to bring these discrepancies from the Town
name, as it is properly written and pronounced, within the recon
ciling principle of what the lawyers call the " idem sonans."
The narae of Gardner stood second on that successful Peti
tion, and five of that name were among its signers, — Thomas,
Joseph, Thomas, Jr., Caleb, and one whose Christian name has
been worn off in the lapse of years. Perhaps it was Andrew ;
for Andrew Gardner, you remember, was at the head of the little
triumvirate selected to manage the local aftairs of the village nine
or ten years before. Thomas Gardner was himself the first
Deacon of the first Church in Brookline. His grandson, Isaac, a
graduate of Harvard in 1747, and afterwards a leading raan of
the Town, respected and beloved by all, was among those who
went out frora Brookflne on the 19th of Aprfl, 1775, and was
killed at Cambridge by the British troops on their retreat to
1 More probably, he was only the engraver of it.
2 The marriage ceremony was performed by Governor Winthrop " on the 11«'
of the 3? month," 1647.
« The Diary repeats the latter spelling in the following record, dated July llth, 1704 :
" Son and Daughter Hirst, Joseph and Mary, rode with me iu the Coach to Brooklin,
and there dined at my sou's with the Governour, his lady, Mr. Paul Dudley and wife,"
and other grand company. " Sung a Psalm.'' 5

34
Boston; whfle, on the following 17th of June, Col. Thomas
Gardner of the same stock, though then hving over the Brighton
border, feU nobly at Bunker Hill. Could any worthier name be
recaUed on this occasion, more especially since it is henceforth to
be associated, not only with those heroes of the past, but with
a recent munificent donation to your Pubhc Library by one of
your living fellow-citizens of the same name?^
The name of White stands third on the Petition. It has been
found before on the list of those first three Selectmen, and is to
be found again in connection with a liberal gift of Woodland for
the maintenance of the Brookline minister.
Thomas Stedman, the third of those three Selectmen, is the
fourth signer of the Petition; and the fifth is John Winchester,
Brookline's first representative to the Gerieral Court, in 1709.
And now we have a name as eminent for its worth, as it is
first in alphabetical order. The sixth and seventh signers were
Samuel and Eleazer AspinwaU. Capt. Samuel AspinwaU was
born here in 1657 ; and, from that year to this, whether as hamlet,
village, peculiar or town, Brookline has never been without a
distinguished bearer of his name and blood. The old house built
by his father before 1666 is still standing, or at least trying to
stand. Of the venerable elm which overshadowed it certainly
for more than a hundred and fifty years, — if, indeed, it were not
coeval with Columbus, — nothing reraains but the antique roots,
and a few feet of massive but mutilated trunk. They are almost
the last relics of the old Muddy River Hamlet, and I wish they
could be enclosed and inscribed as a monument of the remote
past. What an inspiring stump that would be for an open-air
speech on some historical anniversary I If nothing else can be
done, I trust that enough of it may be secured as a desk for this
very platform. If it were here at this moment, my manuscript
would have a most congenial resting-place, — more precious than
the most skilful carving or veneering of Oak, or Maple, or Satin-
wood. But the old family tree is stiU fresh and vigorous, and has
literally borne leaves for the heahng of the people. No name of
his period — in Brookflne history, certainly — has been more
honored, or more worthy of being honored — not always, alas,
the same thing — than that of the late Dr. WUliam Aspinwall,
* On the 6th of January, 1871, the sum of Ten Thousand dollars was presented
to the PubUc Library of Brookline by John L. Gardner, Esq.

35
so long an eminent physician of the Town, and who, while
devoted to the duties of his profession and to the interests of his
native place, found time to serve the State with distinction as a
member successively of both branches of the Legislature and of
the Executive Council. You all know, too, how respected and
beloved was his son, the late Augustus Aspinwall. But what
may I say of another son still hving ; who, until a few weeks
past, exhibited so little of old age except its experience, its wis
dora and its venerableness, that no one was ready to give credit
to the tale which he sometimes told of a birthday in Brookline
eighty-six or eighty-seven years ago ; with that empty sleeve
which he has carried for nearly sixty of those years, as a badge
of noble daring while a leader in the Army of the United States,
in that war with England which we trust will never lose its
designation as " the last war " ; but who, with the arm which
was left hira, has done as much of faithful service to his Country
and his Country's history, at horae and abroad, as any boasted
Briareus of ancient or of raodern fable.^ He is not with us here
to-day, as he so recently promised to be ; but all our hearts are
with him in his chamber of sickness ; and every one of you will
eagerly unite with me in the hope, that he may still be spared
to enjoy the respect and affection of all who know him !
The name of Aspinwall is followed by that of William Sharp,
the only representative of that name on the Petition ; but his
father, or it may have been his grandfather, John Sharp, had come
here with the earliest Aspinwall, while two of his family, both of
them Robert Sharp, father and son, had already fallen bravely
in battle whOe fighting against the Indians. The father fell in
King Philip's War, on the 18th of April, 1676 ; and in the grave
yard at Sudbury, not far frora the Wayside Inn, which Longfel
low and Parsons have both so charraingly illustrated, raay be
read the following '' inscription : "Capt. Samuel Wadsworth of
Milton, his Lieut. Sharp of Brookline, and twenty-six other
souldiers, fighting for the defence of their Country, were slain
by the Indian enemy, and lye buried in this place." And if any
additional claim could be needed for a grateful reraerabrance of
the name on this occasion, it would be abundantly found in the
fact, that frora the daughter of John Sharp were descended those
1 Col. Thomas Aspinwall, for nearly forty years United States Consul at London,
who, within the last three years, has edited and annotated two volumes of valuable
Papers for the CoUections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

36
admirable and brilliant Buckminsters, the revered pastor of Ports
mouth and his eloquent son of Brattle Street, of whose Me
moirs it was long ago said by Thomas Carlyle, the Historian,
that " it gave a much better account of the higher sort of char
acter in New England than any thing he had seen since Frank
hn's writings."
I can follow this list of honored names but little farther. Yet
I must not omit the very next one ; that of Edward Devotion,^
from whose estate the Town ultimately received no less than 739
pounds and 4 shUlings, lawful money, for the use and mainte
nance of its schools ; as large a sum nominally as John Harvard
left to the CoUege at Cambridge in 1638. A century and a quar
ter had, indeed, made a wide difference in the actual value of the
gifts ; but if Harvard's name has been given to a whole Univer
sity, the narae of Devotion is certainly worthy of being inscribed
on one of your Town Schools.
One other name, standing near the foot of the list, but the
associations with which are by no means of inferior interest, must
close my aUusions to these memorable signers of that httle dec
laration, or petition, for independence. I need hardly say that I
refer to that of Peter Boylston. A spirit of independence might
alraost seem to have been transmitted with his blood, for his
daughter was the mother of brave old John Adams. Himself the
son of the earliest physician of Muddy River, he was, also, the
brother of that celebrated physician and surgeon, Dr. Zabdiel
Boylston, who during the prevalence, in 1721, of that terrible
scourge of which we have recently had so many unwelcome
reminders, is recorded, on yonder tombstone, to have " first intro
duced inoculation into America " ; and who persisted heroically
in the practice, beginning with his own son, in spite of the men
aces and positive assaults of a prejudiced and exasperated popu
lace. He is said to have been " execrated and persecuted as a
murderer " ; " his house [in Boston] to have been attacked with
violence"; he himself to have been shut up at one time for a
fortnight in a secret apartment, whfle " the enraged inhabitants
were patroUing the streets with halters, threatening to hang him
on the next tree." Yet inoculation was justly regarded, no long
time afterwards, as great a discovery and as valuable a prevent
ive, as vaccination is at this day. It had beeri for the first time
1 I learn, from my friend WilUam I. Bowditch, Esq., tUat the old house of Ed
ward Devotion is stiU standing.

