The Consecration Of The Myles Standish Monument In Duxbury

Myles Standish, with an account of the exercises of consecration of the monument ground on Captain's hill, Duxbury, Aug. 17, 1871. Prepared by Stephen M. Allen.

Allen, Stephen M. (Stephen Merrill), 1819-1894.

MYLES STANDISH, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE EXERCISES OF CONSECRATION OF THE MONUMENT GROUND ON CAPTAIN'S HILL, DUXBURY, AUG. 17, 1871. PREPARED BY STEPHEN M. ALLEN, Corresponding Secretary of the Standish Memorial Association. BOSTON: ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 1871.

KITCHEN OF THE STANDISH HOUSE.

MYLES STANDISH, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE EXERCISES OF CONSECRATION OF THE MONUMENT GROUND ON CAPTAIN'S HILL, DUXBURY, AUG. 17, 1871. PREPARED BY STEPHEN M. ALLEN, Corresponding Secretary of the Standish Memorial Association. BOSTON: ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 1871.

CAPTAIN MYLES STANDISH.
The character of the Pilgrims of New England probably stands out with more force and is as marked and distinctive as that of the pioneer settlers or conquerors of any country of which we read, while the result of their influence upon the nationality they created has been much wider spread, more various and beautiful, and giving life to a more liberal national and religious sentiment than that ever before engrafted in the hearts of any people. The Norman conquest, from which so much has been claimed for humanity, though so cruel and devastating in its first effects, and which for eight hundred years has exerted such an influence in the Old World, was conceived in sin, selfishness, and an unholy ambition, and was established with a vengeance diabolic and almost unheard of in the history of nations. The landing of the Pilgrims, and the settlement of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, on the contrary, gave birth to national ideas which were the offspring of a pure and supreme love of Deity, a free and untrammelled worship, and a government of universal liberty, based upon Christian principle, preceding, in all cases, the cravings for worldly gain or ambitious personal preferment. The sterling worth of a people in humble life, that would forsake home, friends, and country, cross the trackless ocean, and settle upon a frozen, barren shore, with privations and sufferings before them which they were certain to meet, shows the possession of a moral strength and force, that, perpetuated in their descendants, gives the New England people an ancestry of which they may justly be proud. Such were the founders of Plymouth in 1620, among whom there was one, a representative man, worthy in every respect to become a leader, who, without pretensions to special piety, worshipped acceptably at their shrine, guided their settlements, laid out their grounds, drew plans for their mills, collected and disbursed their money, sat for years at their council board, commanded their military forces, subdued their savage and bloodthirsty enemies, all without ever losing the confidence of the colony, or being doubted either as a Christian, citizen, soldier, or financier, and who died after long years of service, beloved and lamented to a degree seldom found in the conflicting associations of life.

Captain Myles Standish was born at Lancashire, England, probably in 1584. He descended from a long and illustrious line of ancestors of that name. Descending from Thurston de Standish and Ralph Standish, his family was divided and designated as the Standishes of Standish, and the Standishes of Duxbury Hall. They separated, "Jordan" becoming the proprietor of Standish, and "Hugh" of Duxbury, one upholding the Catholic, the other the Protestant religion. The baronetcy of Standish, elected in 1676, became extinct in 1812. The family seats are situated near the village of Chorley, in Lancashire, and the property is large, the income being some five hundred thousand dollars per annum. The records of the parish from 1549 to 1652 were thoroughly searched a few years since by Mr. Bromley, the agent sent out by the heirs of Standish in this country, the result proving to his mind that Myles Standish was the true and rightful heir to the estates which were surreptitiously detained from him. Justin Winsor, in his History of Duxbury, says: "The records were all readily deciphered, with the exception of the years 1584 and 1585, the very dates, about which time Standish is supposed to have been born; and the parchment leaf; which contained the registers of the births of these years was wholly illegible, and their appearance was such, that the conclusion was at once established, that it had been done purposely with pumice-stone, or otherwise, to destroy the legal evidence of the parentage of Standish, and his consequent title to the estates thereabout. The mutilation of these pages is supposed to have been accomplished, when, about twenty years before, similar inquiries were made by the family in America. The rector of the parish, when afterwards requested by the investigator to certify that the pages were gone, at once suspected his design of discovering the title to the property, and taking advantage of the rigor of the law (as he had entered as an antiquarian researcher merely), compelled him to pay the sum of about 15 pounds or suffer imprisonment."

Miles was educated to the military profession, and early received a commission as lieutenant in Queen Elizabeth's forces on the Continent, in aid of the Dutch. He repaired to the Netherlands, the seat of war, where he remained a short time after peace was declared, but soon joined the English refugees of Leyden. He joined the first company of Pilgrims for America, and on their arrival on the coast was sent out in the command of the shallop with sixteen men, to make discoveries along the shore. After spending nearly a month in various expeditions, surveying the different bays and channels, he reported in favor of the harbor of Plymouth as a settling point, where the final landing was made. He was soon elected to the chief military command, a position he retained till his death, thirty-six years afterwards. There is, perhaps, no parallel of his military experience in the early settlement of the country.

"Standish affords us not only an instance of the nerve of the Pilgrims, but a type of their hearts." His courage was indisputable. In his various expeditions against the Indians he wanted but few men, and the choice of these he claimed for himself. He was always a leader in every hazardous undertaking, and the people, confiding in his bravery and prudence, were ever ready to place themselves under his command, and in the most trying conflicts they felt themselves secure. His actions show a forbearance rarely met with in one of his profession; while in the time of decisive action, his courage and perseverance were equal to the boldest resolutions.

Winsor says: "In 1623 Standish was sent by the Governor, with orders to break up a plot of the Indians, which, it was learned, had been formed to destroy the settlement and massacre the inhabitants of the English colony at Wessagusset, now Weymouth. On this expedition, the most celebrated one of his life, and which is possibly a fair criterion of his character, he chose but eight men, refusing any more. On arriving at the settlement he found the people scattered, wholly unconscious of their impending danger. Having quickly assembled them, he informed them of their situation, not, however, without exciting the suspicions of the Indians. Soon after, an Indian bringing the Captain some furs, he treated him' smoothly' yet the Indian reported that he saw by the Captain's eye that he was angry in his heart. And at another time, Pecksuot, an Indian warrior of reputed courage, said to Hobomok, Standish's guide and interpreter, and an inmate of his household, that he understood that the Captain had come to kill him and the rest of the Indians there; but tell him, said he, we know it but fear him not neither will we shun him, let him begin when he dares; he shall not take us unawares. And again, a little after, in the presence of Standish, whetting his knife before his face, and boasting of its quality, he said to him, 'Though you are a great Captain, yet you are but a little man; and though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage.' On the following day Pecksuot, Wittowamat, and his brother a youth of eighteen, and another Indian, with Standish and about the same number of his own men, being in a room together, the signal was given by the Captain, and the door instantly closed and fastened. Then seizing Pecksuot, he snatched his knife from his belt, and his men fell upon the others. A short struggle ensued, which ended in the death of Pecksuot by Standish, and that of the other Indians, save the youth, whom they afterwards hung. Hobomok, who stood by a silent spectator of all that passed, then smilingly exclaimed, 'Yesterday Pecksuot bragged of his own strength and stature, and told you that though you were a great Captain, yet you were a little man; but today I see you are big enough to lay him on the ground.'

"Consider the situation of Standish. Upon his decisive action at this moment we cannot but feel that depended much, not merely the preservation of the company to whose succor he had come, but the existence, perhaps, of the whole colony. Had they been successful in their designs here, elated by their recent victory, they would have made the settlement of Plymouth the next object for their depredations, and the lives of the whole colony would have fallen victims to their cruel barbarity. This was not distant from the foresight of the captain. He struck a mighty blow, and, by determined action in a time of doubt, dispelled the fears of his followers and sent terror upon the enemy. This action needs no apology. He acted but the part of a brave defender of his country, who feels that upon his own vigorous exertions the defense of the people depends. And, says his biographer, men of his profession will admire his courage, his promptitude and decision in the execution of his orders."

No one has ever charged Standish either with failures in point of obedience, or of wantonly exceeding the limits of his commission. He is called by Prince one of those heroes of antiquity, "who chose to suffer affliction with the people of God; who, through faith, subdued kingdoms; wrought righteousness; obtained promises; stopped the mouths of lions; waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens."

Near the close of his life, he was made commander of the expedition against the Dutch, and, although far advanced in years, he was still considered the best person upon whom the command could devolve. In his commission and instruction, he is spoken of as one "of whose approved fidelity and abilitie we have had long experience."

Standish's services to the colony were of hardly less importance in their civil than in their military affairs. He held the office of an assistant and deputy during the whole of his life, was treasurer of the colony from 1641 to 1649, and once he was sent to England, as their agent. Scarcely an appraisement was made, where the colony were interested, but Standish was on the commission, unless otherwise occupied. About the year 1630, he settled in Duxbury, on a tract of land granted to him by the colony, and which has since been known as the Standish farm. Upon this farm the celebrated Captain's Hill is situated. Tradition fixes his house on the southeastern part of the peninsula, where there still remain the walls of two cellars, singularly joined at one end. It is supposed that the cellar of one part was constructed to accommodate a storehouse, built after his death, in 1656, by his son Alexander, which was supposed to have been burned some time during the next nine years, or previous to 1665. The present Standish house was erected by Alexander Standish, partly from old timbers taken from the remains of his father's house. This fact is fully verified by the appearance of the beams in the present building, which show not only the marks of former use, but bear traces upon them of the use of a whipsaw, an implement which antedated the establishment of sawmills. It is also supposed that the hearth. stone, as indicated in our engraving, belonged to the former house, as well as the doors and latchings, of which we also give a representation. There is nothing left to give the true size or shape of the original house, though the timbers that were transferred to the new one were mostly of oak, and were very strong. They are still quite sound, and show the old mortises and tenons used for the first house, in many places. The barn, so far as is known, was on the south slope of Captain's Hill, not far from the large rock, now sometimes called the " Captain's Chair." The homestead estate, containing about one hundred and fifty acres, was left, by will, to his son Alexander, who lived on it till his death, in 1702.

Alexander devised the homestead to his son Myles, who resided on it till his death in 1739. The latter left a numerous family. He also had a son Myles, who inherited the property, but who removed to Bridgewater, and died in 1784. The mother of the last named, and one sister, remained at the old home, and were probably the last of the family who resided there. The estate was sold by Myles, July 3, 1763, to Samuel and Sylvanus Drew, who disposed of the property to Wait Wadsworth, and from his hands it passed to George Faunce, and descended to his children; then a part was purchased of his grandson, George Faunce, and a part of Luther Pierce, by the present proprietor. The descendants of Captain Standish are very numerous, and are scattered through the whole country. Some remain in New England. Moses Standish, Lemuel Myles Standish, and one or two brothers reside in Boston, and William and Benjamin Standish, and perhaps some others, still reside in Duxbury and Plymouth County.

The Standish tract contains some of the finest land in the county of Plymouth, a part of which, on the east side, was the Elder Brewster place. Of Captain's Hill the historian of Duxbury says: " This hill formed a part of an early grant to Captain Standish, who settled near its base, and whose name it still bears. It is situated on a peninsula, which extends in a south. easterly direction, between the bays of Duxbury and Plymouth, and contains about two or three hundred acres of good soil, little inferior to any in the country in fertility."

