Float of Chauncey B. Marsh, proprietor of a New Milford saw-mill, decorated with white and green and carrying wedge, ax, saw and chain, and an enormous artificial log, which two dummies sawed persistently with a cross-cut saw.
Float of the Aspetuck Valley Grange, decorated with green and white, roofed over with grain, and displaying the principal implements of husbandry and the principal products thereof.
Float of the ice dealer, Samuel J. Ferriss—a capital, white cotton imitation of a snow-bank between snow-laden “Christmas trees.” Upon this float rode two small boys (S. Boynton and Charles J., sons of Mr. Ferriss), offering dippers of ice.
After passing through the principal streets of the village, the parading column was reviewed from the reviewing stand on the village “Green” by Governor Woodruff and his staff and other distinguished visitors. The paraders were then disbanded and provided by the Committee on Refreshments with abundant good cheer in a colossal dining tent back of the Knapp building.
After dinner, at two o’clock, the last formal exercises of the Bi-Centennial were held on “The Green,” Charles M. Beach presiding. In introducing the first speaker, Rev. Timothy J. Lee, Mr. Beach said:
“There is much cause for regret that, on account of ill health, our President, Mr. Henry S. Mygatt, has been unable to be present or to take any part in the exercises of this Celebration. It was at his suggestion that the movement was inaugurated bringing about this event, and we all know that he worked most heartily and earnestly for its success. I am sure that there is a universal feeling of sympathy for him in the keen disappointment which is his. Because of his absence, the duty devolves on me to take charge of the exercises of the day.
“The first address will be words of greeting by the Rev. T. J. Lee, a former pastor of the Congregational Church. Mr. Lee comes to us as a representative of two of the oldest families in New Milford, Mrs. Lee being a lineal descendant of the Rev. Daniel Boardman, who was the first pastor of the old Congregational Church, and also of the Rev. Nathaniel Taylor, who was inaugurated its second pastor in the year 1748, and continued the pastorate for a period of fifty years.
Among other things, Mr. Lee said:
“The other day I met one of our recently adopted sons whose home is in the great West. In the course of our conversation I referred to this Bi-Centenary; but he pushed the subject aside as trivial, and began to boast of his own great State. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘you can put twenty-two Connecticuts into our Nebraska.’ Then he added that the time has come in the history of our country when we can cut out New England and not feel it. Cut New England out from the great life of this nation! Yes, you may, when you can cut out a thread of gold woven in and out in a beautiful fabric without ruining the entire piece. Cut New England out! Yes, you may, when you can cut out from the loaf the leaven that has made it sweet and light. Cut New England out! Yes, you may, when, without disfigurement, you can cut out the features of a mother from the face of her child. There may come a time in some far-off age when this great American people may become so afflicted with some strange, new form of insanity as to desire to cut out from its vast domain that sharp northeastern angle which was alike its birthplace and its cradle and the seminary of the best elements of its greatness. If that time ever comes, New England, true to her ancestral pride (I speak as one who knows and loves his mother), New England will say to you: ‘I am ready to go; I desire to stay no longer where I am no longer wanted. But first—first, in all justice and fairness, give me back some of the contributions I have made to your greatness. Give me back the free, forceful words which from my pulpit, my press, and my platform have kindled the fires of religion and of patriotism, and quickened the intellectual life of generations. Give me back my millions of capital that have stretched across the broad land the iron bands of travel and of trade, changed the Western wilderness into a smiling garden, the desert into a fruitful field. Give me back some of the descendants of those loyal sons and daughters of mine, who, under the canvas covers of those old emigrant wagons, carried with them not merely their humble household goods, but the very principles of their nurture—give me back these, I say, and then, if you do not feel so utterly impoverished, so stripped of everything that can make a nation great and strong and enduring as to repent of your rashness and folly, I will go.’
“It is true that henceforth New England’s influence in the nation will not be that of numbers, nor of territorial greatness, but she will still rule by the force of ideas and convictions, by the sovereignty of principles that can never be discrowned.”