Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Accounts of the celebrations which have been held in Plymouth within my memory, or described to me by those who witnessed them, are worthy of record. I shall first, however, give a list of Pilgrim celebrations conducted by the Old Colony Club, the town, the Pilgrim Society, the first and third parishes, the Robinson Society and the Fire Department, with the names of orators.

1770, Old Colony Club, Edward Winslow, Jr., of Plymouth.
1772, Old Colony Club, Rev. Chandler Robbins of Plymouth.
1773, Old Colony Club, Rev. Charles Turner of Duxbury.
1774, Town, Rev. Gad Hitchcock of Pembroke.
1775, Town, Rev. Samuel Baldwin of Hanover.
1776, Town, Rev. Sylvanus Conant of Middleboro.
1777, Town, Rev. Samuel West of Dartmouth.
1778, Town, Rev. Timothy Hilliard of Barnstable.
1779, Town, Rev. William Shaw of Marshfield.
1780, Town, Rev. Jonathan Moore of Rochester.
1798, Town, Dr. Zaccheus Bartlett of Plymouth.
1800, Town, Hon. John Davis of Boston.
1801, Town, Rev. John Allyn of Duxbury.
1802, Town, Hon. John Quincy Adams of Quincy.
1803, Town, Rev. John T. Kirkland of Cambridge.
1804, First Parish, Rev. James Kendall of Plymouth.
1804, Town, Hon. Alden Bradford of Boston.
1806, Town, Rev. Abiel Holmes of Cambridge.
1807, Town, Rev. James Freeman of Boston.
1808, Town, Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris of Dorchester.
1809, Town, Rev. Abiel Abbot of Beverly.
1811, Town, Rev. John Eliot of Boston.
1815, Town, Rev. James Flint of Bridgewater.
1816, First Parish, Rev. Ezra Shaw Goodwin of Sandwich.
1817, Town, Rev. Horace Holley of Boston.
1818, Town, Hon. Wendell Davis of Sandwich.
1819, Town, Hon. Francis C. Gray of Boston.
1820, Pilgrim Society, Hon. Daniel Webster of Boston.
1822, Pilgrim Society, Rev. Eliphalet Porter of Roxbury.
1824, Pilgrim Society, Hon. Edward Everett of Cambridge.
1826, Third Parish, Rev. Richard S. Storrs of Braintree.
1827, Third Parish, Rev. Lyman Beecher of Boston.
1828, Third Parish, Rev. Samuel Green of Boston.
1829, Third Parish, Rev. Daniel Huntington of Bridgewater.
1829, Pilgrim Society, Hon. Wm. Sullivan of Boston.
1830, Third Parish, Rev. Benjamin Wisner of Boston.
1831, Third Parish, Rev. John Codman of Dorchester.
1831, First Parish, Rev. John Brazier of Salem.
1832, Third Parish, Rev. Jonathan Bigelow of Rochester.
1832, First Parish, Rev. Converse Francis of Watertown.
1833, First Parish, Rev. Samuel Barrett of Boston.
1834, Pilgrim Society, Rev. George W. Blagden of Boston.
1835, Pilgrim Society, Hon. Peleg Sprague of Boston.
1837, Pilgrim Society, Rev. Robert B. Hall of Plymouth.
1838, Pilgrim Society, Rev. Thomas Robbins of Mattapoisett.
1839, Third Parish, Rev. Robert B. Hall of Plymouth.
1841, Pilgrim Society, Hon. Joseph R. Chandler of Philadelphia.
1845, Pilgrim Society, dinner with speeches.
1846, Third Parish, Rev. Mark Hopkins of Williamstown.
1847, First Parish, Rev. Thomas L. Stone of Salem.
1848, Robinson Society, Rev. Samuel M. Worcester of Salem.
1853, Pilgrim Society, dinner and speeches.
1855, Pilgrim Society, Hon. Wm. H. Seward of Auburn, N. Y.
1859, Pilgrim Society dinner and speeches.
1870, Pilgrim Society, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop of Boston.
1880, Pilgrim Society, dinner and speeches.
1885, Pilgrim Society, dinner and speeches.
1886, Fire Department, dinner and speeches.
1889, Pilgrim Society, Hon. W. P. C. Breckinridge of Lexington, Ky., and a poem by John Boyle O’Reilly of Boston.
1895, Pilgrim Society, Hon. George F. Hoar of Worcester, and a poem by Richard Henry Stoddard of New York.