37
performed in the English dominions, we are told, only seven or
eight weeks before, on a daughter of the celebrated Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, who had witnessed. the operation in Turkey,
during her residence in Constantinople, where her husband was
the British Ambassador. Visiting England a few years after-.
wards, Boylston was immediately recognized, and was at once
the subject of that rare distinction for Araericans, an election
as a FeUow of the Royal Society. Paul Dudley, a son of Gov
ernor Joseph, and John Winthrop, a great-grandson of the first
Governor, were FeUows about the sarae tirae; and Cotton
Mather, who, it is said, co-operated with Boylston, and was, in
deed, " the first mover," in introducing inoculation, has also the
addendum of P. R. S., and certainly supposed hiraself entitled
to it, though some shrewd doubts have been rife in later years
whether it was ever actually conferred upon him.^ But Zabdiel
Boylston was a man of remarkable qualities ; an eminent natu
ralist for that period, eagerly coUecting whatever was rare in the'
way of plants and animals, and transraitting specimens of them
to England ; while his skill as a physician and surgeon secured
him a distinguished reputation both at home and abroad. No
name araong the signers of the Petition which resulted in raak
ing Brookline a Town, on the 13th of November, 1705, is more
worthy of commemoration than that of Boylston.
And now, my friends, what was it to be raade a Town ? What
was it in that day ? What is it in this ? Profound investiga
tions have been raade, from time to time, as to the historical
origin of these little municipal organizations. I am content to
leave this question to-day, certainly, where John Milton left it
two centuries ago. " But I say " (were the words of that wonder
ful writer of prose as well as poetry), " but I say that even Towns
and Boroughs are more ancient than Kings ; and that the people
is the people, though they should live in the open fields." Who
can overestimate the importance and dignity of such organiza
tions of the people ? The raore any one studies the history of
New England, and of Massachusetts in particular, the more he
will be impressed with the vast and varied influence which has
been exerted by our Town System, not only in promoting the
moral and social welfare of the inhabitants, but in advancing and
sustaining civil freedom, and in preparing the people for meeting
1 Dr. Allen, in his Biographical Dictionary, says that Mather was made a FeUow
in 1713.

38
those great emergencies and exigencies which have successively
marked our political progress. The right and the duty of the
(fitizens to understand and to manage their own local affairs ; to
establish and superintend their own schools ; to organize and
enforce their own police ; to lay and levy their own taxes, and to
regulate and control the expenditure of the moneys raised by
taxation ; freely choosing their own agents for afl these local
purposes, and their own Representatives for the larger concerns
and counsels of the Commonwealth ; — the possession and the
exercise of these special powers and obhgations of Towns, as they
were so long known from the earliest period of our Massachusetts
History, have done more than afl other things corabined, to
quicken the inteUigence, sharpen the faculties, and develop the
raanhood and self-reliance of the whole people, and to make thera
capable of achieving and upholding the prosperity and the liberty
in which we now rejoice.
We sometimes speak of Education, as if it were confined to
the School-house, the Academy, or the CoUege; and so in great-^
part it must be for the young. But Repubhcan Institutions do
not merely deraand education for their support, they supply it in
their own nature and essence. Free Governraent is itself an
education, which goes on long after Schools and Colleges have
done their work. The education of a Free Press ; the education
of the Jury-box and of open Court-rooras ; the education of the
Reading-roora and the Public Library ; the better and more im
portant education of the House of God, where religious freedom
and the rights of conscience have been firmly secured ; but greater
and more vital than either, in every mere worldly view, the edu
cation of the Town Hall, — who can exaggerate the results of
thera all? Yes, my friends, these Town Halls, where men are
first trained and exercised in watching and in working the ma
chinery of self-government, and are habituated not merely to
observe and inspect, but to take part in setting in motion, and in
keeping in motion, the very springs and wheels and levers of all
political action, have furnished, and must always furnish, the
true Schools of the Citizen. And how rauch they have done to
foster and cherish that spirit of equal rights and individual inde
pendence which is at once the source and the safeguard of civil
freedom! Tyranny and oppression, at home and abroad, have
always dreaded and hated Town meetings. Sir Edmund Andros,
when he was playing his fantastic tricks with the New England

39
Colonies, is said to have solemnly prohibited all Town meetings
in Massachusetts except once a year on the 3d Monday in May.
When Boston, in 1657, thirty years before Andros, had appointed
a Committee to consider the model of a Town House, and to
take up a subscription " to propagate such a building," she had
taken the first step in a path which could have no doubtful ter
mination. " Propagating Town houses," as it was quaintly styled,
was nothing less than propagating treason and defiance to tyranny
and despotism. Had Lord North, a century afterwards, succeeded
in shutting up Faneuil HaU, the virtual town house of Boston, a
few years earlier than he did, or even in turning the Old South
into a Post-Office, — and had silenced Warren and Quincy, and
James Otis and Samuel Adams, — the Stamp Act and the Writs
of Assistance, the Tea Chests and the British Redcoats, might have
encountered a far less stern reception than they did. While, on the
other hand, if the centralizing tendencies of modern times, which
the wonderful facilities for locomotion and intercommunication
have done so much to stimulate, — diminishing so seriously the
importance and individuality of the smaller towns, and sometimes
swaUowing them up bodily in great cities, — if these tendencies
had been possible, and had prevailed, a century and a half ago,
we should have looked in vain for not a few of the influences
which have most effectively moulded the character and developed
the capacity of our people, and made them the free, intelligent,
self-relying people which they are at this hour. The remission
and relegation of all the affairs of a community, and of almost
all their rights and duties except the Elective Franchise, to
Boards of Alderraen and Coraraon Councils, is a necessary evil,
if not a positive advantage, in great cities ; but the nearer power
is kept to its original source, in the deliberate consultations_ and
direct acts of the people themselves, the purer and safer will be
the administration of local governraent, and the more wiU the
people be interested, and instructed, and felt, in the working of
Republican institutions. An old Enghsh Poet, two hundred
years ago, spoke of making " one city of the Universe ; " ^ and
some of our Legislators would seera to have caught the same
inspiration. But I may be permitted reverently to doubt, whether
the Universe will be quite ready for such a consummation, until
the grand prophecy of Holy Writ shafl be accomplished, and the
1 Dryden, in his Annus MirabUis.

40
New Jerusalem be seen descending from heaven, " into which
there shafl no wise enter any thing that defileth, neither whatso
ever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie."
Think not, my friends, that I am pleading against any impend
ing danger. If Brookline is indeed ready to relinquish her single-
blessedness, and has put on her beautiful garments to-day in
preparation for the wedding, it is as little my province to forbid
the banns, as it is to give away the bride ; though, perhaps, I may
be pardoned for hoping. Churchman as I ara, that the ceremony
may be completed without the employment of a ring !
To be made a Town, then, in 1705, was to be adrnitted to an
equal partnership in that great company of Massachusetts muni
cipalities, which were gradually but surely building up the Colony
into a grand Commonwealth, fit to take its stand and do its whole
share in establishing and upholding an Independent and United
Nation. The old Colony of Plymouth, with all its cherished Pil
grim associations, after just threescore years and ten of separate
existence, had been made a part of Massachusetts, only fifteen
years before, under the new Provincial Charter. There were
at that time about eighty-two towns in Massachusetts, not
including such as have since fallen within the jurisdiction of
Maine, or other adjoining States; there are now, I believe,
more than three hundred and forty. Brookline was the eighty-
third, if rny careful friend Mr. W. H. Whitmore has counted cor
rectly ; ^ and she was not slow in attesting her title to be included
in this goodly fellowship. Her records, indeed, afford ample evi
dence of the patriotism and public spirit which have characterized
her inhabitants in every memorable period from that day to this.
I have taken up so much tirne, however, in recounting the expe
riences of her earlier days, that I must forbear from following
them along in the same detail. I do not regret it, and I hope
you may not regret it. The pioneer planters of our viUages and
towns, and even the founders and fathers of our State, have
long been in danger of being overlooked, and almost forgotten,
in the larger concerns and louder claims of later generations.
The admirations, I had almost said, the idolatries, of the imrae
diate hour, absorb us aU. The present fiUs our view. If it is
J It is not altogether easy to give these numbers with precision, owing to the
changes in the towns, and in the State, since 1705. By the Table, No. VIL, in the
Massachusetts Census of 1865, Brookline would appear to be the seventy-ninth of
the then existing towns, in the order of Incorporation. The annexation of Eoxbury
and Dorchester to Boston would thus leave her now the seventy-seventh.

