There was another society in my boyhood called the Plymouth Madan Society, but from whom it derived its name I never knew. It was a musical society, and occasionally gave concerts. The nearest approximation to the name I ever knew until recently, was the Scripture name of Medan, the son of Abraham. But that was evidently a misfit. I next found among the proper names in the Century dictionary, that of Martin Madan, an English Methodist divine who published in 1780 a book called Telyphthora, advocating polygamy. But as the Plymouth Madan Society gave concerts in the Universalist church, it is not probable that it was named in honor of a polygamist. Having since met with the name of Madan in the newspapers of a family in Marshfield, I wrote to Lot J. Madan, living at Green Harbor, asking him if any of his family in past generations, either his father or grandfather, had been musical. Mistaking my word musical for married, he replied that if his father and grandfather had not been married he would not have been around in these days. In a subsequent letter he said he played on the violin, and was as far as he knew the only musician in the family. For whom then the society was named is a question still unsolved.
Among other societies within my day was one to aid in arresting horse thieves, and that was one of many formed in various towns. The only surviving one within my knowledge is in Dedham, which annually meets and elects its officers. I have already alluded in another chapter to a temperance society which was formed in 1832, by whose efforts more was done to promote temperance than by all other agencies combined from that time to this. The sale of intoxicating liquors was almost completely stopped, the family use of wines was abandoned, and under the influence of Daniel Frost, whose addresses were largely attended, more than a thousand names were secured to pledges to abstain from the use of ardent spirits.
An Anti-slavery society I have also referred to which was formed in the Robinson church on the evening of the Fourth of July, 1835, and occupied for some years rooms in the second story of the northerly end of the building which up to 1883 stood on the site of the Sherman block on the west side of Main street. The seed of anti-slavery fell in Plymouth on sandy soil, but watered by heavenly dew, it soon took root and broke through the conservative crust which under the influence of the commercial and financial interests of the town, for a time obstructed its growth.
There was a peace society formed in 1831, but as we were then at peace with the world, there does not appear to have been at that time any special call for the organization. It seems to have been a fashion of the times to form peace societies, but their influence was not sufficiently enduring to check the movements which resulted in the Mexican war not many years later. But it seems to be the way of our people to advocate peace in a time of peace, and when war threatens, to advocate war. The President of a Massachusetts Sunday-school Association preached in peaceful years as a minister of the gospel peace on earth and good will among men, but in 1898 I saw him marching with the first battery in all the panoply of war to join the murderers of his fellow men. Another prominent minister of the gospel who, when no war clouds darkened the horizon, permitted himself without protest to be called the apostle of peace, was as dumb as an oyster when the opportunity came to utter trumpet-tongued his protests against the war.
Bu it was not always so with the people of Plymouth. Ever after the close of the revolution they were advocates of peace, and when the war with Great Britain broke out in 1812 they uttered in no uncertain language their determined protest. A memorial to the President denouncing the war was passed unanimously in town meeting, the closing words of which were as follows: “Thus sir, with much brevity, but with a frankness which the magnitude of the occasion demands, they have expressed their honest sentiments upon the existing offensive war against Great Britain, a war by which their dearest interests as men and Christians are deeply affected, and in which they deliberately declare, as they cannot conscientiously, so they will not have any voluntary participation. They make this declaration with that paramount regard to their civil and religious obligations which becomes the disciples of the prince of peace whose kingdom is not of this world, and before whose impartial tribunal presidents and kings will be upon a level with the meanest of their fellowmen, and will be responsible for all the blood they shed in wanton and unnecessary war.”
My only comment on the above memorial is that milder language was flippantly denounced as treasonable by some of the advocates of the recent war with Spain.
