Glass- Book- CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF BRUNSWICK JUNE 13 1889 CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF BRUNSWICK JUNE 13 1889 BRUNSWICK MAINE PUBLISHED BY THE PEJEPSCOT HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1889 This account is published by the Pejepscot Historical Society, aided by a contribution from the General Committee of the town. The money thus received has been expended in procuring illustrations, and the price of the pamphlet covers merely the cost of printing and binding. Edward C. Guild, George T. Little, Hexry W. Wheeler, Committee on Publication. PRINTED AT JOURNAL OFFICE, LEWISTON, ME. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Preliminary Arrangements, 1 The Celebration, 8 Commemorative Ode, 10 Address of the President of the Day, 11 Oration, 14 Poem, 40 The Procession, 45 The Dinner, 48 Appendix, 79 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Town Hall, • . . Frontispiece. Card of Invitation, 5 Main Street from the Tontine, 9 Glimpses of Brunswick, 17 Androscoggin Eiver, 41 G-limpses of the Procession, ..." 47 Fac Simile of Act of Incorporation, 81 PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS. The proposition for an observance of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary -of the incorporation of Brunswick originated with the Pejepscot Historical Society. At a meeting of that Society, held January 10, 1888, it was Voted, That in the opinion of this Society there should he a public observance of the one hundred, and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of Brunswick, and on February 16, 1888, a vote was passed requesting the Execu- tive Committee to lay the matter before the town at its next annual meeting. The Executive Committee accordingly procured the inser- tion of the following article in the warrant for the annual town meeting : Art. 21. To see if the town will vote to celehrate with suitable public exercises the oue hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation; and to raise money for that purpose agreeable to the petition of B. Greene and others. At the annual meeting of the town, held March 5, 1888, the following votes were passed : Voted, That the town celebrate with appropriate public exercises the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation, which falls on the sixth day of February, 1889; and that the sum of five hundred dollars he added to the tax levy and appropriated to meet the expenses of such celebration. Voted, That a General Committee of twelve citizens be appointed and author- ized to act for the town in making arrangements for such a celebration, to determine the time, to prepare a programme for the occasion and see that it is duly carried out, and to expend the money appropriated for that purpose. Voted, That the following gentlemen be appointed and constituted the General Committee in charge of the celebration; and that they be authorized to fill vacan- cies in their own number and to appoint other persons to act with them on sub- committees, so far as may be expedient in order to secure the accomplishment of the object of the celebration. Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Henry W. Wheeler, Charles J. Gtlman, John Furbish, Daniel H. Stone, Henry Johnson, Albert G-. Tenney, Sumner L. Holbrook, Lemuel H. Stover, William M. Pennell, Ira P. Booker, Isaac Hacker. This action of the town was supplemented at its annual meeting in 1889. The General Committee, finding that the amount of money 2 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS at its disposal would be inadequate to meet the cost of such a cele- bration as had been decided upon, procured the insertion of the following article in the warrant for the town meeting : Art. 17. To see if the town will vote any additional amount of money to that already voted for the purpose of celebrating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town and raise money for the same, agreeable to the petition of John Furbish and others. At the annual meeting of the town, held March 4, 1889, the fol- lowing vote was passed : Voted, That the sum of five hundred dollars be raised by taxation and appro- priated towards defraying the expense attending the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town. In addition to the one thousand dollars appropriated by the town the General Committee received from Bowdoin College the sum of one hundred dollars which was voted in aid of the celebration at the annual meeting of the Boards in 1888. Miss Salome H. Snow also, without solicitation, sent her check for fifty dollars, and a consider- able sum was raised by subscription for particular features of the celebration, as shown in the financial statement in the appendix. The committee had, therefore, abundant resources for the successful accomplishment of their purposes. There were twenty meetings of the General Committee, the first occurring March 26, 1888, and the last October 10, 1889. The first meeting of the General Committee was called to order by the Chair- man of the Board of Selectmen, Mr. Frank E. Roberts, and he was made the permanent chairman of the committee. Mr. Henry W. Wheeler was elected Secretary, and Mr. Lemuel H. Stover, Treas- urer. At this meeting a proposition that the celebration occur on the actual anniversary of the date of the incorporation was tabled, and at the next meeting, held April 17, 1888, the date for the celebration was fixed for June 13, 1889, and Messrs. Henry W. Wheeler, Ira P. Booker, and Heniy Johnson were chosen a com- mittee to arrange a complete programme for the celebration, to be submitted to the General Committee for its consideration. At the next meeting, May 21, 1888, the committee chosen at the previous meeting reported a general programme for the celebration, with details of its various features. The report was accepted and the programme, in all its essential features, was adopted by the General Committee. One or two additions were made subsequently by the General Committee, but the programme as finally carried out was substantially that which was first proposed. At this meeting Pro- INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 3 fessor Charles Carroll Everett, of Harvard University, a native of Brunswick, was unanimously elected Orator for the occasion, and Professor Henry Leland Chapman, of Bowcloiu College, was unani- mously elected Poet. No further action of importance was taken by the General Committee until February 11, 1889, when it was voted to ask the town for a second appropriation of five hundred dollars in aid of the celebration. At the next meeting, March 7, 1889, Dr. -Alfred Mitchell was unanimously elected President of the Day, and various special committees were chosen, a full list of which is given in the appendix. Dr. James W. Curtis was elected a member of the General Committee, vice Daniel H. Stone, deceased. April 11, 1889, Mr. Henry W. Wheeler asked to be excused from serving longer as Secretary of the General Committee. His resigna- tion was accepted and Professor Henry Johnson was elected Secre- tary. At this meeting it was voted to invite the following-named persons to attend the celebration as guests of the town : The Governor of Maine and his Staff. The Congressional Delegation from Maine. The Selectmen of Topsham. The Selectmen of Harpswell. Doctor George A. Wheeler of Castine, Me. (Senior Historian of Brunswick). Other meetings of the General Committee were held previous to the celebration, at which matters of detail not of sufficient permanent interest for publication in these pages were attended to. At a meeting held September 9, 1889. the Treasurer reported that all bills had been paid and that there was a balance of one hundred and twenty-eight dollars and fifty-one cents in the treasury. It was thereupon Voted, That the Treasurer of the General Committee is authorized to pay the sum of one hundred and twenty-eight dollars and fifty-one cents to the Treasurer of the Pejepscot Historical Society to aid in the publication of an account of the celebration to be printed under the auspices of that Society. It was also voted to deposit in the archives of the Pejepscot Historical Society, for preservation, the records and papers of the General Committee. The final meeting of the General Committee was held October 10, 1889, at which the Auditor's Report (which will be found in the appendix) was read and accepted, and the following resolutions were passed : Resolved, That the General Committee for itself and in behalf of the citizens of the town desires to express to Professor Charles Carroll Everett sincere thanks 4 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS for his eloquent and scholarly oration; to Professor Henry Leland Chapman for his appropriate and beautiful poem, and to Dr. Alfred Mitchell for the able and graceful manner in which he performed his duty as President of the Day. Resolved, That the success of the celebration was largely due to the efficient labors of the various special committees, the members of which worked with an energy and zeal which entitle them to the warmest commendation, and that the General Committee acknowledges the cooperation and aid thus received. Some time previous to tbe celebration cards of invitation were sent, under the direction of the Committee on Printing, to all former residents of Brunswick whose addresses could be obtained and to other persons who were supposed to take an interest in the town and in the celebration. Four hundred and ninety-seven invitations were thus distributed by the committee and many more were sent by individuals, over eight hundred invitations having been furnished to citizens at a nominal price. The invitation was engraved on steel and is reproduced on another page. Posters, of which the following is a copy, were sent to all the neighboring towns and to the principal places along the lines of the various railroads in this section of the State. f-OR^" 6e°F\GE: )$UILT \]\$; "" v m w i 1 1 celebrate the @ne j=[undped and p*iftie+h ^nniVersap| > - 0$ lj Y& inco^pof^at ion - 1719 .^Etms*,^my /^^^^^^^^^^ serf?/ /&£e/ /tf/w/?y/t/i^kz^ INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 5 CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF BRUNSWICK, June 13, 1889. Salutes will be fired at sunrise, upon the arrival of the Governor, and at sunset, and the bells of the Toavu -will be rung. Fantastic Parade at 7.30 a.m. An Oration will be delivered at the Congregational Church, by Professor C. C. Everett, of Harvard University, and a Poem by Professor H. L. Chapman, of Bowdoin College, at 9.30 a.m. A GRAND PROCESSION Will march through the principal streets of the town at 12 M. A Public Dinner will be held at the Town Hall, at which Speeches will be made by Distinguished Guests and Prominent Citizens, at 1.30 P.M. Tickets at $1.00 each may be had of Mr. E. A. Will. As the number is limited, applica- tions should be made early. Base-Ball Game On the Delta at 3.30 p.m. BOWDOINS VS. PRESUMPSCOTS. A RECEPTION will be held in the TOWN HALL in the evening at 8. Fireworks at 9.30 P.M. A COLLECTION OF LOCAL ANTIQUITIES Will be open to the Public at the Court Room, in Town Building, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Railroad Fare.— One Fare for the Round Trip on Maine Central, Knox & Lincoln, Grand Trunk, and Portland & Rochester Railroads on the 12th and 13th; good to return on the 14th. 6 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS A few days previous to the celebration various tablets were set up by the committee having charge of that work. Upon the town building they placed a solid bronze tablet tastefully designed and executed, bearing the following inscription : BRUNSWICK First Settled in 1628; Incorporated as a Township, 1717; Incorporated as a town, Feb. 6, 1739; (January 26, 1738, O. S.). Neatly painted wooden tablets of ornamental design, and with appropriate inscriptions, were placed upon the following historic spots : Site of Fort George, at the northern end of Main Street ; site of Fort Andros, on the store of F. C. Webb & Co. ; site of McFarland's Block House, on Day's Block, corner of Main and Mason Streets ; site of Dunning's Block House, on the cottage opposite the south entrance to the Town Building ; site of the First Town House, on Main Street, south of the residence of Mrs. Charles Packard ; and on the site of the First Meeting House, about a mile south of the colleges. The material for these wooden tablets was donated by Mr. D. A. Booker, and they were made without charge by Mr. Thomas S. Melcher. Temporary placards, with suitable inscrip- tions, were placed upon the following buildings : upon the residence of Mrs. William G. Barrows to designate the residence of Henry W. Longfellow when he was a Professor in Bowdoin College ; upon the residence of Mrs. Ellen F. Lincoln, the oldest house in the village ; upon the residence of Mr. Samuel Whitmore, in which Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; and upon various old buildings to show the date of their erection. On the Sunday preceding the Celebration an " Historical Observ- ance of the formation of ' The Church of Christ, in Brunswick,' " was held in the First Parish Church, at which the following was the order of exercises : MORNING SERVICE. Organ Prelude. Gloria Patri. Invocation. Scripture Reading. Psalm 103. Anthem. Prayer. Hymn 1019, " Oh Where are Kings and Empires Now? " Historical Discourse by the Pastor, William P. Fisher. Hymn 885, " I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord." Prayer with Benediction. IXCORPOB ATION OF 1 5 R CJNS WICK EVENING SERVICE. Organ Prelude. Welcome by the Pastor. Hymn 339, " All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." Scripture Reading. Prayer. Anthem, "And the Glory of the Lord." — Handel. Address, by Professor William A. Packard. Address,, by 'Professor Egbert C. Smyth. Hymn, prepared for the occasion. Address, by the Reverend Ezra H. Byington. Address by the Reverend Aaron C. Adams. Hymn 248, " O God Our Help in Ages Past." Prayer with Benediction. HYMN By the Reverend Samuel V. Cole. Tune — Louvan, Page 65. O thou to whom the mighty spheres Have sung forever, guided well, We praise Thee for the signs that tell Thy guidance in our moving years: The peace that follows after strife, And, in the shade, the growing light, The clearer vision of the right, The larger hope, the ampler life. We sing the old song still — we sing Of faith in one eternal plan, Which thou hast, written out for man And the enfolding ages bring. To right nor left Thy purpose sways, But moves toward better things to be ; For thou art faithful. O that we Be faithful in our works, and days. THE CELEBRATION. The day opened with ringing of bells and firing a national salute of one hundred and fifty guns at sunrise. The salute was fired by a section of men from the Second Platoon of the First Maine Battery, under command of Captain O. T. Despeaux, and occupied fifty-three minutes. A Parade of Fantastics, which was an unusually large and fine affair of the kind, took place at 7.30. The procession formed at Woodlawn and marched through the principal streets of the town, disbanding in front of the Tontine Hotel at 8.30. It was under the superintendence of the Chief Marshal of the clay, C. E. Townsend, and was accompanied by two bands. Numerous comic groups were presented, and at the close two prizes were awarded — ten dollars in gold to the group entitled "Is Marriage a Failure?" and five dollars to "The Darktown Fire Company." During the morning a trial of fire engines took place between the Niagara Company, No. 3, of Brunswick and the General Bates of Lisbon Falls. The prize, a silver pitcher, was won by the General Bates Company. On the arrival of the Governor and his Staff on the train from Augusta a " Governor's salute" of seventeen guns was fired. At 9.30 the bell of the Congregational Church summoned citizens and visitors to listen to the literary exercises of the day. The Gov- ernor and his Staff and other invited guests, together with some of the venerable citizens of Brunswick were seated on the. platform, and the exercises were carried out in accordance with the following programme : INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 1739. EXERCISES 1889 - In Congregational Church, Brunsayick, Thursday, June 13, 1889, At 9.30 A.M., CELEBRATING THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY Of the Incorporation of the Town. ORDER OF EXERCISES. President of the Day, Dr. Alfred Mitchell. Organ Voluntary, Miss M. W. Swett. Reading of Scripture and Prayer, Rev. W. P. Fisher. Commemorative Ode, Chorus. Oration, Prof. C. C. Everett. Music, Chorus. Poem, Prof. H. L. Chapman. Hymn — "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne," Lined out and sung by Congregation. Benediction, Rev. G. P. Mathews. Before Jehovah's awful throne Ye nations how with sacred joy; Know that the Lord is God alone; He can create and He destroy. His sovereign power, without our aid, Made us o"f clay, and formed us men; And when, like wandering sheep, we strayed, He brought us to His fold again. We'll crowd Thy gates with thankful songs, High as the heavens our voices raise; And earth, with all her thousand tongues, Shall fill Thy courts with sounding praise. Wide as the world is Thy command, Vast as eternity Thy love; Firm as a rock Thy truth shall stand, When rolling years shall cease to move. COMMEMORATIVE ODE. Miss Charlotte Mellen Packard. We sing the years that pass Like shadows o'er the grass At summer's prime ; We sing of life's deep flow Of men that come and go, Their deeds for weal or woe Held fast by time. We reap the harvest sown By faithful hands unknown, Eeap fruit or flower; They feared not fortune's frown — The nameless ones — whose crown Is to have handed down This golden hour. Theirs was the strain and stress Through thorny wilderness A path to win; By many a stubborn foe Nobly at last laid low, Their labors high we know Who enter in. Guard we our sacred trust ! Peace after battle dust And learning free. Secure in homes so fair, We breathe as common air The good they might not share, Whose sons are we. Thou to whose boundless thought The ages are as naught, The soul is dear, Teach us that wisdom true In which our fathers grew, The springs of faith renew, Teach us Thy fear! ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE DAY. Doctor Alfred Mitchell. Fellow -Townsmen, Ladies and Gentlemen: The custom of anniversary celebration has long been regarded as one of peculiar and delightful interest. Not only does it serve to awaken the best feelings and emotions of those who live in the place of such a commemoration, but it also stirs the most sacred and tender sentiments of affection in the hearts of those who have been long and far absent from the scenes and associations of youth and childhood. Evidently the degree of interest, the depth of feeling, will be commensurate with the attractions and characteristics of the home of such an anniversary. It is not my province as the presiding officer of this assembly even to attempt to bring before you in any clearer light than you now behold and know them, the natural beauties, the precious historical reminiscences, the unsurpassed intellectual and social features which adorn and distinguish our favored heritage. The loveliness of our outlying islands and headlands, the gleam of our sunlit bay, the charm of our winding and falling river with its forest-crowned hills and grassy intervales, our broad avenues with their leafy verdure, will all appear before you clothed in new vestures of living light under the touch and speech of those who are about to address you. The loyal deeds of former and recent wars, the struggles with various obstacles which have prevailed until the mere settlement has increased a hundred fold, the development of trade and manufacture, the building up of the institutions of 12 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS religion and education will be so set before us as to renew and revive our pride and admiration ; and our college will be recognized as one which has represented itself and our dear old town in all the countries under the sun, and has influenced our social life, our educational system, our churches, and our municipal affairs in numberless ways for our good and advance- ment. We ought to count ourselves fortunate that we live in a time when many lines of rapid conveyance have brought to us our loyal townsmen and friends from far and near ; fortu- nate also in this "rare day in June," in this hallowed and historic place of meeting whose walls and arches seem even now to echo the magnificent tone of Everett's tribute to our immortal Washington, the melodious cadences of " Morituri Salutamus," and to thunder with the applause which greeted the nation's great and silent general. We can almost seem to see and feel the venerated presence of those who so long sat here in their accustomed places, whose worship of God, service to man, and love of this beautiful town ought to serve as a perpetual example to us all ; for have we not all felt the last living touch and influence of the generations who "all are gone into the land of shadows " through him of whom it can no longer be said that "living we salute " ? Especially do we congratulate ourselves in the choice of those who are to address us. The one, the son of a former venerable and much-honored citizen, a graduate of our college and afterwards associated in its instruction ; now Harvard holds him in high repute, and everywhere he is known in the world of letters and among Christian scholars as a leader in the best fields of thought and culture. Of the other I have surely only to speak your own thoughts when I allude to him as one whose warmth of affection for our town and interest in INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 13 its welfare, is not less than that of the noblest "to the manner born "; of his long and loyal service to the college we are all swift and ready witnesses; his facile pen and graceful speech adorn all that they handle or utter. It remains for me, before your eager expectancy shall be satisfied by their words to express our grateful appreciation of the compliment afforded us in the distinguished presence of the Governor of our State and our representatives in the national Congress, and to assure them that our love and fealty to State and country is not less strong and unswerving than that which we bear to our town ; also to extend to those who have come from abroad a most cordial welcome and greeting not only to our public festivities but to our "hearts and homes," and to make known to them our earnest desire that the renewal of old associations and the