41
not he that is living and acting to-day, it is he who died yester
day, upon whom aU our praises are lavished, and for whom the
stateliest monument or the costliest statue is at once prepared.
We must go to the humble village churchyards for the crum
bling memorials of some of our noblest builders and benefac
tors : — " Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply."
If I shall only have freshened and deepened the inscriptions on
some of those ancient grave-stones, I may safely leave the fame
of later generations to others ; — more especially as your " Brook
line Transcript " is furnishing from week to week, with an affec
tionate interest whieh betrays a lady's pen, the raaterials of a
local history, which at no distant day, we trust, may put on the
shape of a perraanent volume.
Yet I cannot even approach a conclusion of this Address, with
out a cursory glance at what Brookline has been doing during the
more than a century and half since she assumed her majority and
asserted her independence ; and more particularly during the lat
ter pkrt of that period. I will not attempt to entertain you with
figures, either statistical or rhetorical. The gradual growth of
the population, until it now counts nearly seven thousand in
habitants and eleven hundred voters, — while in the list of the
population of Muddy River in 1687, there were but just fifty
names, and Dr. Pierce told us there were only sixty-five voters
when he first came here in 1796 ; — the increase of wealth, real,
or certainly appraised, until it has been seriously doubted of late
whether it be not the richest town of its size in the whole Union ;
the diversification of business and industry; the aggregate of
crops or of cattle ; the improvement of highways ; the multipli
cation bf schools and of churches ; the opening of public Squares
and Playgrounds; the establishment of a Public Library; all
such details may wefl be left for the Census, or the Annual Re
ports of your Selectmen. Nor wiU I rob your Town Records of
their interest for the future antiquary or annalist, by reproducing
too many of the Resolutions and proceedings which have illus
trated the patriotism of the Town, at each succeeding epoch of
our Colonial or National history. Those records are, indeed,
rich in Revolutionary memorials, as I have found by personal
examination, and one or two of the most notable of them I
must not omit to mention.

42
On the 15th of December, 1767, it was voted unanimously,
" That this Town wfll take afl prudent and legal measures to
proraote Industry, Economy, and Manufactures in this Province,
and in any of the British American Colonies, and wifl likewise
take aU legal measures to discourage the use of European super
fluities ; " and five persons, William Hyslop, Esq., Capt. Benja
min White, Isaac Gardner, Esq., Mr. John Goddard, and Mr.
Samuel AspinwaU, were thereupon appointed a Committee to
prepare a form of subscription against receiving such European
superfluities. This was Brookline's first response to the mem
orable Act of Parliament, which had just imposed a tax of three
pence a pound on Tea.
On the llth of December, 1772, it was voted to choose a Com
mittee to take under consideration the violation and infringe
ments of the Rights of the Colonists, and of this Province iu
particular, and ".said Committee to be a Committee of comrau
nication and correspondence with the Town of Boston and any
other Towns on the subject of our present difficulties."
On the 26th of November, 1773, Brookline proceeded to ini
tiate further and more decisive action in regard to certain cargoes
of Tea, then " hourly expected to arrrive." Her Resolutions
were strong and uncompromising, as your Records abundantly
show. She was, of course, one of the Five Towns — Dorches
ter, Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, and Charlestown — which
were forthwith summoned by Sarauel Adaras to meet Bostoh, in
Mass raeeting, at Faneuil Hall on the 29th. The Committees
of those five Towns, with that of Boston, were at Faneuil
Hafl again, on the 13th of December; and I need not tefl any
body that " Boston Harbor was black with unexpected Tea," as
Carlyle. describes it, just three days afterwards.
On the 1st of March, 1775, we find the Boston Committee of
Correspondence, in a letter to the Selectmen of this Town,
"acknowledging the receipt of £25. 7? 6J'', in cash, by the hands
of our worthy friend, Mr. John Heath, also wood, mutton, rice,
corn, &c., it being the very generous donation of the Town of
Brookflne to this devoted place, now suffering the severity of
ministerial vengeance for nobly exerting themselves in the cause
of American Liberty."
On the 20th of May, 1776, six weeks before the Declaration
of Independence at Philadelphia, it was voted " to advise the

43
person chosen to represent this Town in the next General Court,
that if the Honorable Congress should for the safety of the
American Colonies declare them Independent of the Kingdom
of Great Britain, we the said Inhabitants will solemnly engage
with our Lives and Fortunes to support them in the measure."
This was Brookline's prompt and categorical response to the
question ordered to be propounded to all the towns of Massachu
setts, by a vote of the House of Representatives on the 10th of
the same month of May, just seven days before. A single week
was long enough for notifying and holding the Town meeting,
and for deciding on the answer ; and ray valued friend Richard
Frothingham, in his admirable History of " The Rise of the
Republic," just published, has cited no response so early within
a week as that of Brookline.
You will not have forgotten, my friends that from July, 1775,
to April, 1776, the American Array was encaraped around Bos
ton. During a large part, if not the whole, of that period, the
Regiment of Colonel Prescott, who had so gaUantly thrown up,
and so bravely commanded, the redoubt at Bunker HiU, was sta
tioned, together with a Rhode Island Regiment, on yonder Sew
all's Farm', a portion of which is now owned and occupied by
our worthy feUow-citizen, the Hon. Araos A. Lawrence. The
Brookhne Fort at SewaU's Point, of which the outlines may stih
be traced, was a very strong and extensive one, occupying a
central position between the right and left wing of our Army,
and commanding the entrance of Charles River. It is a most
welcome and inspiring thought, for this Anniversary and this oc
casion, that Washington himself in those days raust often have
passed somewhere along these very Brookline roads, such as they
then were, on his way from his head-quarters at Carabridge,
where Longfellow now lives, to visit the extended lines of the
American Camp. He must needs have passed, I think, not far
from where we are now assembled, as he crossed from Sewall's
Poirit to Roxbury, and so to South Boston, as it is now called,
not many days before he stood in triumph on Dorchester Heights
to witness the British Fleet setting safl in yonder bay, and the
British Forces finally driven out from Boston and its vicinity.
We may almost venture to picture him to our mind's eye, at this
instant, — reining up, perhaps, at the old AspinwaU elm, or gal
loping on to Corey's HUl, or some lesser height, to catch a clearer
gflmpse of what the enemy were doing on Boston Common. He