On the 24th of January, 1820, the Pilgrim Society was incorporated and a committee of arrangements consisting of Nathan Hayward, Wm. Davis, Jr., and Nathaniel Spooner was chosen for the celebration of the next anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. It was determined to make the first demonstration of the Society a memorable one. It is creditable to the foresight of the society that they selected Mr. Webster for orator. He was only thirty-eight years of age, and had not so far as was generally known, reached the maturity of his powers. Before coming from Portsmouth to Boston in 1816, he had served two terms in the lower house of Congress, and was then practicing successfully at the Suffolk bar. He had, however, leaped into fame by his argument in the United States Supreme Court in 1818 in the Dartmouth College case. In 1769 a corporation called the “Trustees of Dartmouth College” was chartered to have perpetual existence, and power to hold and dispose of the lands for the use of the college, and the right to fill vacancies in their own body. In 1816 the New Hampshire legislature changed the corporate name to “The trustees of Dartmouth University,” and made the twelve trustees, together with nine others to be appointed by the Governor and council, a new corporation with the property of the old corporation, with power to establish new colleges and an institution under the control of twenty-five overseers. After a transfer of the property had been made the old trustees brought an action of trover to recover it on the ground of the unconstitutionality of the act. The act of the legislature was declared constitutional by the Superior Court of New Hampshire, and by a writ of error the case was carried to the United States Supreme Court in 1818, where, in 1819, the decision of the New Hampshire Court was reversed, and the act of the legislature declared unconstitutional. Mr. Webster’s argument had never before been equalled, and has never since been surpassed.

At the time of the celebration, whoever, within an easy distance from Boston, could secure accommodations in Plymouth availed himself of the opportunity. I have letters addressed to my grandfather, written in August, asking him to engage lodgings of some sort. There were three hotels in Plymouth, all of them crowded with guests, and every spare bed in town was secured. On the day of the celebration, by stage, by private carriage, and public hack, visitors came on a two days’ trip in the dead of winter, fortunate if able to obtain a whole or a part of a bed, while the drivers slept in their carriages. But fortunately the day of the celebration was as mild as Indian summer. I was told many years ago by a man who remembered it, that he sat through a part of the day by an open window in his shirt sleeves. There has been preserved by the Pilgrim Society a parchment containing the autographs of all who attended the dinner, so that the array of distinguished men who listened to Mr. Webster is not left to the imagination. Among the visitors were, Rev. John T. Kirkland, President of Harvard, Professors Edward Everett, Geo. Ticknor and Levi Hedge, Rev. Abiel Abbot, Rev. Abiel Holmes, Rev. John G. Palfrey, Rev. John Pierce, Rev. Converse Francis, Rev. James Flint, Rev. Alexander Young, Rev. Charles Lowell, Rev. Francis Parkman, Rev. Wm. P. Lunt, Judge John Davis, Isaac P. Davis, Thomas H. Perkins, Francis C. Gray, Levi Lincoln, Stephen Salisbury, Timothy Bigelow, Laban W. Wheaton, Martin Brimmer, Benjamin Rotch, Amos Lawrence, Thomas Bulfinch, Theron Metcalf, Nahum Mitchell, Wm. S. Otis, George A. Trumbull, Augustus Peabody, Henderson Inches, Francis Baylies, Willard Phillips, Henry Grinnell, Samuel A. Eliot, Isaiah Thomas, Dudley A. Tyng, Isaac McClellan, Amos Binney and others of no less distinction. No such an assembly had ever before gathered in New England as that which filled the church of the First Parish on that memorable day. The scene was worthy of the best efforts of the painter’s art. The galleries reserved for the ladies, seemed with the mingling of colors in dress and hats and fans like banks of summer flowers mellowing the sombre garb worn by the society and their guests on the floor below. Mr. Webster wearing small clothes and buckles and shoes, and over all a silk gown, stood on a raised platform in front of the high oak pulpit and began his oration with words to which his audience was in the spirit to heartily respond, “Let us rejoice that we behold this day.”