revisiting of former scenes may afford them unalloyed pleasure. Meanwhile let those of us who have long dwelt in this fortunate town and who will here continue to dwell, coming from farm and study, from trade and manufacture enter with a glad and tender spirit into the true expression of this long to be remembered and happy anniversary ; and while we rejoice in the present let us seek for all the inspiration to future high and noble endeavor for ourselves and our homes which shall spring from the recital of the deeds and lives of the generations that have gone before us. ORATION. Professor Charles Carroll Everett. We gather to celebrate the birthday of a town. From certain points of view it might seem as if this were hardly worth the celebrating. The world is full of towns. There are hundreds of thousands which no man can number. Think how they have sprung up all over our country like the grass on the prairies. Think how they are springing up to-day, — springing up in fluttering canvas that in a few months will harden into wood, and in a year or two, perhaps, into brick or stone. The first flower of the spring we greet with delight ; but when our fields and gardens are full of flowers, how little we notice or care for the opening of one or another. A better comparison is suggested by the lives of men. Among the uncounted multitudes of men that throng the earth, there are few whose birthday has not an interest for some. Each commemorates it for himself; and about each is .a larger or smaller circle to whom it is in some degree sacred. What is the birth of an individual to the birth of a town? It is the town that makes the life of the individual in any sense possible. It is the town that brings a certain refining and elevating element into life. If the town is in certain aspects degrading, it is in other and more essential aspects uplifting. The very word " civilization " is derived from a word meaning citizen, and the words " urbane " and " urbanity," which have such sweetness of significance, derive their meaning from the idea of city life. Men, it is true, often live in the country happier and better lives than are common in the town ; but it is the town that, to a very large extent, makes such life in the INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 15 country possible. It is the town that unites the scattered life of the country into a sense of community. It is in the town that the books and newspapers are printed or purchased which make the quiet of the country alive with intellectual activity, — books which interpret to the dweller in the country the beauty in the midst of which he lives, and newspapers which bring to the most retired door the stirring life of the whole world. It is from the town that come the paintings and engravings which ornament the farm-house wall. It is the town that furnishes the market which makes possible the farm. The town is the ganglion that receives and dispenses the energy of the world. It receives from the country the material of living, and sends back refinement and stimulus and the sense of a larger life. The town is the essential thing in a nation. The town is a unit. It is the unit out of which nations consist. The organ- ization of the town is spontaneous and inevitable. The grouping of towns into larger relationships has something contrived and artificial about it. Let the nation become broken up ; let the central government be paralyzed so that its influence will no longer thrill through the ramifications of society ; let the state government be paralyzed ; and here in the town we might hardly know it. Our postal facilities would be disturbed, but all else might go on for the time undisturbed. In the town, the nation strikes its root into the soil. The state government and the national government are represen- tative. They represent the town. In the town we take things at first hand, and do our business for ourselves. Much of what I have said finds its best illustration in what we call distinctively the town in contrast with the city. In the town there is much of the beauty and the refining influ- ence of the city with little of its degradation. In the town is 16 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS fulfilled the ideal to which I referred, that of doing our own business at first hand. The city has itself become representa- tive. There are the wards, which are merely artificial divis- ions. In these the voters gather to cast their suffrage for men of whom perhaps they have never before heard. Possibly some question, such as the regulation or suppression of the liquor traffic, is submitted to their votes, though not to their debate. There is no sense of unity, no common meeting. Men drop in and cast their votes and go out, leaving their place for others. For the most part they vote as their party leaders direct. How different from this is the town meeting. In the town meeting we come together and look into one another's faces and hear one another's voices. Here we do our own business for ourselves. We discuss roads and bridges and schools. We hear what is said for and against any measure and decide for ourselves. This is the true and the only true democracy. In this there is the true dignity of citizenship. In this is the true education that is said so often to spring from a republican government. Here every man has a sense of responsibility. The dullest wits are quickened. The most quiet man may be surprised to find himself an orator. The self-asserting man may find his conceit taken out of him. I will not say that I hope that Brunswick will long remain the most important town in the State, rather than take its place among the smaller cities. This would be to put my hope against that expansion of the life and business of the place which we all feel to be both inevitable and desirable. Doubtless the time will come when even our town hall will be too small for the thronging voters of Brunswick. At least I can hope without disloyalty to our faith and our pride in the town that we love, that the change from the dignity of the town meeting to the perfunctoriness of the ward room, and INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 17 the indirect and often questionable methods of the common council, may be put off as long as possible. We have thus looked at the town merely in what may be called its external relations. When we look at it from within, the significance of the anniversary is still more marked. For how many lives does it stand! Of how many tender experi- ences has it been the enfolder ! What gladness of childhood, what enthusiasm of youth, what beauty of romance, what depths of sorrow, how many comedies, how many tragedies, have their place within it ! And all this is not for one gener- ation only, but for generation after generation. No sooner does one company that has performed the tragedy or the farce leave the stage than another takes its place. Or rather, the new press upon the old before their parts are played out. Thus does the procession move on uninterrupted and endless. And for those who go forth from it to find a home elsewhere, of what tender memories is it the centre ! By what shining and elastic cords of association, invisible to all but themselves, are they bound to it wherever they may go and whatever new experiences may await them ! If the birthday of an individual should be celebrated, how much more the birthday of a town, which stands for such multitudes of individual lives. There are men not widely known, not leaders in peace or war, whose birthday excites within the circle of their acquaint- ance an interest which it would not always be easy to explain. It springs neither from their genius nor their accomplishments. Perhaps it may be their sterling worth that gives rise to this interest. Perhaps it is a certain genial courtesy that marks them. Perhaps it is only that mysterious something which we call "personality." Whatever it is, it adds a special charm and interest to their anniversary. The same is true of towns. There are towns that have something of this unnameable yet B 18 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS irresistible charm. Perhaps, to most men, their native town seems thns exceptional. I cannot, however, believe that it is merely this subjective illusion which makes Brunswick seem to us to have a character and an attractiveness of its own. This confidence perhaps it would not be easy to justify by words. Brunswick has filled its place in the state and nation. It has furnished its share of men who have been prominent in the state and the army and the church. We are proud of them to-day. But it is not this that gives to its name the special significance of which I speak. Perhaps it is in part the charm of its situation. It is, indeed, surrounded by no magnificent scenery of which it is simply an added feature. The town is the centre to which the nature about it is tributary. There is the river which curves about it as if with a gentle caress. There are the falls in their beauty and the rocks that rise by their side, while the noise and jar of mills and the pungent odor of freshly-sawed boards add something to the charm of the scene, so far as the practical mind is concerned, and hardly lessen it for the lover of the picturesque. There are the pines that stand in their stateliness encircling the village; and there is, not far off, the sea, whose breath comes softened and strained through the pine forest. Within, there are the broad and shady streets and the pleasant mall. There is the church in which we are gathered, somewhat shorn of its original beauty, to be sure, but still a striking figure in its prominent position ; and beyond the church there is the college yard, sometimes so full of life; but in the vacation seeming, shut in as it is by its hedge of lofty trees, with its smooth, unbroken beauty of grass, with its fair chapel and its quiet halls, as if it might be the scene of a new story of some "sleeping beauty." Behind the college is the spot to which many hearts turn with the tenderest love; a peaceful, sunny INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 19 nook, about which stand the solemn pines, it and they together symbolizing the glad and the sorrowful memories that mingle there. It is very pleasant, early of a summer evening, to pass from the classic shades of the college to the lower end of the town, in which one finds one's self as if in another world. The bright faces and the lively jargon of the French create for the moment the illusion of being in some foreign land. If from this outward picture, we turn to the inner life of the place, we recognize a population that, to us at least, seems more intelligent and refined than that which belongs to most villages of its type. There have been generations of modest and sterling citizens and quiet, pleasant homes. When I knew the town most intimately there was a society that for its charm could hardly be surpassed. Think for a moment what the college has done for the town in this respect. Think what citi- zens it has brought to us as presidents and as teachers. Bow- doin College, like Brunswick, has a character of its own. Here again it may be the result of personal interest and association, but I confess that it seems to stand out from among the colleges of its class, if indeed there are any colleges precisely of its class. Think, I say, of the men and of the families that it has brought to us. There were the early presidents whose descendants remained to add to the stability and the charm of the place. Their features are known to us by the familiar engravings. McKeen, whose face is marked by mingled sweetness and strength; while the thoughtful spirituality of Appleton makes itself still felt by us in spite of the passing of the years. Not to name the living or to go back beyond the memory of many of us, what dignity and graciousness were added to the town by the presence of Leonard Woods. Where could we find in these later generations a man precisely of his type? There 20 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS was something of a mediaeval richness in his nature. Even his voice gave some hint of the quality of his mind. Of those whom the college has brought to us as teachers I dare not begin to speak. The personal characteristics of some of them stand out, in memory or tradition, as sharply defined as those of some strong work of fiction, and some are held to-day in tender remembrance. The presence of the students, these waves of young men coming year after year, may be also reck- oned among the elements that have given to the town its dis- tinctive quality. It is pleasant to think how many of those who were for a little while among us, will feel a special inter- est in our celebration to-day. From how many widely sundered regions of the earth the thoughts turn to as, of those who remember Brunswick as we remember them. I have thus attempted, in an imperfect way, to explain the characteristics of our town which may justify our special feel- ing towards it. Whether it may be thus justified or not, the feeling is there, and it is this that inspires our gathering to-day. The feeling will not be satisfied on an occasion like this with- out a glance backward at the history of the town we love. I am not an historian or an antiquarian. Even if I were, the labors of John McKeen and of the brothers Wheeler, whose admirable history is, or should be, familiar to you all, and of those whose results our historical society has published, would leave little opportunity for fresh discovery. I shall not attempt even by their aid to present a formal history of the town. But to-day our thoughts turn backward, and we cannot do better than to grant them a free range. I shall then recall a few of the most important epochs in the history of the place, in a way rather to quicken the imagination than to inform the mind. Indeed it is only by some strain upon the imagination that we can realize the changes which the spot where we INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 21 stand has known. In this superficial glance we will not go beyond that of which we can find some record specially preserved. The first appearance of this place, so far as any record has been preserved, is something which it is impossible for our imagination worthily to reproduce. Where are now forests and gardens and homes, was simply a vast area of ice. In which- ever direction the gaze could turn, if the fancy can suggest the fantastic notions of a gazer among these wastes, stretched the mighty glacier as it crept along its sluggish way from the mountains to the sea. We go to Switzerland and are awed by the glaciers there; but what is the sublimity even of the Mer de Glace when compared with this glacier which covered a large part of the continent. There was no plant, there was no life of bird or beast. There was only this frozen solitude. I said that we would not go back further than the records of the town would justify us, and of this strange experience in the past the records remain upon the enduring rocks, over which the slow grinding movement passed. We look with awe that is almost horror upon this scene, when our Brunswick was so different from what it is to-day. But this terrible monster that crawled over our plains was working for us, and making possible fruitful fields and smiling gardens. Ages - came and passed and the ice still stretched in its terrible deso- lateness. Ages came and passed and at last the strange presence disappeared. After unnumbered centuries it was followed by a condition of things no less strange and no less foreign to our present experiences than it. By imperceptible degrees the region sank beneath the sea. Where our gardens are to-day the sea-weed was the only growth. Where is now the hum of busy life moved only the silent inhabitants of the ocean depths. Of this baptism in the sea the record also remains 22 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS in the mussel-beds, which testify of long and undisturbed possession. Before the curtain lifts again unnumbered ages had fled, and the face of nature had undergone wonderful transforma- tions. Instead of the death of the ice-fields and the swing of the tides, we can see, at last, life. There is the life of the for- est, the majesty of trees ; not the pines which are so dear to us, but oaks and beeches and other hard wood trees. There was the life of animals, the bear, the wolf, and the moose. There was the life of man. Here the Indian lived and loved and hunted and made war. We picture him moving through the forest depths, almost as silently as his predecessors of the finny tribes moved through the expanses of the sea. Here he buried his dead, and here, if tradition speaks the truth, the relics of these burials have been found. Who would think that this forest wild, inhabited by savage beasts and savage men, was our Brunswick with its comfort and its peace. At last the Anglo-Saxon appeared upon the scene. At last we pass out from the eternities and meet a date, which is as pleasant as the sight of the first headland after a long and tem- pestuous voyage. About the year 1628, some two hundred and sixty years ago, came the first settlers. We will recall to-day the name of Thomas Purchase. It is a pity that we could not have in some central place a statue to his memory, like that fictitious, but symbolic figure which commemorates to Harvard College the spirit, if not the features, of its founder. In the case of Thomas Purchase it would be simply the pioneer that we should honor. What he was other than that we cannot say. Of his virtues or of his failings we have little record. He probably had both in the full measure of the frontierman's life. The Indians, at least, believed that he had cheated them in trade, both by exorbitant prices and the quality INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 23 of goods. I suppose we may safely assume that they were not wholly wrong. The Indians were in those days considered fair game, and we cannot say, even in our time, that we have wholly passed beyond the stage in which the weakness and the ignorance of the Indian furnish reason enough for outwitting and oppressing him. But whatever may have been the virtues or the vices of Thomas Purchase, his coming made an epoch hardly less important than the changes in the physical world at which we have just glanced. It was not he who came, it was the Anglo-Saxon race that came in him. Whatever may have been his rudeness, his coming meant civilization. It meant schools and colleges and the unceasing productivity of the press. Whatever his faults, his coming meant Christianity. Whatever his loneliness, his coming meant this fair town. Whatever his hardships, his coming meant our comfort. But to the Indian it meant destruction. He seemed so weak among them ! They could sack his house, they could drive him away. What was he, the man with his little family about him, alone in the wilderness, alone among the savage hordes? But his coming meant their destruction. The deadly work began at his first appearing. Its first instru- ment was rum. His coming meant, as I have said, the destruc- tion of the Indian ; but before his destruction it meant his degradation. Thomas Purchase did something to lessen this latter doom, inasmuch as it would appear that the rum which he sold was largely watered. At least one Indian complained that he had paid a hundred pounds for water drawn out of " Purchase his well." I fear, however, that the water was not added till the liquor had begun to do its work. There is something pathetic in the elaborate deed full of " whereases " and " af oresaids " and other legal phraseology, in which the Indian chiefs signed away much of their inheritance to later 24 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS comers, each affixing his seal, the figure of a bow and arrow, or of a serpent, or some arbitrary device. For the coming of Thomas Purchase was like the first spicula of ice which is fol- lowed by the solid mass. He was followed, after some changes of less interest, by the Pejepscot Company, — Anglo-Saxon business enterprise following close upon Anglo-Saxon pluck. In 1715 the Pejepscot Company became possessed of what forms the site of eight towns, including Brunswick, Topsham, and Lewiston, and a part of four more. For this they paid £140. That, in the depreciated currency of the time, may be estimated at not far from $360. The first settlers bought lots of one hundred acres each for £5, which in 1737 would amount to about $4.30. Later this price was doubled for lots in Bruns- wick, while £25, or about $17.50, were paid for lots in the richer land of Topsham. This would seem pretty cheap for our land to-day, but considering the price that the company paid for it, we must judge that the speculation was a good one. Another element in the profits of the Pejepscot Company is found in the fact that they were obliged to pay no taxes. So soon as land was occupied by a settler he had to pay his tax, but the unappropriated land owned by non-residents was not taxed. Whether this distinction was based upon some aristocratic notion, like that which under the old regime in France made the common people pay taxes from which the nobles were exempt, taxes which being ground often out of the labor of the poor went largely into the pockets of the rich, or whether it was based upon the notion that land should not be taxed until it became productive, in either case the distinc- tion was an unfair one. The company was growing rich out of the sale of its lands; the occupants were with difficulty sup- porting themselves upon their several lots; yet the whole bur- den of taxation would seem to have fallen upon them. We INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 25 cannot help sympathizing with the fathers of the town in their repeated protest against this, one might almost say, iniquitous arrangement. On the whole, however, we must be grateful to this company for bringing the land upon which our town stands into the market of the world, and for their general liberal arrangements. It was their wise and generous provision that laid out " the twelve-rod road," from the river to the sea, which, though unhappily shorn of its original proportions, still adds so much to the beauty of the place. One of their first thoughts was for the religious interests of the settlers. They early set apart land, both in Brunswick and Topsham, for a church, and aided in the erection of a church building. There would seem to have been as much difficulty in settling a min- ister in those days as there is to-day. Perhaps the best preachers or the best men in the ministry were not attracted to these eastern wilds. Sometimes objection is