"While in other portions of the town the soil is sandy and unproductive, and a considerable part in no state of cultivation, this peninsula is furnished with a deep and fertile soil. The same may be said of the highland on the Gurnet, Saquish, and many other similar spots around the bay, where the soil is in immediate proximity to the sea. Clark's Island in some parts possesses a mould, which, if equalled, is scarcely surpassed in the country; and while the northern and western sides offer the most desirable qualities for pasturage and grain, its southern and eastern declivities present a perfect garden, abounding with trees, through whose foliage, even during the summer's hottest months, stir the breezes from the sea. The summit of the hill is about four hundred yards from the sea, and about one hundred and eighty feet above its level, and when once attained, presents a view to him who communes with nature, and who has pondered over the history of the early Pilgrims, is acquainted with their character, and has conceived the purpose of their exile,  to him it presents a spectacle which has in times past, and which, I conceive, must ever cause an impression on his mind, not easily forgotten, and scarcely to be eradicated. Full as it is of the most pleasing associations, it calls up in the mind of the beholder those reminiscences which gladden his heart and arouse his soul into being, and clothe him with all the nobler feelings of mankind, dormant as they may lie within the deep recesses of his heart. Nor is the loveliness of the scene itself any the less an efficient agent of holy influences; both cause one to tremble, irresistibly, and to offer praise to his Maker. The circumstances, to be sure, add to the attractions of the spot; but its beauty, its simplicity of grandeur, its busy scenes, and its still, silent loneliness give to it a power whose effects need not be mentioned. Select, should you visit it, the closing hours of a summer's day, when the burning heat of the declining sun is dispelled by the cooler shades of approaching evening, and ascend to its height. Now as the retiring rays of day form on the heavens above a gorgeous canopy of variegated hues, so on nature's face below all brightens into richness, and the verdure of her covering softens into mildness; the shining villages around, and the village spires towering against a background of unfading green, add gladness to the scene. The glassy surface of the bay within, with its gentle ripplings on the shore beneath, the music of the dashing waves on the beach without, give quiet to the mind and peace within. Before you, in the distance at the east, appear the white sandhills of Cape Cod, shining beyond the blue expanse, and seeming to encircle by its protecting barrier a spot dear to the heart of every descendant of that Pilgrim band. Still nearer, at your feet and before you, are the pleasant bays of Plymouth, Kingston, and Duxbury, enlivened by passing boats, and sheltered by the beach from a raging ocean, crowned at its southern extremity by a lighthouse, and with the extending arm of Saquish enclosing the Island of the Pilgrims; turning your eyes to the south, they fall in succession on the promontory of Manomet; on the ancient town of Plymouth, rising beneath, and as if under the protection of the mound beyond, the restingplace of the Pilgrim's dead, on the villages of Rocky Nook and of Kingston. Extending your eye over the extent of forest to the northwest, you see the Blue Hills of Milton, ascending far above the surrounding country; while nearer, at the north, are the villages of Duxbury and Marshfield,  scattered over the fields, whose white cottages, shining in the sun, offer a pleasing contrast to the scene. Below you and around you once arose the humble abode of the Pilgrims. Who can gaze upon the spot which marks the site of the dwelling of Standish, without feelings of emotion? who can but give thanks that that spirit,
'A spirit fit to start into an empire
And look the world to law',
had been sent amongst them, to be their counsel in peace and their protection in danger? Who can but admire its ready adaptation to a sphere of action so totally different from the school of his youth?  Here also arose the dwellings of Brewster, who having followed in his youth the retinue of kings and princes, preferred a solitary retreat in the western wilds, and there to worship his God in peace. Here, too, was the abode of Collier, who, under every circumstance of danger, strove with unceasing toil in the discharge of every duty necessary to the welfare and prosperity of the colony. Here, too, can be seen the spot whereon the habitation of Alden was, whose prudent counsels and whose rigid justice attained for him a rank in the estimation of the colony, alike an honor to himself, and a subject of pride to his descendants. Turn your vision as you may, and you will feel that you are gazing on a scene of more than ordinary interest, full of the most grateful recollections, and of a nature the most agreeable and pleasing."
"Scenes must be beautiful, which daily viewed
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years,
Praise justly due to those that I describe."

Rose, the first wife of Myles Standish, died at Plymouth, January 29, 1621, about a month after the landing. She was among the first to succumb to the privations of that terrible first winter. He married a second wife (Barbara), who survived him.

To his house on Captain's Hill, Standish removed after his second marriage, and here he drew around him a devoted class of friends, among whom were the elder Brewster, George Partridge, John Alden, Mr. Howland, Francis Eaton, Peter Brown, George Soule, Nicholas Byrom, Moses Simmons, and other settlers of Duxbury. 

The Indians also loved as well as feared him, and the faithful Hobomok ever kept near to minister to his wants, and was the faithful guide in his travels. This devoted Indian died in 1642, having faithfully served his master twenty years, and is supposed to have been buried on the south side of Captain's Hill, near the great rock called 'The Captain's Chair.' Tradition fixes his wigwam between two shell mounds on the shore near the Standish place, till taken home to the house of Standish, where he became an inmate till his death.

THE WILL OF MYLES STANDISH.
In the Plymouth Colony Records, vol. ii., pages 37, 38, is recorded the will of Standish, dated March 1, 1655. In this he devises that if he "die at Duxburrow, my body to be laid as near as conveniently may be to my two dear daughters, Lora Standish my daughter, and Mary Standish my daughter-in-law." After the payment of debts and funeral expenses he ordains that "my dear and loving wife Barbara Standish shall have the third part" of the estate.

4. I have given to my son Josiah Standish upon his marriage one young horse, five sheep and two heifers, which I must upon that contract of marriage make forty pounds, yet not knowing whether the estate will bear it at present; my will is that the residue remain in the whole state, and that every one of my four sons, viz., Alexander Standish, Myles Standish, Jerias Standish, and Charles Standish, may have forty pounds apiece; if not, that they may have proportionable to the remaining part, be it more or less.

5. My will is that my eldest son, Alexander, shall have a double share in land.

6. My will is that so long as they live single that the whole be in partnerships between them.

7. I do ordain and make my dearly beloved wife, Barbara Standish, Alexander Standish, Myles Standish. and Jerias Stan. dish, joint executors of this my last will and testament.

8. I do by this my will make and appoint my loving friends, Mr. Timothy Hatherly and Captain James Cudworth, supervisors of this my last will, and that they will be pleased to do the office of Christian love, to be helpful to my poor wife and children by their Christian counsel and advice; and if any difference should arise, which I hope will not, my will is that my said supervisors shall determine the same, and that they see that my poor wife shall have as comfortable maintainance as my poor state will bear, the whole time of her life, which if you my loving friends please to do, though neither they nor I shall be able to recompense, I do not doubt but the Lord will. By me, Myles Standish, further my will is, that Mary Robinson, whom I tenderly love for her grandfather's sake, shall have three pounds in something to go forward for her two years after my decease, which my will is my overseers shall see performed. Further, my will is that my servant, John Irish, Jr., have forty shillings more than his covenant, etc.

9. I give unto my son and heir apparent, Alexander Standish, all my lands, as heir apparent by lawful descent, in Ormstick, Borsconge, Wrightington, Maudsley, Newburrow, Crawston, and in the Isle of Man, and given to me as right heir by lawful descent, but surreptitiously detained from me, my great-grandfather being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish.

The above described will, as indorsement states, was presented for probate by Captain James Cudworth, May 4, 1657, some time after the death of Captain Myles Standish.

Captain Standish is perhaps better known through Mr. Longfellow's charming poem relating to his courtship of Priscilla, than through the dry records of New England history, The historians of the Plymouth Colony have failed to give us the details of that remarkable wooing, leaving it to the poet to embalm the romantic story in his beautiful verse. We copy from the poem the following description of the doughty Captain: 

" In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Myles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber -
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket and matchlock.
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November."

Captain Standish, in his old age, so far as can now be ascertained, enjoyed good health till his last illness. His vigor, both of mind and body, seemed as strong and fresh as in his early days. He combined in a pre-eminent degree the practical use of intuition and intellect; and when convinced of the wisdom of a plan, however suddenly made, he executed it with great rapidity. His temperament was sanguine and impulsive, but through the whole course of his life, he seemed to exercise a wonderful control over his passions.

He loved nature more than art, and entered with his whole soul into the enjoyments of his home and farm at Captain's Hill. His domestic and social life, and the great variety in the associations around this spot, seemed to captivate and control his very being. Here the careworn soldier found rest,  but rest only through that usefulness which ever brings happiness. Ever active and earnest, the full measure of his soul was drawn out in the many opportunities before him to serve his fellowman, and the reward sank deep into a warm and tender heart, full of appreciation and love. The impetuous dreams of early life, the sense of wrong and injustice which drove him from the fatherland were here soothed and put to rest, and perhaps forever buried from thought in the consciousness of the emptiness of title, the possession of wealth, and the glitter of courts and palaces.

STANDISH MEMORIAL.
The great interest taken by the public in the erection of some suitable memorial to Captain Myles Standish, has properly taken the subject from the hands of a few of his immediate descendants, and placed it in charge of the American people at large, the representatives of whom, as shown by the list of the officers of the Association, are fully capable of taking care of the subject in all its bearings. The military of the United States very naturally claim a large share in perpetuating the memory of the first commissioned military officer of the New World, especially when the martial character of the man, after more than two hundred and fifty years' test, still stands out almost unparalleled in the history of the country.

It has often been said that the military powers of Standish, together with his great executive ability, and incessant labor in the various departments of the colony, saved it many times from dissolution. Be that as it may, there is abundant evidence that the colony always held him in high confidence and respect. The last commission against the Dutch, so near his death, proves that even in his old age their confidence was not diminished.

Members of the Grand Army of the Republic alone would cheerfully erect a monument; but some of our first merchants and citizens are too sensible of the great service or our soldiers to allow them to be at this expense, and offer liberally in its behalf. It is to be presumed that the sum of fifty thousand dollars can be easily raised for such a purpose. President Grant and many of his Generals have signified their hearty approval of the object, and citizens from almost every part of the country offer their aid and support.

The spot chosen for the monument is Captain's Hill, on the old Standish Farm, at Duxbury, where Captain Standish lived and died. This Farm was given him by the colony about 1630, and remained in the family till the middle of the last century. The hill is one hundred and eighty feet high, and overlooks Plymouth and Duxbury Bays, and is now much used as a sighting point to navigators in entering Massachusetts Bay. When the shaft is up it will be most useful to the coast survey as well as to navigators.

Thus, after two and a half centuries, this tribute is offered to the memory of one who left the allurements of wealth, luxury, and power, for the wilderness of New England, there to give a life service in sowing seeds for the fruit we today enjoy.

 

STANDISH MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION.
ARTICLE 1ST. The object and purpose of this Association is to cause to be erected a suitable and proper Memorial Monument, Obelisk, or Tablet, to the memory of Captain Myles Standish, on or near Captain's Hill, Duxbury, Massachusetts.

ART. 2D. The Board of Directors of the Association, for the time being, shall constitute the Board of Management, and have full power to act and do all things necessary to secure the object of the Association, appoint agents and assistants, and fill all vacancies in their board.

ART. 3D. The property and funds of the Association may be held by one or more trustees, or a treasurer, who, with the officers of the Association, after the year eighteen hundred and seventy-one, shall be chosen by the subscribers to the fund, under such rules or by.laws as the directors or subscribers may adopt at any regular meeting.

ART. 4TH. The officers of the Association shall be a President, one or more advisory or Vice Presidents, Trustees and Directors, Secretaries and Treasurer, and such other officers or agents as may be appointed or chosen for the necessary purposes of the Association; and the Selectmen of Duxbury are to appoint or approve the first officers of the Association.

ART. 5TH. The President, or any five Directors, may call a meeting of the Directors when needed. The annual meeting for the choice of officers and other business shall be held, after notice, the first Tuesday of January in each year. All officers may hold over till new ones are elected in their place.

ART. 6TH. An Executive Committee of twelve shall be chosen, who shall have special charge of the planning and building the Monument, under the control of the Board of Directors.

ART. 7TH. The foregoing Constitution, Rules, and Specifications may be altered and changed by the subscribers or directors at any regular meeting of the officers of the Association.

