initial commit of ebook 14131HEADmain

1 files changed, 3739 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/14131-0.txt b/14131-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..32e7164
--- /dev/null
+++ b/14131-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3739 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14131 ***
+
+[Illustration: Geo. D. Robinson Governor of Mass. 1884.
+
+B.H. RUSSELL BOSTON]
+
+
+
+
+THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.
+
+_A Massachusetts Magazine_.
+
+VOL. II.
+
+JANUARY, 1885.
+
+No. 4.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GEORGE DEXTER ROBINSON.
+
+BY FRED. W. WEBBER, A.M.
+
+[Assistant Editor of the Boston Journal.]
+
+
+His Excellency George D. Robinson, at present the foremost citizen of
+Massachusetts, by reason of his incumbency of the highest office in the
+Commonwealth, is the thirtieth in the line of succession of the men who
+have held the office of Governor under the Constitution. In character,
+in ability, in education, and in those things generally which mark the
+representative citizen of New England, he is a worthy successor of the
+best men who have been called to the Chief Magistracy. His public career
+has been marked by dignity and an untiring fidelity to duty; his life as
+a private citizen has been such as to win for him the respect and good
+will of all who know him. He is a man in whom the people who confer
+honor upon him find themselves also honored. He is a native of the
+Commonwealth, of whose laws he is the chief administrator, and comes of
+that sturdy stock which wresting a new country from savagery, fostered
+with patient industry the germs of civilization it had planted, and
+aided in developing into a nation the colonies that, throwing off the
+yoke of foreign tyranny, presented to the world an example of government
+founded on the equal rights of the governed and existing by and with the
+consent of the people. His ancestors were probably of that Saxon race
+which for centuries stood up against the encroachments of Norman kings
+and nobles, which was led with willingness into the battle, the siege or
+the crusade that meant the maintenance or advancement of old England's
+honor, or in the cause of mother Church, and which was possessed of that
+brave, independent spirit that, when the old home was felt to be too
+narrow an abode, sought a new-country in which to plant and develop its
+ideas of what government should be. However this may be it is certain
+that from the first settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony the
+family was always represented among the most honorable of its yeomanry,
+and among its members were pillars of both Church and State. His
+immediate ancestors, people of the historic town of Lexington, were
+active citizens in the Revolutionary period, and in the great struggle
+members of the family were among those who did brave and effective
+service in the cause of liberty.
+
+George Dexter Robinson was born in Lexington, February 20, 1834. Born on
+a farm, his boyhood and youth were spent there, and his naturally strong
+constitution was improved by the outdoor exercise and labor which are
+part of the life of the farmer's boy. But the future Governor did not
+intend to devote himself to farming. With the aim of obtaining a
+collegiate education he attended the Academy in his native town, and
+followed his studies there by further preparation at the Hopkins
+Classical School in Cambridge. Entering Harvard University he was
+graduated at that institution in 1856, and receiving an appointment as
+Principal of the High School in Chicopee, Massachusetts, he accepted it,
+filling the position with success during a period of nine years. He
+retired from it in 1865. Meanwhile he had devoted much time to legal
+studies, which he continued more fully during the next few months, and
+in 1866 he was admitted to the bar in Cambridge. Chicopee, the town
+wherein his active career in life had begun, he made his permanent home,
+and with the various interests of that town he identified himself
+closely and pleasantly, exemplifying in many ways the character of a
+true townsman, and associating himself with every movement for the good
+of his fellow citizens. In 1873 he was elected to represent the town the
+ensuing year in the State Legislature, and as a member of the House he
+was noted for the promptness and fidelity with which he attended to his
+legislative duties. Two years later he was a member of the State Senate,
+and here, as in the House, he displayed conspicuous ability as a
+legislator in addition to that fidelity to his responsibilities which
+had long been characteristic of him in any and all positions. His
+qualifications for public life received still wider recognition the year
+he served in the Senate, and he was nominated by the Republicans of the
+old Eleventh District as Representative in Congress. He was re-elected
+for two successive terms, and after the re-apportionment was elected
+from the new Twelfth District in 1882, but before taking his seat was
+nominated by the Republicans for the office of Governor, to which he was
+elected. He took his seat, however, in order to assist in the
+organization of the new Congress, and, after that work was accomplished,
+resigned to enter upon the duties entrusted to him by the people of the
+whole Commonwealth. He had sat in the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth,
+Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Congresses. Of his career in Washington
+it would not be possible to give a better summary than one given by
+"Webb," the able Washington correspondent of the Boston Journal, which
+is here given in its entirety:
+
+Mr. Robinson took his seat in the Forty-fifth Congress, which met in
+extra session, in October, 1877. He was prompt in his seat on the first
+day of the first session. Regularity in attendance, and constant
+attention to public business, have been characteristics of Mr.
+Robinson's Congressional career. He is in his seat when the gavel falls
+in the morning; he never leaves it until the House adjourns at night. He
+does not spend his time in importuning the departments for clerkships,
+but he welcomes the civil service law. He does not take the public time,
+which belongs to his constituents, for his private practice in the
+United States Supreme Court. He is in the truest sense a representative
+of the people. He is quick in discovering, and vigorous in denouncing
+an abuse. He as quickly comprehends and as earnestly advocates a just
+cause. He is a safe guardian of the people's money and has never cast
+his vote for an extravagant expenditure; but he does not oppose an
+appropriation to gain a reputation for economy, or aspire to secure the
+title of "watch dog of the Treasury," by resorting to the arts of a
+demagogue.
+
+When he entered Congress, he went there with the sincerity of a student,
+determined to master the intricate, peculiar machinery of Congressional
+legislation. He has become an authority in parliamentary law, and is one
+of the ablest presiding officers in Congress.
+
+In the Congress which he first entered the Democrats were in power in
+the House. "They had come back," as one of their Southern leaders (Ben
+Hill) said, "to their father's house, and come to stay." Mr. Randall was
+elected Speaker. He put Mr. Robinson on one of the minor standing
+committees--that of Expenditures in the Department of Justice--and
+subsequently placed him near the foot of the list on the Special
+Committee on the Mississippi Levees. Before the latter committee had
+made much progress with its business, it was discovered that where
+"McGregor sits is the head of the table." Mr. Robinson, at the extra
+session of the Forty-fifth Congress, took little active part in the
+public proceedings. He was a student of Congressional rules and
+practice.
+
+At the second session of the Forty-fifth Congress he began to actively
+participate in the debates, and from the outset endeavored to secure a
+much needed reform in Congressional proceedings. He always insisted
+that, in the discussion of important questions, order should be
+maintained. He followed every important bill in detail, and the
+questions which he directed to those who had these bills in charge
+showed that he had made himself a master of the subject. He took
+occasion to revise upon the floor many of the calculations of the
+Appropriations Committee, and to urge the necessity of the most rigid
+economy consistent with proper administration.
+
+It was at the third session of the Forty-fifth Congress, January 16,
+1879, that Mr. Robinson made his first considerable speech. It was upon
+the bill relative to the improvement of the Mississippi River. He was
+very deeply impressed with the magnitude of the problems presented by
+that great river, and, while he was willing that the public money should
+be wisely expended for the improvement of the 'Father of Waters,' he did
+not wish that Congress should be committed to any special plan which
+might prove to be part of a great job, until an official investigation
+could be had. The interest with which this first speech was listened to,
+and the endless questions with which the Southern men who favored
+absolutely the levee system plied him, showed that they understood that
+great weight would be given to Mr. Robinson's opinion, and that they did
+not wish him to declare, unconditionally, against their cause. The
+speech was a broad and liberal one, but extremely just. It had been
+intimated in the course of the debate that Eastern members, who did not
+favor the improvement of the river, refused to do so on account of a
+narrow provincialism. Mr. Robinson showed them that New England is both
+just and generous, and that the country is so united that a substantial
+benefit to any portion of it cannot be an injury to another. He made
+some keen thrusts at the Southern State rights advocates, who were so
+eager for the old flag and an appropriation, and he reminded them that
+whatever might be thought of the dogma of State sovereignty, "the great
+old river is regardless of State lines, of the existence of Louisiana,
+and, whenever there is a defective levee in Arkansas, over it goes into
+Louisiana, spreading devastation in its course." Mr. Robinson insisted
+that "Congress has no right to spend $4,000,000 out of the public
+treasury immediately without investigating a theory and a plan which
+proposes to render such an expenditure wholly unnecessary," and he
+maintained that the greatest possible safe-guards should be provided
+against any extravagant expenditure on the part of the Government. The
+relations of New England to such an undertaking he thus broadly stated:
+
+"I am not deterred by any considerations that when the great river is
+open to commerce to an enlarged extent more freight will go down its
+bosom and be diverted perhaps from the great cities on the Atlantic
+shore. I am willing that the whole country shall be improved and opened
+for its best and most profitable occupation. This territory, whose
+interests are affected by this, is greater than the whole of New
+England. I am not afraid that whatever improvements may be made there
+New England will be left out in the cold. Whatever conduces to the
+prosperity of the West or South will benefit the East and North. We are
+parts of one great whole, and, if it is necessary under a proper policy
+to spend some money from the Treasury of the United States to meet the
+wants of those States lying along the Mississippi River, I hope it will
+not be begrudged to them, but it should not be done, and the Government
+should not be committed, until the plans, have received a careful
+consideration and the indorsement of the proper officers."
+
+At the third session of the Forty-fifth Congress, Mr. Robinson, from his
+minor place on the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of
+Justice, introduced a bill relative to the mileage of United States
+Marshals, which proposed an important reform.
+
+In the Forty-sixth Congress, at the first session, Mr. Robinson, on
+account of the marked abilities which he had shown as a lawyer and a
+debater, was appointed a member of the Judiciary Committee, a position
+which he held through the Forty-sixth Congress with honor to his
+district and his State. From the outset of the Forty-sixth Congress Mr.
+Robinson, to the great surprise of many older members, who were not able
+to fathom the mystery of the rules, took front rank as a debater on
+points of order, and showed that his months of silent observation and of
+earnest study had brought their fruit. His discussion of points of order
+and of the rules was always characterized by good sense. He did not seek
+to befog a question by an extensive quotation of authorities. He
+endeavored to strip the rules of their technicalities and to apply to
+them the principle of common sense. Sometimes, however, he was almost in
+despair, and once in the course of an intricate discussion he exclaimed
+(March 28, 1879): "If there is a standing and clear rule that guides the
+Chair, I have not yet found it."
+
+At the second session of the Forty-sixth Congress, Western and Southern
+Democrats united their forces in support of an amendment to the
+"Culbertson Court bill," which was designed to limit the jurisdiction of
+the United States courts. Some of the strongest advocates of this
+amendment were men who, although living in Northern States, were
+unfriendly to the Union, and who, since the war, have been continuously
+aggressive in their efforts to place limitations upon national power.
+Mr. Robinson was a member of the Judiciary Committee and spoke upon the
+bill. His speech upon this measure attracted more attention than any
+speech he had delivered before that time. It commanded the undivided
+attention of the House, which was so interested in it that, although the
+debate was running in the valuable time of the morning hour, Mr.
+Robinson, on motion of a Democrat, Mr. Randolph Tucker, after the
+expiration of his time, was requested to continue. The speech was a
+powerful, logical, patriotic defence of the federal courts. A few
+extracts from the general parts of this speech furnish an excellent
+illustration of the abilities of Mr. Robinson as a debater and orator,
+as well as of his strong convictions. He spoke as the son of a Jackson
+Democrat would be likely to speak. He vigorously opposed the increase in
+the limit from $500 to $2,000 as proposed by the Southern and Western
+Democrats.
+
+After quoting the opinions of Chief Justices Story and Marshall to show
+that the right of Congress to establish federal courts could not be
+denied without defeating the Constitution itself, Mr. Robinson
+continued: "I say, then, that those constitutional provisions give to
+the citizens of the different States their rights in the federal courts.
+I say again, it is not within the constitutional power of Congress to
+make discriminations as to citizens in this matter. It has been taken as
+settled that the corporations of the States for purposes of jurisdiction
+are citizens of the States in which they are created. Can you
+discriminate? Why, in the famous Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court
+did discriminate, and said that a negro was not a citizen within the
+meaning of the Constitution, nor entitled to sue in the Circuit Court of
+the United States. The nation paused and held its breath, and never
+recovered itself until after the bloody strife of the war, when was put
+into the Constitution that guaranty that no such doctrine should ever be
+repeated in this country. If Congress can exclude the citizens of a
+locality, or the citizens of one color, or the citizens of one
+occupation, or the citizens of certain classes of wealth or industry,
+surely it can exclude any other citizens. If you can, in this bill and
+under our Constitution, declare that the citizens, or any portion of
+them, in this country, because they act in their corporate capacity,
+shall lose their rights in the federal courts, it is but the next step
+to legislate that the man who is engaged in rolling iron, or in the
+manufacture of cotton, or of woolen goods, or is banker, or 'bloated
+bond-holder,' shall not have any rights in the federal courts. There is
+no step between them. There may be a discrimination as to
+subject-matter, but not as to citizens. The distinction is very broad,
+and in recognition of it my argument is made." In the discussion of the
+apportionment at the Forty-sixth Congress, third session, Mr. Robinson
+eloquently defended the honor of Massachusetts against the aspersions
+which had been cast upon the Commonwealth by General Butler in his brief
+as attorney in the Boynton-Loring contest. In the course of the debate
+Mr. Cox called attention to this brief and suggested that if it were
+true the representation of Massachusetts should be curtailed. Mr.
+Robinson entered into an explanation of the reading and writing
+qualification for suffrage in Massachusetts. As General Butler was the
+assailant in this case, Mr. Robinson said:
+
+"I propose to show this matter was understood before 1874. Turn to the
+debates in the Congressional Globe, volume 75, and in 1869 in this
+House, and within these walls. General Benjamin F. Butler made this
+speech in reply to an inquiry made by the gentleman from New York, the
+Chairman of this Census Committee. He says:
+
+"Everybody in Massachusetts can vote irrespective of color who can read
+and write. The qualification is equal in its justice, and an ignorant
+white man cannot vote there and a learned negro be excluded; but in the
+Georgia Legislature there was a white man who could hardly read and
+write, if at all, voted in because he was white, while a negro who spoke
+and read two languages was voted out, solely because he was black. It is
+well that Massachusetts requires her citizens should read and write
+before being permitted to vote. Almost everybody votes there under that
+rule, certainly every native-born person of proper age and sex votes
+there, and there are hundreds and thousands in this country who would
+thank God continually on their bended knees if it could be provided that
+voters in the city of New York should be required to read and write.
+They would then believe Republican government in form and fact far more
+safe than now."
+
+After exposing the assertions of General Butler, Mr. Robinson concluded
+as follows:
+
+"For twenty-three years it has been written before the people of that
+State that to entitle them to vote and hold office they shall first
+learn to read and write. Near to every man's dwelling stands a public
+free school. Education is brought to the door of every man. These
+school-houses are supported with almost unbounded munificence. Children
+have been born in that time and have attended school at the public
+expense, and the general education of the people has been advanced.
+
+* * * I will not take any time in talking about the policy of the law.
+There are some and many people in the State who do not think it wise to
+require the prepayment of a poll tax. People differ about that. Some
+time or other that may be changed; but for sixty years it has been the
+law, and it so remains. Looking into the Constitution and the laws of
+the sister States of Virginia and Georgia and Delaware and Pennsylvania
+we find similar provisions of the same antiquity justified by the
+communities that have adopted such legislation. And we say to all the
+States we leave to you those questions of policy, and we commend them to
+your judgment and careful consideration. Does any one claim that
+representation should be reduced because of insanity or idiocy, or
+because of convicts? Does any one claim that all laws requiring
+residence and registration should be done away? And yet they are on the
+same line, on the same principle. There is not one of these
+prerequsites, on which I have commented, that it is not in the power of
+the person who desires to get suffrage to overcome and control and
+conquer so that he may become a voter. But if he be a black man he
+cannot put off his color. He cannot, if he were born a member of a
+particular race, strip himself of that quality; nor can he, if he has
+been in servitude; nor can he, if he has been in rebellion, take out
+that taint; nor can he, if he has been convicted of other crimes, remove
+his record of criminality. These are an inherent, inseparable,
+indissoluble part of that man. But his education, his registration, his
+residence, his payment of a portion of the burdens of the State, and the
+other matters, are in his power and his control. I find it to be in
+accord with the wisdom of the people of the country that it is the true
+policy to let the States govern those matters for themselves. The
+Constitution of the United States touches those things that are out of
+the man's control."
+
+In the filibustering contest over the rules in the Forty-seventh
+Congress, first session, Mr. Robinson made a very earnest speech, which
+commended itself to all except the extreme filibusters. Stripping the
+contest of its technical parliamentary points, Mr. Robinson said: "Our
+rules are for orderly procedure, not for disorderly obstruction; not for
+resistance." Continuing he said that no tyranny is one-half as odious as
+that which comes from the minority. "Our fathers," he said, "put our
+Government upon the right of the majority to rule." To the charge of one
+of the minority that the purpose of the majority to proceed to the
+consideration of the election cases was tyranny, Mr. Robinson said:
+
+"Tyranny! Because the majority of this House proposes to go forward to
+action in a way that, upon their oaths, they declare to be right and
+proper, and in their judgment is to be vindicated, you say that is
+tyranny! But it is not tyranny for you in a minority forsooth to say,
+unless it goes just the way we want it, it shall not go at all. That is
+to say, in the language that you have thrown out here and have
+fulminated in the caucus, you will sit here till the expiration of this
+Congress rather than you shall not have your way. I commend to my friend
+some other dictionary in which he will find a proper definition of the
+word tyranny."
+
+To show to what logical result the theory of the right of the minority
+to prevent legislation or the consideration of public business would
+lead, the following illustration was used: "But this very day suppose by
+some great calamity the chair of the Speaker was left vacant and we were
+confronted with the necessity of electing a Speaker. Elect him under the
+rules, you say. Yes, but under the Constitution, greater than the rule.
+But, say one-fifth of this House, you shall not proceed to elect a
+Speaker unless you will take a man from our number; and we will move to
+adjourn, to adjourn over, and to take a recess. You shall never organize
+this House so long as we can call the yeas and nays. Do you believe that
+we are in that pitiable plight?"
+
+On the subject of civil service Mr. Robinson improved one minute to
+express his views in this manner:
+
+"I am heartily in favor of this bill. It is in the right direction. We
+have read enough in the platforms of both political parties; here is a
+chance to do something.
+
+"In some of the States of this country have just been inaugurated
+officers of the Democratic party; and I have noticed they have made
+haste, no matter what their declarations have been in recent platforms,
+to turn out well tried public servants and put in some of their own
+retainers and supporters. I want this Congress here and now to express
+itself in this bill, so that it may be in accord with the sentiment of
+this country.
+
+"I hear some gentlemen say, 'Oh, yes, we are for reform, but this does
+not reform enough,' I am somewhat alarmed when I find a man who says he
+wants to reform but cannot begin at all unless he can reform all over in
+one minute. If there is not enough in this bill, still let us take it
+gladly, give it a cordial welcome and support, and we will pass some
+other bill some day which will go as far as our most progressive friends
+want."
+
+The position of Mr. Robinson on the tariff and River and Harbor bills
+needs no explanation to Massachusetts readers. He opposed the River and
+Harbor bill and voted to sustain the President's veto.
+
+The political campaign of 1883, which resulted in Mr. Robinson's
+election as Governor, was an interesting and somewhat exciting one. His
+Democratic competitor for the office was General Benjamin F. Butler, who
+was then Governor, and who took the stump in his peculiarly aggressive
+way, arraigning bitterly the Republican administrations which had
+preceded his own and appealing to his own record in the office as an
+argument for his re-election. His elevation to the Governorship the year
+before had been the result of some demoralization in the Republican
+party, and was the possible cause of more, unless a candidate could be
+found able to harmonize and draw together again the inharmonious
+elements. That Mr. Robinson was such a man was indicated very clearly in
+the fact that the nomination sought him, in reality against his wish,
+and was accepted in a spirit of duty. Accepting the leadership of his
+party in the State Mr. Robinson at once applied himself to the further
+duty of making his candidacy a successful one, and to that end placed
+himself in the view of the people all over the Commonwealth in a series
+of addresses that were probably never surpassed for excellence in any
+previous political campaign. He is an interesting and impressive
+speaker, an honest man in the handling of facts, logical in his
+arguments, choice in his language, which is rich in Anglo-Saxon phrases,
+and with the admirable tone of his utterances combines a clear and ready
+wit that, never obtruding itself, is never missing when the place for it
+exists. He made himself thoroughly acquainted with questions at issue,
+and with questions in general connected with the interests of the
+Commonwealth. His addresses commanded attention and commended themselves
+to the common sense of the people, and the result was inevitable. He
+entered upon the administration of affairs with his customary vigor, and
+during his first year in office won the respect of men of all shades of
+political opinion by the ability and impartiality with which his duties
+were performed. While neglecting none of the details of official
+business Governor Robinson found time to attend to those social
+requirements that have long been imposed upon the Chief Magistrate,
+dignifying by his presence and enlivening by his timely remarks all
+kinds of gatherings, the aim of which has been to broaden social
+relations, or to advance the welfare of the community in any way. In the
+election of November, 1884, he was again the Republican candidate for
+Governor, and was re-elected. In his personal appearance Governor
+Robinson is what might be termed a clean-cut man. He is of good stature,
+compactly built, with a well-shaped head and a face in which are seen
+both intelligence and determination. His temperament is very even, and
+though he does not appear to be a man who could be easily excited, he is
+one who can be very earnest. His manners are pleasant, and in meeting
+him a stranger would be apt from the first to accord him, on the
+strength of what he appears to be, full respect and confidence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: Oliver Ames]
+
+OLIVER AMES.
+
+By JAMES W. CLARKE, A.M.
+
+[Editor of the Boston Traveller].
+
+
+The descendants of William Ames, the Puritan, who settled in Braintree,
+are a representative New England family. Their history forms an
+honorable part of the history of Massachusetts, and fitly illustrates in
+its outlines the social and material advancement of the people from the
+poverty and hardships of the early Colonial days to the wealth and
+culture of the present. In the early days of the Colony they were poor,
+as were their neighbors of other names, but they honored toil and
+believed in the dignity of honest labor. Industry was with them coupled
+with thrift. They recognized their duty to the State and gave it such
+service as she demanded, whether it were honest judgment in the jury
+box, the town meeting and the General Court, or bearing arms against the
+Indian marauder, and the foreign foe. State and Church were virtually
+one in these primitive times, and such services as were delegated to
+individuals by church, by school districts, or by the town, were
+accepted by the members of this family as duties to be unostentatiously
+performed, rather than as bringing with their performance either honor
+or emolument. With their thrift they coupled temperance. They labored
+subduing the forests, on the clearing and at the forge. Artisans, as
+well as agriculturists, were needed; and they became skilled artisans.