Perhaps that part of the oration which gave to it its chief distinction, was that denunciatory of the slave trade. A law was passed by Congress in 1808 abolishing the trade, but it had slumbered on the statute books until Mr. Webster twelve years later, breathed into it the breath of life. In a town, which was in early days within the Plymouth colony, the trade was still carried on, and by this fact the scathing words of the oration were inspired. “I hear the sound of the hammer. I see the smoke of the furnace where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in this work of hell, foul and dark as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England.”

There was another passage, never more needed than today to be impressed on the public mind, relating to military achievements. “Great actions and striking occurrences having excited a temporary admiration often pass away and are forgotten. * * Such is frequently the fortune of the most brilliant military achievements. Of the ten thousand battles which have been fought; of all the fields fertilized with carnage; of the banners which have been bathed in blood; of the warriors who have hoped that they had risen from the field of conquest to a glory as bright and as durable as the stars, how few that continue to interest mankind. The victory of yesterday is reversed by the defeat of today; the star of military glory rising like a meteor, like a meteor has fallen; disgrace and disaster hang on the heels of conquest and renown; victor and vanquished presently pass away to oblivion, and the world goes on in its course with the loss only of so many lives, and so much treasure.”

A dinner was served in the Court House, then building, by John Blaney Bates of Plymouth, who also served the supper for the ball held in the same place. I have a letter addressed to my grandfather in the summer of 1820, showing that an invitation to Mr. Everett to deliver a poem after the oration was contemplated, and that Mr. Everett said he would accept such an invitation. But wise counsels prevailed, and it was thought best to give to Mr. Webster alone the honors of the day.

In 1822 Rev. Eliphalet Porter of Roxbury delivered an address before the Pilgrim Society, but no record of the ceremonies of the day have been preserved.

In 1824 Edw. Everett was the orator of the Pilgrim Society, and on Wednesday, the 22d of December, a crowd of strangers visited the town to hear the eloquent orator. Mr. Everett, after graduating at Harvard in 1811, was settled pastor of the Brattle street church in 1813, to succeed Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, who died in 1812. In 1814 he was chosen Eliot Professor of Greek at Harvard, and from 1815 to 1819, he spent in study and travel in Europe preparing for his duties as Professor. In 1819 he returned and entered upon his office, resigning in 1824, in which year he delivered an address before the Phi Beta Society, and was chosen member of Congress. His oration was a splendid effort, and I was told by Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, who was present, that it was repeatedly said at the time that his oration came fully up to the Webster standard. But time failed to justify the comparison. Beauty of imagery, and a grace of delivery, captivated for the hour, but like the elusive tints of the rainbow, they were forgotten, when the thunder and lightning which had preceded it were recalled. After the oration, a dinner was served in Pilgrim Hall, the cornerstone of which was laid on the first of the previous September, and which was finished in time for the celebration.

The celebration in 1829 was the first of which I have any recollection. I was then seven years of age, but I remember being carried up North street and along Main and Court streets to see the illumination of the town on the evening before the celebration. Even that I should perhaps have failed to remember had I not got something in one of my eyes and gone home crying. Hon. William Sullivan of Boston delivered the oration, the son of James Sullivan, who was Governor of Massachusetts in 1807. Mr. Sullivan was one of the leaders of the Boston bar, but as far as I know this was the first opportunity to display his powers as an orator. During a winter’s residence in Philadelphia in 1844, I became intimate with his son, John T. S. Sullivan, a man of more varied accomplishments than any man I ever personally knew. He was a master of the Spanish, French, Italian and German languages, was an excellent singer, a skilful performer on the piano, guitar, banjo and harp, and a story teller who would put Depew and Choate to the blush.