DUXBURY, December 21st, 1870, and the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing of MYLES STANDISH with the Pilgrims, at Plymouth, on the 21st day of December, 1620.

Ofiicers of the Association appointed and approved by the Selectmen of Duxbury, July 4th, 1871.

PRESIDENT.  Gen. Horace Binney Sargent.

ADVISORY PRESIDENTS. His Excellency Marshall Jewell, Connecticut; His Excellency James A. Weston, New Hampshire; Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Massachusetts; Rev, Dr. George Putnam; Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, Maine; Hon. Alexander H. Rice; Dr. George, B. Loring; Hon. John H. Clifford, Massachusetts; Gen. A. E. Burnside, Rhode Island; Hon. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Boston; lion. E S. Tobey, Boston; Hon. Horatio Harris, Boston.

DIRECTORS.  Hon. Onslow Stearns, Concord, N. H.; Hon. Thomas Russell, Boston; Nathaniel Adams, Boston; Lemuel Myles Standish, Boston; Samuel Little, Boston; Samuel Loring, Duxbury; Nathan Matthews, Boston; Frederick C. Adams, Kingston; Francis Standish, Boston; William Whiting, Boston; Nathan Morse, Boston; Isaac Keene, Duxbury; Jonathan S. Ford, Duxbury; Rev. Josiah Moore, Duxbury; Dr. James Wilde, Duxbury; James Ritchie, Boston; S. M. Allen, Boston; Edwin Adams, Boston; Edwin C. Bailey, Boston; Stephen N. Gifford, Duxbury; Joseph S. Beal, Kingston; Alden S. Bradford, Kingston; George B. Standish, Duxbury; Alden B. Weston, Duxbury; Fibridge Chandler, Duxbury; Hamilton E. Smith, Duxbury; Oliver Ditson, Boston; John G. Jackson, Boston; Dr. Cushing Webber, Boston; Gen. B. F. Butler; Jonas Fitch, Boston; Jacob H. Loud, Plymouth; George Bradford, Duxbury; John S. Loring, Duxbury; Harrison Loring, Boston; Joseph W. Coburn, Boston; Alden Frink, Boston; W. S. Danforth, Plymouth; George W. Wright, Duxbury; Dr. Calvin Pratt, Duxbury; Parker C. Richardson, Duxbury; Job A. Turner, Boston; Joshua M. Cushing, Duxbury.

SECRETARY.  Stephen N. Gifford, Duxbury.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. Stephen M. Allen, Boston.

TREASURER. Jacob H. Loud, Plymouth and Boston.

 

Committees chosen at the meeting at Duxbury, Aug. 17, 1871.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. - Nathaniel Adams, of Boston; Lemuel Myles Standish, Hon. E. S. Tobey, Samuel Little, Francis Standish, James Ritchie, S. M. Allen, Edwin Adams, Jacob II. Loud, Harrison Loring, Job H. Turner, Gen. H. B. Sargent.

FINANCE COMMITTEE. - Horatio Harris, Hon. Alexander H. Rice, Hon. E. S. Tobey, Nathan Matthews, Oliver Ditson, Dr. Geo. B. Loring, Samuel Little, Jacob H. Loud, Nathaniel Adams, Jonathan S. Ford, George B. Standish, Gen. B. F. Butler, George W. Wright, Jonas Fitch, W. S. Danforth, Hon. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Rev. Dr. George Putnain, and Joseph S. Beal.

 

EXERCISES OF CONSECRATION ON CAPTAIN'S HILL DUXBURY, AUGUST 17, 1871.

The first train on the new Duxbury and Cohasset Railroad arrived at the Duxbury station at seven o'clock the evening previous, with freight and passengers, and bringing a section of two guns and twenty men of the First Battery, under command of Capt. E. C. Langley and Lieut. I. C. Foster. On the morning of the seventeenth, on the arrival of the cars and steamboat, the exercises of the day commenced with the firing of one hundred guns by the battery.

A procession was formed at the depot, under the direction of Joshua M. Cushing, the marshal of the day, the Standish Guards, Lieut. Lanman, commanding, acting as escort.

Arriving at the monument grounds, the assembly were called to order by Gen. Sargent, President of the Association, and the Executive and Finance Committees were appointed, and the exercises progressed as follows: 

MUSIC BY THE WEYMOUTH BAND.
Hail to the Chief.

PRAYER. BY REV. JOSIAH MOORE. ODE TO MYLES STANDISH.

AIB - America. Sung by the Audience.

All Hail, departed Chief!
The Nation to thee brings
An offering free;
Not of mere bronze or stone,
Nor set on hill alone,
Our memories long have flown
O'er land and sea. 

Fond hopes in Britain left,
Of wealth and power bereft,
Still, spirit free,
You braved the ocean's roar,
You wooed a frozen shore,
That we might evermore
 Wed liberty.

That seed of freedom sown,
Through frost and blood hath grown
A Nation free!
An empire, great in trust,
A people full of rest,
Millions, thus happy blest,
All honor thee.

After the singing, General Sargent was formally introduced to the audience by the Secretary, Mr. Gifford, and addressed them as follows:

ORATION.
BY GEN. HORACE BINNEY SARGENT.

It would have been more fitting to the grandeur of a noble memory that a distinguished connection of Myles Standish should have addressed you today. It would have been most agreeable to myself, as well as to you, that one of the many, illustrious by letters or by deeds, with whom the Pilgrim blood is blessed, should enjoy the honor of speaking before an audience familiar with the simple, grand traditions which I can only repeat like a twice-told tale to you. I crave your courteous patience for my short recital of a well-known story, and my reverent tribute to a life supremely brave.

Two memorable pictures, representing widely separate decades, hang on the wall of American history. Two and a half centuries span the gulf of time between the first decade, when a little band of Englishmen floated into Jamestown, and another little band, a few years later, became entangled in the shoals of Cape Cod; and the last decade, when, with a shock of arms that shook the world, the descendants of the Cavaliers, repeating English history, surrendered the wreck of all their armies, infantry, cavalry, and cannon, with all hope of separate empire, to the descendants of the Puritans and to national supremacy; each combatant bound to the other, henceforth forever, by mutual reverence for proven valor; both, victor and vanquished, destined to stand hereafter, shoulder to shoulder, against the world in arms, and clasp each other's hands as brethren, joint heirs of all America!

The giant timbers of English oak with which Nelson humbled France would once have been an easy prey to the tiniest squirrel of the wood. And the germ acorn did not more differ from the line-of-battle ship, than did the colony of the Mayflower from our veteran nation of today. As the oak had gathered to itself all elements of the universe from ten thousand storms and showers, until its top reached out to heaven, and its roots, like anchors, grappled with the world, so the colonies have incorporated the energies and assimilated the qualities of many peoples. But the germ principle has controlled them all. As no method of culture, no fertilizing agent, no icy cold or fiery heat, would have developed the acorn into anything but the oak, so the Pilgrim spirit, while absorbing, with all the vigor of vitality, the masses of life, wealth, poverty, ignorance, and culture that have been wafted to these shores, could grow into nothing else than an independent, popular government. Dissenters from those who dissented - even from dissent - must necessarily have founded a state with an inborn, hereditary tendency to rebel against assertion of creed or sceptre. The fugitive residents of the home-like community of Leyden, which, after an exhausting war, had chosen the princely boon of a university rather than immunity from onerous taxation, might naturally develop that cradle of independent thought, the common school-house.

But to develop anything, it was first of all essential that the Pilgrim colony, stranded on a sterile cape in a New-England winter, among savages, should survive. And the wonderful providence of God is not more evident in the protecting husk that he gives to the ungerminated acorn, with which, amid the thunder of battle, he purposes to override a nation, than it is in creating the Moses and the Joshua to lead an infant people. The rough tent of a trooper, the unsurveyed forests of Virginia, the flat boat of the Mississippi, the rude log cabin of the West, as well as the sheep folds of Israel or the cattle shed of Galilee, may contain the fate of empires.

About the time that all Christendom was in mourning for the murdered Prince of Orange, and deploring in his death the overthrow of the bulwark of the Protestant faith, a little fair-haired child was playing among the hedge-rows of England, who was destined to learn the art of war in the armies of that king's more warlike son, Prince Maurice, then a boy of seventeen, and to be a tower of defence to the unsoldierly Pilgrim colony of Protestant America.

That child, whose bones, after nearly fourscore years of toil and war, were laid somewhere on this hillside, perhaps under our unconscious feet was Myles Standish, the great Puritan captain! He was born about the year 1580, of English ancestry, dating back to rank and opulence as far as the thirteenth century. Of his childhood, little is known. To defeat the title of his line to lands in England, the rent roll of which is half a million per annum, the hand of fraud is supposed to have defaced the page that contained the parish record of his birth. Unjustly deprived of these vast estates, as he avers in his will, in which he bequeaths his title to his eldest son, it seems probable that he went to Holland near the time of his majority. Queen Elizabeth signed his commission as lieutenant in the English forces, serving in the Netherlands against the cruel armies of the Inquisition. As she died in 1603, about two years after his majority, it is not improbable that we are indebted to that first disappointment, which may have driven him, in his early manhood and some despair, into the army.

From 1600 to 1609, the year of the great truce between Prince Maurice and the King of Spain, the contest was peculiarly obstinate and bloody. In this fierce school the Puritan captain learned the temper and art of war.

From 1609 to 1620, a period of truce but not of civil tranquility, the Low Countries were inflamed by those theological disputes of the Calvinists and Arminians which brought the excellent Barneveldt to the scaffold, and drove the great Grotius -a fugitive from prison - into exile. In this school, perhaps, Myles Standish learned some uncompromising religious opinions, which brought him into strange sympathy and connection with the Pilgrim church in Leyden. Both periods seemed to leave their impress on his character. The inventory, recorded with his will, mentions the Commentaries of Caesar, Bariffe's Artillery, three old Bibles, and three muskets, with the harness of the time, complete. His Bibles were old. A well-worn Bible for every musket; and, thank God, a musket, not an old one, to defend each Bible!

The schedule of his books, some forty in number, records nearly twenty which are devotional or religious. With the memory of one act of singularly resolute daring, when, in obedience to the colonial orders to crush a great Indian conspiracy, he took a squad of eight picked men into the forests, and deemed it prudent to kill the most turbulent warrior with his own hands, we may imagine how the pilgrim soldier, friend and associate of Brewster, disciple of   the saintly Robinson, rose from the perusal of one of the old Bibles, or of "Ball on Faith," " Sparkes against Heresie," or " Dodd on the Lord's Supper," to stab Pecksuot to the heart with his own knife; a giant who had taunted him with his small stature in almost the very words of Goliath, in his insulting sneer at David, long before; and to cut off the head of Watawamat, which bloody trophy the elders had ordered him to bring home with him. We can imagine him on the evening of that cheaply victorious day, taking more than usual pleasure in the exultant psalms of the warrior David, and in a chapter of Burroughs's " Christian Contentement" and "Gospel Conversation," especially as he had his three muskets with bandoleers, and Bariffe's Artillery, close at his hand. One can feel the unction with which the valorous pilgrim would religiously fulfill the colonial order to smite the heathen hip and thigh, and hew Agag in pieces before the Lord.

Not originally, and perhaps never, a member of the Pilgrim church, and possessing many traits which might have belonged to the fierce trooper, in an army whose cavalry was the legitimate descendant of Caesar's most formidable enemies, the Batavi, celebrated for cavalry qualities, and long the bodyguard of the Roman emperors, the appearance of the somewhat violent soldier, in the saintly company of Parson Robinson's church, is an anomaly.

It has been proven many a time, from the days of Bannockburn, when the Scottish host sank on its knees to receive the benediction of the Black Abbot  of Inchaffray, even to our own late day, when many of the best fighting regiments were blessed with the most earnest chaplains, that men never tender their lives more gallantly to God and motherland than when they are fervently preached to and prayed for.