+Muskets were as indispensable to these pioneers as hoes or spades; and
+so they made guns, then farming tools. They made shovels first for their
+neighbors, then for their township, then for their State and country. As
+their state advanced they kept pace with it. They found an outlet for
+the products of their skill at a neighboring seaport, and through this
+and other outlets secured markets in distant countries. Industries and
+enterprises which would in time develop other industries and enterprises
+became the special objects of their encouragement. Where avenues of
+prosperity and success were lacking, they must be created; and in
+recognition of this necessity this family took the lead in making the
+seemingly inaccessible, accessible, and the far, near, by building a
+railway across the Continent. In this barest and most meagre outline of
+the history of a single family may be found in miniature an outline of
+the history of the development of Massachusetts, of New England.
+
+In the early part of the seventeenth century the Ames family became
+prominently identified with the Puritan movement in England. William
+Ames, the divine and author, was among those who for conscience's sake
+forsook his home, finding refuge in Holland. He became known to fame not
+only as an able writer, but as Professor in the Franeker University.
+Richard Ames was a gentleman of Bruton, Somersetshire, England. Neither
+of these cast in their fortunes with the first Puritan settlers of
+Massachusetts; but it is doubtful if the sufferings for conscience's
+sake of those who remained behind were after all less rigorous than were
+the sufferings of those who, self-exiled, sought homes in New England.
+The two branches of the family were united by marriage and from them
+descended the Honorable Oliver Ames, Lieutenant Governor of the
+Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
+
+The Ames family commence their genealogical tree with the first New
+England ancestor, William Ames, son of Richard Ames of Bruton,
+Somersetshire, who came to this country in 1635, and settled in
+Braintree in 1638. A few years later he was joined by his brother, John
+Ames, who settled in Bridgewater.
+
+John Ames, only son of William Ames, was born in Braintree in 1651;
+married Sarah Willis, daughter of John Willis; and in 1672 settled in
+Bridgewater with his uncle, John Ames, who was childless, and whose heir
+he became in 1697. He had five sons, one of whom was Nathaniel, the
+grandfather of Fisher Ames. His estate was settled in 1723.
+
+Thomas Ames, fourth, son of John and Sarah (Willis) Ames, was born in
+Bridgewater in 1682: married in 1706 Mary Hayward, daughter of Joseph
+Hay ward.
+
+Thomas Ames, eldest son of Thomas and Mary (Hayward) Ames, was born in
+Bridgewater in 1707; married in 1731 Keziah Howard, daughter of Jonathan
+Howard; and died in 1774.
+
+Captain John Ames, second son of Thomas and Keziah (Howard) Ames, was
+born in Bridgewater in 1738: married in 1759 Susannah Howard, daughter
+of Ephraim Howard. He was a commissioned officer during the war of the
+Revolution. A blacksmith by trade he also rendered the patriot cause
+service by the manufacture of guns. His account book, still in
+existence, also proves that he was engaged in the manufacture of shovels
+in 1775.
+
+Oliver Ames, third son of Captain John and Susannah (Howard) Ames, was
+born in West Bridgewater April 11, 1779. For a number of years he was
+employed at Springfield in the manufacture of guns by his brother, David
+Ames, who was the first superintendent of the armory, appointed by
+President Washington; and as early as 1800 was engaged in the
+manufacture of shovels. In 1803 he married Susannah Angier, a descendant
+of President Urian Oakes of Harvard College, and the same year he
+removed to Easton where greater facilities were afforded for carrying on
+his business. At first his goods found an outlet to markets at Newport,
+Rhode Island, and at Boston; and a one-horse vehicle was sufficient for
+the transportation of the raw material to, and the manufactured goods
+from, his factory. He was a man who combined in himself rare executive
+ability and mechanical skill, and gradually built up a large and
+flourishing business. A great impetus was given to manufacturing during
+the last war with Great Britain, and Mr. Ames availed himself of every
+opportunity to enlarge his business. The one-horse method of
+transportation was soon supplanted by six-horse teams; and when, on his
+retirement from active business in 1844, the firm of Oliver Ames and
+Sons was formed, the business had grown to large dimensions.
+
+Honorable Oakes Ames, eldest son of Oliver and Susannah (Angier) Ames,
+was born in Easton, January 10, 1804; married November 29, 1827, Eveline
+Orville Gilmore; and entered heartily into the enterprises inaugurated
+by his father. Under his supervision the manufacture of shovels grew
+into giant proportions. A railroad, constructed to the very doors of the
+factories, furnished facilities for transporting to them yearly fifteen
+hundred tons of iron, two thousand tons of steel and five thousand tons
+of coal, and for carrying away from them more than one hundred and
+thirty thousand dozen shovels, in the manufacture of which employment
+had been given to five hundred workmen. The fame of the goods kept pace
+with the advance of civilization; and on every frontier, in all quarters
+of the globe, were found as instruments of progress the Ames shovels.
+
+It is not so much as the successful manufacturer, however, that Oakes
+Ames will be remembered, as the master mind through whose perseverance
+and indomitable energy, and in the face of seemingly insurmountable
+obstacles, was forced to completion the pioneer railway across the
+Western Continent. He gained a deserved and enduring fame as the builder
+of the Union Pacific Railroad, and that magnificent work will ever stand
+as his proudest monument. During the former part of the war of the
+Rebellion he rendered important service to the Union cause by his shrewd
+and sagacious counsels in State affairs, and a little later for ten
+years represented the Second Massachusetts District in the National
+House of Representatives. He died May 8, 1873.
+
+Honorable Oliver Ames, second son of Oakes and Eveline O. (Gilmore)
+Ames, was born in North Easton, February 4, 1831. [See genealogical foot
+note]. He received his early education in the public schools of his
+native town and at the North Attleboro, Leicester, and Easton Academies.
+Having thus laid the foundation of a liberal education, he entered the
+shovel works of his father, where he served an apprenticeship of five
+years, thus mastering the business in all the minuteness of its details.
+At the age of twenty, appreciating the value of a more thorough
+scholastic training, he took a special course at Brown University,
+placing himself under the special tutelage of President Francis Wayland.
+The bent of his mind in this, his early manhood, is perhaps best seen
+from his favorite branches of study, which were history, geology, and
+political economy. Having finished his collegiate studies, he returned
+to North Easton where he soon demonstrated that he was possessed of the
+same splendid business qualities by which his father and grandfather had
+fought their way to success. His natural love of mechanical employments,
+which is a marked family trait, soon displayed itself in several
+inventions; and his inventive genius, coupled with his perfect knowledge
+of the business, has brought about important changes and improvements in
+the business of the firm. During this time he served honorably in the
+State militia, rising from the rank of Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel.
+In 1863 he was admitted a member of the firm of Oliver Ames and Sons,
+and for several years personally superintended the various departments
+of the firm's immense establishment at North Easton. At his father's
+death in 1873 the numerous financial trusts held by the latter devolved
+on him, and he has been, and is, President, Director, or Trustee of a
+large number of institutions and corporations, including railroads,
+national banks, savings banks, and manufacturing corporations. In 1880
+Mr. Ames was elected to the State Senate, and was re-elected in 1881.
+With the exception of having served on the School Committee of Easton
+this was the first office to which he had been called by the suffrages
+of his fellow-citizens. He had, however, taken a deep and active
+interest in political matters, and had rendered efficient political
+service by his connection with the Republican Town Committee of Easton,
+as Chairman and Treasurer, since the formation of the Republican party.
+As a member of the State Senate he was diligent and painstaking in
+attendance upon his Legislative duties, and was known as one of the
+working members of the body. He served during each year of his
+membership on the Committees on Railroads, and Education. In 1882 he
+received the Republican nomination for Lieutenant-Governor upon the
+ticket headed by the name of Honorable Robert R. Bishop as the candidate
+for Governor. In that tidal-wave year Mr. Bishop was defeated by General
+Butler, but Mr. Ames was elected by a handsome plurality; and it is not
+too much to say that by his courteous official demeanor towards his
+Excellency, Governor Butler, during the somewhat phenomenal political
+year of 1883, coupled with his firmness and good judgment in opposing
+the more objectionable schemes of that official, he contributed much to
+the restoration of the Republican party to power at the ensuing State
+election. He was re-elected in 1883, and again in 1884, and has now
+entered upon his third term of service. His political, like his business
+life, has been characterized by a straightforward honesty of purpose, by
+the strictest integrity, and by an energetic, able, and faithful
+performance of trusts accepted. Mr. Ames is the possesor of large
+wealth, but he has most conclusively proven that such possession is in
+no sense a bar to a faithful and efficient service of his fellow
+citizens in positions of trust and honor. His rare executive ability has
+been of good service to the Commonwealth, in whose affairs he has
+exercised the same good judgment and marked executive ability, as in his
+own.
+
+It is, perhaps, as a financier that Oliver Ames has won his widest
+reputation. Upon the death of his father the management of the vast
+enterprises which the later had controlled, suddenly devolved upon him.
+The greatness of the man showed itself in that he found himself equal to
+the emergency. The Oakes Ames estate was, at the time he took upon his
+shoulders its settlement, not only one in which immense and diversified
+interests were involved, scattered throughout different states of the
+Union, but it was also burdened with obligations to the extent of eight
+millions of dollars. The times were most unpropitious, the country being
+just on the eve of a great financial panic when immense properties were
+crumbling to pittances. He undertook the Herculean task of rescuing at
+this time this estate from threatened ruin, and of vindicating the good
+name of his father from undeserved censure. He had in this gigantic work
+to meet and thwart the plots of rapacious railroad wreckers, and
+schemers; but his thorough mental discipline united with his intensely
+practical business training, and coupled with his native energy, tact,
+good sense, and fertility of resources, stood him in good stead. He
+inspired capitalists with confidence, money was forthcoming to further
+his carefully matured plans, and the ship freighted with the fortunes of
+his family, was, by his steady hand, piloted securely amidst the shoals
+and quicksands of disaster, and by rocks strewn with the wrecks of
+princely fortunes, to a safe anchorage. He rescued the property from
+peril, met and paid the enormous indebtedness resting upon it, paid a
+million of dollars or more of legacies, and had still a large surplus to
+divide among the heirs.
+
+As a business man his sagacity seems almost intuitive. As an
+illustration of this, his work in developing the Central Branch of the
+Union Pacific Railroad may be instanced, a work which at the same time
+gave him high rank as a railroad manager. At the time he connected
+himself with the undertaking, only the first hundred miles of the road
+were in running order. He first made a thorough personal investigation
+of the proposed line, and satisfying himself as to its capabilities for
+business, he pushed the enterprise through to completion, building two
+hundred and sixty miles of road, and fully equipping it for operation.
+His judgment, which at the time was somewhat questioned by other
+experienced railroad managers and financiers, was fully justified by the
+result, which was a complete financial success.
+
+One of the most impressive traits in the character of Oliver Ames is his
+veneration for the memory of his distinguished father. He fully believes
+that the hastily and unjustly formed verdict of censure pronounced upon
+Oakes Ames, both by public opinion and by the United States House of
+Representatives, will ere long be reversed, and that his memory will be
+honored by the country, as it so justly deserves. Indeed he has already
+had the gratification of seeing this verdict reversed, so far as public
+opinion is concerned; and it only remains for Congress to remove its
+undeserved vote of censure, for Oakes Ames to take his appropriate and
+honored place in American history. There is little doubt that Mr. Ames
+will yet see this ambition of his life realized. As to this censure,
+Massachusetts, where Oakes Ames was best known and appreciated, has
+spoken through her Legislature by the following resolution, which
+unanimously passed both House and Senate in the spring of 1883:
+
+     "Resolved, in view of the great services of Oakes Ames,
+     representative from the Massachusetts Second Congressional
+     District, for ten years ending March 4, 1873, in achieving the
+     construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, the most vital
+     contribution to the integrity and growth of the National Union
+     since the war:
+
+     "In view of his unflinching truthfulness and honesty, which refused
+     to suppress, in his own or any other interest, any fact, and so
+     made him the victim of an intense and misdirected public excitement
+     and subjected him to a vote of censure by the Forty-second Congress
+     at the close of its session;
+
+     "And in view of the later deliberate public sentiment, which, upon
+     a review of all the facts, holds him in an esteem irreconciliable
+     with his condemnation, and which, throughout the whole country
+     recognizes the value and patriotism of his achievement and his
+     innocence of corrupt motive or conduct;
+
+     "Therefore, the Legislature of Massachusetts hereby expresses its
+     gratitude for his work and its faith in his integrity of purpose
+     and character, and asks for like recognition thereof on the part of
+     the National Congress."
+
+The beautiful Oakes Ames Memorial Hall at North Easton, erected by his
+sons, is an impressive monument of filial devotion and respect. This
+village of North Easton, the home of Mr. Ames and other members of the
+Ames family, as well as the seat of the extensive shovel works, deserves
+more than a passing notice, enriched and beautified as it has been by
+this family, until it has become one of the most charming of New England
+villages, and presents a model which deserves to be widely copied. The
+old and substantial factories, built of granite, present the neat
+appearance which characterizes the buildings in some of our oldest navy
+yards. The employes have many of them grown old in the service of the
+firm; and well paid, intelligent, and satisfied, are themselves the
+owners of their attractive cottage homes and take a just pride in the
+welfare of the community. The concrete walks, macadamized roadways, and
+well kept yards and lawns evince thrift. The elegant railway station, a
+gift to the village from one member of the family, is a model of
+architectural beauty and convenience. The Gothic church and parsonage of
+the same style of architecture, are befitting adjuncts of the park-like
+cemetery, where rests the dust of the blacksmith ancestor who bravely
+struggled amid adverse surroundings to found the fortunes of his family,
+and build up a business which has extended wherever civilization has
+made its way. The Memorial hall, before-mentioned, is on a commanding
+cliff, overlooking the town; close by is the elegant structure known and
+endowed as the Ames Free Library; and in another direction is the
+temple, dedicated to the cause of popular education, that emblem of New
+England's power, the school-house, all monuments of the munificence of
+the Ames family, and of the deep interest its members take in the
+welfare of their native town. In the triangle near the centre of the
+village, formed by the converging of the principal streets, is a
+declivity, where art has so arranged the rough and irregular forms of
+New England boulders as to re-produce a unique scene from some Scotch or
+Swiss village. This "rockery," as it is called, is clothed in summer
+with verdure and flowers, and from its summit one finds an extended and
+charming view of the village, with its cottages, its workshops, and the
+villas of the proprietors of the latter. These villas, each set in
+extensive grounds, are models of architectural elegance, and are
+surrounded by most artistic landscape gardening. Conspicuous among these
+is the residence of the subject of this sketch, facing, as it does, a
+spacious well-kept lawn, and overlooking a lake, an exquisite gem in its
+emerald setting.
+
+The public spirit of the Ames's finds one of its most marked
+illustrations in this model and typical New England village; and no
+small share of what has been achieved for it is due to the warm heart
+and open hand of Oliver Ames. He has ever shown himself an ardent friend
+of popular education, and justly holds that the New England common
+school lies at its foundation. For a period of twenty years he found
+time, amid a multiplicity of weighty business cares, to serve upon the
+School Committee of his town and to give the benefit of his experience,
+judgment, and personal supervision to the promotion of the efficiency of
+this one of the very fundamental of American institutions, the common
+school. Oakes Ames left a fund of $50,000, the income to be used for the
+benefit of the school children of North Easton village. Through the wise
+thoughtfulness of Oliver Ames many of the privileges arising from this
+fund have been extended to the other sections of the town; and it hardly
+need be said that the schools of Easton are among the objects of the
+fondest pride of its citizens.
+
+Mr. Ames, though absorbed in the cares pertaining to the management of
+gigantic business interests, yet finds time for the appreciative
+enjoyment of the amenities and refinements of life. He posesses a
+cultivated appreciation of music, literature and the drama, and his
+artistic taste is evinced by his valuable and choice collections of
+paintings and statuary. Architecture has been with him a special study,
+and his magnificent winter residence, recently completed on Commonwealth
+Avenue, in our city of Boston, is a monument of his own architectural
+taste. In Europe this residence would be called a palace, here it is
+simply the home of a representative American citizen. Peculiarly happy
+in his domestic relations his home is beautified and ennobled by the
+virtues of domestic life. A generous hospitality is dispensed within its
+portals, where on every hand are found the evidences of the cultured
+refinement of its occupants. A tour of a few months in the Old World not
+only gave Mr. Ames needed rest and relaxation from business cares, but
+also furnished him with opportunities for observation which were most
+judiciously improved. In his religious belief he is a Unitarian, and has
+for many years been an active member of the Unitarian Society of North
+Easton.
+
+In his native town he is unusually respected and beloved, and with the
+working-men in his factories he enjoys an unbounded popularity. This is
+but natural, since he is himself a skilled artisan, an inventive and
+ingenious mechanic, familiar through a personal experience with every
+detail of the work in which they are engaged. This, coupled with his
+native kindness of heart, and his unpretentious manners, makes him the
+model employer.
+
+The custodian of great wealth, he uses it in a spirit of wise
+benevolence, and his public and private benefactions, while large, are
+made without ostentation or affectation. Affable, approachable,
+companionable, devoted and faithful in his personal friendships, it is
+little wonder that some of them now and then impulsively speak of him as
+"the best man in the world."
+
+In the full vigor of a robust manhood, Mr. Ames attends to his vast
+private business affairs, performs faithfully his official and public
+duties, finds time for his favorite authors, and keeps fully abreast
+with current thought and the progress of the age. His brow is yet
+unwrinkled and cares rest lightly upon him. Free from the pride of
+wealth, temperate, conservative, clear-headed, and distinguished for his
+strong common sense, his generous, unsuspicious nature, and unswerving
+fidelity to the interests committed to his trust justly win for him a
+multitude of friends.
+
+Faithful in his devotion to the principles of the Republican party, and
+in his services to his native Commonwealth, Massachusetts has reason for
+a just pride in her Lieutenant Governor. His name may yet stand the
+Republican party of the State in good stead in a political exigency not
+unlikely to arise in the near future. Whatever may be said of the causes
+of the defection from the Republican ranks which took place in the last
+national campaign, there is no doubt about one of its results,--it has
+driven the Republican party to seek a closer alliance with the
+working-people of the Commonwealth. The Republican bolters were almost
+exclusively drawn from the aristocratic end of the party. It was Harvard
+and Beacon Hill that revolted. To make good the loss the Republican
+leaders had to appeal for support to the same class of voters which gave
+to Republican principles their first triumphs,--the intelligent
+mechanics and artisans, the laboring men. However many or few of the
+deserters of 1884 may re-join the standard now that Mr. Blaine is
+defeated it is not likely that for many years to come, if ever, the
+Republican party in Massachusetts will be able, to lean upon the immense
+majorities of former years, that ran away up to sixty, seventy, and
+eighty thousand. With a Democratic administration installed at
+Washington, and the power and prestige which that fact will imply and
+apply in the local politics of the States,--and in no State more
+powerfully than in Massachusetts, where the shifting body of Independent
+voters, so-called, is largely made up of the Hessian element that will
+incline to whichever side has spoils to bestow,--the Republican party in
+order to hold Massachusetts will have to cultivate and strengthen the
+alliance which it formed in the late election with the laboring class of
+voters. It will have to revert to the sympathetic and liberal policy
+touching all questions that affect labor, and the welfare of the working
+people of the State, which marked the earlier years of its power. The
+Ames family is linked in the popular mind with that policy. And justly
+so, too! Oakes Ames was a true friend to labor, as well as one of the
+most practical; and the fine instinct which guided him in making of
+North Easton a model industrial community, where the happiest relations
+of mutual confidence and support have subsisted between employer and
+employed, he bequeathed to his sons, and to Oliver in an especial and
+marked degree. It has been said, and there is no element of exaggeration
+in the statement, that if all our large capitalists and manufacturers
+could succeed in establishing the same rapport between themselves and
+their employes which the Ameses have always maintained at North Easton,
+the vexed problem of capital and labor would be solved; for there would
+be no more conflict between them. Oliver Ames is held in the same high
+esteem and almost affectionate regard by the working people of the Old
+Colony district, where the interests of the Ames Manufacturing Company
+are centred, in which his honored father was held before him. As the
+father so the sons! When the time comes, and it is not far off, that the
+Republican party in Massachusetts shall feel the necessity of getting
+nearer to her common people, and, in order to retain its supremacy in
+the State, of offering to their suffrages a man whose whole life has
+been spent in close and friendly relations with her working-men, it will
+be strangely blind indeed, to its opportunity, if it shall not turn to
+the present popular Lieutenant Governor, and present the name of Oliver
+Ames as one well fitted to lead the revival of Republicanism among the
+working-classes, and certain, if presented to them, to be endorsed by a
+splendid majority for the first office in the popular gift.
+
+[NOTE.
+
+GENEALOGY.
+
+RICHARD AMES of Somersetshire, England.
+
+I. William, who came to America and settled in Braintree, Massachusetts.
+
+II. JOHN AMES, born in 1651; son of William Ames, married Sarah Willis
+(daughter of John Willis of Duxbury, whose will was proved in 1693). In
+1672 he settled in Bridgewater with his uncle, and became his heir in
+1697.
+
+III. THOMAS AMES, born in 1682; lived in Bridgewater and married in 1706
+Mary Hayward (daughter of Deacon Joseph and Sarah [Mitchell] Hayward,
+and granddaughter of Thomas Hayward and of Ephraim Mitchell, the latter
+of whom came to America in the third ship, arriving at Plymouth in 1623)
+
+IV. THOMAS AMES, born in 1707; married in 1731 Keziah Howard (daughter
+of Jonathan and Sarah [Dean] Howard, and granddaughter of John and
+Martha [Haywood] Howard of Duxbury).
+
+V. CAPTAIN JOHN AMES, born 1738; died July 17, 1805; married in 1759
+Susannah Howard (born in 1735: died January 11, 1821). She was the
+daughter of Ephraim and Mary (Keith) Howard; great granddaughter of John
+Howard of Duxbury and Rev. James Keith.
+
+VI. OLIVER AMES, born April 11, 1779; died September 11, 1863; married
+in April, 1803, Susannah Angier (born March, 1783; died March 27, 1847).
+Dr. William Ames, the Franeker Professor, had a daughter (2), Ruth, who
+came to America in 1637, and married Edmund Angier of Cambridge, whose
+son (3), Rev. Samuel Angier, married Hannah, daughter of President Urian
+Oakes of Harvard College. Their son (4), Rev. John Angier, married Mary
+Bourne, granddaughter of Governor Hinckley. Their son (5), Oakes Angier,
+a law student of President John Adams, was the father of (6) Susannah
+Angier. Children:
+
+1. _Oakes_, born January 10, 1804; died May 8, 1873.