On Monday, December 22, 1834, Rev. George W. Blagden of the Boston Old South church, was the orator of the Pilgrim Society, and in the absence of the President, Dr. Zaccheus Bartlett presided, assisted by Judah Alden of Duxbury, Wilkes Wood of Middleboro, Wm. W. Swain of New Bedford, Henry J. Oliver of Boston, John Thomas of Kingston, and Josiah Robbins of Plymouth. Samuel Doten was chief marshall, and the dinner in Pilgrim Hall, as well as supper for the ball in the same place, was furnished by Danville Bryant of the Pilgrim House. During the year preceding the celebration a handsome glass chandelier fitted for candles was hung in Pilgrim Hall, and the present wooden portico was built. During the day Dr. James Thacher, then eighty years of age, was knocked down and run over by a carriage, but not seriously injured.

Rev. Dr. George Washington Blagden, son of George and Anne (Davies) Blagden, was born in Washington, D. C. October 3, 1802 and graduated at Yale in 1823 and at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1827. He was ordained in Brighton, Mass, in 1827, installed in the Salem street church in Boston in 1830 and in the Old South church in Boston, in 1836. He was made Doctor of Divinity by Yale in 1843, by Union College in 1849 and by Harvard in 1850. While pastor emeritus of the Old South, he died Dec. 17, 1884.

On Tuesday, December 22, 1835, an oration was delivered before the Pilgrim Society by Hon. Peleg Sprague of Boston. Mr. Sprague, son of Seth and Deborah (Sampson) Sprague of Duxbury, was born April 27, 1793, and graduated at Harvard in 1812. He studied law at Litchfield law school, and was admitted to the Plymouth bar in 1815, and settled in Augusta, Maine, removing at the end of two years to Hallowell. He was Representative in 1820-1; member of Congress from 1825 to 1829; United States Senator from 1829 to 1835, when he moved to Boston. He was Judge of the United States District Court from 1847 to 1865, and died in Boston, October 13, 1886. On that occasion Samuel Doten was chief marshal, assisted by John Tribble, Sylvanus Harlow, Eliab Ward, John Washburn, Ichabod Shaw and Nelson Holmes. At the dinner Alden Bradford, the president of the society presided, assisted by Jos. Tilden of Boston; Wilkes Wood of Middleboro; Phineas Sprague of Duxbury; Dr. Samuel West of Tiverton; Samuel A. Frazier of Duxbury, and Benjamin Rodman of New Bedford. Hon. Edw. Everett of Boston was one of the numerous speakers, and Miss Harriet Martineau, who was the guest of Dr. Zaccheus Bartlett, was present at both the dinner and ball. She was very deaf, and conversation with her was difficult. I was a boy of thirteen, but I remember standing near her accompanied by Mrs. Dr. Winslow Warren, when Judge Warren as he joined the group was asked if he did not wish to be introduced to her. The air of the hall was thick and heavy with dust, which together with the music of the band made the ear sensitive to sounds, and as the Judge replied that he could not make her hear he was surprised to hear her say “I think, Judge, that you will have no difficulty.” I had once very much the same experience. I called on a friend who had a guest who had been stone deaf many years, and had learned the art of reading what was said, in the motion of the lips. I did not know this, and when my host left the room temporarily, I asked her to return soon, as it would be embarrassing to be left with a person with whom I could not engage in conversation, and was astonished to hear the lady say she thought we could talk well enough together. Though I wore a moustache her eye read what her ear could not hear.

In 1837 an address was delivered before the Pilgrim Society by Rev. Robert B. Hall, a notice of whom may be found in a previous chapter, to which I take this opportunity to add that in 1849, after his return to Plymouth to take up a permanent residence, he accepted an invitation to preach for a time in the Robinson church.

In 1838 Rev. Thomas Robbins of Rochester delivered an anniversary address before the Pilgrim Society. Mr. Robbins, son of Ammi Ruhamah and Elizabeth (LeBaron) Robbins, was born in Norfolk, Conn., August 11, 1777. He entered Yale College in 1792, and in 1795 removed to Williams College, where he graduated in 1796. Immediately after his graduation he returned to Yale and graduated there in the same year. He spent two years in teaching in Sheffield, Mass., and Torringford, Conn., and in studying for the ministry. In 1798 he was licensed to preach by the Litchfield North Association, and engaged in missionary service until 1809, when he was settled in East Windsor, where he remained until 1827. After a year at Stratford, Conn., he was settled in that part of Rochester, Mass., which is now Mattapoisett, where he remained until 1846. He gathered a valuable library, which he gave to the Connecticut Historical Society, with the understanding that he should be appointed librarian with a suitable salary, and he continued in that office until his death, which occurred at Colebrook, Conn., September 13, 1856.