Yet, the all-daring contempt for peril, the roughness of temper, the masterly economy with which Standish saved human life by consummate indifference to personal homicide upon prudent occasion, his power of breathing his own fiery heart into a handful of followers, till he made them an army able to withstand a host in the narrow rgates of death, would lead us to expect such a colleague for the saintly Brewster as little as we should expect to see Sheridan, "Cavalry Sheridan, Him of the horses and sabres we sing", prominent among the Methodists.

In truth, with the poem of our sweetest and most cultured bard in our minds, and with the memory of those fierce monosyllables with which our great cavalry leader rolled back defeat upon the jubilant rebel host, and rescued victory at Winchester, fancy can depict the foaming black horse pressed into the rush of the shell-shattered guidons by the iron gripe of knees booted in " Cordovan leather," and imagine that little Myles Standish rode that day in the saddle of little Phil Sheridan.

To the genealogist, who believes that names represent qualities and things, it is not unpleasing to find in the family record of Standish and Duxbury Hall, in the parish church of Chorley, Old England, the name Milo Standanaught. To stand at nothing, in the way of a duty commanded by the civil authority, seemed the essence of character in Myles Standish; and thoroughness stamps the reputation of the name and blood today.

The materials for personal biography are scanty. His wife, Rose Standish,  an English rose, whose very name augurs unfitness for a New England winter on an unsettled cape, died within a month of the landing. A light tradition exists that his second wife, Barbara, was her sister, whom he left an orphan child in England, and sent for. She arrived a woman grown, and the valorous captain added another illustration to the poet's story, that Venus and the forger of thunderbolts were married.

From the first anchorage, Captain Standish, as the soldier of the company, was charged with all deeds of adventure. At first, certain grave elders were sent with him for counsel. But ultimately his repute in affairs, both civil and military, was such that he was for many years the treasurer of the colony, and, during a period of difficulty, their agent in England. As a soldier, he was evidently the Von Moltke of the Pilgrims. They invested him with the general command. Even in extreme old age, the very year that he died "very auncient and full of dolorous paines " he received his last and fullest commission against new enemies, his old friends, the Dutch.

It is singular that among the primitive people, who must often in the later Indian wars have missed his counsel and conduct, as the poet describing Venice, sighs, "Oh! for one hour of blind old Dandole," no clear tradition has descended of the place where the war-worn bones of the soldier pilgrim lie. Sent, like Moses, to guide and guard a feeble people to a promised land of power that he might never see, no man knoweth his burial place until this day.

More than one hundred years ago, the following paragraph appeared in the Boston "News Letter" dated Boston, January 22, 1770: "We hear from Plymouth that the 22d day of December last was there observed by a number of gentlemen, by the name of the Old Colony Club, in commemoration of the landing of their ancestors in that place."

The fourth toast on that occasion, a hundred and one years ago, was, "To the memory of that brave man and good officer, Capt. Miles Standish."

Over the graves of the guests at that dinner, "For fifty years the grasses have been growing."

But the principle of public fidelity shares the immortality of God and Truth. Reverence for it never dies till the decay of nations. And today we come together, the dwellers in the city and the dwellers on the shore, men of every age and all professions, to dedicate one spot of this parental soil for an enduring monument to the same Myles Standish of the same unfaded record. The sunlight of near three hundred years, that has shone fatally on many a reputation since his baby eyes first saw the light of England, has only brought out the lasting colors of his fame.

Believing, as I firmly do, that he was a useful, a necessary citizen, because he was "that brave man and good officer" at a time when soldierly qualities were essential to the very life of the infant colony, it seems to me providential for the colonists that one of their number was, by temper and training, unable to sympathize with that soft tenderness for human life which is wont to characterize saintly-minded men, like the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who, when he heard of the marvelous conflict where Standish, with three or four others, in a locked room, killed the same number of hostile chiefs that were gathering their tribes to exterminate the English, uttered these sorrowful words: " Oh! that you had converted some before you had killed any! " The soldier practised that terrible piece of economy which no saint of the company would have dreamed of doing with his own hand. To borrow the diction of the time, the gauntlet of the man of wrath was the fold of the lambs of God. It was fortunate for us who believe in Plymouth Rock, that one trained soldier, who had faced war conducted by the Duke of Alva, came out in the Mayflower. Some little love of high position, some thirst for gain in office, some disposition to confer office on men for their "forwardness" rather than for their fitness, were seeds of weeds that the Mayflower brought over to the congenial soil of America. Even in the second expedition inland from the barque, " the Gunner was sick unto death," "but hope of trucking made him go." It is to be feared that the mantle of that gunner falls upon some camp follover in every regiment.

Had the fate of the Pilgrims depended on such motives, Elder Brewster and his company would have been buried in some Krossaness, like the earlier explorer, the son of Eric the Red, and American civilization might have been for centuries deferred.

Myles Standish represented the true idea of public service, vigorous fidelity and trained fitness for his place. In his single heroic person he exhibited the true idea of the army, skilled military force in loyal subordination to the civil authority. The confidence that the colony reposed in him to execute their most difficult commands as a citizen soldier, seems to prove that he revered, in the words of Mr. Robinson's farewell sermon, "the image of the Lord's power and authority which the magistrate beareth," words that can never be too forcibly impressed on the minds of the pennywise, who would diminish the dignity of the magistrate's office by inadequate compensation, or destroy his independence by the vulgar device of the social charlatan, gifts to supplement judicial salaries. If one may venture on such high speculation, it may be that God is just, partly because he is supreme, and to Him belongs the earth "and the fullness thereof." Freedom from obligation is of the essence of independence in the magistrate who bears "the Lord's power and authority."

As a dissenter from dissenters, saturated with the spirit of liberty, Standish, as an agent of authority, never fell into the heresy with which the rogues of the body politic cajole its fools, that a weak execution of the laws, an imbecile or impotent manifestation of government, is test or evidence of freedom. Nor did the Northern Pilgrims ever fancy that a government founded upon compact was less panoplied with positive authority, within its sphere, than the superior government of the crown.

Even when every English life was precious to the settlements, the Pilgrims did not hesitate to execute three Englishmen for the murder of one Indian. In flying from civilization to a desert in pursuit of liberty, the Pilgrims did not fly so fast and far as to leave majestic law behind them. That dear, pale banner of the State, which the great-hearted, truehearted, stout-hearted war minister of Massachusetts, John Albion Andrew, of all-blessed memory, thanked God that no one of fifty-three regiments then in commission had ever left on any field of battle, bears the device that might have been inspired at that early hour, an Indian erect, in all the dignity of manhood, ready for peace; or war, and the armed hand of protecting power raised above him, ready to guard or smite, and the legend Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem.

And this is the end and path of government,  the armed hand, seeking serene repose, under liberty, by the sword, raised, but not needlessly descending; or if kept in the scabbard, kept always sharp.

To us, who sometimes ignore the uncancelled, unpaid debt of the nation to the military academy, and to the professional soldiers who there learned the art of victory; to us, who sometimes imagine that the practice of gymnastics, with a musket, makes all the difference between a citizen and a citizen soldier, and dispenses with that code of new sensations, subordination, the soldierly habit of mind and temper, exact obedience and reverent loyalty to authority, which no muster-field or training-day can give, and which nothing but military discipline in a camp of instruction can inspire;  to us, who have learned, by bitter experience, how much time and blood and gold it costs to convert a patriotic mob into an effective army of soldier citizens;  to us, who are suffering oppressive taxation for our ignorance and forgetfulness that true economy is always to be prepared for war, a blunder and a crime which we have no moral right to fasten upon the purses of posterity, for the blunder was our own; to us, thus criminal and suffering, it is profitable to reflect, that if Myles Standish had not been a trained soldier, the reverend heirs of the elders of the little church of Leyden would probably have adorned the wigwams of "the Massachusetts." His grand heart might have been as true and loyal and brave as it was; his arm, now dust, mouldering somewhere under the sod of this hillside, might have been as strong. But if he had not learned from his own experience, and the well-conned commentaries of his beloved Caesar, how contemptible are the most vigorous and patriotic multitudes without real discipline, Plymouth Rock would have been of no importance except to some leisurely antiquarian; Northern civilization would have been smitten with sudden death by savage tribes; even this beautiful headland might have been tilled by Virginian slaves today.

Special fitness for special work, education adapted to a purpose, is the lesson taught by the Pilgrim life. Well might we profit by it, in teaching the industrial arts of common life to the pupils of our common schools, which now, neglecting the practical arts of daily household duties, fill the world with helpless people, starving, lady-like teachers, without pupils; accountants, who have nothing to add up, useless members of society, ignorant of every duty that a home demands, and demanding a home that their refinement craves and station cannot give. That even the Pilgrims found, that overmuch unpractical culture was incompatible with provision for the needs of rugged life, is indicated by the fact that the second generation was less refined and more skilled in practical arts than the first.

To be the founders of states is the first of glories, according to Lord Bacon. The career of our Pilgrim hero is a beautiful illustration of an education fitted to the great mission for which he seemed peculiarly, strangely ordained.

In grateful memory we consecrate this spot of earth to a monument of the great Puritan captain. May its shadow fall upon his grave! For two centuries the stars have looked upon it. At what moment of the night the circling moon may point it out with shadowy finger, no mortal knows. No mortal ear can hear the secret whispered to the night, "Beneath this spot lies all of a hero that could die."

High as the shaft may tower over headland and bay, deep as its foundation stones may rest, brightly as it may gleam in the rising or setting sun upon the mariner returning in the very furrow that the keel of the Mayflower made, the principles of commonsense, a citizen soldier's education for a citizen soldier's work, the principles of moral truth, manly honesty, prudent energy, fidelity incorruptible, courage undauntable, all the qualities of manhood that compel unflinching execution of the states' behest, are firmer and higher and brighter still. And to crown them all is reverence to the Supreme Executive of Earth and Heaven, who knows no feebleness of heart or hand, and whose great purpose moved the war-worn Pilgrim's feet to seek his home upon this rock-bound continent, where the unceasing waves of two unfettered oceans roar the choral hymn of Freedom.

General Sargent's address was listened to with marked attention and received frequent applause as he alluded in glowing terms to the heroic virtues of the founder of the town of Duxbury.

MUSIC BY THE BAND.
CONSECRATORY PRAYER.
BY REV. R. H. NEALE

HYMN - OUR PILGRIM FATHERS.

AIR- Auld Lang Syne.

Sung by the audience.

 

Awake! the slumbering Hero comes!
Arise! his spirit nears,
To marshal back to "Pilgrim Homes"
Our sires from other spheres.
For "Auld Lang Syne" they come,
For "Auld Lang Syne,"
And gather round those "Pilgrim Homes,"
Of "Auld Lang Syne."

Hosannas to our Pilgrim Sires!
Bright memories round them twine;
 Our prayers invoke celestial lyres
Around their homes divine.
For "Auld Lang Syne " we sing,
For "Auld Lang Syne,"
All honor to our Pilgrim Sires,
For "Auld Lang Syne."

At the close of the exercises on the monument grounds, a procession was formed for the dinner tent, which was reached at about half-past two. Gen. Sargent led the guests, consisting of General Butler, General Schouler, Dr. Geo. B. Loring, Hon. Jacob H. Loud, Hon. Josiah Quincy, Ex-Mayor Shurtleff, Mayor Gaston, Hon. William T. Davis of Plymouth, members of the Executive Council, and Hon. Oliver Warner, Secretary of State, Rev. Dr. Caswell, Hon. A. C. Barstow, Rev. A. A. Miner, Rev. Edward E. Hale, Hon. Otis Cary, and others.