+
+2. Horatio, b. November 18, 1805; d. Jan. 28, 1844.
+
+3. Oliver, Jr., b. November 5, 1807; d. March 9, 1877.
+
+4. Angier, b. February 19, 1810; d. July 27, 1811.
+
+5. William L., b. July 9, 1812; died in St. Paul, Minn.
+
+6. Sarah A., b. September 9, 1814; married October 10, 1836, Nathaniel
+Witherell, Jr.
+
+7. John, 2d, b. April 18, 1817; d. May 14, 1844.
+
+8. Harriett, b. September 12, 1819; m. March 27 1839, Asa Mitchell.
+
+VII. HONORABLE OAKES AMES, born January 10, 1804; died May 8, 1873;
+married November 29, 1827, Eveline Orville Gilmore (born June 14, 1809;
+died July 20, 1882). Children:
+
+1. Oakes Angier, born April 15, 1829.
+
+2. _Oliver_, b. February 4, 1831.
+
+3. Frank Morton, b. August 14, 1833.
+
+4. Henry G., b. April 10, 1839; died September, 1841.
+
+5. Susan Eveline, b. May 14, 1842; married Henry W. French.
+
+VIII. HONORABLE OLIVER AMES, born February 4, 1831; married March 14,
+1860, Anna C. Ray (born January 16, 1840, in Nantucket). Children:
+
+1. William Hadwen, born March 1, 1861.
+
+2. Evelyn Orville, b. April 4, 1863.
+
+3. Anna Lee, b. September 6, 1864.
+
+5. Lillian, b. January 4, 1870.
+
+6. Oakes, b. September 26, 1874.
+
+EDITOR.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BERKSHIRE HILLS, PITTSFIELD FROM POTTER MOUNTAIN]
+
+HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PITTSFIELD.
+
+By FRANK W. KAAN.
+
+
+We were changing cars about midnight at Rotterdam Junction, New York,
+for the Fitchburg Railroad connection. "You might know we were near
+Boston," said a passenger. "See what a comfortable car this is." "Yes,"
+remarked a middle-aged gentleman, "I've been away for three weeks, and I
+never want to leave Boston for so long a time again." And he gave a sigh
+of relief. No doubt many highly enjoyable smiles were called forth by
+this innocent confession. Yet the sentiment found an echo in our hearts.
+But a North Adams man spoke up rather sharply, "Well, Berkshire County
+is good enough for me." The incident has a deeper meaning than appears
+at first glance.
+
+Going westward on the Boston and Albany, a heavy up-hill grade is
+reached at Chester. The rest of the way lies in a country of hills. A
+pleasing prospect meets the eye in every direction. There is nothing
+sublime and majestic to inspire the mind and exhilarate the spirits, but
+the steadfast, sober hills and the quiet valleys in nature's soft colors
+are restful alike to body and soul.
+
+We cross a branch of the River Housatonic, _alias_ Ousatonac,
+Ausotunnoog, Awoostenok, Asotonik, Westenhok, and the train stops before
+a large, handsome brick station, once the "best in the State," now
+restricted to "west of Boston." A broad street on the left leads to the
+park in the centre of the town. Here is the Berkshire Athenæum, with its
+excellent public library, where we must stay long enough to glance
+through the town history, compiled by Mr. J.E.A. Smith.
+
+A century and a half ago an unbroken wilderness stretched between the
+Hoosac and Taconic ranges. The mountains rose by steady degrees from the
+hills of Connecticut to Mount Mansfield, in Vermont, 4,400 feet above
+the level of the sea. The valley, however, dotted with hundreds of
+hills, reached its greatest elevation, 1,100 feet, at the foot of
+Greylock, fourteen miles north of Pittsfield; thence it sloped
+irregularly north and south. The forests contained deer in plenty for
+fifty years longer. A few bears, with rather more wolves and Indians,
+constituted the remainder of the larger movable objects of the
+landscape. The soil was well fitted for agriculture: numerous small
+streams were ready to offer their service to settlers.
+
+[Illustration: LAKE ONATA.]
+
+This region remained uninhabited, however, for many years later than
+would ordinarily have been the case; not so much from fear of hardships
+or Indian troubles as on account of the uncertainty of the land tenures
+which could be acquired. Massachusetts, by reason of the Royal Charter
+of 1691, claimed to the west as far as the Province of Connecticut
+extended. New York, on the other hand, maintained that the eastern
+boundary of Connecticut was meant: moreover, that the western boundary
+had been agreed upon for special reasons; furthermore, that her own
+territory, as successor to the rights granted the Duke of York in 1674,
+reached from the Connecticut River to Delaware Bay. Thereupon
+Massachusetts referred to the old Charter in force in 1674, which made
+the Atlantic and Pacific her eastern and western limits. In return,
+attention was called to the clause in that Charter, excepting lands in
+the possession of any other Christian State. Now, in consequence of the
+discovery of the Hudson in 1608, the Dutch had occupied the country as
+far east as the Connecticut, and to their title New York succeeded.
+Massachusetts then denied the fact of settlement. Thus the controversy
+was prolonged until, in 1773, a line to be run parallel with the Hudson,
+at a distance of twenty miles, was agreed upon. But about the year 1720
+it became evident that the western boundary of Connecticut would be
+established in favor of that province. This arrangement, as the New York
+representatives stated, was a result of the boldness of settlers in
+pushing westward and occupying the district in dispute. Accordingly,
+Massachusetts was encouraged to pursue a similar course, and the first
+settlement on the Housatonic was made at Sheffield in 1725. The occasion
+of the next advance appears to have arisen from the attention paid to
+free education in Boston. That town, in 1735, because of its large
+expenditures for public schools, support of poor, and contribution to
+the State treasury, petitioned the General Court for a grant of three or
+four townships within the "Hampshire wild lands." Three lots, each six
+miles square, were given, subject to certain conditions. Within five
+years, sixty Massachusetts families must be settled, each possessing a
+house (at least eighteen feet square and seven stud), with five acres of
+improved land. A house for public worship must be erected, and a learned
+Orthodox minister be honorably supported; lastly, a school must be
+maintained.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARK IN 1807.]
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD PARSONAGE.]
+
+One of these townships, Poontoosuck, an Indian word, meaning "winter
+deer," was bought at public auction for £1,320, by Colonel Jacob
+Wendell, whose descendents have earned lasting honor for the family
+name. Philip Livingston, of Albany, and John Stoddard, through older
+claims, became associated with him as joint proprietors. The terms of
+the grant were not strictly complied with, and, after an unsuccessful
+attempt to bring in Dutchmen, a company of forty settlers from Westfield
+purchased and took possession of the greater part of the township.
+Difficulties with the Indians soon drove them back. The first permanent
+settlement was made in 1749, and three years later occurred the birthday
+of the town.
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEWOOD AVENUE.]
+
+In May, 1761, the first town meeting was held. At this time the name was
+changed to Pittsfield in honor of William Pitt, for his vigorous conduct
+of the war against France. Slaves were owned by many of the citizens,
+and stocks and a whipping-post were set up. Saw mills and grist mills
+were in operation; fulling mills held an important position, and shortly
+afterwards the production of iron became considerable. The first
+meeting-house was completed in 1770. The most pretentious dwelling-house
+was "The Long House," owned by Colonel Williams. The first appropriation
+for schools was twenty-two pounds eight shillings, in 1762.
+
+In resistance to British oppression at the outbreak of the Revolution,
+Berkshire County required no one to lead the way. "The popular rage,"
+wrote Governor Gage, "is very high in Berkshire and makes its way
+rapidly to the rest." In response to the Boston Port bill cattle and
+money were sent to the sufferers. Resolutions were passed to discontinue
+the consumption of English goods at whatever time the American Congress
+should recommend such action. In August, 1774, Berkshire set the example
+of obstructing the King's Courts. In the expedition for the capture of
+Ticonderoga, in the invasions of Canada, and in Burgoyne's campaign, the
+town and the county held a place among the foremost in efforts and
+sacrifices for the cause of liberty. The recommendations of the
+Continental Congress were followed out with promptness and zeal. A
+similar spirit was displayed in the relations with the Provincial
+Government, so far as they affected the carrying on of the war. Yet,
+from 1775 to the adoption of the State Constitution in 1780, the county
+was ruled in open resistance to the civil authorities at Boston.
+Although representatives were sent to the General Court, the acts of
+that body were accepted merely as advice. The judicial and executive
+branches of the Government were not recognized. It was maintained that
+the new Government should originate from the people on the basis of a
+written Constitution and bill of rights. To this end they "refused the
+admission of the course of law among them," until their demands should
+be complied with. Furthermore, the old Courts were objectionable as
+being costly and cumbersome. They were unpopular for the hardness
+exercised towards poor-debtors and criminals convicted of trifling
+offences. In the absence of the usual means of enforcing the laws, the
+town Governments took in charge the administration of justice, acting
+either through committees or in town meetings. Public order appears to
+have been well preserved, and in the condition of business interests the
+want of civil courts was of little consequence.
+
+[Illustration: SCHOOL AND PARSONAGE.]
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEWOOD CHAPEL.]
+
+An opposition of a different kind broke out after the State authority
+had been re-established under the new Constitution. The national
+Government was involved in difficulties; values were unsettled by the
+excessive emission of paper money. Heavy taxes, cruel collection laws,
+numerous private debts, and frequent cases of imprisonment for debt,
+caused a wide-spread feeling of discontent. The State Constitution was
+found fault with from the start, and a clamor arose for the abolition of
+the Senate, a change in the basis of representation, and an annual grant
+of salaries to all officers. This agitation, in 1786, culminated in an
+appeal to force of arms, known from its leader, as Shay's Rebellion. It
+is unnecessary to repeat the story of its suppression. The leaders of
+the former opposition held aloof. There was a desire felt by the
+steadier portion of the community to make a fair trial of the State
+Constitution, which afforded a legal means, however slow, for redressing
+the heavier grievances. Pittsfield in particular was now advancing in
+material prosperity, and looked with disfavor upon any radical changes.
+
+[Illustration: BERKSHIRE ATHENÆUM.]
+
+Rev. Thomas Allen, one of the early ministers, was the man most actively
+engaged in town affairs at this period of its history. He was of medium
+height, slender, of a mild, pleasant countenance. Courteous, sincere and
+just, he set his parishioners an example of Christian morals. An
+application of doctrines to the practical questions of life was a
+favorite subject of his sermons and private conversation. He held small
+respect for any religious faith which did not manifest itself in
+outward acts, and especially those done for the public good. Endowed
+with a keen sense of right and wrong he took his position and maintained
+it with zeal. His personal participation in several battles of the
+Revolution gained for him the title of "The Fighting Parson." Once, when
+asked whether he actually killed any man at Bennington, he replied "that
+he did not know; but, that observing a flash often repeated from a
+certain bush, and that it was generally followed by the fall of one of
+Stark's men, he fired that way and put the flash out."
+
+[Illustration: FIRST CONGREGATIONALIST CHURCH.]
+
+He was a firm friend of Democracy. During the revolution he was a
+radical Whig, and later on became an ardent supporter of Jeffersonian
+doctrines. In the second period partisan feelings were very bitter in
+the community. When, therefore, he gave full freedom to his thoughts in
+articles published in the Pittsfield Sun, and, in accordance with a
+practice more prevalent then than now, mingled political subjects with
+his Sunday discourses, the Federalist members of the Congregational
+Church grew restive under his pastorship. At this time, it should be
+noted, Berkshire differed in politics from the rest of the State.
+Matters grew worse, until a division of the parish was made and
+continued for seven years. Thomas Allen died in 1811, at the age of 67.
+
+[Illustration: METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.]
+
+Contrary to the custom in almost every other town of the State, and
+notwithstanding the statute requirements, public worship in 1809 ceased
+to be supported by the town, and nearly an equality of religious sects
+before the law was produced. In 1817, after the re-union of the
+Congregational Churches, the parish system was revived. It should be
+kept in mind that by far the larger part of the population were members
+of that denomination, identifying its early history with that of the
+town. Rev. Heman Humphrey became pastor, a man of scholarly attainments,
+and well fitted to encourage the general longing for a complete
+reconciliation.
+
+In 1821 a great revival took place, and to strengthen the religious
+interest Mr. Humphrey believed it to be essential that, so far as
+possible, the town should preserve a solemn quiet, and he endeavored to
+substitute religious services in place of the ordinary manner of
+celebrating the Fourth of July. This plan was, to a considerable number
+of citizens, by no means acceptable, yet the exercises in the Church
+were attended by a large and reverent congregation. The meeting-house
+stood upon the little square where the people were wont to collect on
+all anniversaries. In consequence, there was a very annoying disturbance
+from fire-crackers, drums, fifes, and even cannon, and the attempt to
+make this national holiday quiet and serious was not repeated. Mr.
+Humphrey two years later became President of Amherst College. In 1833
+the corporate connection of the Congregational Society with the town
+came to an end through the Constitutional Amendment of that year. Two
+years later business was in a state of depression, and emigration went
+on at a rapid rate. A missionary from the West made known the need in
+that great section of Christian emigrants to help mould its character.
+From the Baptist Church in one year more than a hundred members set
+forth, leaving finally but three men in the Congregation. During the
+first half of the century other sects acquired a foot-hold, and are now
+supported by large Congregations, composed of the best citizens of the
+town.
+
+To turn back again in the narrative of events. Of the town's record in
+the war of 1812, little must be said, although much is deserved. In this
+matter, as previously in others, the county, by its warm support of the
+war party, showed its independence in thought and action of the rest of
+the State. Pittsfield was made a place of meeting for recruits; a
+cantonment for United States troops was established, and a depot for
+prisoners of war, who numbered at times 1,500 or more. The town was most
+largely represented in the Ninth and Twenty-first Regiments. The former
+won for itself the name of "The Bloody Ninth;" the latter was that
+regiment, which, under Colonel Miller at Lundy's Lane, gained undying
+fame in a gallant struggle for the enemy's cannon.
+
+[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF E.S. FRANCIS.]
+
+The history of the Berkshire Agricultural Society may be traced back to
+its origin in 1807, when Elkanah Watson, who had recently become an
+inhabitant of the town, exhibited two fine merinoes, a ram and a ewe, on
+the green under the Old Elm. Great interest was aroused, and the
+importation of the best foreign breeds of cattle and sheep was
+encouraged and carried on by public-spirited and enterprising citizens.
+One farmer came into possession of a cow, in which he felt so much pride
+that it formed the subject of his conversation at all times and places,
+until his friends feared to meet him. At last it gave birth to a calf,
+but minus a tail, and the wrathful owner carried the calf, with his axe,
+to the back pasture. The Society was organized in 1811. New features
+were added from time to time; standing crops were inspected; women were
+interested to compete for premiums. The plowing match became a part of
+the Pittsfield show in 1818, when a quarter of an acre of green sward
+was plowed in thirty-five minutes by the winner. Dr. Holmes, in 1849,
+Chairman of the committee, read his poem, "The Ploughman." Many years
+before, William Cullen Bryant, then a lawyer in Great Barrington, wrote
+an ode for the cattle show. Improved agricultural implements and better
+methods of cultivation were some of the material benefits produced by
+the fairs. The fame and influence of the Society have reached all parts
+of the country. In 1855, exhibition grounds, thirty acres in extent,
+were purchased in Pittsfield.
+
+The Berkshire Jubilee of 1844 merits at least a brief mention. It was a
+gathering from far and near of those emigrants from the county, who
+still held their early home in loving memory. Of the thousands that were
+present, many were men of national reputation. Among the exercises, a
+sermon of welcome was delivered by the Rev. Mark Hopkins, a prayer was
+offered by Rev. David Dudley Field, an address was given by Governor
+Briggs, and a poem was read by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+[Illustration: CENTRAL BLOCK.]
+
+Governor Briggs had become a citizen of Pittsfield two years before. He
+was born at North Adams in 1796. When seventeen years of age, after
+having spent three years in learning the hatters' trade, he began the
+study of law with but five dollars in his possession, which he had
+earned at haying. In 1850, after seven consecutive terms as Governor, he
+was defeated by a coalition of Democrats and Free-Soilers. He was as
+true a friend of a pure civil service as any man of the present day.
+Like a well-known English writer on political economy, and for similar
+reasons, he refused to furnish money for his own election expenses,
+however legitimate; thus, although unwillingly, placing the burden upon
+the shoulders of other members of his party, a course which gave equal
+satisfaction in both countries. He was distinguished for the consistency
+of his life with his religious and temperance principles. Once, it is
+said, while exhorting a friend who had already entered the downward path
+of immoderate drinking, Mr. Briggs was induced to promise that so long
+as the other would abstain from drinking, he, himself, would give up the
+use of a collar; and this agreement was kept by both parties for life.
+The truth in regard to the anecdote is rather as follows: While County
+Commissioner he was often obliged to make long drives, so that besides
+the annoyance from wearing a collar, he found great difficulty in
+replacing it when soiled. From this arose a habit of dispensing with it
+altogether. Once, being rallied on the subject by an old friend, he
+offered to resume his collar if the other would cease drinking gin, and
+would cut off his cue. The gin and the cue carried the day.
+
+The Berkshire Medical Institute was established in 1822, mainly through
+the exertions of Dr. H.H. Childs. The charter provided that degrees
+should be conferred only by the President and Trustees of Williams'
+College, and according to the rules in force in the school at Cambridge.
+The purpose was to secure a uniform practice throughout the State, and
+to cause a degree of confidence in the diplomas. The arrangement
+continued fifteen years. The tuition fee was fixed at forty dollars, and
+board, room-rent and lodging at one dollar and seventy-five cents a
+week. In 1825 it became necessary to defray incidental expenses, and pay
+the salaries of instructors out of the proceeds from tuition fees. These
+were frequently paid in notes, many of which read "when said student
+shall be able to pay," and having been distributed among the members of
+the faculty, a large number were found afterwards in the deserted office
+of the Dean. In 1867 the compensation of each instructor was about one
+hundred and thirty dollars, hardly enough to attract young,
+inexperienced physicians. Therefore, the college came to an end, having
+graduated in the course of forty-four years over one thousand doctors of
+medicine, who held rank in their profession equal to that of those sent
+out by any college in the country.
+
+[Illustration: BERKSHIRE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY'S BUILDING.]
+
+The Public Library Association was founded in 1850, with a regulation
+excluding forever all prose works of fiction, and on the other hand,
+theological writings, unless admitted by a unanimous vote of the
+Directors. After a few prosperous years public interest had so far died
+out that the library consisted of a few books and a small room, open one
+evening in the week by the dim light of a lantern. A timely donation,
+and a liberal construction of the rule regarding works of fiction, had a
+favorable effect.
+
+A Young Men's Association was organized in 1865, with a library,
+reading-room, collection of curiosities, and provision for amusement and
+exercise. It had a very successful career for about eight years.
+Meanwhile the Library Association, its name having been changed to the
+Berkshire Athenæum, was put on a better footing by the liberality and
+efforts of Thomas F. Plunkett, who afterwards, together with Calvin
+Martin and Thomas Allen, was instrumental in forming it into a free
+library. In 1874, by means of a bequest from Phinehas Allen, and the
+gift of its present building from Thomas Allen, the Berkshire Athenæum
+was placed upon a firm foundation. For the past eleven years it has been
+under the efficient management of Mr. E.C. Hubbel, Curator and
+Librarian. To-day it contains 16,000 volumes, and with an average annual
+circulation of 50,000; less than ten volumes have been lost.
+
+The history of the public schools is in no important respect different
+from that in hundreds of other towns. They were first carefully graded
+in 1874, and have enjoyed an excellent reputation. By far the greater
+proportion of the young folks in town attend them. The system of free
+text books was early adopted. The High School, under the care of an able
+scholar, Mr. Edward H. Rice, has been steadily growing in favor during
+the past few years. Graduates yearly enter the various colleges, and
+from neighboring towns a considerable number of its pupils come and pay
+the tuition required by law.
+
+For the higher education of young women the Pittsfield Female Academy
+was incorporated in 1806, with Miss Hinsdale as principal. It has
+continued ever since, usually with a lady at the head, and for the last
+few years especially has done good work under Miss Salisbury. The
+Maplewood Young Ladies' Institute, the most noted school of education
+that has ever existed in Pittsfield, has this year closed an existence
+of forty-three years. Its loss will be mourned by many friends in the
+town and elsewhere. Among the illustrations is given a view of the
+avenue and the chapel; behind the latter stands the meeting-house of
+1793, of late years used for a gymnasium.
+
+About the time of Shay's Rebellion the first newspaper, the American
+Sentinel, was published. It was printed on a sheet ten by eighteen
+inches in size, and gave the greater portion of its space to two or
+three prosy essays. Three other newspapers appeared and vanished in turn
+until, in the year 1800, the Pittsfield Sun was established by Phinehas
+Allen. It remained in his hands for nearly three-quarters of a century,
+and to this day gives its support to the Democratic party. James Harding
+is the editor. The Argus was started in 1827, as a rival, by Henry K.
+Strong. Four years later it was removed to Lenox, and united with the
+Berkshire Journal. In 1838 the name was changed to the Massachusetts
+Eagle, and soon afterwards it was brought back to Pittsfield. In 1852 it
+was given the name, The Berkshire County Eagle, which it bears to-day.
+Both of these papers are weeklies. The Journal is of later date, and is
+issued daily. Joseph E. See is editor. In mentioning the educational
+facilities of a community it would be an act of thoughtlessness to omit
+its bookstores. There is but one in Pittsfield. It contains a large
+supply of books, selected with judgment, and is well managed by Mr. J.B.
+Harrison.
+
+Rev. John Todd became, in 1839, a worthy pastor to the Church, over
+which Thomas Allen presided many years before. His early life had been a
+struggle for an education against poverty and ill health. It is
+interesting to read his estimate of the new congregation to which he was
+called after having been for five years pastor in Philadelphia: "It is a
+great, rich, proud, enlightened, powerful people. They move slowly, but
+they tread like the elephant. They are cool, but kind, sincere, great at
+hearing, but very critical. I have never had an audience who heard so
+critically. There is ten times more intellect that is cultivated than we
+have ever had before. You would be surprised to see how much they read.
+The ladies are abundant, intelligent, refined, and kind. A wider,
+better, harder, or more interesting field no man need desire." Dr. Todd
+became one of the most public-spirited citizens of the town, jealous of
+its honor. Educational matters, especially, received his attention and
+assistance. His reputation as an author is not confined to his town, nor
+to his day. The "Student's Manual" is the best known of his works; the
+lectures delivered on returning from a visit to California are well
+worth reading.