44
is now, at the age of forty-three, in the perfect maturity of his man
hood. And what a raanhood it is! There is no mistaking him,
closely surrounded, though he may be, by a gaflant staff and a
sturdy body-guard. That form of unsurpassed symmetry ! That
raodest but commanding and majestic presence ! The bloom of
youth not yet faded frora his noble countenance ! A shadow of
anxiety may, indeed, now and then be seen stealing over that
serene brow ; for we must confess that our New England Militia,
with their short enlistments, and their want of ammunition, and
their impatience of discipline, often involved him in the deepest
concern and perplexity. But not yet has he been worn and
weighed down by the cares and toUs of a seven years' war ; not
yet by the tremendous responsibilities of inaugurating and ad
ministering an untried. National Government. His great heart,
his vigorous frame, are still fresh and buoyant. All that Shaks
peare has given us of young Harry the Fifth, " with his beaver
on, witching the world with noble horsemanship," all except,
thank God, the profligate early life ; all that Virgil has told us of
the young Marcellus, — ^^ pietas, prisca fides, invictaque hello dex-
<era, "-7-the religious sense of duty, the old-fashioned integrity,
the invincible right arm, — all except, thank God, the untimely
end ; might help us to picture to ourselves that peerless chief as he
passed this way almost a hundred years ago, — might help us to
complete the portrait, of which neither the chisel of Houdon, nor
the brush of Stuart, nor the stately bronze of Ball or Crawford,
could give more than the cold outh nes.
Haply, some Brookline school-boys of that day may have
caught the sound of his horse's hoofs, and gazed up idly at
hira. Haply, some one of their elders may have stared incred
ulously, if not rudely, at the young Virginian, who had been
coraraissioned by the Continental Congress to supersede and
outrank aU our veteran Wards and Putnaras and Prescotts on
their own New England soil. It was too early for any one to take
iri the fuU measure and proportions of the destined Father of his
Country. But what Brookline school-boy is there at this hour,
what man or woman or child is there araong us to-day, who
would not excharige all other visions of mere humanity which
have ever been vouchsafed to any one of them, in a longer or a
shorter life, for one distinct and conscious sight of that supreme
and incomparable young man ! Think over with me, my friends,
all whom you have ever seen, or ever yearned to have seen, at

45
home or abroad, of American or of foreign distinction and celebrity ;
— Emperors at the head of triumphant armies ; Kings or Queens
on some grand festival of coronation ; Roman Pontiffs on their
Easter throne at St. Peter's ; Franklin with his kite, challenging
the thunderbolt; Chatham hurling scorn at his own Government
for employing Indians against the American Colonies ; Burke
impeaching Warren Hastings, or pleading the cause of American
Conciliation ; Napoleon at Austerlitz ; Wellington at Waterloo ;
Webster in the Senate Chamber, replying to Hayne, or at once
defining and impersonating the noblest eloquence, at Faneuil
HaU, in his matchless eulogy on Adams and Jefferson ; think
over each one of them, and tell me whether, with me, you would
not eagerly have exchanged them all, for the single satisfaction
of having seen George Washington!
The few remaining eyes which ever enjoyed that satisfaction,
even in the closing years of his great career, will soon be sealed
to all earthly sights. It is seventy-three years ago to-day, since
on Saturday, the 22d of February, 1800, Brookhne, in common
with all the country, held solemn services on occasion of his
death, which had occurred on the 14th of December, 1799. And
from that time to this, nowhere have his character and his prin
ciples found warmer adrairers or more devoted followers than
here ; nowhere have his name and his fame been more affection
ately and reverently cherished. AU honor to his memory, then,
on this one hundred and forty-first Anniversary of his birthday,
from these scenes and surroundings of his first great triumph in
the cause of American Liberty ! — AU honor to the memory of
him, to whom one Lord ChanceUor of England did not scruple
to write, — "I have a large acquaintance among the most valu
able and exalted classes of men, but you are the only being for
whom I ever felt an awful reverence '' ; i and of whom another and
later Lord ChanceUor of England did not hesitate to say, " Untfl
time shafl be no more, wifl a test of the progress which our race
has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration
paid to the immortal name of Washington ! " ^
I am aware, my friends, that, in claims to consideration flke
those I have thus far suggested, BrookUne has for the raost part
1 Lord Erskine's letter to Washington, 15 March, 1795.
2 Lord Brougham, in his Statesmen of the Time of George III. ; and repeated,
in precisely the same words, in his InstaUation Address, as ChanceUor of the Univer
sity of Edinburgh, 18 May, 1860.

46
only a joint interest with her sister towns in all quarters of the
Commonwealth. But she is not without some peculiar titles to
remembrance and regard, which would secure a more than com
mon fragrance for her memory, even should her individuality
and her name be merged to-morrow in the renown and grandeur
of the neighboring Metropolis.
I think no one wiU dispute that Brookline was for a long time
pre-eminent in the little cordon of towns which have so long con
stituted the exquisite environs of Boston, embossing it with a rich
and varied margin of lawn and lake and meadow and wooded hill
side, and encircling its old " plain neck," as William Wood called
it, in his " New England Prospect," with an unfading wreath of
bloom and verdure. I think no one will dispute her claim to have
given the earhest celebrity to those environs for rural culture and
beauty. Visitors from other countries, or from other States, carried
horae with them a deeper impression of the charms of this spot
and its surroundings than of any other region in New England ;
and when the well-to-do Bostonian, before there were any rail
roads or steamers to whirl him off to Scotland or the Alps, or even
to Newport, or Saratoga, or Niagara, for his summer vacation,
desired to get a breath of pure air, or a glimpse of green fields, or
a scent of fresh flowers, by an afternoon's drive, the horse's head
was turned first, and last, and almost all the time, towards Brook
line, by the way, perhaps, of Pine Bank ^ and Jamaica Pond.
Nature had done much, but cultivation and taste had hardly done
less, in producing this result. Nowhere did Horticulture find ear
lier or more successful votaries than here. Nowhere could there be
sought and found more exquisite flowers or more delicious fruits,
in season or out of season, in the open air or under glass. Nor
was experimental Agriculture without its early and devoted fol
lowers here. Meantime there was an elegant and distinguished
hospitality to be enjoyed in Brookflne homes, then filled by men
of large acquaintance and of larger hearts, to say nothing of
accomplished and beautiful women, to complete the attraction.
I do not forget that there were individual instances of the same
sort of homes in Dorchester or Milton, in Roxbury or Jamaica
Plain or Dedham, in Brighton or Watertown or Waltham. Still
less do I forget that alraost all these places have been catching up
1 Then the beautiful residence of James Perkins, Esq., the eldest of the three
liberal and public-spirited brothers, of whom two are named hereafter, as having
lived in Brookline.

47
with Brookline, — perhaps outstripping her, — in afl these particu
lars; and that both Horticulture and Agriculture may now look
elsewhere for more than one of their highest illustrations and their
most conspicuous disciples. I speak of half a century sometime
closed, during a part of which, certainly, Brookhne enjoyed a pres
tige for culture and beauty, which might almost have entitled her
to that appellation of " a Peculiar " for which her old inhabitants
petitioned. Let me not be thought too much disposed to narrow the limits
either of time or space within which the special graces and at
tractions of the Town were to be witnessed. But I have some
times thought that there was a little circle of our territory, from
which had emanated, in successive years, as many good influences
and examples, in the way of philanthropy and beneficence, ol
kindness and hospitality, and of every refined culture which per
tains to rural enjoyment or improvement, — the culture of the
field and of the garden, of the manners and of the human heart,
— as from any spot of equal circuraference on any part of the
globe. Within or around that little circle have lived men of wide
distinction in every walk of life, some of whose names are asso
ciated with the foremost places of the State or the Nation. From
that little circle have come the original foundations of Asylums
for the Blind, of State Reform Schools, of a score of the earliest
scholarships for Harvard University, of a Free Chapel for the
Poor in Boston, to say nothing of countless munificent dona
tions, and of personal services equal to any donation, for Colleges
and Athenaeums and Schools, for Hospitals for the sick and for
monuments of the glorious dead. From that little circle, in days
when such things were rarities, went forth, in thoughtful and
generous profusion, the choicest flowers and fruits which Nature
in her season, or art defying afl seasons, could produce, to cheer
the hearts of hngering invalids, and moisten the parched lips of
the suffering and dying ; while within that narrow circle, too,
might have been found the highest skiU in surgery or medicine
for their relief or cure. Need I recafl the naraes of Higginson
and Cabot and Mason, of John C. Warren and Richard Sullivan,
of WiUiam Appleton and John Ehot Thayer, of Benjamin Guild
and Theodore Lyman and Nathaniel Ingersofl Bowditch, of
Samuel G. Perkins and his noble-hearted brother Thomas Han
dasyde Perkins, whose combined services in public or professional