After the company were seated, they were called to order by General Sargent. Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Burgess. After about an hour spent in eating, General Sargent rapped to order, and introduced the speech-making by expressing the satisfaction which he enjoyed, after having been tortured by making a speech earlier in the day, to torture other gentlemen by calling upon them for speeches. In introducing the first toast, he made very complimentary allusion to Gen. Butler, which was applauded.

He announced the first regular toast as follows: "The President of the United States, and the great Puritan Captain: trained soldiers both, and none the less determined to carry out the will of the people without any policy of their own."

Responded to by General Butler.

SPEECH OF GENERAL BUTLER.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I grieve that the principal executive officer of the United States in this Commonwealth, who came with me here, and who would in the usual course be called upon to respond to the toast to the president of the United States, has been called back by imperative necessity, and left that which he, as a son of Plymouth, would be glad to perform, to be performed by me.

As I ascended Captain's Hill this morning, the thought occurred to me how little each generation knows of the effect of the events which occur in its own time. How little our pilgrim fathers thought of the great country which thereafterward their ideas and their descendants were to govern; when the little Mayflower entered this bay, how little thought those pilgrims of the great work they were doing! So each and every great event; to the present, to the accompanying generation, the work is a small one, however great it may seem to those who come after. The great Captain, dead as we are told by your orator and by tradition, has an unknown grave. We can hardly look back and believe that the man that we know, the great citizen soldier of iron will, of that Pilgrim band, would be so little remembered by those that immediately surrounded and came after him, that his resting place should be even a matter of which tradition does not speak. He has but suffered the fate which all events of great magnitude, rising from small beginnings, suffer at the hands of their contemporaries.

After what has been said, nay, after what the men of Plymouth know of Myles Standish, it would be idle for me, coming from Essex County, to enter into anything like eulogy. He came down, indeed, once to Essex County, however, and it was the only time when he went out and came not back victor. But then he interfered with our fish! (A laugh.) There is a trait developed in the Puritan pilgrim character in the steady public employment of Myles Standish, which deserves a moment's thought. No more pious, nay, no more thoroughly religious people, ever came together. They came here, not as tradition has it, not in the words of poetry, for the purpose of establishing freedom to worship God, but they came here for the purpose of establishing a commonwealth in which they should have the right to worship God uninterfered with by any other class, or power, or potentate whatever; and upon that theory alone can we, their descendants, entirely justify every act of theirs. If they simply meant to establish freedom to worship God, why did Roger Williams found Rhode Island? Why did they cast out the schismatic? It was because they thoroughly believed they were right; that their religion was the true religion. They, believing that, had left the perfect freedom of Holland, where they had every religious freedom except the freedom of worshipping undisturbed by schisms and dissensions, and came here to this country. And when they made themselves a home in the wilderness, they determined that, being right, having made the great sacrifices for that right which they had done, no man should interfere with them. They carried out their own ideas to the logical consequence; better that men should suffer in this world, than to suffer an eternity in the next, as they believed all men who substantially differed from them would. They always stood by the logic of their own ideas. And it is the standing by that logic that today gives those ideas the government of the nation, and makes this nation the missionary nation of religious freedom and religious rights in the world.

Again, our Pilgrim fathers were practical men. Deeply imbued with the religious spirit, believing they were controlled by a Divine Providence, they recognized the fact that that Providence worked through means, and human means, and used all human means best adapted to carry out the end. They remembered that Providence always blest the best battalion and the best soldiers. They believed in the man who had a will, and they believed that their prayers would be sufficient to enable him to carry out the will and power of God, although the man might not be the most proper instrument in a religious point of view.

One of the most marked characteristics of Myles Standish was, that, living among the Puritans, among religious men, not a hypocrite, not praying in public and sinning in private, and willing his whole life should be known and well understood, he carried with him, from the beginning to the end, the uttermost confidence and respect of the highest religious people. True, the good Elder Robinson thought that he might convert a few of the savages before he slew them, but he was quite content that the Indian might be slain provided that God's people might be preserved. Myles Standish had a will of his own, and he chose to exercise that will, and whenever it became necessary for him to carry forward the work he had in hand, to do the duty placed upon him, he was ready to sacrifice any enemy of his country which stood between him and the work which he was delegated by his country to perform.

Again, Myles Standish had another high attribute of character, and that was loyalty to law —loyalty to authority. He never went beyond the right as it was given to him; he always bowed to the civil power, and in that he only showed his training as a soldier. This idea General Butler elaborated, and claimed that the same thing was shown in the late civil war, when our soldiers showed themselves obedient always to law and order, especially on their return home, when they were expected to make trouble. He paused to eulogize General Grant, in this connection, whom he termed the second great soldier of this country since Myles Standish. The latter had thirty-six years of executive power, and there are those who hope General Grant may continue many more years to execute the will of the nation. (Applause.) Whatever else was said about General Grant, they could not claim that his policy had been against the will of the people.

There was a resemblance between Myles Standish and General Grant in the way they have been treated by their countrymen. Some persons objected that a grateful people should make gifts to General Grant, but did not our Pilgrim fathers give the land on which they then stood to Myles Standish for his soldier's duty done? Thank God, in those days there were not any newspapers, and there was no slander raised on that account. (Laughter.) In this regard, General Butler thought the example of the Pilgrim fathers might well be followed. Here was sown the seed which enabled this country to go through the war for the suppression of the Rebellion. He (Butler) was one of those who believed that the Rebellion was necessary, and that it could not be averted; that all in the country were more or less guilty of the great cause,  African slavery; that the war was sent for the nation's regeneration. He remembered that Massachusetts and Rhode Island once owned slaves, and although subsequently rid of them, the North was guilty of participation in the slavery of the South. He believed the war could never have ended until emancipation was proclaimed and the nation cleansed by fire. Any man, looking back over the recent events, could, in his opinion, see the guiding hand of Providence in them all. As Moses was not allowed to set foot on the promised land, so President Lincoln was not allowed to enter into the full enjoyment of being the ruler of a reunited people, and the nation had to have the last of all phials of wrath in the shape of his successor. The triumph of the Puritan over the Cavalier was referred to, and General Butler said so strong a faith had he in the Puritan character that he was almost superstitious about names, even, and if his grandfather's name had been Carlos instead of Zephaniah, he didn't believe he would have gone to the late war. It is this Puritan idea that is revolutionizing the whole country today; and when in the South and elsewhere shall be established schools, equal rights, the town house, the church where the word of God shall be preached to satisfy the dictates of the consciences of those who desire to hear it, the nation will be redeemed. He (General Butler) observed some persons smiling at this last remark, and repeated it, and declared that it was the Puritan idea not to impose their tenets on anybody else, and to allow nobody to impose their tenets upon them. In closing, General Butler alluded to the Christian commission following our armies in the late war, and claimed that it was a strictly Puritan institution, and ended with the following sentiment:

"The Puritan idea, the motive power which is to revolutionize the world."

After music by the band, the second regular toast was given "to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," and both Gov. Claflin and Lieut Gov. Tucker being absent, Hon. Oliver Warner, Secretary of State, was called upon for a response, but had left the tent, and the sentiment was passed over.

After the performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" by the band, the next regular toast was given as follows: "Practical education and the industrial arts; their seeds were sown in America by the Pilgrims who had to labor or starve." To respond to this, Dr. Geo. B. Loring, of Salem, was called upon. He was received with applause, and responded in an eloquent manner, which was loudly applauded by the audience.

SPEECH OF DR. LORING.

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen:
I owe you all an apology for making an attempt to speak at this time and on such an occasion. I sympathize most warmly with the Secretary of the Commonwealth in his flight from this tent. He had been notified, only on his entrance to this place, that he was expected to respond to a sentiment, for which every man should desire careful and ample preparation. It is not a mere impulse, a sudden inspiration, that will enable any one, even the most devoted and admiring citizen of Massachusetts, to set forth in suitable phrase the high qualities and attainments of this honored Commonwealth. Such a subject is worthy of, and is entitled to, the most careful thought and consideration. The apology of the Secretary is my apology. I was not aware that I was expected to say one word, strange as it may seem to some of you, on this occasion, and I came here entirely unprepared to reply to a sentiment which involves the largest knowledge of the industry of our State as developed in the days of our ancestors as well as our own. But I could not fail to respond in some form; for I should be untrue to the blood which flows in my veins, did I fail to appear at this time on Captain's Hill, and to respond for the industry and enterprise of my ancestors, and for the Puritan Commonwealth which they founded. For I cannot forget, sir, that the first contest which took place in the Pilgrim colony, resulted in two lines of inheritance in this State in which the gentleman opposite (Mr. Standish) and myself have a personal interest, and which decided for us our lineage. While he claims descent from Myles Standish, I claim descent from John Alden, from him who vanquished the great captain on the fair and flowery field of love, and decided that the lovely Priscilla should be my ancestor and not his. My grandmother's name was Alathea Alden, a Puritan name in every respect, and an Old Colony name;  if not, let any woman here bring forward one that is, and let any man find one in his ancestry if he can. And hence it is that I should be false to the blood which flows in my veins, did I fail to respond to your sentiment as best I may. And more than this. The occupation which Myles Standish adopted after he left his fields of conquest, has an especial claim upon me. I understand that he was a Massachusetts farmer, an early representative of that industry which lay at the foundation of our ancient prosperity, and which is so important to us now. He was one of those, who, having, in their hour of need, availed themselves of the sandy storehouses of the Indians, made an honest endeavor to cultivate these hillsides, as their part of the important service required by a new colony. The example they set was a good one. The people who have followed it have clothed themselves with honor and prosperity. And so as an American citizen, I believe in Myles Standish and his Pilgrim associates, who, having performed good service with their swords, turned their attention to their own acres, and fixed a system of agriculture, and independent and intelligent landholding here, which is the pride and the peculiar prerogation of our people. Upon this foundation they built the fabric of their education, that admirable comingling of polite bearing, moral culture, and practical development, which has become the characteristic of their descendants. And what a true and steady culture was theirs! At its very foundation, they laid the Bible. We were told by the distinguished and eloquent orator of the day, that Myles Standish had three old Bibles and three new muskets. He was indeed well armed for the service of life. As he fought and as he toiled, on whatever field he applied his powers, he cultivated his religious nature, believing that without this man builded all in vain. The inspiration of that inspired volume went with himself and his sturdy companions everywhere, and sustained and warmed them on their path endowing fame. It was their daily companion. And I turn often with supreme delight to that page of an ancient Bible on which one of my ancestors has recorded that he diligently perused its chapter more than sixty times in thirty years. The impression made by such familiarity upon the minds of our fathers is not yet lost upon us. They read but few lighter books. They had but few. They read no newspapers. They had none. Perhaps the gentleman who preceded me, will consider that in this they were fortunate. But, however this may be, it was on religious culture that they built the entire structure of their education, and advanced them to that development of every branch of knowledge and industry which has made this Commonwealth what it is. They were indeed scholars who were engaged in this early colonial work of education. They came from the classical schools of England, and brought the Bible and the classics with them. They knew well what study is, and what education is; and Bradford and Carver and Winslow and Brewster had been graduated at the great colleges of England, and they brought here their taste for letters which, thank God, has not yet died out in our beloved Commonwealth. They were scholars; and when they landed on these shores, their first service was to establish that kind of mental culture here, which has done more to give Massachusetts her power in the nation, than all her industrial arts, and all her achievements on the field or in council. They were scholars; and while their hearts warmed over their college, they forgot not moreover the demands of popular education, true ever to the thought that upon an educated people alone can the foundations of a free republic securely rest. And this is indeed the secret of their power. I honor these pilgrims of Plymouth for their sturdy thought, their intellectual culture, and their liberal sentiments. They believed in and demanded religious toleration. And they left it for the other line of my ancestors, who, I think, have done their part to make Essex County illustrious, to exercise another kind of religious fervor, and to send Roger Williams to Rhode Island, and the dissenting Browns back to England, because their religious views were intolerable, while they themselves held their hands open at all times for all faiths and all religions. It was religious fervor which gave Plymouth an existence, it was religious tolerance which gave her an immortality.