At the celebration, December 22, 1841, Hon. Joseph Ripley Chandler of Philadelphia, delivered the oration. A dinner was served in the lower Pilgrim Hall, at which Hon. Nathaniel Morton Davis, president of the society, presided, assisted by Abraham Hammatt of Ipswich, Pelham Winslow Warren of Lowell, Joshua Thomas Stevenson of Boston, Gershom B. Weston of Duxbury, Thomas Prince Beal of Kingston, and Barnabas Churchill of Plymouth. Among the speakers were Samuel M. Burnside, President of the American Antiquarian Society, and Rev. John L. Russell. Mr. Chandler was born in Kingston, August 25, 1792, and early became a clerk in Boston, soon after teaching school, and about 1815 removing to Philadelphia. In that city he and his wife engaged in teaching a school, and in 1822 he became connected with the United States Gazette, and from 1826 to 1847, was editor. He was a member of the city council from 1832 to 1848, a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1836, a member of Congress from 1849 to 1855, and travelled in Europe from 1855 to 1858, in which latter year he was minister to the two Sicilies. He died in Philadelphia, July 10, 1880.

In 1845 the Pilgrim Society departed from their usual custom, and omitting an oration, celebrated the twenty-second of December by a short service in the First church, at which Rev. Dr. Francis Wayland, president of Brown University, and Rev. Dr. James Kendall officiated, and a dinner in the passenger station of the Old Colony Railroad, which had been closed in and floored over for the purpose. On that occasion Pelham W. Hayward was chief marshal, and as one of the marshals, I then began in an humble way, a participation in the celebrations of the Pilgrim Society, which has continued in the various positions of chief marshal, member of the committee of arrangements, and presiding officer without interruption down to the present time. At the dinner Hon. Charles Henry Warren, president of the society presided, assisted by Col. John B. Thomas of Plymouth, Henry Crocker, Abbot Lawrence and David Sears of Boston, and John H. Clifford of New Bedford. The dinner was served by J. B. Smith of Boston, and was contributed to by a baron of beef from Daniel Webster, and a turbot and saddle of mutton brought from England in the Cunard Steamer Acadia, from S. S. Lewis, the agent of the Cunard Company. The speakers were Josiah Quincy, president of Harvard, Rufus Choate, George S. Hillard, Edward Everett and Nathaniel Morton Davis, ex-president of the society. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes read a poem, written for the occasion, entitled “The Pilgrim’s Vision.”

The speech of Mr. Everett is worthy of special comment as showing how thoroughly he had studied the art of oratory. Before the dinner he sent a message to the caterer, Mr. Smith, asking him to place an orange by the side of his plate. At the close of his speech, after refuting the charge that the Pilgrims were narrow and bigoted he said, “But by their fruits ye shall know them; not by the graceful foliage which dallies with the summer breeze; nor by the flower which fades and scatters its perfume on the gale; but by the golden, perfect fruit (seizing the orange, and lifting it above his head) in which the genial earth, and ripening sun have garnered up treasures for the food of man, and which in its decay leaves behind it the germs of a continued and multiplying existence.”