48
life", in the cause of Horticulture or Agriculture, as eminent mer
chants or bankers or statesmen, united with the philanthropy and
munificence which characterized so many of them, make up an
aggregate claim upon the grateful remembrance of their fellow
men, such as can hardly be surpassed or paralleled, for the period
in which they lived, by the dwellers upon the same number of
rural acres anywhere beneath the sun !
I may be pardoned for not forgetting that within that same
little circle, during a later period, not a few of the grandest bene
factions of the late George Peabody, during an occasional visit
here, were concerted and arranged; and particularly that noble
Trust for Southern Schools, in the service of which President
Grant came to Brookhne in the month of June last. Nor will
any of you be likely to forget, that a leading spirit in the relief
of Chicago and of Boston,^ after the terrible conflagrations which
have so recently visited them, has been found, for many summers
past, under the shadows of the trees which surrounded the home,
and which were planted by the hands, — as he has often told me,
— of the grand old Colonel Perkins. But I ara speaking of the
past and of the dead, and must not be betrayed into compli
ments to the hving.
Who can estimate the blessings which have radiated in time
past frora this charmed and charming little circle in Brookline !
Who can enter withiri its limits without catching something of
the contagion of philanthropy and charity which so long pervaded
it ! May it not well be an object of ambition, for any one whose
lot has of later years been cast within it, that he may not be
counted unworthy of the traditions and associations with which
it is crowded ; that, as he enters one of those cherished mansions,
the Genius of the place raay confront him with no handwriting
on the wall — " 0 tecta ipsa misera — quam dispari domino " !
True, the men to whom I have referred were mostly but sum
raer residents here, and Boston as well as Brookline may claim
them for her own roU of honor. But some of them, certainly,
were not only raen of hearts large enough for two Cities, but
were worthy to be claimed, like Homer of old, by seven Cities.
But can I forget that another and a sadder radiance rests upon
that little circle ? Shafl it ever be forgotten that from the same
narrow precincts went forth those noble brothers, whose remains
1 Hon. WilUam Gray.

49
brought home from the battle-fields of the Union, are among the
precious dust of yonder beautiful Ceraetery ? i When the tidings
from Antietam, ten years ago, inforraed us that the elder of those
heroic young men had faUen in the lap of one of the grandest
and most momentous victories of the War, I could not but recafl
the touching lines of an old Enghsh Poet,^ whose every phrase
and epithet, though written a century and a half ago, seemed
chosen and prepared for his elegy: —
" Ah, why, dear youth, in all the blooming prime
Of vernal genius, where disclosing fast
Each active worth, each manly virtue lay.
Why wert .thou ravish'd from our hope so soon '?
What now avaUs that noble thirst of fame.
Which stung thy fervent breast ? that treasur'd store
Of knowledge early gain'd 1 that eager zeal
To serve thy country, glowing in the band
Of youthful patriots, who sustain her name t
What now, alas ! that life-diffusing charm
Of sprightly wit ? that rapture for the Muse,
That heart of friendship, and that soul of joy.
Which bade with softest light thy virtues smile 1
Ah ! only show'd, to check our fond pursuits.
And teach our humbled hopes that Ufe is vain ! "
But no, no, my friends, it was for soraething more and better
than to teach our hurabled hopes that hfe is vain. It taught us
the very reverse of all this. Such a life was not vain. Such a
death was not vain. They have lighted the way of patriotic
resolve and noble self-sacrifice in a thousand young hearts, and
the names of Wilder Dwight and his gallant brother will be the
watchwords and countersigns of heroic daring, as often as any
cause of our country shall caU for the efforts of its best and
bravest, to the last syllable of its recorded history.
But the services of Brookline, and of Brookline men, and woraen,
too, must not be disraissed with this brief allusion to the deaths of
any two of her sons. In the excellent " History of Massachusetts
during the Civfl War," by the late laraented General Schouler, this
Town is recorded as having furnished thirty-four coraraissioned offi
cers, with the gaUant General WUd at their head, and seven hundred
and twenty men, — "a Surplus of one hundred and thirty-five over
and above aU demands." That History, — one volume of which,
as I cannot but remember in passing, was so appropriately
dedicated to the late Mrs. Otis, whose memory wfll long be
1 Forest HiUs. ' Thomson.

50
associated with the observance of Washington's Birthday as
a holiday, — that History contains the record, too, of not less
than twenty thousand doUars raised by the ladies of the Town
and expended for the comfort of the soldiers; of more than
thirty thousand dollars subscribed for tbe organization and
equipment of the Second Regiment of Volunteers ; and of nearly
a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars appropriated and
expended by the Town from its own treasury on account of the
War. Your worthy Town Clerk, Mr. Baker, does not regard
even these figures as doing full justice to all that was done here;
but they are more than enough, as they stand, to show that the
sons aud daughters of Brookline were in no degree behind any
of their neighbors in responding to the demands of that moment
ous struggle. The names of those whom Brookline lost in that
struggle are to be recorded, I understand, on commemorative
tablets in the spacious vestibule of this Building, so that they may
never fail to be remembered and honored by all who enter it.
I would gladly feel that a moraent were left me for doing justice
to others who have lived here, in earlier or later days, and who
have been distinguished in their various professions or pursuits ;
devoted clergymen, following in the footsteps of James AUen, the
first of them ; faithful school-teachers, with John Searle as their
forerunner; worthy citizens and residerits, Clarks and Goddards,
Heaths and Davises, Hyslops and Harrises, Childs and Seavers,
Griggses and Tappans and Lees, and other Perkinses, and other
Warrens, than those I have named, and other Amorys than those
I might narae, were they not still happily among the living. I
cannot attempt to include one half of those worthy to be in
cluded ; but I must by no means omit at least one most emi
nent lawyer, Jeremy Gridley, for whom it was glory enough that
Jaraes Otis was his pupU in the law, and treated him with the
greatest deference, respect, and affection, even while he totaUy
demoUshed his arguments in the memorable cause concerning
Writs of Assistance, in 1761.
Nor would I fail to recall such as have made their mark in
the field of letters. If we are corapelled to go a few feet over our
boundary hne to find the home of Parkman, with his " Pontiac," his
" France in America," and his " Book of Roses," we cannot forget
that the authoress of those Buckminster Memoirs which Carlyle
admired, and of " Naomi" and other charming stories of the Olden
Time, was long a resident here ; that the author of " The Ger-