made to the character of the preachers. Sometimes a simple dissatisfaction is ex- pressed. Now and then there was regular preaching for a few years, but on account of the too critical attitude of the town, or from the fault of the minister, or his dissatisfaction with his surroundings, changes were frequent. The first preaching, so far as the towns-people were concerned, was incidental, being given by missionaries sent by the General Court to the Indians. In 1718, however, the people voted in town meeting to raise money for the support of a minister, and for the expense of his removal to the place. In 1719 the first meeting-house was begun. It was placed about a mile south of the colleges. The dates that I just gave are significant. In 1717 Bruns- wick was constituted a township. One of the first acts of this new township was to provide for a minister, and to build a church. In 1739 it was finally incorporated as a town, the eleventh in Maine. Thus, as the energy of the Anglo-Saxon 26 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS pioneer was followed by Anglo-Saxon business enterprise, this, in its turn, was followed by Anglo-Saxon organization. This organization was made imperative by the circumstances of the case. There was among the people a rude energy. The spirit that brought them here would tend to make each stand by his own rights, or what he judged to be such. The Anglo-Saxon race is law abiding, but how can it be law abiding where there are no laws ? The town of Topsham was incorporated some- what later, and the turbulence that is recorded of that now so quiet village, shows the importance of the legal organization of a town. Indeed the organization was inevitable. The Anglo-Saxon is law making as well as law abiding. Just as surely as the plasma of the blood organizes according to the nature of the tissue with which it is in relation, so is there inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race this necessity of organization. Each group possesses also its plasma which tends to put on its fitting shape. This organization could be nothing but demo- cratic. The traditions of the past, by which in other lands men of the same race are still bound to the forms and to some of the realities of a monarchical or aristocratic society, had no force or meaning here in the wilderness. To this statement there must, however, be made one exception. It is hard to think of our Brunswick as a slave-holding town, yet in its early history, so late even as 1765, there were a few slaves in its population. Thus was formed, as soon as there was need and opportunity, an organization in which all, with the singular exception just named, were alike law-makers, and obeyers of the laws. Thus after the chaos of the forces of nature, after the wilderness, the home of beast and savage, after the lone- liness of the pioneer, we have at last a town, a member of a vast system of towns, orderly itself, and a part of a general order INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 27 far greater than itself, a town that is to perform its full share of work in the civilization and the higher culture of the world. Who were the people who constituted this new town? This it would be hard to say, so far as all of them were con- cerned. Some we are told, had for some reason or other given up their old names when they left the old world. In the new world they not only entered upon a new life, but they entered upon it as new men. Some were doubtless driven from their early home by stress of outward circumstances, the nature of which we can only guess. More came inspired by that restless energy which stirs in the very fibre of our race. All doubtless came in the hope of building up a comfortable home, if not a fortune, in this new land of promise. Whatever their history, and whatever their motives, these settlers would seem to have been, on the whole, sturdy and honorable men, men relying upon themselves and such as others may rely upon. There was little record of crime, little of disorder, so far as these men were concerned. It is interesting to see in the early town meetings and business transactions of the place the names occurring which have had a place ever since in the annals of the town. Thus in the petition for the incorporation of the town in 1735, occur with others the familiar names of Dunning, Stanwood, Giveen, Spear, Larrabee, Woodside, and Dunlap. It is interesting to see one person after another lifted out of the obscurity of the past through some grave or trivial reason, and held up to the gaze of the world, in a single attitude sometimes, in which a moment has been made immortal. There are those whom I have named and many others who are remem- bered for their service to the town, who stand conspicuous in its history because in every moment of need their fellow- townsmen turned to them for aid in its affairs or trusted- them 28 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS for counsel. Other names stand out for very different reasons. Thus the name of Granny Mitchell figures with the rest, to whom the town voted the sum of three pounds three shillings and eight pence. Less fortunately for her, figures Jeannie Eaton whose sole appearance in history is that she was sen- tenced to be stretched in the public stocks, and to have rotten eggs thrown at her by the passers by. The magistrate thought that he was sentencing her to an hour or two of disgrace. He did not know that he was sentencing her for all time, that she should sit in the stocks forever to receive the contempt or the pity of the gazers at her. In certain respects one of the most interesting personages that stands forth from the obscurity of these early days, is the Rev. Robert Dunlap. He was invited by the town to preach with a view to settlement in 1746. The next year he entered upon the regular duties of the minister of the town. He was paid as it would appear according to the custom of the time by money that was raised by a vote of the town, as a part of the regular tax. In 1760 there arose a difficulty between him and the town. The nature of this and the rights of the matter I do not know. As to Mr. Dunlap's claims upon our admira- tion in general I have nothing to say. What interests me in him is a letter written in the month of June, 1760. In this he insists upon two things : first, upon the payment of what he, rightly or wrongly, claimed to be due him from the town ; and, secondly, he insists, to use his own words, " That no man's monney or Rates Shall Ever Come Into my pocket or private use In aney shape: as ministerial taxes In this town; that Do's not adhere to my min' ry ." It is the utterance of a sentiment that was far ahead of his time. It is a recognition, apparently at his own cost, of the voluntary support of the ministry. Whatever may have been the faults and failings of the man, INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 29 this honor belongs to him of recognizing and proposing the American method of supporting the services of the church. While a few names and personalities thus stand out among the rest, it is the life in general of the men and women who were the founders of our town that interests us the most. This life must have been a hard and wearisome one. It was full of anxiety, and must often have been full of hardship and suffering. After the days of Thomas Purchase, the settlement was nearly given up on account of the dread of the Indians, so that when the Pejepscot company took possession of it, the work had practically to begin again. During the Indian wars which followed, the number of settlers was again greatly reduced. They must have lived a great part of the time in constant terror. They had the protection of Fort George, a structure of stone that stood where some of the factoiy board- ing houses now stand ; and within this in times of special peril, the greater part of the population was forced together. Some of the houses were what were called block houses ; that is, they were practically forts. We with our mail service three times a day, can hardly realize that there was a time when the only mail was carried by a dog that had been trained to the business. He carried his packet to Bath in about two hours, and brought back the return mail. After he was killed in the service, he was for a time replaced by a young man who carried the mail by water; that is, he swam the greater part of the way. It was not a cheerful thing to know that if the children strayed too far in their sport, they would be seized by the Indians. It was not a cheerful thing for the men to feel that while they were at work in the field, the Indians might at any moment come upon them. By a strange instinct, one would like to know how far inherited, the cattle would always flee in terror as the Indians drew near ; thus they were placed between so ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS the workmen and the forest as scouts. Besides the Indians, there were wolves. As late as 1786 and 1792 parties were pursued by wolves, one near Middle bay, the other near Mere brook. Each escaped, only by throwing back, from time to time, the fish or the meat that he was carrying, by which the wolves were for a moment stayed. Worse unquestionably than the real wolves, was the proverbial wolf. They came only occasionally, but " to keep the wolf from the door" was an unceasing and difficult task. The fathers of our town were very poor. Cry after cry went up from these manly hearts to the General Court for remission of taxes that they found it impossible to pay. They urged that they were a frontier town ; that they bore the brunt of the peril. Others purchased their peace largely through their exposure. This service could not be performed at no cost of expenditure or loss. They held out the hope that with the encouragement which they seek they 44 in a few years may become a useful part of the province.'" These cries would seem to have been unheeded. It is not strange that they were during these times a serious and sad population. Poorly fed, poorly clothed, in constant peril, this peril every now and then fulfilling its threat in theft and murder, it was enough that • they could hold their position. It was enough that they could keep up strong hearts : glad hearts we could not expect. We are grateful to them that they kept up their self-respect. We are grateful that those who could afford it, kept up a certain state, and preserved on Sundays and other important occasions the dignity of dress that belonged to the elder days. We are grateful for t _ - ° '-The old three-cornered hat And the breeches and all that," for the bush-wigs and the cues, and the shoe-buckles, and the powder with which the women showed that they still held up INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 31 their heads in the social world. We are grateful for all this, because it takes from the poverty of our fathers the element of squalor. It shows that they kept up a good heart, that they respected themselves as they had a good right to do : and that they expected the world to respect them. Doubtless those, the greater number, who were often shoeless and who were more or less rudely clad, had also their self-respect increased by the dignity assumed by those who were able to support it ; though we cannot suppose that the quaint old-fashioned garb possessed to them anything of the picturesqueness which it has for us. The dark days passed, however. The town stood the test of hardship and suffering ; and the days of peace and prosperity were to come. The next great epoch in its history was the founding of Bowdoin College ; the bill establishing it having been passed in 1794, and the college opening with the class of eight in 1802. It was a wonderful change which had taken place when into this region, so little while before the home of savage beasts and hardly less savage men, there came the fair humanities ; when the grace of classic thought and the lore of the best ages of the past, were united here with the promise of the future. The time had come when in these woods the young poet was to receive his inspiration, whose songs were to charm the world : and here was to wander that brooding spirit whose genius was to glorify the colonial age of which the town had borne so much of the burden. One who was to be the nation's head was trained in the shadow of these pines ; and many another whose name was to become famous in war, in statesmanship, in poetry, or in thought, was to find his nurture here. And later, where the Indian medicine man had, so little while before, rudely applied such healing as he could extract from the few plants the virtue of which he knew, or guessed 32 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS at, was to be placed a school in which should be taught the science of healing, as it is known to the best thought and study of the civilized world. After the founding of the college there was one more step which the town was to take to bring it into the circle of the world's activity. In 1809 was established a factory for the manufacture of cotton yarn. This was, however, only the forerunner of more elaborate and more successful undertak- ings. It showed that the time had come when the town could minister to the needs of the world, in a larger way than it had done before. The pressure of immediate need had fairly passed; and it could select its own method of giving and receiving in the exchange that binds communities together. The publication of a newspaper in 1820 forms an interest- ing epoch in the history of the place, for by the presence of such a paper a town first becomes conscious of itself. This publication was short-lived ; but it has been followed by a suc- cession of papers, sometimes very ably conducted, which have played an important part in local affairs. The anti-climax which we have followed — the church, the college, the factory — shows well the temper of the times, first the needs of spirit; then those of the intellect; and at last those of the outward life. Thus did the town fulfill the promise which it made when it asked for a relief from the burden of taxation, although the relief for which it asked had not been granted. In its whole history it has taken its part in all the great activities of the times through which it has endured. If there was war, its sons were ready to go forward to meet the foe. In the war of the Revolution the town, though then so weak, furnished at least 80 men. In the war of 1812, at least 331 Brunswick men took part. In the war of the Rebellion its roll of honor INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 33 comprised some 358 ; and the quota of Brunswick added not merely so many brave and true men, but added also to the list of names that the country honored. In peace the town has also done and is still doing its whole part. Thus we stand here to-day in the comfort and prosperity of the present, with all those years of burden and privation behind us. We stand here and look forward to still greater achievement. We see the magnificent water-power which has yet hardly begun to work for us. It has done, and is doing much, it is true ; but w r hat it has done and is doing is little more than its play, com- pared with what it might, and, as we believe, at some time will accomplish. With this power the town sits practically in the center of the railway system of the State, ready to receive and to distribute. It has also its center of literary life ; so that let its enterprises expand as they will, it can never become that most intolerable of places, a town given over to mills and factories. It will unite enterprise and refinement. The homes made comfortable by business skill, will catch some beauty of taste and culture. What is this but to describe an ideal town? We have thus, with a rapid glance beheld mighty transfor- mations. We have seen the chaos of physical forces supplanted by life ; and barbarism supplanted by civilization. In this age of questioning, can we avoid looking beneath the surface of things, and asking : What has been the gain ? The first contrast suggests the question: Is life worth living? and if so, wherein lies its worth ? The second contrast suggests the question : In what respect is civilization better than barbarism ? The first of these questions I will merely name, and leave it as foreign to this occasion. Upon the second, which is more directly forced upon us by the events that we commemorate, we will in conclusion dwell for a few moments. We have supplanted the rude life of the savage ; what that is better c 34 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS have we put into its place ? This may seem at first sight an idle question. The gain, has it not been uttered in the story that has been told ? Do not the comforts and the elegancies of our lives force upon us the reality of the gain ? Contrast with these the bare life of the savage, and what need we seek further to illustrate the mighty gain which history has made? But let us look more closely, let us condescend to question the facts more narrowly. We have comforts and elegancies ; the savage neither had them, nor wanted them ; how are we better off? I went once into the house of an Indian woman. It was fur- nished with hair-cloth chairs, sofa, and a rocking-chair. My hostess offered me a seat upon the sofa, then seated herself upon the floor. She had the furniture of civilization ; but, having it, she could afford so far as her own case was concerned, to despise it. We have warm houses, but what if the savage could keep himself warm without these appliances? We can go to England in a week and to the Pacific coast in less than a week. But what if he did not care to go to England, or to the Pacific coast? We have our telegraph. But, what if, as Emerson said : " The light out-speeding telegraph Bears nothing on its beam." Further, in comparing civilization with what we call the barbarism of the savage, it does not do to take merely the bright side of civilization and the dark side of barbarism. Civilization has also its dark side. It has hardships, sufferings, and crimes of which the barbarian knows nothing. It stands like some magnificent tree, fair in the sunlight, while its roots stretch deep and wide in the dark and noisome earth. But at least, you may say, we have our religion. Yes, we have our religion, so far as we do have it. This suggests what is the real answer to the question as to the gain which the INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 35 Anolo-Saxon has brought into the laud where the Indian roamed. There is the possibility of a larger life. There is an ideal which may manifest itself in all the varied ramifications of our society. So far as the relationships of our life are concerned, this implies a fellowship which is bound by no limit of high or low, or of near or far. It assumes as its form democracy, or something that is practically equivalent to this; and within this human interest, the interests of the whole and of each individual, so far as the lesser do not conflict with the greater, are supreme. This is that for which civilization should stand. According as it does or does not stand for this, so far it has or it does not have worth. Civilization, by itself considered, is like a magnificent body. It is possible for this to be animated by a soul, and when this soul is present there is a fullness, a richness, and a loftiness of living that may justify the cost at which the triumph has been reached. The gain, it will thus be seen, is a possibility, not a necessity. One may be so entangled in the details, may have so narrow an outlook, and such narrow aims, even if his position be a fair one, that he shall not reach the good which lies at the heart of this nine- teenth century. At best the ideal is but vaguely and partially distinguished, and at best what is beheld is but partially made real. Consider that form of the ideal which we might suppose to be most perfectly fulfilled in this America, the ideal of democ- racy. How far is this from its fulfillment ? The fear was once of the tyranny of the majority. That peril may exist at some time to come ; we have not reached it yet. The tyranny from which we suffer is the tyranny of the minority. Look at one or two examples. The strike is the working man's one weapon of defense, as it is his inalienable right. When the oppression of capital can be no longer borne, then a strike, honestly and 36 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS earnestly entered upon and carried out, may restore the social equilibrium, as a thunderbolt restores the equilibrium of the atmosphere. How few strikes are of this nature ! How many simply obey the demand of a blatant and defiant minority, while the man who under other circumstances would have died to preserve his liberty, stands as if bound hand and foot, and sees the fruits of a life-time vanish, and those whom he loves better than himself suffer because he does not dare to come to their relief ! Consider the spoils system in our politics. The country does not need it. I never heard it urged that a rail- road would be better managed if its employes were changed every four years, or oftener, if a change in the management has taken place. Is the business of our country of less impor- tance than that of a railway? You and I do not want this system. We want our business done in the simplest and most straightforward way possible. The two great parties of our country do not want it. They vie with one another in the strength of their condemnation. The Presidents selected by one or the other of the two great parties do not want it. They, too, denounce it, and when they yield to its demands, as who of them does not ? they claim that it is against their will. I cannot believe that oar Heads of Departments and our Con- gressmen in general want this system. It overburdens them with work which to most of them must be distasteful, and demands strength and time which could better be spent in the legitimate duties of their office ; though there may be some who are pleased to win in this manner an influence which they fear whatever talent they possess might not otherwise obtain. Who, then, does want it ? It is a minority to whom politics is a game, which, without this system of spoils, is as insipid as to an old gambler is a game of cards without stakes. I think it was Charles James Fox who said that the greatest pleasure in INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 37 life next to winning at cards is losing at cards. So these men would rather see the spoils distributed by a successful opponent according to the rules of the game, then enjoy a victory which would be to them barren without this fruitage. More powerful even than these