The next celebration conducted by the Pilgrim Society occurred August 1, 1853, the anniversary of the departure of the Pilgrims from Delfthaven. On the 16th of June in that year a committee of arrangements was chosen by the trustees consisting of Richard Warren of New York, president of the society, Timothy Gordon, Andrew L. Russell, Eleazer C. Sherman and Wm. S. Russell of Plymouth; Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Charles Henry Warren and James T. Hayward of Boston. I was appointed Chief Marshal, and I appointed Samuel H. Doten and John D. Churchill, aids and the following assistant marshals; Wm. Atwood, Wm. Bishop, Charles O. Churchill, Winslow Drew, John H. Harlow, Barnabas Hedge, George H. Jackson, Thomas Loring, John J. Russell, Edward W. Russell, Nathaniel B. Spooner, George Simmons, Jeremiah Farris, Samuel Shaw, B. H. Holmes, Isaac Brewster, Wm. R. Drew, George G. Dyer, Daniel J. Lane, Wm. H. Nelson and George Bramhall of Plymouth; Waterman French of Abington; Phillip D. Kingman of Bridgewater; Matthias Ellis of Carver; Charles Henry Thomas, Wm. Ellison and George B. Standish of Duxbury; James H. Mitchell of East Bridgewater; James H. Wilder of Hingham; Perez Simmons of Hanover; Nathan Cushing of Hanson; Robert Gould of Hull; Joseph S. Beal of Kingston; Harrison Staples of Lakeville; J. Sampson, Jr., of Middleboro; W. N. Ellis of Marion; George M. Baker of Marshfield; G. W. Bryant of North Bridgewater; Zacheus Parker of Plympton; George F. Hatch of Pembroke; Theophilus King of Rochester; Wm. P. Allen of Scituate; Albion Turner of South Scituate; Thomas Ames of West Bridgewater; Lewis Kenney of Wareham; LeBaron Russell, Rufus B. Bradford, Solomon J. Gordon, George P. Hayward, Thomas Russell, Isaac Winslow and Pelham W. Hayward of Boston.