51
man Prose Writers " and of so many exceUent versions of SchiUer
and Goethe, to say nothing of later Works, has but just left the
old Parsonage which alraost belonged to him as a family inherit
ance ; that " Suffolk Surnames " found here their genial and
humorous coUector and commentator ; that one of the earliest
and most careful writers of the Diplomatic History of our Coun
try ,i as well as one of the latest and best writers on Private Inter
national Law,2 long had a home here ; that here, in a mansion
then owned or occupied, it may be, by his eminent father, was
passed at least one of the sumraers of Prescott, when, under so
many clouds, he was first seriously pondering his way of life
and ripening for that rich harvest which is among the glories of
American Literature ; that perchance the last edition of the best
History of Spanish Literature may have received some final
touches from the accomplished Ticknor during his recent and
repeated residences here ; that not only have more than one of
the Daily Journals of Boston had leading Editors and Proprietors
here, but that the " Living Age " — that pure and perpetual res
ervoir and fountain of entertainment and instruction, so welcome
at all our firesides — has almost from the first been edited here ;
and, finaUy, that if there have been any Diarists or Annalists
in New England, since the days of Bradford and Winthrop and
Prince, worthy to be named with Pepys and Evelyn and Sir
Henry HoUand and Crabb Robinson of Old England, they are
the elder SewaU and the late Reverend Drs. Holraes and Pierce,
two of whom we have found so intimately associated with
our local history.
Our Public Library should not be without a special alcove,
or certainly a special shelf, for every thing which has eraanated,
in whole or in part, frora Brookline, as weU as for every thing
which may iUustrate its own rise and progress and the history
of the Town. And, one of these days, this very Town HaU, in
some one of its numerous apartments, should not be without
portraits — not fuU lengths, for they would soon fill up the
spaces and leave no room for the men of the future, but Heads,
at least — of those who have been prorainent in your earlier or
later annals. There is no worthier patronage of Araerican art
than that which may be afforded in procuring such memorials of
1 " The Diplomacy of The United States, by Theodore Lyman."
2 -'A Treatise on the Conflict of Laws, or Private International Law, by Francis
Wharton, LL.D."

52
the honored dead. The living raay wefl be postponed for the
verdict of those who come after them.
And now, feUow citizens and friends, with these historical
reminiscences, and these sacred memories, in full and fresh con
templation, we are here to-day to inaugurate this noble Hall, and
to dedicate it to all the manifold and varied uses to which such
an edifice may be legitimately appropriated. We can hardly
imagine that any increase of population, or any multiplication of
offices or affairs, or any caprice of taste or fancy, will ever call
for a more spacious or commodious edifice of the kind. Should
it escape, as we all pray God that it raay escape, the one great
casualty which the flames of yonder City have so recently and so
sadly impressed upon our minds, we can hardly look forward to
its standing less than a full century, as a place for the exercise of
whatever rights and powers may be possessed by the people who
dwell here. As long as Brookline shall remain a Town by
itself, or shall in any way preserve the separate existence which
it has enjoyed for more than a hundred and sixty-seven years, no
other place, certainly, can be contemplated for the discharge of
that great duty of choosing your own rulers which belongs to
you as freemen. And even should it be your destiny, or your
will, to relapse into the condition from which your fathers in
1705, and thirty years before, struggled so hard to release them
selves ; and, following the example of some of your neighbors, to
become a District or a Ward of Boston, still I know not that any
more central or coraraodious locality could be assigned for the
exercise of such privfleges and prerogatives as raay be left to
you. We shall none of us, I think, be sorry, even in that case,
that the good old Town went down with its flag stifl flying ; —
and flying on so worthy a. symbol of its long-cherished individu
ality and independence.
But your political rights and duties, whatever they may be,
are by no means aU for which this costly Building has been
erected. We dedicate it to-day to other and larger uses. Here,
from' time to time, the popular assembly may be held, to give
utterance to opinions or resolutions on matters of local or of
general concern. Here, thriUing appeals of patriotism may be
heard, in some exigency of public danger or alarra. Here, elo
quent and instructive Lectures raay be listened to, on Literature
or History, on Art or Science, on Horticulture or Agriculture, or

53
on some of those great moral and social reforms which the wel
fare of the Community may demand. Here, sorae profound and
exhaustless Agassiz may unveil the mysteries of the earth, and
of the sea, and of all that they contain. Here, some admirable
and accomplished Tyndafl may illustrate the marvels of polarized
light and of the circumambient ether, reversing all our old-fash
ioned notions, and showing us precisely how the dark rays of the
Sun, instead of the bright ones, do the main work of melting
the glaciers, evaporating the rivers, distilling the ocean, and
heating the Universe. Here, some learned and adventurous
Froude may charm us with stories of English Ehzabeths and
Scottish Marys ; — certain to be followed by some eloquent and
indignant Father Burke, if he ever so unwittingly lend color to an
idea, that Irishmen are not as brave and as true and as trust
worthy as their neighbors. Here, some Holmes or Hillard or
veteran Emerson, some Cooke or Hayes or Lovering, some John
B. Gough or Wendell Phillips or Henry Ward Beecher, may at
least serve to remind you, that popular and brilliant Lecturers are
by no means altogether exotic. Here, sorae Charlotte Cushman
may delight us with a life-like rendering of Shakspeare's Queen
Katharine, or overwhelm us with the power and pathos of Wal
ter Scott's Meg Merrilies. Here, Music may pour forth her
inspiring and ennobling strains, — the grand . Symphony, the
majestic Choral, the sublime Oratorio ; — or, it may be, the
hghter harmonies of Glees and Madrigals and Part-songs frora
your own Brookline Club. Here, galleries of ancient or modern
Art may soraetimes be arranged, borrowed from the abounding
treasures of not a few of the neighboring mansions. Here, Chari
ty may spread her alluring tables, with the choicest contributions
of the garden and the conservatory, and with the tasteful products
of hands ever ready and eager for any work of love. And here,
gay and happy children, of all classes and sects and nationalities,
may be seen minghng in the frohc dance, on sorae holiday of the
Schools, or on some Anniversary festival of the Town, the State,
or the Nation.
I raay not venture to depict, or atterapt to anticipate, all the
various scenes which this Hall may exhibit, in the long vista
of time and change and chance through which we look forward
to-day, as through the ever-changing, stiU-corabining colors of a
kaleidoscope. To every use which raay become a free, inteUi-

54
gent, and moral People, we devote and dedicate it ; to rational
Amusement, to enhghtened Culture, to freedom of Speech and of
Conscience, to Virtue, to Philanthropy, to Patriotism, to Liberty
and Law ; — to every use which may be for the welfare of the
community, or, in the good old phrase of the great Father of
Modern Science, " for the rehef of man's estate."
But, oh, let us not forget those other words which were coupled
by Lord Bacon with that good old phrase. Let us not forget
that it was to " the glory of the Creator," as well as to the wel
fare of man's estate, that our fathers dedicated every thing, even
themselves. We have opened our exercises with prayer, and we
shall presently close them with praise. Let it never be imagined
that these are mere empty, conventional forms. The walls which
have grown cold and hard without catching some impress of sup
plication and thanksgiving, breathing from sincere and believing
hearts, and vibrating from glad and grateful lips, have lost more
than could be supplied by the frescoes of a Raphael. We can do
without every thing else in this world better — immeasurably bet
ter — than without the blessing of God ; and that blessing is to
be invoked, here and everywhere, in every hour, in all conditions,
under aU circumstances. The winds and the storms may paralyze
the machinery, and sweep down the stoutest props of all earthly
intercomraunication ; but the humblest aspirations Heavenward
of a devout and loving soul have an ever-fixed support, " that
looks on tempests and is never shaken," — the Same yesterday,
and to-day, and for ever.
Clinical calendars and therapeutic tests may well be relied on
for every thing conceivable, or even inconceivable, within their
own domain. They cannot be too highly prized ifor afl that they
have done, and afl that they are doing, for the physical welfare of
mankind. Nor can I think it altogether fair or wise to take up too
seriously a somewhat sudden and sensational suggestion for en
larging the sphere of Hospital statistics. The subject of that sug
gestion, if not beyond the range of human argument, is certainly
far beyond the reach of raedical or material experiment. It is
enough, perhaps more than enough for me, to express the convic
tion, that no fears or doubts or faintest misgivings, that nothing,
nothing but the profoundest compassion and sorrow, in every
Christian breast, wiU await or follow an attempt, should it ever
tinhappily be made, to prove that prayer to God for the. sick,