It is not surprising that the planting of Plymouth on such a foundation of education, religion, toleration, and practical wisdom should outshine all similar events in history. It is not surprising that Plymouth and her institutions should have outlived all similar contemporaneous events, and have produced an imperishable influence in the history of the country. While Jamestown has decayed, and the places which knew its founders know their race no more; while the systems of the Dutch settlers of New York, against whom Myles Standish carried on his first conflict, and who, the historian Graham says, were unable to cope with the stern qualities developed by the trials at Plymouth, have faded away before the all-conquering institutions of the Pilgrim; while the empire of Lord Baltimore has vanished, and the social and civil system which John Locke planted in the Carolinas has disappeared, the power of the separatist, of the single-hearted and liberal-minded men of Plymouth, who founded here a commonwealth, upheld by a great faith, and led by a great Captain, has gone on conquering and to conquer. And this was their practical work, in which they felt that in all their conflicts with evil, and their contests with ignorance, it was the duty of those who founded a State to develop alike its material prosperity, and to cultivate the mind and heart and Conscience of the people. And this is the Massachusetts of today.

In granting, as you have, to the great Captain who lies buried beneath this sod, the practical power of establishing the sovereignty of the Commonwealth, and the practical intelligence of a cultivator of these acres, and a valuable servant of the colony, you have set forth what a true citizen was in the olden time, and what the best of the citizens of Massachusetts are in our day. I think we all believe in the law of life adopted by Myles Standish, a separatist faith, a hard, industrious, prosperous, and productive life, and in so much of the military arm as will render it impossible for any man to conceive that he can defy the State with impunity. He was as good a citizen as he was captain; and I agree with the orator of the morning, therefore, that he has left behind him an example of cultivated military genius, and of usefulness to the Commonwealth, worthy of all imitation; and I am sure he would have prided himself as much upon his citizenship, as upon the zeal with which he slew the hostile Indians roaming those primeval forests. I see him now, with the honors of his military service won on the great battlefields of Europe, a simple citizen in this colony, performing on this shore his daily toil, a warrior today, a farmer tomorrow, and ever ready to serve his people in any capacity, a pillar of the church and the State alike, an example for the brave and true in all time. I give you therefore, in closing: The first great civil chieftain of the country, may the lesson which he taught guide our leaders in all time to come.

Applause followed Dr. Loring's speech.

The President then said, "The next toast is, 'Captain's Hill; it speaks today in all its pride,' and I have the honor of introducing to you Mr. Justin Winsor, a citizen of Duxbury formerly, and now at the head of the Boston Public Library."

To this Mr. Winsor responded thus:

CAPTAIN'S HILL.

A tumult of scorn swept wild through the skies,
Till the echoes were crazed with the taunting replies,
And the valleys looked up with a mute surprise. 

It swelled from the Jungfrau's icy steep,
From Jura's wall of stupendous sweep,
From Pilate mirrored in Geneva's deep;

From where along the Grampian verge
Ben Lomond saw the sea emerge;
Where Snowdon weltered in vapory surge.

'T'was heard amid our Northern folk,
When Katahdin to Chocorua broke,
And Greylock all his echoes woke.

Where Lookout stands, a host beside,
Bore off the tumult far and wide,
Till remotest Shasta met the tide.

And thus commingled scoff and mock
Of forest peak and scarred rock
In one reverberating shock.

Down on a sandy shore there lay
The guileless cause of this riotous fray,
Our Captain's Hill, it speaks today!

Had the clouds vouchsafed to its summit bare
A vapory cap,'t were then and there
Its scorn had flung it high in air.

Sturdy and true as its hero's soul,
It heard the bantering echoes roll,
And burst in its pride beyond control:

"There are solider ribs than mine, I know,
And crowns compact of eternal snow,
But where has story a surpassing glow?

"The rugged scarps of the Switzer's land
For monuments of Freedom stand,
But this, around, is the Mayflower's strand!

"All time shall know how by yonder head,
Whose sandhills loom over the briny bed,
The Bible was kissed and the compact said:

"Most fateful day which the world e'er saw!
When that scroll was signed with nameless awe
Of the stern omnipotence of law!

"And then, Ben Lomond, with thy lore,
I'll match thee on this storied shore
In tales to laugh at or weep o'er.

"Here at my feet the waves outspread
To where with more than an army's tread
The Pilgrims' struggling band was led.

"And they were weak, as I am small;
But death at its terriblest cannot appal,
If the ranks close up as the weaker fall.

"If Fate claimed half the Insatiate Throne,
Could spare enough for the world to own,
In heart and soul and sinew and bone.

"Mark yonder hero in his leathern hose!
There were times in Flanders, Spanish foes
Skipped as his warring fury rose.

"And yonder stripling, lithe and tall!
Who does not know? aye, each and all
Priscilla's' Prithee,' to her willing thrall.

My captain, you'll believe me, friends,
As he drummed his hilt with his finger ends,
Outflanked for once, then vowed amends.

"Proud Lookout, too, what fame thou know'st,
When Hooker scaled with cloudy host,
I glory in your martial boast.

"But didn't my army, six souls strong,
With doughty Myles, put down the wrong,
Maintain the right, and keep it long?

"And thou, hoar Shasta of the west!
Thou scann'st afar the miners' quest;
Know'st not this land is with fruitage blest?

"We've shades as classic as the Cam's;
We've brawn to buffet life's hard jams;
And what is more  we've Duxbury clams.

"And over the Thump Caps the pinkstern knows
The cod will bite if my gulley shows
Straight in the range of the Gurnet's Nose.

"And now, ye summits lost in cloud!
I'm little, monarchs, but I'm proud;
To God alone, my Captain bowed.

"And so it spoke, as it speaks today,
And felt the better for having its say,
And so may we all feel, now and for aye.

The next regular toast was:

"Rose Standish, the type of womanly sacrifice: her mantle has fallen on American women"

To this, Rev. E. E. Hale responded as follows:

RESPONSE OF REV. E. E. HALE.

It is certainly quite time, Mr. President, and ladies and gentlemen, that something should be said about Rose Standish and the women who came with her. Rose Standish is a little forgotten when we talk of Priscilla Mullens, or whatever her name may be. (Laughter.) The truth is, the women who came out in the Mayflower solved the problem of emigration. I give that fact to the lady editors, who do not seem to me to make as much use of it as I think they would be wise to do. The effort to settle North America to the northward of the Gulf of Mexico had been made again and again, and yet again and again, and yet again and again, for a century, and had failed. The Huguenots had made it and had failed; the Spaniards had made it and had failed; the French had made it in Canada, they had made it again in Carolina, and they had failed; Gosnold had made it and had failed; the runagates that came out with Popham had made it and had failed; the people who settled at Jamestown had made it and, as we think, they had failed. As my distinguished friend in front of me said in my hearing, they failed till the day came when the cavalier found out that the Puritan was his master; until that great moment, even Jamestown was a failure. The failure was steady, sir, from 1492 till 1620; the attempt to colonize the North American continent, north of Florida, was a failure; and why? It was a failure because always, when Ralph Lane came over, when the Huguenots came over, when John Smith came over, when Gosnold came over, the men came over alone. With the first winter they were inevitably disappointed, and in the next spring they returned to England. Ralph Lane returned to England and his men; Popham and his men returned to England. Gosnold returned to England with his men the very year they came. And why did they return to England? They returned to England because they had not brought their homes with them; because their Rose Standishes stayed at home, while our Rose Standish came here, though she came here to die. It was the women of Plymouth who made the colony of Plymouth the first permanent colony. Rose Standish and the lovely women who came with her (we know they were lovely, because we know their descendants) stand for the success of Protestant colonization. Protestant colonization depends upon the transfer of homes. It is in the transfer of homes that emigration and colonization have succeeded in America. It is only in the transfer of homes that it succeeds, and when my excellent friends who are in charge of the woman's rights movement learn that deeper than constitutions, stronger than churches, more powerful than schools in civilization are the homes of a nation, they will have learned what it seems to me they do not know today (applause), and they will have learned the greatest secret of the church government and of the state government of the world. (Applause.)

Myles Standish stands for this, sir; he stands for what is not always understood, the catholicity, the toleration, the generosity of this company of Pilgrims. We hear a great deal about their bigotry. They were men of strong will; they were men who meant to have the right to go forward, they were men, as has been rightly said, who believed in God, and meant to keep their powder dry. Very certainly, they meant to have the world go forward in a particular way, and to that way they consecrated their lives. It is convenient, therefore, for those persons upon whose toes they trod to say they were a narrow, bigoted, self-satisfied set of men. The truth is, this little body of Pilgrims, who settled here in the region around this hill, embraced much more than the church which had been formed in England, was then transferred to Leyden, and then removed here. It embraced such come-outers as Myles Standish. It took in men that did not belong to that church. It took them in with the toleration, with the generosity, with the catholicity which belonged to the character and ought to belong to the church of the new-born people. It is on this catholicity, this generosity to all comers, that the American republic was founded; it is on the same generosity that its prosperity depends today. And when you hear one schemer or another talk of leaving out in the cold the men of this lineage or that, of this creed or that, when you hear them talk of America's standing by itself, saying to the rest of the world, "hands off," or "stand back," you hear people talk who do not know anything of the principles of Plymouth Rock, or of the foundation that here was laid.

Myles Standish, himself not a member of their church company, represents that principle of toleration in American history.

It is to this tolerance, indeed, exhibited among their successors, that I owe the pleasure of being present today. I am in the midst, say, in round numbers, of 562 descendants of the Pilgrims, myself being the only one among them in whose veins there runs not a drop of Pilgrim blood. (Laughter.) In the last Pilgrim celebration that I attended, on the 225th anniversary of the landing at Plymouth Rock, I chanced to be in the society of a venerable matron who had well informed herself in the history of this matter, and I ventured to say that my only plea for Pilgrim ancestry was based on my hope that it would prove that my venerated ancestor, Madam Pepper, belonged to a Pilgrim family. It is to the blood of that lady that I owe the coolness of disposition which has served me well in trying exigencies. I said I knew she was not in the Mayflower, but I hoped it might yet prove she was in the Fortune, or in the Ann. But I found jesting on this subject dangerous. With a look of perfect iciness she asserted that could not be; that no Pepper ever came over in the Ann, the Fortune, or the Mayflower. It is dangerous joking on such subjects here, sir. They all have their genealogy, not in the first pages of their Bibles; no, they have it in their heads. They all of them know from whom they descended; and all the persons around here would say as my friend said, that they knew there was no person named Pepper in either the Ann, the Fortune, or the Mayflower. Since then, I know that I have no right to stand on Pilgrim Rock or Captain's Hill, except on this broad catholicity of the Pilgrim forefathers. Why, you are not in the same boat with me, Mr. President. Your venerated and distinguished relative has made immortal for us the faces of the Pilgrims upon the canvas in the hall yonder. He has shown us the pensive beauty of Rose Standish. He has shown us the manliness of her husband. He has shown us Bradford and the rest of them, in their manner, as they were, and I am sure there is not one of us here but who, looking back upon them in fancy, is guided by the genius of a Sargent in his reproduction of the scene. What is more, there is not one of our friends here but, as I have been speaking, has rehearsed the number of these ladies from whom they themselves descended. We are seven generations from those people. Each of us has two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents; and by an easy calculation you will see that in the seven generations past, one may have one hundred and twenty-eight great, great, great, etc., grandfathers and grandmothers in the Mayflower, only that, unfortunately, there were but one hundred and one persons there. My charming friend at my side is descended from them all, she unites all their graces and virtues. My distinguished friend opposite, the treasurer of the Commonwealth as long as the Commonwealth could command his