+
+[Illustration: ON NORTH STREET.]
+
+The first manufactories of the town date back to within a few years of
+its settlement. Agriculture was, of course, the leading industry, and
+was carried on according to the wasteful and, apparently, unwise methods
+usual in a newly-settled country. Great attention was paid to breeding
+horses and mules, of which many were sent to the West Indies and other
+markets. The first carding machine was set up in 1801 by Arthur
+Scholfield, an Englishman. Soon he set about making and improving
+machines, which he sold to manufacturers in various parts of the
+country. The industry was subsequently helped on by the superior quality
+of wool, which resulted from the new custom of seeking better breeds of
+sheep. About 100,000 yards of cloth, worth as many dollars, were
+produced in the county in 1808. After the war which followed came a
+season of depression of manufactures; the cessation of the unusual war
+demand and excessive importations from abroad were the principal causes.
+
+At this period, when politics were carried into private affairs, as
+religion had been some hundred years before, each party must have its
+factory. Thus the Housatonic Woolen Mill of 1810 was offset a few years
+later by the Pittsfield Woolen and Cotton Company in Federalist hands.
+The former enterprise languished before long for want of sufficient
+water power. The latter, by a change of ownership, came under the
+control of Lemuel and Josiah Pomeroy, and enjoyed the benefits of the
+tariffs of 1824 and following years. Other mills went gradually into
+operation. But in this instance Yankee ingenuity and versatility found a
+difficult foe to master. The proprietors were ambitious and determined
+to make their fabrics as firm and as heavy as the best imported goods.
+In this they succeeded, but by a clumsy, wasteful process, which
+destroyed all profit. Moreover, instead of making a single class of
+goods, each factory attempted to satisfy the various demands of the
+market. Hence arose multiplied causes of failures, for which remedies
+had to be invented. A general business knowledge did not immediately
+avail in an industry where matters of detail were of the greatest
+consequence. To-day these mills are the principal sources of wealth in
+the county. Another branch of manufactures grew up in 1799 when Lemuel
+Pomeroy came to Pittsfield, and in addition to the ordinary labor of a
+blacksmith began to make plows, wagons, and sleighs. He bought the old
+Whitney forge and extended the works from the production of fowling
+pieces to that of muskets. Large contracts with State and National
+governments brought a profitable business, until, in 1846, the
+percussion guns were introduced.
+
+The independant spirit displayed by Pittsfield, or rather by Berkshire
+County, in matters of the highest importance, was largely due to the
+difficulty of communication with other sections of the country. For the
+first eighty years the Worthington turnpike, running by way of
+Northampton, was the only means of passage to the east. In 1830 the
+Pontoosuc turnpike going through Westfield was completed and transferred
+traffic from the old road to the new, which led to Springfield. A little
+before this time the Erie Canal project was successfully carried out.
+Thereupon arose in Massachusetts a wide-spread desire for engaging in a
+similar enterprise. Several routes were explored for a canal from Boston
+to the Hudson. One of them passed through Pittsfield at an altitude of
+1,000 feet, and the route recommended as feasible was 178 miles in
+length, and required a tunnel of four miles under the Hoosac mountain.
+One of its opponents showed that according to the Commissioner's data,
+fifty-two years would be required in which to finish the tunnel. At this
+point came the news of successful steam locomotion in England, and a
+discussion began as to the comparative merits of railways and canals.
+For several years horse-power was proposed to be employed, but before
+actual work began the superiority of steam had been demonstrated. In the
+face of indifference, skepticism, and active opposition, which brought
+about discouraging delays, the road was built, and the first railroad
+train entered Pittsfield May 4, 1841. That week occurred the first
+accident. An old man jumped off the train as it approached his house,
+and was severely injured. Thus, in 1842, chiefly through the exertions
+of Lemuel Pomeroy, the Western Railroad was completed, and trains ran
+from Albany to Boston. Several short local roads have since been
+constructed, which have done more to bind the county together, and have
+contributed greatly to its wealth and comfort. On the west the physical
+barriers were less difficult to surmount, and the advent of railroads
+has only diminished the inequality. New York is still the metropolis;
+the mass of travel, the business relations, are turned in that
+direction.
+
+In 1844 what is known as the Fire District was organized. Its territory
+consists of about two square miles of land, having the Park as a centre,
+and includes most of the buildings of the town. It originated from the
+unwillingness of the outlying districts to help support a suitable fire
+department, of which they, themselves, felt little need. Nevertheless,
+at its formation the town granted land and a sum of money. A Chief
+Engineer, with seven assistants and a prudential committee were
+constituted officers. Subsequently the care of sewers, sidewalks,
+water-works, and lighting of streets were assumed by the Fire District,
+and the duties were performed by commissioners. A curious controversy,
+now settled, arose with the town as to which should look after the
+street crossings. The fire department from the start has been sustained
+by the zeal of its members, and now, directed by its Chief Engineer,
+George S. Willis, enjoys an enviable reputation for efficiency.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARK IN 1876.]
+
+[Illustration: ACADEMY OF MUSIC.]
+
+During the civil war the State and County are found to have acted in
+harmony. The old militia system had died out many years before; in 1860
+the Pittsfield Guards of 1853 was re-organized under the name of the
+Allen Guard, and in January of the following year declared its readiness
+to respond to any call from the government. On April 19, within
+twenty-four hours from the time of receiving word, the company was on
+its way and became a portion of the Eighth regiment. Its Captain was
+Henry S. Briggs, later Brigadier General, and after the war elected
+State Auditor. Then, at short intervals, until the close of the war, the
+town sent men to the front who fully maintained its honorable reputation
+gained in former wars. A Ladies' Soldiers' Aid Society was organized and
+has received much merited praise for its useful services. The ideal
+volunteer soldier of the war was William F. Bartlett. He was a student
+at Harvard, not yet of age when the war broke out. In April he enlisted
+as a private, was appointed Captain before going to the front, and in
+his first engagement showed great coolness, bravery and judgment. He was
+a strict disciplinarian and popular with his men. Before the close of
+the war he had been brevetted Major-general. In peace he made his
+influence felt in the interests of religion and education, and in the
+elevation of politics.
+
+Immediately after the war public attention in the town was turned
+towards taking suitable action for honoring the memory of its sons who
+had died on the field of battle. The result was a monument, one of the
+most appropriate ever erected for a similar purpose. It is placed on the
+Park, a short distance from the Athenæum. A bronze statue of a
+Color-sergeant, as if in line of battle, stands upon a square granite
+pillar. He looks earnestly into the distance. The entire effect of the
+expression of the countenance and the attitude conveys the impression of
+intelligent self-reliance, a true type of our best volunteer soldiers.
+On opposite sides of the pillar, are represented in bronze relief the
+arms of the United States and of the Commonwealth.
+
+On the others are two shields, engraved with the names of those in honor
+of whom this memorial was erected. The shaft bears the following
+inscriptions. On the west face:
+
+  "FOR THE DEAD, A TRIBUTE--FOR
+  THE LIVING, A MEMORY--FOR
+  POSTERITY, AN EMBLEM
+  OF LOYALTY TO THE
+  FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY."
+
+On the east face:
+
+  "WITH GRATEFUL RECOGNITION
+  OF THE SERVICES OF ALL
+  HER SONS WHO UPHELD THE
+  HONOR AND INTEGRITY OF
+  OUR BELOVED COUNTRY IN
+  HER HOUR OF PERIL, THE
+  TOWN OF PITTSFIELD ERECTS
+  THIS MONUMENT IN LOVING
+  MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED
+  THAT THE NATION MIGHT
+  LIVE."
+
+At the dedication the national flags of the two political parties were
+removed from the streets and with them the statue was draped. The town
+was crowded with visitors, and a long procession marched through the
+streets. A prayer by Rev. Dr. Todd, speeches by General Bartlett and
+Honorable Thomas Colt, President of the day, and an oration by George
+William Curtis accompanied the unveiling.
+
+The four principal streets of the town, named from the points of the
+compass, meet at the Park. North street contains the bulk of the stores
+and business places. On the corner of West street is the building of the
+Berkshire Life Insurance Company, which was incorporated in 1851, and
+has always included among its Directors and Managers the best business
+men in the town and county, who naturally take great pride in it as one
+of the soundest Life Insurance Companies of the country.
+
+In the same building are three national and one savings bank, besides
+the town and other offices. Immediately beyond is Mr. Atwood's drug
+store, an establishment of long standing, which would bear favorable
+comparison with any similar store as regards either attention or
+knowledge of a druggist's duties. Farther along the same street are
+Central Block and the Academy of Music. In other parts of Pittsfield
+broad streets, lined with tall elms and shady horse-chestnut trees,
+invite our footsteps. The dwelling-houses are mostly of wood, built in
+the cottage and villa styles of architecture; many are stately edifices;
+many are hospitable mansions; all show unmistakable evidence of being
+comfortable homes. Scattered over the township, each springing up around
+a mill or two, are miniature villages. Their population is largely made
+up of foreigners, Irish and Germans, whose condition appears to be
+somewhat better than that of the same class in cities. Both sexes are
+represented among the operatives. The mills, mostly small, are located
+with a view to an opportunity for using water power, yet none are
+without steam power as well. In the same neighborhood are the large
+farms and expensive estates of the mill-owners, the wealthiest class in
+the community. Between the villages, in fact, upon all the roads, every
+turn brings in sight pleasing views which never repeat themselves or
+become monotonous. The cemetery is itself one of the most beautiful
+spots in the neighborhood. A massive granite gateway is being put up,
+the gift of the late Thomas Allen. For a long distance the road leads
+through a thick forest of maple, pine and oak trees. A swiftly-running
+brook crosses the path; a quiet clear pond with grassy banks lies to one
+side. If the visitor will remain motionless for a short time, birds and
+squirrels show themselves in all directions, and fill his ears with the
+sounds of the woods. Far away may be seen the white houses and the
+church spires of the town. No resting place for the dead could be more
+peaceful, more inspiring to meditation on the part of those who walk in
+the light of day. By the grave of General Bartlett stands a cross all
+covered with graceful hanging Southern moss. Below is a beautiful bed of
+flowers, cared for with a constant devotion, and by the same loving
+hands has been added a large natural rock, imbedded in the ground. On it
+is fixed a large tablet with this inscription:
+
+  WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT,
+  Brigadier General and Brevet Major General
+  UNITED STATES VOLUNTEERS.
+  BORN IN HAVERHILL, MASSACHUSETTS,
+  June 6th, 1840.
+  DIED IN PITTSFIELD,
+  December 17th, 1876.
+  A Soldier, undaunted by wounds and imprisonment.
+  A Patriot, formost in pleading for reconciliation.
+  A Christian, strong in faith and charity,
+  His life was an inspiration,
+  His memory is a trust.
+
+Pittsfield, although one of the largest towns in the country, is not
+ambitious to try a city form of government. Five years ago a charter was
+procured, but no action was taken upon it. There is no disposition on
+the part of those who favor the plan to force it into notice before
+public opinion is ripe on the subject At the annual town meetings where
+a majority of the voters are present there have thus far been few
+attempts at unfair management. The best portion of the community take
+the most active share in the proceedings. Thus there exists a real
+Democracy, an inestimable educator of the people possible only among an
+energetic people, who, by inheritance, have acquired a love for the
+practical; in the absence of arbitrary government have been long
+accustomed to the use of political rights, and from their character
+combine in their thoughts and actions, reason with understanding and
+conscience with religious sentiment.
+
+A review of the lives of these men, who made for the town its honorable
+history, brings prominently to one's mind the frequency of instances in
+which each gained by his own exertions his influence and reputation. It
+is one of the best criterions of excellent social and political
+institutions. Lemuel Pomeroy, who in 1799 brought his anvil to
+Pittsfield; George N. Briggs, who served as an apprentice four years,
+working for eight dollars a year; Thomas F. Plunkett, who for five years
+travelled from town to town in Eastern New York, carrying on a trade
+with householders and country dealers; John Todd, who worked his way
+through college against poverty and ill-health; these are names that
+deserve to be handed down to following generations, to the end that
+their influence may still remain as an incitement to honest and
+unwearied efforts by successors ready to emulate, though not to imitate,
+the examples set before them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROBERT ROGERS, THE RANGER.
+
+By JOSEPH B. WALKER.
+
+
+No man has been universally great. Individuals who have made themselves
+prominent among their fellows have done so by achievements in special
+directions only, and confined to limited portions of their lives.
+Particularly true is this remark when applied to Major Robert Rogers,
+the Ranger, who, in our last French war, greatly distinguished himself
+as a partisan commander, and gained as wide fame as did any other
+soldier of equal rank and opportunity.
+
+I do not introduce him here as a saint, for, as is well known, no
+quality of sanctity ever entered his composition; but rather, as the
+resolute commander of resolute men, in desperate encounters with a
+desperate foe; as a man eminently fitted for the rough work given him to
+do. And just here and now I am reminded of a remark made in his old age
+by the late Moody Kent, for a long period an able member of the New
+Hampshire bar, and there the associate of Governor Plummer, George
+Sullivan, and Judge Jeremiah Smith, as well as of Jeremiah Mason, and
+the two Websters, Ezekiel and Daniel, all of whom he survived. Said Mr.
+Kent, one day, evidently looking forward to the termination of his
+career, "Could Zeke Webster have been living at my decease he would have
+spoken as well of me, yes, as well of me as he could." If one can summon
+to his mind and heart the kindly charity attributed to Mr. Webster, he
+may, should he care for it, find a comfortable hour in the society of
+this famous Ranger. He was born of Scotch-Irish parents, in the good old
+Scotch-Irish town of Londonderry, New Hampshire, in the year 1727.[A] At
+the time of his birth, this was a frontier town, and its log houses were
+the last civilized abodes which the traveller passed as he went up the
+Merrimack valley on his way to Canada. It was the seed-town from which
+were afterwards planted the ten or a dozen other Scotch-Irish townships
+of New Hampshire.[B] It was the first to introduce and scatter abroad
+Presbyterian principles and Irish potatoes over considerable sections of
+this Province.
+
+[Footnote A: Stark's History of Dunbarton, p. 178.]
+
+[Footnote B: Parker's History of Londonderry, p. 180.]
+
+Parson McGregor and his people had been in their new homes but four
+years when they had ready for occupancy a log school-house, sixteen feet
+long and twelve feet wide. It was in this, or in one like it, that
+Robert Rogers acquired his scanty stock of "book-learning," as then
+termed. But education consists in much besides book-learning, and he
+supplemented his narrow stock of this by a wider and more practical
+knowledge, which he obtained amid the rocks and stumps upon his father's
+farm and in the hunter's camp.
+
+The woods, at this day, were full of game. The deer, the bear, the
+moose, the beaver, the fox, the muskrat, and various other wild animals
+existed in great numbers. To a young man of hardy constitution,
+possessed of enterprise, energy, and a fondness for forest sports,
+hunting afforded not only an attractive, but a profitable employment.
+Young Rogers had all these characteristics, and as a hunter, tramped
+through large sections of the wilderness between the French and English
+settlements. On such excursions he mingled much with the Indians, and
+somewhat with the French, obtaining by such intercourse some knowledge
+of their languages, of their modes of hunting, and their habits of life.
+He also acquired a fondness for the woods and streams, tracing the
+latter well up towards their sources, learning the portages between
+their headwaters, many of the Indian trails and the general topography
+of the great area just mentioned.
+
+During the French and Indian wars small bodies of soldiers were often
+employed to "watch and ward" the frontiers, and protect their
+defenceless communities from the barbarous assaults of Indians, turned
+upon them from St. Francis and Crown Point. Robert Rogers had in him
+just the stuff required in such a soldier. We shall not, therefore, be
+surprised to find him on scouting duty in the Merrimack Valley, under
+Captain Ladd, as early as 1746, when he was but nineteen years of
+age;[A] and, three years later, engaged in the same service, under
+Captain Ebenezer Eastman, of Pennycook.[B] Six years afterwards, in
+1753, the muster rolls show him to have been a member of Captain John
+Goff's company, and doing like service.[C] Such was the training of a
+self-reliant mind and a hardy physique for the ranging service, in which
+they were soon to be employed.
+
+[Footnote A: New Hampshire Adjutant General's Report, 1866, vol. 2, p.
+95.]
+
+[Footnote B: Same, p. 99.]
+
+[Footnote C: Same, p. 118.]
+
+I ought, perhaps, to mention, that in 1749, as Londonderry became filled
+to overflowing with repeated immigrations from the North of Ireland,
+James Rogers, the father of Robert, a proprietor, and one of the early
+settlers of the township, removed therefrom to the woods of Dunbarton,
+and settled anew in a section named Montelony, from an Irish place in
+which he had once lived.[A] This was before the settlement of the
+township, when its territory existed as an unseparated part only of the
+public domain. He may, quite likely, have been attracted hither by an
+extensive beaver meadow or pond, which would, with little improvement,
+afford grass for his cattle while he was engaged in clearing the rich
+uplands which surrounded it.
+
+[Footnote A: New Hampshire Gazeteer, 1833, p. 121.]
+
+Six years only after his removal (1755), he was unintentionally shot by
+a neighbor whom he was going to visit; the latter mistaking him for a
+bear, as he indistinctly saw him passing through the woods. This
+incident was the foundation of the story said to have been told by his
+son, some years after, in a London tavern. The version given by Farmer
+and Moore is as follows, viz.:[A] "It is reported of Major Rogers, that
+while in London, after the French war, being in company with several
+persons, it was agreed, that the one who told the most improbable story,
+or the greatest falsehood, should have his fare paid by the others. When
+it came to his turn, he told the company that his father was shot in the
+woods of America by a person who supposed him to be a bear; and that his
+mother was followed several miles through the snow by hunters, who
+mistook her track for that of the same animal. It was acknowledged by
+the whole company that the Major had told the greatest lie, when in
+fact, he had related nothing but the truth."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Historical Collections, by Farmer and Moore, vol. 1, p.
+240.]
+
+[Footnote B: The Great Meadow and the site of the elder Rogers' house is
+easily accessible to any person possessed of a curiosity to visit them.
+They are in the South-Easterly section of Dunbarton, some six or seven
+miles only from Concord. The whole town is of very uneven surface, and
+the visitor will smile when he reads upon the ground, in Farmer and
+Moore's New Hampshire Gazeteer, that he will find there but "few hills,
+nor any mountains." He soon learns that the declaration of its people is
+more correct when they assure him that its surface is a "pimply" one.]
+
+As the largest part of Roger's fame rests upon his achievements in the
+ranging service of our Seven Years' War, we must recall for a moment the
+condition of things in the British Colonies and in Canada at the
+beginning of this war.
+
+The thirteen American Colonies had, at that time, all told, of both
+white and black, a population of about one million and a half of souls
+(1,425,000.)[A] The French people of Canada numbered less than one
+hundred thousand.[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. 4, p. 127.]
+
+[Footnote B: Encyclopedia Brittanica.]
+
+The respective claims to the Central part of the North American
+Continent by England and France were conflicting and irreconcilable. The
+former, by right of discovery, claimed all the territory upon the
+Atlantic coast from New Foundland to Florida, and by virtue of numerous
+grants the right to all west of this to the Pacific Ocean. The latter,
+by right of occupation and exploration, claimed Canada, a portion of New
+England and New York, and the basins of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers,
+together with all the territory upon the streams tributary to these, or
+a large part of the indefinite West.
+
+To maintain her claims France had erected a cordon of forts extending
+diagonally across the continent from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to
+the Gulf of Mexico. If one will follow, in thought, a line starting at
+Louisburg, and thence running up this great river to Quebec and
+Montreal, and thence up Lake Champlain to Crown Point and Ticonderoga,
+and on westward and south-westward to Frontenac, Niagara and Detroit,
+and thence down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, he will trace
+the line across which the two nations looked in defiance at each other,
+and see instantaneously that the claims of France were inadmissable, and
+that another war was inevitable. It mattered little that of the
+forty-five years immediately preceding the treaty of Aix La Chapelle,
+fourteen, or one-third of the whole number, had been years of war
+between these two neighbors. They were now, after a peace of only half a
+dozen years, as ready for a fresh contest as if they were to meet for
+the first time upon the battle field. In fact, another conflict was
+unavoidable; a conflict of the Teuton with the Gaul; of medievalism with
+daylight; of conservatism with progress; of the old Church with the new;
+of feudalism with democracy--a conflict which should settle the destiny
+of North America, making it English and Protestant, or French and Roman
+Catholic; a contest, too, in which the victor was to gain more than he
+knew, and the vanquished was to loose more than he ever dreamed of.
+
+Hostilities may be said to have been commenced by the French, when, on
+the 18th day of April, 1754, they dispossessed the Ohio company of the
+fort which they were erecting at the forks of the Ohio River, afterwards
+named Fort Du Quesne.
+
+The plan of a Colonial Confederation, formed at the Albany convention in
+July of that year, having failed of acceptance by the mother country and
+the Colonies both, the Home government was forced to meet the exigency
+by the use of British troops, aided by such others as the several
+Provinces were willing to furnish.
+
+The campaign of the next year (1755) embraced:
+
+1st. An expedition, under General Braddock, for the capture of Fort Du
+Quesne.
+
+2d. A second, under General Shirley, for the reduction of Fort Niagara,
+which was not prosecuted.
+
+3d. A third, under Colonel Moncton, against the French settlements on
+the Bay of Fundy, resulting in the capture and deportation of the
+Acadians.
+
+4th. A fourth, under General William Johnson, against Crown Point, a
+strong fortification, erected by the French, in the very heart of New
+England and New York, whence innumerable bands of Indians had been
+dispatched by the French to murder the defenceless dwellers upon the
+English frontiers, particularly those of New Hampshire, to destroy their
+cattle and to burn their buildings and other property.
+
+To the army of this latter expedition New Hampshire contributed, in the
+early part of this year, a regiment of ten companies, the first being a
+company of Rangers, whose Captain was Robert Rogers, and whose Second
+Lieutenant was John Stark. [A]
+
+[Footnote A: New Hampshire Adjutant General's Report, vol. 2, 1866, p.
+129.]
+
+But a few words just here in explanation of the character of this
+ranging branch of the English army. It was a product of existing
+necessities in the military service of that time. Most of the country
+was covered with primeval forests and military operations were largely
+prosecuted in the woods or in limited clearings. The former were
+continually infested with Indians, lying in ambush for the perpetration
+of any mischief for which they might have opportunity.