is the smaller minority to whom politics in its lowest form is not a game but a business, who grow rich by the buying and selling of votes, who make bargains and " deals " and who, whatever happens, find their gain. It is these who bend parties and Presidents and Con- gresses to their will. It is this minority that so far rules over us. I do not say this in any spirit of discouragement. We are gathered to " thank God and take courage." I refer to this great burden which rests upon us because the occasion itself suggests a hopeful outlook. In its early days of weakness and struggle our patriotic little town took the name of " Bruns- wick," and it named its fort " Fort George." It honored thus in its simple loyalty what was in fact, alas ! that I must say it here to-day, the meanest dynasty that ever held the fate of England in its hands. Because the occasion brings us face to face with the reign of the Georges, I may speak of our own civil service with encouragement. Think of the state of the civil service of England then, a condition of things which makes our civil service of to-day seem clean. Think of Sir Robert Walpole, at the time when our little town was begin- ning its corporate existence, as the representative of the government, meeting members of Parliament with open bribes, and rarely if ever finding reason to doubt the truth of his often repeated saying, " Every one of these men has his price." We are told of bribery to-day, but it comes, let us be thankful for that, not from the government. Think of the time when in England, without such open bribes, not even the most needed 38 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS treaty could be ratified. Think of George the Third, late even in the eighteenth century, managing the affairs of a nation according to the methods of a ward politician. Remember, too, that this political corruption did not stand alone. Church livings, even bishoprics were given on the same principles of personal or partisan service. All this went, at least so far as the upper stratum of society is concerned, with social corrup- tion. Our political spoils system is a partial relapse into a single phase of a condition of things, such as I have described. Think what time and the resolute endeavor of earnest men have accomplished in England within the life-time of our town, and take courage ; but remember that time alone, without such endeavor, can do nothing. The great gain on an occasion like the present, is that we stand for the moment in the focus of two great lights. We see ourselves in the light of the past and in that of the future. We judge the past, and we know as we judge the past, so the future will judge us. We stand thus in the presence of an ideal partially fulfilled. It is the ideal of a democracy in which, while the minority have their share in the direction of affairs, they shall not govern the majority either by their violence or their cunning. We stand in the presence of a yet grander ideal, still more dimly seen ; that of a humanity in which is felt the power of common life ; in which man, as man, is felt to have immeasurable worth. It is this for which the arts of our civilization are preparing. It is this which our democracy symbolizes. It is this which, so far as the worldly life is concerned, is the meaning of Christianity. It is the presence of this ideal and its partial fulfillment, which justifies our joy in the triumph of civilization over barbarism. It is this which condemns us ; but it is this which fills our hearts with hope and courage. That the future will judge us, is of itself a INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 39 prophecy of good ; for it means that the ideal will one day be more clearly seen, and have more power over the hearts and lives of men. When we turn from that which the town in its short history has seen, and that larger life in which in the future it will have its part, to that which has been seen within the town, a differ- ent lesson comes to us. Whatever the world may have in store, whatever gain in the appliances of life and in life itself, there is one thing in which the future can never outdo the past. Heroism is always the same. The world will never have heroes nobler than those which have already lived. Patience and courage and self-forgetful energy are alike precious under all forms and circumstances of life. To-day we lift the heroism of the fathers of our town up from the obscurity in which their lives were passed, and honor it. Let it be an inspiration to our own lives ; so that when the great light of the future is turned back upon our memories, as we turn back the light of the present upon theirs, we, in the peace and comfort of our homes, shall be seen to be no unworthy successors of those whose strong arms and brave hearts conquered for us the wilderness. POEM. Pkofessor Hekry Lelaxd Chapmax. I. In the sweet tones of music breathes a spell Of twofold power to touch the human heart, — A spell that Nature weaves, no less than Art, Herself an instrument wherein cloth dwell The harmony of sounds that sink and swell In varying chords; now suited to impart Gladness to life, and now to soothe its smart ; — A harmony more rich than speech can tell. A spell of twofold power, that leads the soul, Thro' pleasant melodies, into the land Of memory; or with notes more full and free Unveils the realm of hope : so is the whole Of life by subtle concord sweetly spanned, The years that have been, and the years to be. ii. The river, flowing onward to the sea, Sings to itself, and sings to all that hear, A pleasant song, alike at work or play ; Its foamy fingers sweep, with careless skill, The wheel revolving 'neath the busy mill, And straight it seems a harp of tuneful key, Whose liquid melody beguiles the ear That listens to it on a summer's day. INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 41 This is its work; and when its work is done It hurries forth to greet again the sun, And gleams and sparkles on its winsome way, In all the rapture of unfettered play. It ripples o'er the stones, and, like a brook, Trills a clear strain of wanton merriment ; It rests a moment in some eddying nook, Crooning an air of undisturbed content ; With deep-toned mirth it leaps the threatening fall, Hearing below the rich melodious call Of the full current, in the tranquil pride With which it moves to meet the ocean tide. But in this changing music of its moods We catch the whispered accents of the woods Bending to parley with the siren stream That flashes by them like some transient dream ; We hear the singing birds that dip their bills In the cool current ; 'mong the quiet hills We hear the woodman's axe, in echo ring Thro' the still air, and listen to the spring Whose tiny voice begins the haunting theme That runs through all the music of the stream ; — A theme that still invites our feet to roam Back with the river to its early home, And 'gainst its current, in our thought, to glide Thro' meadow, hamlet, wood, and mountain-side, To the clear rill, whose unforgotten note Seems, like a wraith of Melody, to float Adown the current, sweetly to compel The thoughts of men to yield to memory's spell. ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS III. A solemn cadence thrills the patient shore Beaten by tides, and by the waves that break Upon it, while their low-voiced echoes wake Desire to know the secret evermore Held by the sea, yet uttered o'er and o'er ; — A secret which the wayward clouds partake, Drifting across the upper deeps that make No answer to the ocean's ceaseless roar. It is the secret of the vast Unseen, Stretching away beyond our feeble ken ; And in the music of the waves we hear Hints of far shores, and shrines, and islands green, Where Hope the enchantress dwells, and beckon men To seek the riches of her unknown sphere. IV. O town beloved ! Mistress of our hearts ! Proud in the beauty that thine age imparts, Proud in the reverence that thy children pay To thee, in memory of thy natal day, Bending a look of recognition sweet On us who gather at thy gracious feet, — What shall we offer at thy festal shrine ? What but the love that is already thine, The loyalty renewed that feeds its fires With the fond memories which this day inspires, The wishes, that our tongues but faintly frame, For added lustre to thine honored name? These be our offerings ; nor wilt thou refuse INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 43 To take them at our hands, while thou dost muse, With eyes down-dropt, submissive to the spell, In which the past and future seem to dwell, The spell of music falling on thine ears, Where thou dost sit amid thy thronging years. For through the chorus of thy children's praise Steals thy fair river's reminiscent song, Leading thy thoughts, by sad and sunny ways, Back to remembered scenes now vanished long; The present fades before thy dreaming eyes, And the bright visions of the past arise. The pioneers, who tilled thy virgin soil, Salute thee, pausing in their patient toil; The captains, from their homeward-speeding ships Shout a glad greeting through their bearded lips; Light-hearted youths, in ever-changing throngs, Repeat thy name in academic songs ; And stalwart soldiers bid thee brave adieu As they go forth to join the boys in blue. Kindles thine eye with unaccustomed light As these fair visions pass before thy sight, Summoned by that soft spell the river throws About thee, as its constant current flows Close by thy side, and chants a low refrain That calls the vanished centuries back again. While thus thou sittest, wrapped in grateful thought Of days departed long, yet not forgot, The. ocean, with its never-resting tide And rhythmic passion, presses to thy side, Breaks at thy feet, and thrills thy listening ear ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS Like the deep voice of some prophetic seer. And lo ! thine eyes are lifted, and alight With hopes that rise upon thy quickened sight, Gilding with light the untold years that wait To add new beauties to thy queenly state. For like the babe that rode to Merlin's feet On a wild wave, the realm's great king to be, Floats a fair promise to thy wave-washed seat, Borne on the diapason of the sea ; — A promise of the grace, yet unrevealed, That coming years shall to thy presence yield ; Of gifts more precious from the sunlit skies Than those which charm thy backward-turning eyes Of wealth, love, learning, and the happy pride Of her whose sons in loyal faith abide. So listening to the river and the sea, Whose voices blend in sweetest harmony Of hope and memory, thou dost seem to greet Thine elder sons and future, as they meet And join with us, who throng about thee now To crown with living love thy radiant brow. THE PROCESSION. At the close of the exercises in the church, the procession, which had been forming by sections in different parts of the town, was brought into line and began its march. The route pursued was down Main Street to Mason Street, thence to Federal Street and up Fed- eral to Bath Street, through Bath and Potter Streets to Union Street, through Lincoln Street to Main Street, up Main Street to the rail- road crossing at the head of the Mall, down Park Row and Main Street to Bank Street, thence to Federal Street, where the proces- sion was dismissed. The length of the procession was estimated at three-quarters of a mile and it is said to have taken half an hour in passing any given point. It was formed in seven divisions as follows : FIRST DIVISION. Detachment of Police. Chief Marshal, Charles E. Townsend. E. W. Johnson, Wm. M. Pennell, Geo. D. Parks, Aids. Military Band of Portland. Chamberlain Guards of Brunswick — Lieut. W. O. Peterson, Commanding. Vincent Mountfort Post, G. A. R. — J. A. Fisher, Commanding. In Carriages. — Governor and Staff, Orator and Poet, President of the Day, Invited Guests, Town Officers, General Committee. Brunswick Wheel Club. SECOND DIVISION. F. H. Wilson, Marshal; L. J. Bodge, O. W. Turner, E. A. Thompson, Aids. Brunswick Cadet Band. In Carriages. — Faculty of Bowdoin College and Maine Medical School. Students of Bowdoin College. THIRD DIVISION. E. C. Day, Marshal; Edward Toothaker, Aid. Boys' Band. School Committee. Teachers and Pupils of the Public Schools. FOURTH DIVISION. Fire Department. St. John's French Band. S. B. Dunning, Chief Engineer. T. S. Melcher, C. S. Stimpson, A. R. Nickerson, E. H. Woodside, Assistants. ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS Old Fire Engine of 1838. Kennebec, No. 1 — J. H. French, Foreman. Niagara, No. 3— E. Nickerson, Foreman. General Bates Company of Lisbon Falls. Pejepscot Hook and Ladder Company — L. Litchfield, Foreman. FIFTH DIVISION. I. H. Danforth, Marshal; Geo. Knight, Frank Hicks, Aids. Drum and Fife Corps. Floats representing the Early History of Brunswick : Pejepscot Canoe Club. Capture of Molly Phinney. The Spinning-Wheel. The Loom. The Minute-Man. The Old Chaise. Parson Dunlap. The Stocks. SIXTH AND SEVENTH DIVISIONS. F. H. Adams, Marshal. Charles S. Frazier, Woodbury Purinton, H. Mallett, Aids. Agricultural Display and Trade Exhibits : A. T. Campbell. Harvey Stetson. Dennison Manufacturing Company. Bowdoin Paper Company. John D. Nagle. F. H. Wilson. J. Furbish. Silas Goddard & Son. Howland & Colton. J. W. & O. R. Pennell. F. C. Webb. Whitehouse Brothers. Topsham Flour Mills. W. O. Peterson. L. D. Snow. Robert Jordan. Adams & Ridley. Spear & Whitmore. J. & A. M. Murray. C. E. Townsend. E. Hacker & Son. Androscoggin Pulp Company. A. W. Townsend. S. R. Jackson. E. S. Crawford. C. H. Colby. G. W. Crane. F. M. Stetson. INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 47 Some of the features of the procession deserve more than a mere mention, and fairly call for full description. The Pejepscot Canoe Club exhibited the advance made in boat-building by presenting together an Indian birch-bark canoe and a modern one of the latest fashion. The capture of Molly Phinney was set forth in a highly dramatic manner by three men disguised as Indians, and a girl whom they captured and released again many times as the procession moved on. The spinning-wheel and loom were kept in operation by competent and active women. The minute-man was shown at his plough armed with an old musket of 1775 actually used at old Fort George. An old chaise bore its history inscribed upon it as follows : "Built by Orrin Head, Exeter, N. H., 1819." Parson Dunlap was presented riding on a saddle which belonged to old Parson Eaton of Harpswell with a Bible of 1737 and a hymn-book of 1820. The stocks were constructed in accurate imitation of the article in use in colonial days. An old chaise dating from 1785 was driven by a man clad in a suit of clothes of 1789. The public schools received great and well-deserved applause for their part in the procession. The floats were numerous and well arranged and added greatly to the bright and animating appearance of the whole. The trade exhibits were numerous and elaborate and showed very favorably the variety and the vigor of the business life of the place. They formed the largest element in the procession, and reflected great credit on the energy and public spirit of the men who presented them. The procession was dismissed about 2 o'clock, amid general expressions of satisfaction. The success of it was very largely due to the untiring efforts of Chief Marshal Charles E. Townsend who spared no cost of time or pains in carrying out the programme. It was estimated that at this time there were from 10,000 to 12,000 people in the town, including the citizens themselves. THE DINNER. After the procession was dismissed, a dinner was given at the Town Hall at which four hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen were seated. At the long table in front of the stage sat Dr. Alfred Mitchell, President of the Day ; on his right the Governor and Staff and Members of Congress ; on his left the Orator and Poet and other invited guests. A blessing was asked by Rev. L. S. Crosley. The dinner was furnished by George E. Woodbury & Son, and the following bill of fare was offered : Boned Turkey. Larded Prairie Chicken. Cucumbers. Sliced Tomatoes. Philadelphia Capon. French Fried Potatoes. Sliced Ham. Sliced Tongue. Radishes. Lettuce. Lobster Salad. Chicken Salad. Philadelphia Ice-Cream. ASSORTED SWEETS. Angel Cake. Chocolate Cake. Pound Cake. Walnut Cake. Marble Cake. Lady Fingers. Kisses. Macaroons. Strawberries and Cream. Vienna Coffee. FRUIT. Oranges. Bananas. Grapes. At 3 o'clock, Doctor Mitchell called the company to order, and gave the first regular toast of the day : "The Town of Brunswick," to which Mr. Frank E. Roberts, Chairman of the Board of Select- men, responded as follows : REMARKS OF FRANK E. ROBERTS, CHAIRMAN OF SELECTMEN. Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — I regret to say that I am one of those unfortunates who were born without the limits of Brunswick. But soon after attaining the age of manhood and learning of the many good qualities of Brunswick and its inhabitants, I immediately removed here and have been a Brunswicker for the INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 49 last thirteen years. Since living here I have done what I could to remedy nay misfortune. I have done that thing which is next best to being born here. I married a Brunswick girl. Therefore I can truly say that the better half of me was born in Brunswick. I have been recently studying genealogy, and I find that my maternal great-grandmother was a Bruuswick woman. I am pleased to say that there is some Bruuswick blood flowing through my veins to-day. For this reason, and by virtue of my office, it is, perhaps, fitting that I respond for the old town to-day. Mr. President, I am glad and proud to speak for Bruuswick at any and all times. We have listened to-day to the grand history of the old town, recouuted to us in eloquent words by one of her dis- tinguished sons. He has told us of the trials and privations of the early settlers. He has told us of their success under great difficul- ties. He has told how, unaided and alone, the men of those times defended their homes and their families from the torch and the scalping knife of the savage. We have read in the history of Brunswick of the great number of men sent from here into other parts of the state in the Indian Wars. We have read of the large number of men who went from here into the Revolutionary Army and fought for the independence of their country. I have seen it recently stated, on no less authority than that of Geueral Joshua L. Chamberlain, that at the close of the War of the Revolution, while General Washington was reviewing the troops, he rode up and down the lines, and, halting before the 3d Division of Massachusetts troops, exclaimed "God bless Massachusetts." That division before which he halted was composed of men from York and Cum- berland Counties. Some of them were Brunswick men and they have many descendants in town to-da}^. We have read of the many men who served from Brunswick in the War of 1812. We know that in the War of the Rebellion Brunswick sent to the front nearly half a regiment of men. We know, too, that over eighty of that number never returned. Their bones are in the Sunny South to-day, but their names are inscribed in enduring marble on yonder tablet. What is the lesson of all this ? We learn that true courage and love of country have ever been prominent traits in the character of the men of Brunswick. Brunswick was incorporated as the eleventh town in the Province of Maine. At the time of the last census, in 1880, it enjoyed the distinction of being the largest and wealthiest town in the state. It D 50 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS was not only the largest town in the state, but was also larger than four of the cities and richer than five. Of the fifteen cities in the state at that time, and the hundreds of towns, it was eleventh in popula- tion and tenth in wealth. There is but little reason to doubt that it retains the same relative rank to-day, for it contains within its borders over 6,000 inhabitants, and has a valuation of nearly $3,500,000. To show you, sous and daughters of Brunswick, who have returned here to-da}?, that we, as a community, are alive to the necessities and conveniences of modern civilized life, I will say that in the year 1883 we built this splendid Town Building, a building erected not only for the convenience of the officers of the town- and its inhabitants, but also as a memorial to those Brunswick heroes of the War of the Rebellion who died that their country might live. In 1885 there was built here, by the Pejepscot Water Company, a complete system of water-works, and we have to-day upon our streets sixty hydrants for fire purposes, and in our homes the purest of water. In 1887 there was established here an electric light plant, and at night our streets are lighted by electricity. All this has been done within six years, and before two years more have elapsed, we confidently expect to see the electric cars running up and down our streets, and before the end of the decade, we are going to have in Brunswick a complete system of sewers. We, the men of Brunswick of to-day, believe that great changes are to take place here within a short period. We believe, among these changes, that the little cluster of summer residences at Mare Point is but the advance guard of many others that are to line our beautiful shores. We believe that the magnificent water-power here at the Falls, one of the very best in New England, will soon be utilized for manu- facturing purposes to its fullest extent. We believe that the river will be dammed at Simpson's Rips, and that large power, by the aid of electricity, be brought to our very doors and also fully utilized. We believe that Brunswick is soon to be what it was intended to be by nature, the most beautiful, as well as one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the grand old State of Maine. The second regular toast was the. " State of Maine," to which Governor Edwin C. Burleigh responded as follows : REMARKS OF GOVERNOR BURLEIGH. Most sincerely I congratulate the citizens of Brunswick that they are able to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth year of its incor- poration under such auspicious circumstances, and that they have INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 51 reason to look upon the history of their beautiful town with so much interest and pride. The important relation which Brunswick has long sustained in the state is well understood by the public. The character of her citizens and public men for many years has been to her distinguished credit throughout New England and in other sections of the country. The large beneficial influence of