services, is descended from thirty-eight; the lady on your left from sixty-seven; your friend in line with her, from twenty-three. I am, alas, descended from not one! Yet, sir, I have no doubt that my ancestors did their best. (Laughter.) I am not well acquainted with them. They were not a class of people who left their record behind them. They were, I do not doubt, brave men, pure women; but they were not received on board the Mayflower. Since I have sat here, I have pictured to myself their manly procession, their womanly beauty, as they waited on the pier at Plymouth, in southwestern England, for the day when the Mayflower should be sighted at the signal station, and when she should come up the bay. She leaves Delfthaven; she passes the dangers of the English Channel and comes to Old Plymouth, the farthest port in southwestern England. "Methinks I see her now, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a distant State, and bound across the unknown sea." She comes up Plymouth Bay; one hundred and twenty-eight of my ancestors, sir, sixty-four men and sixty-four women, are waiting upon the pier, with their passage tickets in their hands, requesting to be received on board; and at the gangway, with military precision, there stands the sentinel. It is Myles Standish, afterwards to be the hero of the little company. He looks upon their faces; he sees what may come from them to the old colony in its time; but he looks back upon the hampered vessel, and to the oldest of my ancestors of that day, sir, he says: "You are a handsome man, but you can't come in." (Laughter and applause.) It is only to that great misfortune of that hour, sir, that I owe the disgraceful position which I hold before you now. (Renewed laughter.) I am not acquainted with the facts, I say; I am obliged to draw' upon my imagination; and my political friends know that when you have no facts in the blue books, your imagination is an excellent substitute. I am obliged to draw on my imagination for my facts; but I believe in that sad hour, when they saw the Mayflower leave the shores of Plymouth in England to come across the waters here and establish the New Plymouth, those men and women devoted themselves to American colonization; and so soon as they heard that Winthrop, Dudley, and the rest, were on the way, those sixty-four gallant men and sixty-four gallant women, possessed with the impression of the beauty of Rose Standish upon the deck, and the manliness of Myles Standish as he stood beside her, consecrated themselves to the determination that they would follow the founders of the little State. They remained only ten years in England, and devoted those years to doing what they could to establish the lesser colony of the Bay.

THE PILGRIM MOTHERS.

BY S. F. STREETER.

The Pilgrim Mothers! where are they?
Their frames are dust, their souls in heaven;
Yet shall their memory pass away,
Nor praise to their good deeds be given?
"Teach infant lips to sing their name,
(Ten thousand ready tongues reply;)
And give their noble acts to fame;
Tho' now in silent dust they lie!

"They severed fond affection's chain,
And looked and listened o'er and o'er,
On forms they might not see again,
To voices they might hear no more;
Then, tore their bleeding hearts away,
From peaceful homes beyond the sea;
Where they had passed their childhood's day,
Yet where the SPIRIT was not free.

No HOME for them - that magic word,
Which, fraught with love, and joy, and rest,
Whenever and wherever heard,
Unseals pure fountains in the breast;
No home for them for far away
The dwellings of their kindred stood;
Beyond the swellings ocean's play,
Far from their forest solitude.

They sought a strange and wintry shore,
Yet love burned brightly in their breast;
They shrank not when the mourners bore
The weary spirits to their rest;
And oft, when from a savage tongue,
Pealed wildly forth the battle cry,
They to their trusting children clung,
And calmly gave themselves to die.

O man, boast not of thy lion-heart!
Tell not of proud, heroic deed!
Have we not seen thy vaunted art
Fail in the deepest hour of need?
But, woman's courage!' t is more deep,
More strong than heart of man can feel
To save her little ones that sleep,
She bares her bosom to the steel.

Daughters of them who, long ago,
Dared the dark storm, and angry sea,
 And walked the desert way of woe,
And pain, and trouble, to be FREE!
Oh, be like them! like them endure!
And bow beneath affliction's rod;
Like them be humble, mild and pure
In joy and sorrow look to GOD.

Baltimore, 1843.

The next toast was, "The first and the last Surveyors of the Cape - The last has enabled us to pay our tribute today to the first." It was responded to by Hon. Josiah Quincy, who in a pleasant and facetious address deprecated the growing custom of speech-making, urging as his reason for this action that they could not find any record of the Pilgrims' public speaking.

The next sentiment was: "Roger Williams, the companion of the pilgrims, the apostle of soul liberty." This was responded to as follows by the Rev. Dr. Caswell, president of Brown University:

As a descendant of the pilgrims, I am here today to honor those noble pioneers of Christianity and civilization on these shores. But, Mr. President, I came to hear, and not at all to speak. I came to look in reverence upon the spot, which is this day consecrated to the memory of "Captain Myles Standish," the able and dauntless military leader of that little band of exiles.

But why do we honor the Pilgrims? For their heroic virtues, their unflinching devotion to truth and duty, their never-failing and sublime trust in God. The world has seen but few examples of Christian faith and endurance so illustrious as theirs. Amid sickness and sufferings and dangers that might well appal ordinary men and women, and drive them to despair, they remained steadfast and unmoved in their confidence, "Strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." This, it seems to me, was their great distinction from other men and other women. In this they hold a proud preeminence. But what can be said in praise of them that has not been said a hundred times already? Suffice it to say, that their principles and their example formed the basis of New England character. They sowed the precious seed, which, in all parts of the land, has borne fruits an hundredfold to the honor of piety, and justice, and patriotism. It is hardly too much to say that their principles, propagated in their descendants and through them, permeating and moulding public opinion, have, at length, after more than a century of conflict, made us a nation of freemen, in which there breathes not a single slave.

But, Mr. President, the sentiment which you have given me calls upon me to speak of Roger Williams. We honor his memory in Rhode Island. And I am glad to know that the time is long past since his name was held in dishonor in Massachusetts. With the Plymouth brethren, Williams always maintained the most friendly relations. To some of the leading men in the Massachusetts Bay, he was warmly attached. In his bitter exile he takes evident pleasure in speaking of Governor Winthrop as his "loving friend."

Roger Williams was a statesman as well as a Christian. He saw, probably, more clearly than any man of his times, and what comparatively few men saw at all, the necessity of an entire and absolute separation between church and state. He maintained that in all matters of religious concernment, the conscience must be free,  there must be, what he called, "soul liberty." Every man must be left free to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. The civil magistrate must exercise no control and impose no restraint. This was the distinctive feature of his polity with regard to church and state. This, also, was perhaps the chief heresy which made him obnoxious to the rulers of the Massachusetts Bay, and led to his banishment. That event of unhappy memory occurred nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. The ideas of civil and religious liberty, thank God, have made great progress since that time. Who now, in this broad land, stands up to contest with Roger Williams that great principle of religious liberty, which he was the first to promulgate? Among Protestants, we may answer, not one. We here, on this consecrated ground, honor his memory. The nation honors it. The friends of religious liberty in all lands honor it. By common consent, the name of Roger Williams stands today among the illustrious names of history.

As a matter of tardy justice to the memory of her distinguished founder, the State of Rhode Island has recently placed an imposing marble statue of him in the national capitol. It is purely ideal, as no authentic portrait of him is known to exist. But it finely symbolizes the character of the man, the humility and benevolence of the Christian, the self-reliance and firmness of the pioneer, the dignity and wisdom of the statesman.

As yet, no commemorative monument honors him in the city which he founded. We hope the reproach of ingratitude will not long rest upon those who have so largely entered into his labors and who are so justly proud of their inheritance. It is to be hoped that your good example of today may act as a salutary incentive to us.

The next sentiment was: "The Seeds of Civil and Religious Liberty, planted on our sterile soil by our Pilgrim Fathers, they have brought forth a harvest in which all Christian sects find an inheritance." Rev. Dr. A. A. Miner made an eloquent " response.

SPEECH OF DR. MINER.

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is but little I have to say, on so short a notice; and at, this late hour, brief is the time it would be proper for me to employ. It is not without misgivings I rise at all to respond to the sentiment you have read, as my faith has considerably overflowed the Puritan boundaries. This misgiving was not a little increased by a jocose remark of the gentleman (Mr. Quincy) who has just addressed you, and who may be supposed to be authority in such matters. Riding up Captain's Hill this morning, he said to me and my venerable friend Dr. Neale, who sits before me, that he did not see what business either of us had here. But as Dr. Neale has managed somehow to come in, and as his shoulders are broader than mine, I have followed in his wake. His "Communion," though "close," embraces me, and mine embraces everybody. It may be that this is the door through which the gentleman himself (Mr. Quincy) has entered.

I have, however, one or two things to say for myself. In the first place, I am a descendant of Captain Myles Standish. It is true, I am compelled to rest this claim on somewhat peculiar grounds. George Macdonald, one of the most popular authors, perhaps, at present, among the literary men of Scotland, in one of the most exquisite little poems known to our language, gives the lineage of an infant in the following unique and succinct style:
"'Where did you come from, baby clear?
Out of the everywhere, into here."
Now, as I have the authority of uncorrupted tradition, strengthened by a proximate memory, that I started life an infant, I too may claim to have come from "out of the everywhere into here," and so to have descended in a right line from Myles Standish.

In the second place, though a heretic, judged from the Puritan stand-point, I am a legitimate successor of the Puritans, as regards their claims of personal right to worship God and interpret his word according to the dictates of their own consciences. It is true, "they builded better than they knew." What they claimed for themselves, but had not learned to concede to others, has come to be embodied in institutions. Their private prerogative has come to be recognized as a public principle, and men now seek to draw near to God in the light of the best they know of him. Thus do the principles of righteousness come to be embodied in the understanding and the heart.

If the business of the church were to ticket us for the kingdom of heaven as we were ticketed for Duxbury this morning, the Roman Catholic church could do the work quite as well, perhaps, as any other. But if the business of the church is to fortify the human soul with the principles of justice, integrity, humility, and trustful patience, and to temper and kindle it by the sovereign power of divine love; and if this bringing of a soul into communion with God and making it a law unto itself, is saving it, then the church that best does this, that brings God nearest, that most magnifies his love, that knits the human soul most strongly to him and most controls it by that love which is the " fulfilling of the law," is the best. Thus judged, the Romish church holds a low place; and Romanism, though under Protestant names, is little better. Now, Puritanism, for itself, stands on the right of individual judgment; and we, for ourselves, Puritanism consenting or resisting, stand on the same right, the right to be a heretic, the right to show that man's heresy is God's orthodoxy. This private right has become public law, and the harvest from Puritan seed has become the common inheritance of the church.

One thing further. We are professedly honoring the Puritans and their church fidelity. Honor higher than can be embodied in words, would be bestowed by imitating what was noblest in their church life, fidelity to the best they knew. Churches may put on all the external appearances of thrift and religious zeal, and at the same time remain utterly worldly, fashionable, and self-seeking. I yield to no man in my respect for a truly Christian church. But those churches which take a bottle in one hand and a ballot in the other, and deposit the latter to perpetuate the dominion of the former, present very doubtful claims to any man's respect. For myself, I prefer to be voted out of such a church to being voted into it; and if I must go to heaven with its ticket of indorsement pinned to my garments, I would ask some heretic to cover it with a patch of simple unhypocritical worldliness, that divine grace might not be put to any unnecessary strain in receiving me. Not until we can rise, under our measure of light, to the grand fidelity of the Puritans under theirs, shall we truly honor them; and not until we vote as we think, and live and act as we vote, will God be honored and man be blest.

The next regular toast was then announced as follows: "The Pilgrim Colonies, their records have the simple poetry of mythology and the philosophic truth of history." To this toast Dr. Shurtleff responded. His remarks were full of beauty and historic interest.

REMARKS OF DR. SHURTLEFF.