+
+It became necessary, therefore, in scouring the forests to drive these
+miscreants back to their lairs, as well as in making military
+reconnoissances, to have a class of soldiers acquainted with Indian life
+and warfare; prepared, not only to meet the Indian upon his own ground,
+but to fight him in his own fashion. The British Regular was good for
+nothing at such work. If sent into the woods he was quite sure, either
+not to return at all, or to come back without his scalp. And the
+ordinary Provincial was not very much better. From this necessity,
+therefore, was evolved the "Ranger."
+
+He was a man of vigorous constitution, inured to the hardships of forest
+life. He was capable of long marches, day after day, upon scant rations,
+refreshed by short intervals of sleep while rolled in his blanket upon a
+pile of boughs, with no other shelter but the sky. He knew the trails of
+the Indians, as well as their ordinary haunts and likeliest places of
+ambush. He knew, also, all the courses of the streams and the carrying
+places between them. He understood Indian wiles and warfare, and was
+prepared to meet them.
+
+Stand such a man in a pair of stout shoes or moccasins; cover his lower
+limbs with leggins and coarse small clothes; give him a close-fitting
+jacket and a warm cap; stick a small hatchet in his belt; hang a
+good-sized powder-horn by his side, and upon his back buckle a blanket
+and a knapsack stuffed with a moderate supply of bread and raw salt
+pork; to these furnishings add a good-sized hunting-knife, a trusty
+musket and a small flask of spirits, and you have an average New
+Hampshire Ranger of the Seven Year's war, ready for skirmish or pitched
+battle; or, for the more common duty of reconnoitering the enemy's force
+and movements, of capturing his scouts and provision trains, and getting
+now and then a prisoner, from whom all information possible would be
+extorted; and, in short, for annoying the French and Indian foe in every
+possible way.
+
+If you will add three or four inches to the average height of such a
+soldier, give him consummate courage, coolness, readiness of resource
+in extremities, together with intuitive knowledge of the enemy's wiles,
+supplemented with a passable knowledge of French and Indian speech, you
+will have a tolerable portrait of Captain Robert Rogers at the beginning
+of our Seven Year's war.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: "An engraved full-length portrait of Rogers was published
+in London in 1776. He is represented as a tall, strong man, dressed in
+the costume of a Ranger, with a powder-horn strung at his side, a gun
+resting in the hollow of his arm, and a countenance by no means
+prepossessing. Behind him, at a little distance, stand his Indian
+followers."--[Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiach, vol. I, p. 164.]
+
+He received his first Captain's commission in the early part of 1755,
+and was employed by the New Hampshire government in building a fort at
+the mouth of the Ammonoosuc River and in guarding its Northern and
+Western frontiers until July, when he was ordered to Albany to join the
+army of Major General Johnson. His first service there was in furnishing
+escort, with a company of one hundred men, to a provision train from
+Albany to Fort Edward. From this latter point he was afterwards
+repeatedly despatched, with smaller bodies of men, up the Hudson River
+and down Lake George and Lake Champlain to reconnoiter the French forts.
+Some of these expeditions extended as far north as Crown Point and were
+enlivened with sharp skirmishes. He was absent up the Hudson upon one of
+these when the French were defeated at the battle of Lake George and
+Baron Dieskan was made prisoner.
+
+The efficiency of the campaign of the next year (1756), which
+contemplated the taking of Crown Point, Niagara and Fort Du Quesne, was
+seriously impaired by the repeated changes of Commander-in-Chief; Major
+General Shirley being superceded in June by General Abercrombie while
+he, about a month later, yielded the command to the inefficient Lord
+Londown. The only occurrences of particular note during this campaign
+were the capture of our forts at Oswego by General Montcalm and the
+formal declarations of war by the two belligents.
+
+Rogers and his men were stationed at Fort William Henry, and made
+repeated visits to Ticonderoga and Crown Point to ascertain the power of
+the enemy and to annoy him as they had opportunity. They went down Lake
+George, sometimes by land upon its shores, and sometimes by water and in
+boats. In the winter their land marches were frequently upon snow-shoes,
+and their boats were exchanged for skates. On such occasions each Ranger
+was generally his own commissary and carried his own supplies.
+
+In his journal for this year (1756) Rogers notes thirteen of these
+expeditions as worthy of record. The first was down Lake George on the
+ice, in January, with seventeen men, resulting in the capture of two
+prisoners and two sledges laden with provisions.
+
+The second was made in February with a party of fifty men to ascertain
+the strength and operations of the French at Crown Point. Having
+captured one prisoner at a little village near by the fort, they were
+discovered and obliged to retire before the sallying troops of the
+garrison. With very marked sang froid he closes his account of this
+reconnoissance by saying: "We employed ourselves while we dared stay in
+setting fire to the houses and barns in the village, with which were
+consumed large quantities of wheat, and other grain; we also killed
+about fifty cattle and then retired, leaving the whole village in
+flames."
+
+There often appears a ludicrous kind of honesty in the simple narratives
+of this journal. He occasionally seized certain stores of the enemy
+which a Ranger could destroy only with regret. He naively remarks, in
+narrating the capture in June, of this same year, of two lighters upon
+Lake Champlain, manned by twelve men, four of whom they killed: "We sunk
+and destroyed their vessels and cargoes, which consisted chiefly of
+wheat and flour, wine, and brandy; some few casks of the latter we
+carefully concealed."
+
+His commands on such occasions varied greatly in numbers, according to
+the exigency of the service, all the way from a squad of ten men to two
+whole companies; and the excursions just mentioned afford fair specimens
+of the work done by the Rangers under Rogers this year.
+
+Rogers possessed a ready wit and an attractive bonhomie, which made him
+agreeable to his men, notwithstanding the necessary severity of his
+discipline. A story has come down to us which well illustrates this
+trait in his character. Two British Regulars, it seems, a good deal
+muddled, one night, by liberal potations, became greatly concerned lest
+their beloved country should suffer dishonor in consequence of inability
+to discharge its national debt, and their loyal forebodings had, at
+length, become painful. The good-natured Captain, encountering them in
+their distress, at once relieved them by the remark: "I appreciate the
+gravity of your trouble, my dear fellows. It is, indeed, a serious one.
+But, happily, I can remove it. I will, myself, discharge at once
+one-half the debt, and a friend of mine will shortly pay the other
+half." From this incident is said to have arisen the expression, at one
+time common, "We pay our debts as Rogers did that of the English
+nation."
+
+But Captain Rogers had qualities of a higher order, which commended him
+to his superiors. His capacity as a Ranger Commander had attracted the
+notice of the officers on duty at Lake George. The importance of this
+branch of the service had also become apparent, and we shall not be
+surprised to learn that, in March, 1756, he was summoned to Boston by
+Major General Shirley and commissioned anew as Captain of an independent
+company of Rangers, to be paid by the King. This company formed the
+nucleus of the famous corps since known as "Roger's Rangers."
+
+In July another company was raised, and again in December two more,
+thereby increasing the Ranger corps to four companies. To anticipate, in
+a little more than a year this was farther enlarged by the addition of
+five more, and Captain Rogers was promoted to the rank of Major of
+Rangers, becoming thus the commander of the whole corps.
+
+The character of the service expected of this branch of the army was set
+forth in Major General Shirley's orders to its commander in 1756, as
+follows, viz.: "From time to time, to use your best endeavors to
+distress the French and allies by sacking, burning, and destroying their
+houses, barns, barracks, canoes, and battoes, and by killing their
+cattle of every kind; and at all times to endeavour to way-lay, attack
+and destroy their convoys of provisions by land and water in any part of
+the country where he could find them."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Roger's Journal (Hough's edition), p. 46.]
+
+On the fifteenth of January of the next year (1757) Captain Rogers, with
+seventy-four Rangers, started down Lake George to reconnoiter the French
+forts; travelling now for a time upon the ice, and by and by donning
+snow-shoes and following the land. On the twenty-first, at a point half
+way between Ticonderoga and Crown Point, they discovered a train of
+provision sledges, three of which they captured, together with six
+horses and seven men. The others fled within the walls of Ticonderoga
+and alarmed the garrison. Feeling the insecurity of his situation he
+commenced at once his return. By two o'clock in the afternoon, his party
+was attacked by two hundred and fifty French and Indians, who endeavored
+to surround it. A vigorous fight was kept up until dark. Rogers was
+wounded twice and lost some twenty of his men. The French, as was
+subsequently ascertained, lost one hundred and sixteen. The proximity of
+Ticonderoga rendered vain the continuance of the contest, and he availed
+him of the shelter of the night to return to Fort William Henry.
+
+For this exploit he was highly complimented by General Abercrombie, and,
+at a later period of this same year, was ordered by Lord Londown to
+instruct and train for the ranging service a company of British
+Regulars. To these he devoted much time and prepared for their use the
+manual of instruction now found in his journals. It is clearly drawn up
+in twenty-eight sections and gives very succinctly and lucidly the rules
+governing this mode of fighting.
+
+The campaign of 1757 contemplated only the capture of Louisburg. To the
+requisite preparations Lord Londown directed all his energies. Having
+collected all the troops which could be spared for that purpose, he
+sailed for Halifax on the twentieth of June with six thousand soldiers,
+among them being four companies of Rangers under the command of Major
+Rogers. Upon arriving at Halifax his army was augmented by the addition
+of five thousand Regulars and a powerful naval armament. We have neither
+time nor inclination to consider the conduct of Lord Londown on this
+occassion farther than to say that his cowardice and imbecility seem
+wonderful. Finding that, in all probability, Louisburg could not be
+taken without some one getting hurt, he returned to New York without
+striking a blow. If about this time our heroic commander of the Rangers
+used some strong language far from sacred, it will become us to remember
+"Zeke Webster" and think as charitably of his patriotic expletives "as
+we can." He returned to New York three weeks after the surrender of Fort
+William Henry, where with his Rangers he might have done something, at
+least, to prevent the horrible massacre which has tarnished the fair
+fame of Montcalm indellibly.
+
+England and America both were humbled in the dust by the events of 1757
+and 1758. Failure, due to the want of sufficent resources is severe, but
+how utterly insufferable when, with abundant means, incompetency to use
+them brings defeat. Still, we are under greater obligation to Lord
+Londown than we are wont to think. His imbecility helped rouse the
+British nation and recall William Pitt to power, whose vigor of purpose
+animated anew the people of other countries and promised an early
+termination of French dominion in America.
+
+Lord Londown was succeeded in the early part of 1758 by General
+Abercrombie and plans were matured for capturing the Lake forts,
+Louisburg and Fort Du Quesne. By the close of November, the two last,
+with the addition of Fort Frontenac, were ours. The movement against
+Crown Point and Ticonderoga did not succeed. In the assault upon the
+latter Rogers and his Rangers fought in the van and in the retreat
+brought up the rear.
+
+In the spring of this year (1758) Rogers went down Lake George at the
+head of about one hundred and eighty-men, and near the foot of it had a
+desperate battle with a superior body of French and Indians. He reported
+on his return one hundred and fourteen of his party as killed or
+missing. Why he was not annihilated is a wonder. General Montcalm, in a
+letter dated less than a month after the encounter, says: "Our Indians
+would give no quarter; they have brought back one hundred and forty-six
+scalps." For his intrepidity on this occasion he was presented by
+General Abercrombie with the commission of Major of Rangers, before
+alluded to.
+
+The adroitness with which Rogers sometimes extricated himself from
+extreme peril is illustrated by his conduct on one occasion, when
+pursued by an overwhelming number of savages up the mountain, near the
+south end of Lake George, which now bears his name. Upon reaching the
+summit he advanced to the very verge of the precipice, on the east side,
+which descends 550 feet to the lake. Having here reversed his snow shoes
+he fled down the side opposite to that by which he had come up. Arriving
+soon after the Indians, upon seeing the tracks of two men, apparently,
+instead of one, and Rogers far below upon the ice, hastening towards
+Fort Edward, concluded that he had slid down the precipice aided by the
+Great Spirit, and that farther pursuit was vain.
+
+Mr. Pitt proposed in the campaign of 1759 the entire conquest of Canada.
+Bold as was the undertaking it was substantially accomplished.
+Ticonderoga and Crown Point were abandoned in July, Fort Niagara
+capitulated the same month, and Quebec was surrendered in September.
+
+Their violation of a flag of truce in this last month now called
+attention to the St. Francis Indians, who had been for a century the
+terror of the New England frontiers, swooping down upon them when least
+expected, burning their buildings, destroying their cattle, mercilessly
+murdering their men, women, and children, or cruelly hurrying them away
+into captivity. The time had now come for returning these bloody visits.
+The proffering of this delicate attention was assigned by Major General
+Amherst to Rogers. In his order, dated September 13, he says: "You are
+this night to set out with the detachment, as ordered yesterday, viz.,
+of 200 men, which you will take under your command and proceed to
+Misisquey Bay, from whence you will march and attack the enemy's
+settlements on the south side of the river St. Lawrence in such a manner
+as you shall judge most effectual to disgrace the enemy, and for the
+success and honour of his majesty's arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Take your revenge, but don't forget that tho' those villains have
+dastardly and promiscuously murdered the women and children of all ages,
+it is my orders that no women or children are killed or hurt."
+
+In pursuance of these orders Major Rogers started the same day at
+evening. On the tenth day after he reached Missisquoi Bay. On the
+twenty-third, with one hundred and forty-two Rangers, he came, without
+being discovered, to the environs of the village of St. Francis. The
+Indians had a dance the evening following his arrival and slept heavily
+afterwards. The next morning, half an hour before sunrise, Rogers and
+his men fell upon them on all sides, and in a few minutes, ere they had
+time to arouse themselves and seize their arms, the warriors of that
+village were dead. A few, attempting to escape by the river, were shot
+in their canoes. The women and children were not molested.
+
+When light came it revealed to the Rangers lines of scalps, mostly
+English, to the number of six hundred, strung upon poles above the
+door-ways. Thereupon, every house except three containing supplies was
+fired, and their destruction brought death to a few who had before
+escaped it by concealing themselves in the cellars. Ere noon two hundred
+Indian braves had perished and their accursed village had been
+obliterated.
+
+The operations of the next year (1760) ended this long and fierce
+struggle. The attempted re-capture of Quebec by the French was their
+final effort. The army of the Lakes embarked from Crown Point for
+Montreal on the sixteenth day of August. "Six hundred Rangers and
+seventy Indians in whale-boats, commanded by Major Rogers, all in a line
+abreast, formed the advance guard." He and his men encountered some
+fighting on the way from Isle a Mot to Montreal, but no serious obstacle
+retarded their progress. The day of their arrival Monsieur de Vaudveuil
+proposed to Major General Amherst a capitulation, which soon after
+terminated the French dominion in North America.
+
+The English troops, as will be remembered, entered Montreal on the
+evening of the eighth of September. On the morning of the twelfth Major
+Rogers was ordered by General Amherst to proceed westward with two
+companies of Rangers and take possession of the western forts, still
+held by the French, which, by the terms of the capitulation, were to be
+surrendered.
+
+He embarked about noon the next day with some two hundred Rangers in
+fifteen whale-boats, and advanced to the west by the St. Lawrence and
+the Lakes. On the seventh of November they reached the mouth of the
+Cuyahoga, where the beautiful city of Cleveland now stands. The cross of
+St. George had never penetrated the wilderness so far before. Here they
+encamped and were soon after waited upon by messengers from the great
+chieftain Pontiac, asking by what right they entered upon his territory
+and the object of their visit. Rogers informed them of the downfall of
+the French in America, and that he had been sent to take possession of
+the French forts surrendered to the English by the terms of the
+capitulation. Pontiac received his message remarking that he should
+stand in his path until morning, when he would return to him his answer.
+
+The next morning Pontiac came to the camp and the great chief of the
+Ottawas, haughty, shrewd, politic, ambitious, met face to face the bold,
+self-possessed, clear-headed Major of the British Rangers. It is
+interesting to note how calmly the astute ally of the French accepted
+the new order of things and prepared for an alliance with his former
+enemies. He and Rogers had several interviews and in the end smoked the
+pipe of peace. With dignified courtesy the politic Indian gave to his
+new friend free transit through his territory, provisions for his
+journey and an escort of Indian braves. Rogers broke camp on the twelfth
+and pushed onward towards Detroit. By messenger sent forward in advance
+he apprized Monsieur Belletre, Commandant of the fort, of his near
+approach and the object of it. The astonished officer received him
+Cautiously. Soon satisfied, however, of the truth of the unwelcome news
+thus brought, he surrendered his garrison. On the twenty-ninth of
+November the British flag floated from the staff which ever before had
+borne only the lillies of France.
+
+On the tenth of December, after disposing of the French force found in
+the fort, and having taken possession of the forts Miamie and Gatanois,
+with characteristic ardor Rogers pushed still farther westward for
+Michilimackinac. But it was a vain attempt. The season was far advanced.
+Indeed, the winter had already come, and while the ice prevented his
+progress by water, the snows rendered impracticable his advance by land.
+With reluctance he relinquished for the first time the completion of his
+mission. Turning eastward, after a tedious journey, he reached New York
+on the fourteenth of February, 1761.
+
+From New York, there is reason to suppose, that he went this same year
+as Captain of one of the His Majesty's Independent Companies of Foot to
+South Carolina, and there aided Colonel Grant in subduing the Cherokees,
+who had for a year or two been committing depredations upon the
+Carolinian frontiers.
+
+From this time onward for the next two years we lose sight of Major
+Rogers, but he re-appears at the siege of Detroit in 1763. Hither he
+went with twenty Rangers as part of a body of soldiers sent from Fort
+Niagara under the command of Captain Dalzell for the re-inforcement of
+the beleagured fort. He arrived on the twenty-ninth of July, and on the
+thirty-first took an active part in the fierce battle of Bloody Bridge.
+His valor was as useful as it was conspicuous on that occasion, and but
+for his daring efforts the retreat of the British troops would have been
+more disastrous even than it was. Having, for a time, in the house of
+the Frenchman, Campean, held at bay a throng of savages which surrounded
+it, his escape with a few followers at one door was hardly achieved ere
+these burst in at another.
+
+The next glimpse we get of Major Rogers is at Rumford (now Concord)
+where he had a landed estate of some four or five hundred acres. Good
+old Parson Walker, who here kept open house, and for more than fifty
+years watched with solicitude the interests of his parish and his
+country, says, in his diary for 1764, against date of February 24:
+"Major Rogers dined with us" and again December 22:--"Major Rogers and
+Mr. Scales, Jr., dined with me."
+
+It is probable that his private affairs now occupied his attention. A
+year or so after the surrender of Montreal he was married to Elizabeth,
+daughter of Rev. Arthur Brown, Rector of St. John's Church, in
+Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He considered this town his residence, and in
+papers executed this very year (1764) sometimes designates himself "as
+of Portsmouth," and at others, as "now residing at Portsmouth."
+
+For three or four years, between 1762 and 1765, he trafficked a good
+deal in lands, buying and selling numerous and some quite extensive
+tracts. Some twenty-five different conveyances to him are on record in
+the Recorder's office of Rockingham County, and half as many from him to
+other parties.
+
+Some of these lands he seems to have purchased and some to have received
+in consideration of military services. In 1764 Benning Wentworth, as
+Governor of New Hampshire, conveyed to him as "a reduced officer" a
+tract of three thousand acres, lying in the southern part of Vermont.
+
+One[A] conveyance made by him and bearing date December 20, 1762,
+arrests our attention. By it he transferred to his father-in-law, Rev.
+Arthur Brown, before mentioned, some five hundred acres of land in
+Rumford (now Concord, New Hampshire) together with "one negro man, named
+Castro Dickerson, aged about twenty-eight; one negro woman, named
+Sylvia; one negro boy named Pomp, aged about twelve and one Indian boy,
+named Billy, aged about thirteen." For what reason this property was
+thus transferred I have no means of knowing. If the object of the
+conveyance was to secure it as a home to his wife and children against
+any liabilites he might incur in his irregular life, the end sought was
+subsequently attained, as the land descended even to his
+grand-children.[B]
+
+[Footnote A: The old "Rogers house," so called, is still standing upon
+the former estate of Major Rogers, on the east side and near the south
+end of Main Street, in Concord, New Hampshire. It must be at least a
+hundred years old, and faces the South, being two stories high on the
+front side and descending by a long sloping roof to one in the rear. It
+was occupied for many years by Captain and Mrs. Roach, and later by
+Arthur, son of Major Rogers, who was a lawyer by profession and died at
+Portsmouth, in 1841.]
+
+[Footnote B: A portion of this estate was subsequently sold by his
+descendants to the late Governor Isaac Hill, of Concord, New Hampshire.]
+
+And I may as well, perhaps, just here and now anticipate a little by
+saying that Major Rogers did not prove a good husband, and that
+seventeen years after their marriage his wife felt constrained, February
+12, 1778, to petition the General Assembly of New Hampshire for a
+divorce from him on the ground of desertion and infidelity. An act
+granting the same passed the Assembly on the twenty-eighth day of
+February and the Council on the fourth of March following.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: "An act to dissolve the marriage between Robert Rogers and
+Elizabeth, his wife.
+
+"Whereas, Elizabeth Rogers of Portsmouth, in the County of Rockingham,
+and State aforesaid, hath petitioned the General Assembly for said
+State, setting forth that she was married to the said Robert Rogers
+about seventeen years ago; for the greater part of which time he had
+absented himself from and totally neglected to support and maintain
+her--and had, in the most flagrant manner, in a variety of ways,
+violated the marriage contract--but especially by infidelity to her Bed;
+For which reasons praying that a divorce from said Rogers, a vinculo
+matrimonii, might be granted. The principal facts contained in said
+petition being made to appear, upon a full hearing thereof. Therefore,
+
+"Be it enacted by the Council and House of Representatives for said
+State in General Assembly convened, That the Bonds of Matrimony between
+the said Robert and Elizabeth be and hereby are dissolved."--[New
+Hampshire State Papers, vol. 8, p. 776.]
+
+I may, perhaps, here venture the irrelevant remark that "women sometimes
+do strange things," and cite the subsequent conduct of Mrs. Rogers in
+evidence of the declaration. After her divorce she married Captain John
+Roach, master of an English vessel in the fur trade. The tradition is
+that, having sailed from Quebec for London, he most unaccountably lost
+his reckoning and found himself in Portsmouth (New Hampshire) harbor.
+Here for reasons satisfactory to himself, he sold the cargo on his own
+account and quit sea life.[A] After his marriage he lived with his wife
+and her son by the former marriage on the estate in Concord, previously
+mentioned as having been conveyed by Rogers to her father. Captain Roach
+is said to have been most famous for his unholy expletives and his
+excessive potations. The venerable Colonel William Kent, now living at
+Concord in his nineties, says that Captain Roach one day brought into
+the store where he was a clerk a friend who had offered to treat him and
+called for spirit. Having drawn from a barrel the usual quantity of two
+drinks the clerk set the measure containing it upon the counter,
+expecting the contents to be poured into two tumblers, as was then the
+custom. Without waiting for this division the thirsty Captain
+immediately seized the gill cup and drained it. Then, gracefully
+returning it to the board, he courteously remarked to his astonished
+friend that when one gentleman asks another to take refreshment the
+guest should be helped first, and should there be found lacking a
+sufficiency for both, the host should call for more.