Bowdoin College to Maine in rearing so many of her sons for the professions and in maintaining the standing of our popular institutions of education proves its inestimable value, not only to Brunswick, but to the entire state. I may be allowed to express my regret that it was not permitted me to share the discipline and stimulating advantages of this institution, which has been the nursery and classic home of so many distinguished literary and public men, but I have given my earnest appreciation of its great importance in that I have sent to be taught by its honored professors those in whom I have reason to cherish the dearest regard of blood and affection. But you expect me, Mr. President, to say a word in response directly to the toast " The State of Maine." As a business man, having had occasion to know in past years considerable of the natural resources of the state, I am happy to express the opinion that it is a good state in which to be born and in which to live. Of the large agricultural resources of Maine, yet only partially devel- oped, I need not remark. They are well known, though not sufficiently appreciated by our own people. Recent opportunities of seeing different sections of Maine have largely strengthened my estimate of her resources for manufacturing and of her beautiful sites and opportunities for summer residences of the thousands from the great cities of other states. Reviewing what we have and what we are likely to possess in the probable course of events, neither we nor those who are to come after us will be likely to have occasion to regret being citizens of Maine. Congressman Dingley was called upon to answer to the toast "The United States," and after a few introductory sentences, spoke as follows : REMARKS OF HON. NELSON DINGLEY, JR. I was thinking why it was that I should be set apart to respond to the sentiment, "The United States," and asked myself how it happened that the United States should be called upon to pay 52 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS obeisance to Brunswick here to-day, but when the distinguished gentleman who set forth the glories of the town at the opening of the entertainment, remarked that Brunswick was older than the United States, I thought I had the explanation ; it is the daughter come home to the mother, for Brunswick is older than the government of the United States. And we have great regard and great respect for her age. That reminds me that when I got into the carriage to-day, I heard two boys discussing what all this noise was about. One of them said, "Joe, what are they all doing here to-day ?" "Why, Jim," responded the other boy, " don't you know that Brunswick is one hundred and fifty years old to-day ; and you are only ten years? " That shows the spirit that is running in the veins even of the ten- year-old boys of Brunswick to-day. Several years ago it was my good fortune to make a trip throughout the various countries of Europe. One bright morning I found myself in a Swiss town. Hearing shouts going up as I rose in the morning, I inquired of a by-stander as I went down stairs : "What is going on ? " "Why," said he, " we are celebrating the six hundredth anniversary of our city to-day." Now, six hundred } T ears in a European town with all its boasts of antiquity, is nothing compared with a one hundred and fifty-year-old town in the United States, is it? Has not more been accomplished here in the one hundred and fifty years in which many of our towns have existed as incorporated municipalities, than in the six hundred years of many venerable cities of Europe? The truth is that one hundred and fifty years with us means a great deal more that one hundred and fifty, or even two hundred years of Europe. You remember the poet well says: "Better fifty }^ars of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." But better fifty years of a municipality in the United States than a cycle in some parts of Europe. And now, my friends, what connection is there between this municipality, this town of Brunswick and the United States? Why it seems to me that there is the connection that is always to be found between the parent and the child. It is to the town system of government that we owe this government of the United States. If we had not had the town to start with, if our people had not been trained to govern themselves by their town meetings scattered throughout New England, we never could have had a government of the United States. I know the suggestion was made a few moments ago that Brunswick was the largest town in Maine and that in the near future she would become a city. Now I want to make this INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 53 suggestion : do not hurry to the city government until you are actually compelled to. Why not? Because there is that in the government of a town which can never be gained from that of a city. Every individual may come together to discuss and listen to the words of wisdom of each other, receiving advice, giving advice. There is an education which cannot possibly exist in any other form of municipal government. Though the day of municipal govern- ment will undoubtedly come, yet put that day off as far as possible. But, my friends, I did not come here to-day to make a speech. You have with you the distinguished representative of this district who came here expecting to make a speech. And now, thanking you for the invitation to be present, and hoping that at no distant day we may sit about your board and congratulate you upon your 200th anniversary, I will give way to the gentleman who has come prepared to address you. After the remarks of Congressman Dingley, the President called upon the Hon. Thomas B. Reed to respond for ' k All Creation." Mr. Reed said : REMARKS OF HON. THOMAS B. REED. I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen, to be obliged to commence what I have to say by an apology. I am sorry to be obliged to say to you that my presence here to-day was one of the reasons why Governor Dingley was not born in Brunswick. I remember, some little time ago, sitting in the rain for some fifteen minutes while the Governor paid a beautiful, touching, and eloquent tribute to the town of his birth — the town of Unity, in Waldo County. I found, to my aston- ishment, a few months ago, that the Governor was also born in the town of Durham, in Androscoggin County. And nothing but my presence here, I say again, has prevented you from having, or rather sharing, the honor of its being his birthplace. I felt, therefore, that I ought to be apologetic, for in history it will be a great honor to any town in this state to have even shared the reputation of being the birthplace of Governor Dingley. I had prepared myself somewhat for personal reminiscences in regard to Brunswick by getting up at half past four this morning, but to my astonishment I found that, contrary to what was the case when I was in college, it is light at that early hour. My recollection of the getting-up time in Brunswick is that it was always dark. But we seem to have changed that now, and I am unable, therefore, to go into the reminiscent vein. 5-4 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS I am only going to trouble you with some general observations which I regret to state I have not had the opportunity of preparing. But it seemed to me. as I was listening to the oration of Professor Everett to-day, that even if you leave out of account the record of the rocks to which he referred, and take into account only written history, that one hundred and fifty years, or even two hundred and fifty years, is a small period of time to take much account of. If it were antiquity alone that we were celebrating to-day, it would not be worth either the trouble or the expense, but these celebrations take deeper root upon the human heart than the mere lapse of years. They touch our souls because they are instinct not with years, but with humanity. I suppose that it is the dream of every educated American who has not already done so, to travel beyond the seas in lands of historic glory. "We do not desire to go there simply because years have rolled over the mountains and the valleys and the great struct- ures of architecture. Our mountains are as old. our buildings are as flue, and yet they have not to us that attraction which they have abroad. With our mountains are not connected, as witli the Alps, the passage of Hannibal and the triumphal march of Napoleon. Our capitol at Washington can take its place in grandeur and in beauty alongside any palaces of the past, but it is not yet thronging with associations of great men. of brave men. and of noble women. That is what gives the attraction to the human heart in those build- ings of the historic countries. What makes "Westminster Abbey beloved of us all? It is not the grandeur of the stones piled upon each other to the top of the pinnacle and the summit of the towers ; it is not the beautiful tracery of the windows nor the rich light of the stained glass. It is because it is the home of England's noblest' dead. "Wherever you have the touch of humanity, wherever you connect scenes with the deeds and doings of men who have lived and fought and suffered as we are doing, the chain is beyond the power of breaking to the human being. Hence it is that these cele- brations have such a hold upon our hearts. It brings before us the deeds and doings of those who have made life easier for us by their sacrifice in the past. It is no discredit for a town to be a mere spot upon the surface of the earth, when it is lighted up by some deed of human heroism or human self-denial, and it adds to our strength as a people and as a nation to fill our minds with the associations of noble deeds connected with our towns and with all our localities. INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 55 Therefore it is that I hail with pleasure any such scene as this. I believe that the great deeds of the past are incitations to us forever for noble deeds in the future, and the history of Brunswick is full of the same. These celebrations also bring up to us the associations which make life pleasant and happy. There is to me no more pleasant thought than that I belong to the list of those who were graduated at the noble college on the hill. It is not so great as many a university. It is not so famous as many a college ; but for the production of men of sense, of culture and of learning, it has almost no equal, and I venture to say, no superior. One sentence more and I am through. It ought to be the effort of every citizen of Brunswick to do his best that the generation which makes the next celebration will be able to speak as well of you as we who talk to-day can of those who are dead and buried now. Dr. Mitchell then called upon President Hyde to respond for '•Bowdoin College." President Hyde spoke substantially as fol- lows : REMARKS OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM DeWITT HYDE. One hundred and one years ago, the justices of the peace and the Congregational ministers of Cumberland County petitioned the Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts to establish a college in the District of Maine ; and, out of many rivals for the hand of the dowerless insti- tution, Brunswick, with the munificent offer of some two hundred acres of sand-plain valued at two shillings per acre, was the suc- cessful suitor. It has been fortunate for the college that it was placed here, beside your broad and quiet highway from the river to the sea, and surrounded by the warm hospitality of your pleasant Brunswick homes. Freely the college has received the encouragement, the sympathy, the support of Brunswick's best citizens in service upon the Boards of Government, in the office of Treasurer, and in the less conspic- uous, but to an institution depending so largely on public sympathy, equally important lines of personal loyalty and friendly influence in its behalf. Freely the college has given back an educational impulse and a moral enthusiasm to the town. Many of the sons of Bruns- wick have received a collegiate education who were unable to go to a distance to secure it ; and a goodly number of the fair daughters of the town, though debarred from studying within its walls, yet 56 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS have become daughters-in-law of the college and have it to thank for loving husbands and happy homes. The Prof essors have been from the first loyal and devoted citizens of the town. What nobler type of the true citizen was ever given to a town than Professor William Smyth ! Faithful to the college, our Memorial Hall is the monument of his enthusiasm and energy. Faithful to the church, the spacious edifice in which we were assem- bled this morning bears witness to his faith and zeal. Faithful to the town, our school system is the fruit of his untiring perseverance, and our high school is the crown of the victory he won after a long and bitter fight against selfish prejudice and obstinate ignorance. He. with a colored man from " Harris Hill." cast the first two votes for abolition that were cast in town. His house was the headquar- ters of anti-slavery lecturers and agitators, and the Brunswick station of the underground railway was at his home. Fidelity to his public duties carried him so far in this direction that the timid conservatives, who constituted the governing Boards of the College, appointed a committee whose verbal instructions were, u to investi- gate the state of instruction in Bowdoin College." but whose animus and object was to discover that Professor Smyth was engaging in political agitation to the neglect of his college work. In some way or other the scheme got wind, and the students, with that love of fair play which is characteristic of them, resolved that the grand old man should not go out by an} T such back-door as that. So they studied their mathematics as they never had studied before, and I fear never have studied since, and when the committee came to examine the class they found to their confusion and dismay that apparently the state of mathematical instruction in Bowdoin College was all that could be desired. Such in greater or less degree has been the character of the Professors which Bowdoin College has contributed to the citizenship of Brunswick. Though the Presidents have been of all sorts, from the dreamy scholar and mystic divine to the dashing General and brilliant Gov- ernor, yet there is one essential function they always have fulfilled. They are excellent scapegoats. For however far any of you may stray from the path of virtue, you may always console yourselves with the assurance that as long as there is a College President in town he will be accused of doing or permitting to be done something in- finitely worse. Only last Memorial Day, when some of the lawyers and business men of the town got together and played a game of INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 57 ball, I steadfastly refused repeated invitations to join the game, and did not even go to the grounds and witness it ; yet next morning while these gentlemen saw nothing in the morning papers to spoil their breakfast, I was held up to the people of the state as the chief desecrator of the day, because the college nine had played a game of ball. College and town have dwelt together for more than fourscore years ; and in spite of " Yagger wars " and friendly lawsuits the bond between the two has been growing firmer with the increasing years. And among the many causes for congratulation which this anni- versary brings to mind, one of the foremost is the charter of Bow- doin College, granted June 24, 1794, which took the sterile sands of yonder hill where only the pine and the blueberry could flourish, and planted there an institution which has sent forth more than two thousand noble men for the service of the State and the heal- ing of the Nation, for the glory of G-od and the blessing of mankind. The next speaker was William M. Sargent, Esq., of Portland, who had prepared for the occasion the following paper on Thomas Pur- chase from which he read some extracts : THOMAS PURCHASE BY WILLIAM M. SARGENT. Stemmata quid faciunt? — " Of what use are genealogies?" satiri- cally queried old Juvenal ; and at his time and before his audience he was doubtless justified for his taunting gibe at a very scholarly and recondite pursuit, for his fellow-Romans were not over-addicted to decorous centennial celebrations, and could have found but little satisfaction in tracing back through hundreds of years of obscurity to a mythical origin and a ferine foster-mother. To make no mention on this auspicious occasion of the worthy old gentleman who was your first settler would be leaving out from the play the principal dramatis persona ; and so upon the invitation and assurance of your committee that such additional facts as have not before found their way into print concerning Thomas Purchase, the founder of your settlement here, would be especially grateful and acceptable to Brunswick citizens, at this their sesqui-centennial, this paper is now brought forward. At first it seemed but supererogatory to attempt to add aught to the comprehensive sketch of his life, times, and character so admir- ably presented by the Messrs. Wheeler in their comprehensive 58 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS history of your town, 1 and which must be so well known to yon that a re-description of his life and deeds would be a trite and well- worn theme ; but so fruitful are our only partially explored fields of research that be a given tract never so thoroughly harvested, careful search and comparison may bring to light overlooked gleanings that will round out and embellish the garnered sheaves. And your critical indulgence is craved for this, a hastily prepared paper from notes confessedly incomplete, produced rather in the hope of stimulating further research than as a satisfactory offering to your laudable curiosity, or a complete tribute to the man whose memory we to-day in part commemorate. But upon the assurance that you will now for the first time learn Purchase's last wife's name ; the names of all his five children, the names of the persons each one married, a part if not the whole of his grandchildren ; his relationship to his partner George Way ; others of his very respectable relatives ; the probable disposition of the Way and Purchase patent, or at least its whereabouts, as late as A.D. 1737; and an extract that will further aid in locating the exact place of his abode — upon the fulfillment of this assurance, it is hoped that this audience, unlike old Juvenal's, will admit that in this clay and generation the genealogist's is not a wholly thankless avocation. In attempting to straighten out the relationships of his family, confusion has been worse confounded by the facts that there wer& three Thomas Purchases ; that two of them married women whose Chris'tian names were Elizabeth ; that there were three Elizabeth Purchases, two of whom married men each named John Blany ; and that two of Purchase's sons married sisters surnamed Williams. From such a tangled snarl, small wonder that writers have so far failed to deduce straight lines. Ours, then, the pleasing task to unravel this knotted skein. The first difficulty is easily resolved by a reference to the " York Deeds," published by the liberality of our State. The conveyance to Richard Wharton in 1683 by Mrs. Elizabeth Blany, "the late relict and administratrix of Thomas Purchase of Pejepscott," is also signed by " Elizabeth Purchase," the relict of Thomas Purchase, Junior, deceased. 2 There is a plain enough distinction, and 1 History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, by George A. Wheeler,. M.D., and Henry W. Wheeler. Boston, 1878. 2York Deeds. IV., 16 and 17. INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 59 the Salem Records 3 also show that 11 Thomas Purchase and Elizabeth Williams were married 3d-10mo '79," or a year and a half after the death of the elder man, which will be hereafter shown to have occurred in May, 1678. This Elizabeth Williams is the woman who has been so often erroneously but persistently assigned to the elder Thomas. Thomas Purchase's first wife, or at any rate his first Amer- ican wife, Mary Gove, died in Boston, November 7, 1655. 4 It is certain that no children by her survived their father, for when he died at Lynn, May 1, 1678, he left by his will, 5 dated May 2, 1677, probated June 4, 1678, one-third of his estate to his wife, Elizabeth, and the other two-thirds to his five children. Of these, his son Thomas, in his petition for administration, refusing the executor- ship to which he had been appointed by his father, states that he was a young man. He was probably just at maturity, and certainly unmarried, which occurred eighteen months later, as shown above. The widow, Elizabeth Purchase, having married in November, 1679, John Blauy of Lynn, 6 in 1683 conducted the negotiations that led to the transfer of Purchase's moiety of Brunswick and adjacent tracts to Richard Wharton 7 for a consideration of £20 paid down, £130 more to be paid upon production of a copy of the Patent, 8 and several lots of land reserved. This she did as sur- viving administratrix, her son Thomas having never been heard from, and judicially determined to have been lost at sea. 9 In the conveyance is this significant reservation, viz. : " One hundred and fifty pounds . . . and seaven lotts and shares of land reserved and secured by articles signed by the sd Wharton bearing date with these Presents." This conveyance is signed by those of Purchase's children who were by law capable of contracting — two in number, Jane, the wife of Oliver Ellkines, and Elizabeth, the wife of John Blany, Junior, by the legal representative of a third, Elizabeth, the widow of Thomas Purchase, Junior, and by the mother in behalf of the other two who were minors, but not naming them. Among the files of our Maine Historical Society there is preserved a fragment, half obliterated by accident and the corroding 3 Essex Inst. III., 15. 4 Boston Com. Rep. IX., 52. 5 Salem Probate Office. II., 348. 6 Lynn Records, Essex Inst. V., 173. 7 York Deeds. IV., 16 and 17, supra. ■ 8 Pejepscot Records, 143 and foil. 9 Saiem Probate Office. III., 121. 