Mr. President:

Coming here at this time out of respect to the Pilgrim forefathers of Duxbury and their worthy descendants, it would certainly be much more agreeable to me to be a silent listener to the pleasant words of others, than to consume any of the time of this interesting occasion by being a speaker. But having a good share of Pilgrim blood coursing through my veins, perhaps as much as any one present, it would seem wrong, after receiving your kind invitation, to let my aversion to public speaking prevent my responding to what you have just proposed.

What you, sir, have just now said about the records of the Pilgrim colonies is perfectly correct. They possess all that you have attributed to them, and even more: But it is of very little consequence on this occasion what the words of a toast are, for the sentiments that pervade all of us today cannot be otherwise than concerning the Pilgrim forefathers of New England. We who esteem ourselves happy in being descended from these worthies, always rejoice in an opportunity to pay deserved tribute to their memories by rehearsing their virtues and estimable characteristics. We consider it our bounden duty to communicate to our children and successors those things worthy of remembrance which we have learned from our fathers. Now, sir, with what you and others gathered together around this hospitable board have so well said, nothing of this has been neglected; nor have the mighty deeds of valor that were performed of old by our venerated ancestors been forgotten. How could we on an occasion with such interesting purposes as this in view, forget these worthy people? We are now on their own ground, and in sight of the scenes of their early endeavors. The places which they once trod, and where they dwelt and labored, are before and around us. Every object that meets our view reminds us of what has transpired in the past, and of the historic characters who have achieved so much for their posterity.

The special object of this present gathering on Captain's Hill, the consecration of the ground on which we hope soon to see reared an enduring monument to the Pilgrims' captain, cannot but awaken within us many memories of the past which must necessarily renew associations of the most pleasant character, and carry us back to the ancient days when the Pilgrim worthies were here in the flesh, as they undoubtedly now are in the spirit. In the selection of a site for the memorial, you have been singularly fortunate. It is most prominently situated, and is discernible from all the Pilgrim surroundings, and moreover, was early set apart for the use of the brave captain by his grateful contemporaries. Standing on it, as we now do, we recognize the appropriateness of the place. From its lofty eminence, hallowed by the remembrance of the valiant Captain and venerated Elder, scenes of the greatest interest open to our view. At our feet we can distinctly trace the vestiges of these fathers and of their humble abodes. We can drink today from their never-failing springs of living water, and partake of products raised in their own fertile fields. At no great distance from the shores that nearly surround this delightful peninsula, we can distinguish the very place where, just within view of the promised land, rode the renowned Mayflower and its little colony of self-exiled pilgrims. Very near can be seen the delightful island which first gave rest and safety and comfort to these weary people, and where, under the shelter of the hospitable rock that even now marks the sacred spot, they passed their first Christian Sabbath in New England. From this, your chosen site, can be seen all the noted landmarks of the Pilgrim history.

While we survey these ancient scenes and former abodes of the Pilgrim fathers, we should consider ourselves exceedingly fortunate and happy that so much knowledge of what concerned them has been preserved on written and printed pages, and that reminiscences have also been transmitted to us by truthful tradition, most sacredly passed down from generation to generation of the descendants of the first comers. But when I say "truthful traditions," Mr. President, I do not mean to class with them any foolish and vague impossibilities, that neither heighten, in our estimation, those whose memory we should revere, nor give us ideas of what did not take place. History and ideality can keep closely together, and strengthen and beautify each other; but Truth should be their handmaid and ever-present companion. The positive historian must, and always will, doubt traditionary lore, because, in it error frequently supplants and eradicates truth, diverts reality from its direct course, and very sadly perverts history.

However truthful record has been respecting the history of our pilgrim ancestry, tradition has been greatly at fault. Truth and propriety have been set aside, and error and frivolity have prevailed. But, fortunately, the written and printed records speak louder and stronger than wide-mouthed tradition, and all is safe. In the laudable contention of claiming for ancestors the honor of being the first to place foot upon the Plymouth rock, tradition has most signally failed. Both sexes have set up pretensions to this distinction, and some of the most excellent of the Mayflower passengers have to be set aside because, having other engagements aboard ship, they did not happen to be of the first boatload that reached the shore at the water side of their newfound haven of rest in New Plymouth.

The first three marriages in the colony were of persons all of whom were passengers of the Mayflower: Edward Winslow married widow Susanna White; John Howland married Elizabeth Tilley, and John Alden married Priscilla Mullens. These marriages took place when all the colonists dwelt on the two sides of Leyden Street, between Burying Hill and the water side in Plymouth, and sometime before Edward Winslow brought over the three heifers and one bull, the first neat cattle in the colony, in the Ann, in March, 1624. Therefore, the tradition that Howland married a daughter of Governor Carver is not true; nor would Alden have required any animal for his newly-married wife to ride a few rods, especially when there were none in the colony larger than a good-sized dog, or goat, or respectable pig.

The redoubtable actions of the brave Standish, the excellencies of Alden, Southworth, Brewster, Collier, and innumerable other worthies, we can all believe, because they are matters of record, and we notice them daily exemplified by their posterity. Let us continue to emulate these examples of excellence and worth; and as the Standish memorial shall rise, stone upon stone, let our determination be strengthened to be guided by instructions which they left for our good.

Far away, sir, in the old borough of Boston, in Lincolnshire, which furnished so many good colonists for our Boston, there stands a noble old church edifice known as St. Botolph's, with an extraordinarily tall tower. There formerly worshipped many saintly persons whose lives terminated in New England. It is said of the estimable John Cotton, of Boston, that while he was vicar of St. Botolph's, he kept during dark nights a light upon that tower to guide the wayfarers over the bogs and moors and fens of Lincolnshire; and it is likewise said that when Cotton came to New England the light of St. Botolph's went out. Be this as it may, certainly a new light was transferred to America which served here as a most brilliant luminary. May we not hope that our memorial may tower up on high like old St. Botolph's, and serve not only as a safe guide to the weary mariner and wayfarer, but also be a landmark, from whose lofty top shall be pointed out the foot paths of our fathers, and, recalling the remembrance of the past, excite to the best endeavors the sons and daughters of the Pilgrim stock.

The exercises were concluded by " Auld Lang Syne" by the band.

Owing to the extreme uncertainty of the railroad being finished in season to transport the guests, the committee, with much regret, were obliged to withhold many invitations till the last moment, which rendered it impossible for some of the distinguished invited guests to be present. Many letters of sympathy with the cause were received, but with regrets that intervening engagements would prevent their presence on the occasion. Lord Parker was present on the grounds during the day, remaining till the exercises were over, and showing much interest, but carefully avoided being called out. Lord Walter Campbell sent his regrets, as did many distinguished citizens who would, if possible, have been present. Extracts from the following letters show the great interest in the Memorial to Standish, and the press of the country have universally and strongly favored this tribute to the memory of the old hero. The generals and other officers of the army, as well as the privates of the Grand Army of the Republic, all approve of erecting a monument to the memory of the first commissioned officer of the United States, and some of the best soldiers, as well as many distinguished civilians, are already members of the Association. The expenses of the festival were borne by the citizens of Duxbury, who, are deserving of much credit for their perseverance and energy in trying to make so large an audience comfortable under such disadvantageous circumstances, and without any expense to the Memorial Association.

Five acres of land for the monument has been donated by the owner of the Standish farm, at the request of the Standish heirs, and ten acres more of adjoining land has been placed by him in the hands of the treasurer of the Association, to be by them assessed and sold for betterments, if, in the opinion of the directors, the erection of the monument shall in any manner benefit pecuniarily the balance of the Standish farm,  if not, the same is to be re-deeded to him.

To George Bradford, Thomas Chandler, and Charles II Chandler, Selectmen, and other town officers and citizens of Duxbury, the Association is much obligated for contributions and assistance, in entertaining the guests, as well as for their universally expressed sympathy for the memory of Myles Standish.

LETTERS

From the President of the United States.

"I am heartily with your Association, in sympathy with any movement to honor one who was as prominent in the early history of our country as Myles Standish; but my engagements are such that I regret I am unable to promise to be present at the dedication in August.

"With many thanks for your kindness in sending me the invitation, I am respectfully yours,

U. S. GRANT."

GENERAL SHERMAN writes:

"Of course the proposition to erect a monument in sight of Massachusetts Bay, to that stanch old soldier, Miles Standish, meets my hearty approbation, and I should be most happy to assist." But I have been away so much that I ought to stay at home," etc.

From General Sheridan.

"I do not know that my engagements will permit of my being present at the time mentioned, but will do so if I can.

"In any event, allow me to assure you of my admiration and respect for the services and sturdy character of the man, and my hearty approval of the object of your Association."

P. H. SHERIDAN.

"I beg to say that I heartily approve of your intention to erect a Memorial to Captain Standish, and I think there is no more fitting spot than the one you have chosen for that purpose.

"I shall be glad to be with you if possible. Thanking you for your courteous invitation, "I remain, yours very truly,

"A. E. BURNSIDE."

From General Hooker.

"I regret to state that my engagements for the month of August are such, as to render it impossible for me to join you on that memorable occasion. It is unnecessary for me to say that I deeply sympathize with the object of your meeting. I have been an admirer of the character of Myles Standish from my boyhood up, and would like to be identified with any body of gentlemen engaged in commemorating his great virtues. To me, his civil and military character towers far above his contemporaries, and they, if I mistake not (when history shall be truthfully written), will be made to appear to be the most remarkable body of men that ever lived. Viewed from our present standpoint, in my opinion, they are now entitled to that judgment. It will be a graceful act on the part of our friends, to erect a monument to his memory; but it must not be expected to add to his fame or immortality. Industry, valor, and integrity were regarded as the cardinal virtues of our forefathers, and I hope they will never be held in less estimation by their descendants. One of our gifted poets has happily named 'Plymouth Rock' as the cornerstone of the nation. The superstruction promises to be worthy of the foundation. With great respect, I have the honor to be your friend and servant,

"J. HOOKER, Major-General."

"Unexpected engagements will deprive me of the pleasure of accepting your kind invitation for the day. Frequent recurrence to the forming period of national character distinguishes a wise and patriotic people. The incident at Cape Anne in 1625,'the eager and peremptory demand of Standish, combined with the prudence and moderation' of Governor Conant, exhibit the characteristics, the combination of energy and wisdom, of decision and firmness, which again made the law a century and a half later at Bunker Hill.

"The spirit of self-assertion and independence in 1625, bred that which paralyzed the English Council in 1671, and British arms in 1775; which repeated 'the 19th of April' in 1861, and thwarted British greed in alliance with Southern Slavery. The historical connection is complete.

Very respectfully, yours,
J. WINGATE THORNTON.

"From Ex-Governor Sprague of Rhode Island."

I fear my other engagements will deprive me of the pleasure of mingling with those who meet to honor the sterling character of our ancestor, and call up their deeds for the imitation of the actors of this hour. Express to the Association my sense of the honor done me by their invitation. Associations of men of the present time, who honor men of the past for acts which have redounded to the elevation of those who live subsequently, have the same, or some of the same elements of character themselves, that they honor. We can tell by the public acts of the man, or of communities, whether among them, or in the nation, the word of progress is Forward! whether there is a backward tread. Men cannot stand still; the highest perfection is, man progressing; the lowest scale of being is, man decaying.

Very respectfully, yours,
W. SPRAGUE.

"'As a descendant of those who landed on the Plymouth Rock, I feel a special interest in whatever relates to the brave soldier, Captain Myles Standish, by whose sword the little colony was in its infancy defended. I am withheld from attending the ceremony which is to take place on the 17th, by various occupations which take up all my leisure, and must content myself with expressing my satisfaction that it was so fully shown by our late civil war, that those who have inherited from the noble stock of the Pilgrim fathers, the region once defended by his valor, inherit also the courage and resolution which have made his name famous in our history.

"I am, Sir, with great respect, your obedient servant, W. C. BRYANT."

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