+
+[Footnote A: Bouton's History of Concord, p. 351.]
+
+Whether Mrs. Rogers gained by her exchange of husbands it would be hard
+to say. That in 1812 she went willing from this to a land where "they
+neither marry nor are given in marriage," it is easy to believe.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Captain Roach died at Concord in May, 1811.]
+
+In returning to Major Rogers, we must not forget that he was an author
+as well as soldier. He seems to have been in England in 1765, and to
+have there published two respectable volumes of his writings. One is
+entitled "Journals of Major Robert Rogers; containing an account of the
+several excursions he made under the Generals who commanded upon the
+continent of North America, during the late War," and embraces the
+period from September 24, 1755, to February 14, 1761. It is doubtless
+quite reliable and valuable as a contribution to the history of our Army
+of the Lakes during the old French war.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The full title is "Journals of Major Robert Rogers:
+containing an account of several excursions he made under the Generals
+who commanded upon the Continent of North America during the late war.
+From which may be collected the material circumstances of every campaign
+upon that continent from the commencement to the conclusion of the war.
+London: Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Millan, bookseller near
+Whitehall, MDCCLXV." 8vo., Introduction, pp. viii; Journals, pp. 236.
+
+An American edition of Roger's Journal, ably edited by Dr. F.B. Hough,
+was published at Albany in 1883, by J. Munsell's Sons. Besides a
+valuable introduction, it contains the whole text of the Journals, an
+appendix consisting largely of important official papers relating to
+Rogers, and a good index. It is by far the best edition of the Journals
+ever published.]
+
+The other is called "a concise view of North America," and contains much
+interesting information relative to the country at the time of its
+publication.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The full title of this volume is "A Concise Account of
+North America; Containing a description of the several British Colonies
+on that Continent, including the islands of New Foundland, Cape Breton,
+&c., as to their Situation, Extent, Climate, Soil, Produce, Rise,
+Government, Religion, Present Boundaries and the number of Inhabitants
+supposed to be in each. Also of the Interior and Westerly Parts of the
+Country, upon the rivers St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, Christino and
+the Great Lakes. To which is subjoined, An account of the several
+Nations and Tribes of Indians residing in those Parts, as to their
+Customs, Manners, Government, Numbers, &c., Containing many useful and
+Entertaining Facts, never before treated of. By Major Robert Rogers.
+London: Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Millan, bookseller, near
+Whitehall. MDCCLXV." 8vo., Introduction and Advertisement, pp. viii;
+Concise Account, pp. 264.]
+
+It is less reliable than the former, but is a readable book, and, when
+the author keeps within the bounds of his personal knowledge, is
+doubtless authentic. Both works are a credit to Major Rogers. To the
+charge that he was an illiterate person and that these works were
+written by another's hand, it may be urged, as to the "journals," that
+the correspondence of their matter to the written reports of his
+expeditions made to his superior officers and now preserved in the New
+York State Library, convincingly show that this work is undoubtedly his.
+If revised before publication by a should not deprive him of the credit
+of their authorship.
+
+Rogers laid no claims to fine writing, but his own manuscript reports,
+written mostly in camp and hastily, attest his possession of a fair
+chirography, a pretty good knowledge of grammar and spelling, together
+with a style of expression both lucid and simple; in short, these are
+such compositions as come naturally from a man, who, favored in youth
+with but a limited common school education, has in mature life mingled
+much with superiors and been often called upon to draft such writings as
+fall to the lot of a soldier or man of business. Mr. Parkman also
+attributes to Rogers a part authorship of a tragedy long forgotten,
+entitled "Ponteach, or the Savages in America," published in London in
+1766. It is a work of little merit and very few copies of it have been
+preserved.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The full title of this book is "Ponteach; or the Savages of
+America. A Tragedy. London. Printed for the Author, and sold by J.
+Millan, opposite the Admiralty, Whitehall, MDCCLXVI."]
+
+On the tenth of June, 1766, at the King's command, General Gage
+appointed Major Rogers Captain Commandant of the garrison of
+Michilimackinac.[A] Sir William Johnson, then Superintendent of Indian
+Affairs, when apprized of it was filled with astonishment and disgust.
+He regarded Rogers as a vain man, spoiled by flattery, and inordinately
+ambitious, dishonest, untruthful, and incompetent to discharge properly
+the duties of this office.[B] But as the appointment had been made and
+could not be revoked, it was determined to accept the inevitable and
+restrict his power, thereby rendering him as little capable of
+mismanagement as possible. He was ordered by General Gage to act in all
+matters pertaining to the Indians under instructions of the
+Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and to report upon all other matters
+to the Commandant at Detroit, to whom he was made subordinate.[C]
+
+[Footnote A: Journals, Hough's edition, p. 218.]
+
+[Footnote B: Sir William Johnson in a letter to General Thomas Gage,
+dated January 34, 1765, says of Rogers: "He was a soldier in my army in
+1755, and, as we were in great want of active men at that time, his
+readiness recommended him so far to me that I made him an officer and
+got him continued in the Ranging service, where he soon became puffed up
+with pride and folly from the extravagant encomiums and notices of some
+of the Provinces. This spoiled a good Ranger, for he was fit for nothing
+else--neither has nature calculated him for a large command in that
+service."--[Journals, Hough's edition, p. 215.
+
+The same to Captain Cochrane November 17, 1767, says: "I raised him
+(Rogers) in 1755 from the lowest station on account of his abilities as
+a Ranger, for which duty he seemed well calculated, but how people at
+home, or anywhere else, could think him fit for any other purpose must
+appear surprising to those acquainted with him. I believe he never
+confined himself within the _disagreeable bounds of truth_, as you
+mention, but I wonder much they did not see through him in
+time."--[Journals, p. 241.]
+
+[Footnote C: Journals, p. 217.]
+
+Commander Rogers probably reached Michilimackinac in August, 1766. He
+soon after demonstrated his entire unfitness for his position by
+clandestinely engaging in the Indian trade,[A] and by involving the
+government in unnecessary expenses, which he sought to meet by drafts
+upon the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, which that officer was
+obliged to dishonor. To still further curtail his power, a Commissary
+was appointed to reside at the post and regulate the Indian trade. To
+this Rogers sullenly submitted, but quarrelled with the officer. As time
+went on matters grew worse. He engaged in foolish speculations; got
+deeply into debt to the Indian traders; chafed under his limitations;
+grew first discontented, and then desperate; entered into treasonable
+correspondence with a French officer;[B] and finally conceived a plan of
+seeking of the home government an independent governorship of
+Michilimackinac, and in case of failure to rob his post and the traders
+thereabout, and then desert to the French on the lower Mississippi.[C]
+
+[Footnote A: Same, p. 242.]
+
+[Footnote B: Journals, pp. 234, 235, 236.]
+
+[Footnote C: Same, p. 231.]
+
+His mismanagement and plottings having grown insufferable he was
+arrested and conveyed in irons to Montreal in September, 1768, to be
+there tried by court-martial for high treason.[A] On some ground,
+probably a technical one, he escaped conviction, and at some date
+between May, 1769, and February, 1770, he sailed for England.
+
+[Footnote A: Same, p. 231.]
+
+And there, strange as it may seem, the stalwart, cheeky, fine-looking,
+wily ex-Commandant was lionized. His acquittal had vindicated his
+innocence and established his claim to martyrdom. His books had
+advertised him as a hero. His creditors, to whom he owed considerable
+amounts, supported his claims in hopes thereby of getting their dues. He
+was gazed at by the commonalty. He was feted by the nobility. He was
+received by the king and allowed to kiss his hand. He claimed payment
+for arrears of salary and other expenses previously disallowed in
+England and at home, which was made. Encouraged by his successes he
+pushed boldly on and asked to be made an English Baronet, with £600 a
+year, and in addition to that, a Major in the army.[A] One is in doubt
+which to wonder at the most, the audacity of the bold adventurer, or the
+stupidity of the British public. But vaulting ambition had at length
+overleaped itself. He failed of the coveted knighthood, and sank by
+degrees to his true level.
+
+[Footnote A: Benjamin Roberts in a letter to Sir William Johnson, dated
+February 19, 1770, says: "Kingston has a most extraordinary letter from
+London, which says that Major Rogers was presented to His majesty and
+kissed his hand--that he demanded redress and retaliation for his
+sufferings. The minister asked what would content him. He desired to be
+made a Baronet, with a pension of £600 sterling, and to be restored to
+his government at Michilimackinac, and have all his accounts paid. Mr.
+Fitzherbert is his particular friend."--[Journals, p. 256.]
+
+We see nothing more of Major Rogers until July, 1775, when he again
+appears in America as a Major of the British Army retired on half pay.
+The object of his visit to his native land just at the beginning of our
+Revolutionary war was not satisfactorily apparent. Some considered him a
+military adventurer, anxious to sell his services to the highest bidder.
+Others regarded him as a British spy. He wandered over the country all
+the way from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire with very little ostensible
+business. His improbable statements, his associations with persons
+hostile to the American cause, his visits to places of bad reputation,
+as well as his whole general conduct, rendered him a suspected person.
+
+He was arrested on the twenty-second of September following his arrival
+by the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, but was afterwards paroled upon
+his solemn declaration and promise that "on the honor of a soldier and a
+gentleman he would not bear arms against the American United Colonies,
+in any manner whatever, during the present contest between them and
+Great-Britain;"[A] yet, on the twenty-sixth of the next November, he
+makes a tender of his services to the British government, in a letter
+addressed to General Gage, and was encouraged to communicate more
+definitely his proposals.[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Journals, p. 259.]
+
+[Footnote B: Journals, p. 261.]
+
+On the second day of December, a little more than a month later, in
+shabby garb he calls upon President Wheelock, at Hanover, New Hampshire.
+After speaking of his absence in Europe, during which, he said, he had
+fought two battles in Algiers, under the Dey, he officiously tendered
+his aid in a proposed effort to obtain a grant of land for Dartmouth
+College. The President distrusted him, but treated him civilly. At the
+close of the interview he returned to the tavern where he passed the
+night, and left the next morning without paying his reckoning.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Same, p. 118.]
+
+Again, on the nineteenth of the same month, at Medford, Massachusetts,
+he addresses a letter to General Washington, soliciting an interview,
+but his reputation was such that the Commander-in-Chief declined to see
+him.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Same, p. 263.]
+
+Even this did not discourage him. With an effrontery truly wonderful, on
+the twenty-fifth of June, 1776, after he had been arrested in South
+Amboy and brought to New York, he expressed to the Commander-in-Chief
+his desire to pass on to Philadelphia, that he might there make a secret
+tender of his services to the American Congress.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Same, p. 273.]
+
+However, by this time, his duplicity had become so manifest that a few
+days after this interview (July 2, 1776) the New Hampshire House of
+Representatives passed a formal vote recommending his arrest,[A] which
+was supplemented two years later (November 19, 1778) by a decree of
+proscription.
+
+[Footnote A: New Hampshire Prov. Papers vol. VIII, p. 185.]
+
+Finding hypocrisy no longer available, sometime in August, 1776, he
+accepted a commission of Lieutenant Colonel Commandant, signed by
+General Howe and empowering him to raise a battalion of Rangers for the
+British Army. To this work he now applied himself and with success.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Journals, p. 277.]
+
+On the twenty-first of October, 1776, Rogers fought his last battle, so
+far as I have been able to discover, on American soil. His Regiment was
+attacked at Mamaronec, New York, and routed by a body of American
+troops. Contemporary accounts state that he did not display his usual
+valor in this action and personally withdrew before it was over.
+
+The next year he returned to England,[A] where, after a disreputable
+life of some twenty-two or twenty-three years, of which little is known,
+he is said to have died in the year 1800.
+
+[Footnote A: Parker's History of Londonderry, p. 238.]
+
+Such are some of the more salient points in the career of Major Robert
+Rogers, the Ranger. When another century shall have buried in oblivion
+his frailties, the valor of the partizan commander will shine in
+undimmed lustre. When the historian gives place to the novelist and the
+poet, his desperate achievements portrayed by their pens will render as
+romantic the borders of Lake George, as have the daring deeds of Rob Roy
+McGregor, rehearsed by Walter Scott, made enchanting the Shores of Lock
+Lomond.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROUSED FROM DREAMS.
+
+By ADELAIDE CILLEY WALDRON.
+
+
+  Through the gorges leaps the pealing thunder;
+  Lurid flashes rend the sky asunder;
+  On my window-pane, making wild refrain,
+      Sharply strikes the rain.
+
+  Wind in furious gusts with angry railing
+  Follows the unhappy restless wailing
+  Of the sobbing sea, and drives ships a-lee
+      None to save nor see.
+
+  Dreaming souls are startled from their slumbers,
+  Though sleep still their trembling frames encumbers;
+  Helplessly they wait, fearing portent fate,
+      Shrieking prayers too late!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FITCHBURG
+
+By EBENEZER BAILEY.
+
+
+On the opening of the year 1764 there was in the westerly part of the
+town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, a settlement of about forty families,
+consisting of a number of farms, located mostly on the hills surrounding
+a narrow valley through which flowed the north branch of the Nashua
+River, almost screened from view by a dense forest of pines. These
+people were obliged to go four or five miles to Church and town meeting,
+over narrow, uneven roads, travelled only on horseback or rough ox
+carts. Most of them were of an independent, self-reliant type of
+character, and had a mind to have a little town and parish of their own.
+
+Accordingly they commenced a movement for a division of the town of
+Lunenburg; and the first petition to have the westerly part of that town
+set off was presented in town meeting in 1759. At various other town
+meetings a like petition was presented and always rejected, until
+January, 1764, when it was granted, and a committee appointed to obtain
+an act of incorporation from the Legislature; and at last, on the third
+of February, 1764, the Governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay
+signed the Act, which made Fitchburg an incorporated town, with all the
+rights and privileges usually granted, except that the two towns of
+Lunenburg and Fitchburg were to have but one representative to the
+General Court.
+
+A portion of the territory of Fitchburg was set off a few years later to
+form a part of the new town of Ashby.
+
+The first town meeting in Fitchburg was held in the tavern of Captain
+Samuel Hunt, on the fifth of March, 1764, when selectmen were chosen,
+and other business necessary to the organization of a town government
+transacted. The next business after the necessary civil affairs were put
+in order was to provide for "Sabbath days' preaching," and the Rev.
+Peter Whitney was hired to preach in the house of Thomas Cowdin for a
+time. It was also voted to build a meeting-house, which was completed
+sufficiently for occupancy in the autumn of 1766, and was located
+between Blossom and Mount Vernon Streets, near Crescent Street. The land
+was presented to the town by Thomas Cowdin, a new resident, who had
+purchased the tavern of Captain Samuel Hunt.
+
+In those days the tavern keeper was a man of great importance by virtue
+of his calling, but Thomas Cowdin was in himself a remarkable man.
+Energetic and commanding by nature, his varied experience had been of a
+kind to call out his peculiar characteristics. A soldier in the
+Provincial army, he served actively in the French and Indian wars, and
+rose from the ranks to the office of captain. During the war of 1755 he
+was employed in returning convalescent soldiers to the army and in
+arresting deserters. At one time he was set on the track of a deserter,
+whom he found was making his way to New York. He followed him with
+characteristic celerity and promptness, and at length found him one
+Sabbath morning attending divine service in a Dutch meeting-house.
+Cowdin did not hesitate, but entered and seized the culprit at once,
+much to the surprise and consternation of the congregation. A severe
+struggle ensued, in which he barely escaped with his life, but he
+finally overpowered and secured his prisoner. He then took him to
+Boston, where he received orders to deliver him at Crown Point. So alone
+through the woods for that long distance he journeyed with his prisoner,
+who well knew the fate which awaited him; threading each day the lonely
+forest, and lying down each night to sleep by the side of the doomed
+man. He delivered his prisoner safely at Crown Point, from whence he was
+taken to Montreal, and shot. For many years Cowdin was one of the most
+influential and prominent men in Fitchburg, and enjoyed to a great
+degree the confidence of his fellow citizens. He was the first
+Representative to the General Court under the new State Constitution,
+and held many town offices. A handsome monument has recently been
+erected to his memory by his grandson, Honorable John Cowdin, of Boston.
+
+Preaching being provided for, it was also voted to keep two schools, and
+to appropriate the sum of £8 for that purpose. And now the town of
+Fitchburg was fairly started out in life. From the towns to the East
+energetic young men began to come in with their families, to make new
+homes for themselves, so that in 1771 there were from seventy-five to
+eighty families, with a total valuation of £2,508,105. The highest tax
+payer was taxed on a valuation of £121, and the rate was over ten per
+cent.
+
+There were now, from time to time, numerous town meetings and many
+matters, both grave and trivial, to discuss and settle. Matters civil
+and matters ecclesiastical were inextricably blended. There was no
+separation of Church and State, but a community firmly believing in a
+personal Divine Providence, whose hand interposed daily in all the
+affairs of life. We may instance an article in the warrant for town
+meeting, January, 1770, which read as follows: "To see if the town will
+relieve Widow Mary Upton for Distress occasioned by frowns of Divine
+Providence, and abate her husband's rates on Isaac Gibson's and Ebenezer
+Bridge's tax lists." The result of the article was that Mr. Upton's poll
+tax was abated, and the frowns of Divine Providence were doubtless
+changed to smiles.
+
+Time passed on, the town gaining in wealth and numbers, and a
+comfortable, prosperous future was the reasonable hope of the
+inhabitants; but other scenes than those of peace and quiet were
+preparing; the opening scenes of the Revolution were just at hand, and
+the curtain was about to rise on the drama of seven long years, so
+frought with great results, but so wearisome, painful, and discouraging
+to the actors, from whom the future was withheld.
+
+As early as September, 1768, the selectmen of Fitchburg received from
+the selectmen of Boston a letter requesting them to call a town meeting
+to take into consideration the critical condition of public affairs, and
+to choose an agent to meet them in Boston and show there the "views,
+wishes and determinations of the people of Fitchburg upon the subject."
+A town meeting was accordingly called, and the Honorable Edward Hartwell
+was sent jointly by Fitchburg and Lunenburg to be their agent in Boston.
+
+In December, 1773 the selectmen received another letter from the town of
+Boston, requesting them to meet and pass such resolves concerning their
+rights and privileges, as they were willing to die in maintaining, and
+send them to the Committee of Correspondence. A town meeting was held
+accordingly, and a committee appointed to draft resolutions. The report
+presented by this committee at an adjourned meeting, after expressing
+full sympathy in all efforts to resist any encroachments on the rights
+and liberties of the American people, concluded as follows:
+
+     "And with respect to the East India tea, forasmuch as we are now
+     informed that the town of Boston and the neighboring towns have
+     made such noble opposition to said teas being brought into Boston,
+     subject to a duty so directly tending to the enslaving of America,
+     it is our opinion that your opposition is just and equitable, and
+     the people of this town are ready to afford all the assistance in
+     their power to keep off all such infringement."
+
+The time had now come when the talk at the tavern, the town meeting, the
+Church, and at the daily meeting of neighbor with neighbor, was of the
+rights of the colonies, and of the tyranny of the English Government.
+The fires of Liberty were already kindled from the North to the South
+and from the seaports to the frontier. Fitchburg was not behind in
+preparation for the coming storm. In the store building of Ephraim
+Kimball, which was near the corner of Main and Laurel Streets, was the
+armory of the minute men, about forty of whom were enrolled and
+regularly drilled; while by vote of the town fifty dollars was
+appropriated for powder, lead and flints.
+
+The eventful nineteenth of April, 1775, at last arrived and found the
+little town ready for action. So rapidly did the news spread that at
+nine o'clock in the morning the alarm was fired in front of the store of
+Deacon Kimball. The company had spent the previous day in drill, and at
+the summons the members promptly assembled, and being joined by a few
+volunteers, about fifty men took up their line of march for Concord,
+under the command of Captain Ebenezer Bridge, who afterwards became
+Colonel, and whose regiment, in the battle of Bunker Hill, was engaged
+in the fiercest of the contest. With the minute men was sent a large
+wagon loaded with provisions, which followed them to Concord, where they
+arrived in the evening, too late to take any part in the fight.
+
+It was now necessary to organize a permanent army to defend the towns
+around Boston; and Fitchburg and Leominster enlisted a company of
+volunteers to serve for eighteen months. At the battle of Bunker Hill
+John Gibson of Fitchburg was killed while fighting bravely in the
+intrenchments.
+
+When the Continental Congress asked the support of the Colonies to the
+contemplated Declaration of Independence, the Massachusetts General
+Court sent circulars, asking the opinion of the several towns in regard
+to the measure. The answer of Fitchburg was as follows:
+
+     "Voted in town meeting, that if the Honorable Continental Congress
+     should for the safety of these United Colonies declare them
+     independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, that we, the
+     inhabitants of the town of Fitchburg, will, with our lives and
+     fortunes, support them in the measure."
+
+In February, 1776, the warrant for town meeting ran thus: "In his
+Majesty's name." In May the warrant ran as follows: "In the name of the
+writ to us directed, these are in the name of the Governor and people of
+Massachusetts Bay." After the declaration of independence the warrant
+ran thus: "In the name of the State of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay."
+
+For seven long years the little town of Fitchburg bore bravely and
+unflinchingly the hardships of the war. The burden to the inhabitants of
+furnishing their quota of men, money, and provisions, was a heavy one,
+the depreciation of the currency was ruinous; and they, in common with
+the rest of the people, found themselves in serious financial
+difficulties at the close of the war. Taxes were high and money scarce,
+and the efforts of the authorities to collect the sums levied on the
+inhabitants finally led to organized resistance, which has come down to
+us under the name of Shay's Rebellion. With it the people of Fitchburg
+deeply sympathized, and in the initiatory proceedings they took an
+active, though a prudent part. In June, 1786, the town sent Elijah
+Willard as a delegate to a convention at Worcester to discuss the
+grievances of the people, and voted to defend his property if he should
+be taken in person for his attendance, "provided he behaves himself in
+an orderly and peaceable manner; otherwise he is to risk it himself."
+Deeply sympathizing with the Shayites, the people of Fitchburg did
+everything in their power to prevent the collection of taxes by the
+authorities, short of armed resistance; and the consequence was that a
+military company was quartered among them, much to their indignation;
+and had they not soon been prudently withdrawn, bloodshed might have
+followed.