A large number of guests was invited, including the President of the United States; members of the cabinet; the Governor of Massachusetts; members of Congress and U. S. Senators from Massachusetts; the Mayor of Boston; President of the Massachusetts Senate, and Speaker of the House of Representatives; Wm. H. Seward, John J. Crittenden, Nathaniel P. Banks, Charles H. Warren, Robert C. Winthrop, Abbott Lawrence, Josiah Quincy, Judge Peleg Sprague, George Bancroft, John P. Kennedy, the presidents of Harvard, Yale, Williams, Brown, and Amherst colleges, Jared Sparks, John P. Hale, Edward Everett, Oliver W. Holmes, the Plymouth Church, Southwark, England, the authorities of Delfthaven, Leyden, Southampton and old Plymouth, the New England societies of New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Charleston, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco and Washington, and many others, too numerous to mention. The New York Light Guard, which had been invited to attend the celebration with the New England Society of New York, arrived in the afternoon of Sunday, and with Dodworth’s band marched to their quarters provided in the old Hedge house in Leyden street, which happened at that time to be vacant, and was fitted up for their accommodation. The town was profusely decorated; arches were erected on Court, Main, North, Summer and Pleasant streets, and every building was decorated with flags and mottoes. The inscription in large letters on the house of Wm. Brewster Barnes, opposite Pilgrim Hall, “August 1, Forefathers’ Day Thawed Out” attracted much attention. The features of the day were a religious service in the First Church in the early forenoon, a procession and a dinner. The service consisted of Scripture reading by Rev. Dr. George W. Blagden of the Old South Church in Boston, a prayer by Rev. Dr. James Kendall, preceded and followed by the singing of appropriate hymns, and a benediction by Rev. Chas. S. Porter of Plymouth. The dinner was provided by John Wright of Boston in a mammoth tent, which covered more than the easterly half of Training Green, with the speaker’s platform in the middle of the westerly side, and was set for twenty-five hundred persons. The procession with its head near the chief marshal’s headquarters, which were located on the Samoset House lawn, marched north to Lothrop street, then countermarching and proceeding through Court, Main, Leyden, Water, Market, High, Summer and Pleasant streets to the tent which was completely filled, about seven hundred ladies having been admitted before the arrival of the procession to seats on one side of each table. The order of the procession was as follows: Escort, Boston Brigade Band, The Standish Guards, Abington Artillery, Samoset Guards, Halifax Light Infantry, Plymouth Band, Chief Marshal and Aids. President and officers and committee of arrangements of the Pilgrim Society, Governor of Massachusetts and staff, attended by the Corps of Independent cadets, and Adjutant General, South Abington band, presidents of New England societies, and of the Cape Cod Association, United States Senators, members of Congress, president of the State Senate, United States District Attorney, Attorney General of Massachusetts, invited guests, New England Society of New York, attended by the New York Light Guard and Dodworth’s band, Pilgrim Society, town officers, clergy, school teachers, South Bridgewater band, and the Plymouth fire department. At the President’s table sat at his right and left Rev. Dr. James Kendall, Rev. Dr. George W. Blagden, Hon. Edward Everett, Governor John H. Clifford, Hon. Chas. H. Warren, Hon. Chas. Sumner, Hon. John P. Hale, Hon. H. A. Scudder, Hon. Richard Yeadon, Hon. Chas. W. Upham, Rev. Sam’l Osgood, Rev. Chas. S. Porter and Hiram Fuller. The speeches were of a high order, elaborate and eloquent. Governor Clifford in his speech rebuked the reckless spirit which proclaims manifest destiny as our National guide in the following words: “But what is the manifest destiny doctrine of our day with which we are constantly stimulating our national arrogance and self conceit?... I believe the most recent and authoritative exposition of it is that it is one of the inexorable conditions of our country’s existence, “to march, march, march” in the path of Pagan Rome as restless as the eternal tramp of the Wandering Jew ... till its mission is accomplished. Sir, are we content to abide by the example of our fathers? Which will you carry from this scene of joyous festivity and pious commemoration—a prayer that the forward march of the country you love, and in which your children are to live shall be symbolized by the Wandering Jew or by the Christian Pilgrim.” Governor Clifford was then forty-four years old, and consequently he was not uttering the sentiments of over caution which sometimes characterize old age. If any of my readers think that he was, they will be pleased with the following eloquent passage in the speech of Mr. Everett, which followed. In speaking of the great work of the Pilgrims not yet finished he said: “The work—the work must go on. It must reach at the North to the enchanted cave of the magnet within never melting barriers of Arctic ice; it must bow to the Lord of day on the altar peaks of Chimborazo; it must look up and worship the Southern cross. From the Eastern most cliff on the Atlantic that blushes in the kindling dawn, to the last promontory on the Pacific which receives the parting kiss of the setting sun as he goes down to his pavilion of purple and gold it must make the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice in the gladsome light of morals and letters and arts.” This was a poetic sentiment of great beauty illustrating the art of eloquence which Mr. Hale turned into ridicule in his later speech when he said, “I find that the boldest tropes that ever rung beneath the dome of your Federal capitol are tame to the conceptions which have been poured forth from Pilgrim lips upon Pilgrim ears today. We heard there of men whose powers of digestion were so capacious that the idea of swallowing Mexico at a meal did not alarm them. Today in the most eloquent language we have had the genius of our country taking her seat at the center of magnetic attraction swallowing Chimborazo for supper, and kissing sunset with an affectionate embrace.”

The other speakers were Mr. Sumner, Dr. Blagden, Charles W. Upham, Richard Yeadon, Henry A. Scudder, Rev. Samuel Osgood and Hiram Fuller. In the evening there was a brilliant display of fireworks, music by the Brigade band in Town Square, and a reception at the house then occupied by President Warren, now the home of Colonel Stoddard.

John Henry Clifford was born in Providence, January 16, 1809, and graduated at Brown in 1827. After studying law he settled in New Bedford and began his public career as Representative in 1835. He was Attorney General from 1849 to 1853, and from 1854 to 1858, having been chosen governor in 1852. He received in 1849 from Harvard a degree of LL. D., and died in New Bedford, January 2, 1876.

John Parker Hale was born in Rochester, N. H., March 31, 1806, and graduated at Bowdoin in 1827, and was admitted to the bar in Dover and settled there. He was a representative in 1832, and United States District Attorney from 1834 to 1841, member of Congress from 1843 to 1845. In 1846 he was speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives and United States Senator from 1847 to 1853, and from 1855 to 1865. He was minister to Spain from 1865 to 1869, and candidate of the Liberty party for president in 1852. He died in Dover, November 19, 1873.