The various societies which I have thus far mentioned were temporary in their character, and had short careers. There were, however, two others formed in the first quarter of the last century, one charitable and the other historical, which have continued to this day, and having been incorporated, will continue for an indefinite period. One of these, the Pilgrim Society, will be noticed in a later chapter in connection with the celebrations of the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. The other, the Plymouth Fragment Society, having its origin and inspiration in the heart of a benevolent lady a native of a foreign land, with whom the ladies of Plymouth enthusiastically co-operated, has year after year for nearly ninety years, by the kindly hands of each succeeding generation, dispensed among the suffering poor a charity which, dropping like the gentle rain from heaven, is twice blessed, for it blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. It was founded by Madame Marie de Verdier Turner on the 13th of February, 1818, for the declared purpose of “relieving the wants of the destitute poor.” To meet legal requirements imposed by bequests to the Society, it was incorporated March 14, 1877, with a capital not estimated nor divided into shares.
The officers of the Society since its organization have been as follows: Presidents, Mary Warren, Martha Russell, Joanna Davis, Betsey F. Russell, Margaret Warren, Sarah M. Holmes, Laura Russell, Martha Ann Morton, Caroline B. Warren, Esther Bartlett. Vice-presidents: Esther Parsons Hammatt, Betsey Torrey, Elizabeth Freeman, Lucretia B. Watson, Rebecca D. Parker, Mrs. Thomas, Sally Stephens, Mercy B. Lovell, Ellen M. Hubbard, Helen Russell. Secretaries: Betsey H. Hodge, Rebecca Bartlett, Elizabeth L. Loud, Abby M. Hall, Helen Russell, Jennie S. Hubbard. Treasurers: Francis L. Jackson, Phebe Cotton, Mary Ann Stevenson, Eunice D. Robbins, Caroline E. Gilbert, Lydia G. Locke, Elizabeth W. Whitman. The amount expended in charity during the year ending October 1, 1905, has been $883.93 for food, fuel and clothing, and $360 in payments of $2 a month to eleven regular, and four special pensioners.
So little is known by the present generation of Madame Turner, the founder of the Society, and of her romantic life that I present to my readers a short sketch of her career for the facts in which I am chiefly indebted to a paper read by Lois B. Brewster as a graduating exercise in 1899, at the Plymouth High school, the language of which I have in a measure adopted:
Mrs. Turner was a native of Sweden, born in Malmo in 1789. Her father was a retired officer in the Hussars, an accomplished gentleman, and her mother was connected with noble families from whom she inherited the prejudices of the aristocracy. She received an education which beside the ordinary branches taught in the schools, included music, embroidery and painting. Her father died when she was fifteen years of age, leaving her mother with only a little more than a government pension for her support. After removing with her family to Copenhagen, Madame de Verdier soon after died, never having recovered from the shock caused by the death of her husband. Marie became an inmate of the home of a rich merchant, who provided her with every luxury, and in whose house she often met guests of the merchant from foreign lands. Among these guests at dinner one day were Captain Robinson, an Englishman, and Captain Lothrop Turner of Plymouth, ship masters, whose ships were consigned to their host. It is needless to say that the handsome Captain Turner and the pretty Swedish maid fell deeply in love with each other before his ship was ready to leave, but as she could speak no English, and Swedish was to him an unknown tongue, their language of love was carried on by the tell tale eye and blushing cheek, except when Robinson lent his services as an interpreter. Marie, against the advice of her friends, yielded to the influence of her own head, and accepting his hand in marriage, the husband and wife after a marriage solemnized in April, 1812, sailed for her new home in New England. It was during the war of 1812, and in entering Massachusetts Bay, Capt. Turner barely escaped capture by an English frigate patrolling the coast, but finally reached Plymouth. The story of the romantic marriage had reached Plymouth before them, and on the day of their arrival the young friends of the captain were gathered to give a cordial welcome to his Swedish bride. Long before the arrival of the stage bearing them was due, numbers of women and children anxious to see the bride gathered on Cole’s Hill, and from that vantage ground saw the blue-eyed, golden haired little woman as she dismounted and entered the house of Capt. Turner’s father, which stood near the foot, and on the South side of Leyden street. It was a trying season for her among new friends whom she had never seen, imperfect in the use of the English tongue, and amid scenes to which she must become accustomed, as those of home. Not long after her arrival a daughter Maria was born, who died in infancy.