+
+The population of Fitchburg had not remained stationary during the war,
+but had increased from 650 to about 1,000. At its close there was the
+nucleus of a village scattered along the road near the river, now Main
+Street. One might see Cowdin's tavern, Kimball's saw and grist mill,
+Fox's store, a baker's shop, and half a dozen houses between the
+American house and the upper Common. The meeting-house upon the hill
+back of Main street was a small, shabby, yellow structure; the red store
+of Joseph Fox was below, and in the rear of his store his house with
+large projecting eaves. The mill and residence of Deacon Ephraim Kimball
+were near by. Up the road, and near the present residence of Ebenezer
+Torrey, was a bakery and a dwelling-house, and beyond, towards the west,
+were two or three houses and a blacksmith shop. Pine stumps, hard-hack,
+and grape vines were plentiful by the side of the road. Such was the
+village of Fitchburg in 1786.
+
+In addition, however, to this little centre of population there was in
+the westerly part of the town, in the neighborhood of Dean Hill, a
+village which boasted a tavern, a store, and a blacksmith shop, and
+boldly sat up a claim of rivalship, and even superiority, to the little
+cluster of houses in the sandy valley. Its people petitioned to the
+General Court, to be set off, with a part of Ashburnham and Westminster,
+into a new town. However, a vigorous opposition from the inhabitants of
+the remainder of the town prevented its being granted. But, defeated in
+one point, the Dean Hill people turned to another. The time had now come
+when a new Church was needed, the little old meeting-house on the hill
+being too small to accommodate the increased population. So they
+determined to have the new Church in their vicinity, and this
+determination was the beginning of a protracted struggle to fix upon its
+location. A vote was passed in town meeting that the new Church should
+be located "on the nearest convenientest spot to the centre," but the
+words _nearest, convenientest_, were a cause of furious contention. Town
+meeting after town meeting was held--now victory rested with one
+faction, now with the other. Finally, after ninety-nine town meetings,
+extending through a period of ten years, the great question was settled,
+and the spot was chosen near the location of the present Unitarian
+Church.
+
+But now the leaven of heterodoxy was creeping into New England society,
+and the people, to a great extent, turned from the theological doctrines
+of their forefathers and adopted Unitarian views. In most places there
+was a final division of the original Church, and the formation of two
+societies, one of the Unitarian, and the other of Orthodox persuasion.
+
+Fitchburg was agitated in this way for about twenty-four years, during
+which time many ecclesiastical councils were held, and debate and
+dispute were almost continuous, both in and out of town meeting, for
+neighbor was divided against neighbor, and one member of a household
+against another. The result was the dissolution of the parochial powers
+of the town, and a division into two societies. The Unitarians remained
+in the old Church, and the Orthodox built a new building on the corner
+of Main and Rollstone streets.
+
+But while religious contention went on, worldly growth and prosperity
+increased. Quite a number of manufacturing establishments had commenced
+operations, and the value of the little stream that furnished the power
+was beginning to be appreciated.
+
+In 1830 there were in Fitchburg 235 dwelling-houses, 2 meeting-houses, 1
+academy, 12 school-houses, 1 printing office, 2 woolen mills, 4 cotton
+mills, 1 scythe factory, 2 paper mills, 4 grist mills, 10 saw mills, 3
+taverns, 2 hat manufactories, 1 bellows manufactory, 2 tanneries, 2
+window blind manufactories, and 1 chair manufactory. There were a number
+of stone bridges, and a dozen dams on the river; stages communicated
+daily with Boston, Keene, and Lowell, and left three times a week for
+Worcester and Springfield, and returned on alternate days.
+
+Energetic, enterprising young men were attracted to Fitchburg as a
+promising place for a home, and there was the exhilarating, hopeful
+atmosphere of a new and growing town, where changes are rapid and
+opportunities are many. It was about this time that Rufus C. Torrey
+wrote his history of Fitchburg, in which work he was most substantially
+aided by his friend, Nathaniel Wood, then a public spirited young
+lawyer, who had already accumulated quite an amount of material from
+records and conversations with the older residents These two men saved
+from oblivion very many valuable facts in the history of the town.
+
+About this time, also, the Fitchburg High School Association was formed
+and an academy built, and in 1838 the Fitchburg Library Association was
+organized, both of which institutions were valuable educational
+influences.
+
+From 1840 to 1860 the town continued to grow steadily. New paper mills
+were built in West Fitchburg, the chair business enlarged greatly, the
+iron business was introduced by the Putnam Brothers, and grew rapidly,
+and various other branches of industry were begun and prospered. The
+Fitchburg Railroad was built, followed by the Vermont and Massachusetts,
+the Fitchburg and Worcester, and the Agricultural Branch Railroads, all
+centreing in Fitchburg and bringing an increase of business.
+
+At the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion the town contained
+nearly 8,000 inhabitants, and during the war Fitchburg did her part,
+answering all calls promptly and sending her best men to the field. Her
+history in that contest is well told by Henry A. Willis, in his history
+of "Fitchburg in the War of the Rebellion." Nine companies were
+organized in the town, and 750 Fitchburg men sent into the field.
+
+The years immediately following the war were years of prosperity and
+rapid growth. March 8, 1872, Fitchburg was incorporated as a city. The
+infant township of 108 years before had grown to a city of 12,000
+inhabitants. The little stream which then turned the wheel of the one
+solitary saw and grist mill had since been harnessed to the work of many
+mills and manufactories, and on either side were the homes of hundreds,
+dependent on its power for their daily bread. Railroads carried the
+products of these establishments to the limits of our own and to foreign
+countries, and brought to the busy city from the East and from the West
+all the necessaries and all the luxuries of life. Can it be that the
+dead of past generations, who sleep on the hillside which overlooks the
+valley, have seen this transformation, and if so, will they behold all
+the changes of the future? Then may this and the coming generations
+prove themselves worthy of those who, during the years that have passed,
+have been its bone and sinew and life blood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SUNDAY TRAVEL AND THE LAW.
+
+By CHESTER F. SANGER.
+
+
+The Legislature of 1884 has placed an act upon our statute book which
+rounds out and completes an act looking in the same direction passed by
+the Legislature of 1877. Chapter 37 of the Acts of 1884 provides that
+"The provisions of chapter ninety-eight of the Public Statutes relating
+to the observance of the Lord's day shall not constitute a defence to an
+action for a tort or injury suffered by a person on that day."
+
+Chapter 232 of the Acts of 1877 provided that common carriers of
+passengers should no longer escape liability for their negligence in
+case of accidents to passengers, by reason of the injury being received
+on Sunday. This act marked a long step forward in the policy of this
+Commonwealth, and made it no longer possible for a corporation openly
+violating the law to escape the consequences of its illegal acts by
+saying to the injured passenger, "You were breaking the law yourself,
+and therefore you have no redress against us."
+
+This was a condition of things which worked a confusion of relations,
+and lent "doubtful aid to morality;" resting on "no principle of
+justice" or law, and creating a "species of judicial outlawry which
+ignored alike the principles of humanity and the analogies of the law."
+
+The provisions more particularly referred to in these Acts are those
+relating to travelling on the Lord's day, found in the Statutes as
+follows:--
+
+"Whoever travels on the Lord's day, except from necessity or charity,
+shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten dollars for each
+offence."--Pub. Stat., Chap. 98, sect. 2. It is an interesting and
+curious study to follow the changes made in the Sunday law, so called,
+with the accompanying judicial decisions, as one by one the hindrances
+to the attainment of simple justice by travellers injured on the Lord's
+day have been swept away.
+
+The Pilgrims brought many strange ideas with them to their new home, as
+we all well know, and we find these reflected in their statute books in
+the form of many "blue laws," some of which may yet be found in changed
+garb in the form of constantly disregarded "dead letter" laws in our own
+Public Statutes. Interesting as a general discussion of this subject is,
+as showing the character and purposes of the founders of the Republic,
+we can follow but one division of the Sunday law in its various forms
+since it was first framed by our "Puritan ancestors, who intended that
+the day should be not merely a day of rest from labor, but also a day
+devoted to public and private worship and to religious meditation and
+repose, undisturbed by secular cares or amusements," and among whom were
+found some who thought death the only fit punishment for those who, as
+they considered it, "prophaned" the Lord's day.
+
+As early as 1636 it was enacted by the Court of the Plymouth Colony
+that, "Whereas, complaint is made of great abuses in sundry places of
+this Government of prophaning the Lord's day by travellers, both horse
+and foot, by bearing of burdens, carrying of packs, etc., upon the
+Lord's day to the great offence of the Godly welafected among us. It is,
+therefore, enacted by the Court and the authoritie thereof that if any
+person or persons shall be found transgressing in any of the precincts
+of any township within this Government, he or they shall be forthwith
+apprehended by the Constable of such a town and fined twenty shillings,
+to the Collonie's use, or else shall sit in the stocks four hours,
+except they can give a sufficient reason for theire soe doeing; but they
+that 'soe transgresse' must be apprehended on the Lord's day and 'paye
+theire fine or sitt in the stockes as aforesaide' on the second day
+thereafter." It seems, however, that in spite of the pious sentiments of
+the framers of the law it was not, or could not be enforced, for in 1662
+it was further enacted that "This Court doth desire that the
+transgression of the foregoing order may be carefully looked into and
+p'r'vented if by any due course it may be."
+
+But even now it seems that the energies of the law-makers were of no
+avail in preventing prophanation of the Holy day by "foraignors and
+others," so that twenty years later, in 1683, we find that "To prevent
+prophanation of the Lord's day by foraignors or any others unessesary
+travelling through our Townes on that day. It is enacted by the Court
+that a fitt man in each Towne be chosen, unto whom whosever hath
+nessessity of travell on the Lord's day in case of danger of death, or
+such necessitous occations shall repaire, and makeing out such occations
+satisfyingly to him shall receive a Tickett from him to pas on about
+such like occations;" but, "if he attende not to this," or "if it shall
+appeare that his plea was falce," the hand of the law was likely to fall
+upon him while he contributed twenty shillings "to the use of the
+Collonie."
+
+In the Massachusetts Bay Province it was early enacted that "no
+traveller ... shall travel on the Lord's day ... except by some
+adversity they are belated and forced to lodge in the woods, wilderness,
+or highways the night before, and then only to the next inn," under a
+penalty of twenty shillings.
+
+In 1727 it was found that notwithstanding the many good and wholesome
+laws made to prevent the "prophanation of the Lord's day," this same
+"prophanation" was on the increase, and so it was enacted that the
+penalty for the first offense should be thirty shillings, and for the
+second, three pounds, while the offender, presumably a "foraignor," was
+to be put under a bond to observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy
+according to the ideas of the straight-laced Puritans.
+
+Even this did not put an end to the good fathers' troubles, for in 1760,
+"whereas, by reason of different constructions of the several laws now
+in force relating to the observation of the Lord's day or Christain
+Sabbath, the said laws have not been duly executed, and notwithstanding
+the pious intention of the legislators, the Lord's Day hath been greatly
+and frequently prophaned" all the laws relating to the observance
+thereof were repealed and a new chapter enacted, one section of which,
+and the only one in which we are now interested, was the same as the law
+of 1727, above quoted.
+
+Thirty-one years later all these laws were again erased from the statute
+book and a new attempt was made to frame a law which should leave no
+loop-holes for foraignors or others, as follows: "Whereas the observance
+of the Lord's day is highly promotive of the welfare of a community by
+affording necessary seasons for relaxation from labor and the cares of
+business; for moral reflections and conversation on the duties of life,
+and the frequent errors of human conduct; for public and private worship
+of the Maker, Governor, and Judge of the world; and for those acts of
+charity which support and adorn a Christian society. Be it enacted that
+no person shall travel on the Lord's day except from _necessity_ or
+_charity_, upon penalty of a sum not exceeding twenty shillings and not
+less than ten." Notice what an interesting and moral tone is given to
+the otherwise dry statute book by these sermonizing preambles which
+reflect so well the motives and aims of the men who moulded and formed
+the statute laws of the Commonwealth.
+
+In this act appears for the first time that "charity" which since then
+has truly "covered a multitude of sins," while it has as often been a
+strong tower of defence to corporations clearly shown to have been
+careless of their obligations to the public. One of the first cases to
+arise in which these words "necessity or charity" must be judicially
+construed was Commonwealth vs. James Knox, 6 Mass., 76.
+
+One Josiah Paine had contracted with the Post Master General of the
+United States to carry the public mail between Portland and Boston on
+each day of the week for two years from October 1, 1808, and Knox, his
+servant, was indicted for unlawfully travelling while carrying the mail
+with a stage carriage through the town of Newburyport on November 20,
+1808, the same being Sabbath or Lord's day, and the said travelling not
+being from necessity or charity. Chief Justice Parsons in delivering the
+opinion of the Supreme Court, after showing the authority of Congress
+under the Constitution to establish post-offices and post-roads, and the
+consequent legality of Paine's contract, the statutue of his State
+notwithstanding, says that "necessity ... cannot be understood as a
+physical necessity ... and when this travelling is necessary to execute
+a lawful contract it cannot be considered as unnecessary travelling,
+against the prohibition of the Statute." But fearing that this decision
+may open too wide the gate to Sabbath breakers the Chief Justice hastens
+to add: "But let it be remembered that our opinion does not protect
+travellers in the stage coach, or the carrier of the mail in driving
+about any town to discharge or to receive passengers; and much less in
+blowing his horn to the disturbance of serious people either at public
+worship or in their own houses. The carrier may proceed with the mail on
+the Lord's day to the post-office; he may go to any public house to
+refresh himself and his horses; and he may take the mail from the
+post-office and proceed on his route. _Any other liberties on the Lord's
+day our opinion does not warrant_."
+
+The report naively says, that after this opinion the Attorney General
+entered a _nolle proscqui_.
+
+In Pearce vs. Atwood, 13 Mass., 324, a case which arose in 1816 and
+which attracted a great deal of notice at the time, Chief Justice Parker
+says: "It is not necessary to resort to the laws promulgated by Moses,
+in order to prove that the _Christian Sabbath_ ought to be observed by
+_Christians_, as a day of holy rest and religious worship; and if it
+were it would be difficult to make out the point contended for from that
+source;" and then goes into a long disquisition upon the Mosaic law and
+the precepts of the Saviour and finally says that "cases often arise in
+which it will be both innocent and laudable for the most exemplary
+citizen to travel on Sunday. Suppose him suddenly called to visit a
+child, or other near relative, in a distant town laboring under a
+dangerous illness; or suppose him to be a physician; or suppose a man's
+whole fortune and the future comfort of his family to depend upon his
+being at a remote place early on Monday morning, he not having known the
+necessity until Saturday evening; these are all cases which would
+generally be considered as justifying the act of travelling." Certainly
+a somewhat broader view than that taken by the Court seven years
+earlier.
+
+The law remained thus and was re-enacted in the Revised Statutes of
+1836, the penalty being raised, however, to ten dollars. In civil cases
+arising out of damages sustained by travellers upon the Lord's day,
+corporations defendant were quick to take advantage of the law and to
+rely upon the illegality of the plaintiff's act of travelling, as a good
+defence to his action.
+
+In 1843 arose the case of Bosworth vs. Inhabitants of Swansey, 10
+Metcalf, 363. Bosworth was travelling on the eleventh of June of that
+year, being Sunday, from Warren, Rhode Island, to Fall River on business
+connected with a suit in the United States Court, and was injured by
+reason of a defect in a highway in Swansey.
+
+The defendant town admitted that it was by law required to keep the
+highway in repair. And plaintiffs counsel argued that as the statute
+provided a penalty of ten dollars for travelling on Sunday it could not
+be further maintained that there was the additional penalty that a man
+could have no legal redress for damages suffered by reason of the
+neglect or refusal of defendants to do that which the law required them
+to do. But the court ruled, Chief Justice Shaw delivering the opinion,
+"that the plaintiff was plainly violating the law and that since he
+could recover from the town only, if free from all just imputation of
+negligence or fault," in this case he could recover nothing. In deciding
+this case, however, the Court was not called upon to construe the terms
+"necessity or charity," as affecting the liability of corporations
+plainly shown to be negligent in the performance of their duties to
+others; but many such cases soon arose.
+
+In Commonwealth vs. Sampson, Judge Hoar said, "the definition which has
+been given of the phrase necessity or charity ... that it comprehends
+all acts which it is morally fit and proper should be done on the
+Sabbath may itself require some explanation. To save life, or prevent
+or relieve suffering; to prepare useful food for man and beast, to save
+property, as in case of fire, flood, or tempest ... unquestionably fall
+within the exception ... But if fish in the bay, or birds on the shore,
+happened to be uncommonly abundant on the Lord's day, it is equally
+clear that it would furnish no excuse for fishing or shooting on that
+day. How it would be if a whale happened to be stranded on the shore we
+need not determine." It is needless to remark that this was a decision
+affecting the interests of a town upon the coast.
+
+In Feital vs. Middlesex R.R. Co., 109 Mass., 398, plaintiff was injured
+while returning from a Spiritualist meeting in Malden, and counsel for
+defendant maintained that the meeting was attended for idolatry and
+jugglery, and while it might be the right of the plaintiff to be an
+idolater and to attend shows, yet she could not do so in violation of
+the Statute, which was intended to protect the conscience of the
+majority of the people from being offended upon the Lord's day. But the
+Court ruled that it could not be said as matter of law that travelling
+for such a purpose was not within the exception, and that it must be
+left to the jury to say if the plaintiff was in attendance in good faith
+for devotional exercise as matter of conscience.
+
+In How vs. Meakin, 115 Mass., 326, the court held that it was not a
+violation of the law to hire a horse and drive to a neighboring town to
+attend the funeral of plaintiff's brother.
+
+But it was held in a later case that plaintiff, who had been to a
+funeral on the Lord's day and was returning therefrom by a somewhat
+_circuitous_ route for the purpose of calling upon a relative, was not
+entitled to recover for damages sustained by reason of a defect in the
+highway. This was the opinion of a divided court as has been the case in
+several decisions where the question of "necessity or charity" has been
+a close one.
+
+Such are a few of the interesting cases which have arisen in our Courts
+involving discussion of the law originally framed in 1636, and which
+still makes it a criminal offence punishable by a fine of ten dollars to
+walk or ride upon the Lord's day, save from necessity or charity, while
+our cities furnish free concerts and license all sorts of performances
+in places of public amusement under the guise of "sacred" concerts, upon
+the day which our fathers thought and meant should be set apart for
+moral reflection ... on the duties of life ... and for public and
+private worship of the Maker, Governor, and Judge of the world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ELIZABETH.
+
+A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.
+
+BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE STAB IN THE BACK.
+
+
+A brighter morning for a wedding never dawned. The house was alive with
+merry voices and the echo of footsteps hurrying to and fro. The most
+fashionable society of the city was to be present at the ceremony which
+was to take place at noon. Then would come the festivities, the feast,
+the dancing, and after that the drive of the newly-married pair to the
+beautiful house three miles away, that Stephen Archdale had built and
+furnished for his bride, and that had never yet been a home.
+
+Before the appointed hour the guests began to arrive and to fill the
+great drawing-room. There each one on entering walked toward the huge
+fire-place, in which on an immense bed of coals glowing with a
+brilliancy that outshone the rich red furniture and hangings of the room
+lay great logs, which blazed in their fervor of hospitable intent and
+radiated a small circle of comfort from the heat that did not escape up
+the chimney. The rich attire of the guests could bear the bright
+sunlight that streamed in through the numberless little panes of the
+windows, and the gay colors that they wore showed off well against the
+dark wainscotting of the room and its antique tapestries. The ladies
+were gorgeous in silks and velvets which were well displayed over
+enormous hoops. On their heads, where the well-powdered hair was built
+up in a tower nearly a foot in height, were flowers or feathers.
+Precious stones fastened the folds of rich kerchiefs, sparkled on dainty
+fingers, or flashed with stray movements of fans that, however
+discreetly waved, betrayed their trappings once in a while by some
+coquettish tremulousness. The gentlemen were resplendent also in
+gold-laced coats and small clothes, gold, or diamond shoe buckles,
+powdered wigs and queues, and with ruffles of the richest lace about
+their wrists. These guests, who were among the people that in
+themselves, or their descendants, were destined to give the world a new
+nation, strong and free, showed all that regard to the details of
+fashion said to characterize incipient decay in races. But with them it
+was only an accessory of position, everything was on a foundation of
+reality, it all represented a substantial wealth displaying itself
+without effort. The Sherburnes were there, the Atkinsons, the
+Pickerings, Governor Wentworth, the first of the Governors after New
+Hampshire separated from Massachusetts and went into business for
+itself, and others of the Wentworth family. Conspicuous among the guests
+was Colonel Pepperrell who had already proved that the heart of a strong
+man beat under his laced coat. His wife, well-born and fine-looking, was
+beside him, and his son, fresh from College honors, and sipping eagerly
+the sparkling draught of life that was to be over for him so soon; his
+daughter also, last year a bride, and her husband. These were leaders in
+that brilliant assembly called together to the marriage of Katie and
+Stephen Archdale.
+
+While waiting for the event of the morning they talked in low tones
+among themselves of the wedding, or more audibly, of personal, or of
+political affairs.
+
+"It wants only ten minutes of the hour," said one lady, "perhaps our
+good parson may not come this morning."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked her companion.
+
+"Why, this; that his wife, perhaps, will lock his study door upon him as
+she did one Sabbath when we all went to the house of God and found the
+pulpit empty. There's no end to all the malicious tricks she plays him.
+Poor, good man."
+
+"Do you know," said a beruffled gentleman in another part of the room to
+his next neighbor, "what a preposterous proposal that ragged fellow,
+Bill Goulding, made to Governor Wentworth last week? He is a
+good-for-nothing, and the whole scheme is thought to have been merely a
+plan to talk with the Governor, whom he has wanted to see for a long
+time. It gave him access to the fine house, and he stalked about there
+an hour looking at the pictures and the splendid furniture while its
+owner was taking an airing. The general opinion is that the object of
+his visit was accomplished before his Excellency's return."
+
+"Poor fellow! One can't blame him so very much," returned the listener
+with a complacent smile, offering his gold-mounted snuff-box to the
+speaker before helping himself generously from it. "But what was his
+scheme?"
+
+"Something the most absurd you ever listened to. He proposed, if other
+people would furnish the money, to establish a public coach from this
+city to Boston, to run as often as once a week, and, after the first
+expense, to support itself from the travellers it carries; each one is
+to pay a few shillings. Where did he expect the travellers to come from?
+Gentlemen would never travel in other than private conveyances?" And
+these representatives of conservatism threw back their heads and laughed
+over the absurdity of the lightning express in embryo. Governor
+Wentworth standing before the fire was commenting on some of Governor
+Shirley's measures, giving his own judgment on the matter, with a
+directness more bold than wise, and the circle about him were discussing
+affairs with the freedom of speech that Americans have always used in
+political affairs, when a stir of expectation behind them made them take
+breath, and glance at the person entering the room. It was the minister.