Charles Sumner was born in Boston, January 6, 1811, and graduated at Harvard in 1830. The only political office he ever held was that of United States Senator, to which he was chosen in 1851, remaining by successive elections in office until his death, which occurred in Washington, March 11, 1874.

Charles Wentworth Upham, son of Joshua Upham, a noted loyalist, was born in St. John, N. B., May 4, 1802, and graduated at Harvard in 1821. In 1824 he was settled as colleague pastor of Rev. John Prince of the First Church in Salem. In 1844 he relinquished preaching on account of a partial loss of voice, and thenceforth devoted himself to literature and politics. In 1852 he was Mayor of Salem, and after serving some years as Representative, was President of the Senate in 1857 and 1858. He was a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1853; a member of Congress from 1853 to 1855, and died in Salem, June 14, 1875.

Rev. Samuel Osgood was born in Charlestown, August 30, 1812, and graduated at Harvard in 1832. After leaving the Cambridge Divinity school in 1835 he was settled in Nashua, N. H., in 1838, and in 1841 over the Westminster Unitarian church in Providence. In 1849 he became pastor of the Church of the Messiah, Unitarian, in New York, where he remained until 1869. In 1870 he was ordained deacon in the Episcopal church, and continued in that faith until his death, April 14, 1880.

Hiram Fuller was born in Halifax, Mass., at a date unknown by me, but probably about 1807. I remember hearing him say that the first time he ever came to Plymouth he rode on a charcoal cart. He opened a private school in Plymouth in 1832, keeping it at various times in Robbin’s Hall on Middle street or Paine’s hall, as it was later called, and in Old Colony Hall in the rear of the present market of C. B. Harlow. He went from Plymouth to Providence about 1835 or 1836, where he taught school for a time, and afterwards opened a bookstore. He went from Providence to New York, where he became associated with N. P. Willis and George P. Morris in the editorship of the New Mirror and Home Journal, retaining his connections with those papers during a period of fourteen years. Under the name of Belle Brittan he published a volume of brilliant letters, and devoted much of his time to miscellaneous literary labors. When the Civil War came on his sympathies were enlisted in behalf of the South, and finding New York an uncongenial residence, went to England, where he remained until his death. At one time he had an editorial connection in London, with a newspaper called the Cosmopolitan, but I have reason to believe that the issue of the war and the consequent loss of English interest in the Confederate cause, left him stranded and reduced in a foreign land.

In 1855 the anniversary of the Landing was celebrated on the 22nd of December, on which occasion Hon. Wm. H. Seward of Auburn, N. Y., delivered an oration in the First Church. The incident which I remember more distinctly than any other in connection with the oration, was Mr. Seward’s lighting a cigar the moment the benediction was pronounced as he stood on a raised platform in front of the pulpit. He was a confirmed smoker, and like too many other confirmed smokers of our day had little regard for the time and place for the indulgence of his habit. The dinner was prepared by J. B. Smith of Boston in Davis Hall, and Richard Warren, president of the Pilgrim Society, presided. The speakers were: Mr. Seward, Hon. George S. Boutwell, Rev. John S. Barry, Wendell Phillips, Rev. Thomas D. Worrell of London, Rev. Dr. George W. Briggs and Hon. B. F. Butler of New York. The last named gentleman sharing with the Massachusetts General a distinguished name, was born in Kinderhook, N. Y., Dec. 15, 1795, and on his admission to the bar became in 1817 partner of Martin Van Buren. He was Attorney General of the United States, under Andrew Jackson, from 1831 to 1834, acting secretary of war under Van Buren, and from 1838 to 1841, U. S. District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He died in Paris, France, Nov. 8, 1858.

William Henry Seward, the orator of the day, was born in Florida, N. Y., May 16, 1801, and graduated at Union college in 1820. He was admitted to the bar in 1822, and settled in Auburn, and in 1830 was chosen State Senator on the anti-masonic ticket. In 1838 he was chosen Governor, and re-elected in 1840, and in 1849 was chosen U. S. Senator. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln secretary of state, and continued in office until the close of President Johnson’s term. He died in Auburn, October 10, 1872.