55
the suffering, and the dying, is not the rational and natural, as
wefl as the revealed, resort and refuge of the anxious and ago
nized heart. Every such heart wifl utterly disown the jurisdiction,
and pour out its petitions with renewed faith and fervor.
The sense of an all-seeing Eye, of an all-hearing Ear, of an
afl-pervading and aU-controlhng Providence, is the strongest safe
guard of Society, as well as of the individual man. It must be
cherished by the sons, as it was by the fathers, if our liberty is
not to degenerate into licentiousness, and our boasted Self-gov
ernment into anarchy or despotism. Massachusetts was founded,
and has been built up, as a Christian Commonwealth, and as a
Christian Commonwealth it must stand or faU. Conscience must
be free as the air. Sects and denominations must range them
selves, according to their own convictions, under banners of their
own choice. The State can never again, support or favor any
particular creed or form of religion. But Religion, in all its forras,
must still support the State ; must still supply the corner-stone
and the capstone, the strong foundations, and the sustaining
buttresses and bulwarks, both of State and Nation, if free gov
ernment, or any government, is to endure and prosper.
" Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political pros
perity," said he whose birthday we comraeraorate, in that Fare
well Address, which ought to be read in our schools on every
anniversary of its date, " Of all the dispositions and habits which
lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispen
sable supports. In vain would that man claira the tribute of
patriotisra, who should labor to subvert these great pfllars of
human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of raen and
of citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought
to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their
connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be
asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for hfe,
if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the
instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us
with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be main
tained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the in
fluence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason
and experience both forbid us to expect that National Morality
can prevail in exclusion of rehgious principles."
All other words of Washington may become obsolete. His

56
great appeals for Peace, domestic and foreign, for Union and the
Constitution, may be shorn of their application and significance.
The Constitution may be discarded, and the Union itself perish.
His own example may cease to be reverenced, and his meraory
lose its hold upon our hearts. But even should such deplorable
and unimaginable results ever be witnessed in our land, these
noble words wiU be as just and true as when they first issued
from his hps or from his pen. And at this moment, above all
other moraents in our history, when National Morality is in danger
of becoraing a jest and a by-word, they should sink deeper than .
ever before into the soul of every Araerican Patriot.
To the glory of God, then, as well as to the relief of man's
estate, let us dedicate our Hall this day ; and may the blessing of
God ever overshadow it, and ever rest upon all who, in successive
generations, shaU be gathered within it ; until, with the lapse of
years, these glowing colors shall have faded, these massive wafls
shall have fallen, and all the high hopes and joyous associations
of this occasion, with the remembrance of all who have partici
pated in it, shall be buried in oblivion !

57

At the conclusion of Mr. Winthrop's Address, the fol
lowing original Ode, written by Miss Harriet Woods, for
the occasion, was sung by the Choral Club : —
ODE.
Written for the occasion by Miss Harriet Woods.
Beneath this noble roof we stand,
Where skill has reared these massive waUs,
And beauty from our Father's hand
Streams in where'er the sunlight falls.
Here, as the years shall come and go,
Proud Eloquence with Iqfty strain
ShaU set the listening heart aglow,
And nerve to noble deeds again.
Here Music, tuned to fine accord,
From voices yet unborn, shall ring ;
And grand, triumphant strains be poured
From brazen throat and vibrant string.
Here may the rich man and the poor
Combine to wield the baUot's might ;
Contend for truth which shaU endure,
And cancel every wrong with right.
Long may our town's unsullied name
Our fair and proud possession be,
Apd none but honest patriots claim
The honors of the brave and free.
The President then said : —
The formal transfer of the Town Hafl will now take place by
the delivery of the keys by the Building Comraittee, through their
Chairraan, Mr. WiUiam A. Wellman, to the Board of Selectmen,
represented by their Chairman, Mr. Charles D. Head.
William A. Wellman, Esq., Chairman of the Building
Committee, then rose, and on delivering the keys to

58
Charles D. Head, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Select
men, spoke as follows : —
MR. WELLMAN'S ADDRESS.
In behalf of the Committee to whom was intrusted the erec
tion of the Town Hall, it now becomes my duty to surrender to
you, as Chairman of the Selectmen of the town, the keys of the
building. After the learned and eloquent address from our distinguished
townsman, any extended remarks would be inappropriate. I shall,
therefore, briefly submit the doings of our Committee.
The necessity of a new Town Hall, to meet the growth and
increasing demands of our people, had become so apparent, that
at the annual town raeeting of the citizens held on the 28th of
March, 1870, a Comraittee was appointed to consider the subject,
and to report in regard to the same at the adjourned town meet
ing. The Comraittee, at their first meeting, without previous
conference, found themselves a unit in favor of the immediate .
erection of a tasteful, commodious, and substantial edifice for this
purpose. The Committee were' also impressed with the fact
that the town was seriously deficient in those social advantages
which would be derived from the possession of such a building.
Their report was accepted, and the sarae persons were constituted
a Building Committee ; viz., William A. Wellman, Charles U.
Cotting, John C. Abbott, Charles W. Scudder, William Aspinwall,
Augustine Shurtleff', William K. Melcher, William Lincoln, and
Martin P. Kennard. The town appropriated the sum of $100,000,
and placed the same at the disposal of the Committee, who were
authorized to issue the bonds of the town, payable in twenty years.
At a subsequent meeting #50,000 were added to the appropriation,
for which sums the bonds were negotiated at six per cent, at their
par value, and a sinking fund has been provided for their redemp
tion. The cost of the building will not exceed the appropriations.
The first duty of the Committee was to invite plans and sketches,
with the understanding that the author of the accepted design
should be employed as the architect. Afl were requested to sign
.their designs with a raotto, and enclose their naraes in an enve
lope, to remain until the choice was made. Sixteen designs were
offered, and after very careful study and consideration the one with

59
a red seal was chosen, and disclosed the name of the author to be
S. J. F. Thayer, Esq., of Boston. The contract for the raasonry
was taken by Messrs. Adaras & Barstow, of Boston ; and for the
carpenter work by our townsraan, Mr. Williara K. Melcher. The
corner-stone of the building was laid, in the presence of the town
officers. May 23, 1871.
The structure is upon the site of the old Town Hall, which was
removed to Prospect Street. This is the third Hall the inhabitants
have built for town purposes. The first was dedicated Jan. 1,
1825, a small stone building, afterwards used for the High School,
and now standing on Walnut Street, near the First Church.
The second was opened on the 14th October, 1845, twenty years
after the first; and the late venerable Dr. Pierce, in his address
on the occasion, remarked: "The progressive improvements of
modern times render it not improbable that, when this beauteous
fabric shall grow old, it may give place to an edifice which shall
as far exceed this as the present is superior to the rude structures
of former times." A generation (twenty-eight years) has elapsed
since those words were spoken, and we are here to-day to dedicate
this building — which, we trust, will outlast many generations —
to the purposes for which it was designed.
In style, this structure is a secular Gothic, well fitted for a
building designed for municipal uses. The principal facade has
three entrances, divided by polished granite colurans with carved
capitals, the whole being covered with an arch resting upon soUd
abutraents, and forming above the entrance a large window, which
is divided by granite rauUions. Above this window, and nearly
in the centre ofthe front, is an arcade enclosing several windows,
which are separated by short granite shafts. StiU higher is the
cornice, ornate in character, and somewhat above the general
level. The centre of the front rises to a height of one hundred
feet, being higher than any other portion of the structure. The
roof is slated in green, red, and purple, in ornamental style.
The building is three stories in height, and constructed of rose-
colored granite frora Dedham, and trimraed with light-gray ham
mered granite frotn Blue HiU, Maine, having a massive base of
the same material, while the body is quarry faced. The ground-
floor is a rectangle, 90 feet in width by 136 feet in length, each
side being recessed 10 feet, and 56 feetof the centre front project
ing, giving an extreme width of 90 feet and extreme length of 146