+
+"He has come, you see," whispered the lady to her neighbor of the
+forebodings. After greeting him, the group about the fire went back to
+their discussions. It had been the good parson's horse then, which they
+had heard tearing up the road in hot haste; they had not dreamed that so
+much speed was in the nag. But Master Shurtleff was probably a little
+late and had been afraid of keeping the bride and groom waiting for him.
+Master and Mistress Archdale were there; all the company, indeed, but
+the four members of it most important that morning, Katie and Stephen,
+the bridesmaid, Mistress Royal, and the best man, a young friend of
+Archdale's. After a few moments in which conversation lagged through
+expectancy, the door opened again.
+
+"Ah! here they are. No, only one, alone. How strange!"
+
+Every eye was turned upon Elizabeth Royal as she came in with a face too
+concentrated upon the suggestion under which she was acting to see
+anything about her. Without sign of recognition she glanced from one to
+another, until her eyes fell upon good Parson Shurtleff watching her
+with a gentle wonder in his face. It was for him that she had been
+looking. She went up to him immediately, and laid a tremulous hand upon
+his arm. She tried to smile, but the effort was so plain and her face so
+pale that an anxiety diffused itself through the assembly; it was felt
+that her presence here alone showed that something had happened, and her
+expression, that it was something bad. She did not seem even to hear the
+minister's kind greeting, and she was as little moved by the wonder and
+scrutiny about her as if she had been alone with him. At Mistress
+Archdale's reiterated question if Katie were ill, she shook her head in
+silence. Some thought held her in its grasp, some fear that she was
+struggling to speak.
+
+"It is a cruel jest," she cried at last, "but it must be only a jest.
+The man's horse is blown, he came so fast. And he insisted on seeing me
+and would give this only into my own hands; his message was that it was
+life and death, that I must read it at once before the--" She stopped
+with a shudder, and held out a paper that she had been grasping; it was
+crumpled by the tightening of her fingers over it. There was a sound of
+footsteps and voices in the hall; the minister looked toward the door,
+and listened. "You must read it now, this instant, before they come in,"
+cried Elizabeth: "it must be done; I don't dare not to have you; and
+tell me that it has no power, it is only a wicked jest; and throw it
+into the fire. Oh, quick, be quick."
+
+Parson Shurtleff unfolded the paper with the haste of age, youth's
+deliberateness, and began to read at last. At the same instant a hand
+outside was laid on the latch of the door. The room was in a breathless
+hush. The door was swung slowly open by a servant and the bride and
+bridegroom came in, stopping just beyond the threshold as Katie caught
+sight of Elizabeth, and with a wondering face waited for her to come to
+her place. But the minister, not glancing up, went sternly on with the
+paper; and Elizabeth's gaze was fixed on his face; she had drawn a step
+away from him; and her hands were pressed over one another. All at once
+he uttered an exclamation of dismay, and turned to her, a dread coming
+into his face as he met her eyes.
+
+"What does it mean?" he gasped. "Heaven help us, is it true?"
+
+"Oh, it can't be, it can't be," she cried. "Give me the paper. I had to
+show it to you, but now you've seen that it must be all false. Give it
+to me. Look, they are coming," she entreated. "Think of her, be ready
+for them. Oh, burn this. Can't you? Can't you?" and her eyes devoured
+him in an agony of pleading.
+
+"Stop!" he said, drawing back his hand. Then in a moment, "Is any of it
+true, this wicked jest at a sacred thing? Was that all so?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+By this time the scene had become very different from the programme so
+carefully arranged. The bride and groom had indeed gone across the room
+and were standing before the minister. But the latter, so far from
+having made any preparations to begin the ceremony, stood with his eyes
+on the paper, his face more and more pale and perplexed.
+
+"What is it?" cried Master Archdale, laying a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Yes, what does it all mean?" asked the Colonel, advancing toward the
+minister, and showing his irritation by his frown, his flush, and the
+abruptness of his speech usually so suave.
+
+"I hardly know myself," returned Shurtleff looking from one to the
+other.
+
+"Let us have the ceremony at once, then," said Master Archdale
+authoritatively. "Why should we delay?"
+
+"I cannot, until I have looked into this," answered the minister in a
+respectful tone.
+
+"Nonsense," cried the Colonel with an authority that few contested.
+"Proceed at once."
+
+"I cannot," repeated the minister, and his quiet voice had in it the
+firmness, almost obstinacy, that often characterizes gentle people. His
+opposition had seemed so disproportioned and was so gently uttered that
+the hearers had felt as if a breath must blow it away, and interest
+heightened to intense excitement when it proved invincible.
+
+"What is all this?" demanded Stephen, holding Katie's arm still more
+firmly in his own and facing Mr. Shurtleff with eyes of indignant
+protest. As he received no immediate answer, he turned to Elizabeth.
+"Mistress Royal," he said, "can you explain this unseemly interruption?"
+
+Then all the company, who for the moment had forgotten her share in the
+transaction, turned their eyes upon her again.
+
+"That wicked jest that we had all forgotten," she said, looking at him
+an instant with a wildness of pain in her eyes. Then she turned to
+Katie's fair, pale face full of wonder and distress at the unguessed
+obstacle, and with a smothered cry dropped her face in her hands, and
+stood motionless and unheeded in the greater excitement. For now Mr.
+Shurtleff had begun to speak.
+
+"You ask me," he said, "why I do not perform the ceremony and marry
+these two young people whose hearts love has united. I do not dare to do
+it until I understand the meaning of this strange paper I hold in my
+hand. What do you remember," he said to Stephen, "of a singular game of
+a wedding ceremony played one evening last summer?"
+
+The young man looked uncomprehending for a moment, then drew his breath
+sharply.
+
+"That?" he said, "Why, that was only to give an example of something we
+were talking about; that was nothing. Mistress,"--he stopped and glanced
+at Elizabeth who, leaning forward, was hanging upon every word of his
+denial as if it were music--"Mistress Royal knows that was so."
+
+"Yes," cried Elizabeth, "indeed I do."
+
+"Nevertheless," returned Mr. Shurtleff, "it may have been a jest to be
+eternally remembered, as all light-minded treatment of serious matters
+must be. I hope with all my heart that a moment's frivolity will not
+have life-long consequences of sorrow, but I cannot proceed in this
+happy ceremony that I have been called here to perform until the point
+is settled beyond dispute."
+
+"See how habit rules him like a second nature," whispered Colonel
+Pepperrell aside to the Governor. "Nobody but a minister would stop to
+give a homily with those poor creatures before him in an agony of
+suspense."
+
+"My dear," said his wife softly in a tone of reproof, laying her hand
+warningly on his arm.
+
+"Stephen Archdale isn't the man to stand this," retorted the Governor in
+a higher key than he realized. But the words did not reach their object,
+for he had already laid hold of the paper in Mr. Shurtleffs hand.
+
+"If this paper explains your conduct, give it to me," he said haughtily.
+
+The other drew back.
+
+"I will read it to you and to the company," he answered. "There can be
+no wedding this morning. I trust there will be soon. But first it is my
+personal duty to look into this matter."
+
+Katie, whose face had grown rigid, swung heavily against Stephen. "She
+has fainted," her mother cried coming forward.
+
+"Take her away," commanded the Colonel. "This is no place for her." But
+the girl clung to Stephen.
+
+"I will stay," she said, with a tearless sob. "I must listen. I see it
+all, and what he meant, too, that evil man."
+
+"Master Shurtleff," cried the Governor, "I command you to make all this
+clear to us at once. If that paper in your hand tells us the cause of
+your refusal to marry these young people, I bid you read it to us
+immediately."
+
+The parson, bowing with respect, cleared his throat and began, premising
+that Governor Wentworth's commands had been his own intention from the
+first.
+
+"It is a confession," he said, "made by one whom many of us have
+welcomed to our homes as a gentleman of blameless character and
+honorable dealing. Why it was sent to Mistress Royal instead of to
+Master Archdale, or the bride, I am at a loss to understand."
+
+Elizabeth raised her head with a flash in her eyes, but anger died away
+into despair, and she stood silent with the others, and listened to the
+fate that fell upon her with those monotonous tones, each one heavy as
+lead upon her heart. She wondered if it had been sent to her because it
+had been feared that Stephen Archdale would keep silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CONFESSION.
+
+
+"I write without knowing to whom I am writing," began the paper, "except
+that among the readers must be some whom I have wronged. I can scarcely
+crave forgiveness of them, because they will surely not grant it to me.
+I don't know even that I can crave it of Heaven, for I have played with
+sacred things, and used a power given me for good, in an evil way, to
+further my own devices, and, after all, I have not furthered them. I am
+a man loving and unloved, one who has perhaps thrown away his soul on
+the chance of winning earthly joy,--but such joy,--and has lost it. If
+any have ever done like me, let them pity and pardon. I appeal to them
+for compassion. I shall receive it nowhere else, unless it be possible,
+that the one for love of whom I have done the wrong will out of the
+kindness of her heart spare me by and by a thought of pity for what was
+the suggestion of a moment and acted on--"
+
+"Skip all that maundering," interrupted Stephen. "To the point. Who is
+this man, and what has he done? Let him keep his feelings to himself, or
+if they concern you, they don't us."
+
+"No, no, Stephen. Fair play," called out Governor Wentworth. "Let us
+hear every word, then we can judge better of the case, and of the
+writer's truthfulness."
+
+"Yes, you are right," answered the young man pressing Katie's arm more
+firmly in his own to give silent vent to his impatience and his
+defiance.
+
+"And acted on without premeditation," resumed Master Shurtleff. "I left
+England early in the spring, and coming to this worthy city of
+Portsmouth with letters of introduction to Master Archdale, and others,
+I met the beautiful Mistress Archdale. From the first hour my fate was
+sealed; I loved her as only a man of strong and deep emotions can love,
+with a very different feeling from the devotion her young admirers gave
+her, ardent though they considered themselves. I had many rivals, some
+the young lady herself so disapproved that they ceased troubling me,
+even with their presence at her side. Among the others were only two
+worthy of attention, and only one whom I feared. I was reticent and
+watched; it was too soon to speak. But as I watched my fear of that one
+increased, for age, association, a sternness of manner that unbent only
+to her, many things in him showed me his possibilities of success. With
+that rival out of my path, my way to victory was clear. There came a day
+when, without lifting my finger against him, I could effectually remove
+him. I did it. It was unjustifiable, but the temptation rushed upon me
+suddenly with overwhelming force, and it was irresistible, for opposite
+me sat Katie, more beautiful and lovable than ever, and beside her was
+my rival, her cousin, with an air of security and satisfaction that
+aroused the evil in me. It was August; we were on the river in a dead
+calm, and at Mistress Archdale's suggestion had been telling stories for
+amusement. Mine happened to be about a runaway match, and interested the
+young people so much, that when I had finished they asked several
+questions; one was in reference to a remark of mine, innocently made,
+that the marriage ceremony itself, pure and simple, was something
+unimaginably short. The story I had told illustrated this, and some of
+the party asked me more particularly as to what the form was. Then I saw
+my opportunity, and I took it. 'If one of the young ladies will permit
+Master Archdale to take her hand a moment,' I said, 'I think I can
+recollect the words; I will show you how short the formula may be.'
+Master Archdale was for holding Katie's hand, but happily, as it seemed
+to me at the moment, she was on the wrong side. I requested him to take
+the lady on the other hand, who seemed a trifle unready for the jest,
+but was induced by the entreaties of the others, and especially of
+Mistress Katie herself. I went through the marriage service over them as
+rapidly as I dared, my voice sounding to myself thick with the beating
+of my heart. But no one noticed this; of course, it was all fun. And so
+that summer evening, all in fun, except on my part, Stephen Archdale and
+Elizabeth Royal were made man and wife, as fast as marriage vows could
+make them. Nothing was omitted that would make the ceremony binding and
+legal, not even its performance by a clergyman of the Church of
+England."
+
+A cry of rage and despair interrupted the reader. But he went on
+directly.
+
+"No one in America knew that I had been educated for the Church and had
+taken orders, though I have never preached except one month; the work
+was distasteful to me, and when my brother died and I inherited my
+grandfather's property, I resigned my pastorate at once. This act shows
+how unfit for it I was. But whatever my grief may be, my conscience
+commands me to forbid this present marriage, and to declare with all
+solemnity, that Stephen Archdale already has a wife, and that she is
+that lady, who, until she opened my letter, believed herself still
+Mistres Royal."
+
+A burst of amazement and indignation, that could no longer be repressed,
+interrupted the reading. Faces and voices expressed consternation. To
+this confession had been added names and dates, the year of the writer's
+entrance into the ministry, the time and place of his brief pastorate,
+everything that was necessary to give his statement a reliable air, and
+to verify it if one chose to do so. It was evident that there could be
+no wedding that morning, and as the truth of the story impressed itself,
+more and more upon the minds of the audience, a fear spread lest there
+could be no wedding at all, such as they had been called together to
+witness. For, if this amusement should turn out to have been a real
+marriage, what help was there? It was in the days when amusements were
+viewed seriously and were readily imagined to lead to fatal
+consequences. Had Stephen Archdale really married? The people in the
+drawing-room that December morning were able men and women, they were
+among the best representatives of their time, an age that America will
+always be proud of, but they held marriage vows so sacred, that even
+made in jest there seemed to be a weight in them. Proofs must be found,
+law must speak, yet these people in waiting feared, for their part in
+life was to be so great in uprightness and self-restraint, that these
+qualities flowing through mighty channels should conquer physical
+strength and found a nation. To do a thing because it was pleasant was
+no part of their creed,--although, even then, there were occasional
+examples of it in practice.
+
+That winter morning, therefore, the guests were ready to inveigh against
+the sin of unseemly jesting, to hope that all would be well, and to
+shake their heads mournfully.
+
+"Harwin!" cried Master Archdale as he heard the name of the writer; "it
+seems impossible. I liked that man so much, and trusted him so much. I
+knew he loved my little girl, but I thought it was with an honorable
+love that would rejoice to see her happy. No, no, it cannot be true. We
+must wait. But matters will come right at last."
+
+"Yes," assented the Colonel across whose face an incomprehensible
+expression had passed more than once during the reading; "it will all
+come right. We must make it so."
+
+A hum of conversation went on in the room, comment, inquiry, sympathy,
+spoken to the chief actors in this scene, or if not near enough to them
+for that, spoken to the first who were patient enough to listen instead
+of themselves talking.
+
+In the midst of it all Stephen raised his head, for he had been bending
+over Katie who still clung to him, and asked when the next ship left for
+England.
+
+"In about three weeks," answered Col. Pepperrell, "and we will send out
+a person competent to make full inquiries; the matter shall be sifted."
+
+"I shall go," returned Stephen. "I shall make the necessary inquiries
+myself, it will be doing something, and I may find the man. We need that
+he should be found, Katie and I."
+
+Elizabeth drew back still more; some flash of feeling made the blood
+come hotly to her face for a moment, then fade away again.
+
+Katie looked up, turned her eyes slowly from one to another, finding
+everywhere the sympathy she sought.
+
+"Go, Stephen, since you will feel better," she said, "but it's of no
+use, I am sure. I understand now something Master Harwin said to me when
+he left me. I did not know then what he meant. He has taken you away
+from me forever." And with a sob, again she hid her face upon his
+shoulder. Then, slowly drawing away from him, she turned to Elizabeth,
+and in her eyes was something of the fury of a jealous woman mixed with
+the bitter reproach of friendship betrayed.
+
+"How could you," she said, "how could you consent to do it?"
+
+She had drawn toward Elizabeth every gaze and every thought in the room;
+she had pointed out the substitute on whom might be emptied those vials
+of wrath that the proper object of them had taken care to escape.
+Elizabeth heard on all sides of her the whispered, "Yes, how could she
+do it, how could she consent to do it?" Suddenly she found herself, and
+herself alone, as it seemed, made responsible for this disaster; for
+the feeling beginning with Katie seemed to grow, and widen, and widen,
+like the circles of water into which a stone is thrown, and she was
+condemned by her friends, by the people who had known her and her
+father, condemned as false to her friendship, as unwomanly. Katie she
+could forgive on account of her misery, but the others! She stood
+motionless in a world that she had never dreamed of. These whispers that
+her imagination multiplied seemed to roar in her ears. But innocence and
+pride kept her erect, and at last made her raise her eyes which had
+fallen and grown dim under the blow of Katie's words. She swept them
+slowly around the room, turning her head slightly to do it. Not a look
+of sympathy met her. Then, in the pain, a power awoke within her.
+
+"It is no less a disaster to me," she said. Her words fell with the
+weight of truth. She had kept back her pain, no one thought of pitying
+her as Katie was pitied, but she was vindicated.
+
+"Does she hate him, do you suppose?" asked Madam Pepperrell in a low
+tone of Governor Wentworth at her elbow.
+
+"It is not probable she loves him much," replied that gentleman studying
+the girl's haughty face. "I don't envy her, on the whole, I don't envy
+either of them." By George, madam, it _is_ hard."
+
+"Very hard," assented Colonel Pepperrell, whose glance, having more
+penetration, had at last brought a look of sympathy to his face. "Let us
+go up to the poor thing, she stands so alone, and I'm not clear that she
+has not the worst of it."
+
+"Oh, no, indeed, not that," returned his wife as they moved forward. But
+before they could reach her, being stopped by several who spoke to them,
+there was a change in the group in that part of the room. Katie had
+fallen, and there was a cry that she had fainted. Stephen stooped over
+her, lifted her tenderly, and carried her from the room. He was followed
+by Mistress Archdale and his own mother. As he passed Elizabeth their
+eyes met, his glowed with a sullen rage, born of pain and despair, they
+seemed to sweep her with a glance of scorn, as she looked at him it
+seemed to her that every fibre of his being was rejecting her. "You!" he
+seemed to be saying with contemptuous emphasis. In answer her eyes
+filled him with their haughtiness, they and the scornful curl of her
+lip, as she stood motionless waiting for him to pass, haunted him; it
+seemed to him as if she felt it an intrusion that he should pass near
+her at all. He still saw her face as he bent over Katie.
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+GOVERNOR CLEVELAND AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PROTECTORY.
+
+BY CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D.
+
+
+It is not often that a Governor's objections to a measure, which his
+veto has defeated, become, even indirectly, the subject of judicial
+consideration. Such, however, has been the experience of Governor
+Cleveland in connection with his veto of the appropriation, which was
+made in 1883, to the Roman Catholic Protectory of the City of New York.
+And it must be gratifying to him as a constitutional lawyer, to see the
+principles of that veto entirely approved by all the judges of the Court
+of Appeals, as well as by all the judges by whom those principles were
+considered, before the case, in which they were involved, reached that
+august tribunal, the highest in the judicial system of that State.
+
+By an amendment to the Constitution of New York, adopted in 1874, it is
+provided that, "Neither the credit nor the money of the State shall be
+given, or loaned to, or in aid of, any association, corporation, or
+private undertaking."
+
+It would hardly seem possible to mistake the meaning of a prohibition
+like this; but this prohibition is accompanied by the following
+modification: "This section shall not, however, prevent the Legislature
+from making such provision for the education and support of the blind,
+the deaf and dumb, and juvenile delinquents, as to it may seem proper;
+nor shall it apply to any fund or property, now held by the State for
+educational purposes."
+
+The question, how far this qualifying clause limits the proceeding
+prohibition, arose first in the Court of Common Pleas, and afterwards in
+the Court of Appeals, in the case of the Shepherd's Fold of the
+Protestant Episcopal Church _vs_. The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of
+the City of New York.[A] The Attorney-General of the State had given an
+official opinion, tending to the conclusion that the prohibition is
+almost entirely neutralized by the modification. The Judges of the Court
+of Common Pleas, and the lawyers who argued this case in either court,
+differed widely upon the question, whether money raised by local
+taxation by the City of New York, under the authority of the State law,
+for the maintainance of the children of the Shepherd's Fold, was, or was
+not, "money of the State," and therefore included in the terms of this
+prohibition; and when one sees how much is done in the discussions of
+the able counsel before the Court of final resort, and by the learned
+opinion of Judge Rapello, to reconcile these differences, one can not
+but wish that the Old Bay State had a similar Court of Appeals, to
+revise and clarify the decisions of her Supreme Court. About twenty-five
+per cent, of all the decisions of the General Terms of the Supreme
+Court, Superior Court, and Court of Common Pleas, which are carried to
+the Court of Appeals, are there reversed; and can any lawyer doubt that,
+at least, as large a proportion of the decisions of our Supreme Judicial
+Court ought also to be revised and reversed?
+
+[Footnote A: See 10 Daly's Reports, 319; and 96 New York Reports. 137.]
+
+The Court of Appeals says: "It seems to us that that section [to wit,
+the prohibition above quoted] had reference to money raised by general
+taxation throughout the State, or revenues of the State, or money
+otherwise belonging to the State treasury, or payable out of it."
+
+The money claimed by the Shepherd's Fold being raised by local taxation
+for a local purpose in the city of New York, and not "by general
+taxation throughout the State," the Court of Appeals holds that it is
+not within the terms of the Constitutional prohibition, and therefore
+reverses the decision of the Court of Common Pleas on that particular
+point, while agreeing with it on the main question.
+
+As the money, appropriated to the Roman Catholic Protectory, was
+unquestionably money of the State, "being raised by general taxation
+throughout the State," that appropriation was unquestionably in conflict
+with the prohibition of the Constitution, which the Governor was sworn
+to support.
+
+Of the courage and independence displayed by Governor Cleveland in thus
+vetoing a measure in which so large a number of his political supporters
+might be supposed to feel so deep an interest, this is not the place to
+speak. But it is creditable to him as a lawyer that alone without a
+single precedent to guide him, relying upon his own judicial sense, and
+rejecting the opinion of a former Attorney-General, he challenged "the
+validity of this appropriation under that section of the Constitution."
+The Protectory, he says, "appears to be local in its purposes and
+operations." And being a sectarian charity, he adds, "Public funds
+should not be contributed to its support. A violation of this principle
+in this case would tend to subject the state treasury to demands in
+behalf of all sorts of sectarian institutions, which a due care for the
+money of the State, and a just economy, could not concede."
+
+In the higher and broader field of public service--"the grandest throne
+on earth"--as the Presidency which he is about to enter, has been
+grandiloquently called, let us hope that he will display the same
+honesty, capability, and fidelity to the Constitution. We shall then be
+assured that the interests of the Republic will suffer no detriment at
+his hands.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4,
+January, 1885, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14131 ***