60 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS tooth of time, of the counterpart 8 of these w ' articles signed by the sd Wharton," and by the greatest good fortune enough of it still remains to supply the names of the other two children ; they were Abraham Purchase, named therein, and Sarah Purchase, named in the part that is missing, as the following receipt for a payment on account of her share, by her mother, conclusively proves : Boston, June 26, 1687. Rec'd then Forty shillings in money of R. Wharton in behalf of my daughter Sarah Purchase within named. I say Rec'd „ „ p Eliza. E Blany her mark. Having thus enumerated all the five children mentioned by Thomas Purchase in his will, attention is immediately arrested by an apparent discrepancy in the wording of the fifth paragraph of said "articles," viz. : " for each of ye seven shares before engaged to be laid out to the said Eliza & her six children." The only inference that can be drawn from that is that this woman had another child either before or since her marriage with Purchase. Now this fragment begins thus : " Pike Shall of the said Lands and each of them have a share of one hundred acres laid Out in home Lotts & out Lots in Proportion with others when a Plantation shall Be Layd out," and is signed among others by one Samuel Pike; and this Samuel Pike had also brought in an account of fifty pounds against the estate for the diet of Mr. Purchase for seven months and the diet of the four younger children. He was a brave and exem- plary young man, who afterwards was an Ensign in the Indian wars from 1687, 10 and it was he, and not his father, who gave the first warning of the Indian outbreak of 1676, and was one of the deter- mined band who held out until succor arrived in the fort they threw up on the inner slope of Cushing's Island under the Rev. George Burroughs. 11 And he it is who discloses who his mother was before marrying Purchase ; in a petition about 1688 he claimed that his father, Richard Pike, deceased, had been possessed of a tract of land on the west side of Mussel Cove. So Mrs. Elizabeth Purchase, the second wife of Thomas Purchase and his surviving widow, is abundantly proven to have been three times married : first to Richard Pike, second to Thomas Purchase, and third to John Blany, Senior. Thomas Purchase, Junior, married Elizabeth Williams, December 10 Willis' History of Portland, 268. 11 Sargent's Cushing's Island, 27, 29, INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 61 3, 1679, and hud a son Thomas, born January 29, 1680, and of him the following is the last record : "25 Nov., 1684, Thomas Purchase having been on a voyage to sea 3 years since with Mr. Habbakkuk Turner & no one of ye men on ye ship yet heard of Administration granted to Elizabeth his widow." The appraisal of his estate embracing 100 acres of land at the eastward was returned June 30, 1685. 9 The recital in the deed by this third Thomas Purchase to Samuel Waldo, that his father, Thomas, was the eldest son of Thomas Purchase of Pejepscot, leaves room for, and in so far corroborates the existence of the second son, Abraham, discovered above. 12 Abraham Purchase married Ruth, daughter of John Williams of Salem, and had children: Ruth, born June 10, 1702; Benjamin, born March 2, 1706. 13 Elizabeth Purchase, the younger, married John Blany, Junior, and had seven children. 24 Sarah Purchase married Gamaliel Phippen, and had one son and seven daughters. 25 Though you have no Purchases now in your midst, it is more than probable that through the ramifications of the above numerous families the blood of your first settler has been transmitted to the veins of some among you. Purchase was of extremely respectable and even gentle extrac- tion ; he stated himself that he had been a servant to King Charles I. about the beginning of his reign, 14 and it is a well known fact that none but gentlemen were chosen for positions so near royalty. This statement of his is elsewhere supported. 15 He names in his will 5 and calls "cousins," i.e. nephews, Oliver Purchase, an active and con- spicuous man of Lynn where he was honored with various offices, and Edward Allyn, a Boston merchant of good standing ; he was a blood relative of the Rev. Robert Jordan, our early Episcopal clergyman, as John Winter writes, who must have informed himself of the antecedents and connections of his future son-in-law; he was a brother-in-law to George Way of Dorchester, England, his partner in the Patent, as is disclosed by the latter's will ; 16 and the 12 York Registry of Deeds, 16, 162. 13 Savage. 14 Francis Neale's deposition, Pejepscot Records, 495. 15 Mrs. Eunice Wharton's letter, Pejepscot Records, 338. 16 Gen. Reg. XLIIL, 152. 62 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS partial pedigree of the Rev. Samuel Purchas, of u Pilgrimage " fame, 17 shows our Thomas was probably a nephew or cousin to that cele- brated divine. This pedigree also shows he may have had a double relationship to his nephew Oliver by blood or by marriage, since Mary (Perkins) Purchase, the second wife of Oliver, was also a Purchase on her graud-maternal side. This extract may aid in locating "the fair stone house" of Purchase "below the falls:" 18 Henry Boad writing from Wells, September 29, 1684, to his cousin, G-overnor John Winthrop, com- plains of Cleeve's encroachment and claims that Wells fell within his forty miles along the sea-coast ; which Boad thought a second survey might disprove " if he begin to take his measure according to his patent roch. Is at Sakadohec river the southwest syd of yt ; but he began at Mr. Purchase's house at the river called Mengipscott river, and set one (Booth) to measure that hath neither art nor skill . . . . but was bribed to take in John Wadloe who dwelt at the middle of our town." 19 Now remembering that Wells was about eight miles broad and allowing for this encroachment, you get approximately the distance of Purchase's house from the old river of Sagadahoc — or finding the exact location of Wadloe's house in Wells by tracing down the titles and measuring along the coast you would come to the exact site of Purchase's house. Much doubt has at times been expressed about the existence of the patent from the council for New England, but the evidence of its existence is overwhelming, and permits of no doubt or cavil. John Cousins had seen it. 20 Richard Callicott deposed that Purchase intended to go to England to get a new copy of it in 1677, after his own had been destroyed by fire in his house ; 20 all of Pur- chase's neighbors knew more or less about it ; 20 and now more new evidence can be adduced ; G-eorge Way devises his half to his son Eleazer in his will quoted above. 16 This Eleazer Way found that certain agreements made by his father and Purchase in 1633, operated as an equitable bar to the execution he had obtained against his uncle and so released him, distinctly citing the Patent. 21 Why then did not Purchase place so important a Patent upon record? and 17 Id. XXXVIII., 319. 18 Pejepscot Records, 493. WMass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 2 S. II., 157. 20 Pejepscot Records, 493 and foil. 2i Gen. Reg. XLII., 149. INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK (33 the statement by Edward Rishworth, the Recorder of the Province, "that he could find no record yt giveth any person or persons any Title thereunto," 20 has been relied upon as disproving the existence of any such Patent. The reason why it could not be found there by him, or by subsequent searchers was, because though properly recorded, it was not done in Yorkshire, but among the vanished records, of which but scanty bits have ever been discovered, of the Rigby government, the evanescent General Assembly of the Province of Ligonia, which dragged through a precarious and intermittent existence from 1643 to 1658, and of which Brunswick then formed a component part. Francis Neale, the second Recorder of that Province deposes to this in the most unmistakable manner : "Mr. Purchase gave the Depon't a coppy of the Commission by which he held his place, which, that Depon't being then Recorder, put on record." 20 These records had disappeared, doubtless destroyed from interested motives, before the time of Purchase's fire, or else he could have gotten a certified copy without going to England. It is now certain that Wharton in his negotiations for this prop- erty had insisted that a copy of the Patent should be produced, and it was to obtain this that the younger Purchase sailed for England ; hearing nothing from him and being impatient to consummate the bargain, Wharton paid part of the purchase money down and executed the above " articles," the fourth paragraph of which reads : " Fourthly, John Blany and Elizabeth Blan} T covenant and promise in case no Inrollment or record of said Patent can be found nor other Confirmation be obtained in right of said Purchase & Way, for the premises, and on said Wharton reconveying he shall be discharged from the said one hundred and thirty pounds." 8 Between the time of the Purchase- Wharton deed and that of the deed of the Indian Sagamores, 22 Wharton either went or sent to England and obtained the full copy of the Patent from which the description in the latter deed must have been taken so full and precise in its terms as compared with the earlier one, for which at the time of its execution material was not at hand, except for very general terms. Another confirmatory fact is that we find him in 1687 making payments on account of his purchase satisfied with the "confirmation he had obtained in right of said Purchase and Way for said Patent." 8 Having gotten possession of the original Patent Wharton changed its depositary, placing it with intimate friends as is shown by 22York Deeds- IV., 14 and 15. 64 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS. extracts from a letter from Mrs. Eunice Wharton, his son's widow, dated London, November 1, 1737 : "I can make them a valid Title & none Elce can do it, which is likewise recorded and pattented here in oald England the oridginal Pattent from the Council of Plimoth is in the hands of the Duke of Hambleton ; the Exempli- fication which Mr. Purchase had was believed to be burnt with his Hous ; but his title was sufficiently proved : Mr. Winthrop have a copie of it, if you can get his Wife to shew it you." 23 This last clause seems likely enough because of Winthrop's care to protect the Bay title under the grant of 1639, and because of the secretiveness of interested Massachusetts claimants of the Kennebec tract, who would hardly divulge all they had knowledge of about a rival claim that they hoped some day to absorb. Thus have we traced your worthy founder's family, patiently elaborating details that may seem trivial to some of you, but which will serve the historiographer of the future, who to cope with communities, to generalize upon generations, and to popularize peoples to posterity must first study personal peculiarities and family transactions and traditions. Now as we bid good-bye to Thomas Purchase, leaving estimates of his character, praises of his virtues and censures of his faults to the enthusiastic imagery of rising generations, we reflect : " No epitaph can make The just man famed ; The good are praised TVhen they are only named." Professor Everett was then called upon to respond to the toast "Town and College," which led him to give the audience many bright and merry reminiscences, of which we can give but a frag- ment: * REMARKS OF PROFESSOR CHARLES C. EVERETT. The relations between the college and town, as I first remember them, were hardly creditable. There have been the French and Indian wars and the war of 1812 ; but historians have not given suf- ficient attention to the "Yagger war." I remember once, when a small boy, my father was called upon one evening to assist President Woods in quelling a 64 Yagger war," which were at that time rather 23 Pejepscot Records, 338. 24 Essex Inst. XVI., 90. 25Phippen Family and Gen. Reg. XXV., 88. INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 65 dangerous and decidedly unpleasant. President Woods at one time reprimanded a student for taking part in such a scrimmage, and for throwing rotten eggs. The student is reported to have disclaimed the epithet " rotten " and to have said the eggs were good ones. But the President said that he could answer for it that one egg at least was not good, as it came within dangerous proximity to his nose. Professor Everett then related several amusing anecdotes and closed by alluding to the present pleasant relations between town and college, which he hoped might always continue. The next toast was " The Maine Medical School " to which Dr. Israel T. Dana responded as follows : REMARKS OF DR. ISRAEL T. DANA. Mr. President, — You have asked me to say a few words on this interesting memorial occasion, as representing the Medical School of Maine. I am most happy to do so. This school, the medical department of Bowdoin College, has attained the ripe age of three- score years and ten, less one. It was founded in 1820. The dear old mother has many sons, and they are all loyal to her. Some of them after leaving her, extend their studies in the great medical centers at home and abroad, but they never cease to think and speak of her with filial respect and affection. " Her children arise up and call her blessed." The school was founded by Professor Parker Cleaveland of Brunswick, and Dr. Nathan Smith of New Haven. It was fortunate in its founders. They were men of rare power and devotion. They were at first the only Professors, and each taught in several depart- ments of medical science. Indeed their individual " chairs," as wittily suggested by Dr. Holmes, in another connection, might more appropriately have been termed "settees." The quarters of the school at first, in the upper stories of old Massachusetts Hall, were cramped and uncomfortable. The tall men would get the end seats, and occasionally stand up, with as little noise as possible, and stretch first one leg and then the other down the aisle for relief. Traditions were handed down of occasional rollicksome and boisterous freaks of the "medics" in the early years of the school. I remember hearing President Woods say, in an address to the class soon after the occupation of the new medical building, "Time was when the coming of the medical class was a terror to the community. Now, E 66 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS gentlemen, you are an example to us all." Let me add to the names of Cleaveland and Nathan Smith those of Drs. R. D. Mussey, Edmund R. Peaslee, B. Fordyce Barker, and William Warren Greene, and you have a group of five medical professors than whom it would be difficult to name five more distinguished in connection with any medical college in the land. The Medical School of Maine has rendered good service to the commonwealth. Seventy years ago there were comparatively few within its borders, who had taken the degree of M.D. Men would "read medicine" with some neighboring practitioner and then take up practice for themselves. The establishment of the school marked a new era in medical education here. The standard was raised. Not only were better educated doctors furnished to the villages and small towns, but an examination of the records shows that for the last two generations, a very large percentage of the ablest and most distinguished physicians and surgeons of the larger towns and cities of Maine have been graduates of this school. The Medical School of Maine deserves well of the State. Its past record is assured and most creditable. No effort must be spared to make its future yet more abundantly useful and honorable. At the close of Dr. Dana's remarks the President called upon the audience to rise and join in singing a hymn. The following hymn was then sung to the tune of Duke Street : O God, beneath thy guiding hand, Our exiled fathers ci'ossed the sea; And when they trod the wintry strand With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee. Thou heard'st, well pleased, the song, the prayer — Thy blessing came; and still its power Shall onward through all ages bear The memory of that holy hour. Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God, Came with these exiles o'er the waves, And where their pilgrim feet have trod The God they trusted guards their graves. And here Thy name, O God of love, Their children's children shall adore, Till these eternal hills remove And spring adorns the earth no more. The President introduced Hon. Charles A. Boutelle as a hero of the Albemarle fight, a distinguished journalist and prominent leader in Congress. Mr. Boutelle received an enthusiastic reception. INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 67 REMARKS OF HON. CHARLES A. BOUTELLE. Mr. President, Neighbors, and Friends, — I might say, in the borrowed language of days gone by, I came not here to talk, but I am afraid that John Furbish and Charlie Townsend would say I was trenching too much on the speech of the past. I have come here simply and solely to rejoice with you on this occasion. While I have not the honor to claim Brunswick as the place of my nativity or of my present residence, I cannot forget that for nearly twenty years this village represented everything included in the word home. Great changes have taken place here, not only in one hundred and fifty years, but in the short time since I have known the town. And if you should wish to present a picture of the contrast, I do not think you could do better than bring that old town hall that I knew and put it up here in a corner of this. I was not a graduate of Bowdoin College, much as I should be pleased could I point to that honor, but I was not without a course of study in this old town. Well I remember the school kept by Aunt Susy Owen down here in the old yellow house on the corner of Main and O'Brien Streets. And I remember how the task was carried on by her daughter. Then I remember well Susan Springer, Amanda Knight, the sisters Hinckley, and Miss Owen, whom I see here to-day. I admire the spirit and work of those teachers who whipped into semblance of order the unterrified young cubs of that day. There were Leonard Townsend, Charles Francis Adams, and Jonathan Adams, whom I am glad to have as a fellow-citizen in Bangor. I might also speak of the contrast of the school-houses between that day and this, than which nothing could show better the progress of this town. When I lived here the town was famed for its great ship-building industry, and the skill of Brunswick workmen was known wherever our flag could be seen on the waters of the civilized globe. From these yards have been sent out as magnificent specimens of naval architecture as ever cleaved the waters of old ocean. From them have been set afloat by Pennells and Schofields and Humphreys nearly seven hundred and fifty craft — ships, barks, schooners, and brigs — that have borne the influence of our civilization to the utter- most parts of the earth. I missed to-day the enormous piles of box shooks which used to be piled here by thousands. This has been revolutionized by different processes of manufacturing sugar. But the splendid procession to-day shows how you have added other and 68 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS more varied industries to your town. The building of new resi- dences and streets all bespeaks the present prosperity and future progress of the beautiful town. May your advances exceed even those made in the past, is the wish of one who on this lovely plain, surrounded by these beautiful hills, spent his early and happiest days. I can close in no more fitting a manner than by telling you that one of the most beautiful expressions of Longfellow, " The Building of the Ship," found its inspiration from a Brunswick ship- yard. I close by saying of our common state and our magnificent country as he saw it : " Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! Sail on, O Union strong and great ! