Extract from an address by Prof. Charles Eliot Norton at a meeting of the Cambridge (Mass.) Historical Society, October 30, 1905: “But even a greater change than that from country village to suburban town has taken place here in Old Cambridge in the last seventy years. The people have changed. In my boyhood the population was practically all of New England origin, and in large proportion Cambridge-born, and inheritors of Old Cambridge traditions. The fruitful invasion of barbarians had not begun. The foreign-born people could be counted up on the fingers. There was Rule, the excellent Scotch gardener, who was not without points of resemblance to Andrew Fairservice; there was Sweetman, the one Irish day-laborer, faithful and intelligent, trained as a boy in one of the ‘hedge-schools’ of his native Ireland, and ready to lean on his spade and put the troublesome schoolboy to a test on the Odes of Horace, or even on the Arma virumque cano; and at the heart of the village was the hair-cutter, Marcus Reamie, from some unknown foreign land, with his shop full, in a boy’s eyes, of treasures, some of his own collecting, some of them brought from distant romantic parts of the world by his sailor son. There were doubtless other foreigners, but I do not recall them, except a few teachers of languages in the college, of whom three filled in these and later years an important place in the life of the town,—Dr. Beck, Dr. Follen and Mr. Sales.”
A BIT OF NEW YORK HISTORY.
Thomas F. Meehan in N. Y. Catholic News.
There was considerable popular opposition manifested [in New York City in 1829 and thereabouts] to the change of the cemetery from about St. Patrick’s to the Fifth Avenue, or Middle Road, as it was then called, site. In the [N. Y.] Truth Teller appears the following:
CATHOLIC BURIAL GROUND.
In giving publicity to the following communication we beg it may be distinctly understood that we express no opinion of our own upon the subject. The writer has left his name with the editor of this paper, and our columns are open to any correspondent who may feel disposed to do the same:
“To the Editor of the Truth Teller:
“New York, March 24, 1829.
“Sir: The subject of procuring a suitable place for a general Catholic burial ground in this city has, for a long time, excited a deep interest among us. I beg leave, therefore, to suggest a few remarks on the best method to be adopted for the accomplishment of so desirable an object, before any definite measures are taken for a permanent location.
“It appears by a hand-bill circulated a few days ago, that the trustees of St. Patrick’s Church, without consulting the Catholics of this city, have bought a tract of land opposite the Botanic Garden, a distance of between four and five miles from the city hall; that the nature of the soil is entirely unfit for the said purpose; and that this place has been actually appropriated by them for a general Catholic burial ground.