60
feet. The first floor is 7i feet above the grade of the location,
and is divided into corridors, offices, and a haU. Entering by the
main doorway, we pass through the vestibule, 39 feet long by 30
in width, with a tUe floor. In this vestibule, and on either side
of the entrance, are the staircases leading to the second story.
Beyond this is a corridor 15 feet in width, extending back half
the length of the building, where it meets another corridor run
ning at right angles with it, and giving an entrance on Prospect
Street, through a carriage porch. On either side of the main
corridor are three rooms, 23 feet width, for the use of the town
officers. At the rear of the main corridor is the lower hall, in the
rear of the building, wbich will seat between five and six hundred
persons, and is designed for political or other meetings, which do
not require the larger hall. Ascending the broad staircases, we
enter this hall, which is 65i wide by 92i feet in length ; and it
will seat between twelve and fourteen hundred persons. Its form
is an elongated octagon. The walls are 37 feet in height, the
ceilings extend into the roof 16 feet, giving in the centre a height
of 53 feet. The decorations and windows were done by McPher
son & McDonald, of Boston. The raain vestibule is decorated in
a style like to the hall, and is lighted by a large window, in which
are placed the coat-of-arms of the United States and of the State,
both in raedallion. The building is heated by indirect radiation
of steara, under the direction of T. S. Clagston, of Boston.
The character of the work is corapleted in the spirit of the lib
erality of the town ; and the Committee having discharged their
duty, I now place in your hands the keys of the building.
At the close of Mr. Wellman's Address, Charles D.
Head, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, rose,
and, on receiving the keys, spoke as follows : —
MR. HEAD'S ADDRESS.
Mr. Chairman, — In behalf of the citizens of Brookline, I
receive, with pleasure, these keys, as the .symbol of the transfer
from your Coraraittee to the town of this finished Town Hall.
We owe it to your good taste, and that of the gentlemen asso
ciated with you on the Building Coraraittee, that Brookline has
this town building, of which she may justly feel proud; that we

61
have this beautiful HaU, and the agreeable and convenient offices
below. And I assure you that your fellow-citizens fully appreci
ate the cares and anxieties you have had, — which are inseparable
from a work of this Rind ; and that they gratefully acknowledge
that the iraportant duty they confided to you has been by you as
conscientiously as it has been to thera satisfactorily performed :
so satisfactorily, that no feeling of disappointraent mars the pleas
ure of this day's dedicatory exercises.
And now, fellow-citizens, — or, as our formal services are nearly
ended, let me say, ladies and gentleraen, friends, — I congratu
late you on being possessors of this beautiful building ; and I
congratulate you that you were able to secure the aid of the
eloquent and distinguished gentleraan who has this afternoon
addressed us, and has given to our services of dedication a
character, a tone, which so wefl befit the useful beauty of our
Hall. And let rae try to corafort you, if, perchance, the recol
lection of its cost comes to your minds, by saying that if you
receive from your new Town Hall as long and as honorable ser
vice as New England has received frOm the Winthrop family, I
don't believe the youngest person here will live to find fault with
either architect or contractors ; for that service extends to nearly
two hundred and fifty years.
I feel there is much raore I might say, but I refrain, even at the
risk of disappointing your not unreasonable expectations, and for
two reasons : the first is, that this is the first Town HaU our friends
of the Building Committee have ever raastered, and I fear we
raay check their natural aspirations for improvement in future
efforts of this kind if we are too profuse in our praise ; the second
is, that this is, as you have been reminded, the birthday of a rnan
whose example every Araerican should imitate as weU as he can,
and one of his leading raerits was, according to a recent com
raentator, — the late Mr. A. Ward, — whose words have a starthng
significance to me at this tirae : " George Washington never
said too rauch." I quote from memory.
WiU you allow rae, in closing, as " one whose sands of life,"
&c., — I mean official hfe, and allegorical sands, — to indulge in a
single word of caution ? It is said that History repeats herself. In
our hbrary, near by, is a book written some years since, in a difficult
and but little understood Oriental language, which can be read
only by the best scholars, — I suppose raost of you have read it.

62
it has been translated, — which gives an account of the building
of what I beheve to have been the first Town Hafl ever built.
As this was before the art of printing was invented, the account
is raeagre. No naraes ofthe Building Committee are given, and we
are left to guess whether, in the crude civilization of those early
days, they used beasts of burden, or even had a Board of Select
men. But this we do know, that our distant relatives were so
elated at the height and beauty of their Town Hafl, that they felt
theraselves more than huraan to have produced such a structure,
and expected to force their way into heaven by its architectural
pre-erainence. You, who know the sad fate of those early
builders on the plain of Shinar, will hesitate before you give
utterance to too vain laudations of the work of your hands ; for we
are told that, as a punishraent for their great conceit, they ceased
to be a united and harmonious people speaking in one tongue,
and had differences in words, and were scattered ; which means,
I suppose, that they were swallowed by or annexed to other and,
perhaps, more discreet municipalities.
I beg your pardon. A few moraents since I said that the for
malities of our dedication were ended. How could I forget that
every man, woman, and child here present expected to try the sound
of his or her voice in your new Hall ? I can realize, from recent
personal experience, how irapatient you raust be ; so we will
give you each the opportunity, by asking you to join in the
Doxology. At the conclusion of Mr. Head's Address, the whole
audience rose and sung the following Hymn, to the tune
of " Old Hundred : " —

From all that dwell below the skies,
Let the Creator's praise arise !
Let the Redeemer's name be sung,
Through every land, by every tongue !
Eternal are thy mercies, Lord !
Eternal truth attends thy word ;
Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore,
Till suns shall rise and set no more.

63
The audience then resumed their seats, and the Eev.
William Wilberforce Newton, Eector of Saint Paul's
Church, Brookline, pronounced the following Benediction,
and the ceremonies of the occasion ended : —
The Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers. Let
Him not leave us nor forsake us : That He may inchne our hearts
unto Him, to walk in all His ways, and to keep His Command
ments and His Statutes and His Judgraents, which He com
manded our fathers : That all the people of the earth may know
that the Lord is God, and that there is none else. Amen.
In the evening, a Promenade Concert was given in the
Upper Hall, by the Brookline Band, to which all cit
izens were invited, and which was largely attended by
all classes. This entertainment was a fitting close to the
scenes of the day, as it gave all the inhabitants an oppor
tunity of taking a share in the first day's enjoyment of the
New Town Hall.

64

SUBSEQUENT PEOCEEDINGS.

At a Town Meeting holden on the twenty-seventh day
of February, 1873, the following votes were passed, on
the motion of George M. Towle, Esq. : —
Voted, That the thanks of the inhabitants of the town of
Brookline be presented to the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, for the
able, learned, and eloquent Address delivered by him on the
occasion of dedicating the new Town Hall ; and that the Select
men of the town coraraunicate this vote to hiiu, and request of
him a copy of his Address for publication.
Voted, That William Aspinwall, Williara A. WeUman, and
Charles D. Head be a Committee to compile and print the pro
ceedings, speeches, and Inaugural Address of the Hon. Robert C.
Winthrop, at the dedication of the Town Hall on the twenty-
second day of February, 1873, with such other matter as they
may deem advisable.
The duty imposed upon this Committee has now been
performed, and its results are laid before the inhabitants
of the town of Brookline.

Cambridge : Press of John Wilson & Son.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 01346 1216

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