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! " Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee, — are all with thee." President Mitchell then called upon Rev. Edward C. Guild to respond for "The Clergymen of Brunswick." Mr. Guild said: REMARKS OF REV. E. C. GUILD. I have no reminiscences to offer of past times, for I have been but a short time a resident of Brunswick. But it may interest you to know how Brunswick strikes a new-comer. My first impression was that Brunswick people were rather hard to get at. I found it difficult to make acquaintances. I found it rather hard to get inside of people's doors. But the next thing I found out was that once inside you met a very hearty welcome. When you had once got in you never wanted to get out again. And when you had once found people out you found them always the same. I have been much struck with the stability of good things here in Bruns- wick. When a man .has won a warm place in the hearts of the Brunswick people they are ready to stand by him. The memory of the good men who have lived here is so fresh and warm — so vital a part of the life of the community — that it is difficult for me to realize that I have not personally known them. The names of such men as Professor Smyth and Professor Packard, Dr. Lincoln, Dr. Adams, and Dr. Woods are such household words wherever I go, INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 69 that I can hardly believe I have never seen their faces nor heard their voices. I have been struck, too, with the difficulty of getting people to support a new movement or enter into a novel project. But here, too, the same quality of stability is manifested ; when they are once interested and engaged they do not let it drop till it is well and thoroughly accomplished. In behalf of the clergy I desire to say, with glad and grateful feeling, that the day of Christian unity and good-will has dawned, never, I trust, to set ; the heartiest fellowship and mutual regard exist to-day, and every one of the Christian societies here is ready to rejoice at the prosperity of every other society. Weston Thompson, Esq., who was to have spoken for the lawyers of Brunswick, was unfortunately absent. President Mitchell then called upon Dr. George A. Wheeler, of Castine, to respond for " The Physicians of Brunswick." Dr. Wheeler spoke as follows : REMARKS OF DR. GEORGE A. WHEELER. The after-dinner pill I am called upon to administer may not prove very palatable, but I hope may be beneficial. I will sugar- coat it all I can. In speaking a few words in behalf of the former physicians of this town I feel all the time that the duty ought to fall upon a resident. The fact that I am not a citizen enables me, however, to include the physicians of to-day in my general remarks. This town has been specially fortunate in the character and standing of its physicians. Charlatans have and doubtless will come here as elsewhere, but they don't find the atmosphere here an agreeable one. From the earliest period of the town's settlement, its physicians have been among its leading men and eminent either for their professional attainments, the civil or political positions they have filled, or for their literary and social qualifications. The earliest here of whom we have authentic record, Dr. William Spear, participated in the last Indian and in the Revolution- ary War and later served on the Board of Selectmen. Dr. Samuel Duncan — whose saddle-bags may be seen in the room below — was a Representative to the General Court of Massachusetts. Dr. Ebenezer Goss, though addicted to rather too frequeut potations, — so much so that on one occasion when in his barn-yard he thought the road had been fenced in front and behind him — was, neverthe- less, esteemed as a physician and held in high repute as a citizen. He had a large practice and was chosen a Representative of the 70 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS town to the General Court. Dr. Jonathan Page was a man of mark. He was a Senator in the Massachusetts Legislature, a Representa- tive to the Convention called for the formation of the new State of Maine, and a Senator to the Legislature of Maine. He was one of the original members of the Maine Medical Association, a member of the Medical Faculty of Bowdoin College and of the Board of Overseers of the College. Drs. Isaac and John D. Lincoln are yet too well remembered to need any extended mention at this time. They both were members of the Medical Faculty and of the Board of Overseers of the College, and the son was on the Board of your Superintending School Committee. They were both ardent sup- porters of every project they deemed essential to the welfare of the town, and it is in no small degree due to their efforts that Brunswick can boast to-day of being one of the most beautiful towns of our state. When I consider the conditions of practice in this place fifty years and more ago — the comparatively sparse population, the extremely long drives that the doctors had to take, and the fact that they had to prepare their own medicines and carry quite a drug store around with them, even here in the village, — I am truly astonished to find that they had, not the ability only, but the time to take the positions, not only in their profession, but in society, which they undoubtedly did. I would gladly mention the names of others, perhaps equally deserving, but the time will not allow. I will only say that it is very evident that this town of Brunswick still holds the medical profession in high esteem. Could it be more markedly shown than in the choice you have made of your presiding officer for the day? REMARKS OF MR. HOWARD OWEN. Mr. Howard Owen of Augusta, general editor of the Maine Farmer, a native of Brunswick, responded to the toast " Memories of My Childhood Days." Of his entertaining speech we are able to give only a summary. The burden of the speeches of many who had preceded him, was that Bowdoin College was the institution of the town. He should judge from remarks casually dropped that there was such an institution in Brunswick as Bowdoin College, If his memory served him right, the boys, natives of the town, were entitled to some credit for the progress made. He saw at this board some of the original members of the Juvenile Temperance Watch- INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWLCK 71 man Club, that flourished here forty years ago, having for its grand motto. ••Temperance aud Morality." Here are John Furbish, Henry W. Wheeler, Charles A. Boutelle, Fessenden I. Day. Solon Lufkin, George F. Marriner, and others, whose lives had been successfully shaped by the moral principles inculcated at the altar of the club. He was glad to know that the silk banner given by the ladies, on which our motto was inscribed, was still preserved. Out from the club grew the Juvenile Temperance Watchman paper, which he had the honor to publish and edit, the first youth's temperance paper ever published in the state of Maine. He wondered if any present could repeat with him a portion of the beautiful ritual of the order : "You have seen the vine, how beautifully it adorns the cottage, how win- ningly it spreads its arms aud clings about it. It is beautiful ; but if you will draw back the vine, you will see that the cottage is grad- ually going to decay beneath its embrace ; so intemperance often arrays itself in the garb of innocence and beauty, but before you are aware of it, it destroys your best principles." He spoke of one conspicuous member of the club, Fred Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher Stowe ; and from personal experience would testify that while his mother's writings thrilled the world, she was the poorest cook he ever met ; her pies and cakes were absolutely indigestible. A liberal contributor to the Watchman was C. A. Boutelle, now of the Bangor W/iig. over the signature of " Ramrod," and those who have preserved the files of the paper, will find his articles stamped with the same mental vigor, pluck, moral tone, and earnestness that characterize the leaders of the Wlikj. Mr. Owen next spoke of the influence of the country boys in the town, and the prejudice which early existed against them. He scarcely ever came over Powder House Hill but he was set upon and intimidated by a border ruffian who used to make his life miserable ; but one day he secured the services of Marsh Merryman, a Rocky Hill stalwart, and that was the last time he was ever assaulted by the Powder House Hill ruffian. He denounced those dudes of the village or city who stand upon the corners of the streets and make fun of the awkward appearance and ill-fitting clothes of the country boy, who, nine times out of ten, came out the better in the race of life. He recalled the midnight raids of the "turkey and turnip club," and of a shrill voice sounding out one night, the harsh notes of "There they go with the geese. George, run, hog, or die." In their mad haste a brook was forded, loose garments were thrown 72 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS aside, hats were lost, and one member of the party had the satisfac- tion the next Sunday of seeing George West wear his two-dollar-and- half hat to church. He alluded to Squire Greenleaf. whose home was three miles in the country, and whose office was in the village, but who steadily ignored all means of transportation but those which Nature provided every man. Most people regarded it as against the law to get married, unless Squire Greenleaf performed the ceremony. Smykes was a well-known character in Brunswick, who found single blessedness a miserable condition, and his heart went out in tender emotions to one Olive Brown, an inhabitant of Shad Island. They were married by Squire Greenleaf and a village poet thus notices the event : " Said Smykes looked round, on fairy isle He found the blooming rose; And now with various tints of love, His heaving bosom glows. As fastest colors often change By dyers of renown, So Smykes changed his by Greenleaf s aid. And now sports Olive Brown." Mr. Owen indulged in many other pleasant reminiscences which excited great applause. In closing he referred to Brunswick as it was forty years ago, and as it now is, with its magnificent Town Hall, fine residences, elegant stores, live local newspaper, and all the appliances of a city. With the continuation of this progress and prosperity, who can tell the future of this goodly town, when the little boys and girls who formed so beautiful a feature in the procession that day shall sit in this place to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the town. REMARKS OF MR. SUMNER L. HOLBROOK. Mr. President, — I was born in Brunswick and have always lived here. For nearly half a century the town has had to bear this incumbrance. I occupy the same farm that has been connected with the family for a hundred years. Annually around the old hearth- stone the different members of the family meet to renew associations. The old red cradle that rocked us all is still kept as a sacred relic of the past. I had not the honor nor the privilege of graduating from Bowdoin College. My Alma JIater was the old dilapidated school- house that set upon that rocky hill-side ; from this I graduated at a tender age. It brings no blush to my cheek to tell you that the aged lady that has been operating the old hand loom in the court- INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 73 room below to-day, is no one else than my respected mother, who xi half a century ago used to weave that same kind of cloth for from three to five cents a yard to get a little money to help keep the family machinery in motion and the wolf from the door. It has been my business for the last few years, as a member of the State Board of Agriculture, to go into different counties of the state and talk with the farmers in regard to their occupation. While so doing I have had occasion to speak on all of the various ques- tions that have come up for discussion during the last decade ; I have been called upon to speak in regard to our great stock interests ; I have had occasion to speak in regard to the renovation of soils, but have dwelt more particularly upon the cultivation of the differ- ent crops that we grow on our New England farms. Your literary committee have extended to me this mark of courtesy and ask me to-day to speak in regard to another crop, — a crop which I am not much accustomed to talk about, a crop which was transplanted here, •a crop which it would appear was particularly adapted to the soil and the soil to the crop, if we may be allowed to judge by the rich ripe fruit that from time to time has been harvested home, — I mean the intellectual crop, the grandest and noblest crop that ever grew on any soil, the same kind of a crop that we grow all over the state of Maine, that crop which is known, loved, honored, and respected, wherever the English language is spoken. And I have this to say, that if you come up here to-day to this feast of tabernacles, to this jubilee after the gathering in of a hundred and fifty harvests, proud of your record, proud of Brunswick because of the many things that we have to be proud of, proud of Brunswick, not because it is a high, haughty, dictatorial city, but proud because it is a lovely village of the plain, proud of Brunswick because, like the rest of New England, the town is bespangled with school-houses and churches, proud of Brunswick because of the high moral atmosphere which pervades the whole town, is it not largely due to the noble ancestry of yeo- manry who came to Brunswick ? Not for pillage or plunder or con- quest or honor, but to make themselves a home, did they come with their families bringing their implements of husbandry, rude though they were, and settled along the banks of the New Meadows River, along the banks of the Androscoggin, along the shores of Casco Bay, and formed the nucleus out of which has grown refined, literary, Christian Brunswick of to-day. The farmers of Brunswick of to-day, count them, and the 74 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS number corresponds to that heroic band that stood in the mountain pass and defied the Persian hosts ; count them again and the number corresponds to the little army that followed that invincible leader down to that historic river and drank the water without breaking ranks. There are three hundred of them, with more than 20,000 acres of land under improvement. If you wish to know more about them, go to their homes, neat and attractive; if you wish to know more about them, enter those homes, and you will find refinement and culture and domestic happiness. Mr. President, let me say this in conclusion. Our occupation is. a quiet one, as quiet as the brooks that wind across and through the meadows that we cultivate. Our mission is a peaceful one ; the battle-ax which our fathers used in defense of their homes and in subduing the forests has long since been laid away ; our spears have- all been beaten into pruning hooks, and our implements of warfare to-day are the plow and the reaper. Our battle field is not like that of Shiloh, or those on which the armies of Europe are to-day ripen- ing for conflict. Our work is to raise the bread that shall feed the hungry, and to see to it that the pitiful cry of " only three grains of corn, mother," may never be heard in our land. But we stand with a solid front, ready, when we hear the bugle call, when we hear the tocsin of alarm, when we hear the slogan pipe, to follow that All Conquering Leader who leads the grandest old brigade that ever buckled on the armor and went forth to battle. The farmers of Brunswick are ready to fight under the true flag, in the great moral conflict whose final battle is to be fought here, and whose ultimate triumph and crowning victory is to be won on American soil. The last speaker was Mr. Isaac Plummer, of Brunswick, whom the President introduced as the prophet appointed for the occasion. EEMARKS OF MR. ISAAC PLUMMER. Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — Life and its surround- ings are full of mysteries. Questions are constantly arising in my mind relating to the future which are unanswered and unanswerable. Not the least of these has been the question, Why was I selected to speak on the future of Brunswick when so many of my fellow- citizens are both eloquent and prophetic? Not being a prophet or the son of a prophet, this has been one of the mysteries of life. Had this selection been made by my good wife, it would not have- INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 75 been a mystery, for she often tells me my predictions are as correct as are those of a last year's almanac, especially as to the weather. It is said that coming events cast their shadows before, conse- quently what I may say must be as shadows or predictions. The past lives in memory and history. The present only is ours. Infinite Wisdom saw fit to suspend a dark curtain between us and the future, so far, most certainly, as worldly events are concerned, and no human hand has power enough to raise it, and no eye is keen enough to see beyond it. Many of our fondest hopes and anticipa- tions, like the flowers of the night blooming cereus, send forth their sweet fragrance for a brief period, then wither and die. How often we exclaim, Had we known thus and so, we would have done differently ! Nevertheless, it is our duty to speak, plan, and act for the future as though it was ours, and, judging by the past, are we not justified in predicting the future ? To-day we are assembled in one of the most beautiful towns of which our entire country can boast. Within the walls of our various churches we predict that generations yet unborn will worship according to the dictates of their consciences, with none to molest or make afraid, not being fed, as at present, by Fish-er, Haddock, or Herring. For her various institutions of learning, in which every good citizen feels a just pride, we predict a glorious future. At the head of these stands Bowdoin College, and we predict that when her able and honored President and Faculty shall cease to labor, others will be forthcoming to fill their responsible positions, and that she will in the future, as she has in the past, send forth her honored sons, some to battle for justice and the right at our nation's capital, and others, by precept and example, to educate and Christianize those who are less favored than we. We also predict that should an invasion or insurrection again occur within our land that Brunswick would not be found wanting. Her heroic sons would rush to the rescue, and led on by another Chamberlain, would stand shoulder to shoulder, ready to fight and die, till victory should perch upon her banners. Our Medical College, although covetous hands have tried to remove her from our borders, still remains, and we predict will long remain upon Brunswick soil, and annually equip and send forth her scores of M.D's. to either kill or cure suffering humanity. Her manufacturing and industrial interests, we predict, are but in their infancy. Down, or rather up, in the unknown future, we anticipate that every foot of her majestic water-power will be harnessed to machinery, giving 76 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS employment to thousands of honest hands. Last but not least, we wish to speak of her rural districts. The farmers, God bless them ; by the toil of their honest hands, our needs and wants are supplied. Within our borders, broad acres of rich and fertile soil abounds, and we predict that in no far distant day our farmers' sons will see that it is for their interest to remain upon the farm and pursue a calling of which none need feel ashamed. Finally, are we not safe in predicting, not a mushroom growth, most certainly we would not desire it, but a steady, healthy, upward, and onward career for our noble town ? New enterprises are being considered, some of which are nearing maturity. In no far distant day we expect to see the railway car driven by electricity upon our streets and varied and remunerative enterprises springing up within our borders. In every community there are some to be found who cry, Halt ! Go slow, boys, carefully weigh the matter. They are like a good maiden lady whom I well knew when a mere lad. Long ere the railroad was built east of Portland, she was visiting in Kennebunk, and never having seen the cars, she went out by the roadside to see an incoming train. As it approached she became tremendously excited, and with that curiosity which none but that good class possess, she jumped and shouted to the engineer : " Stop your horse ! Stop your horse ! " " But," said she, " the horse did not stop." So we predict, my friends, that the train of progress will not stop despite the shouts and cries of the alarmists. Fellow- citizens, soon all of us who are here to-day, will have finished our labors and gone to our eternal home. Yet Brunswick will survive and all her varied industries and institutions will be cared for by those who are to follow, and we shall not be missed. Let us strive to commit to them a goodly heritage, and it may not be impossible that when another centennial celebration shall occur in Brunswick you and I may be unseen and unheard guests. Owing to the lateness of the hour, the following toasts which had been arranged were necessarily omitted: " The First Parish," to be responded to by Mr. John Furbish ; " Our Schools," by Mr. Albert G. Tenney ; " The Merchants of Brunswick," by Mr. Ira P. Booker; "The Early Proprietors," by Hon. Charles J. Gilman. In the afternoon a game of base-ball was played on the Delta between the Presumpscots of Cumberland Mills and the Bowdoins, which attracted a large concourse of people. The score was : Pre- INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK 77 surnpscots, 11 ; Bowdoins, 10. At sunset a national salute was fired, the second platoon having been entertained at dinner in the armory by Captain Despeaux. At eight o'clock a reception was held at the Town Hall, at which the selectmen and the general committee of the town with their wives received the Governor and Mrs. Burleigh with the members of the Governor's Staff and the other invited guests of the town and the citizens generally. Chandler's Orchestra and the Bowdoin Glee Club furnished music for the occasion. At nine o'clock there was an exhibition of fire-works at the north end of the Mall. From 10 to 12 the reception at the Town Hall was enlivened by dancing, and thus closed the festivities of the day. APPENDIX. Anno Regni G E O R G I ),.Secund?, Regis, Duodecimo AN ACT Paft'J- by /A* Great and General Court or Ajfembly of His MajeJI/s Provlnca of the Maftachufetts-Bay i* New-England, begun and held at Bofton, on Wedpefday tbt Thirty-firfl Day of May i 7 ? 8, And continued) bf Frorogatiom unto Wednefday tbt z<$tb Day of November following. An K& fot ere&itig a Tovmftiip m tke Couac^-of Tori by the Name of Brunfoick IJ/H ERF AS there j; <* competent Number of Inhabitants- already fettled upon a Trait of Land lying' within the- County of York, hitherto called and known ky the Name of Brunfwick, containing iht Quantity of about fix Miles fqnare> and ing convenient far q, Toy/n$uf y and tubtreas [aid Inhabitants have humbly fettt&Aid tbit flourk tba%isi order to) provide a ffjfyble Maintenance for tbe Mi~ni[tet fete fid among tbtm.jbejfmajbf ere fled into} a/Fown[hip, and vejied with tBs Powers and 4ut&or1tio belonging to, tht otier Towns Therefore for Encouragement -of faid Settlement Be (t estacte&.fcp cjereiletup tfte ^ofcemout, Council ant> ifcefniefctttatttes ta General Court affembieo, ana tyt SUittioriip of tfje fame, ^ha^tb^ iaid Tra6t of Land \ ^'oribtcJ$ in a Plat now seturajgd Co this ^ewP^^pSW S^MJSjBffll^ iS^fe Moiitlrof a Brooff or Rivufee catted 4ungatn*ng*noci f ruhajng 1 inco MacAo'%% Bay, where it touches upon IvV(£- TaimoHtk Line, and front eHe Mouth of faid Brook to run upon a Courle North.North- 4 Weft halt Wefterly five Miles into the Wildernefs, leaving a, Wedge or S»np of Land between (aid Line and North Yarmouth, and fiomf 1 thence upon a Courfe North Eaft four Mjfeflto the fecond Falls of Amaf- e'oggin alias Androfvggin River, fron> thetfredown faid River. by Fort Gt,rge, and. down Merry- Meeting- Bap fo far as Stephen's Carrying-Place, including feveral fmall Iflets lying infaid River above faid Carrying-Place, and over faid Carrying Place to the Head ot the Creek or River that runs up to the other Side of the (aid Carrying Place, thence down (aid Creek or River to the Mouth thereof, including art 111 and therein, and from- the Mouth of (aid River to run by the Water Side South Wefterly to the South Weft Point of a Place called the New Meadows, thence to ftrike Scrofs/ thaf Cove upon a Courfe North North-Weft till ic meets . and interfe&s the upper End of Merryconeeg Neck, four Rods above the farrows of faid Neck commonlv called the Carrying- Klace-, tbenee io run along the Shore to aNeCk of Land called Mare-Point, about 3 Mile and a Quarter down faid Neck, thence to crofs over faid Mare-Point and Maquoit Bay upon 2 Cowrie No--tt> Weft till if "Comes to Fh& Plaee-hrft above mentioned ; tie and henceforth frfal[ he a Townfhip, to be called Brunfwick. } and. the Inhabitants thereof fhal^pve and enjoy all fuch Immunities, Privileges and Powers as generally Other Towns in this Province* have and,do by Law enjoy. [ Tbit Ail was Publ'ifh'd, January 27. 1738,9. ] BOSTON: Printed by 7*6* Drtftr, PrmtertoHUEjcceUcacy the GOVEKNOUR and COUNOU LETTERS OF REGRET. A few of the letters received from those who were unable to attend the anniversary exercises are given below : FROM HON. WILLIAM P. FRYE, LL.D. Rangeley, May 17, 1889. Mr. Frank E. Roberts, Chairman of Committee, etc. : Dear Sir, — Your invitation to me to be the guest of the town during the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of Brunswick, is received. With thanks for your courtesy, I regret to say that I have an engagement out of the State for the entire month of June, and cannot participate in the enjoyment of the occasion. I regret this the more because your beautiful town was my home for four happy, and, I hope, useful years, and my memories of it are all pleasant. Respectfully, William P. Frye. FROM GEN. JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN, LL.D. New York, June 10, 1889. Frank E. Roberts, Esq.: My Dear Sir, — I thank you for the courteous invitation, so handsomely conveyed, to be present at the services of the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Brunswick. You will see by the enclosed card that my engagements on that day are imperative and will prevent me from enjoying, as I certainly otherwise should, the exercises of your interesting occasion. With high regard, Yours truly, Joshua L. Chamberlain. FROM PROF. JOT HAM B. SEWALL, A.M. Thayer Academy, South Braintree, Mass., May 24, 1889. My Dear Professor Johnson: I can but gratefully acknowledge the receipt of an invitation to the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town of Brunswick. My long residence in Brunswick and the many warm friendships and pleasant acquain- tances there made, bind me and mine to the dear old town with bonds of interest and affection, which will be broken only with the severance of the thread of life. The exercises of the occasion would have an interest for me second to none, but engagements here forbid my acceptance. Thanking the committee- for their courteous remembrance, I remain Sincerely yours, J. B. Sewall. Prof. Henry Johnson, Secretary of the Committee of Celebration, Brunswick, Maine. 84 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS FROM J. APPLETON MELCHER, A.M. San Francisco, June 1, 1889. F. E. Roberts, Esq., Chairman of General Committee, Brunswick, Maine: Dear Sir, — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of an invitation from the General Committee, of which you are chairman, to he present and partici- pate in the celebration, on the 13th inst., of the one hundred and fiftieth anni- versary of the incorporation of the town of Brunswick. It is with deep and unfeigned regret that I find matters of a business nature will compel me to forego the pleasure I should derive from a visit to the dear old home, a pleasure that would be increased, if possible, by participation in the proposed celebration. As a native of the town in which the first score of years of my life were passed, I have ever cherished an affectionate regard for Brunswick and its inhab- itants. It has been said and sung — "There is no place like home," and in my wanderings for forty years, even with our delightfully pleasant home in central Alabama, in ante-bellum days, and subsequently, in a no less pleasant residence in far-distant California, with her incomparable climate, I have found no home like that of my earlier life, my own, native Brunswick, to which the words of Goldsmith are peculiarly applicable: "Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the plain." Brunswick, with its meandering Androscoggin, whose waters of a golden hue fall gracefully over the upper and lower dams, passing onward to the sea, via Merrymeeting Bay; Brunswick, with its many pleasant driveways, its "ribbon roads," its stately elms and its tall pines; Brunswick, with its environs, Oak Hill, Rocky Hill, Growstown with its "Elder Lamb's Meeting-House, " Bun- gonungonock," Maquoit, Middle Bay, Mere Point, New Meadows, Gatchell's Mills, Cook's Corner, Negro Town, and Ham's Hill; Brunswick, with its friendly neighbors, Topsham, Harpswell, Bath, Freeport, North Yarmouth, Durham, and Bowdoin, known in the days when general musters were in vogue as " Cathance " ; Brunswick, as the home of men of sterling worth, who, after devoting the strength of their early manhood to a life upon the "ocean wave" have retired from their labors to pass the evening of their days at home, as occupants of the tastefully-arranged and attractive residences, which have tended so much to beautify the village and increase the wealth of the town; Brunswick, as the seat of Bowdoin College, which for nearly a century has furnished to the land and world men eminently distinguished as scholars, poets, statesmen, jurists, theolo- gians, physicians, and, in fact, in all the professions and business pursuits of life, and which, under its model President, Rev. William DeWitt Hyde, and his able assistants in the Faculty, still continues in the good work; the Medical School of Maine, in connection with the College (may it never be removed to Port- land or elsewhere, Brunswick being the proper place for the institution under the control of the College Boards); Brunswick, with its manufactures, its mer- cantile interests, its Board of Trade, its invaluable water-power, as yet but partially utilized, affording, when more fully developed, as it should be in the near future, the grandest possibilities for the town as well as for the State. Above all and beyond all, Brunswick in her men in general, and her matrons and maidens in particular— her sons and her daughters, quite a number of whom have accepted the advice of the late Hon. Horace Greeley and emigrated to these Western shores, finding new homes and filling new stations of usefulness and influence with credit to themselves and with honor to their native State and town; never forgetting, however, the old New England home from whence they came. I will simply add that the Brunswickers who are now resident upon the Pacific slope send cordial and fraternal greetings to their former fellow-citizens APPENDIX 85 at home, who have made arrangements to appropriately celehrato the one hun- dred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, assuring them that though we may he absent in the hody, we shall he present in the spirit at the celebration on June 13th. With thanks for the invitation, and sincerely hoping that this " new depart- ure " in celebrating the anniversary of the incorporation of Brunswick will be eminently successful, proving substantially beneficial to the town and contrib- uting to the increased happiness of its citizeus, I remain, Very truly yours, J. Appleton Melcher. FROM REV. EDWARD N. PACKARD, A.M. Syracuse, N. Y., June 9, 1889. To the Committee of Arrangements, etc., Brunswick: Dear Friends, — May I be counted among those who feel a genuine interest in the coming celebration of the town settlement and express my regrets at not being able to be present to see and hear all the good things ? Although not a native I came very near being so and had not my father, Charles, quitted 11 practicing " for " preaching," not long before my appearance on this planet, I should have been born under the "law" instead of the "gospel," and a citizen of Maine rather than of Massachusetts. To make up for this loss, I hastened to show myself as a Freshman on the college campus in the autumn of 1858, just before Professor Cleaveland went to his reward, and (with an interval of a year) was nine years a resident of the town — four as a student and five as an instructor in the college. I voted, paid taxes, and was chosen a deacon in Brunswick. Hence I claim a title to a share of the celebration. Those who have never left the quiet town can hardly understand the strong attachment which we feel who once were residents and now are scattered about the earth. The chief characters that have figured in the town history since the beginning of the century have been familiar household names with me, through the long residence of some of our name in the town. I have an impression that, whatever may be said of the generation now living, there was a group of very strong men at the head of things during the first thirty years of this century. Many of them have passed away since my recollection and were old men when I came upon the scene. These are days of centennials through the land and forgotten history will come to light for our interest and instruction. To know the past, even of a local history like that of Brunswick, humanizes us and keeps us from absurd confidence in ourselves and our times. Improvements in the arts, in the courses of study in the schools, increasing elegance in our homes, business enlargement and prosperity are chiefly interesting as we find through them a way to better living. We may light our streets with electricity and ride at the rate of a mile a minute and speak five languages, but if we buy and sell votes, pass temperance laws that we intend to break, have our picnics on Sunday so that we make more money on Monday, we have very little to boast of over our fathers who wore homespun and rode to church on horse-back and drank too much rum. I believe that the former times were not better than these and still I believe that only personal character will make our times or any times worth living in. With thanks for your courteous invitation, I am, Yours truly, Edward N. Packard. 86 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS FROM GEORGE T. PACKARD, A.M. 120 High Street, New Haven, Conn., May 17, 1889. Mr. F. E. Roberts, Chairman: My Dear Sir, — The invitation to join in the services of the commemoration, for which I would thank the committee, emphasizes for me the fact that one need not be town-born in order to be attached to the soil and the souls of a com- munity. Like a considerable portion of mankind, I am not so fortunate as to be Brunswick-born, but from my earliest days I have had abundant reason to call the town my home. My father's love for the place in which he had lived as a student, and, later, as a lawyer, made him eager to tell his children of her people and scenery. Thus the ship-yards (then busy), the plains, the woods, the river with its varied voices, and the college halls were photographed on my mind. On my first visit to Brunswick, in 1855, I received a vivid impression of the dignity and effectiveness of the New England town meeting, when I looked on as the voters gathered and deliberated in the Town House, which stood in what is now my mother's garden. The ceremonial of Commencement in that year, furthermore, gave my boyish eyes a view of pomp and circumstance, — not exclud- ing the Commencement Dinner in the Commons Hall, whereat water-melon and tea were pre-eminent. It is thus evident that my early education was not neglected, for I studied Brunswick, in what may be called a Kindergarten course. My college life and a temporary residence subsequently confirmed my delightful impressions of the town, and I am thus fully qualified to enter into the spirit of the commemoration. I desire especially to congratulate the committees. They have shown a " zeal according to knowledge " in their plans to afford the town an opportunity to express adequately her pride of recollection. In particular, I felicitate the com- mittee having the matter in charge, with the selection of the orator and poet. The gifts and graces of the speakers will insure their hearers against the untoward fate of certain communities, on anniversary days, when, listening to a ponderous oration and to machine poetry, the citizens have sighed to be with their ances- tors, or longed to be their own great-grandchildren. I regret that I cannot be present at exercises which have a noble town and an honorable and fruitful history as the subject of thought and eulogy. Yours sincerely, George T. Packard. FROM MISS ANNIE E. JOHNSON. Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass., June 11, 1889. To the Chairman of the Executive Committee for the Celebration of the One Hun- dred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Brunswick : When the invitation of your committee reached me, I was grateful to be remembered in the festivities of the town which has been a home to me for so many years, and wished I might be with you, but the engagements of the closing time of the school year prevent me. The call has awakened a thousand remembrances of the dear old town, and of the friends with whom I walked its streets, when life was fresh and bright. Where will yon find a pleasanter home for the spring-time of life, a town which stretches into the sea by so many wooded and rock-bound points, and is bordered by a river which seeks that sea in such beautiful undulations ? Its picturesque APPENDIX 87 beauty strikes one anew, each new year, as you see it from Humphrey's Steam- mill Point, nestled in green fields, among the pines, through which, here and there, the spires point skyward (alas! that the most beautiful one should still be lacking), with the river and its peaceful shores in the foreground. Where else on earth does one still drink of Paradise Spring? In what place are the blueberries finer or more abundant, and where else can one find flowers of such various colors and forms, all through the blossoming time of the year, even to the last of the summer ? What walks were those of the Pedestrian Club, in summer evenings of long ago, to the First Church, on whose steps they sat and listened to stories from lips which have since charmed larger, but never more delighted audiences! Where do they walk to-day? They have all disappeared from those old walks as irrecover- ably as the frog pond on which they skated in the winter, and which the botan- ists watched in vain through the summer to find the blossom of the Brasenia, whose leaves floated on its surface. When, fifty years to come, the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town shall be celebrated, may those who are now rejoicing in their spring- time look back upon to-day with as much delight as we, who shall then be sleeping under the murmuring pines, now recall the memories of the past. Cordially yours, Annie E. Johnson. FROM REV. GEORGE J. VARNEY. No. 45 Pinckney Street, Boston, May 10, 1889. To Frank E. Roberts, Esq., Chairman of Anniversary Committee: Dear Sir, — Your invitation to participate in the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Brunswick came duly to hand. The card itself is admirable, sug- gesting the ancient conditions by its picture of the old fort; while the general form and detail of the announcement and invitation convey an impression of entire appropriateness and elegance in the plan and conduct of the celebration. The occasion appeals very strongly to those natives of the town whose later experience of life has been in places more or less remote. Until a few days ago, I had hoped to be in Brunswick this week, but find I cannot spare the time. There were periods when the locality, whose corporate beginnings you now celebrate, had an importance second to none in Maine; and from first to last it has been the seat of effective forces in the affairs of the state. It is therefore not only a worthy but a most desirable action to revive and perpetuate the memory of those events which have been so conveniently gathered into your excellent town history, and which the reported collections of your town historical society will impressively illustrate. I am, Sir, Very truly, / Your friend and servant, George J. Varney. FROM MRS. H. M. ADAMS. East Orange, June 11, 1889. Mr. Frank E. Roberts, Chairman of Committee: Your kind invitation to be present at the interesting festivities in Brunswick this week is received. We have hoped that a part, at least, of the family might be present, but at last are obliged to give it up. Our associations with Brunswick 88 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS as our old home are very warm and tender, and our thoughts and best wishes will be there, though we are not. Gratefully and truly, H. M. Adams and Daughters. FROM CHARLES W. PACKARD, M.D. 4A1 Park Avenue, New York, May 17, 1889. Frank E. Roberts, Esq., Chairman, etc.: My Dear Sir,— I very much regret that it will be impossible for me to be present upon the anniversary occasion to which you kindly invite me. It would give me great pleasure to unite with you in celebrating the incorporation of my native town; but my engagements are such as to compel me to remain in New York, and to content myself with bespeaking for the day pleasant skies and all other good things. Very truly yours, Charles W. Packard. FROM WILLIAM W. EATON, M.D. Danvers, Mass., June 12, 1889. Professor Johnson : Dear Sir,— Please accept my sincere thanks for the kind invitation to be present and participate in the exercises commemorating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town's incorporation. I am compelled to be absent in the body, but be assured I shall be present in spirit, rejoicing with you in the welfare and prosperity of the good old town, endeared to me by all the associa- tions of youth and early manhood, and to whose schools and college I am indebted for the education that has been so large a factor in the success and happiness of life. May God bless and prosper the dear old town through all coming years. Yours truly, William W. Eaton. Similar letters of regret were received from Prof. Samuel Harris, D.D., of New Haven, Coon. ; Prof. Geo. L. Goodale of Cambridge, Mass. ; Prof. C. J. Eockwood, Jr., of Princeton, N. J. ; Hon. Josiah Crosby of Dexter, Maine ; Dr. C. S. D. Fessenden of Louisville, Ky. ; Rev. Henry Farrar of Gilead, Maine ; Geo E. B. Jackson, Esq., of Portland, Maine; Mrs. C. F. Dole of Jamaica Plain, Mass. ; Mr. O. T. Murray of Sioux Falls, Dak. ; Mr. Solon B. Lufkin of South Portland, Maine ; Mr. William F. Stanwood of Ellsworth, Maine ; Mr. Charles A. Robbins of New York City ; Mr. Edwin Emery of New Bedford, Mass. ; Mr. George Earl Swift of Minneapolis, Minn. ; Mr. L. S. Alexander of Bath, Maine ; and Mr. Fred O. Conant of Portland, Maine. APPENDIX 89 GENERAL COMMITTEE Frank E. Roberts, Charles J. Gilman, Albert G. Tenney, Lemuel H. Stover, Ira P. Booker, Henry W. Wheeler, OF ARRANGEMENTS. John Furbish, Henry Johnson, Sumner L. Holbrook, William M. Pennell, Isaac Hacker, James W. Curtis. SPECIAL COMMITTEES. LITERARY EXERCISES. F. C. Robinson, Weston Thompson, C. H. Smith. c. e. tovtnsend, Frank Adams, W. 0. Peterson, F. H. Wilson, PROCESSION. Chas. H. Nash. F. E. Roberts, S. L. Holbrook, I. H. Danforth, E. A. CrayvEORD, F. C Webb, J. A. Whitmore, A. F. Yarney, H. W. Wheeler, DINNER. E. A. Will. TABLETS. H. L. Chapman. H. V. Stackpole, Fred Stanwood, LleyvEllyn Cobb, I. P. Booker, J. W. Curtis, T. H. Riley, B. L. Dennison, G. L. Thompson, EVENING RECEPTION. Geo. H. Coombs. Barrett Potter, G. D. Parks, 0. T. Newcomb, D. D. Gilman, Alonzo Day, Lyman E. Smith, A. V. Metcalf, Chas. A. Rogers. ANTIQUITIES. Milton Grows. Lorenzo Larrabee, B. L. Pennell, Thos. E. Jones, Fred V. Gummer, 90 ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS DECORATIONS. F. M. Stetson, S. B. Dunning, Byron Stevens, J. Fred Will, A. 0. Reed, I. H. Simpson, Benj. L. Furbish. RECEPTION OF INVITED GUESTS, Leslie A. Lee, Isaac Plummer, N. T. Palmer, P. C. Merryman, W. M. Pennell. PRINTING AND PUBLICATION. Geo. T. Little, Henry Johnson, Edw. C. Guild, Chas. Grant, J. W. Fisher. SALUTES AND BELL RINGING. 0. T. Despeaux, Henry Stetson, Harvey M. Doughty. FIRE-WORKS. W. M. Pennell, G. L. Bates, John H. Dunning. FANTASTICS. Chas. E. Townsend, E. M. Snow, H. A. Stetson, H. J. Given, Ellery C. Day. BASE-BALL. W. M. Pennell, J. W. Curtis, I. P. Booker. AUDITORS. H. A. Randall, Gardner Cram, Thomas H. Riley. APPENDIX 91 AUDITORS' REPORT. The Auditors of the accounts of the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Brunswick, having examined the receipts and expenditures of the Treasurer, find them properly vouched and herewith make the following FINANCIAL STATEMENT: RECEIPTS. . $1,000 00 . . 100 00 Received bv Treasurer from individuals, . . 55 00 . . $100 00 . . 67 84 . . 41 29 EXPENDITURES. . . $407 28 Tablets, . . 89 86 97 . . 28 25 . 100 00 . . 48 38 . . 108 29 . . 117 84 . . 100 00 00 00 Miscellaneous, 75 Unexpended balance appropriated in aid of a published 51 $1,155 00 $209 13 $1,364 13 $1,364 13 H. A. Randall, T. H. Riley, Auditors. ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS. 92 EXHIBITION OF ANTIQUITIES. During the day of the celebration and also on the following day, there was an exhibition of antiquities in the Court Room which attracted large crowds. The exhibition was under the direction of the Committee on Antiquities, of which Mr. Alonzo Day was Chairman, and to many persons it was one of the most interesting features of the anniversary. It comprised not only the entire collection belonging to the Pejepscot Historical Society, but also many articles which were loaned by individ- uals for the occasion. There were between seven and eight hundred articles on exhibition, of which about six hundred belong to the Pejep- scot Historical Society. Antiquarians from other places pronounced the collection the largest and finest in the state. The following articles were among those which attracted the most attention : An ancient loom was operated at intervals during the day by Mrs. Mercy Holbrook, of New Meadows, who wove a number of yards of linen cloth, such as she was taught to weave in her youth. There were several spinning wheels, flax wheels, quill wheels, clock and click reels, hatchels, flax crushers, tape looms ; all sorts of cooking apparatus, such as tin kitchens, bakers, toasting irons, frying pans, and pewter and china dishes, some being over 200 years old; agricultural implements, including a wooden plow 115 years old, wooden pitchfork 150 years old, an iron pitchfork fully as old, ancient axes, spades, etc.; weapons of defense, including a large variety of flint lock muskets, swords, Indian arrows. One of the muskets shown is said to have been used in Fort George. An Indian birch-bark canoe over 100 years old attracted a good deal of attention. There was a hat box in which Captain William Woodside, who came to Brunswick in 1719, kept his triangular hat. His spectacles were on exhibition, as were also the wedding corset of his second wife, dating back to 1742. There were molds for making pewter spoons and hand-made pins with twisted wire heads. Other antiquities were the first ballot box used by the Brunswick Masonic Fraternity, perforated tin lanterus, cow-bell, hand wrought, over 100 years old, a pair of tongs which have been in the Dunning family since 1756, and were said to have been 100 years old then ; several saddle bags, one of them made of seal skin ; ladies' bonnets of the last century. Mrs. Thomas Estabrook contributed the largest number of articles; others who contributed largely were William and Obed Merrill, Miss Sarah A. Thompson, Mrs. A. B. Pendleton, Abram York, Miss Caroline Patten, T. S. McLellan, Miss Mary Thompson, John Furbish, Hiram K. Alexander, Elder Hiram Campbell, Lorenzo Larrabee, and Mrs. William Alexander, while those who gave or loaned each a few articles were too numerous to mention here.